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UP FRONT A3
Tuesday 13 October 2015
India’s Bihar holding elections seen as Modi referendum
INDRAJIT SINGH voting for the state’s legis- The outcome in Bihar, one because if the BJP wins from Maoist rebels.
Associated Press lative assembly. More than of India’s poorest states, the state it would have Security was tight Monday,
PATNA, India (AP) — Hun- 55 percent of 13.5 million el- is seen as a test for Modi, more members in the up- with thousands of paramili-
dreds of thousands of igible voters had cast their who, as his party’s chief per house of India’s Parlia- tary soldiers deployed to
people lined up at polling votes at nearly 13,000 high- campaigner, addressed ment, which would ease maintain order outside the
stations in the east Indian ly guarded polling stations several election rallies and the passage of key eco- polling stations. For the first
state of Bihar on Monday across the state by 4 p.m. political meetings across nomic bills that the govern- time, authorities used un-
for elections seen as a ref- with an hour left for the first the state. Analysts say a ment is eager to push. manned aerial vehicles, or
erendum on Prime Minister phase of polling to end. victory for Modi’s party The last phase of voting is drones, to monitor far-flung
Narendra Modi’s popular- Modi’s Bharatiya Janata would signal approval of its Nov. 5. Results will be an- polling stations.
ity. Party is facing a “grand co- attempts to push its brand nounced Nov. 8. Polling was peaceful, R.
The elections are being alition” of two former chief of Hindu right-wing politics. Five of the 10 state districts Lakshmanan, a state elec-
held in 49 constituencies ministers, including the in- The Bihar elections are where the polling took toral officer, said in Bihar’s
in the first of five phases of cumbent, Nitish Kumar. also important for Modi, place were facing threats capital, Patna.q
Russia arrests IS-linked suspects who plotted terror attack
N. VASILYEVA around there now with Ka- In this Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015 photo provided on Monday, Oct. 12, 2015, Russian President Vladi-
V. ISACHENKOV lashnikovs would end up on mir Putin gives an interview focused on Russia’s action in Syria, to Russian TV Rossya-1 channel in
Associated Press our territory, and so we are Sochi, Russia.
MOSCOW (AP) — Highlight- helping President Assad
ing a new terror threat to fight this threat before it (Alexei Nikolsky/RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Photo via AP)
Russia raised by its air cam- reaches our borders,” Pu-
paign in Syria, security of- tin said in an interview with Syria. The poll had a margin apartment rented by the Authorities did not say how
ficials said Monday they Rossiya state television of error of no more than 3.5 suspects. many people were de-
have thwarted a planned broadcast Sunday. percentage points. The FSB said some of the tained but said “between
attack on Moscow public “We must take pre-emp- The Federal Security Ser- suspects had been trained six and 11 people” fre-
transport system by mili- tive action,” he said. “Of vice, Russia’s main domes- by Islamic State militants quented the apartment.
tants trained by the Islamic course, there are risks, but tic security agency, said in and were plotting a terrorist The men had arrived in
State group. let me say that these risks Monday’s statement that a attack on Moscow’s pub- Moscow “well before” Rus-
Sunday’s arrest of several existed anyway, even be- device with five kilograms lic transport. The agency sia began carrying out air-
terror suspects — some of fore we began our opera- (11 pounds) of explosives didn’t immediately give strikes in Syria on Sept. 30,
whom, intelligence officials tions in Syria.” was found in a Moscow further details. the FSB said.q
say, were trained by IS in Russian authorities have
Syria — has brought back said that about 2,400 Rus-
memories of the string of sians have joined the IS
deadly bombings that militants and voiced con-
struck the Russian capital cern that they may pose
just a few years ago. a threat when they return
President Vladimir Putin has home.
acknowledged the new The latest arrests may play
danger, but insisted that into Putin’s hands, proving
launching the Russian air- his point that IS pose a ma-
strikes in support of Syrian jor threat to Russia and the
President Bashar Assad’s air raids are a necessary re-
army was necessary to fight sponse to the challenge.
IS and other militant groups A nationwide poll of 1,600
before they pose an even conducted earlier this
bigger security challenge month by VTsiOM polling
to Russia. agency found that two
“If we just stood by and let thirds of respondents sup-
Syria get gobbled up, thou- ported the Kremlin’s deci-
sands of people running sion to launch airstrikes in
Jailed sons of deposed Egypt autocrat Mubarak to be freed
BRIAN ROHAN businessman, after they before being convicted dences. embezzled. After the hear-
Associated Press were sentenced in May to in May along with their fa- Separately, the two sons ing, judicial and security of-
CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian three years’ prison each in ther, who remains held in a also face trial on insider ficials said those amounts
court ordered the release a corruption case dubbed military hospital. trading charges, with the had already been paid
of the sons of deposed au- the “presidential palaces” The trio’s conviction, which next hearing in October. by the Mubaraks following
tocrat Hosni Mubarak on affair by the Egyptian me- came after a retrial, was They were expected to their first trial.
Monday, taking into ac- dia. for embezzling millions walk free later Monday. Many Egyptians view the
count time already served The two were first detained of dollars’ worth of state Last summer’s sentenc- brothers as key symbols of
on a corruption conviction. in April 2011 — two months funds over the course of a ing included a 125 million an autocratic and corrupt
The Cairo criminal court after their father stepped decade, diverting money Egyptian pound ($16.3 mil- administration that struck
ordered the release of down during a popular meant to pay for renovat- lion) fine to be paid by the an alliance with the mega-
Gamal, Mubarak’s one- uprising against his three ing and maintaining presi- three men, as well as the wealthy at the expense of
time heir apparent, and decades’ rule, but were dential palaces to instead return of 21 million Egyptian the poor. q
his brother Alaa, a wealthy freed in January on bail upgrade their private resi- pounds ($2.7 million) they