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Tuesday,
August 19, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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US troops kill Reuters
cameraman Al-Qaida tape urges Iraqis to resist US
occupation Fremont, August 18 Despite high temperature, thousands thronged the streets of Fremont to watch Bollywood star Dharmendra lead a parade marking India’s 57th Independence Day. The parade yesterday, which included bands, dance troupes and floats depicting various Indian states, including Jammu and Kashmir, was part of the two-day India Festival which attracted about 50,000 visitors
55 militant training camps in India, Window on Pakistan |
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Pak to oppose Russia’s entry into OIC Talks over control of West Bank towns
fail 24 Chechen rebels killed Lift curbs on Libya, Annan asks Security Council Britons ‘not tortured’ in Saudi custody Mine blast claims 8 lives in China
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US troops kill Reuters cameraman Baghdad, August 18 Eyewitnesses said soldiers on an American tank shot at Mazen Dana (43) as he filmed outside Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad which had earlier come under a mortar attack. Dana’s last pictures show a US tank driving towards him outside the prison walls. Several shots ring out from the tank, and Dana’s camera falls to the ground. The US military acknowledged yesterday that its troops had “engaged” a Reuters cameraman, saying they had thought his camera was a rocket propelled grenade launcher. “Army soldiers engaged an individual they thought was aiming an RPG at them. It turned out to be a Reuters cameraman,” navy Captain Frank Thorp, a spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters in Washington. Journalists had gone to the prison after the US military said a mortar bomb attack there a day before had killed six Iraqis and wounded 59 others. Married with four young children, Dana was one of the company’s most experienced conflict journalists and had worked in Baghdad before, shortly after US troops entered the city. He was awarded an International Press Freedom Award in 2001 by the Committee to Protect Journalists for his work in Hebron where he was wounded and beaten many times. —
Reuters |
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Al-Qaida tape urges Iraqis to resist US
occupation
Dubai, August 18 “Mujahedeen in Iraq... the entire world watched the fall of the Iraqi regime. Today it is watching your resistance to the Americans, the British and their agents,” said the recording yesterday attributed to Abu Abdel Rahman al-Najdi, who claims to be Al-Qaida’s spokesman in Afghanistan. “Before their war in Iraq, the Americans scorned the United Nations and violated all international laws, moral and humanitarian principles,” said the recording, dated August 10. “The Americans continue to plead with the United Nations for it to supply international troops (in Iraq),” continued the poor-quality, scarcely audible tape recording. It called on the Iraqi population to “pursue their resistance”, taking example from Al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan whom it claimed had “killed some 1,200 men in their guerrilla campaign against the USA and allied soldiers. The voice finally claimed that both the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were in good health. Al-Najdi, who is believed to be in hiding in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, is wanted by the FBI. Meanwhile, the Al-Arabiya news channel said yesterday that it had received a letter purportedly from Iraq’s former number two Ezzat Ibrahim promising to avenge the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s slain sons. If authentic, it would be the first message from Ibrahim, who had also been vice-president of the once-powerful Revolution Command Council, since the fall of the former regime on April 9. —
AFP |
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Dharmendra leads
I-Day parade
Fremont, August 18 The parade yesterday, which included bands, dance troupes and floats depicting various Indian states, including Jammu and Kashmir, was part of the two-day India Festival which attracted about 50,000 visitors. Three Indian-American organisations, which who have in the past hosted separate festivals, came together this year to hold one big event that reached out to a broader Indian community and garnered support from Indo-Americans all over the San Francisco and Bay Area, said Yogi Chugh, spokesman for the Federation of Indian American Association (FIAA). “The festival has been growing and this year has been very successful,” said Romesh Japra, a cardiologist who started the original festival in Fremont 11 years ago. India Festival, which attracted 5,000 persons in its first year, has grown from strength to strength to emerge as one of the largest display of Indian culture in the country. This year, the event included a two-day mela, showcasing Indian dance and music, cuisine, handicrafts and garments. While the aroma of Indian food, the sights of mehndiwalis and the sounds of dholki briefly transported Indians back home, it provided the American community an opportunity to take part in the Indian cultural experience. The event also included a health fair, offering an opportunity for the attendees to seek medical advice from numerous Indian-American physicians. —
PTI |
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55 militant training camps in India, alleges Pak Islamabad, August 18 “We believe that there are several terrorist-training camps in India across the LoC and Pakistan-India Border,” Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told reporters at the weekly briefing. Mr Khan said, according to Pakistan’s estimates there were more than 55 camps currently being run to target Pakistan and to fuel sectarian differences in the country. “This is not a secret. The Indians know about it and we know about it,” he said, adding that “this apparatus, infrastructure of terrorist training camps must be dismantled by India if it is serious in its pursuit of peace in South Asia.” Islamabad’s accusation came a day after it charged India with amassing troops in the Dras-Kargil sector for military action against Pakistan, a charge denied by New Delhi. It also appeared to counter India’s assertion that Pakistan continued to aid and abet cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The spokesman chose to skirt a question as to why Pakistan had not taken up the issue with India during the Agra Summit in July 2001. The spokesman, however, said there was no evidence yet to suggest that yesterday’s bomb blast on rail tracks at Nawabshah in Pakistan was instigated by New Delhi. Mr Masood Khan also held India responsible for missing a “historic opportunity” to restore peace in the region by rejecting President Pervez Musharraf’s “constructive proposal” to agree to a cease-fire on the LoC. He said the proposal should have been given due consideration as “it had all the weight, elements and ingredients for breakthrough between the two countries”. —
PTI |
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Window on Pakistan Three days before Pakistan came into being, on August 11, 1947, 56 years ago, the founder of the state, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, addressed the members of the constituent assembly and firmly told them that religion was a matter between a man and his God and was ‘not of the state’. In other words keep religion out of the affairs of governance. Shortly before he died Jinnah had predicted that each successive government of the new nation would prove to be worse than its predecessor. History has shown how right he was. Jinnah had closely watched his intransigent colleagues and the mullahs. He knew how power hungry theologians would use his two-nation theory. In fact, they tried hard to stop this portion of his address to be available to the press and cleverly offered a watered down version. Tragically Pakistan has lived only to prove its founder right. The military and the mullahs have ruled the roost, created civil strife and ethnic divisions and aided and abetted separatist movements in the neighbourhood. In the process, peasants and workers have remained on the margin, mired in poverty and ignorance and fed constantly on save Islam, save Pakistan, slogans. But strange as it may seem, Dawn feels confident that the nightmare is going to be over. “On its 56th independence anniversary, Pakistan seems no closer to finding an answer to the constitutional and political problems that have plagued it almost since its inception. Who rules Pakistan, the military or the people? In fact, these five decades have seen Pakistan move perilously between a theocratic and a democratic state.” Pakistani people have been seeking some answer to this predicament. But there has been no satisfactory answer as yet. Sometime, as people enthusiastically elected Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or later his daughter, Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan looked to be an Asian brand of democracy-people have at least one chance in five years to elect a government, which invariably forgets the electorate. There is no participation later. But it is better than to be ruled by a feudal military-bureaucratic conglomerate. Constitutional processes have remained paralysed for long periods; nascent democratic institutions have been stunted, giving birth to an aberrant political culture. In fact, the will of the sovereign, the dictator in khaki had been the written and unwritten law on which the courts have placed their stamps without any demurring. There is indeed an interesting experiment going on. Pakistan has a military guided democracy and on all crucial issues, the courts have placed their stamps and the elected representatives work under the strict watch and guidance of the military. The parliament is there, so long the generals allow it and not a day more. The same is the case with courts and other institutions of the civil society. One strange thing happening is that this time the media is comparatively free, though a good number of journalists have been punished or forced to leave the country. Gen Pervez Musharraf has replaced the 1973 constitution with his Legal Framework Order. Political parties stand marginalised and negotiations with other groups are being pushed to the sidelines. There is a political charade going on as farmers are divested from their lands like in Okara and elsewhere. The generals are grabbing these lands. The generals have been guilty of repeatedly blocking the political process; the politicians have been guilty of treating their own electorates with contempt and of flagrant abuse of office. These are not just those 40 per cent of the poor that suffer. The World Health Organisation’s figures for the number of disabled in Pakistan are staggering: 4.2 million physically disabled, mainly because of polio; 2.8 million mentally retarded and 4.2 million are deaf. Over 40 per cent of this total of 11.2 million disabled people is made up of children, most of whom have no educational opportunities at all. And, the state has forgotten them completely. |
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Pak to oppose Russia’s entry into OIC Islamabad, August 18 Responding to a report in a section of the Pakistani media that Russia had expressed its desire to join the 57-nation conference and that President Vladimir Putin had made a formal request in this regard to Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahatir Mohammad, the official said yesterday — “giving Russia IOC membership would set a wrong precedent.” Responding to the Russian plea that it had a sizeable number of Muslim population, he said: “in every country there is a certain percentage of Muslim population and if the OIC starts granting membership on this basis then tomorrow Israel, having a 1.5 million Muslim population, will also claim membership of the OIC.” “After all, a certain criterion has to be observed, it’s like Pakistan seeking the membership of the Organisation of American States or of the European Union on the pretext of the Muslim population there,” he added. —
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Talks over control of West Bank towns fail Jerusalem, August 18 “The meeting between the two sides ended without agreeing on a timetable for the withdrawal from Palestinian cities because the Israeli side insisted on keeping the military roadblocks”, Palestinian authority sources said after the talks last night. Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Authority Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan had agreed in principle to the transfer of security control of these cities to Palestinian Authority in their meeting last week. Israel said it was prepared to hand over security control of the West Bank cities of Jericho and Qalqilyh as early as this week, and Tulkarm and Ramallah, in the last week of August, the ‘Jerusalem Post’ said in a report. West Bank cities of Jericho and Tulkarm would not be transferred to Palestinian security control until a mechanism for the supervision of the activities of militants and fugitives wanted by Israel could be agreed upon by both sides, the newspaper quoted senior Israeli officials as saying. Israel wants a firm guarantee from Dahlan that the Palestinian fugitives wanted by Israel for their involvement in terrorism, will not revert back to terrorist activities once the Israel stops hunting them in the cities being handed over to the Palestinian Authority, it said. —
PTI |
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24 Chechen rebels killed Moscow, August 18 Rebel groups were continuing to lay landmines and set ambushes on routes of troops, and attacking checkpoints, command posts, loyalist officers and police stations, the Itar-Tass news agency quoted an army spokesman as saying today. The rebels were also trying to recruit suicide bombers for terrorist acts, the spokesman said. During the operations, 12 federal troops were killed and 23 wounded, he added. The spokesman pointed out that reports, based on interrogation of captured rebels and operational information, had suggested that serious differences and discontent with top Chechen leaders had arisen in the rebel rank and file. —
UNI |
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Lift curbs on Libya, Annan asks Security Council United Nations, August 18 “I think we will need to move ahead and resolve the Libyan issue,” Mr Annan said when asked to comment on the matter at a press conference in Helsinki. Sanctions were suspended on April 5, 1999, after Libya turned over two suspects, Abdelbasset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifa Fhimah, to a Scottish court in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi was later found guilty, while Fhimah was acquitted of the charges. Since the suspension, Mr Annan said, “for all practical purposes the sanctions have not really been effective and so the formal lifting, I think, is something that the Council should do and I expect it to do.” —
PTI |
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Britons ‘not tortured’ in Saudi custody London, August 18 The allegations of torture came after the five Britons and a Canadian with double nationality were released and returned home after having been convicted of organising bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia. —
AFP |
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Mine blast claims 8 lives in China Beijing, August 18 Rescue operations were reportedly hindered by a high concentration of gas in the tunnels, with the fatalities recovered seven hours after the explosion. —
DPA |
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Baghdad, August 18
Jerusalem, August 18
