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Aid to Pak through elected govt, not army: US panel
Pak CJ takes notice of girl’s flogging
Pakistani women rights activists march during a protest in Karachi on Saturday against the public flogging of a veiled woman. — AFP
Afghanistan to review anti-women law
NATO clashes over new chief
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N Korea’s rocket launch delayed
Three LTTE boats destroyed
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Aid to Pak through elected govt, not army: US panel
A top US Congressman has introduced legislation in the Congress that seeks to triple economic aid to Pakistan, establishes a democracy fund and boosts military aid intended for use in the fight against
Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Unlike in the past, however, this bill includes rigorous auditing to ensure that US taxpayers’ money is “truly benefiting the Pakistani people.”
New Delhi can take solace from a key condition included in California Democratic Congressman Howard Berman's bill-it requires that the vast majority of military assistance be focused on critical counter-terrorism efforts, to help Pakistan disrupt and defeat
Al-Qaida and insurgent elements. Indian officials have in the past expressed concern that US weaponry provided to Pakistan will be deployed along the India border. Berman’s office said the bill requires that all military assistance flow through the democratically elected government of Pakistan and not the military. Much of the billions of dollars in US aid provided to Gen Pervez Musharraf’s administration was unaccounted for leading to stricter conditions reflected in Berman's bill. The legislation establishes conditions on military assistance, including a requirement that the government of Pakistan has demonstrated a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups and made progress towards that end. “This bill has one essential purpose: to strengthen our relationship with Pakistan,” Berman said. “Our commitment to Pakistan’s political stability and economic development is matched only by our sense of urgency in ensuring that Pakistan has the right tools to protect its people, secure its borders and intensify its operations against extremist elements.” In a sign of the Pakistani government's unease with tough oversight and conditions, Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, Husain
Haqqani, told the Washington Post, “it might be prudent not to restrict security assistance. Because Pakistan's armed forces will be the spearhead in the actual fight with the terrorists.” The Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act, or the PEACE Act, triples US economic assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year, with a particular emphasis on strengthening democratic institutions, promoting economic development and improving Pakistan’s education system. The bill (H.R. 1886) also establishes a permanent Pakistan Democracy and Prosperity Fund, which its sponsor notes demonstrates America’s long-term commitment to Pakistan. Introducing the bill on Thursday night, Mr. Berman said: “The bill was drafted with a clear understanding that we need to create a long-term strategic partnership with Pakistan - one that transcends our mutual counterinsurgency and counterterrorism goals, and speaks to the needs of average Pakistani citizens.” In an interview with Afghan TV, Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates was asked what the US could do to push Pakistan to deliver in the war against
Al-Qaida and its allies. “What we are doing is making clear to them that we are prepared to be a long-term ally and partner of Pakistan, that we will help them deal with their security problems,” Gates said, adding, “We're prepared to provide gear and training to enhance their counterinsurgency capabilities there in the western part of the country.” Asked about continuing links between the ISI and
Taliban, Gates conceded that the ISI's contacts with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Haqqani network and others are “a real concern to us, and we have made these concerns known directly to the Pakistanis. And we hope that they will take action to put an end to it.” In an indication that the US is worried about the truce struck by the Pakistani government in Swat Valley and an acknowledgement that such agreements had failed in the past, Gates said these had led to the increase in the number of extremists coming across the border into Afghanistan. “They no longer had to worry about Pakistani troops because of the deals that were made under President
Musharraf,” said Gates, who also served as defence secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush, who provided unstinting support to Pervez Musharraf while the general was in power. Gates said the Pakistani government “is coming to understand that what is going on in western Pakistan is as great a danger to the government in Islamabad as it is to Afghanistan.”
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Pak CJ takes notice of girl’s flogging
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJ) Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has taken suo moto notice of the flogging of a girl in Swat and issued notices to the federal interior secretary and the chief secretary as well as the inspector general police, NWFP, to personally appear before the court on Monday.
The CJ also directed the federal interior secretary to procure and constituted a larger bench of eight judges led by him to hear the case. The provincial authorities in the NWFP on Saturday said they had launched intensive search for the girl but had yet not been able to determine the date and exact location of the incident. Taliban representatives Muslim Khan while confirming the flogging of a woman several weeks ago, contested the authenticity of the video terming it as “fake” to give a bad name to the Taliban. He said the site where the actual incident took place was different than shown in the footage. Khan said nobody has been flogged ever since the Swat accord was signed a few weeks ago. The video being widely circulated by the media is designed to subvert the Swat accord that had brought peace to the area, he added. Most religious scholars have insisted that only the state or those designated by it has the right to punish anybody under the Shariah laws. The Swat Accord provides for appointment of 'Qazis' for hearing cases under the Shariah laws and also executes punishment. The orders by the CJ have baffled many people who have pointed out that the state has yet to establish its writ in the Swat area where militants rule. The court orders can hardly be implemented in such an area. Grainy video footage, which emerged on Friday, apparently shot with a mobile phone camera shows bearded turbaned men wearing black robes making the burqa-clad girl lie on the ground on her stomach. One man holds her feet and another her head while a third man with a black beard and turban flogs her with a leather strap. Dozens of people can be seen looking on. Human rights activists and religious organisations staged protest demonstrations in Lahore and several other cities urging stringent actions against perpetrators of the flogging. A leading human rights campaigner, Samar Minallah, said the girl was from a poor family and was flogged after a neighbour told the Taliban she had had an affair. President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have condemned the episode and ordered immediate probe. Sharia permits flogging: Taliban
Islamabad: Ignoring the widespread shock evoked by the flogging of a young girl in Swat, the Pakistani Taliban said on Saturday that the punishment meted out was just and no one would be allowed to interfere with Sharia laws. Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muslim Khan told reporters that “the punishment awarded to the woman was just as she was of loose character”. Khan said: “No one would be allowed to interfere in Sharia and if any man or woman commits sin, we will punish them according to Sharia.” Peace is directly related with the imposition of Islamic law, he said.
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Afghanistan to review anti-women law
London, April 4 At the same time, Karzai rejected what he called the misinterpretation of the law by Western journalists. His decision follows expressions of disquiet from NATO’s secretary-general. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he could not justify foreign troops dying in defence of universal values in Afghanistan, if those values were violated by its laws. Karzai said he had ordered the Justice Ministry to review the law, which is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan’s minority Shia community. If anything in the legislation contravened the country’s constitution or Sharia, he said, “measures will be taken”. “We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community,” he said during a televised press conference in Kabul. “Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law or a misinterpretation of it.” Aides to President Karzai had earlier insisted the law provided more protection for women. Among its provisions, wives are obliged to have sexual relations with their husbands at least once every four days and women can’t leave home without their husband’s permission. Critics say the law limits the rights of women from the Shia minority and authorises rape within marriage. On Friday, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC’s Mark Mardell: “We are there to defend universal values and when I see, at the moment, a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women’s rights and human rights, that worries me.” He added: “I have a problem to explain and President Karzai knows this, because I discussed it with him. I have a problem to explain to a critical public audience in Europe, be it Britain or elsewhere, why I’m sending the guys to the Hindu Kush.” France’s Human Rights Minister Rama Yade also expressed her “sharp concern” at the law, saying it “recalls the darkest hours of Afghanistan’s history”. The UN earlier said it was seriously concerned about the potential impact of the law. Human rights activists say it reverses many of the freedoms won by Afghan women in the seven years since the Taliban were driven from power. They say it removes the right of women to refuse sex to their husbands, unless they are ill. Women will also need to get permission from their husbands if they want to leave their homes, unless there is an emergency. The law covers members of Afghanistan’s Shia minority, who make up 10 per cent of the population. It was rushed through parliament in February and was backed by influential Shia clerics and Shia political parties. The law is reported to have been approved by President Karzai, who critics say is eager to win Shia votes in forthcoming elections. — IANS
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Baden-Baden (Germany), April 4 “We either have consensus or we don’t ... and we have no consensus yet,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai when asked whether heads of state and government had reached a deal on the successor to the current chief, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. Appathurai said the talks would resume today, but denied claims that they would steal valuable time from planned discussions on NATO’s operations in Afghanistan. Rasmussen, who officially announced his candidacy to his cabinet before heading for the summit, was still in contention but he continue to face considerable resistance from Muslim Turkey, which resents his decision not to intervene in the 2005 and 2006 Prophet Mohammed cartoon’s crisis. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was not present at the talks, had also complained Friday about Denmark’s hosting of Roj TV, a satellite broadcaster with close ties to the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). During yesterday’s dinner-time talks, NATO leaders also discussed how to improve the alliance’s relations with Russia, strained by its August invasion of Georgia, an aspirant NATO member. Most of the day saw US President Barack Obama steal the show, receiving a rock star’s welcome and thrilling Europeans with calls for a nuclear-free world during meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Strasbourg and with Merkel in Baden-Baden, across the Rhine River. While in Strasbourg, Obama also found time to hold a question-and-answer session with young students, in which he announced he would urge European Union governments to pursue a nuclear-free agenda at tomorrow’s EU-US summit in Prague. “Even with the Cold War now over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet,” Obama said. “And this weekend in Prague, I will lay out an agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” he added, to a loud applause. — DPA Anti-NATO protesters burn French border post
Strasbourg: Anti-NATO protesters set ablaze a hotel and former frontier post on the Franco-German border today. In its attempt to contain growing violence, the riot police fired volleys of tear gas and shock grenades. Hundreds of demonstrators also torched tyres, smashed shop windows and ransacked a petrol station and a pharmacy. The rioting was centred on the French side of the Bridge of Europe, which is about 5 km from a summit centre where 28 NATO leaders, including US President Barack Obama, were meeting.
— Reuters
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N Korea’s rocket launch delayed
Seoul, April 4 North Korea had said the launch would take place between April 4-8 from the hours of 2 am to 7 am. It has tested the rocket known as the Taepodong-2 only once before, in 2006, when it exploded less than a minute into flight. Impoverished North Korea, which for years has used military threats to get concessions from regional powers, has said it is putting a satellite into orbit as part of a peaceful space programme and threatened war if the rocket was intercepted. “We thought the launch was likely today, but weather conditions at the rocket base may not have been favourable,” South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a presidential Blue House official as saying.
— Reuters
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Three LTTE boats destroyed
Colombo, April 4 Bodies of 11 Tiger rebels were recovered by the Navy and Army personnel after they foiled a bid by the Tamil Tigers to infiltrate into the Alampil area that is held by the security forces, the defence ministry said. “Two of the 10 boats, carrying around 90 rebels, were destroyed by the security forces and 11 bodies of the Tamil Tigers were recovered by the Navy and the Army,” Navy spokesperson Mahesh Karunaratne told PTI. He said the rebels were instructed to somehow enter into the government-held areas. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan army said it has encircled the one sq km area of the strategic LTTE-held territory. Of the 21 sq km of territory still held by the Tiger rebels, 20 sq kms is labelled as the no-fire zone.
— PTI
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Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJ) Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has taken suo moto notice of the flogging of a girl in Swat and issued notices to the federal interior secretary and the chief secretary as well as the inspector general police, NWFP, to personally appear before the court on Monday.
