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Jihad bombers warnof Games ‘present’WASHINGTON: A newthreat to the upcoming Win-ter Olympics has surfaced asUS lawmakers worry aboutattacks at the Games to be ho-sted by Russia.

In a video posted on a well-known jihadi forum, two menbelieved to have been the sui-cide bombers in last month’sdeadly bombings in Volgo-grad speak of them — andwarn of more.

‘‘We’ve prepared a presentfor you and all tourists who’llcome over,’’ the video says.

‘‘If you hold the Olympics,you’ll get a present from usfor the Muslim blood that’sbeen spilled.’’

The US-based SITE Moni-toring Service has identified

the men as ‘‘purportedVolgograd bombers Sulei-man and Abdul Rahman’’.

December suicide bombingsat a railway station and on atrolleybus in the southernRussian city — which investi-gators have linked to suspectsfrom the mostly Muslim re-public of Dagestan — killed 34and injured dozens.

Islamist insurgents basedin North Caucasus republicssuch as Dagestan who areseeking their own indepen-dent state have vowed to dis-rupt the Sochi Games.

‘‘The threats are real. Theyare basically calling for at-tacks on the Olympics. Ithink you’re going to see at-tempts to do that,’’ said Mi-

chael McCaul, chairman ofthe House Homeland Secur-ity Committee.

The Republican, in an in-terview from Moscow withABC’s This Week, said Russ-ian authorities were takingthe threats seriously, deploy-ing 100,000 security officialsto erect a ‘‘ring of steel’’ tosecure the Sochi airport,mountain trains and theGames themselves.

If there were attacks, hesaid, they would more than li-kely be directed at soft tar-gets like transportation.

The congressman addedthat the diplomatic securitycorps said it was receivinggood cooperation from theRussian authorities and not-

ed that two dozen FBI agentshad been assigned to themassive sports event.

But ‘‘it could be a lot better.I want to press that whilehere,’’ he added.

Mr McCaul explained thathe wanted to know moreabout the event’s emergencyevacuation planning.

Another key congressman,House Intelligence Commit-tee chairman Mike Rogers,said Russian authoritieswere clearly concerned aboutsecurity threats.

‘‘But we don’t seem to begetting all of the informationwe need to protect our ath-letes in the Games,’’ he saidon CNN’s State of the Union.

Mr Rogers, also a Republi-

can, said the Russians’ un-willingness to share inform-ation with US intelligencewas ‘‘a departure of cooperat-ion that is very concerningto me’’.

‘‘So what we’re finding isthey aren’t giving us the fullstory about what are thethreat streams, who do weneed to worry about,’’ thelawmaker said.

‘‘Are the terrorist groupswho have had some success,are they still plotting?’’

‘‘There’s a missing gap andyou never want that whenyou’re going into something,I think, as important as theOlympic Games.’’

The Games next month inSochi on the Black Sea coast.

A case of cat’s got tongue . . . Mulan Jamilah, a six-year-old Bengal tiger, kisses Abdullah Sholeh, 33, in the garden beside their home in Malang, Indonesia.The Islamic student has become a best friend and full-time nanny to the tiger since it was a three-month-old cub Picture: ROBERTUS PUDYANTO/GETTY IMAGES

Japan entry ban shock

Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR: Malay-sian opposition leader An-war Ibrahim says he is ‘‘puz-zled and shocked’’ after beingbarred entry to Japan, as hisparty questioned whetherMalaysia’s ruling coalitionwas behind the move.

Mr Anwar said he arrivedat Narita International Air-port on a personal visit earlyon Sunday and was told byimmigration authorities hewas barred because of his1999 conviction for sodomyand corruption.

The controversial convic-

tion, which castthe then-risingpolitical star outof Malaysia’slongtime rulingparty and intojail for six years,is viewed by

many as a frame-up byhis enemies.

‘‘I am puzzled and shockedby the incident,’’ Mr Anwar,66, said.

He called on Malaysia’sgovernment to ‘‘probe this in-cident and lodge a strongprotest against Tokyo’’.

Mr Anwar said he protest-ed to Japanese immigrationofficials, saying the 1999 con-viction was an invalid reasonto refuse his entry and thathe had visited Japan onthree occasions since 2006without incident.

Officials told him vaguelythat they were responding toa more recent ‘‘report’’ again-st him, he said.

Mr Anwar added that hehad been invited to Japanto deliver a speech oninter-religious harmony by aJapanese NGO.

People trust pollies even lessLONDON: Trust in electedleaders has fallen sharply, aglobal survey suggests, citingEurope’s stuttering responseto its debt crisis and the pro-tracted US budget battle thatnearly led the country to de-fault on its debts as keyreasons for the drop.

The public relations firmEdelman said that 44 per centof university-educated peo-ple participating in the sur-vey trusted government,down four percentage pointsfrom the previous year.

As recently as 2011, trust inpoliticians was 52 per cent.

The 2014 Edelman TrustBarometer cited the largestgap in its history – 14 points –between trust in governmentand trust in business.

‘‘This is a profound evol-ution in the landscape oftrust from 2009, where busi-ness had to partner with gov-ernment to regain trust,’’agency CEO Richard Edel-man said.

He said that sinking trustin government could stoke arise in support for more ex-treme political parties, part-icularly in May’s election forthe European parliament.

The US had a 16 percentagepoint fall in the level of polit-ical trust to 37 per cent,which Edelman attributed toseveral factors, including thedebt ceiling stand-off in con-gress, the revelations of wide-spread snooping by the Nat-ional Security Agency (NSA)and the calamitous start ofUS President Barack Oba-ma’s health reform website.

The online survey queried27,000 people in 27 countries,and broke down results be-tween the general populationand a smaller sample ofuniversity-educated people.

QUAKE SHAKESNZAUCKLAND: A strong earth-quake has shaken the lowerhalf of New Zealand’s NorthIsland, bringing appliancesdown and knocking powerout in the town of Eketa-huna, as well as causingproperty damage betweenWellington andManawatu.The earthquake struck about3.52pm (12.22pm NT time),was of a 6.2 magnitude andcentred 15km east of Eketa-huna, about 40km north ofMasterton, at a depth of33km, according to reviseddata from GNS Science.Tranz Metro suspended alltrain services inWellington.

POISONER JAILEDBEIJING: A Chinese court hasconvicted a man of poisoningdumplings, causing about 13people in Japan and China tofall ill, and sentenced him tolife in prison.Factory worker Lu Yuetingwas reported to have in-jected the dumplings withinsecticide in 2008 as aprotest against his employerover pay.Some of the contaminateddumplings were exported toJapan, where nine people fellill, while four were strickenin China.

FIRST LADYPARTIESWASHINGTON: US First LadyMichelle Obama celebratedher 50th birthday on theweekend with a party at-tended by artists such asBeyonce, Stevie Wonder andJohn Legend.The White House distributeda limited number of invi-tations to personalities closeto the First Lady asking themto wear comfortable dancingshoes and spend an eveningof ‘‘Snacks & Sips & Dancing& Dessert.’’

CHAOS INUKRAINEKIEV: Dozens of people havebeen wounded in bloody cla-shes between police andprotesters in the Ukrainiancapital Kiev after 200,000defied new restrictions onprotests to rally against Pre-sident Viktor Yanukovych.In near-apocalyptic sceneson Sunday close to parlia-ment, several police busesand vehicles were torched bythe protesters who hurledstones and molotov cocktailsat security forces.The clashes further raisedthe stakes in the almost two-month standoff between theopposition and Mr Yanu-kovych which has seen pro-testers seize control of themain city square in Kiev andmunicipal buildings.The White House urged anend to the violence, withNational Security Councilspokeswoman CaitlinHayden saying Washingtonwas deeply concerned.