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F-16 purchase put off, says Musharraf
Manmohan, Aziz meeting on Nov 12
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The West is not alone in failing quake victims
Afghan woman poet beaten
Saddam defence wants
UN wants to quiz Assad’s kin
Canadians flocking India for quick medical treatment
Indian whistleblower wins Rs 2.25 cr in damages
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F-16 purchase put off, says Musharraf
Muzaffarabad, November 7 The President, who had earlier refused to cut down the country’s defence budget, said he was delaying the purchase of 77 F-16 planes so that more could be put in for relief and reconstruction activities in quake-hit areas. “I am going to postpone that (jet purchase). We want to bring maximum relief and reconstruction efforts,” he told reporters during his visit to Muzaffarabad on
Id day. General Musharraf pointed out that delaying the purchase of the high-tech aircraft would not harm Pakistan’s defence requirements. “We should never do anything that would jeopardise our security.” He urged the world to provide more aid, regretting that the response to the quake was far less than that for tsunami or Hurricane Katrina. The world did not respond to the quake as generously as to last year’s tsunami because Western tourists were not caught up in it (quake), he said. “When we are talking of the bigger issue of reconstruction and rehabilitation, which is now to come, there we expect the equal amount of assistance (which the) tsunami and Katrina got,” the President maintained. The United Nations says it needs $550 million in emergency aid for quake victims, but donors have pledged only $133 million. Meanwhile, in an interview to a foreign TV channel, President Musharraf dismissed criticism of NATO which he said had airlifted about 1,000 tonnes of relief supplies. “Nobody else can lift this other than NATO which is really assisting us.” |
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Manmohan, Aziz meeting on Nov 12
Islamabad, November 7 ‘The Dawn’ quoted diplomatic sources as saying that the meeting between the two Prime Ministers was likely to take place on November 12. The venue for the expected 45-minute meeting will be the hotel where the two leaders are to stay. This will be their second meeting in less than a year. They last met in New Delhi in November 2004. The meeting acquires significance as it follows a landmark agreement with the two countries opening the Line of Control (LoC) today to help the quake-stricken people. The two leaders would review the ongoing peace process, the sources said. Earthquake relief efforts along the LoC and Indian assistance to Pakistan will figure in the talks. Demilitarisation of Kashmir as advocated by President Pervez Musharraf is also likely to come up during the course of the discussion.
— UNI |
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French rioting spreads
to 300 towns
Paris, November 7 As urban violence spread to neighbouring Belgium and possibly Germany, the French Government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm. Vandals burned more than 1,400 vehicles overnight yesterday. Clashes around the country left 36 police injured, setting a new high for nightly arson and violence since rioting started on October 27, France’s national police chief Michel Gaudin told a press conference. Australia, Britain, Germany and Japan advised their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States, Russia and at least a half dozen other countries in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas. Apparent copycat attacks spread outside France for the first time, with five cars torched outside Brussels’ main train station, the police in the Belgian Capital said. In Grigny, south of Paris, youths lured the police into a housing estate and attacked them with pellet guns. A police spokesman said about 10 were injured, two seriously, with pellets in the neck and legs. The police union action police CFTC today urged the government to impose a curfew on the riot-hit areas and call in the army to control the youths, many of whom are French-born citizens of Arab or African origin complaining of racial discrimination. “Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country,” it said in a statement. “The events we’re living through now are without precedent since the end of the Second World War.” The head of France’s main business group, Laurence Parisot, warned of the consequences of the violence for the French economy, notably on tourism and investment. “France’s image has been deeply damaged,” she told Europe 1 radio. Reacting to official suggestions that Islamist militants might be orchestrating some of the protests, one of France’s largest Muslim organisations issued a fatwa against the unrest.
— Reuters, AP |
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The West is not alone in failing quake victims
An envelope sits on my desk. It is yet another cheque to post to the Pakistan earthquake appeal. What good will it do, I ask? How pitifully small is the sum I am sending compared to what we spent on
Id last week and what we are about to squander on Christmas.
These are self-indulgent mediations, immoral even when millions of people — old, young, newborn, able, disabled, sick and fit — wait out in the wintry mountains of Kashmir, their still faces turned to the probability that death will get them after they miraculously survived the violence of the tremor that blew down their world four weeks ago. All I know of Kashmir is what it once was in the Hindi movies I saw as a child, a surreally beautiful place on celluloid, with garish lovers who invaded its peaceful lakes and mountains for a song or two. When I was young and in love with my ex-husband, I imagined going to a houseboat in Kashmir for our honeymoon. This was paradise, in its way, though not since India and Pakistan turned the region into a battleground. And now this. An Indian journalist contact who interviewed some marooned sufferers says they still fasted through Ramzan, knowing that there would be hardly anything at sundown to ease their hunger and thirst. I fasted, too, for as many days as I could, and it was hard. The stoicism and faith of these victims is awesome. Many never even got to bury their loved ones and still they struggle to live, as their hearts break and psychological terror consumes them. Old men walk for miles carrying injured relatives, trying to get to places where they can get help. But in many of these tent cities, typhoid and tetanus is spreading. Pervez Musharraf made an accusatory speech this week, criticising the West for its inadequate response to the disaster in his country. As there were few Westerners caught up in the earthquake, he said, indifference has settled rapidly over the initial shock: "I would say the damage here is much more than the tsunami — the magnitude of the calamity is much more." Only (pounds sterling)74m has been received, yet 15,000 villages have been devastated. Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator, agrees the challenge is "unique". Although the West was initially lethargic, Britain and the US have picked up the challenge and are now delivering. Other nations less so. When you log on to public debates on the crisis, some of the cruel coldness and bigotry is repulsive. An American abroad, a "liberal", confesses: "The only shock I felt was my own lack of feeling. Maybe if these people did not cheer for suicide bombers things would be different today." A white Briton says the dead and dying are just bleeding "Pakis" who breed too much anyway and that we should look after our own. Even more upsetting is that my friend Rehana, herself a Pakistani citizen, one of the kindest most generous women I know, has sent nothing. She is that angry with her own government and tells me my money will go to corrupt officials in her country: "Why donate when it's only going to line the pockets of the military and rogues? You are only placating your own Westernised guilt, don't tell me it is of any use. You don't understand, the Pakistan elite cares nothing about these villagers. Same thing around the Muslim world, to them they are just hopeless Pakis." I replied that I thought her attitudes towards the "hopeless Pakis" were no better and we quarrelled as we often do until we make up, as always. But is Rehana right? What about the President himself? He too has been slow to understand the nature of the catastrophe and what he must do. This is a wake-up call for the entire governing establishment of this Muslim state. Meanwhile, wealthy Muslim countries that could make a difference are inert. Why did Musharraf not point his accusing finger at the Saudis or Iran or the Gulf states? In the oil-rich states, poor Pakistanis are only servants, worthless flotsam and jetsam who are exploited and then discarded. To be an impoverished "Paki" in the Arab countries is far, far worse than to be one anywhere in the West. Powerful Muslims would rather we didn't remind them of their responsibilities to their own. Blame others, hold the West accountable, is their reflexive response. The snows are coming fast; the blood of little children and other vulnerable Kashmiris will soon freeze. Everyone in the inaccessible parts of the mountains is already weakened. Eighty thousand or more have perished already. The West must do more, that is obvious. But we must also call on rich and powerful global Muslims to stir from their palatial lives and deliver assistance. How many helicopters could Saudi Arabia send tonight? A million tents paid for by Dubai would be pin money for that commercial hub. —By arrangement with
The Independent, London |
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Afghan woman poet beaten to death
Herat, November 7 Nadia Anjuman (25), died late Friday, said provincial police chief Nisar Ahmad Paikar. “We have arrested her husband, accused of killing her,” he said. The couple had a six-month-old daughter. Her husband confessed to the beating but denied that he had killed Anjuman, he said. “She was especially famous among the female poets in Herat,” said a lecturer at Herat University. Anjuman had this year published a collection of her poems calls Gul-e-dodi, which means dark red flower.
— AFP |
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Saddam defence wants trial abroad
Amman, November 7 A defence lawyer who requested anonymity said moving Saddam and his aides abroad was the only way to protect the defendants and their lawyers, adding “the growing intimidation and threats against them will never allow the trial to be fair’’. A statement for the lawyers of Saddam and his aides called for ‘’transfer of the place of detention of the President and his aides to another country because of grave danger to their lives’’.
— Reuters |
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UN wants to quiz Assad’s kin
Beirut, November 7 The source said Major-Gen Assef Shawkat, head of military intelligence who is married to Mr Assad’s sister Bushra, was on a list of six names sent to Damascus by chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis, requesting that they be questioned at the inquiry’s headquarters east of Beirut. The other five were Major-Gen Bahjat Suleiman, Lieut-General Rustom Ghazali, Lieut-Gen Thafer Youssef, Lieut-General Abdul-Karim Abbas and officer Jamea Jamea. Mr Suleiman was the head of the internal security branch at the general
intelligence department when Hariri was killed on February 14 in Beirut. Mr Ghazali was head of the Syrian intelligence in Lebanon and Mr Jamea was an aide. Both Mr Youssef and Mr Abbas were receiving training at a military academy in Beirut at the time of the assassination. Mr Abbas is an officer with a military security body.
— Reuters |
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Canadians flocking India for quick medical treatment
Toronto, November 7 Canada is facing an extreme paucity of doctors and specialists, forcing patients to wait for as many as three years for procedures such as knee replacement and hip-resurfacing. However, instead of suffering in silence, patients are now hitting the keyboard to find medical help in India where they are assured of speedy-and cheap-treatment for their maladies. Hospitals like Apollo are a favoured destination for most ailing Canadians. The hospital has an international patient programme on its website that includes travel arrangement, airport pick-ups, translators and international food. Businesses have spawned in major Canadian cities, arranging trips for ailing Canadians seeking medical help abroad. In addition to speedy medical help, the patients are also assured of recuperation at luxurious locations — combining health with happiness.
— UNI |
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Indian whistleblower wins Rs 2.25 cr in damages
Washington, November 07 Seema S Bhat, water quality manager for the Washington DC Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), was fired two years ago for taking the issue of contaminated water supplied to residents directly to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
— PTI |
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