 |
|
Terrorism in quake-hit J&K unacceptable: Rocca
Time running out for quake survivors
Pakistani volunteers line up to continue the search for dead bodies in Balakot on Friday.
Aid inadequate, says Musharraf
Bangladesh no to highway pact to |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Lawyer’s murder taints Saddam trial: groups Capitol Hill area cordoned off due to bomb threat
Press freedom: India ranks 106
|
|
Terrorism in quake-hit J&K unacceptable: Rocca
Washington, October 21 Testifying before the US House’ Asia-Pacific subcommittee yesterday, Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca said “there are those who are cynically using the situation” caused by the earthquake to conduct violent terrorist acts as “demonstrated by the assassination of Jammu and Kashmir state Education Minister Ghulam Nabi Lone.” “This is unacceptable. The real battle going on in Kashmir today will be to save the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives and overcome a natural disaster, the likes of which this region has never experienced,” she said. Lauding India and Pakistan for putting aside their differences and working together to help quake victims, Ms Rocca said the US hoped this would lead to increased cooperation between the two nations in the future. “We have seen Pakistanis and Indians working together to provide help to victims in Kashmir. We strongly support these gestures and hope they will lead to increased long-term cooperation between both nations,” she said. Ms Rocca also praised the Governments of India and Pakistan for having “found the political will to allow the people of Kashmir ready access to their relatives on either side of the Line of Control.” According to her, the groundwork for this level of trust between the two neighbouring nations was laid at the historic Indo-Pakistan talks held over the past year.
— PTI |
|
Time running out for quake survivors
Muzaffarabad, October 21 The top United Nations aid official was so incensed by what he saw as a woefully inadequate international response to the most difficult relief operation the world has ever seen that he called on NATO to stage a massive airlift to get survivors to safety. That would mean helicopters, the only means of getting quickly deep into the rugged Himalayan foothills of the PoK and the North West Frontier Province where 50,000 persons are known to have died. “You must rest assured that NATO fully realises the gravity of the situation,’’ NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said. But NATO doesn’t have many of the kind of helicopters such an operation would require. The closest source of helicopters would be India. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has told India that he would accept helicopters, but only if they came without crews, given the enormous political sensitivity of the issue. India has said no. Mia Turner of the World Food Programme says that shelter is crucial and if people don’t get that soon there will be a crisis of a different kind — people will start dying of exposure.’’ A report from Washington said there was an urgent need for the international community to undertake massive relief efforts. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca said: “In the days ahead, the USA will urge the international community to join us in support of the October 8 earthquake victims and we will be vigorously engaged at next week’s UN meetings in Geneva during an international donor’s conference on October 26.
— Reuters, UNI |
|
Aid inadequate, says Musharraf
Islamabad, October 21 About $ 620 million had been promised, but Pakistan needed about $ 5 billion to rebuild devastated areas, Musharraf told BBC in an interview. Defending the country’s army in the face of criticism of its response to the crisis, the Pakistan President said the army had managed to get aid through, despite working in very difficult conditions. The UN has also appealed for urgent help to avoid a second wave of deaths over the fierce Himalayan winter and called for a massive airlift of those without shelter, on the scale of the Berlin airlift in the 1940s.
— PTI |
Bangladesh no to highway pact to include India
Dhaka, October 21 “We will not ratify the agreement to give transit to India,” Communications Minister Nazmul Huda, who chaired an inter-ministerial meeting on the highway project yesterday, said. The Foreign Ministry had earlier sent a letter to the Communications Ministry, recommending ratification of the agreement linking 32 countries, including India. Bangladesh yesterday favoured the Dhaka-Yangon road via Teknaf (AH-41 route), the southeastern tip of the country, as the Asian Highway in Bangladesh territory instead of AH-1 route from Tamabil to Benapole or Banglabandha, a media report said. The meeting yesterday decided that Bangladesh would pursue the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to amend the route plan and recognise AH-41 as the Asian Highway in Bangladesh territory, the report said. The 32-nation Asian Highway will link some 140,000 km of road network from Tokyo to Ankara. Bangladesh has by December 31 to ratify the agreement for joining the Asian Highway. The proposed AH 41 road has to be given the status of AH 1 as Bangladesh does not want India to be the entry and exit points of the route.
— PTI |
|
Lawyer’s murder taints Saddam trial: groups
Baghdad, October 21 Saadoun Janabi was found shot dead shortly after being kidnapped on Thursday by armed men who identified themselves as Interior Ministry employees. Janabi had represented Awad al-Bander, a former top Iraqi judge who appeared in court with Saddam and six other men on Wednesday at the start of their trial. Janabi, a personal friend of Saddam, was one of the few lawyers to address the court, which was broadcast around the world. Only one of the five judges revealed his identity to the cameras. “This could have a chilling effect on the willingness of competent lawyers to vigorously defend the accused and that could have a fatal effect on the fairness and effectiveness of the trial,” Richard Dicker, head of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme, told Reuters. The case, which opened in a Baghdad courtroom amid tight security, is the first against Saddam, who faces charges of crimes against humanity and may also be charged with war crimes and genocide for offences during his nearly three decade rule. Rights groups, that have called for an international trial abroad, away from Iraq’s escalating violence which has pushed the country to the brink of the civil war, urged the Shi’ite-led government to rapidly bolster security for the proceedings. Specifically, they called for equal protections for defence attorneys and witnesses as have been granted to prosecutors and judges in the landmark case. The trial was adjourned until November 28 after the judge said witnesses were “too scared” to testify. “We and other rights groups have long had concerns about an effective witness protection programme for this trial,” Miranda Sissons, a senior associate with the International Center for Transitional Justice, told Reuters. “This murder highlights the lack of attention the court is paying to the defence and the defence’s offices, which has implications for the equality of the trial.” Both Dicker and Sissons were present as observers at the heavily guarded courtroom inside Baghdad’s “Green Zone” complex. Khamal Hamdoon Mulla Allawi, head of Iraqi Bar Association, said: “The goal behind this horrible crime is to shake the course of justice.”
— Reuters |
|
Capitol Hill area cordoned off due to bomb threat
Washington, October 21 Though the Capitol and Senate and House of Representatives office buildings were not evacuated, a nearby office building was cleared because of the incident, the police said. Work inside the Capitol and surrounding legislative office buildings went on uninterrupted and no one was evacuated. The Senate was in session but the house had recessed yesterday for the weekend. — PTI
|
|
|
Journalist freed, wants to stay on
Baghdad, October 21 Rory Carroll (33), a correspondent for the London-based Guardian newspaper, said his ordeal ended when his captors bundled him into a car and dropped him in central Baghdad after taking a mobile phone call. “The next move is unclear, but I would like to report on Iraq in the future,” he said on the phone shortly after his release. Carroll, who has been in Iraq since January, had been interviewing a family in Baghdad on Wednesday about the start of Saddam Hussein’s trial before gunmen abducted him. He said he did not know who was responsible for it. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was present when he was released after a day and a half in darkness. “I don’t know who took me,” Carroll said. “I was released about an hour ago. I’m fine. I was treated reasonably well,’’ he added. “I spent the past 36 hours in the dark. I was released into the hands of Dr Chalabi.” Dr Chalabi, a wealthy secular Shi’ite who returned from exile after the fall of Saddam and then fell out with his former sponsors in Washington, has built up powerful links with leading Shi’ite clerics. A British Government source said he believed Carroll was released after two Iraqi prisoners were freed in southern Iraq.
— Reuters |
|
Press freedom: India ranks 106
London, October 21 Although it ranked India at 106 in a list of 166, the report by Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders) said the government of Manmohan Singh revoked a controversial anti-terror law and “extremist” Hindus hostile to the press did not enjoy the same degree of impunity as under the previous regime. The peace process between India and Pakistan allowed a group of Pakistani reporters to visit Kashmir for the first time in more than 50 years. But the authorities in Islamabad refused visas to some Indian journalists, including in September when they applied to cover a cricket match, the group said. In its report on press freedom in Asia, it said censorship and violence stalked independent press in Asia. Pakistan was placed at the 150 position in the press freedom index. Stating that 16 of the 53 journalists killed in 2004 died in Asia, the report said after Iraq, the Philippines and Bangladesh were the world’s most dangerous countries for the profession. Bangladesh ranks 151st in the list.
— 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 | |
Washington, October 21
In video: (
Muzaffarabad, October 21
