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Palestinian PM reaches Cabinet deal with Arafat
Afghan Governor’s house bombed Japanese Oppn concedes defeat
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MP criticises spying operation Sino-Indian joint naval exercise Sikh leader rubbishes testimony WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Nepal King pleads for peace
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Palestinian PM reaches Cabinet deal with Arafat Ramallah (West Bank), November 9 Qureia’s announcement caps weeks of political wrangling, including a standoff with veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over the control of security forces. Qureia gave in on most points in order to be able to go ahead with forming the government. Qureia and Arafat held a series of meetings in recent days, including one today. Emerging from Arafat’s compound today, Qureia said: “We have finished the composition of the Cabinet and we are going to present it to the Palestinian Legislature on Wednesday for a vote of confidence.” Meanwhile the deal was described as a “non-starter” towards reviving peacemaking, an Israeli government source said in Jerusalem. “This government... insures that the terror cartel of Arafat will continue to rule Palestinian life. That is a non-starter if you want to move on the road map,” a senior source in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said, referring to a US-backed peace plan. With Washington’s backing, Israel has tried to sideline Arafat, accusing him of fomenting violence in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising. He denies it. The road map, which envisages a peaceful Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005, call for reform of the Palestinian security forces and a crackdown on militant groups. “It (the new Palestinian government) will be judged by its performance with regard to the road map,” the source said. —
AP, Reuters |
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Afghan Governor’s house bombed Kandahar, November 9 Ten minutes later, a second bomb exploded in the provincial military headquarters in the city of Qalat, the capital of Zabul province, said the official, Maulvi Mohammed Umer. No one claimed responsibility for the explosions. But Umer blamed insurgents of the Taliban militia. “This attack was carried out by the Taliban. They have increased their activities in Zabul,” he said. On Friday, at least 50 suspected Taliban guerrillas attacked a government office in Zabul’s Khak-e-Afghan district. — AP |
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Japanese Oppn concedes defeat
Tokyo, November 9 However, the ruling coalition had to settle for a reduced majority as the main opposition party made hefty gains. The three-party coalition won 275 seats in parliament’s 480-seat Lower House, but Mr Koizumi’s party lost the simple majority it had held on its own. The LDP won only 237 against its previous 247, the Japanese media said. The main Democratic Party, a generally pro-reform group led by former grassroots activist Naoto Kan, took 177 seats, up from 137 but short of Mr Kan’s target of 200. Mr Kan conceded defeat, at least in terms of the bare numbers, but said he would keep working to take power.
— Reuters |
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MP criticises spying operation
London, November 9 The operation has raised concerns among MPs that MI5 may be running a team of “rogue” agents to carry out illegal bugging. According to The Sunday Times, under the cover of restoration work at the Pakistan High Commission here, MI5 agents stole secret codes used by diplomats for sending messages to Islamabad. They also worked out how to bug an internal telephone system and closed-circuit television camera in the office of then High Commissioner Abdul-Kader Jaffer. Mr Normal Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP said the operation had echoes of rogue MI5 missions in the 1960s. “Peter Wright described in his book, “Spy-Catcher,” how MI5 bugged and burgled its way across London,” he said. “It seems nothing has changed.” Mr Baker has asked Mr Blunkett to issue a statement. He has also asked Mr Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, how he intends to explain MI5’s actions to Islamabad. |
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Sino-Indian joint naval exercise Shanghai, November 9 “All arrangements for the search and rescue exercise are going on smoothly and the ships are due to arrive tomorrow,” an official source said here in the gleaming east Chinese city. The exercises, off the Shanghai coast on November 14, were aimed at ensuring the safety of maritime trade and improving coordination in search and rescue at sea. The joint maritime rescue operation is a cooperation between the two countries in non-traditional security field, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said, adding that China had conducted various forms of cooperation with many other countries in those fields, which are of significance to the development of bilateral relations. “The exercise will help establish more mutual trust and confidence between the two navies amid fast-paced changes in the international scenario,” an analyst said. He noted that the search and rescue drill assumed added significance as navigation in the South China sea and the neighbouring Malacca Straits had been plagued by sea piracy, a serious issue confronting commercial liners.
— PTI |
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Sikh leader rubbishes testimony Vancouver, November 9 Mr Dalijit Singh Sandhu, a member of the World Sikh Organisation and former president of Vancouver’s Ross Street Temple, said the allegations regarding his involvement in the Kanishka bombing in 1985 “is 120 per cent untrue.” While Mr Sandhu has never been charged, his name has surfaced several times since the trial of prime suspect Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri began last April. A key witness in the trail had testified that Mr Sandhu picked up the airline tickets which were booked over the phone by Malik, at the office of CP Air on June 19, 1985. She testified that though Malik provided money to him, Mr Sandhu had to change the tickets from return to one-way tickets as he didn’t have enough cash. “My name is unnecessarily dragged into this case when I have nothing to do with it,” Mr Sandhu was quoted as saying by the ‘The Vancouver Sun’. Meanwhile, Mr Sandhu’s appearance at a fund-raiser for Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal has “shocked” many people who attended the event on Wednesday, the daily said.
— PTI |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Contrary to the promise held by the military regime under Pervez Musharraf, more and more Pakistanis have become poor. The military dictator who dons the role of both army chief and president had declared in October 1999 that Pakistan would be soon free from poverty. But his government has debunked all studies on poverty. Writing in Dawn, Ihtashamul Haque said: “There was no data available beyond 2001 to gauge the level of poverty. The statistics division had stopped compiling poverty data after 2001 when it faced resistance from the higher officials. Officials admit that no survey has been conducted since then.” Instead of reducing poverty, the government has been busy in debunking and blocking all information on the poor. But donors like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank will not let that happen. “They have asked the government to arrest and reverse the rising poverty trends by allocating more resources and ensuring prudent spending both at the federal and provincial level,” Dawn wrote. Most newspapers have expressed concern at the rising level of poverty and the consequent results. Social tensions are on the rise and so the crime graph, including violence against the women and the poor. Terrorism too had been on the rise. In the absence of any survey, the government had grudgingly accepted the statistics endorsed by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics that places the level of poverty at 32.1 per cent, a rise from 20 per cent since 1990. This means out of 146 million people, nearly one third cannot have two square meals a day. The State Bank of Pakistan in its annual report for 2002-03 admits poverty in Pakistan has risen by 20 per cent to 33 per cent, but during the past 15 years. Economist Sultan Ahmed in Dawn wrote: “If an increasing number of people have been suffering the pangs of poverty for the last 15 years, that is all the more reasons to take urgent and effective steps to arrest and reverse that trend and avert the tragedies which follow”. The Bank admits the solution lies “in creating as many jobs as possible” and greater investment by the private sector. The Bank also wants increased government spending on human resources development and infrastructure. The Bank also says that unless encouraged by a robust increase in domestic private sector investment, foreign investment is unlikely to emerge. It also says that government policies — fiscal and monetary — should remain supportive, “but the institutional capacity and bureaucratic hassle forced on the private entrepreneurs should be addressed.” Ahmed also estimated that “there is a lot of money afloat in the country. The banks are flush with money with few productive and credible borrowers. Home remittances come around 3 billion dollars a year and the balance of payments is reporting a large surplus of 4.6 billion dollars.” So then why 49 million people live the lives of deprivation? And Ahmed asked a pertinent question.” Should the Pakistan government with its enhanced revenues of 16.2 per cent in the last financial year, the large external debt relief and the lowest interest rates in our history take to poverty reduction resolutely or give a higher priority to debt reduction?” But he tragically noted that the government has chosen to give a higher priority to scaling down the external debt instead of focusing on cutting down the high poverty rate in the country. Ahmed exposed the tragedy when he wrote: “The socially conscious people feel the sting of poverty acutely now as the country has been exposed to so many unemployment suicides and reports of young persons selling their kidneys for Rs 5,000 to feed them.” The Nation suggested: “Government is important and necessary but a government driven by clear incentives for modern and technocratic management of regulation and the law. Certainly this is a far cry from our current system where incumbents are seeking to maximise perks and power.” |
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Nepal King pleads for peace Kathmandu, November 9 “It is imperative that an environment of peace, security and good governance prevails,” the 56-year King said in a Constitution Day speech. About 900 people, most of them Maoist guerrillas fighting to replace the constitutional monarchy with a communist republic, have been killed in a surge of violence since the rebels abandoned peace talks in August. Main political parties want the King to fire the royalist government, revive Parliament he dissolved last year or name their nominee as Prime Minister. In his Constitution Day address, the King urged political parties to unite and work together “to relieve the country of the prevailing uneasy situation”. King Gyanendra came to the throne in 2001 after his brother King Birendra was killed in a palace massacre King Birendra ended absolute monarchy in 1990 after a series of street protests, paving the way for the introduction of parliamentary democracy.
— Reuters |
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