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Monday,
May 13, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Pervez
calls off foreign trip USA
‘will prefer India to Pak as partner’
Kids’
summit focuses on health, education Sectarian
riots rock Belfast |
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Talks
date after May 24: Ranil
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Pervez calls off foreign trip Islamabad, May 12 A government statement, quoted by the official APP news agency, said the May 15 to 21 trip to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, which was announced only on Friday, was put off “on account of the recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan’’. The statement said President Musharraf, while chairing an inter-provincial meeting on law and order yesterday, “decided to postpone the visit to provide personal guidance and leadership to the nation’s fight against terrorism, both international and domestic’’. The announcement came three days after a suicide car bomb attack in the port city of Karachi killed 14 persons including 11 Frenchmen, and follows a wave of deadly shootings blamed on militants from rival Islamic sects. The local media reported that yesterday’s meeting decided to raise a special investigation force to combat terrorism and ordered a crackdown on illegal immigrants. The government statement quoted General Musharraf as saying that his government was “determined to protect the life and property of every Pakistani and of every foreigner living in Pakistan. “It was with this resolve that President Musharraf decided to stay at home as the federal and provincial law-enforcement machinery puts up a massive and coordinated effort to track down terrorists,’’ it said. General Musharraf’s trip, during which he was to hold talks on regional and world issues with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and presidents Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, would have been his first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum to extend his rule for five years.
Reuters |
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Rocket fired at Pak building Islamabad, May 12 One rocket landed near the vocational training institute in Miranshah town where the Americans were staying yesterday, but failed to explode, they said. Tribal militia officers told reporters the device was defused and no damage caused. They said the tribal militia during a search for the perpetrators of the attack found another rocket in a forest some 200 metres away. The second missile was fitted with a timer, an officer said.
AFP |
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USA ‘will prefer India to Pak as partner’ London, May 12 The institute is an independent research and analysis organisation funded and managed internationally. It is commissioned by governments and private organisations to carry out studies on a wide range of subjects and its work is regarded world wide. It has recently opened offices in Washington and Singapore. Its annual survey presents both a global perspective and a closer look at regional issues, and this year’s review shows how September 11 has had an over-riding influence in both contexts. Dealing with the sub-continent, it says that Pakistan’s strategic importance in the counter-terrorism campaign has increased its leverage against India, but this gain has been tempered by the attack on Indian Parliament last December. It adds, “Washington will continue to regard India as a more stable and reliable regional partner than Pakistan in the longer term.... Pakistan’s prospective ‘partial democracy’ will remain a complicating factor in its foreign relations and the country will continue to cede the moral high ground to India.” The survey believes the deadlock in India-Pakistan relations is likely to continue through 2003. In its view, while the USA will counsel Indian military restraint, it is unlikely to press India to relax its “wait-and-watch” posture if General Musharraf does not stop cross-border terrorism. Longer term strategic stability on the sub-continent will depend on whether Musharraf is given time to implement his ideas for secular and political reform. On Kashmir, the survey says that if Pervez Musharraf is given time he may be able to reshape the issue as one people rather than territory. It adds: “This will involve convincing the Pakistani populace to relinquish Pakistan’s demand for a plebiscite on Kashmir’s sovereignty in favour of requiring simply that Kashmiri Muslims be accorded human rights and reinforced autonomy. Such a shift will constitute a basis, at least, for a bilateral dialogue. The survey envisages that if General Musharraf can curb cross-border terrorism, India might respond with civil reforms that will meet Pakistan’s requirements and a “draw-down of military deployments” at the Line of Control. It declares: “Developments along these lines are needed if India is to get over its obsession with Pakistan and become the major power it seeks to be - and that Washington would like it to be.” The year 2001 is seen as a “year of turmoil” for India, and, looking ahead, the success of the country’s economic reforms is considered to be dependent on the BJP being able to “bolster its national standing”. Failure to do that would stall the reforms indefinitely and bode ill for India’s efforts to tackle urban and rural poverty. This will “undermine India’s hopes for emerging as a significant power in Asia and beyond.” Summing up its global outlook, the survey says that success in the campaign against terrorism means “bringing the fruits of the democratic capitalist system to those who have not yet fully enjoyed them.” That task is not for Generals but for political scientists, and the USA, as the superpower, has to provide both.
ANI |
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Israel stands down reservists Jerusalem, May 12 The reservists had been mobilised last week after the government authorised strikes in reprisal for a bloody suicide bombing on Tuesday that was claimed by the radical Palestinian group Hamas, based largely in Gaza. The Israelis have since reconsidered the operation, reportedly amid US pressure to keep any retaliation limited and keep alive chances for restarting peace talks. The radio said the army began to stand down the reservists, but it did not say how many or give any other details. WEST BANK: The first mass at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the scene of a deadly five-week standoff between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants, was held on Sunday morning. The Greek Orthodox mass started at 0530 GMT in the basilica which was cleaned up after the 39-day siege ended peacefully on Friday in a deal brokered by the European Union and the USA. According to the head of the Greek Orthodox parish for Bethlehem, Father Speridon, it was a reconsecration mass since the church, revered by Christians as the
birthplace of Jesus Christ, had been desecrated during the siege. AFP |
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Kids’ summit focuses on health, education United Nations, May 12 The global summit had taken into consideration objections raised by the USA and some religiously conservative nations before the draft agenda “A World Fit for Children” was ratified in the early hours yesterday, by the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. “I am enormously proud and pleased at what has been accomplished this week,” said Ms Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund. “If leaders keep the promises they’ve made, we can bring about enormous positive change in the world in less than a generation.” Ms Bellamy, whose organisation sponsored the meetings that began on Wednesday, added, “This was the first special session in which children were not only seen but heard.” A number of youngsters attended the meetings and some even addressed the august gathering. The United Nations Children’s Fund sponsored the meetings as a follow-up of the 1990 World Summit for Children and the Convention for the Right of the Child. UN sources said about 400 kids attended the Children’s Forum, held prior to the special General Assembly session while 250 youngsters were included in their countries’ official delegations. “They reminded us that children should not be seen as an expense but rather as an investment,” Ms Bellamy said. Some of the goals sought by the agenda document to be implemented over the next decade are a reduction in infant mortality by one-third and a cut in maternal death rate, also by one-third. Improvement in sanitation facilities and streamlining health programmes for adolescents were also included in the agenda. Ms Bellamy described the agenda document as “strong and action-oriented”. Jan Fischer, a General Assembly spokesman, said the meetings drew more than 2,600 delegates, 1,720 non-governmental organisations’ representatives and 800 journalists. About 60 summit-level participants and heads of state or their deputies attended the summit. Meanwhile, a New Delhi-based anti-bonded labour activist, who also champions the children’s cause, is unhappy over “inadequate” representation of youngsters from India at the just-concluded summit held in the General Assembly. Mr Kailash Satyarthi, chairman of the Global March Against Child Labour, said shortly before his address to the world body on Friday, “There’s been major criticism here that India hasn’t sent many children to represent it at the summit.”
UNI |
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Sectarian
riots rock Belfast London, May 12 At least 11 shots were fired and 20 petrol bombs thrown in clashes between rival Protestant loyalist and Catholic nationalist mobs in the east of the city. The crowds also hurled acid bombs, stones, bottles and other missiles at officers who fired several plastic baton rounds in response, a police spokesman said. Fighting at the Thistle Court peace line separating loyalists on the Newtownards Road from the nationalist Short Strand enclave lasted around two and a half hours. A police Land Rover was destroyed by fire during the disorder, and experts defused a blast bomb. In a separate incident, two boys, both 14, are in hospital for severe burns they suffered at a loyalist bonfire site in Ballymena in County Antrim in the province. One of the teenagers had up to 60 per cent burns to his lower body while the second had suffered major burns on his hand.
DPA |
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Talks date after May 24: Ranil Colombo, May 12 The government would wait for the 90-day period (from the day the ceasefire came into force on February 23) before fixing a firm date for talks, anticipated to be held sometime in the third week of June, The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Mr Wickremesinghe today as saying. Mr Wickremesinghe is due to visit India in mid-June before commencing direct talks with the Tigers to brief the Indian Government and the Opposition on the status of the peace initiative, especially on the subjects that would come up for talks in Thailand. The LTTE wants the parleys to be restricted to the modalities of setting up an interim administration for the north-east, but the government has said it has an open agenda that may even touch upon substantive issues. Mr Wickremesinghe also plans to visit Europe to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair and European Union chief Romano Prodi towards the end of this month to drum up support for the Oslo-brokered peace process. There is speculation that the talks, which will be the first face-to-face negotiations in seven years between the warring sides, may be delayed. The LTTE has two pre-conditions in mind — removal of the four-year ban on its functioning and full implementation of all terms of the ceasefire accord. While a decision on the demand for de-proscribing the LTTE is expected to be made prior to fixing the dates for talks, the issue of full implementation of the truce pact may delay the negotiations. Both sides are unhappy with each other about some of the terms of the accord, which are yet to be addressed.
PTI |
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Woman charged with causing bomb scare Singapore, May 12 |
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