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Friday,
July 6, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Musharraf’s
NSC may block democracy PoK goes to
the polls
PPP claims
majority in local body poll |
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LTTE
banned under anti-terrorism law India,
China agree to keep peace First
wire-free heart implanted NEWS ANALYSIS No
wedding bells for smokers, drinkers Helmut Kohl’s wife commits
suicide
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Musharraf’s NSC may block democracy Islamabad, July 5 Although the long-anticipated development yesterday evening did not add to the General’s already-overwhelming powers, it raised fresh doubt about what authority would be given to the elected assemblies he has promised to be set up late next year. “The difficulty will be in making a judgement as to what extent this will be a body to overrule the democratic process”, said one diplomat. “That, I imagine Western capitals will be looking at”. Under the order, which was printed in local newspapers with little comment, the NSC is established immediately to aid and advise Musharraf on all policies. The body will be headed by the President and includes the Chief Executive, the head of the armed forces, the heads of each branch of the military, the four provincial Governors and anyone else named by Musharraf. No Cabinet Minister is automatically included. Musharraf seized power in October 1999 when he was head of the armed forces. He assumed the title of Chief Executive and last month named himself President as well. “I presume for the moment it makes no difference to the way the government actually operates because it’s under Musharraf’s direction anyway and three of the members of the NSC are him”, said the diplomat. Western countries, while praising his efforts to restore financial stability to Pakistan, have been pressing Musharraf to establish a functioning democracy rather than a parliament still under the control of the military. “If he is going to avoid a great deal of difficulty ... he has to secure an external flank”, said another diplomat. “Otherwise he’s going to hit very heavy weather if he’s seen to be a totally dominant President with a totally subservient, basically non-functioning, parliament”. Musharraf seized power from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, pledging to clean up corruption, financial and administrative chaos left by a decade of civilian rule in which no leader completed a full term. Although the Supreme Court ordered a restoration of civilian rule by October 2002, Musharraf had made it clear that he intended to stay on as a president with powers to ensure the continuation of reforms he has begun. “It’s obvious it’s going to be a very, very strong executive government”, said the diplomat, adding that an elected parliament might not acquiesce to every demand from Musharraf but was likely to have limited powers. “I think it’s going to have the powers that the NSC chooses not to exert”, he said. “Basically, parliament will be over-rulable by a strong president”. While creation of the NSC — as the taking of the presidency — had been expected, the early timing suggested Musharraf has a thorough plan of administrative changes already scheduled. The last in a series of local elections that Musharraf hopes will create a new political leadership to replace the discredited politicians of the 1990s takes place in August. Musharraf may then provide more details of the structure — with a powerful NSC headed by himself — that he intends to use after the election of national and provincial assemblies in October 2002.
Reuters |
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PoK goes to the polls
Kotli (Pakistan), July 5 With heavy army security but no signs of trouble, voters marked ballots where the parties were identified by symbols for the benefit of the two-thirds of the two million-strong electorate which is illiterate. The arrow was the symbol for Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which rules in the region. The main challenger is the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC), the region’s oldest party symbolised by a horse. Sixteen political groups — with more then 300 candidates — contested 40 of the 48 seats in the state legislative assembly, the lower house. Voting started slowly but numbers picked up as the day progressed. Results are expected by tomorrow. The voting took place less than 10 days before President Musharraf would go to India for talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in which the conflicting claims of the countries to Kashmir will be paramount. Pro-independence candidates were barred from the election for refusing to profess their faith in all of Kashmir joining Pakistan. Candidates who wanted Kashmir to join India or be independent were also barred. Mr Amanullah Khan, chairman of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was detained on Tuesday after he addressed a rally against the ban on pro-independence candidates, in the state town of Kotli. The JKLF said about 300 other party activists had been arrested.
Reuters |
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PPP claims
majority in
local body poll Islamabad, July 5 PPP-backed candidates were returned in most of the 29 districts including major cities, party Secretary-General Jahangir Badar said. “The countrywide results of urban centres showed people’s confidence in our leader Benazir
Bhutto,” senior PPP leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said. “We are leading in Peshawar and Rawalpindi and are second in Lahore and Karachi, which is a good sign for our chances in national and provincial assembly elections in 2002,” he added. The official results from 3,570 seats are still awaited. The PPP’s rivals, the Pakistan Muslim League
(PML) of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and religious parties also made conflicting victory claims in different cities. The Jamaat-i-Islami
(JI) said it had won a majority in the southern port city of Karachi. JI’s Deputy leader Ghafoor Ahmed said his party won in 60 union councils out of 178 in Karachi.
ANI |
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LTTE banned under anti-terrorism law Colombo, July 5 An official notification said President Chandrika Kumaratunga invoked the existing provisions of its anti-terrorism legislation to ban the LTTE as well as to declare all administrative districts in the country as “security areas”. The orders under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1979, ensure that all effects of the emergency will continue, even though Emergency itself lapsed yesterday. Normally, Emergency is extended by a presidential proclamation and the constitutionally mandated ratification by Parliament will take place on the third day, but the proclamation was not issued yesterday. This followed a decision by the Opposition United National Party (UNP) to vote against the measure as a challenge to the minority government to prove its numerical strength by getting the Emergency extended on its own. The government chose not to pick up the gauntlet and instead postponed the voting. Meanwhile, Norway has named a four-member team, headed by its Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johanssen, to revive the stalled peace process in Sri Lanka, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar said here. “Special envoy Erik Solheim will be part of the team, along with Norway’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Jon Westborg and Kjersti Tromsdal, executive officer in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry”, he said in a statement released last night. Norway had conveyed its willingness to continue its facilitation efforts as long as the parties wanted it, Kadirgamar said. The development has been conveyed to the government on June 30 and to the LTTE in London, simultaneously, Kadirgamar said, and once again invited the LTTE to participate in direct talks without any conditions.
PTI |
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India, China agree to keep peace Beijing, July 5 At the ninth meeting of the Sino-Indian diplomatic and military experts group (EG) held in New Delhi on June 28, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the two sides exchanged views on “continuing to proceed in the direction of clarifying the Line of Actual Control (LAC)”. The EG meeting also discussed the confidence building measures (CBM) adopted by the two sides in accordance with the agreements signed between the two governments and with the consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries, ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. “The session was held in an atmosphere of friendship and frankness,” she said. Ms Zhang, however, gave no indication about whether some progress had been made since the two sides exchanged maps of the less-disputed “middle sector” — a 545 km section of the border which runs along Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal — last November. It was expected that the two sides would compare each other’s maps to first ascertain the commonalties and identify the differences of perception on the LAC in the middle sector, paving the way for the exchange of maps of the hotly-contested eastern and western sectors of the LAC.
PTI |
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First wire-free heart implanted Louisville, KY, July 5 The revolutionary procedure is the first major advance in the development of an artificial replacement heart in nearly two decades. If successful, the device could help thousands of patients who die each year waiting for a heart transplant. Patients considered for the implant were critically ill with fewer than 30 days to live and the life expectancy of the patient who got the new device was expected to be extended by about a month. The grapefruit-sized, plastic-and-titanium motorised hydraulic pump, which weighs 2 pounds (1 kg), is designed to perform the work of the lower chambers of a patient’s failing heart. “It is the first atrificial heart to be free of wires connecting it to an outside energy source. “This is the first time this has ever been done,” said Kathy Keadle, a spokeswoman at Jewish Hospital where the procedure was performed on Monday by University of Louisville surgeons, Laman Gray and Robert Dowling. David Faxon, Chief of Cardiology at the University of Chicago Hospitals, said the device could offer an alternative to transplantation. “Being totally implantable without any extra devices it is a major advance,” Faxon said. “This allows for the opportunity of it (the artificial heart) being long-term.” Earlier versions of the artificial heart were bulky and provided limited benefit to the patients. In 1982, Dr Barney Clark, 61, of Salt Lake City, Utah, survived for 112 days with the first artificial heart, known as the Jarvik-7. He was confined to his bed, attached to protruding cables, tubes and the artificial heart’s noisy air compressor. The new device contains a small electric motor attached to an implanted battery and is designed to last for ye ars. Patients could wear a battery pack or plug into an electrical outlet to recharge the heart’s battery.
Reuters |
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NEWS ANALYSIS TWO arrests made news last week. Held on corruption charges, 78-year old former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi was out after five days, emerging as a hero in the process. The other arrest took place in distant Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic, the former warlord of Serbia, was finally extradited to The Hague to stand trial as a war criminal for atrocities committed during the civil war in Bosnia. The trial will be conducted by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal. The Milosevic trial is expected to drag on for several months, if not years, and promises to prove plenty of drama. The former Serb leader, who had been avoiding extradition to The Hague for several months, set the ball rolling by refusing to plead guilty and challenging the legality of the tribunal. The discredited dictator pointed out that the tribunal had not been appointed by the UN General Assembly and lacked moral and legal authority. This could only be a burst of initial bravado. In the days to come, Milosevic can be expected to adopt as many stalling tactics and find out legal loopholes. But he can expect no sympathy from the presiding judge for the trial, Richard May. The judge sharply chastised the accused for making speeches. Milosevic faces four major charges — deportation, crimes against humanity, murder, crimes against the laws and customs of the land and persecution on religious grounds. The diehard Serbian supporters of Milosevic were confident their hero and leader would not be extradited and would face only corruption charges in Belgrade. But the noose had been tightening around Milosevic’s neck for quite some time. The West, particularly the USA, was insistent that the Serbian leader should stand trial for crimes against humanity. The Bush administration made it clear that no economic aid would reach Serbia until its warlord was handed over. Serbia could not ignore this threat. The nation, bled white by the civil war of over a decade, was bankrupt. Unemployment was a staggering 50 per cent while the annual inflation rate ran at around 110 per cent. The Serbian leaders, some of them against their wishes, had to explain to their people the necessity of handing over Milosevic to the West for sheer survival. A meeting of international donors to Belgrade scheduled for June 29 had to be cancelled because the USA made it clear it would not attend the meeting unless Milosevic was handed over. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic last week assured US Secretary of State Colin Powell that the former warlord would be handed over. There was some token opposition within the nation. A local court, packed with Milosevic supporters, overturned the government decision, but it did not have any impact . The President of the Yugoslave Federation, a comparatively weak body, resigned in protest. But President Vojislav Kostunica, who succeeded Milosevic, did not choose to interfere, though he termed the handover both “illegal” and unconstitutional’. The people of Belgrade appeared resigned and the protest did not attract many people. But the younger generation including most of the students did not seem to bother. The mood was one of thank God, it’s all over. Let us think of our future. Such an attitude seems to get confirmed with the discovery of more and more evidence from all over the country. During the last one month, the Interior Ministry revealed the existence of three mass graves filled with bodies of Kosovo civilians. The latest of these, uncovered the day before Milosevic was handed over, contained the bodies of nine children. Over the years, many of the Serbs had been sheltered from details of such atrocities. But today, with more and more media and government exposes, the mood had suddenly changed against their former hero. It is gut-wrenching for any nation to come face to face with crimes committed on its own soil by its one-time rulers. The Nuremberg trials of war criminals opened the eyes of Germany to the atrocities during the Nazi regime. Many Germans, initially, could not believe that their respected leaders had a hand in the systematic torture and killing of millions of innocent people, particularly the Jews. There were hardly any protests when the agents of the State of Israel, managed to kidnap, Hitler’s close aide, Adolf Eichman from Argentine. He was tried for war crimes and executed. Today, remnants of aged Nazi leaders, many of them senile, were still getting arrested and tried in different European capitals. In matters of such crimes, geography seldom figured. Perhaps, that was why many of the Yugoslavs share the view that mass murderers can be tried and punished, if not in their own nations, elsewhere. The UN Court for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity was perfectly acceptable to them. Milosevic would be tried under a fair judicial process and can hire the best legal help available. Serbians would not come out with much credit from the trial, but at last, the really guilty men could be punished. How easy or difficult will it be to try the former Serbian warlord? Prosecutors at The Hague are confident they have enough damaging evidence to convict Milosevic. They pointed out that since Kosovo was such a small place, it would be difficult to hide or remove evidence of mass killings. Since civilians had suffered the most, it was expected that more and more civilians would come forward to testify against Milosevic. But there is a snag here. While there may be unmistakable evidence against the Serbian militia, can the victims pinpoint that the crimes were planned and executed at the behest of the political high command headed by Milosevic? Can the prosecution establish these vial links? No one can deny that the Serbian troops killed, looted and raped the civilians. But who issued the orders? Did the orders come from Milosevic and his cronies? Attorneys and human rights activists, numbering more than 50, however, had been slowly but steadily collecting information on the Serbian crimes. Dictators and mass murderers, going by the example of Milosevic, can no longer seek shelter within the confines of their own borders. Crimes against humanity need a broader canvas. |
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No wedding bells for smokers, drinkers Singapore, July 5 The poll by the Straits Times newspaper also found people preferred to marry within their own race and those open to marrying a foreigner preferred Asians to Caucasians. Religion posed few problems in the marriage stakes, fat was not an issue and while men liked to ogle at women in revealing clothes, fewer than 40 per cent would date or marry a scantily-dressed woman. In the multiracial city-state, attitudes changed along racial, age and education lines. Of the 70 per cent who said they would reject people who smoke and drink as prospective partners, most were above 35 years old, were tertiary educated and were mainly Malays and Indians. The 66 per cent who had no problem with taking a non-virgin as a mate tended to be Chinese and Indians, under 35 and with A-levels. Although virginity was not an issue for most of the 62 people aged 15 and above who were surveyed, fewer than 10 per cent said they would marry someone who has had several partners. Singapore, struggling to reverse a declining birth rate, is constantly analysing attitudes to marriage.
AFP |
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Helmut Kohl’s wife commits suicide Berlin, July 5 |
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