 |
|
Afghans defy threats to vote in historic poll
Bush, Kerry lock horns over Iraq issue
Bigley’s kidnap: UK
ministers braced for backlash Two Chinese
abducted in Pakistan |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Afghans defy threats to vote in historic poll
Kabul, October 9 The vote is a milestone in Afghanistan's road to recovery after more than two decades of drought and war capped by five years of harsh rule by the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist militia, which gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network. Interim President Hamid Karzai cast his vote under tight security in the capital, saying the country would be the ultimate winner. "For the first time we are electing our president so it is not important who wins," said Mr Karzai. "What is important is that Afghanistan is deciding its fate. If I win or someone else, the main winner will be the Afghan nation and we will accept it." The US-backed Karzai is running against 17 other candidates, but is widely tipped to win. His chief rival is his former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni, the favourite of the powerful anti-Taliban ethnic Tajik clique of commanders. An early hitch in which it appeared that the system used to prevent multiple voting was faulty was later declared solved by officials. In some polling stations in Kabul, the ink used to mark voters' fingers could be easily erased, but officials said inexperienced electoral workers had simply used the wrong pens. Queues formed early at polling stations nationwide as voters expressed delight at being allowed to choose their own leader and said they wanted to put the rule of the gun behind them. The first vote was cast by a 19-year-old woman, a refugee in Pakistan, where polling in the world's largest-ever refugee vote began half an hour ahead of Afghanistan because of the time difference. Meanwhile, a policeman was injured when grenades were thrown at a polling station for Afghan refugees near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the police said No one claim responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban and allied militant groups had distributed leafflets in warning Afghans against voting . Around 1,00,000 armed security personnel, including 27,000 foreign troops from a US-led coalition and NATO, have been deployed to protect the more than 10 million registered voters.
— AFP/Reuters |
|
Bush, Kerry lock horns over Iraq issue President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry on Friday night locked horns over Iraq with Mr Bush calling Saddam Hussein a “unique threat,” and Mr Kerry accusing the President of having “rushed to war.” Freed from the fetters of the lectern and in the more intimate atmosphere of a town-hall format meeting, the second presidential debate was anything but intimate as both candidates paced the floor and traded vicious barbs. Mr Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq even though a report by US weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer revealed earlier this week that Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction - Mr Bush’s key premise for the invasion. “I wasn’t happy when we found out there wasn’t weapons, and we’ve got an intelligence group together to figure out why,” Mr Bush said. “But Saddam Hussein was a unique threat, and the world is better off without him in power. And my opponent’s plans lead me to conclude that Saddam Hussein would still be in power, and the world would be more dangerous (if Mr Kerry had been President).” Mr Kerry said the President’s reckless war had made America more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. “The world is more dangerous today because the President didn’t make the right judgments,” the Massachusetts Senator said. “So what does he do? He’s trying to attack me. He wants you to believe that I can’t be President,” he added. “If we’d used smart diplomacy, we could have saved $200 billion and an invasion of Iraq, and right now Osama bin Laden might be in jail or dead. That’s the war on terror,” Mr Kerry said. “This President rushed to war, pushed our allies aside, and Iran now is more dangerous, and so is North Korea, with nuclear weapons,” he said. “He took his eye off the ball, off Osama bin Laden.” But Mr Bush said his opponent was mistaken in thinking that bin Laden represented the only terrorist threat. In the latter part of the debate, the two aired their differences over the handling of domestic issues, including stem-cell research, medicare, foreign drugs and tax cuts. |
|
Bigley’s kidnap: UK
ministers braced for backlash
THE fate of Mr Ken Bigley has hung over Mr Blair's government for three weeks, a poignant symbol of the terrible forces unleashed in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was toppled. The confirmation last night that the 62-year-old engineer had been killed will pile fresh political pressure on the Downing Street, intensifying the bitter criticism it faces over the turmoil in Iraq. Mr Peter Kilfoyle, former Defence Minister who is the Bigley family's MP, said, "This is the human face of the tragedy that is Iraq writ large." The government is confident that it will avoid a public backlash over the Bigley murder and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke last night of the diplomatic efforts to secure his release, including a contact with his captors just four days ago. He said, "I don't believe there was, or could have been, anything further we could have done." Ministers had returned from their summer break desperate to switch the political focus from the chaos in Iraq to domestic issues. Their hopes were shattered on September 16, when Mr Bigley and the Americans, Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, were snatched from their Baghdad homes by the Tawhid and Jihad group. The Americans were beheaded within days. In Mr Bigley's case, the government's public line was that they would not negotiate with terrorists, saying that would only encourage them to kidnap more innocents. The Foreign Office said it was doing all it could in Iraq to discover Mr Bigley's whereabouts and the intentions of his captors. Ministers soon suspected his ordeal was being manipulated in an effort to dominate British headlines and turn public opinion against the government. Some were resigned to the grim prospect of his murder before or even during the Prime Minister's address to the Labour Party conference. Mr Bigley's plight dominated proceedings in Brighton. Apparently stung by the accusations of inactivity, the Prime Minister urged Mr Bigley's captors to get in touch with the government. Although he said he would not negotiate, he added, "They've made no attempt to have any contact with us. Of course, if they did make contact, it would be something we would immediately respond to." As the crisis continued, with published images of Mr Ken Bigley chained, caged and begging for his life, Mr Straw and Mr Blair met his family. By arrangement with The Independent, London |
|
Two Chinese
abducted in Pakistan
Islamabad, October 9 Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the engineers, who had been working on the Gomal Zam Dam project close to the South Waziristan tribal region, were taken along with two Pakistani security personnel. The men left for work early in the morning and their abandoned vehicle was found in Tormandi, in South Waziristan, the scene of fierce battles since March between Al-Qaida-linked foreign militants and security forces in which hundreds of persons had died, a provincial government official said. He said one police officer was missing. Mehmood Shah, security chief of the tribal belt, said the local authorities were trying to establish contact with the “tribal kidnappers”. An official at the Chinese consulate in Karachi identified the men as Wang Ende and Wang Teng, who worked for China’s state-run Sino Hydro Corp, but declined to give more details. BEIJING: China urged Pakistan today to do all it could to rescue its engineers and called for Islamabad to beef up security for their co-workers in the country.
— Reuters |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
