Woman accused of NYC subway murder

A woman has been charged with murdering an immigrant by pushing him in front of a NY subway train. Source: AAP

A 31-YEAR-OLD New York woman is scheduled to appear before a judge after being charged with murder as a hate crime for shoving a Hindu man to his death in front of an oncoming subway train.

Erika Menendez of the Bronx borough was motivated by hatred of Muslims and Hindus, according to the Queens District Attorney's Office.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims. Ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers, I've been beating them up," she told police.

Menendez, who is awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on Sunday, faces from 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

The victim, 46-year-old Sunando Sen, was born in India and raised Hindu, a roommate told The New York Times.

The incident took place late Thursday at a station on the number 7 line in Queens.

Menendez - who was talking to herself as she paced along the platform, according to witnesses - pushed the man as the train was pulling into the station. He apparently had his back to Menendez and did not see her.

Police released surveillance camera video footage via Twitter showing a woman running from the scene.

"The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare - being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

"The victim was allegedly shoved from behind and had no chance to defend himself. Beyond that, the hateful remarks allegedly made by the defendant and which precipitated the defendant's actions can never be tolerated by a civilised society."

Sen's death was eerily similar to that of a 58-year-old man killed on December 3 when he was pushed on to the tracks during a fight with a deranged man at a Manhattan subway station. The assailant, later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis, has been charged with murder. Davis is homeless.

A New York Post front page picture of the man on the tracks a split second before he was killed by the oncoming train provoked public fury as to why no one helped him - and why the tabloid newspaper published the photo.

Several million people use the New York City subway system every day, but incidents of this kind are rare.

Before the December 3 death, the last time someone was pushed on to the rails and hit by a train was in 2010. The woman survived.

Thursday night's incident appeared to have scared many New York subway riders as they kept closer to the walls as trains rolled into station.

"It's horrible," said 46-year-old city resident Elena Rodriguez. "We're feeling so insecure now to be in the subway."

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

IMF, EU seek less drastic cuts

THE International Monetary Fund and European Commission officials have encouraged France and its eurozone partners not to fixate on deficit reduction targets if it would exacerbate the bloc's debt crisis.

The head of an IMF mission in France, Edward Gardner, urged officials in Paris last week to consider their 2013 budget targets "in a broader European context".

The IMF and the EU Commission expect the French public deficit to amount to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year.

They do not believe France can reach its three per cent goal, the eurozone limit, without additional measures that could aggravate an already tenuous economic situation.

"The credibility of the medium-term orientation policy" was more important than a specific deficit target, Gardner told reporters.

Loosening the criteria would "be more effective, more credible in a coordinated fashion" across the 17-nation eurozone, he said.

In Portugal the public deficit fell at the end of the third quarter to 5.6 per cent of GDP from 6.7 per cent at the same point a year earlier, while neighbouring Spain has promised to slash its deficit to three per cent by 2014 from a blowout shortfall equal to 9.4 per cent of output last year.

Germany expects its budget to be in balance this year, two years ahead of schedule, but IMF head Christine Lagarde has suggested that Berlin ease up a bit in its drive for healthy finances.

"Germany ... and others ... can allow themselves to go a little more slowly than others in the push to straighten out their public finances," Lagarde told the German weekly Die Zeit in comments published last week.

Her call echoed other European voices that are now arguing for greater emphasis on growth rather than austerity measures.

"The IMF is beginning to understand that the French situation has become dangerous," economist Marc Touati at the ACDefi consulting group said. Unemployment is climbing and the economy is still struggling, he said.

The IMF was "trying to prepare public opinion" for missed government targets, Touati said.

On Tuesday, the EU's "fiscal compact", a hard-won step towards tighter economic coordination agreed as part of efforts to tame the debilitating debt crisis, takes effect.

Finalised in March, 25 of the 27 EU member states accepted a "balanced budget rule" in the compact to ensure that governments would no longer run the massive budget deficits which drove the debt crisis and nearly sank the euro.

But as the European debt crisis drags on and economies flounder, the idea of allowing governments more time to straighten out their finances has gained ground.

European Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said last week that France needed more reforms rather than more austerity.

"Once you have a credible medium-term budget strategy, backed up by reforms, you can have a slower adjustment," Rehn told French daily Le Monde.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Friends recall Indian gang-rape victim

SHE was due to marry her boyfriend in a matter of weeks, was the apple of her father's eye and her friends were convinced she would achieve great things after completing her medical studies.

While India has seen an outpouring of grief for the 23-year-old who suffered fatal injuries when she was gang-raped on December 16, those who actually knew her paint a portrait of a young woman who was both in love and much loved.

Although not formally engaged, it was well-known by her friends that she was planning to marry the boyfriend who also suffered serious injuries in the same attack that would ultimately lead to her death.

Meena Rai said that she had been shopping with the unnamed victim for wedding outfits and the contents of a wedding box.

"She was supposed to get married in February to the same guy who was attacked on the bus with her," said Rai, who lived next door in Mahavir Enclave, a neighbourhood in southwestern New Delhi.

"They had made all the wedding preparations and had planned a wedding party in Delhi," she told AFP.

Another friend who attended the cremation ceremony on Sunday confirmed that the wedding was due to take place in a matter of weeks.

"We know that she was going to get married in February," Usha Rai (no relation) told AFP. "The whole neighbourhood was excited about it."

The young couple had spent the evening together at a mall watching The Life of Pi before they boarded a bus they thought would take them home.

According to reports, the frenzied attack on the pair began when the boyfriend objected to taunts about why an unmarried woman was out so late.

The gang clubbed him with an iron rod before they then turned on her.

The everyday image of a young couple enjoying a night out at the movies has been cited by many Indians to explain why they have been able to relate so much to the plight of someone whose name they will never know.

But others have identified with the backstory of a hardworking student whose family hail from rural India, but who was looking to make a name for herself as a young urban professional with the eager backing of her proud parents.

Her parents sold their small piece of land in rural Uttar Pradesh in order to fund their daughter's education, often limiting their own meals to little more than rotis with namak (bread with salt), according to friends.

In a frontpage tribute, The Hindustan Times said that she was "invariably among the top students in her class and was determined to earn well and repay her father who had sold his ancestral land to fund her studies".

Employed as a loader at Delhi's international airport, the father used to say he was "investing in my daughter's future as she will be the one who takes care of me when I get old", according to Meena Rai.

Her childhood was mainly spent in a one-bedroom flat near the airport that she shared with her two brothers as well as her parents.

A younger cousin still living back in the parental village in Uttar Pradesh told the Times of India how the young medical student had been an "inspiration".

"Seeing her do well, I was determined to study as well," she said.

Other residents of the village recalled a young woman whose passion to succeed in medicine shone through when she paid a visit back home.

"Hers was a story of charming ordinariness, of aspiration and hard work, of pleasure in life's little joys," said the Hindustan Times.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Israel indicts ex-minister Lieberman

ISRAEL'S former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has been formally indicted on charges of breach of trust and fraud, allegations that could hurt his political future if he is convicted.

Lieberman resigned earlier this month after he was informed of the pending charges. The Justice Ministry later revised the wording, though not the charges, and said it filed the indictment in a Jerusalem court on Sunday.

Lieberman is accused of advancing a former ambassador after he relayed information to the foreign minister about a criminal investigation into his business dealings. Lieberman denies wrongdoing.

His Yisrael Beiteinu party is running with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud in the January 22 election, and he is expected to serve as an MP in the next parliament.

In other political news, Israel's Supreme Court unanimously rejected an election committee's attempt to disqualify an Arab MP from running for parliament again next month because she took part in a flotilla that tried to breach Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The MP, Hanin Zoabi, enraged many Israelis by joining the Turkish-led flotilla, which was stormed by Israeli naval commandos who clashed with pro-Palestinian activists, killing nine. The Israeli military says the soldiers acted in self-defence after being attacked on the deck.

Zoabi was nearly assaulted in parliament by another MP and subsequently was stripped of some of her parliamentary privileges.

Earlier this month, an Israeli elections committee voted to disqualify her from running in next month's election. She appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which overturned it, as it has rejected the committee's attempts in previous years to bar certain Arab candidates from running.

The court said in its ruling that it would release its reason for overturning the decision at a later date. Under Israel's election law, the court had to issue its ruling by Sunday.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Missing Georgian soldier shot dead

A GEORGIAN soldier who went missing in Afghanistan this month has been found dead in an abandoned mud house with multiple bullets to his body.

Police searching for Sergeant Giorgi Kikadze found his body in a village compound in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province, district governor Nemat Khan told AFP on Sunday.

"He was shot by bullets and was found in an empty house," Khan said. "We showed the body to the Georgian officials from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). They identified it."

Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Alasania and ISAF officials confirmed the discovery on Saturday but gave no further details.

Kikadze went missing on December 19 in Helmand, a southern province at the heart of the Taliban insurgency.

He is believed to be the first soldier from the NATO-led international force to have gone missing since Bowe Bergdahl, from the US, was taken on June 30, 2009, in the southeastern province of Paktika.

Talks between the US and Taliban insurgents over a possible prisoner exchange involving Bergdahl failed this year.

Kikadze's death took to 19 the number of Georgian troops killed in Afghanistan over the past three years.

Georgia has 1570 troops serving in the country, making the small Caucasus country of 4.5 million the largest non-NATO contributor to ISAF.

President Mikheil Saakashvili is due to visit Georgian troops serving in Afghanistan's Helmand province for New Year celebrations on Monday.

There are now about 100,000 US-led NATO troops fighting a decade-long Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.

Despite the stubborn insurgency, war-weary international forces are seeking to hand control of security to Afghan forces by withdrawing their combat troops by the end of 2014.

Georgia is willing to continue deploying troops to assist local security forces after the NATO-led combat mission formally ends.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Woman accused of NYC subway murder

A woman has been charged with murdering an immigrant by pushing him in front of a NY subway train. Source: AAP

A 31-YEAR-OLD New York woman is scheduled to appear before a judge after being charged with murder as a hate crime for shoving a Hindu man to his death in front of an oncoming subway train.

Erika Menendez of the Bronx borough was motivated by hatred of Muslims and Hindus, according to the Queens District Attorney's Office.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims. Ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers, I've been beating them up," she told police.

Menendez, who is awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on Sunday, faces from 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

The victim, 46-year-old Sunando Sen, was born in India and raised Hindu, a roommate told The New York Times.

The incident took place late Thursday at a station on the number 7 line in Queens.

Menendez - who was talking to herself as she paced along the platform, according to witnesses - pushed the man as the train was pulling into the station. He apparently had his back to Menendez and did not see her.

Police released surveillance camera video footage via Twitter showing a woman running from the scene.

"The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare - being suddenly and senselessly pushed into the path of an oncoming train," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

"The victim was allegedly shoved from behind and had no chance to defend himself. Beyond that, the hateful remarks allegedly made by the defendant and which precipitated the defendant's actions can never be tolerated by a civilised society."

Sen's death was eerily similar to that of a 58-year-old man killed on December 3 when he was pushed on to the tracks during a fight with a deranged man at a Manhattan subway station. The assailant, later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis, has been charged with murder. Davis is homeless.

A New York Post front page picture of the man on the tracks a split second before he was killed by the oncoming train provoked public fury as to why no one helped him - and why the tabloid newspaper published the photo.

Several million people use the New York City subway system every day, but incidents of this kind are rare.

Before the December 3 death, the last time someone was pushed on to the rails and hit by a train was in 2010. The woman survived.

Thursday night's incident appeared to have scared many New York subway riders as they kept closer to the walls as trains rolled into station.

"It's horrible," said 46-year-old city resident Elena Rodriguez. "We're feeling so insecure now to be in the subway."

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

IMF, EU seek less drastic cuts

THE International Monetary Fund and European Commission officials have encouraged France and its eurozone partners not to fixate on deficit reduction targets if it would exacerbate the bloc's debt crisis.

The head of an IMF mission in France, Edward Gardner, urged officials in Paris last week to consider their 2013 budget targets "in a broader European context".

The IMF and the EU Commission expect the French public deficit to amount to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year.

They do not believe France can reach its three per cent goal, the eurozone limit, without additional measures that could aggravate an already tenuous economic situation.

"The credibility of the medium-term orientation policy" was more important than a specific deficit target, Gardner told reporters.

Loosening the criteria would "be more effective, more credible in a coordinated fashion" across the 17-nation eurozone, he said.

In Portugal the public deficit fell at the end of the third quarter to 5.6 per cent of GDP from 6.7 per cent at the same point a year earlier, while neighbouring Spain has promised to slash its deficit to three per cent by 2014 from a blowout shortfall equal to 9.4 per cent of output last year.

Germany expects its budget to be in balance this year, two years ahead of schedule, but IMF head Christine Lagarde has suggested that Berlin ease up a bit in its drive for healthy finances.

"Germany ... and others ... can allow themselves to go a little more slowly than others in the push to straighten out their public finances," Lagarde told the German weekly Die Zeit in comments published last week.

Her call echoed other European voices that are now arguing for greater emphasis on growth rather than austerity measures.

"The IMF is beginning to understand that the French situation has become dangerous," economist Marc Touati at the ACDefi consulting group said. Unemployment is climbing and the economy is still struggling, he said.

The IMF was "trying to prepare public opinion" for missed government targets, Touati said.

On Tuesday, the EU's "fiscal compact", a hard-won step towards tighter economic coordination agreed as part of efforts to tame the debilitating debt crisis, takes effect.

Finalised in March, 25 of the 27 EU member states accepted a "balanced budget rule" in the compact to ensure that governments would no longer run the massive budget deficits which drove the debt crisis and nearly sank the euro.

But as the European debt crisis drags on and economies flounder, the idea of allowing governments more time to straighten out their finances has gained ground.

European Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said last week that France needed more reforms rather than more austerity.

"Once you have a credible medium-term budget strategy, backed up by reforms, you can have a slower adjustment," Rehn told French daily Le Monde.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Friends recall Indian gang-rape victim

SHE was due to marry her boyfriend in a matter of weeks, was the apple of her father's eye and her friends were convinced she would achieve great things after completing her medical studies.

While India has seen an outpouring of grief for the 23-year-old who suffered fatal injuries when she was gang-raped on December 16, those who actually knew her paint a portrait of a young woman who was both in love and much loved.

Although not formally engaged, it was well-known by her friends that she was planning to marry the boyfriend who also suffered serious injuries in the same attack that would ultimately lead to her death.

Meena Rai said that she had been shopping with the unnamed victim for wedding outfits and the contents of a wedding box.

"She was supposed to get married in February to the same guy who was attacked on the bus with her," said Rai, who lived next door in Mahavir Enclave, a neighbourhood in southwestern New Delhi.

"They had made all the wedding preparations and had planned a wedding party in Delhi," she told AFP.

Another friend who attended the cremation ceremony on Sunday confirmed that the wedding was due to take place in a matter of weeks.

"We know that she was going to get married in February," Usha Rai (no relation) told AFP. "The whole neighbourhood was excited about it."

The young couple had spent the evening together at a mall watching The Life of Pi before they boarded a bus they thought would take them home.

According to reports, the frenzied attack on the pair began when the boyfriend objected to taunts about why an unmarried woman was out so late.

The gang clubbed him with an iron rod before they then turned on her.

The everyday image of a young couple enjoying a night out at the movies has been cited by many Indians to explain why they have been able to relate so much to the plight of someone whose name they will never know.

But others have identified with the backstory of a hardworking student whose family hail from rural India, but who was looking to make a name for herself as a young urban professional with the eager backing of her proud parents.

Her parents sold their small piece of land in rural Uttar Pradesh in order to fund their daughter's education, often limiting their own meals to little more than rotis with namak (bread with salt), according to friends.

In a frontpage tribute, The Hindustan Times said that she was "invariably among the top students in her class and was determined to earn well and repay her father who had sold his ancestral land to fund her studies".

Employed as a loader at Delhi's international airport, the father used to say he was "investing in my daughter's future as she will be the one who takes care of me when I get old", according to Meena Rai.

Her childhood was mainly spent in a one-bedroom flat near the airport that she shared with her two brothers as well as her parents.

A younger cousin still living back in the parental village in Uttar Pradesh told the Times of India how the young medical student had been an "inspiration".

"Seeing her do well, I was determined to study as well," she said.

Other residents of the village recalled a young woman whose passion to succeed in medicine shone through when she paid a visit back home.

"Hers was a story of charming ordinariness, of aspiration and hard work, of pleasure in life's little joys," said the Hindustan Times.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Israel indicts ex-minister Lieberman

ISRAEL'S former foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has been formally indicted on charges of breach of trust and fraud, allegations that could hurt his political future if he is convicted.

Lieberman resigned earlier this month after he was informed of the pending charges. The Justice Ministry later revised the wording, though not the charges, and said it filed the indictment in a Jerusalem court on Sunday.

Lieberman is accused of advancing a former ambassador after he relayed information to the foreign minister about a criminal investigation into his business dealings. Lieberman denies wrongdoing.

His Yisrael Beiteinu party is running with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud in the January 22 election, and he is expected to serve as an MP in the next parliament.

In other political news, Israel's Supreme Court unanimously rejected an election committee's attempt to disqualify an Arab MP from running for parliament again next month because she took part in a flotilla that tried to breach Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The MP, Hanin Zoabi, enraged many Israelis by joining the Turkish-led flotilla, which was stormed by Israeli naval commandos who clashed with pro-Palestinian activists, killing nine. The Israeli military says the soldiers acted in self-defence after being attacked on the deck.

Zoabi was nearly assaulted in parliament by another MP and subsequently was stripped of some of her parliamentary privileges.

Earlier this month, an Israeli elections committee voted to disqualify her from running in next month's election. She appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, which overturned it, as it has rejected the committee's attempts in previous years to bar certain Arab candidates from running.

The court said in its ruling that it would release its reason for overturning the decision at a later date. Under Israel's election law, the court had to issue its ruling by Sunday.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Missing Georgian soldier shot dead

A GEORGIAN soldier who went missing in Afghanistan this month has been found dead in an abandoned mud house with multiple bullets to his body.

Police searching for Sergeant Giorgi Kikadze found his body in a village compound in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province, district governor Nemat Khan told AFP on Sunday.

"He was shot by bullets and was found in an empty house," Khan said. "We showed the body to the Georgian officials from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). They identified it."

Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Alasania and ISAF officials confirmed the discovery on Saturday but gave no further details.

Kikadze went missing on December 19 in Helmand, a southern province at the heart of the Taliban insurgency.

He is believed to be the first soldier from the NATO-led international force to have gone missing since Bowe Bergdahl, from the US, was taken on June 30, 2009, in the southeastern province of Paktika.

Talks between the US and Taliban insurgents over a possible prisoner exchange involving Bergdahl failed this year.

Kikadze's death took to 19 the number of Georgian troops killed in Afghanistan over the past three years.

Georgia has 1570 troops serving in the country, making the small Caucasus country of 4.5 million the largest non-NATO contributor to ISAF.

President Mikheil Saakashvili is due to visit Georgian troops serving in Afghanistan's Helmand province for New Year celebrations on Monday.

There are now about 100,000 US-led NATO troops fighting a decade-long Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.

Despite the stubborn insurgency, war-weary international forces are seeking to hand control of security to Afghan forces by withdrawing their combat troops by the end of 2014.

Georgia is willing to continue deploying troops to assist local security forces after the NATO-led combat mission formally ends.

17.52 | 0 komentar | Read More