 |
|
Afghans defy threats, vote in parliamentary elections
Iran accuses USA of violating NPT
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book sheds light on 1985 Kanishka bombing
Meeting outcome a mixed bag: Pak media
Iraq is OK, but focus on Kashmir: Pervez
Maoists kill three, abduct 45 students
|
|
Afghans defy threats, vote in parliamentary elections Kabul, September 18 Violence marred the start of polling, with nine persons killed including a French soldier, while rockets were fired on a UN warehouse in Kabul and two would-be suicide bombers were wounded as they tried to attack a voting centre. But as the polls closed officials said a high proportion of the nearly 12.5 million eligible voters had cast their ballots, signalling another step on a difficult path to democracy launched after the Taliban regime fell in 2001. “The voting started relatively slowly but after the morning it has seriously picked up all over Afghanistan,” Peter Erben of the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Board told reporters. “I believe a high number of Afghans have turned out to vote.” On the ballot papers voters found a cross-section of Afghanistan’s strife-torn society, including warlords, drug kingpins, former Taliban and — marking a step forward for the conservative country — women. “The last time we had an election in Afghanistan I was not even born,” said schoolteacher Fahima Sabir, 31, as she voted in Kabul. “It is what we have dreamed of for decades.” The vote for the Lower House of parliament and 34 provincial councils comes less than a year after Afghanistan’s first presidential poll, won by US-backed leader Hamid Karzai. “We are making history,” Mr Karzai told reporters while casting his ballot in the capital. “After 30 years of war, intervention and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward.” The 26,000 polling stations, scattered from the parched southern deserts to the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains, started closing at 1130 GMT. Officials said anyone who had started queuing before that time would be allowed to vote, after delays as Afghans struggled with the newspaper-sized ballots required to fit in the 5,800 candidates. Full results are not expected until late October. One of the chief concerns had been violence by Taliban militants, who warned that voters could be hurt if they went to the voting stations. The UN’s Erben said only a handful of poll centres had been closed because of security worries and some of them could open after extra troops and voting staff were flown in. A rise in Taliban-linked violence has left more than 1,000 people dead this year, including seven election candidates. The French soldier killed in a bomb blast in Kandahar province, the former heartland of the Taliban, was the first soldier from his country to die in Afghanistan. Insurgents, meanwhile, attacked a security post in the eastern province of Khost, killing two policemen and wounding a US soldier and two Afghan soldiers, officials said. Three suspected Taliban were also killed. Another died when rebels attacked a polling station in the southern province of Helmand late Saturday, provincial officials said. — AFP
|
|
Iran accuses USA of violating NPT
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday defended his country’s “inalienable right” to produce its own nuclear fuel and accused the USA of violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by “trying to prevent other countries from acquiring the technology to produce peaceful nuclear energy.”
In a hard-hitting speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Ahmadinejad criticised what he called a “nuclear apartheid,” saying it was unfair that some nations were allowed to make nuclear fuel while others are condemned for it. Washington and its allies believe Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has refuted in the past and Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed on Saturday. The Iranian leader said, “In accordance with our religious principles, pursuit of nuclear weapons is prohibited.” Earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran of threatening efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Ms Rice told the General Assembly that the UN Security Council must deal effectively with Iran. “Iran should return to negotiations with the EU3 [the Britain, France and Germany] and abandon forever its plans for a nuclear weapons capability,”she said. Criticising the United States’ hard line on Iran, Mr Ahmadinejad contended: “The most serious challenges is that the culprits are assuming the role of prosecutor.” He accused Washington of “bullying the others while through media resources portraying themselves as defenders of freedom.” The International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence to support the charge that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a nuclear energy programme. In an interview with the CNN, the Iranian President said his country was determined to pursue a nuclear energy programme. “We are determined. Certainly we are determined. Why should other people have it and sell it to us?” he said. The Bush administration has threatened to get a referral from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA to take the dispute to the UN Security Council. The council has the power to impose sanctions. However, at the weekend it seemed unlikely Washington would have enough support from the international community in this effort. |
|
Book sheds light on 1985 Kanishka bombing
Toronto, September 18 "Loss of Faith: How the Air-India Bombers Got Away With Murder" provides new evidence into the bombing of Air-India Flight 182 that went down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. The book has been written by veteran journalist Kim Bolan, who brings together the untold stories behind one of the worst terrorist attacks in Canadian history. The writer has presented a recap of the 600-page verdict - including evidence ruled out as inadmissible by Justice Ian Josephson that could have changed the course of the trial, according to the South Asian Observer newspaper here. The alleged mastermind of the bombings, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was killed in India in 1992. Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri, the two Sikh separatists who were tried in the case, were eventually acquitted in March this year after a long and emotionally charged trial. "The Air-India story has had an impact on my life and sometimes it has been an uncomfortable one. But many others suffered a lot while trying to know the truth - police, prosecutors, victims' relatives and witnesses. I am not the only one affected," Bolan said. "I hope this book will expose the real story of who was responsible for this unprecedented crime." Bolan was first assigned the work in June 1985 right after the incident and for the past 20 years followed the story, travelling across the globe in a quest to know the truth. She interviewed suspects, witnesses, investigators and other key players, including Parmar, Malik and Bagri. During all these years, Bolan received repeated death threats, and once was even placed under police protection. "Loss of Faith" reveals new details of both the groups linked to the Air-India bombings and the failed criminal investigation. Bolan has quoted Parmar's brother Kulwarn as saying that he witnessed Malik's meeting with his brother and pledging tens of thousands of dollars to Parmar's Babbar Khalsa terrorist group in the mid-80s and that the money was paid both in Canada and in
India. — IANS |
|
Meeting outcome a mixed bag: Pak media
Islamabad, September 18 “Although the President tried to reject the impression that the peace process had been deadlocked, the part involving Kashmir remains at a standstill. India has shown persistent intransigence. “The idea that the Bush Administration would be asked to press it to expedite solution is a non-starter,” local daily ‘The Nation’ said in an editorial, apparently refering to Pervez Musharraf’s request to US President George W. Bush to pressure India to withdraw troops from some areas in Jammu and Kashmir. It said acceptance of invitation by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Islamabad cannot be termed a breakthrough as projected by the Pakistan officials. “Kashmir’s just resolution is so vital to Pakistan that it would be a great blunder to compromise on our principled stand, as that would be acceptable neither to Kashmiris nor Pakistanis. We should seriously review our fast-track approach on CBMs,” the paper said. Another newspaper ‘Dawn’ in its editorial said the September 14 Musharraf-Singh talks “produced mixed results. Those who were hoping that new confidence-building measures, especially a reduction in Indian military presence in Kashmir, would be announced have been disappointed. But the positive aspect of the meeting was that the Indian Prime Minister has agreed to visit Pakistan soon.” — PTI |
|
Iraq is OK, but focus on Kashmir: Pervez
New York, September 18 “It’ll take time,” President Musharraf said, referring to the raging violence in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. “But I think the Palestine issue and the Kashmir issue are ripe for solution today,” he said. Addressing students at Columbia University in New York the Pakistani leader agreed that the US-led invasion of Iraq two years ago made the world more complicated, but one could not expect American and other coalition forces to leave Iraq immediately. “You just can’t pack up and go. You need to have a strategy of how to pack up and go,” General Musharraf stated. He said Pakistan was more moderate than often depicted in the Western media. “Pakistan is a victim of misrepresentation abroad,” he observed. Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, hailed the Pakistani leader as a ‘’central and great global’’ leader. He said the present-day world is interdependent and if something happens in one country, it affects another.
— UNI |
|
|
Maoists kill three, abduct 45 students
Kathmandu, September 18 The police said two armed police force personnel were killed in a landmine blast triggered by Maoists at Kusma in western Nepal yesterday. At least 45 students and 13 teachers from different parts of the country were abducted in the past two days, sources in the army headquarters said. Twentythree students were kidnapped from the Chaudhari area of Bajhang district while another 22 were abducted from a school in Baglung district, they said. Twelve teachers from the Kante and Banjhe area of Darchula district and one from Sankhuwasabha district were abducted, they said. Meanwhile, suspected Maoists shot dead a man and injured his wife in the Koteshwor area in the outskirts of Kathmandu yesterday. Meanwhile, the Nepal Government has ruled out the possibility of initiating a dialogue with the rebels unless they lay down arms. The Nepal Government would not hold dialogue with the Maoists unless they submit their arms and ammunitions, Home Minister Dan Bahadur Shahi told reporters.
— PTI |
| 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 | |
Video: Musharraf's remarks on rapes in Pakistan decried. (
