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| Wednesday,
July 11, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Racial
violence continues in Bradford Gaza
battle wrecks 17 homes UN: Israel
to get edited tape only Pervez
wants to help Kashmiris: mother
Karachi
tense after Shiites’ killing |
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| Lanka to
free 22 Indian fishermen Colombo, July 10 About 22 Indian fishermen who were arrested for poaching in Sri Lankan waters will be released tomorrow after languishing in a Jaffna prison for almost three months.
5 dead as
Indonesian troops, rebels clash Estrada
indicted for economic plunder
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Racial violence continues in Bradford London, July 10 The youths threw bricks and bottles at the police, mostly in white areas of the city, a police spokesperson said adding 15 persons were arrested in the street riots. All those detained were white local males and most were held on the suspicion of violent disorder and possession of offensive weapons. An Asian-owned restaurant was also attacked and a car set afire during the disturbances. The arrests followed fresh troubles in the predominantly white Ravenscliffe and Holme Wood areas of Bradford which has a sizeable population of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Endorsing Home Secretary David Blunkett’s view, Mr Blair, in a brief statement, said the trouble was a law and order issue and that the protesters attacking the police had ended up destroying their own community. “There may initially have been an element of provocation from the far-right at some point ... but the first evidence suggests this is simply thuggery, and the local people intent on having a go at the police and in the process of doing that, destroying their own community,” he said. The police was patrolling the streets, but there were no reports of injuries and the disturbances low compared to the previous two nights when businesses and cars were torched and 164 police officers injured in clashes involving up to 1,000 Asians and whites. As tense stand-off persisted between the riot police and white youths in the Ravenscliffe area during today’s disturbances, a spokesperson of the British Prime Minister confirmed that the government was prepared to consider permitting the police to use water cannons to disburse rioters. More than 150 police from seven forces were still off duty recovering from the injuries received during the clashes on Saturday night, which followed an attack on a young Asian by white drunks. The surcharged atmosphere created by rumours of a National Front rally — which never materialised — was ignited by the incident, with Asian youths pouring on to the streets of Manningham to “defend” the community. Their aggression, highlighted in the Bradford race review chaired by Sir Herman Ouseley, was described as the city’s greatest challenge by the former Lord Mayor, Mohammed Ajeeb. He said “they have a very strong sense of insecurity, desperation and frustration.” Bradford magistrates remanded 21 men in custody yesterday, and west Yorkshire police said hundreds of extra officers would remain on patrol in spite of “the return of a sense of normality to the city.”
PTI |
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Gaza battle wrecks 17 homes Gaza, July 10 Palestinian witnesses and security officials said Israeli bulldozers and tanks entered a Palestinian refugee camp in Rafah near the Gaza-Egypt border in one of the fiercer battles at the flashpoint since a US-mediated ceasefire was announced in June. The Israeli army could not immediately comment on the incident. The battle followed a Palestinian suicide mission in Gaza yesterday in which the bomber alone was killed, and mortar bomb fire on two Jewish settlements in the strip which caused no injuries. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops wrecked as many as 17 homes and gunmen, including members of the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Forces, opened fire on the soldiers. Hospital sources said four Palestinians were wounded before the Israeli forces pulled back. The Palestinian security chief in Gaza, Maj-Gen Abdel-Razek Al-Majaydeh, said Israel had launched “a savage attack against a Palestinian refugee camp under full Palestinian control in a new campaign to destroy more houses and to terrorise innocent residents.” Al-Majaydeh commands the National Security Forces. Earlier, the USA criticised both sides for fresh bloodshed and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing: “We’re deeply troubled over the upsurge...In violence over the weekend.” Eighteen Palestinians, including the suicide bomber, and 10 Israelis have been killed since the truce drawn up by US CIA Director George Tenet was to have taken effect on June 13.
Reuters |
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UN: Israel to get edited tape only United Nations, July 10 Spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday that the United Nations had received a written request from Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, asking for an unedited version of the tape. “We received a letter this morning for the Israeli Defence Minister requesting access to an unedited version of the UN videotape,” he said. “The decision was to offer an edited version of the videotape and I have no reason to think that will change.” On Saturday, Hezbullah and the Lebanese Government slammed a UN decision to let Israel view the videotape made by the UN peacekeeping force the day after the October 7 capture of the three Israeli soldiers by Hezbullah in the disputed border area of the Shebaa Farms.
AFP |
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Pervez wants to help
Kashmiris: mother
Rawalpindi, July 10 “Pervez has determination. Whatever he wants to do, he must do it,” 80-year-old Zarreen Musharraf told Reuters Television in an interview yesterday. General Musharraf is due to visit India on July 14-16 for talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that Pakistan wants to focus on Kashmir. “He wants to have peace. He wants to help Kashmiri people. They are our brothers...They are fighting for freedom,” said Ms Zarreen, who formerly worked for the International Labour Organisation. General Musharraf took over the leadership of Pakistan in a bloodless coup in October 1999 after former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to fire him as military chief. Last month he also assumed the President’s office, consolidating his power ahead of his summit meeting in India. Ms Zarreen, who has two other sons, said Pervez never had political aspirations although he was always keen on joining the military. His leadership qualities were visible even when he was a boy, she said. “He was never in politics and never dreamt of being in politics. Politics was thrust on him,” she added. Pervez was born in New Delhi on August 11, 1943 and lived there until the family moved to the port city of Karachi on August 13, 1947, a day before the bloody partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan. Ms Zarreen described the three-day journey to Karachi as “nightmarish” as their train would pull up at any sign of trouble and there was constant fear of attacks. During his trip to New Delhi, General Musharraf is expected to visit his birthplace — a traditional Indian mansion called Neharwali Haveli which was sold by his grandfather in 1946.
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Nothing will come out of summit: Benazir Dubai, July 10 “I think that neither will there be any progress on the Kashmir front nor in the intensity of violence in the troubled territory as a result of the parleys,” she said, and claimed that India and Pakistan were meeting “under pressure from a strong international power”, which she did not name. “The main objective of Musharraf’s meeting was to please the international community in order to show that he is making peace efforts to defuse tension between the two nuclear powers over Kashmir,” she told the Gulf News from London.
PTI |
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Karachi tense after Shiites’ killing Karachi, July 10 They said a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon outside the Shiite Jamia Imamia mosque in
Nazimabad, a central district of this southern city, killing both men before fleeing on a motor bike with an
accomplice. Fida Hussain (25), a cook, and Shaaban Ali (20), a student, died on their way to hospital, police officer Iqbal Durrani said. All major markets and shops remained closed in the area as police and paramilitary troops intensified patrols to prevent retaliatory violence. “It was a targeted killing which appears to be sectarian,” Durrani said. At least 10 persons have died in sectarian violence here since last month. Shiite political party Tehreek-i-Jafria Pakistan
(TJP) blamed rival Sunni radical group Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) for the latest killings. “SSP leaders threatened to kill Shiites about a month back but no one took notice of the threat,” TJP provincial President Hasan Turabi said. Shiites form about 20 per cent of Sunni-dominated Pakistan’s 140 million persons. Hundreds of people have died, mostly in Punjab, in recent years in violence blamed on Islamic extremists.
AFP |
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Lanka to free
22 Indian fishermen Colombo, July 10 These fishermen from Tamil Nadu had moved an application before the magistrate for their release. The prosecution said the relevant papers which the police had sent to the Attorney General did not come in time and there was delay in their release. Indian High Commission officials said the fishermen would be taken by the Sri Lankan Navy to the International Maritime Line boundary after the release and handed over to the Indian Coast Guard. The Sri Lankan police had arrested 66 Indian fishermen for illegally poaching in the Sri Lankan waters near the Jaffna peninsula from April to June this year. The navy had also seized 15 fishing vessels.
UNI |
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Woman attempting record stung 7 times Kuala Lumpur, July 10 Malena Hassan, 24, who started her confinement in a glass room with the poisonous arachnids on July 1, told local reporters that she had been stung seven times in the past nine days, the national new agency, Bernama reported. But Malena said she was determined to stay in the room for the rest of the month, it said. Malena says that if she succeeds she will set a Malaysian record. Under self-imposed rules she leaves the room once a day for 15 minutes. Takiyuddin Hassan, an official from the Kelantan Museum where the glass room and Malena are set up as an exhibit, said she would undergo a medical check-up in the next few days. Malena sleeps, eats and performs Muslim prayers in the room, which is furnished with a bed and a table. Takiyuddin said 17,000 people had visited the exhibit since Malena’s attempt began, raising $ 5,300 for the museum.
AP |
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5 dead as Indonesian troops, rebels clash Banda Aceh (Indonesia), July 10 Aceh police spokesman Commissioner Sudarsono said the five died in an exchange of fire in Panca village in the Seulimeun subdistrict, about 40 km east of here yesterday. He said he had not yet received the full details of the incident. The Aceh Besar spokesman of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Ayah Sofyan told AFP that only one rebel had been killed in the fight and the four other victims were civilians “brutally shot dead by troops.” Sofyan said the bodies could not be retrieved yet as the military was barring access to the area. Humanitarian workers here confirmed the ban on entering the area. Meanwhile, the North Aceh Gam spokesman, Teungku Jamaica, said rebels attacked a security outpost within the Cluster IV area of the closed off ExxonMobil gas operation in Lhoksukon yesterday. “We fired grenades, mortars and gunshots in retaliation for the actions of security personnel who have continuously roughed up the local population around ExxonMobil,” Jamaica said.
AFP |
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Estrada indicted for economic plunder Manila, July 10 As with his arraignment two weeks ago for alleged perjury, there was a flurry of last-minute activity aimed at quashing the case on constitutional grounds, or gaining a delay. Once again, the courts stood firm on proceeding against the former action film star accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks during 31 months in office. The Sandiganbayan anti-graft court also arraigned Estrada’s son Jinggoy, whose term as mayor of Manila’s San Juan district expired on June 30, and attorney Edward Serapio. In line with his stance on the perjury charge, Estrada did not enter a plea, a move followed by Jinggoy and Serapio on their plunder charges. The justices entered a plea of innocent on their behalf. The arraignment was delayed for two hours while Estrada’s lawyers argued the plunder charge should be dropped because it is unconstitutionally vague. They also claimed that the arraignment should be postponed while the Supreme Court considers an appeal. Supreme Court spokesman Ishmail Khan said justices were unable to tackle the request immediately. Accompanied by wife Loi, who recently was elected to the Senate, the 64-year-old Estrada arrived at the Sandiganbayan court from a nearby military hospital where he has been getting treatment for minor ailments. Emerging from an elevator, the unsmiling Estrada was escorted by guards as he walked towards the packed court-room, nodding but not waving at the crowd. Inside, his daughter and two other sons embraced and kissed him. He then sat down, his face illuminated by constant camera flashes. Security was tight, with an estimated 3,000 riot police surrounding the imposing stone building that Estrada inaugurated two years ago as the symbol of a tough campaign against corruption. Although only a handful of people turned up for Estrada’s first arraignment, the government remained concerned about a repeat of the violent attempt by an estimated 50,000 of his supporters, angry he had been indicted, to storm the presidential palace on May 1. Six people died. Several hundred Estrada supporters also gathered, and the police kept the two factions apart. “He should not be accused of plunder because he has done a lot of good things to the people,” said Leonila Llagas, an elderly woman in the pro-Estrada group.
AP |
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