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Friday,
March 22, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Musharraf
orders forming of Double
car-bomb blast kills 9 in Peru
‘US war
may spill into Pak’
Pak church
attacked to provoke USA? UNF
landslide in Lanka poll |
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Sweden
defies USA, upgrades ties with N. Korea Foreigners
oust belly dancers W. Asia
truce talks end without pact
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Musharraf orders forming of anti-terrorist cells
Islamabad, March 21 General Musharraf took the decision during a series of meetings in the past three days following the attack on a church at diplomatic enclave here on March 17. The President announced the intensification of the crackdown against militant groups which have stepped up attacks to retaliate against stern measures taken against them, media reported here. A cabinet meeting, meanwhile, formally approved the draft of the controversial Police Ordinance-2002, which would replace the Police Act of 1961. General Musharraf, at his meeting with top army commanders and law and order officials, asked them to revamp intelligence agencies to improve the information feedback on terrorist groups. He ordered the police and paramilitary forces to create special anti-terrorist units to intensify the campaign against militant groups. In another move, the government has decided to arrest anybody directly or indirectly involved in militant activities in the last decade, the daily ‘The News’ said. The decision was taken at a meeting of provincial governors and law enforcing agencies, presided over by General Musharraf, following reports that the police failed to arrest actual culprits involved in militant activities. Many of the arrested militants were later released after “notable” citizens gave an undertaking, guaranteeing character of the released persons, the newspaper said. It was reported that in pursuance of the directive from the government, the provincial Punjab government had decided to act more strictly towards militants by speeding up prosecution to dispose of the cases pending with the special courts. Home Secretary of the province Syed Ejaz Shah said orders had been issued to intensify the ongoing crackdown against “actual militant elements”. He said directions had been issued to the police that such elements wanted in different cases should be arrested on top priority and those who had no cases registered against them should be detained under the Maintenance of Public Ordinance (MPO). The newly-appointed Information Minister Nissar Memon has discounted the criticism that the new Police Ordinance would convert Pakistan into a police state. “Making police state is one way to look at this draft police ordinance, though the public has a right to prefer its own suggestions, contrary to what is written in the draft law”, he said.
PTI |
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To hold referendum in May
Islamabad, March 21 According to the Constitution of Pakistan, the President of the country is elected by the National Assembly (the Senate) and provincial assemblies for a tenure of five years. However, since the National Assembly, empowered to make amendments in the Constitution to extend his rule for another five years does not exist and stands dissolved, the President is having consultations with his top aides and leaders of various political parties to hold a referendum to rule for another five years. The Supreme Court has empowered President Musharraf to rule the country till October 2002, i.e. for a period of three years from the day he assumed power after dismissing the former government of Mr Nawaz Sharif. Meanwhile, a writ has been filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against General Musharraf for replacing Mr Rafiq
Tarar, an elected President of Pakistan, on June 20, 2001. UNI |
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Double car-bomb blast
kills 9 in Peru
Lima, March 21 The two car bombs exploded outside a bank at a Lima shopping center, some 100 metres from the diplomatic compound which was unscathed in the attack. Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi said: “I don’t rule out a national or international origin (of the bombing) ... but Dircote (Anti terrorism Intelligence Administration) did report that eventually there could be some sort of attack to discredit President Bush’s visit. “We are still seeing if there are threats and seeing how many dead there are. At the moment, there are eight dead between security staff, police and civilians,” a police officer at the scene said. Mr Rospigliosi said there were six dead, including one police officer. Unconfirmed radio reports said one of the victims was a child wearing roller skates.
The deputy commander of Lima’s firefighters, Mr Juan Piperis, told reporters he had reports of nine dead and up to 40 injured. “It looks like there were around 66 pounds (30 kg) of explosives,” he added. Television images showed scenes of chaos, with bodies covered in orange plastic sheets strewn amid broken glass, mangled metal and shattered tiles. Charred bodies were visible and a white car, with smoke rising out of it, was destroyed. The car exploded outside a Banco de Credito bank in a shopping centre across a wide avenue directly in front of the main entrance to the US Embassy, a heavily secured fortress-style building in an upscale district of the capital. The blast blew out all the bank’s windows and destroyed its signs. The bank was next to a movie theatre, which was closed for refurbishment. However, other stores in the shopping centre were open and there were people and cars around at the time of the explosion. Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo condemned a bomb attack, but said he would guarantee safety for Mr Bush’s trip to Peru this weekend. “My deepest condolences to the families of the victims who have been hit in such a cowardly way by a terrorist attack,” Mr Toledo told RPP radio from Monterrey, Mexico, where he learned of the blast shortly after arriving for a UN development summit. WASHINGTON: Brushing off security concerns after a bomb killed nine people outside the US Embassy in Peru, President George Bush said no “two-bit terrorists” would deter him from visiting Lima. “No, I’m still going,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office. “No two-bit terrorists are going to prevent me from doing what we need to do and that is promote our friendship in the hemisphere. You bet I’m going,” he added. It was not immediately known who planted the bomb, but the attack bore the hallmarks of the leftist rebel bomb attacks that scarred Peru in the 1980s and 1990s when the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement or MRTA, guerrila groups waged war on the state. Their insurgencies cost 30,000 lives. Bush is scheduled to arrive in the Peruvian capital on Saturday.
AFP, Reuters |
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‘US war may spill into Pak’
New York, March 21 “Chasing Al-Qaida and the Taliban into Pakistan would be a last resort carried out with the approval of Pakistani leaders,” Maj-Gen Franklin L. Hagenbeck of the 10th Mountain Division told the New York Times. Just 32 km from the border with Pakistan, near Khost, US troops were attacked from several directions with mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades for about an hour on Tuesday night, American military officials said. One soldier received a bullet wound in the left arm. General Hagenbeck said it was not clear whether the Americans were caught in the fighting between Afghan factions or had come under attack from Taliban or Al-Qaida fighters. American commanders have said fighting in Afghanistan may increase as the snows melt in spring. “This is the campaign season. We expect to see some increased enemy activity,” General Hagenbeck said. He said that for now his forces were focussing on Paktia province, which borders Pakistan and was the site of the Shah-i-Kot operation. He said they were watching that area “because historically that is where the Al-Qaida and the Taliban have either been supported or accepted, and the local population has been neutral.”
PTI |
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Pak church attacked to provoke USA? THE attack on a church in Islamabad on Sunday is likely part of a larger campaign designed to provoke US response and turn Pakistani public opinion against the Musharraf government, global intelligence company Stratfor has claimed. According to the private research and analysis firm, there is a possibility that the assault was the work of one of the number of radical Islamist groups operating in Pakistan, some of which have connections with
Al-Qaida. The analysis, published by the WorldNETDaily, an internet media outfit, predicts that such attacks will continue, and Washington will be tempted to respond by sending its own personnel into Pakistan. This could include increasing the FBI presence to assist with the bombing investigation, deploying US marines to guard the perimeter of the diplomatic quarter or having US Special Operations troops conduct ‘snatch-and-grab’ missions against potential militants. In the extreme, Washington could decide that the government in Islamabad is incapable of controlling the country, and may order pre-emptive strikes against Pakistani nuclear facilities to keep them from falling into fundamentalist hands. In any case, the greater the US reaction, the greater the divide hardliners hope to create between Pakistani people and their government. It appears, says the intelligence analysis, that the attacker was specifically targeting Americans rather than Christians. |
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UNF landslide in Lanka poll
Colombo, March 21 The victory is seen as a confirmation of the four-month-old government and its initiative to end the Tamil minority ethnic conflict. Elections were held yesterday to elect members to 222 local councils throughout the country, except for areas in the north and eastern provinces for which elections have been scheduled for March 25. The People’s Alliance (PA), which was relegated to the main opposition after being defeated in last December’s parliamentary elections, won four councils, while the Marxist JVP (People’s Liberation Front) has won one council.
DPA |
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Sweden defies USA, upgrades ties with N. Korea Stockholm, March 21 Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said the upgrade emphasised Sweden’s “continued active engagement in North Korea”, the ministry said. “Through the embassy, Sweden will continue its assignments as protective power for, among others, the USA,” it said in a statement. In international diplomacy, a protective power acts as neutral middleman between governments lacking formal ties. During the cold war, Swedish foreign policy was a balancing act between East and West, a stance that won Stockholm many friends in the developing world. At that time, Sweden was among the few Western nations to have diplomatic ties with Communist Pyongyang. The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang opened in 1973.
Reuters |
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Foreigners
oust belly dancers Cairo, March 21 These ‘belly-dancing’ policemen make unannounced visits to Cairo hotels and clubs, looking for Egyptian dancers who are displaying too much flesh with revealing costumes. If any woman is found to be inappropriately dressed they are fined or locked up and later banned from working as a belly dancer. Dina, one of Egypt’s most famous belly dancers, has even been publicly denounced by the belly-dancing police, who have described her movements and costumes as ‘disgusting’ and ‘too sexy’. ‘If women are allowed to wear bikinis on the beach, I don’t see why I can’t show off my navel when I’m dancing,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done anything immoral in my life. I’m invited to give dance classes across the world. Yet in my own country I’m treated like a pariah. No wonder all these dancers are coming from abroad and taking over.’ The restrictive rules enforced by the belly-dancing police, who come under the jurisdiction of the country’s Interior Ministry, have helped to attract the slew of foreign dancers. While Egyptian dancers must abide by a series of ‘morality rules’ - including making sure their thighs are not visible when standing still and wearing loose netting to cover their midriffs -foreign dancers are free to dress in more revealing outfits because they are not subject to the Islamic-inspired dress code for women. As a result, foreign dancers are now being favoured by some of Cairo’s leading hotels, who are aware that sexy outfits pull in the big-spending Arab audience, particularly those from the oil-rich Gulf. As a spokesman from one five-star hotel, who preferred not to be identified, admitted: ‘Male audiences want belly dancers to wear skimpy clothes. So it makes sense to employ foreign dancers who are exempt from the police restrictions. ‘It is less about who is the best dancer and more about who looks the most appealing. I’m afraid that’s what gets people spending money.’ At the five-star Marriott hotel, in the heart of Cairo, Russian belly-dancers have ousted all local talent by taking over the nightly shows staged at the hotel’s floating night spot. `Despite repeated requests, Egypt’s Minister of the Interior, General Habib al-Adly, refused to allow anyone from the belly-dancing police unit to comment on whether restrictive laws were destroying the country’s famous dance form.
The Observer, London |
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W. Asia truce talks end without pact Jerusalem, March 21 The meeting was overshadowed by a suicide bombing in which seven Israelis, including four soldiers, were killed when an Islamic militant boarded a bus bound for Nazareth and detonated explosives strapped to his body.
Reuters |
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In video: Bodies of two American women killed in a church blast have
left Pakistan for home. (
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