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| Thursday, December 14, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Sentences against Sharif still stand  ISLAMABAD, Dec 13
— While the military establishment maintains that deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was pardoned and no deal struck for his release, the Pakistan Muslim League has discounted this theory.
Indian stonemasons get £ 150,000 as wages Key witness against Estrada flees No protection to Fujimori: Japan Will Clinton magic work in Ireland? |
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163 feared drowned near
Australia 2 Palestinians die in refugee camp attack Husband kills wife for contesting poll
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Sentences against Sharif still stand ISLAMABAD, Dec 13 (UNI) — While the military establishment maintains that deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was pardoned and no deal struck for his release, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has discounted this theory. The Acting President of the PML, Mr Javed Hashmi, said Mr Sharif did not seek pardon from the government and neither has he entered into a deal with the military government. Maj-Gen Rashid Quereshi, Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations and Press Secretary of Chief Executive Pervez
Musharraf, however, reiterated that Mr Sharif had not been exiled to Saudi Arabia as a part of some deal but had sought pardon, the details of which he said could be disclosed. “Let me reassure you again that there has been no deal but still this word deal is being repeatedly used in the media,” General Quereshi said. He said all sentences awarded to Mr Sharif still stood. Talking to Radio Teheran, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar dispelled the rumours that the government has imposed a ban on the entry of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz into the country. He said there is no ban on her. However, Mr Sharif cannot return to Pakistan up to the period of 10 years. The exile would not affect his Pakistani citizenship, he said. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party, currently on a self-imposed exile in London, has claimed that the military government approached her husband Asif Zardari with a deal similar to one made with Mr Sharif in November this year, but he stood his ground. |
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Indian stonemasons get £ 150,000 as wages LONDON, Dec 13 (PTI) — Sixteen Indian stonemasons, who were earlier forced to work here on wages as low as 30 pence an hour, have won back-dated wages totalling £ 150,000, inland revenue officials said yesterday. The stonemasons from Rajasthan, who are working on the biggest Hindu temple outside India here, said they would be able to buy a plush new house each and start their own business with the money. The workers received an average of £ 10,000 each after their employer, Shrico Limited, was forced to pay them a minimum wage of £ 3.70 an hour when inland revenue inspectors warned that it was breaking the law. Before the ruling, the worst paid workers earned a “pocket money” totalling just 30 pence an hour. Many had been receiving only £ 125 per month for a six-day week. The stonemasons were forced to live in a “squalid” hut at the North London building site, sleeping side by side their possessions kept in suitcases under their beds and without proper heating. However, a spokesman for the firm claimed that there was a misunderstanding. He said the builders, who were flown mainly from Rajasthan to construct the £ 8 million Shri Sanatan Temple in Wembley, were being paid double the wages they would earn in India and had been provided with basic accommodation and food. The company tried to prevent the case from going to an employment tribunal. One of the firm’s Directors, Harish Rughani, told the Daily Express, “The stories circulated in the media are a total distortion of the facts created by a handful of dissidents”. He said the workers had always earned the minimum wages. Mr Rughani said Shrico had paid for the Indian workers’ airfare and had also been paying Rs 20,000, double their Indian salary, direct to their families in India. One of the masons, Suresh Surhar from Dungarpur, said he would now buy a big house with the money and hoped to set up a business. His net payment £ 7559,12 which he received by a cheque has now been sent back to his village. Eleven workers still in Britain and five, who have returned home, have also received their cheques. The payments were dated back to April last when the minimum wage was introduced by the government. |
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Key witness against Estrada flees MANILA, Dec 13 (DPA) — A key witness against Philippine President Joseph Estrada said he had fled the country with his family in fear of being harmed before he testified in the chief executive’s impeachment trail. Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Perfecto Yasay, however, today assured the public that he would return here “in the first two weeks of January 2001”, when he was scheduled to take the witness stand. “I am just taking the necessary precautions,” he told a local radio station in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location. “I want to make sure that nothing untoward happens to me before I take the witness stand,” he added. Mr Yasay said he started receiving “terrifying” death threats early this year after he publicly accused Estrada of attempting to intervene in an SEC investigation on an insider trading case involving a close friend of the President. The accusations almost caused the collapse of the stock market in March and later formed one of the bases for Estrada’s impeachment by the House of Representatives in November. |
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No protection to Fujimori: Japan TOKYO, Dec 13 (AFP) — The Japanese Government was not protecting disgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and did not contrive to find he holds Japanese nationality to help him, an official said today. “First of all, the Japanese Government is not protecting Fujimori,” the Foreign Ministry official said. “We are only confirming a fact — whether or not he has the Japanese nationality. We never strategically created a second nationality for him.” Yesterday, the Japanese Government confirmed that Fujimori was Japanese because his parents, who emigrated to Peru in the 1930s, had registered his birth in the Japanese consulate in Lima in 1938 and submitted an application to retain the baby’s Japanese citizenship. The official’s comments came amid signs from Peru that Tokyo’s announcement could provoke a backlash against Japanese expatriates in Peru and Peruvians of Japanese descent. LIMA (AFP): Peruvians have expressed shock and embarrassment over news that Alberto Fujimori — president from 1990 to just weeks ago — has Japanese citizenship. The Japanese Government’s announcement on Tuesday enables Fujimori to stay in Japan indefinitely, despite pressure for his return to Lima to answer to charges of corruption. It sparked indignation even among the disgraced ex-president’s close associates, and fears of an anti-Japanese backlash in Peru. |
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Will Clinton magic work in Ireland? DUBLIN, Dec 13 —The US President, Bill Clinton, yesterday began an emotional farewell to Ireland, the country he hopes will bear lasting testimony to his efforts as peacemaker. The outgoing President, his wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea received a rapturous welcome in Dublin and in the border town of Dundalk, on the first day of a two-day tour. But while breakthrough is not expected during talks with key politicians in Belfast the President urged all sides not to give up trying to overcome the deadlock between Unionists and Republicans over decommissioning and demilitarisation. “We’ve got to keep going, reversal is not an option,’’ said Mr Clinton. “The people want this to go on and I think the leaders have to find a way through the last three or four difficult issues and I think it can be done.” London, Dublin and Washington have played down hopes of major progress during this visit but they are optimistic that Mr Clinton could provide the catalyst to create a better climate for agreement in the next few weeks. Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson said, “President Clinton will help give people the confidence to move forward together. “He is a cross between a thoroughly charming, charismatic man and a political computer. I don’t think we would have the peace process we do if we didn’t have Bill Clinton.” Mr Clinton has not ruled out the idea of coming back to Northern Ireland as some sort of peace envoy after he leaves office and said. “If I can be a resource I will.” After being welcomed to Dublin by the Irish President, Ms Mary McAleese, and the Prime Minister, the Bertie Ahern, he met politicians before giving a speech to around 2,000 people at the Guinness brewery. But underneath all the joviality, there is a serious and passionate message about the process he has been closely involved with during the eight years of his presidency. This is his third visit to Ireland, he is the only serving US President to go to Northern Ireland, and he has kept in regular contact with all the key players in the peace process, phoning them with encouragement in the vital hours, leading up to the signing of the Good Friday agreement two years ago. The fact that he chose the dissident Republican stronghold of Dundalk to deliver a keynote speech is also being read as a powerful signal of his call for everyone to leave violence behind and move forward together. Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and the party’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness were among the tens of thousands gathered to welcome him in the County Louth town, infamous as the place where security chiefs believe the renegade Real IRA planned the Omagh bomb which killed 29 persons and unborn twins in 1998. — The Guardian, London |
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163 feared drowned
near Australia CANBERRA, Dec 13 (Reuters)— At least 163 persons en route to Australia from Indonesia are believed to have drowned when their two vessels sank in stormy seas, Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said today. The vessel was believed to be carrying 87 persons when it went missing between Indonesia’s southern islands and Ashmore Islands, an outcrop of reefs about 600 km off Australia’s remote north-west. ‘’The weather conditions to the north of Australia have been atrocious, and there are reports that another boat carrying 80 passengers has also disappeared ," Mr Ruddock said in a statement. |
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2 Palestinians die in refugee camp attack JERUSALEM, Dec 13 (Reuters)— The Israeli security forces killed two Palestinians during a fierce night-time battle at Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian hospital sources and witnesses said today. The sources said Mahdi Akila (25), a member of the Palestinian national security forces, died from shrapnel wounds, and an unidentified Palestinian man died from a bullet wound sustained during clashes with Israeli soldiers. They added 25 more persons had been wounded. Appeals broadcast over loudspeakers at the camp called on "every able-bodied person" to take up arms and confront the Israelis. The witnesses said Israeli tanks advanced into the camp, which is in Palestinian-ruled territory, and shot at a building, setting it on fire. An army spokeswoman denied that tanks were involved or that Israeli forces had entered the camp. In the West Bank, Mr Arafat’s Fatah faction said yesterday that Israeli security forces had assassinated one of its field commanders. The Israeli army declined to comment. Fatah said Yousef Ahmed Abu Sway (28) was killed in front of his home at Khader village, south of Bethlehem. |
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Husband kills wife
for contesting poll LAHORE, Dec 13 (AP) — A woman, who wanted to be a candidate in Pakistan’s local elections, was allegedly killed by her husband, who objected to her candidacy, an English-language newspaper reported. Nazia Mumtaz was allegedly killed by her husband on Friday after she refused to withdraw her nomination for election in Bhalwal, 120 km northwest of Lahore, Dawn newspaper reported. |
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