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PPP slams Pervez’s remarks on scribe
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Crisis in Tribal Areas
Suharto laid to rest
Nepal outfit threatens to disrupt poll
Russia calls ex-spy’s tales ‘self-publicity’
US official found dead in Pak
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Arabs blame Israel for Gaza crisis
Cairo, January 28 Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have traveled into Egypt in recent days after breaking through the Gaza-Egypt border fence. The breakthrough happened days after Israel announced it was stopping fuel shipments to Gaza. “Israel, as an occupation power, is fully responsible for the deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian territories and should immediately stop all its continued aggressions against the civilians and end the blockade and the collective punishment policy,” said a statement issued by the ministers at the end of their meeting in Cairo today. The foreign ministers also urged the UN Security Council to “shoulder its responsibility to stop (the Israeli) aggression and lift the siege off Gaza and protect its people and their right in accordance with the international laws.” The ministers called on all parties to resume the work to open all crossing points under internationally agreed arrangements to avoid a repeat of what is happening on the Gaza-Egypt border. The ministers also welcomed the Palestinian Authority’s readiness to take on the responsibility of all crossing points in Gaza. Egypt wants to restore shared control of the border among the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and European Union monitors, but the militant Hamas ousted the PA from the border after violently seizing Gaza in June. Since then, Israel and Egypt have kept Gaza largely sealed.
— AP
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PPP slams Pervez’s remarks on scribe
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has condemned the remarks of President Pervez Musharraf and an implied threat of physical harm to a senior Pakistani journalist as “most insolent, typical of the intolerant mindset of a dictator and unbecoming of a head of state in any age and any clime”.
During his address to a think-tank, RUSI, in London on Saturday, highly regarded Pakistani journalist and a former resident editor of the English daily, Dawn, M. Ziauddin, asked a question about the escape of Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, wanted by the UK on criminal charges. “An embarrassed Musharraf did not reply the question at the time. But, later addressing Pakistani community, he lambasted the journalist even asking the audience to thrash him,” the PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement. He said by losing temper over the question, Musharraf had proved that a raw nerve had been touched and that there was something more to the escape story that the regime wanted to hide from the public. Babar said according to the press reports, a number of policemen assigned to escort and guard Rashid Rauf belonged to his town. “If the reports are true, a question arises as to who planned and orchestrated the posting of sympathetic police officials around someone wanted by a foreign country,” he asked. He said: “Only an impartial high-level judicial probe could give answers to such questions”. The PPP spokesman said it was now common knowledge that in the war against militancy the regime was proverbially “running with the hare and hunting with the hound”. “That was why questions were being asked about the escape of Rauf, the piling up of arms and ammunition in the Red Mosque under the nose of the law enforcement agencies, setting up of illegal radio stations in Swat and revival of banned militant outfits under new names, to name only a few cases,” he maintained.
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Crisis in Tribal Areas
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said the PPP wants a peaceful solution to the crisis in the tribal areas. According to the Dawn News channel, the PPP co-chairman was talking to a delegation of tribesmen from
Waziristan. He said he did not believe that Benazir Bhutto was killed by tribal
militants. Musharraf had accused tribal militant Baitullah Mehsud of masterminding the suicide attack on
Benazir.
Meanwhile,Zardari has also urged PPP leaders, workers and all Pakistanis to stop him if they felt he was deviating from his late wife's mission. "I shall have no right to be buried at Garhi Khuda Bux if I drift away from her
mission, "he maintained while speaking at a meeting of the PPP's central executive
committee, the federal council, the Sindh Council and contestants from
Sindh.
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Thaksin ally elected as new Thai PM
Bangkok, January 28 The election of such a close ally cements a stunning political turnaround for Thaksin, who was toppled by the military in September 2006 and since then has been living in self-imposed exile. Samak won 310 votes, defeating Opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party who won 163 seats, speaker Yongyut Tiyapairat said. “Samak received a majority of the votes in this chamber, which means that parliament has elected Samak as Prime Minister,” Yongyut said. A charismatic yet deeply divisive figure, he will take office and form his cabinet only once King Bhumibol Adulyadej has endorsed him, a formality that could take a few days. Royalist generals in the military, who led the coup that ousted Thaksin, had spared no effort in trying to crush his political machine. Junta-appointed authorities barred him from politics, banned his political party, and froze about two billion dollars worth of his assets. — AFP
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Suharto laid to rest
Singapore, January 28 President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono led the state funeral for the 86-year old former general, who seized power in 1960s and ruled Indonesia for 32 years. Dignitaries and the regional government representatives attended the funeral. Suharto died of multiple organ failure in Jakarta yesterday. Although Suharto was architect of the Indonesian economy in the first half of his 32 years of regime, he was also blamed for letting his family members amass wealth through corrupt practises. Suharto was blamed for the killing of more than 500,000 persons as part of his campaign against the Communist Party of Indonesia when he took over from founding and first President Sukarno in the 1960s. He was forced to resign in May, 1998, following the 1997 Asian financial crisis and was appointed acting President of Indonesia in March, 1967, and made the President a year later. Suharto was born into a family of poor peasants on June 8, 1921 in Kemusuk village near the royal city of Yogyakarta, central Java, during the Dutch colonial era. The Indonesian government has declared seven days’ mourning and ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast.
— UNI
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Nepal outfit threatens to disrupt poll
Kathmandu, January 28 Leaders of the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF), which has been agitating for greater economic and political rights, including more autonomy for those living in the Terai plains bordering India, have threatened to disrupt the crucial Assembly poll if leaders of the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) fail to address their concerns. MJF coordinator Upendra Yadav and deputy coordinator Jayaprakash Prasad Gupta warned that “it will be difficult to hold the poll if the government does not take the Madhes problem seriously.” Stating that its third phase of the agitation would start from February 5, deputy coordinator Gupta said, “The nation will land in chaos if the government does not take the problem seriously.” “The Terai agitation will continue until the government implements the agreement reached with the MJF in letter and in spirit,” Gupta was quoted as saying by The Himalayan Times online today. “Instead of implementing the agreement reached with the MJF, the government has adopted the policy of suppression in the Terai,” Yadav told mediapersons in Nepal’s eastern industrial district of Biratnagar. The government has stepped up security in the eight disturbed Terai districts fearing attempts to disrupt the poll by some of the armed Madhesi groups.
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Russia calls ex-spy’s tales ‘self-publicity’
Moscow, January 28 One of the most senior Russian agents to defect, he was resettled at an undisclosed location and has now published a book telling his story for the first time. “We leave on Tretyakov’s conscience the so-called revelations made in the book,” the SVR said in a statement. “In any secret service of the world using treachery for self-publicity has always been considered disgusting, and treachery is viewed as a criminal act,” it added. Tretyakov told Reuters last week that Russian intelligence was just as active now as in Cold War times, adding that he hoped his book would act as a “wake-up call” to Americans. He predicted that presidential elections in March would not bring any change in Russia, dismissing leading pro-Kremlin contender Dmitry Medvedev as a “puppet” and incumbent Vladimir Putin as a “KGB loser” because he served at a KGB office in St. Petersburg rather than headquarters in Moscow.
— Reuters
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US official found dead in Pak
Islamabad, January 28 Keith Ryan (47) was in-charge of security at the embassy. He was found dead at his residence in the upmarket F-7/3 area at about 11 am. There was a single bullet wound on his head, officials said. Though no suicide note was found, Dawn News channel quoted the police officials as saying that they believed Ryan had taken his own life. The body was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences for an autopsy. There was no official comment from the US embassy.
— PTI
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