 |
|
Anti-Pervez stir intensified American feared dead
in attack at hotel |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Amnesty to 50,000 Tigers include Indian Tamils
in peace deal Tamil Tiger rebels have for the first time included Tamils of the recent Indian origin in their comprehensive power-sharing plan aimed at ending three decades of ethnic bloodshed. Window on Pakistan
|
|
Anti-Pervez stir intensified Islamabad, October 26 Kick-starting the campaign, the 15-party Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD), which has spearheaded agitations against General Musharraf during the past three years, held its first mass rally to galvanise public opinion against the General, military and the judges of superior courts. “Judges who had legitimised the military coup and allowed changes in the constitution would be tried along with army generals under Article 6 of the constitution when we take over power”, the senior PPP leader and Chairman of the ARD, Mr Makhdoom Amin Fahim said. The ARD comprised of mainstream and moderate political parties, which included the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), headed by exiled former Prime Ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz
Sharif. Holding the judges of superior courts equally responsible for the successive military takeovers in the country, Mr Fahim said, “After every military coup, the judges had legalised it under the doctrine of necessity which caused a great damage to the democracy”. Accusing the President of compromising Pakistan’s traditional stand on many vital issues under American pressure, PML-N leader Javed Hashmi said General Musharraf and other Generals had converted Pakistan into “satellite state of USA”. He said in contrast to the way General Musharraf “buckled on many issues after phone calls from President George W. Bush, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stood up to sustained pressure mounted by former US President Bill Clinton to prevent Pakistan from going nuclear”. “Mr Clinton had telephoned Mr Sharif many times in 1998 and asked him not to carry out nuclear tests, but the former Prime Minister refused to succumb to the US pressure”, he said.
— PTI |
|
American feared dead
in attack at hotel Baghdad, October 26 “There may be on American dead”, Mr Wolfowitz said after making a short statement, adding that there had been “several injured”, but he said the report had not been confirmed. An official of the US-led coalition said earlier that six or eight heavy rockets hit the landmark Rashid hotel in Baghdad, home to US government personnel. The hotel is in an area sealed off with heavy security inside the main centre of operation of the US-led coalition ruling Iraq.
— AFP |
|
|
Kathmandu, October 26 The rebels launched an attack on the police station at Sunaulbazaar village, 200 km southwest of Kathmandu in the morning. The police retaliated, leading to an exchange of fire that lasted for about half an hour. The Maoists then set off a bomb before fleeing. Two civilians were also shot dead by the rebels during the fighting. The Maoist violence is yet to scale down despite top Maoist leader Prachanda’s announcement last week that they would not target civilians, infrastructure and low ranking police officials. In a separate incident, Maoists killed a worker of Nepal Communist Party-UML in Dhading district after abducting him. CPN-UML acting general secretary Amrit Kumar Bohara in a statement condemned the killing, saying the continued killing of individuals by the rebels despite their announcement not to target civilians and infrastructure has raised doubts about their sincerity.
— PTI |
|
Quakes kill
9 in China Beijing, October 26 The twin earthquakes, measuring 6.1 and 5.8 on the Richter Scale, jolted areas between Minle and Shandan counties of Zhangye city in Gansu at 2041 hours (6.11 pm IST) and 2048 hours (6.18 pm IST) yesterday. The condition of six of the 43 injured was serious, the State Seismological Bureau said. The two quake-hit counties are both located on an earthquake-prone belt in northwest China and the epicentres were about 500 km northwest of
Lanzhou, capital of Gansu. The quakes toppled 10,893 houses and killed or wounded over 3,000 head of livestock, Xinhua news agency reported. By Sunday noon, 170 aftershocks measuring above 0.5 on the Richter Scale had been felt.
— PTI |
|
Amnesty to 50,000 asylum-seekers London, October 26 David
Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said legislation would be introduced later this year giving ministers the power to stop benefit payments to failed asylum-seekers who refused to leave Britain voluntarily on a free flight home. Those with families could have their children taken into care. Officials said the new measures, due to form part of an asylum Bill this autumn, were needed to increase the take-up of the voluntary repatriation scheme. Blunkett said the amnesty was a “one-off exercise” applying to families with children who sought asylum in the UK before October 2000. Officials estimate that granting the 12,000 families who applied for asylum before that date leave to stay in Britain would save at least £ 180 million in support costs. Oliver
Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, welcomed the crackdown on failed asylum-seekers. However, he warned that “it cannot be right, while the system still remains in total chaos, to send out a signal that people who have failed to establish a claim will be allowed to remain indefinitely. “This decision will make Britain a magnet for asylum-seekers who now know that even if their cases are rejected they could be allowed to stay. The British people will be appalled at this latest sign of the government’s abject failure to sort out the chaos in the asylum system.”
— PTI |
|
|
Tigers include
Indian Tamils in peace deal Colombo, October 26 The LTTE envisaged representation from Tamils of recent Indian origin in an interim administrative council they want to run for six years before re-writing the country’s constitution. The ‘Sunday Leader’ newspaper quoted a rebel draft in limited circulation as saying that the Tigers wanted an interim council of 100 members nominated 50 each from the northern province and eastern province. The LTTE also want 25 per cent of the seats in the council preserved for women and ethnic ratio of the northern and eastern regions as of 1981 reflected in the governing body.
— PTI |
|
Window on Pakistan The Indian initiative to normalise relations with Pakistan is the current subject of vigorous debate in the Pakistani media. Kashmir-first syndrome is clearly giving place to serious efforts at initiating peace moves and progress. It is true that not every newspaper or columnist is saying it. But this is the dominant strain. As a perceptive columnist, Ayaz Amir pleaded in the ‘Dawn’ to end what he calls the babu curtain between the two neighbours that would have been at peace for long time. “Look at our investment in hatred. Our two militaries are amongst the worlds biggest. Huge defence establishments now capped with the dubious glory of nuclear weapons. By all means, let us keep our nuclear arsenals. The old justifications for going nuclear stand immeasurably reinforced by America’s neo-con doctrine of pre-emptive war and America’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.” But India and Pakistan need to have peace. This is a simple truth but difficult to realise. Amir’s argument is: “ India will be thwarted in its ambition to achieve great power status as long as its relations with Pakistan are fraught. Pakistan cannot liberate itself from external bondage, from the necessity of seeking unfavourable alliances with the United States, as long as it considers India to be its principal contradiction. There was bitterness and hostility between the Hindu and Muslim communities before 1947. But the Partition should have taken care of that. India is India and we are we. Do we want to plant the banner of Islam on the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort? Does India want to undo Pakistan? The answer is no on both counts. Then why the distrust? Ah, but there’s Kashmir. So there is but what of it? We have our position and India has hers. And while we believe our position to be just and India’s wrong, three and a half wars, Kargil being the half-volley, should teach both our countries the lesson that there is no military solution to this dispute. If recourse to arms could have settled the matter, Kashmir’s fate would have been decided long ago.” The ‘Dawn’ itself added its own strong voice. “Basically, anything that chips away at the wall of distrust created during half a century of animosity should be greeted without too much cavil. Small steps can lead to major breakthroughs, and India is right, both as the bigger country and as one that had unilaterally frozen whatever few contacts existed, to take the initiative in moving forward.” The ‘Daily Times’, while supporting the plan was however, sceptical. “Both countries should concede that the issue today is about normalisation and adding layers to a relationship, not about conceding on a core dispute for Pakistan or core concern for India. There is every reason for Pakistan and India to normalise and move the conflict away from its current zero-sum mode. India needs to agree to a dialogue with Pakistan if it wants the world to believe it is sincere about peace in the region.” But not everyone shares this conception. News International like Urdu dailies ‘Jang’ and ‘Khabrain’ struck to often-stated positions. “A careful scrutiny, therefore, suggests that apart from resuming links in certain specific fields, the confidence building measures really do not offer much to suggest a dramatic move to break the impasse between the two states. The hard nut that needed to be cracked was Kashmir, which ironically finds no mention in the newest offer, except for a passing reference designed to place the odium for whatever is happening in the occupied territory on Pakistan.” Some found “still a wide gap between Islamabad’s interest in a dialogue to resolve all issues including that of Kashmir, and Delhi’s stand that the dialogue can only be held when relations are normalised, which can be translated to mean that Pakistan must “end” violence in held Kashmir.” ‘Nation’, another daily, regretted the “missing reference to a dialogue to resolve the core issue of Kashmir which, being the mother of all disputes between the
neighbours, has to be resolved before any improvement is possible in their relations.” Clearly while the response remains divided, the voice for sanity and good relations is finding more support. |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Video
