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Thursday,
September 6, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Chaudhry’s
Labour wins half of seats counted Trouble
brewing in Sindh; raid on MQM office Aid
workers may be hanged: CJ China
craves for Indian movies B’desh
repeals 2 poll laws Fiji's
suspension lifted, Pak stays |
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Pak
accord on fundraiser Zimbabwe
accepts land offer from whites
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Chaudhry’s Labour wins
half of seats counted Suva, September 5 Chaudhry, who was Fiji’s first ethnic Indian Prime Minister, won his district in the Indian stronghold in the west, they said. Chaudhry’s labour party took 22 of the 45 seats announced in the day. Speight also won a seat in the legislature, 16 months after he and a gang of gunmen stormed its debating chamber to overthrow Chaudhry’s democratically elected government. Speight narrowly won the Tailevu North Fijian communal seat for the Conservative Alliance, a nationalist party demanding that indigenous Fijians control political power in their homeland. Speight supporters gathered at a school in Fiji’s capital, Suva, danced and cheered when they heard the result. Speight remains in custody on an island off Suva awaiting trial on treason charges stemming from the coup. He faces the maximum death penalty if convicted. He was allowed to stand in the election because he has never been convicted of a serious crime. Chaudhry’s main rival for power, military-installed interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, also won his seat, officials added. Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, immediately ruled out working with Chaudhry. “I’m not prepared to work with Chaudhry. Either he forms the government, or I form the government,” said Qarase, leader of the SDL party. The two main indigenous Fijian parties shared 20 seats. Others were held by minor parties. Twenty-six seats are still being contested in the 71-seat Parliament. Meanwhile, leaders of indigenous Fijian political parties resumed talks on forming a coalition government to try to prevent the Pacific nation’s ethnic Indian minority from taking power following the general election. To hold power, a party or coalition must take 37 seats, which wins the right to appoint the next Prime Minister and form the new government. SDL organiser Jale Baba said he is confident the Fijian parties will reach agreement to form coalition to take power by Saturday. “Chaudhry is the biggest threat to stability in this country,” Baba said. He said the alternative to a coalition agreement was “the political wilderness” of opposition. The Conservative Alliance’s demand that the coup plotters awaiting trial for treason should be pardoned, already rejected by the SDL leadership, has still to be discussed, Baba said. Amid tight security, electoral officials continued counting hundreds of thousands of votes cast in the national poll, which took place last week across Fiji’s 100 inhabited islands. Fijians and Indians vote in racially separate electorates under the country’s 1997 constitution. The complicated preference-sharing voting system had slowed down the count, electoral officials said. A final result was still expected sometime midweek.
AP |
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Trouble brewing in
Sindh; raid on MQM office London, September 5 Reports of the crisis hitting Sindh have been suppressed by much of the Pakistani media, say leaders of the World Sindhi Congress and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The situation, arising out of allegedly discriminatory acts by the federal authorities against the province, is grim and a strong reaction is building up amongst the people against the Pakistani regime, according to their reports. The MQM, which represents Mohajirs, has a strong presence in the cities of Sindh, particularly Karachi and Hyderabad. MQM leader Altaf Hussain is now taking the lead in highlighting the plight of Sindh. Citing instances of discrimination, the leaders say Sindh provides 70 per cent of resources but receives less than 20 per cent of expenditure. It supplies 63 per cent of oil and 48 per cent of gas but the Highway Authority has allocated it only 11.5 per cent of resources. Sindh gets only 5 per cent of jobs. Of the 112 development programmes being implemented in Pakistan only two are taking place in Sindh. Of the nine new development schemes under Vision 2025 none is allocated for Sindh. Sindh is deprived of water. In the past 20 years almost 12 per cent of the land has turned barren. New schemes like the Kalabagh dam project and the Thal canal projects will make the situation worse. An estimated 36 per cent of Pakistanis live below the poverty line. But in the villages of Sindh, the figure is 60 per cent. In this Kohistan and Kachay areas, 90 per cent of people are living below the poverty line. In addition, local Sindhis suffer wide discrimination. Workers are not given wages or compensation to match those in Punjab. Small farmers are denied loans and have to borrow from local landlords at up to 100 per cent interest. Meanwhile the Pakistan police and the Rangers raided the MQM office in this southern port city, SADA reported. The raid on party’s sector office in Korangi on Tuesday evening, faced resistance from party activists, which resulted in a brief exchange of fire, though no casualties were reported.
IANS |
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Aid workers may be hanged: CJ Kabul, September 5 He told the Afghan Islamic Press that the punishment would fit the alleged crime and the death penalty was an option if the two Americans, two Australians and four Germans were found guilty. Australian, vs and German diplomats arrived at the Supreme Court building in Kabul this morning in a bid to meet Mr Saqib and clarify the legal process, but they were turned away.
AFP |
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China craves for Indian movies Chongqing, September 5 In every city, whether Beijing, Xi’an or Chongqing, common people, journalists or officials have fond memories of Raj Kapoor and “Awara” that was shown years ago. In their interaction with a visiting group of Indian journalists, they express a fervent desire to see more of the Bollywood stuff. Not only Indian films but even dances and music from India are mentioned by them with lot of admiration and curiosity. While the elders are reminded of “Awara” and Raj Kapoor, the younger generation’s imagination is tickled by advertisements and documentaries shown on TV channels. Mysore sandal soap advertisement, showing a dancing Indian girl, is telecast at prime time. Surprisingly, China TV, which is controlled by the state as information is still a state monopoly, shows six foreign films daily on its film channel, but none from India. Senior Editor of Xi’an Daily News Li Dong Sheng stressed that there should be an
exchange of Indian movies and also of Indian music. While in Beijing talk of Indian films was possibly understandable, but to hear in Xi’an, which is the hub of industrial activities in China’s plan of modernising the western and northern regions of China, was a little surprising. Possibly, the policy-makers have not paid enough attention towards taking up promotion of Indian films even though both New Delhi and Beijing are engaged in a serious exercise of broadening the scope of bilateral relations. Even Bollywood film-makers are ignorant about it. The success of Indian girls in international beauty pageants and competitions has given the Chinese a jolt as one notices in conversation that there is an undercurrent of jealousy or may be a feeling of an inferiority complex. The Indian diplomatic mission in Beijing has also possibly contributed by displaying photographs of Indian beauty
queens. Rabindranath Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi are some other names which find mention here. |
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B’desh repeals 2 poll laws Dhaka, September 5 According to Election Commission sources, President Ahmed promulgated an ordinance called Representation of the People (2nd amendment) Order, 2001, to nullify the unpopular measures introduced through an earlier amendment. The new amendment repealed an article of the Representation of the People Order (RPO) that empowered the EC to hold hurried trials and debar candidates from contesting elections. The second law repealed gave the commission power equivalent to a high court to punish a person for contempt, official sources said. The first amendment, promulgated on August 8, was proposed by the commission and approved by the Council of Advisers of the caretaker government. The caretaker government decided to repeal the two laws following criticism from political parties. The Awami League, which is seeking to return to office in the elections, had raised serious objections to the first controversial amendment, saying some of the provisions violated the Constitution. The main Opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, too had protested against the first amendment.
IANS |
Fiji's
suspension lifted, Pak stays London, September 5 Fiji will now be eligible to attend the Commonwealth Summit in Brisbane next month. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group on Harare Declaration, at its two-day meeting which concluded last evening, "expressed concern over the continuation of a non-democratic government in Pakistan, in violation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values," Commonwealth Secretary-General Don Mckinnon told reporters. McKinnon, who held discussions with President Pervez Musharraf last month, said Pakistan had ignored the normal Commonwealth expectations that a country ceasing to have democratic rule should return to democracy within two years, and had chosen, instead to follow the ruling of its own Supreme Court that democracy should be restored within three years. "In the light of the dialogue with General Musharraf, it had been determined that the Commonwealth should remain actively engaged with Pakistan and should offer assistance in the process he had undertaken." The ministerial group recommended that the Secretary-General should have an active monitoring role in the period leading to the elections and that they should "look favourably" to deployment of Commonwealth observers at the national and provincial elections. As regards Fiji, the group chaired by Lieut-Gen Mompati Merafhe, MP, Foreign Minister of Botswana, decided that its suspension from the Councils of the Commonwealth would be lifted following the recent elections.
PTI |
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Pak accord on fundraiser Lahore, September 5 Online quoted sources as saying that at a recent meeting between the two, MJC had strongly protested against Islamabad’s ban on fundraising by “jehadi” groups. Interior ministry officials assured the MJC that the government had no intention to crack down on “jehadi” groups struggling in Kashmir, it said. A source said: “The government apprised council representatives that it was facing various problems due to India’s propaganda against Pakistan for involvement in Kashmiri ‘jehad’ and international pressure for terrorist activities in the name of jehad.” Both the sides discussed the method of collecting funds in detail and agreed that the interior ministry and MJC representatives would change the existing pattern and introduce a new, more acceptable method for the purpose. The government officials requested “jehadi” groups for cooperation, but made it clear that stern action against fake groups was under consideration, especially those who use the money for their own personal use. MJC assured the government its constituent “jehadi” groups would extend full support to curb fake organisations so that the funds collected for “jehad” could be utilised properly.
IANS |
Zimbabwe
accepts offer from whites Harare, September 5 In May the mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) had offered to sell about one million hectares (2.5 millin acres) of land to resettle 20,000 black families. Zimbabwean Vice-President Joseph Msika said most of the 531 farms offered by the CFU were already earmarked for acquisition under the government’s fast-track resettlement
programme. |
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