 |
Monday,
February 4, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Quake in Turkey kills 35; 100 hurt
Lashkar terrorising
Kashmiris in PoK Fewer rallies in Pak
tomorrow Karzai’s call to finish
warlords |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Taliban members ‘have fled’ to Pak
Ethnic riots leave 10
dead
|
|||||||
|
Quake in Turkey
kills 35; 100 hurt
Bolvadin (Turkey), February 3 Nearly six hours after the quake, the interior ministry said that at least 35 people had been killed and that scores of buildings in the stricken area had collapsed. A crisis management centre set up in the capital, Ankara, said 35 died in the quake, which local experts put at 6.0 on the Richter Scale. Eleven were reported buried as 70 buildings collapsed under the strain of the tremor, which struck the province of Afyon at 9:15 a.m. (7.15 GMT). Scores of others were hurt by falling masonry as they rushed from their homes. Witnesses reported windows shattering and cracks running up walls as the quake struck. The first quake was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks. Most of the damage appeared to have been in two regions, Sultandagi and Cay, where houses and buildings in an industrial enterprise zone collapsed. “Unfortunately there are 15 confirmed deaths in Sultandagi and five in Cay,” Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told reporters before leaving to tour the devastated province of around one million people 250 km south-west of Ankara. Reports of injuries and collapsed buildings were still coming in, but officials, accustomed to the earthquakes Turkey has long suffered, said they had the situation under control. “Our teams are out and data is still coming in,” said an aide to the Afyon Governor. Lethal earthquakes are common in Turkey, which is criss-crossed with fault lines. Two major quakes hit the country’s northwest in 1999, killing more than 18,000 people and wrecking hundreds of thousands of homes. One of those, measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale, killed 17,000 as a major section of the North Anatolian faultline slipped. Officials at a crisis management centre set up in Ankara said they were sending civil defence teams to the quake area, where hospitals set up makeshift open-air treatment areas. Many locals were too nervous to return to cracked and damaged buildings as aftershocks continued, preferring to wait outside in bright winter sunshine. “Tonight it is important that our citizens do not go back into their homes in areas that are not very safe,” Ecevit said. The quake was felt in Ankara and other cities. The slow response of Ecevit’s government to the huge 1999 earthquakes dented his coalition’s popularity. Prefabricated housing meant as temporary accommodation to those left homeless that year is still in use in some parts of the northwest.
AP, Reuters |
|
Lashkar terrorising Kashmiris in PoK Foreign mercenaries especially of the Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) have been indulging in street fights and have let loose a rein of terror on Kashmiri youths, who have been languishing in militant training camps located in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) for years together. Mercenaries including those of the LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Al-Badar, who shifted their bases at the behest of the ISI to the PoK after the USA toughened its stand against promotion of terrorism, have virtually launched a violent campaign against Kashmiris, including recruits of Hizbul Mujahideen. Recently, LeT militants made a near fatal attack on Hizbul Mujahideen’s leader Ismail Zaheer, reports a monthly magazine published from Pakistan “Juhud-e-Haq”. The Lashkar wanted the Hizb to disband itself in the area which the Lashkar claims as exclusively its own. However, Zaheer’s mother went to a mosque and announced on the loudspeaker that if her son was killed the responsibility would of the Lashkar. This incident was not an isolated one. Earlier, the lashker cadres were fined Rs 500 each by elders of a village in PoK for spreading hatred in the villages of Khaplu, Bulghsar, Birah, and Yogo. However, the LeT cadres refused to pay. The militants have also confirmed the incidents and even said that a flood of Afghan mercenaries, who arrived in the PoK after the USA strike in Kabul, were treating locals as well as youth of Kashmir very badly. The arrested militants, according to official sources, have said foreign mercenaries, especially, of the LeT, had been trying to marginalise the local Kashmiri youths, who were yearning to return to their native land. The sources said that the level of hatred had increased especially after the Kashmiri youths, on being forced towards the valley, had surrendered before the Army at the LoC. The troops also maintain a soft approach towards Kashmiri youths, who infiltrate and surrender immediately, the sources added. Besides the arrested Kashmiri ultras have also revealed that the ISI was pumping in money through mercenaries into the valley to some cadres of hizbul mujahideen for either eliminating its ousted Commander Abdul Majid Dar or at least sidelining him completely. This fact also came to light when the Delhi police arrested two militants who confessed that money was being pumped into the valley’s elected Hizbul Mujahideen cadres to eliminate Dar, who was ousted by supreme council for having a modest approach.
PTI |
|
Fewer rallies in Pak tomorrow Islamabad, February 3 The day will, however, be a public holiday. Pakistan has called for a minute’s silence in memory of those killed, as it alleges, by Indian security forces in the Himalayan state. “This year we have decided not to hold any rallies, and rather conduct seminars in Pakistan and some other countries to highlight the Kashmir cause,” says Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, the new chairman of the National Kashmir Committee. “This year we have also sent delegations to other countries to highlight the issue,” Khan told IANS. He said the annual Kashmir Day would be observed with “full vigour” to tell the world that despite banning certain jehadi groups, Pakistan fully supports the separatist campaign in the Indian state. Several educational institutions in Pakistan will remain open on Kashmir Day in order to conduct debates on the issue. Seminars would also be held in the four provincial capitals as well as Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir. “Human chains would be formed at three main bridges in the Rawalpindi, Mansehra and Jhelum divisions connecting Pakistan with Kashmir,” organiser Mufti Fasih Bari told IANS. He said a “Kashmir Convention” would be held in Islamabad with President Pervez Musharraf presiding.
IANS |
|
Karzai’s call to finish warlords Kabul, February 3 “This is one more reason why we should finish warlordism in this country,” Karzai told AFP. At least 50 people were killed in a battle between rival warlords in eastern Gardez last week, and fresh fighting broke out yesterday between ethnic rivals in northern Mazar-e-Sharif. Karzai has sent a delegation to Gardez to resolve the conflict there where his appointed Governor Padsha Khan was routed by the forces of Saif Ullah, who refused to give up power. Meanwhile, foreign commanders in Afghanistan believe more than 30,000 international troops will be needed to secure the country as interim leader Hamid Karzai struggled today to contain growing unrest. Days after Mr Karzai asked world leaders for more troops, commanders with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told AFP it would be very difficult to arrange the kind of force needed to stabilise Afghanistan. Few countries seem willing to offer the kind of troop strength required and problems also would arise due to the limited airport and communications facilities, they said. “If there is need to expand militarily, it will be extremely difficult to do that because already we are operating with an air bridge,” ISAF spokesman Neal Peckham said. BERLIN: The main NATO partners are in agreement that Turkey should take over from Britain at the head of the international security force in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The newspaper said the agreement had emerged at informal discussions on the future leadership of the UN-mandated ISAF, which began deploying in Kabul late last year.
AFP |
|
Zahir Shah to be
back on March 18 Islamabad, February 3 |
|
|
Taliban members ‘have fled’ to Pak London, February 3 The Sunday Telegraph correspondent Christina Lamb, who had been regularly visiting Pakistan for 15 years and lived two years there wrote: “My own experience shows that the intelligence services, particularly the military intelligence ISI, are completely out of control of the federal government. LONDON: A fifth Briton captured in Afghanistan is being held by US forces, who are detaining him in Kandahar, the Foreign Office said on Sunday. The man is Jamal Udeen (35) from Manchester, northwest England, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. The Sunday Times said Udeen claimed he had been jailed in Kandahar by the Taliban after they accused him of being a British spy, and that Pashtun tribal forces passed him over to US forces after liberating the city in December.
AFP |
|
Arafat ready for talks with Israel Jerusalem, February 3 Arafat, who has been confined to his West Bank office by Israeli tanks and is under international pressure to end militant attacks on Israel, made his remarks in a statement published by The New York Times. “Palestinians are ready to end the conflict,’’ Arafat said. “We are ready to sit down now with any Israeli leader, regardless of his history, to negotiate freedom for the Palestinians, a complete end of the occupation, security for Israel and creative solutions to the plight of the (Palestinian) refugees while respecting Israel’s demographic concerns.’’ “I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians,’’ Arafat said. “These groups do not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for freedom. They are terrorist organisations, and I am determined to put an end to their activities.’’ An Israeli spokesman said Arafat’s remarks were a “PR stunt”. Hopes of a quick breakthrough to end 16 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed more than 1,000 people remain slim, despite a series of meetings between Israeli and Palestinian officials in the past few days. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian parliamentary Speaker Ahmed Korei held talks in New York and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Palestinian officials. GAZA CITY: Israeli tanks rolled into Palestinian-controlled territory near the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said. The tanks yesterday moved into land under Palestinian jurisdiction by a km from the nearby Jewish settlement of Morag, the sources said, adding that heavy machine-gun fire was heard. Reuters, AFP |
|
Ethnic riots leave 10
dead
Lagos, February 3 Local newspapers reported at least 10 dead in fighting between northern Hausas and ethnic Yorubas of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tribe from the south-west around Lagos. But residents of the volatile Mushin suburb said many more persons died. Black smoke billowed into the sky from burning buildings and bursts of gunfire echoed on the tense streets, where youths stood around with machetes and bows and arrows. An official inquiry has begun into the cause of the blast. LONDON: The explosions which ripped through the ammunition dump at Ikeja, Lagos, last weekend, killing an estimated 1,000 people, also dealt a mortal blow to the reputation of President Olusegun Obasanjo. This ‘callous indifference’ to the suffering of the people produced such an outcry in the media that he was forced to apologise. Obasanjo set up a $ 1.4 million fund for survivors. He also ordered a full inquiry into the disaster. But some Nigerians fear that the military authorities will keep any investigations secret, because they themselves are to blame. The Ikeja cantonment and its ammunition dump were built decades ago, before it became a thriving, overcrowded suburb of Lagos. Reuters, The Observer |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
