UK Police training for 30-minute response to ward off Mumbai style attacks

September 25th, 2009 LONDON - Andy Ward, a father of three, has become the first person ever to kite-surf across the English Channel. Ward, 33, spent six chilly hours skimming 70 miles across the waves from the Channel Islands to his home port of Poole in Dorset.

September 20th, 2009 LAHORE - Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and chief of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, has been put under house arrest at his residence here, a media report said Monday. A posse of police personnel has been deployed outside his residence, "restricting his movement", Geo TV reported Monday.

September 12th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik Saturday said Islamabad will send its response to the sixth Indian dossier on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks next week. Malik, who held a meeting to review the new Indian dossier, said its examination would be completed by next week and Pakistan would then send its response, Geo TV reported.

August 30th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - At least 15 security personnel were killed and several others injured in a suicide attack on a police station in Mingora on Sunday. The attack took place when a suicide attacker blew himself up on the training ground near the police station where the security personnel had gathered for a training session.

August 17th, 2009 KARACHI - Pakistan said Monday Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remark about the possibility of another 26/11 - style attack was uncalled for. "I think (Singh's) statement was uncalled for and it would have been better if he had not made such a statement because Pakistan and India are moving towards better relations, especially after the meetings (between the Indian premier and President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani)," Minister of State for Information Sumsam Ali Bukhari told reporters here.

July 23rd, 2009 PHUKET - Without naming Pakistan, India's Minister for External Affairs S.M. Krishna Thursday drew the attention of Asian countries to "India's terror-infested neighbourhood" and called for quicker intelligence sharing and effective cooperation to combat the network of terrorists in the region.

July 21st, 2009 MUMBAI - Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist involved the terror attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, will appear in the Special Sessions court here today. Kasab had pleaded guilty to the offence before a Mumbai court on Monday, and now Judge Tahaliyani will decide if sentence can be pronounced or the trial should continue.

July 14th, 2009 CAIRO - External Affairs Minister S.M Krishna has said that New Delhi would like a visible response from Islamabad, which should have commitment to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Sharm-al Shaikh here last night, Krishna said that India wants an assurance from Pakistan that acts of terrorism engineered from Pakistan soil will not be repeated.

June 25th, 2009 ISLAMABAD - Pakistan seriously believes that composite dialogue is in the interest of both India and Pakistan, foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit said here Thursday. "Talks are unavoidable for durable peace and prosperity in the region," Basit said at a weekly press briefing.

June 21st, 2009 LONDON - A brave victim managed to get her brutal fiancé to admit he raped her by trapping him into a text message confession. Kelly Turner gathered the courage to approach cops after four months but was showed little hope of a conviction since the forensic evidence had long vanished.

May 21st, 2009 KARACHI - With India tightening its visa norms specially for Pakistan citizens after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has incurred heavy operational loss, as it is running half-empty flights to India. The PIA presently operates six flights a week to India with only 45-52 percent utilization of capacity which was over 70 percent before 26/11.

May 18th, 2009 LONDON - Britain's poor coastal security is at risk of a Mumbai-style terror attack, a UK Commons Defence Committee report has warned. "We cannot discount the possibility that the commando-style terrorist attacks in Mumbai and Lahore will become models for attacks here in the UK," The Sun quoted Shadow Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones, as saying.

March 22nd, 2009 LONDON - Terrorists could launch Mumbai-style attacks on British luxury hotels, the country's senior anti-terrorism officers have warned ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) summit expected to be attended by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Security services officials say the terrorist threat to Britain is at the 'severe end of severe' in an assessment quoted Saturday by the Daily Telegraph just days before the April 2 summit, which will also be attended by US President Barack Obama.

February 21st, 2009 LONDON - Mumbai was one of 320 global targets drawn up by the Lashkar-e-Taiba for commando-style terrorist attacks, a British paper reported Friday. Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar's communications chief, Zarar Shah, and found a list of possible targets, 20 of which were in India, the Guardian reported.

January 20th, 2009 LONDON - Security is being stepped up in hotels across Britain in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks, British Home Minister Jacqui Smith said. She told a meeting of the British parliamentary home affairs committee Tuesday that hotels have been issued security guidance and the staff given training.