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Three blasts rock RussiaMOSCOW: Three apartment buildings in a military housing estate on the outskirts of the southern Russian city of V...

Three blasts rock Russia

MOSCOW: Three apartment buildings in a military housing estate on the outskirts of the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz were badly damaged by bombs today and initial reports said at least five people were killed. A spokesman for the emergency situations ministry in Moscow said 20 apartments in the three five-story buildings were destroyed by the simultaneous dawn blasts.

Five bodies have been recovered from the collapsed buildings, the Itar-Tass news agency said, citing a military spokesman. 26 people were injured, the report said. Federal security service investigators and police found an unexploded bomb with the equivalent of 2.5 kg of TNT in a fourth building in the complex where military reservists are housed, the Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies said.

Sharif sees Brit ploy against him

LONDON: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has accused Britain of launching a secret campaign to topple him through adverse media plots. Sharif, who has recentlydrawn international flak over crackdown on media is particularly concerned about a forthcoming BBC film focusing allegedly on corruption within his own family, Telegraph reported. Several prominent Pakistani journalists including Najam Sethi of the quot;Friday Timesquot; have been arrested or harassed by Pakistani intelligence agencies after some of them were interviewed by bbc for the forthcoming film on Sharif.

quot;While Sharif has been accused of muzzling Pakistani press, he is said, by officials and politicians in his government, to believe that London8217;s security establishment is behind adverse British media campaign against him,quot; Telegraph said.

Kuwaiti women may get vote

kuwait: Kuwait8217;s Government today approved a draft law which would grant women full political rights for the first time in the Moslem conservative Gulf Arab state.

Constitutional experts told Reuters that the draft law had to be issued in the form of decree by the country8217;s emir Sheik Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who earlier this monthdissolved parliament and called for elections on July 3. Such decrees have to be reviewed by the new parliament, they added.

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The law would allow women to run for public office and vote as of the next parliamentary and municipal elections in 2003, first deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah was quoted as saying by the official Kuwait News Agency KUNA after a weekly cabinet meeting. Women make up about half the country8217;s population of almost 8,00,000 Kuwaitis and represent about 30 percent of Kuwaitis in the work force.