Threat to UN building in Pakistan

Islamabad, July 3: A United Nations office in the Pakistani capital received a telephone call which threatened to blow up its building, prompting the organisation to ask its staffers to stay at home and beef up security. "A threatening phone call was made to a gender support programme office of the UN here on Tuesday and investigations are underway," UN communication officer Amna Ali Kamal said.

A suicide car bomb attack outside the Danish embassy here in June had caused extensive damage to the office of a UN-backed non-governmental organisation. —PTI

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Malay-Indian woman hangs self with sari

Kuala Lumpur, July 3: A Malaysian Indian had a massive heart attack when he saw his wife had hanged herself using her wedding sari.

T. Selvatharan thought that his wife K. Komathy, 33, had left the bedroom to drink water at dawn on Tuesday. When she did not return and he went out to check, he found her hanging by the ceiling fan. "She had been seeking treatment for depression," Mr Selvatharan, 47, told Tamil Nesan newspaper, while recovering at a hospital in Johor Baru.

—IANS

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Al Qaeda operative freed on bail

By OUR London CORRESPONDENT

London

July 3: A terror suspect, who is described by the police as an Al Qaeda operative with "direct links" with Osama bin Laden, has been freed on bail after spending more than seven years in jail awaiting deportation, according to reports. The suspect, who is identified only as U, is a 45-year-old Algerian veteran of Al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps. He has been released from high-security wing of Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire, according to the BBC News. U had arrived in Britain in 1994 and claimed asylum on the ground that he had been ill-treated in Algeria.