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Sonia for transparent fight
Lone for debate on Musharraf’s formula
FBI keeping tabs on Pakistanis
Pak a key ally in war on terrorism: Rocca
Pak heat tells upon Yasin Malik
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Three Indians shot in Durban
Indian boy drowned in Malaysia
Suicide bomber kills 23 Iraqi troops
Osama in good health: Taliban
Fans lose faith in Jackson
Pak Air Force to have women pilots
Bizarre interview
One in four bosses spends sleepless nights!
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Sonia for transparent fight against terror
St Petersburg, June 15 During the meeting at Putin’s seaside summer residence at the Konstantiovsky Palace which continued over lunch, Gandhi paid tributes to the victims of the Beslan school carnage in Russia in which over 300 people were killed last year. She said women and children are mostly the victims of terrorism and recalled that the day she arrived in Russia, there was a blast in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir in which children had again suffered in the terrorist act. Gandhi said India and Russia were partners in combating terrorism and added that any fight against the menace should be transparent and no double standards should be applied. Gandhi was accompanied by External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal during the talks. Putin expressed satisfaction at the ongoing cooperation between India and Russia in all spheres of human activities, including defence. Bilateral ties were “developing in the best possible way”, he was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. Gandhi noted that the proposal to set up a study group to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries was made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his talks with Putin on May 9 in Moscow. She said India and Russia had vast potential of cooperation in the fields of biotechnology, Information Technology and energy. Putin proposed to hold a ‘Year of Russia’ in India in 2008 and ‘Year of India’ in Russia in 2009 to enhance
people-to-people contacts and cultural interaction between the two countries. Welcoming Putin’s proposal, Gandhi said she would also involve herself in organising those cultural events which will certainly strengthen people-to-people contacts between the two countries. Kremlin Foreign Policy Advisor Sergei Prikhodko was also present during the talks. |
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Lone for debate on Musharraf’s formula
Islamabad, June 15 Musharraf, currently on a visit to Australia, was quoted by the local media as saying in Canberra that “autonomous Kashmir” was his “earnest desire” if some consensus could be developed on it. He also said that complete independence for Kashmir will not be acceptable to both India and Pakistan. “President Musharraf has his own point of view. If there is a consensus decision, we will go ahead with it. What is the problem with it. The suffering of Kashmiri people has to end. Lot of blood has been shed. “Violence should take back seat now. Let us give this peace process a chance,” Bilal Lone, one of the Hurriyat leaders currently touring Pakistan as part of a nine-member delegation of Kashmiri leaders told the Indian media here. Lone heading the People Conference party, one of the constituents of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq-led Hurriyat Conference, said several proposals, including of autonomous Kashmir were discussed during their last week’s meeting with Musharraf here. The separatist leaders would be winding up their fortnight-long visit to Pakistan tomorrow when they will leave for home by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus. “Anything that satisfies maximum political thoughts in Kashmir, we should not say no to it. We should just go behind it. Musharraf being the President and Chief of Army is in a commanding position. If we cannot solve it now it would be a tragedy for people of Kashmir and India,” Lone said. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik, an advocate of independence, however, declined to react to Musharraf’s comments. “Let us leave it aside. We had an excellent visit to Pakistan where we had the stamp of approval for inclusion of Kashmiris in the peace process”. Malik, who held talks with Musharraf
separately, claimed that the response he received during the visit to Pakistan was a “mandate” for involvement of Kashmiris in the peace process. He also said India and Pakistan should stop “favouritism” in Kashmir by backing different leaders. “I am representing Kashmiri people’s aspirations. Pakistan and India must stop favouritism on Kashmir. They must stop throwing up leaders,” said Malik, who in some sharply critical remarks had accused PoK leaders of “romanticising” militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. Lone rejected suggestions that his Hurriyat faction was emerging as favourite of the Pakistani establishment after this visit. However, he said if the Pakistan government recognised the Hurriyat’s “political character” that was good. “We are political outfit and we do not need any stamp of approval from any place. But if they recognise our political character that is good. There is no question of getting a stamp of approval. We take all decisions in Kashmir,” he said. He also lashed out at hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who has opposed the peace process and made attempts to project the faction led by Farooq as “gaddaar” (betrayers).
— PTI |
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FBI keeping tabs on Pakistanis
San Francisco, June 15 Basim
Elkarra, spokesperson of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), a leading civil rights group, said that the CAIR has received many reports that people were being harassed by the FBI. “Some people have been threatened of being deported. This is a concern to us, and we will lodge a complaint with the FBI,” he added. Meanwhile, attorney Saad Ahmad, the lawyer for the three Pakistani citizens being held on immigration complaints, criticised the FBI for suggesting that they are part of an investigation of the 22-year-old Pakistani American, Hamid
Hayat, suspected of being trained at an Al-Qaida camp in Pakistan. |
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Pak a key ally in war on terrorism: Rocca
Washington, June 15 “Over the past three years, Pakistan’s leaders have taken the steps necessary to make their country a key ally in the war on terrorism and to set it on the path to becoming a modern, prosperous democratic state,” Rocca told the International Relations Committee Subcommittee for Asia and the Pacific. “As a result of forward thinking and acting,” she said, “Pakistan is now headed in the right direction.” She said she expected Pakistan’s 2005 local and 2007 general election to be “free and fair throughout the entire process.” Pointing out that the Bush Administration had announced that “we intend to move forward with the sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan,” she said “The sale meets Pakistan’s legitimate defence needs, making Pakistan more secure without upsetting the current regional military balance. “As a result, it will be easier for Pakistan to take the steps necessary to build a lasting peace with all its neighbours.” On the whole, the Deputy Secretary of State sounded an optimistic note about South Asia,
especially in view of detente between Indian and Pakistan. “I feel confident in saying that much of South Asia is already fulfilling some of its great potential to be a source of stability, moderation and prosperity,” Rocca said summing up her assessment of
situation in the subcontinent. — PTI |
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Pak heat tells upon Yasin Malik
Islamabad, June 15 Dismissing reports in a local daily that he had suffered a stroke at a meeting yesterday, Malik (37) said today that he had fallen sick due to heat and exhaustion. “I feel a bit weak but I am fine,” he said, adding that he would be returning home tomorrow along with other visiting separatist leaders from the Kashmir valley by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus.
— PTI |
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Durban, June 15
The police said Cammile Gounder, who was eight months pregnant, her husband Johnson and a friend Jay Naidoo were in the house when two gunmen barged inside and fired indiscriminately last night.
The three died on the spot. The large Indian-origin community of Chatsworth has expressed outrage over the murders. “We are shocked at these murders”, said Moga Nadasen, a local resident. |
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Indian boy drowned in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, June 15 Kunal Jawan and his elder brother 19-year-old Buan decided to go swimming after their parents went for shopping in Penang. A couple of boys swimming with them soon noticed that the brothers were lying underwater at the deep-end of the pool. The siblings were taken out of the pool by the hotel staff but Kunal died. Buan was hospitalised and was in the ICU, the Star newspaper reported. The hotel did not have a lifeguard on duty at the pool and a sign had been put up by them to indicate this. Their father Surinder Kumar Jawan accompanied by his wife and children were in Malaysia on a holiday.
— PTI |
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Suicide bomber kills 23 Iraqi troops
Baquba, June 15 The mess hall was left in charred ruins after the blast in the town of
Khalis, 60 km north of Baghdad, the sources said. A first wave of ambulances brought at least four seriously wounded men to the main hospital in
Baquba, a Reuters correspondent at the hospital said. A uniformed former police commando killed on Saturday at least three men from his former unit.
— Reuters |
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Islamabad, June 15 The commander, Mullah Akhtar Usmani, also said Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was well and in direct command of Taliban forces in Afghanistan. ''All praise to Allah, he is all right,'' Usmani told Pakistan's GEO, a private television station, when asked about Bin Laden in an interview broadcast today. There has been speculation about the health of Bin Laden, the architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, who has been reported to be suffering from a kidney ailment. He declined to comment when asked about Laden's whereabouts. He said Taliban leader Omar was also well. ''He is still our commander and we are still getting instructions from him,'' he said of Omar. The Taliban were getting increasing support from the Afghan people because of US ''brutality against Muslims and their bias against Muslim countries'', he said.
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Fans lose faith in Jackson
Santa Maria (California), June 15 While fans burst into tears of joy, many average Americans reacted with disbelief that a man who admitted to regularly sharing his bed with young boys could have been found not guilty of child molestation. Talk radio programmes and internet chat boards were swamped by people denouncing the verdict and describing the superstar in vicious terms. Even one of the jurors admitted he thought Jackson “probably has molested boys,” though he said there was not sufficient evidence to convict him in the case in which he was charged. According to a Gallup poll taken in the hours following Jackson’s acquittal on all 10 charges, 48 per cent of Americans said they disagreed with the verdict, while only 34 per cent said they thought jurors had made the right decision. “Before the trial people were likely to believe he’s slept with and molested boys and that hasn’t changed,” said Martin Kaplan, Associate Dean at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. “He was widely regarded in the US as a circus sideshow before the trial and he remains that,” Kaplan told AFP. Jackson’s antics over the years have marked him as a “freak” in the public eye, Kaplan said, particularly after his strange physical transformation through plastic surgery, the time when he dangled his baby over a balcony in Berlin to show him off to fans below and the details of Jackson’s personal life that emerged during the trial.
— AFP |
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Deserter returns after 40 years
Washington, June 15 Charles Robert Jenkins (65), flew into the Washington DC area, from Japan, where he has lived since he left North Korea last year and served time at a US military jail on desertion charges. Jenkins made no comment as he walked with his Japanese wife and their two daughters through Washington Dulles International Airport. The family was expected to travel to Jenkins' native North Carolina, where he would reunite with his 91-year-old mother. ''He deserted his country and his post. He conspired with the enemy and that makes him a criminal,'' said Jane Reaves, of Weldon, North Carolina, where Jenkins' sister lives. Jenkins turned himself in to US authorities in Japan last September, and at a court martial he pleaded guilty to desertion and aiding the enemy. He was given a dishonorable discharge and sentenced to 30 days' confinement. He then settled with his family on Japan's remote Sado island. Jenkins was a 24-year-old sergeant stationed in South Korea when he abandoned his unit in January 1965 and fled to North Korea.
— Reuters |
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Pak Air Force to have women pilots
Islamabad, June 15 ‘’The air force has inducted these women pilots in the General-Duty (Pilot) branch on trial basis. They are at present undergoing flying training at the Pakistan air force academy,” a PAF official told UNI here. Women officers are already serving the air force in the engineering, logistics, accounting, administration and education branches. ‘’Hopefully, induction of women pilots will be an equally rewarding experience for the air force,’’ said the official. He said of the 10 women officers, five are flying Mushshak (Cessna) planes while five others are being trained to fly T-37 and Chinese origin K-8 jets on completion of their training on Mushshaks. The PAF recently began re-flying the US-origin T-37 trainer jets, after Washington lifted all military sanctions slapped on Pakistan before and after the nuclear tests in May 1998. These 10 women officers will be granted commission in the air force as fighter pilots in April next year on completion of their training. To a question, the official said the PAF would induct more women pilots only after assessing the flying performance of the first group.
— UNI |
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London, June 15 Saeed Akbar, 35, said at first that it was part of his “tough interviewing technique” but later admitted that he was bored and wanted a “cheap thrill”. He asked the woman, who was applying for a translator’s job, if she minded if they took their clothes off. When she refused, he left the room for a few minutes and returned naked, carrying only a clipboard. He got dressed again when she objected to his behaviour and tried to resume the interview. But the woman fled the offices of Alpha Translating and Interpreting Services in Glasgow and reported him to the police. Akbar, a father of one, escaped jail after the city’s sheriff court heard that the incident had a catastrophic effect on his life. Sheriff Brian Lockhart said Akbar had been sacked, his girlfriend had left him and his friends had deserted him. Akbar, of Dunfermline, Fife, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to breach of the peace and was put on probation for three years. He was also placed on the sex offenders register.
— PTI |
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One in four bosses spends sleepless nights!
London, June 15 According to a new study, business leaders suffer from a “wave of uncertainty”, keeping many of them awake with work worries at least one night a week. Job prospects and increasingly demanding performance targets are among the things that keep one in four executives awake, the research found. Most of the 200 businessmen and women surveyed by consultants Capgemini said lack of sleep had a serious impact on work, reports the Daily Mail. “In the existing long-hours, high-stress culture of British business, it’s clear that senior executives spend most of their time grappling with company politics, staffing issues and poor organisation, to the extent which they find themselves unable to operate effectively,” said Mr Ian Jordan, Head of Consulting Services at Capgemini. One in three executives said they would choose a different career if they were to start working afresh.
— ANI |
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