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Friday,
December 20, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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7 indicted
in USA for terror links Another
Pak doc held for Taliban links UK Indians
keen to buy Jinnah’s house Reproductive
health: USA draws flak
Man gets life term for
blasphemy |
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7 indicted in USA for terror links Washington, December 19 A grand jury, in an indictment in Dallas, Texas, charged five brothers with money laundering and shipment of computers and computer parts to Syria and Libya, termed by the USA as terrorist states, Attorney-General John Ashcroft told a press conference here yesterday. Four brothers were arrested in Texas by anti-terrorism agents while the fifth was already in custody, he said. Senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and his wife Nadia Elashi, a cousin of the five brothers, were also indicted, Ashcroft said. In a stern warning to terrorism financiers, he said, “Just as we are hunting down the murderers you support, we will hunt you down....We will pursue the financiers of terror as aggressively as we pursue the thugs who do their dirty work.” He said some of the indictments carried a jail term of several years, if convicted, and fines up to $ 7.2 million. Twentythree convictions of terrorists had been secured so far in 22 states and the Treasury had frozen $ 112 million in terrorist-related funds, he added. Meanwhile, seven persons were arrested during raids in several businesses and homes in the Dearborn area of Michigan by US Customs Service. They were allegedly involved in illegal money transfers to the tune of $ 50 million a year to Yemen, officials said.
PTI |
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Another
Pak doc held for Taliban links Lahore, December 19 Dr Javed Ahmad was arrested at his home, a senior Interior Ministry official in Islamabad said on the condition of anonymity. Security agents and FBI officials searched the house for at least two hours. Ahmad is the second Pakistani doctor to be arrested for alleged links with Taliban and Al-Qaida fugitives. On October 21, the authorities arrested Dr Amer Aziz, a British-trained orthopaedic surgeon, and held him incommunicado for a month. After he was released, Aziz admitted in an interview that he had treated Osama bin Laden and had seen the Al-Qaida leader after the September 11, attacks. US troops have been combing Afghanistan for any trace of Osama bin Laden and ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. Ahmad is a relative of Hafiz Suleman Butt, a legislator and member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the oldest and most organised pro-Taliban Islamic party in Pakistan. Ahmad’s family acknowledged that he had been to Afghanistan to treat Islamic fighters, but denied he had any links with the Taliban or the Al-Qaida.
AP |
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UK Indians keen to buy Jinnah’s house Islamabad, December 19 Jinnah’s former residence near a royal palace in London has been put up for sale, but the Government of Pakistan has expressed its inability to buy it while the Indians are keen to acquire it, the London-based property dealer Khalid Hasan said. “We will give preference to the Government of Pakistan or a Pakistani for the deal, which may be as cheap as £ 1.5 million,” he was quoted as saying by the Pakistani daily ‘The News’ today. He said the seller had approached the Pakistan Government to buy the house, in which Jinnah lived between February 1893 and July 1896, before he moved to India. He said the house at 35, Russell Road, Kensington, London, owned by an American of Pakistan origin, was located close to, Kensington Palace, which had prompted the Indians to evince keen interest. “It is a setback that neither the Pakistan Government, nor the Pakistani community, has come forward to purchase the property. Therefore, the owner has put the monument for sale in the open market and is in the process of negotiating with a party, which is a property developer and a non-Pakistani,” he said.
PTI |
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Reproductive
health: USA draws flak THE Bush administration has come under attack from family planning organisations in the USA for trying to water down a 10-year-old international agreement on reproductive health and rights at the just-ended UN fifth Asia-Pacific Population Conference in Bangkok. The USA lost two different votes — 31 to 1 and 32 to 1 — while trying to remove the terms of “reproductive health services” and “unsafe abortion” from the plan of action of the conference. “The Bush Administration has proven that it is out of touch with the USA, the rest of the world, as well as family planning,” Mr Peter H. Kostmayer, president of the Population Connection, said in a statement. “The administration is continuing to turn its back on women everywhere in order to curry favour with its right-wing supporters,” he added. Mr Kostmayer, a former seven-term member of the US House of Representatives, said the Bush Administration “must be held accountable for trying to undo a decade of work on reproductive health and family planning agreements this country has always supported...The administration’s policies have been completely rejected by the world community.” Ms Gloria Feldt, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, was equally harsh in criticising the US stand at the Bangkok conference. “Nation after nation told the administration that their anti-choice, anti-woman, anti-health agenda is not only a bad policy, it is out of step with the rest of the world.” According to US Newswire, Asian nations at the conference gave the Bush Administration a resounding “no” to the US proposal to water down sex education, promote abstinence and fidelity as the centrepiece of HIV/AIDS prevention, efforts to prevent unsafe abortion and its consequences. In the end, they resisted US threats and intimidation to approve a consensus document that confirms the 1994 agreement made at the international conference on population and development and goes even further in calling on nations to address the sexual and reproductive health and rights of their citizens, particularly adolescents and women. Ms Feldt noted that Asian nations stood firm against “a radical and anti-family-planning agenda.” |
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Sikh hotelier to give langar on Christmas Washington, December 19 Also, Christmas is not part of Kewal Singh Johal’s religious tradition. The owner of the Grand Taj plans to serve Christmas dinner to thousands as part of his Sikh faith. The free meal will be given from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Grand Taj located in the Red Barn complex next to an Exxon station near Frontier Village in the Lake Stevens area. It’s not an unusual impulse for Johal and his wife, Jasbir Kaur Johal, a Herlad Net column said. “It’s the theme of our religion, to help each other,” the column quoted Johal as saying. “we’re all human, we’re all equal. We should love each other, and we should help each other.” The Johals and other members of the Sikh community have collected clothing to be given away at the dinner, according to Herald.
UNI |
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Man gets life term for blasphemy Multan, December 19 Ahsan Azamtullah, 45, was convicted of being a disciple of Sardar Ahmed, a self-proclaimed prophet who died in prison last year after a prolonged bout of mental illness, the officials said. Azamtullah was also fined Rs 1,00,000 in the verdict, handed down yesterday by a court in Faisalabad. Another man and woman were being sought to answer similar charges. In Islam, Prophet Mohammad has been declared the last messenger from God. Under the law in Pakistan, an Islamic nation, those claiming to be prophets are guilty of blasphemy, which carries the maximum death penalty.
Reuters |
JAMALI TO SEEK TRUST VOTE ON DEC 30 WARRANTS AGAINST MQM LEADERS EIGHT SUSPECTED MILITANTS HELD  |
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