W O R L D

India, Pak should show courage, flexibility: Aziz
Islamabad, August 23
Asserting that India and Pakistan should show flexibility, courage and determination to resolve the Kashmir problem, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has nevertheless said that the progress in economic cooperation must move in tandem with improvement in settling political issues.

Pakistan wants pipeline work to begin
next year
Islamabad, August 23
Pakistan said on Monday it expected work on the $ 7.2 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline to start early next year while it was also pursuing plans for similar pipelines from Turkmenistan and Qatar.

Experts trace origin of Iran’s bomb-grade uranium to Pak
Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two year ago in Iran were not proof of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme but instead came from contaminated Pakistani equipment, according to a group of US Government experts and international scientists.

35 Indian workers stranded in Malaysia
Kaula Lumpur, August 23
Thirtyfive Indian workers have been stranded in Malaysia as agents who brought them by promising higher salaries have abandoned them. Malaysian Minister of Works S. Samy Vellu, who heads the Malaysia Indian Congress, told a group of visiting Indian journalists that the workers met him this morning and sought his help.

Malaysia plans to set up township in India
Kuala Lumpur, August 23
The Malaysian Government has proposed to increase collaboration with India in the field of power generation, property development and creation of new townships. Malaysian Minister of Works S. Samy Vellu told a delegation of visiting Indian journalists that his country had the expertise in property development and would like to collaborate with India in the field.

First Sikh in fray for councillor poll
Lahore, August 23
A Sikh has become the first from the tiny community in Pakistan to stand for councillor elections in a Lahore borough where the Sikh vote strength is a meagre eight.

India, Pak should show courage, flexibility: Aziz
K.J.M. Varma

Islamabad, August 23
Asserting that India and Pakistan should show flexibility, courage and determination to resolve the Kashmir problem, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has nevertheless said that the progress in economic cooperation must move in tandem with improvement in settling political issues.

The Pakistan Prime Minister also proposed an eight-point strategy to restore peace in Asia which included peaceful settlement of all issues, avoiding arms race and promoting intra-regional trade and investment.

“We have been engaged in strenuous efforts to resolve regional disputes and security issues (with India) in order to facilitate greater cooperation with neighbouring states,” he said at a dinner hosted for delegates of the Executive Council meeting of the Association of Asian Parliaments for Peace (AAPP) here last night.

Mr Aziz said these endeavours had led to reduction of tension and improvement in the prospects for a lasting peace in the region.

“We believe that this dialogue process should be irreversible and every effort must be made to find a just and durable resolution of the Kashmir dispute that is acceptable to all three stakeholders — Pakistan, India and the Kashmiri people.”

“To achieve this, we must demonstrate courage, determination and flexibility. We recognise that the progress in economic cooperation must move in tandem with the progress on political disputes,” the Pakistan Prime Minister said.

Proposing an eight-point strategy in order to restore peace in Asia, Mr Aziz said the Asian states should carry out a substantive dialogue for the peaceful settlement of all existing disputes and evolve a mechanism to address issues in the future on bilateral and multilateral basis. — PTI

Pakistan wants pipeline work to begin next year
by arrangement with The Dawn

Islamabad, August 23
Pakistan said on Monday it expected work on the $ 7.2 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline to start early next year while it was also pursuing plans for similar pipelines from Turkmenistan and Qatar.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said he thought the discussion about the project was “on track” as he referred to various recent ministerial and other contacts among the three countries.

“In our view a project structure should be in position by the end of November, should pave the way for a bilateral framework agreement by the end of December, and the construction of the pipeline should commence in early 2006,” spokesman Mohammad Naeem Khan told journalists in his briefing.

He said Islamabad believed the project envisaging a 2,670-km pipeline would be an “important economic CBM” (confidence- building measure) between Pakistan and India. “And, therefore, this is an important development and it will also meet the energy requirements of the two sides,” he added.

He told a questioner that Pakistan would go ahead with the project in any case “because we need this energy for our own requirements” to sustain a high level of economic growth achieved over the last few years.

“We are also exploring the possibility of TAP — Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan — gas pipeline,” he said about the project that had previously been conceived in the 1990s but abandoned because of the civil war in Afghanistan. “Actually the negotiations are taking place on that,” the spokesman said about TAP pipeline and added: “We will also be looking at the possibility of having a gas pipeline from Qatar.”

Experts trace origin of Iran’s bomb-grade
uranium to Pak
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two year ago in Iran were not proof of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme but instead came from contaminated Pakistani equipment, according to a group of US Government experts and international scientists.

The group matched the samples of the highly enriched uranium, found at two sites in Iran in 2003, with centrifuge equipment turned over by the Government of Pakistan, according to the Washington Post.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

“The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions,” the Post quoted a senior official, who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity, as saying.

Scientists from the USA, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to examine the data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran secretly built its nuclear programme with the help of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a top Pakistani nuclear scientist who sold spare parts from his country’s own weapons programme to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan’s black market was uncovered in 2003. He confessed on national television, was swiftly pardoned by Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, and is now under house arrest.

Hardliners in the Bush Administration have been insisting that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons programme despite firm denials from Tehran.

John R. Bolton, now US ambassador to the United Nations, who had served as the Bush Administration’s point man on nuclear issues, said during congressional testimony in June 2004 that the Iranians were lying about the contamination.

“Another unmistakable indicator of Iran’s intentions is the pattern of repeatedly lying to and providing false and incomplete reports to the IAEA,” Mr Bolton said. “For example, Iran first denied it had enriched any uranium. Then it said it had not enriched uranium more than 1.2 per cent. Later, when evidence of uranium enriched to 36 per cent was found, it attributed this to contamination from imported centrifuge parts.”

US officials are eager to take the Iran issue to the United Nations Security Council and push the world body to impose sanctions on Iran.

On Monday, Sean McCormack, State Department spokesman, said Washington’s concerns “centre on Iran’s activities in pursuit of a nuclear weapon under the cover of a civilian nuclear programme.”

“And specifically, our concerns focus on Iran’s having access to the nuclear fuel cycle, the technologies and the know-how associated with it. So we are now working with the EU-3 (Britain, Germany and France) and with the IAEA to address those concerns,” he said.

The Director-General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, who has negotiated with Iran’s rulers for months, said although Tehran would not give up the right to a nuclear programme, it would allow the agency to monitor it to assure it would not turn into a weapons programme.

35 Indian workers stranded in Malaysia

Kaula Lumpur, August 23
Thirtyfive Indian workers have been stranded in Malaysia as agents who brought them by promising higher salaries have abandoned them.

Malaysian Minister of Works S. Samy Vellu, who heads the Malaysia Indian Congress, told a group of visiting Indian journalists that the workers met him this morning and sought his help.

“The workers told me that the agents who brought them are giving less salary than they were promised. There are many such incidents with foreign workers being exploited by these unscruplus agents. I have spoken to Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and asked him to take action against this,’’ he said. — UNI

Malaysia plans to set up township in India

Kuala Lumpur, August 23
The Malaysian Government has proposed to increase collaboration with India in the field of power generation, property development and creation of new townships.

Malaysian Minister of Works S. Samy Vellu told a delegation of visiting Indian journalists that his country had the expertise in property development and would like to collaborate with India in the field.

He said that he had met Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasudhara Raje Scindia and her counterpart in Madhya Pradesh and also the Punjab Government representative during his recent visit and proposed setting up of a township beyond Gurgaon on Jaipur Highway where housing complex for high, middle and low-income groups could be constructed. — UNI

First Sikh in fray for councillor poll

Lahore, August 23
A Sikh has become the first from the tiny community in Pakistan to stand for councillor elections in a Lahore borough where the Sikh vote strength is a meagre eight.

But Attar Singh, a cloth merchant, is upbeat about his chances of winning the minority reserve Union Council (UC) 27 seat, as he banks upon large Christian and Muslim support in the Delhi Gate area.

“The affection of Muslims and Christians for Sikhs is astonishing for me as they are running my campaign instead of candidates belonging to their communities,” said Attar Singh, brother of Pakistan Sikh Gurdawara Parbandhak Committee vice-president Bishan Singh. — UNI