 |
|
Resolve Palestinian, J&K issues to defeat
Al-Qaida: Musharraf
Pervez slammed over rape remarks
Hurriyat chief meets Musharraf
Pakistan troops move to
Afghanistan border
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nation first for Indians, religion for Pakistanis, says BBC poll
Car bomb
kills 30 in Iraq
UN summit adopts modest
Palestinians storm West Bank settlement
Anti-capitalist protest in Moscow
Courtney Love sentenced
Al-Jazeera journalist
re-arrested
|
|
Resolve Palestinian, J&K issues to defeat Al-Qaida: Musharraf
New York, September 17 General Musharraf said while the Iraq war had made the world complicated, it was not possible for the US to just “pack up and go” and the world should move on to other issues. “It has happened so why talk about it. It is done and finished....You cannot just pack up and go. You need to have a strategy,” he was quoted as saying by the Pakistani media during an interactive session at Columbia University yesterday. “But I think the Palestinian dispute and Kashmir dispute are ripe for solution,” he said adding it would require boldness, sincerity and flexibility on the part of the leadership. Praising US President George W Bush, General Musharraf said he had the ability to resolve the complex global issues, such as Palestine, which he believed was the real provocation for some radical elements among the Muslim countries to opt for terrorism. He said Pakistan’s rapprochement with Israel was aimed at facilitating speedy resolution of the Palestine problem. No previous government had dared taking such a “bold step” for engaging Israel. General Musharraf said Pakistan was at the “epicentre” of the fight against terrorism and extremism.” He heaped praise on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, (ISI), saying it had played a major role in anti-Al-Qaida operations. The Pakistani President categorically denied that during official meetings, the US or the British leaders had pointed an accusing finger at the ISI and described its personnel as “unsung heroes who have helped the capture of more than 700 Al-Qaida operatives.”
— PTI |
|
Pervez slammed over rape remarks
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has set off a storm of criticism following an interview to the Washington Post, in which he suggested women in Pakistan saw rape as a ticket to the West.
The human rights group Amnesty International USA said it was “outraged” by the General's comments. General Musharraf reportedly told the Post, “You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or a citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.” General Musharraf has since denied making the remarks. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper quoted the leader as saying, “I am not stupid to make such remarks.” Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin met General Musharraf on the sidelines of the United Nations World Summit in New York and later said that he criticised the General. Amnesty International has released many reports on the impunity with which not only private citizens but also government and security officials can rape women in Pakistan. The group launched actions calling for justice for Mukhtaran Bibi, a tribal Pakistani woman who was gang-raped as a punishment meted out by a tribal council. Amnesty International called General Musharraf’s statement “callous and insulting” and called for a public apology to the women of Pakistan and especially to the victims of rape, sexual assault, and other forms of violence. The Dawn newspaper also lambasted General Musharraf for his comments. In an editorial headlined “Wrong thing to say,” the paper noted: “If this attitude, of blaming rape and other crimes against women on women themselves and ridiculing NGOs that take up such issues, begins to travel upward from ignorant mullahs and male chauvinists to permeate the higher echelons of the administration, then God help us.” |
|
|
Hurriyat chief meets Musharraf
New York, September 17 “This is our attempt to find a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue so that we could see a peaceful South Asia,” the Mirwaiz told PTI after an over hour-long meeting with Musharraf, who was here to attend the UN General Assembly session, yesterday. He said he had kept the amalgam’s viewpoint before the Pakistan President and also discussed the Hurriyat’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 6. Terming this meeting as a Hurriyat effort of having a triangular dialogue on Kashmir simultaneously with India and Pakistan, the Mirwaiz expressed satisfaction that both Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr Musharraf were holding discussions with the amalgam regarding the resolution of the Kashmir issue. The Mirwaiz said the Hurriyat wanted the Kashmiri leaders to be associated with the talks which had not happened as yet but the fact that both Manmohan Singh and Pervez Musharraf were talking to them shows that Kashmiris were being indirectly associated with the Indo-Pak dialogue on the Kashmir issue. The Mirwaiz was here to attend the Organisation of Islamic Conference meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. Hurriyat Conference has status of an observer in the forum.
— PTI |
|
|
Pakistan troops move to
Afghanistan border
Miramshah, September 17 The fresh movement is part of the armed forces’ plan to deploy about 10,000 additional troops along the Afghan border to stop infiltration of unwanted elements before the Afghan parliamentary elections to be held on Sept 18. The Corps Commander of Peshawar, Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain, and other senior military commanders visited Miramshah to review the security situation in the region. An official said that additional forces were being deployed in Ghulam Khan and other areas, which border Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces. He said helicopter gunships and transport helicopters had been dispatched and troops ordered to secure the border. Meanwhile, miscreants fired missiles on a military camp in Miramshah on Thursday night, where security forces have besieged a large number of residential compounds and a seminary of Commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, the former senior Taliban minister. Officials said that three vehicles were damaged when one missile hit a parking area inside Touchi Scout Fort while another missile hit boundary wall of a vocational training centre. Unidentified assailants fired four missiles from different directions in the area close to the Afghan border. However, the attack did not cause any casualty. The security forces have surrounded a large number of mud-houses and a seminary in Dandi Derpakhel, west of Miramshah. |
|
Nation first for Indians, religion for Pakistanis, says BBC poll
London, September 17 The Gallup International Voice of the People 2005 poll, which questioned more than 50,000 persons in 68 countries for a BBC World Service survey about power, said people in India are most likely to identify themselves as Indian. Thirty-four percent identified being Indian as most important to them, rather than their local area, state or city (26 per cent) or religion (19 per cent). This was in marked difference to Pakistan, where 59 per cent of people most identified with religion, with nationality being identified as most important by only 8 per cent of people. In India, only 9 per cent of people trust politicians, compared to 13 per cent globally. This is significantly higher in Pakistan, with the trust level for politicians reaching 31 per cent. In India, family is extremely important, with 92 per cent of people saying that family had had the most influence over their life in the past 12 months. In Pakistan, friends (the most important influence for 18 per cent of people) and religious leaders (most important influence for 12 per cent of people) have a greater degree of influence. In contrast, only 4 per cent of Indians say that friends have had the most influence and less than 1 per cent say religious leaders. In India there is a low level of positive feeling about people's own ability to change their lives, with only 18 percent feeling positive about this (compared to 52 per cent globally). In Pakistan the situation is similar, with 15 per cent feeling positive about being able to change their lives. Seventyseven per cent of Indians do not believe that their country is governed by the will of the people, not far from the global average of 65 per cent. On the question of which people were most trusted, 61 per cent of the surveyed Indians cited the military and police, and 58 per cent said journalists, while only one percent trusted politicians. Of the surveyed Pakistanis, 55 per cent trusted religious leaders, 42 per cent journalists, 31 per cent politicians and business leaders and 29 percent the military and police. A total of 68 per cent of Indians and 53 per cent of Pakistanis agreed that there was very little they could do to change their lives. The global average was 34 percent.
— IANS |
|
Baghdad, September 17 Interior Ministry police Maj Falah al-Mhamadawi said the explosives-packed car was parked in front of fruit and vegetable stands in the market at Nahrawan, about 32 km east of Baghdad, a poor suburb heavily populated by Shiite Muslims. At Baghdad’s al-Kindi hospital, police Lt Abdulal Ibrahim said the dead and injured were brought to the hospital in pickup trucks. Some of the wounded lay bleeding on the hospital grounds, screaming in pain. Several had lost limbs. “I came with my brother Hamid, whose right leg was blown off below the knee,” said Alaa Mohammed, outside the hospital. — AP
|
|
|
UN summit adopts modest reform plans
United Nations, September 17 With many leaders including US President George W Bush having left New York, those remaining voiced a mixture of hope that the biggest summit in UN History would give new momentum to development goals and disappointment at the meager outcome. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed an unprecedented agreement on the international responsibility to intervene to protect civilians from genocide and ethnic cleansing to prevent a repeat of massacres in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. Other achievements he cited included the establishment of a peace-building commission to help nations emerging from conflict, and member states’ reaffirmation of goals set by a UN millennium summit in 2000 to halve poverty by 2015. Shortly before the 40-page document was adopted, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez denounced negotiating procedures as “grotesque’’ and said they promoted the interests of the major powers over small and developing nations. UN General Assembly President Goran Persson of Sweden said he hoped the blueprint would send “a strong political message on our collective commitment to the United Nations and its charter.’’
— Reuters |
|
Palestinians storm West Bank settlement
Nablus (West Bank), September 17 It was the first time Palestinians entered Homesh, a small hardline settlement evacuated last month as part of Israel’s pullout plan. Witnesses said dozens of Palestinians from nearby villages drove their farming tractors into Homesh and loaded them up with scavenged goods. After Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday, thousands entered the evacuated settlements, looted precious greenhouses and carried away loads of scrap metal, wood and electric cables. Unlike in Gaza, however, the four small West Bank settlements evacuated in August remained under Israeli army control. Today, witnesses said the few army jeeps that continued to patrol Homesh after the evacuation left the area. The Palestinian police fired in the air to disperse stone-throwing youths at the Gaza-Egypt border as forces tried to stop the chaotic flow of people across the frontier. President Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to stop the irregular border crossings, which fuelled Israeli worries that arms would be smuggled to Gaza militants following its troop withdrawal after 38 years of occupation.
— AP |
|
Anti-capitalist protest in Moscow
Moscow, September 17 The rally, organised by groups including the National Bolsheviks and the Red Youth Avant-garde, was called to unite opposition forces under such slogans as “Our Motherland Is Socialism and Freedom,” the organisers said. Police officers briefly confiscated an anti-Putin banner, but then allowed the demonstrators to carry it -folded up. About 10 members of the National Bolsheviks were detained at a train station after arriving for the rally from St. Petersburg.
— AP |
|
Courtney Love sentenced
Los Angeles, September 17 But the former wife of late rock star Kurt Cobain will be able to serve the time at a live-in chemical dependency programme, Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin ruled yesterday. Love, (41), admitted using drugs at an August 19 hearing and was ordered into a detox clinic. She was sentenced to a separate three years’ probation order in February for assaulting a female musician at the home of her former boyfriend.
— AFP |
|
Al-Jazeera journalist
re-arrested
Madrid, September 17 The wife of the Spaniard of Syrian origin confirmed his arrest. A court on September 26 is due to hand down a verdict in the trial of Alluni, one of the 41 persons charged for links to or membership of Al-Qaida. Some of the group are suspected of having played a role in the preparation of the September 11 attacks in the USA.
— AFP |
| 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 | |
