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| Tuesday,
April 24, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Left
parties to continue street protests Pak
Punjabis prefer Urdu Benazir
confident of winning ‘fair’ poll Gunmen
free 5 hostages |
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Hearing
on Kyi’s house adjourned Blast
rocks market in Islamabad
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Left parties to continue street protests Kathmandu, April 23 The Left parties have also resolved to continue with their campaign of street protests and strikes till Koirala steps down, paving the way for a clean and workable government. At a joint meeting in downtown Kathmandu, leaders of the six Left parties, including the main opposition Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxists and Leninists (CPN-UML), called upon all responsible political groups and the people to support their movement to oust Koirala. They accused the Prime Minister of promoting and institutionalising corruption and failing to protect the lives and property of the people. “The nation would be pushed into further problems and crisis if the Koirala Government continues to be in power,” Lilamani Pokharel, leader of United People’s Front, said at the meeting. Opposition parties allege that Koirala took a huge sum of money as commission for a deal between the national flag carrier Royal Nepal Airlines and Austrian Lauda Air on an 18-month lease of a jet aircraft. They are demanding his resignation to pave the way for an independent inquiry into the deal. Koirala has denied the allegation and said he would not step down under pressure. The six Left parties started joint street protests when the 19th session of Parliament began. Parliament proceedings were disrupted for two months because of protests from Opposition parties demanding Koirala’s resignation. The Opposition leaders have vowed to disrupt the coming budget session of Parliament as well if Koirala remains in power. Meanwhile, the six Left parties have also slammed the government’s Integrated Security and Development Programme (ISDP), saying it was an excuse to suppress dissidents, including the CPN-UML. The government last week announced the ISDP programme to help control the six-year-old Maoist insurgency and carry out development activities in the worst hit areas. The government intends to mobilise the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) and the Armed Police Force to implement the programme in the Maoist-affected areas.
IANS |
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Pak Punjabis prefer Urdu Lahore, April 23 Stiff opposition to the mother-tongue notwithstanding, the daily Punjabi Bhulekha published from here seems to be the lone voice of the people who have discarded their own language. The insignificant circulation of 8000 in all over Pakistan is enough proof that Punjabi is more the language of elite in the country. The daily is published in Shahmukhi script. Mr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a noted writer said that a growing number of Punjabi educated families had adopted Urdu as the first language in urban areas. It is a trend even in small towns and villages to converse with children in Urdu. This was perhaps the provocation that Fakhar Zaman, noted Pakistani Punjabi writer and convener of the World Punjabi Conference when here, had openly announced to push away those Punjabis from west Pakistan who had been working against the
mother tongue. In all 15 Punjabi magazines were published from Pakistan which has a population of more than 13 crore and Punjabis constitute about 70 per cent of it. Mr Mudasar Iqbal Butt, editor-in-chief, was honoured at the World Punjabis Conference here, said, that the Bhulekha was surviving on government advertisements , as it was receiving a lukewarm response from the masses. He alleged that the Punjabis who would occupy the highest posts in Pakistan also worked against the language. He alleged that the state was treating the Punjabis and Punjabi language with great contempt and whosoever worked for the promotion of Punjabi was being considered “anti Pakistan”. The absence of senior state officials from the world Punjabi conference was a clear proof of the alleged “anti Punjabi “policies of the state government. This was why Mr Fakhar Zaman was forced to give an open call of boycotting those Punjabis who were openly working against the language. Mr Mohammad Hanif Qamar, news editor of the paper told this correspondent that news papers in Pakistan enjoyed limited freedom, he admitted that there was a complete freedom of the press in India while Pakistani papers always remained under surveillance. The price of Bhulekha is Rs 3 and it is sold at 185 stations of the country. The management also makes special arrangements for sending it to foreign countries, including Dubai and other Muslim countries where the Punjabi Muslims live in a good number. He, however, hoped that a forceful campaign in favour of Punjabi was in the offing as Punjabi-speaking people had started feeling the brunt of language discrimination in the country. It may be mentioned here that the circulation of newspapers in Pakistan could not pick up to the level of even a lakh due to two reasons, one, literacy rate of Pakistan was low as compared to India and second, the price of newspapers, especially the national English dailies like Dawn, The News is about Rs 10 per copy, hence, the newspapers were not within the reach of the common man. Though the price of Bhulekha was only Rs 3 yet its circulation could not pick up due to illiteracy among the Punjabi speaking people. |
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Benazir confident of winning ‘fair’ poll Karachi, April 23 She said a major obstacle to her return after two years in exile was removed this month when the Supreme Court upheld her appeal against a 1999-corruption conviction and accused the trial judge of fixing the verdict. “The people of the country support me and if fair elections are held, I am confident of being elected,” she said in an e-mail interview from London. “The Supreme Court verdict vindicates my claim of being a victim of a state conspiracy to politically eliminate me,” she said. “By setting aside the wrongful conviction, the Supreme Court removed a major hurdle from my path to political comeback,” she said. The court ordered a retrial after setting aside the convictions of Ms Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari and unanimously declaring the verdict politically motivated. Ms Bhutto was accused of taking kickbacks from a Swiss firm during her 1993-96 rule, but the appeal Bench found that “bias is floating on the surface of the record” and accused trial Judge Malik Mohammad Qayyum of accepting favours from the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to produce the guilty verdict. Justice Qayyum is still sitting with the high court and has refused pressure to resign. Ms Bhutto, who went into exile shortly before her conviction, is preparing to return to Pakistan to lead the democracy movement and fill the void created by the ouster of Mr Sharif in a military coup in October 1999. But the regime under Gen Pervez Musharraf insists that Ms Bhutto must face other counts of corruption and could be arrested if she returns. Its “accountability” drive recently received a boost when the British Government agreed to release thousands of pages of Ms Bhutto’s financial records to Pakistani investigators. Ms Bhutto described all other allegations against her as politically motivated.
AFP |
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Gunmen free 5 hostages Istanbul, April 23 But the group said it would hold on to an undetermined number of captives, including foreigners. “We are sorry but we will have to offer our hospitality to a large number of people for a certain amount of time,” the armed group said in a faxed statement sent to NTV television news. “We will bring no bloodshed and as a sign of goodwill we will free Turkish nationals as well as women, children and old people,” the statement said. The gunmen said their action was a protest against “bloody” Russian attacks in the Caucasus. The exact number and nationalities of the remaining hostages was not immediately clear, but one hostage, contacted over the telephone by NTV, said between 50 and 70 hotel guests and staff were being held in the hotel. In Tokyo, the Japanese Government said around 10 of their nationals
might have been trapped in the luxury Swisshotel, where an international conference of iron buyers was being held. Hong Kong’s Cathy Pacific Airways said some of its crew members could also be among the captives, and the British Foreign Office said a number of British tourists were staying at the hotel. In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said four Russian nationals were among the hostages held by the armed gunmen. The governor of Istanbul told reporters earlier that he had spoken with the gunmen. “I have spoken to them. They have political demands. We are trying to resolve things,’’ Governor Erol Cakir told reporters as he left the hotel around five hours into the siege. He gave no details of the demands or the number of hostages.
AFP, Reuters |
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Hearing
on Kyi’s house adjourned Yangon, April 23 “I hereby adjourn this suit until May 2,” judge Soe Thein told the lawyers of Suu Kyi and her brother Aung San Oo. Suu Kyi’s brother, who lives in the USA and has U.S. citizenship, wants the right to administer the house where Suu Kyi lives in Yangon. Real estate agents say it is worth about $ 2 million. The court dismissed a previous suit by Aung San Oo in January on the grounds he had filed the case on the wrong form. The dismissal of the suit in January was widely interpreted as a sign Myanmar’s military government was easing its crackdown on Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD). But the government insists the suit is a family affair and says it will not intervene. Suu Kyi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar, has been confined to the house in Yangon since September and access to her has been tightly controlled. Suu Kyi and Aung San Oo are children of Myanmar independence hero General Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947 when the country was on the threshold of independence from Britain. The Yangon house was owned by Suu Kyi’s family. Suu Kyi has lived there — much of the time under house arrest, since returning from Europe in 1988 to nurse her ailing mother.
Reuters |
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Blast rocks market in Islamabad Islamabad, April 23 Both vehicles were destroyed in the explosion, it said. The Senior Superintendent of Police of the area, Mr Nasir Durrani, said the police were trying to prepare sketches of the culprits who might have planted the explosives on the cart. Eyewitnesses said the blast was so strong that it could be heard far and wide. Panic gripped the whole area as scared and screaming people ran for cover, they said. More than 12 persons had been killed and a number of others injured when a similar blast rocked another market in the city in December last.
PTI |
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Strikers
explode bombs in Dhaka Dhaka, April 23 At least two policemen were injured when proponents of the strike exploded a crude bomb — a tin pot stuffed with explosives and nails — near a five-star hotel, officers at the Police Control Room said. Three more blasts occurred near a closed market, but no casualties were immediately reported. The bombs were made of the type of gunpowder used in firecrackers. Similar general strikes in the past have turned violent. The Opposition held two in April during which five persons were killed in street violence or in attacks on those who defied the strike. Ms Hasina has appealed to the people to ignore the strike and accused the Opposition of pushing the country into deeper economic troubles. The Opposition has observed strikes on 85 days since Ms Hasina came to power in June 1996. Ms Hasina has rejected the Opposition’s demands to step down and order early parliamentary elections. Her five-year term ends in mid-July.
AP |
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