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Pak slams attacks by NATO choppers on its soil
Chile miners never considered
suicide |
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Pak Taliban ‘gave’ $43K to Shahzad
Islamabad, October 19 Pakistan’s banned Tehrik-e-Taliban militant outfit had provided $43,000 in financial support to Pakistani-American terrorist Faisal Shahzad for plotting the botched car bombing in New York’s Times Square. Gunshots heard near Pentagon
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Pak slams attacks by NATO choppers on its soil
Boston, October 19 “The recent attacks by NATO helicopters in Pakistan killing Pakistani soldiers are nothing short of infuriating our people. In the battle of hearts and minds of people of Pakistan, the Kerry-Lugar (aid) is one step forward, massive flood relief is one step forward but drone and helicopter attacks on our territory and people are two steps back,” he said. Speaking at Harvard Kennedy School, Qureshi said Pakistan is an ally to the US, “not a satellite.” While it will partner the US “especially in our joint effort to destroy the terrorist cancer,” Pakistan is first and foremost “like every nation on earth” committed to preserving its national interest, he said. “We live in a rough neighbourhood and we will live in that rough neighbourhood even when you leave. We have to prepare for all eventualities; we have to protect our borders. You have to respect our sovereignty,” Qureshi added. He said the US and Pakistan were trying to create a long-term, mature and mutually beneficial partnership, even though “the mantra of the past, the mantra of exploitation” is proving difficult to wash away from the minds of the people. “One of the most critical factors in understanding contemporary Pakistan and the political attitudes of the Pakistani people is the exploitation and manipulation of my country as a blunt instrument against Soviet Union during the critical periods of the Cold War. There is a reason we are what we are,” he added. “We are a product of a difficult 63-year history that began with a bloodbath across the subcontinent, a total inequitable distribution of resources and industry and a haunting human rights disgrace in Jammu and Kashmir. We have had episodic wars with our often hostile neighbour,” he added. Qureshi said if people wonder why the people and miltary of Pakistan are concerned about continued commitment of the US to Pakistan in the future, one must look back to 1989 when the Soviets left Afghanistan. “The Americans, victorious, left on the next bus out of town.” He said that the “Mujahideen, which the CIA cultivated to fight the jihad, filled the political vacuum morphing into the Taliban and later into Al-Qaida. The rest is a painful and bloody history for your country and mine.”
— PTI
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Chile miners never considered suicide
Copiapo, Chile, October 19 “What we always wondered was why hadn’t we died, why we were alive,” Yonni Barrios, 50, said as he fought back tears in an interview late on Monday. Barrios and his fellow miners were finally hoisted up by a cable from half a mile below the earth’s surface on Wednesday after more than 69 days deep inside a collapsed gold and copper mine. He said the men argued about how long help would take to reach them but never came to blows as tensions rose in the hot and humid tunnel shrouded in darkness. Barrios, who wore sunglasses inside his home in a ramshackle neighborhood of poorly built houses on the outskirts of the mining town of Copiapo, said he was still struggling to adjust to sunlight, which he said feels like needles being poked into his eyes. “It seemed cruel that were alive down there and would have to die a slow death from malnourishment because we didn’t have food,” Barrios said. “Hope was lost. When the perforation drill arrived we were all waiting to die.” Barrios, who has been working in Chile’s vast mining industry since he was 17, said he and his colleagues did not consider taking their own lives to end the agony. “We never thought about that,” said Barrios, who is short and trim with gray hair. Barrios became the butt of jokes among the miners because he was known for having more than one woman in his life: an estranged wife and a girlfriend with whom he has lived for more than a decade, along with her children. His girlfriend Susana Valenzuela has taken to calling him Tarzan, regarding him as courageous and valiant, a man who has survived extraordinary odds. — Reuters
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Pak Taliban ‘gave’ $43K to Shahzad
Islamabad, October 19 This was mentioned in a report on the arrest of Shahzad’s alleged associates that was submitted by the police yesterday to a Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court. In the report on the arrest of Hunbal Akhtar, Mohammad Shoaib Mughal and Mohammad Shahid Hussain, the police said it had been established that the trio had links with Shahzad. The investigators said the accused, who used to visit Pakistani Taliban chief Hakeemullah Mehsud, confessed in their statement made under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before a judicial magistrate that they provided $43,000 to Shahzad for the attacks.
— PTI
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Washington, October 19 Pentagon police officers heard about four or five gunshots around 4.55 am (0855 GMT) fired at or near the south parking lot of the massive Defence Department headquarters, Pentagon Force Protection Agency spokesman Chris Layman said. They locked down the area, along with all of the Pentagon’s entrances before conducting sweeps of the area, including a canine search with the local police. “They did not find anything,” Layman said. “They’re investigating it right now, they’re not sure what happened right now.” By 6.00 am (1000 GMT), all Pentagon entrances were reopened and operations were back to normal, he added. — AFP
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Indian-American sworn in as top science official
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Chile’s 33 miners had given up hope of being found alive and were prepared to die slowly of hunger but stopped short of taking their own lives in the days before they were found alive, one of the miners told Reuters.
