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Pervez says Pak will match India’s arms
spree Childhood playmates, now political foes Post-Saddam, kidnappers hit Basra streets
Prosecutor has misunderstood, says
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Indian American gets US medal Prince Charles denies sex
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Pervez says Pak will match India’s arms spree Seoul, November 7 General Musharraf, wrapping up a three-day state visit to South Korea, restated his earlier denials that Pakistan had traded its nuclear weapons expertise for North Korean missile technology. The communist North says it has atomic capability. The General told a press conference that peace with his giant neighbour India was maintained by keeping a balance of forces. “This balance of forces was tilted — and imbalance created — when India went for the nuclear and missile forces, and a similar imbalance is being created now through massive acquisition of arms by our adversary, India,” he said without elaborating. “We will respond to this imbalance, we will rectify this imbalance in the future through all means possible,” said the army general, who took power in a bloodless 1999 coup. General Musharraf said it was the threat from India that had driven Pakistan to conduct its first nuclear tests in 1998. He said Islamabad had never proliferated nuclear technology to Seoul’s communist neighbour, although it had bought North Korean missiles. He said reported visits to North Korea by nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered by many in Pakistan as the father of the country’s nuclear bomb, were connected to purchases of conventional short-range missiles. “We have purchased these missiles from North Korea. We have also had a transfer of technology of these missiles. We now manufacture ourselves these missiles in the same organisation that Dr A.Q. Khan headed,” he said. —
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Childhood playmates, now political foes Colombo, November 7 One became Sri Lanka’s President, the other its Prime Minister. Years later, their mutual hostility has led Sri Lanka to a political crisis that has endangered the country’s fragile peace process and sent the two leaders towards a political showdown. Neither bothers to hide distaste for the other. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe once referred to President Chandrika Kumaratunga as a “Hitler madam”. The latter said the Prime Minister was “without a backbone”. Mr Kumaratunga denounced her Prime Minister’s Cabinet as filled with “worms, snakes and pigs”. The two inhabit a world caught at the intersection of the personal, the political and the dynastic, magnified by a 20-year civil war that has savaged parts of this beautiful island-nation and left some 65,000 of its people dead. Their differences came to a head this week when Ms Kumaratunga fired three of Mr Wickremesinghe’s most powerful supporters from the Cabinet, suspended Parliament and declared a state of Emergency. All were done while Mr Wickremesinghe was in Washington to meet with US President George W. Bush. In a country where the constitution gives broad authority to both the President and the Prime Minister — but where they are currently from different parties — Mr Kumaratunga’s actions appeared aimed at weakening Mr Wickremesinghe and strengthening her own position. Throughout their political histories, the two have seldom been able to get along. Part of the hostility is dynastic. Their families, who come from the English-speaking Christian elite that emerged during the British colonial rule, have long dominated politics in Sri Lanka. They, subsequently, converted to Buddhism to gain political mileage. —
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Post-Saddam, kidnappers hit Basra streets Basra (Iraq), November 7 It happened so quickly, Musa didn’t have time to cry out as he became the latest victim of a kidnapping wave that is terrorising the southern Iraqi city of Basra. ‘’One minute he was talking and laughing, then he was gone,’’ said Salman Jasim, a guard who witnessed Wednesday’s abduction from his post at the schoolgate just 100 metres away. ‘’He comes from a good family, a wealthy family. That’s why they wanted him.’’ Abductions were unheard of under the rule of ousted President Saddam Hussein, but now it seems everyone in Basra has a kidnapping story — a neighbour, colleague or a friend of a friend snatched from the street and held for ransom. Residents blame the kidnappings on the Garamsha, a rural tribe which was pushed off its land by Saddam and now lives in squalid shanties on Basra’s northern edge, with crime their main means of support. They say British troops occupying Iraq’s second city have done little to stop the Garamsha’s criminal gangs which they also blame for a surge in drug trafficking and carjackings since Saddam’s fall in April. British forces, which have been spared the daily attacks which plague U.S. forces in central Iraq, say they are doing their best to combat organised crime in the city. But they say the fact that people are reluctant to report crimes has hampered their efforts. ‘’We can’t just storm in and arrest people on the basis of rumour. We need evidence, we need proof,’’ said British military spokesman Major Charlie Mayo. ‘’We need people to have the confidence to go to the Iraqi police with information. Without that we can’t do much about it.’’ Musa’s father, however, said he had gone to his local police station but had been told to come back the next day. ‘’The police, the British, no one can help me. The criminals know no one will touch them,’’ he said. ‘’I am afraid I will never see my son again.’’ —
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Prosecutor has misunderstood, says witness Vancouver, November 7 The prosecutor, Mr Joe Bellows, got the information wrong, including his false impression that she wrote about two confessions made by prime accused Ripudaman Singh Malik regarding his involvement in the Air- India bombing case, she told the court yesterday. The court earlier heard the woman wrote in her diary about her various conversations with Vancouver-based businessman Malik, with whom she had a relationship. She has also testified that Malik confessed to her twice. But yesterday, she said “I have never written about Air India” in the diary. “Mr. Bellows, most of the time you didn’t get it right,” said the woman, who can’t be named under court order. “He mispronounced Sikh names and mixed up Sikh institutions, she said. The woman is the star prosecution witness in bombing of Air-India— 182 which went down off the Irish coast on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 on board. The woman, who is in a Canadian witness protection programme for her safety, said she resents that she has not seen her older son for five years but Mr Bellows can see her whenever he likes. She also resents that she has to tell him things that she does not want to talk about, she said. She said she does not like prosecutor Bellows, who has questioned her extensively since 1999 and prepared her for testimony in court. Malik and another Ajaib Singh Bagri have been charged with murdering the 329 passengers killed in the Air-India crash and two killed in a bomb explosion in Japan 54 minutes earlier. —
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Indian American gets US medal Washington, November 7 Mr Gandhi, who works with Ford Motor Company here is responsible for the “platinum-free automotive catalyst” used in Ford cars and is considered a research pioneer in automotive and technology to improve environmental standards. —
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Prince Charles denies sex speculation London, November 7 A statement issued on his behalf said “In recent days, there have been media reports concerning an allegation that a former Royal household employee witnessed an incident some years ago involving a senior member of the Royal family. “The speculation needs to be brought to an end. The allegation was that The Prince of Wales (Prince Charles) was involved in the incident. “This allegation is untrue. The incident which the former employee claims to have witnessed did not take place. “There is a particular sadness about this allegation because it was made by a former Royal Household employee who, unfortunately, has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and has previously suffered from alcoholism following active service in the Falklands. The statement said the employee has made other unrelated allegations in the past, which were investigated by the police and found to be unsubstantiated. “The newspaper group that sought to publish this allegation knew this and has described the former employee as ‘hardly a reliable witness’. This was why the newspaper concerned agreed to the injunction on Saturday afternoon, “the statement said. “The Prince of Wales has always tried to avoid becoming involved in disputes with the media, which he appreciates fulfils an important role. It is important, however, to state clearly that the allegation is entirely untrue.” The statement was issued only hours after an injunction banning newspapers from naming the former royal servant was lifted by the High Court. Michael Fawcett, 40, a married father of two who resigned in March as the £ 100,000 personal consultant to the Prince, was named in the High Court as the former royal servant who had obtained the two gagging orders. The allegation surfaced last year when it emerged that Diana, Princess of Wales, had conducted a taped interview with a former royal servant alleged to have seen the incident. He was being treated at the Priority Clinic for drink and mental health related problems. —
PTI |
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