Thursday, June 27, 2002, Chandigarh, India




W O R L D

Israel continues siege of West Bank towns
Jerusalem, June 26
Israel was maintaining its grip over West Bank towns, confining at least 700,000 Palestinians to their homes under curfew orders, in a drive Mr Yasser Arafat called a “premeditated assault against the Palestinian people and their leadership.”

Annan: time not right for Palestinian poll
United Nations, June 26
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday questioned the wisdom of holding elections in the Palestinian territories now, saying they might be won be radicals.

Mystery shrouds Pak politician’s death
Islamabad, June 26
Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan Labour Minister Omar Asghar Khan with member of his family questioning police theory of suicide. Omar’s father, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, who retired as Chief of Pakistan Air Force, disagreed with the police theory saying “I know my son very well and believe that he was not a type of person to commit suicide.”


Lebanese widow Soumaiya Hijazi cries as she holds up a picture of her late son Ali at a meeting of the families of Sabra and Shatila massacre victims, on Wednesday. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees were murdered by pro-Israeli Christian militias after Israel invaded Beirut in 1982. Hijazi lost her Palestinian husband, a daughter, and her son in the massacre. Israel hailed a Belgian court decision on Wednesday to throw out a war crimes lawsuit against Ariel Sharon, but Palestinians said it gave the Israeli prime minister the green light for his current military policies. — Reuters

National Capital Region--Delhi

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Pak graduation clause challenged
Islamabad, June 26
A pro-government political party today moved the Supreme Court against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s new order stipulating that only graduates could contest elections to the country’s law-making bodies.

Two Pakistani drug users take drugs on a roadside in Lahore.
Two Pakistani drug users take drugs on a roadside in Lahore. Pakistan joins the rest of the world to observe the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Wednesday. — Reuters

Sept 11: hijackers’ room-mate held
Washington, June 26
A Jordanian national arrested in Baltimore for visa-violation was a room-mate of two of the suspected September 11 hijackers and US investigators say he might be able to provide information about the plot, ABC News has reported.

2 planes enter restricted airspace
Washington, June 26
Two private planes penetrated a restricted area over Washington two days after a similar incident prompted a partial evacuation of the White House, US officials said.

Al-Qaida groups still active: USA
Washington, June 26
The Pentagon believes that Al-Qaida are still active in small numbers in Afghanistan even though US forces have encountered no large groups of its fighters in the country since March, a senior US military official said yesterday.

EARLIER STORIES
 

Indo-Fijians feeling rootless
Suva, June 26
After four generations living in Fiji, the Pacific nation’s ethnic Indians are being forced into rethinking their definition of “home”.


US soldiers scuffle with protesters attempting entry into the US Army base in Uijongbu, north of Seoul, on Wednesday. About 500 activists and students held a rally on Wednesday to protest over an accident in which a US Army vehicle killed two girls during a training exercise two weeks ago.
— Reuters

Britain's Prince of Wales talks to the Rajmata of Jaipur at a reception for supporters of Friends of Conservation, in the State Apartments at St. James Palace in London, on Tuesday. 
— AP/PTI 


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Israel continues siege of West Bank towns


Israeli soldiers patrol downtown in the West Bank City of Ramallah on Wednesday during curfew. Israel kept Palestinians in seven West Bank cities under the gun on Wednesday and threatened to expand the operation after a policy speech by US President George W. Bush dealt another blow to Yasser Arafat. — Reuters

Jerusalem, June 26
Israel was maintaining its grip over West Bank towns, confining at least 700,000 Palestinians to their homes under curfew orders, in a drive Mr Yasser Arafat called a “premeditated assault against the Palestinian people and their leadership.”

Faced with a demand by US President George W. Bush for new Palestinian leaders “not compromised by terror,” Mr Arafat said yesterday that Mr Bush was not referring to him. Mr Bush did not mention Mr Arafat by name.

Asked if Mr Bush was calling for Mr Arafat’s replacement, the veteran Palestinian leader said, “definitely not.”

However, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Mr Bush was referring to Mr Arafat. “There is no way for him to misunderstand the message that the President delivered yesterday,” Mr Powell told CNN.

In a major mideast policy speech on Monday, Mr Bush said the USA would support the creation of a Palestinian state, but only after the Palestinians renounce terrorism, end corruption, institute democratic reforms and replace their leaders.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said today that the Palestinian Authority would announce reform plans and dates for municipal, legislative and presidential elections.

With Israeli forces holding seven of the eight main Palestinian population centers, including Ramallah, where Mr Arafat’s own headquarters compound was surrounded by Israeli tanks, Mr Arafat charged that the Israelis were trying to overthrow his regime and retake West Bank while “justifying their actions by falsely describing them as attacks against terror.’’ AP

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Annan: time not right for Palestinian poll

United Nations, June 26
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday questioned the wisdom of holding elections in the Palestinian territories now, saying they might be won be radicals.

“The time for the elections is not optimal,” Mr Annan told reporters when questioned about the new US strategy on the West Asia unveiled by President George W. Bush.

“You could find yourself in a situation that the radicals are the ones who get elected, and it will be the result of a democratic process and we have to accept that,” Mr Annan said.

Mr Annan said Bush’s statement, made at the White House day before yesterday, raised important questions that needed to be discussed with other members of the international quartet: Russia, the United Nations and the European Union.

In his speech, Bush called on the Palestinian people to “elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror.”

Bush did not mention Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by name, but said: “Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.”

Asked to comment, Mr Annan asked “What happens between now and until a new leadership exists? Do we work with the government that we have or do we create a vacuum?”

Such questions were on everyone’s mind and had to be worked out, he said.

“With regard to who leads the Palestinians, it is up to them to make that decision,”. Mr Annan went on. AFP

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Mystery shrouds Pak politician’s death

Islamabad, June 26
Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan Labour Minister Omar Asghar Khan with member of his family questioning police theory of suicide.

Omar’s father, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, who retired as Chief of Pakistan Air Force, disagreed with the police theory saying “I know my son very well and believe that he was not a type of person to commit suicide.”

The Police had said that Omar, who resigned from President Pervez Musharraf’s Cabinet a few months ago to contest the October polls under his newly formed Qaumi Jamhoori Party, was found hanging from a ceiling fan at his brother-in-law’s house in Karachi yesterday.

In a hand-written and signed suicide note, the former minister said, “to all my dear ones, I could not take it anymore. Please excuse me. I am doing this on my own. No one is to be blamed”.

However, his father, who merged his Tehreek-e-Istaqbal party into the newly-founded party of his son, was quoted by Pakistan news agency NNI as saying “Omar was having no psychological pressure or any other tension and apparently there was no reason for his suicide. We at our own level plan to investigate mysterious death of Omar Asghar Khan and would make the findings public.”

He, however declined comment whether it was a murder and said “I would look into the police statement and would also wait till the investigation of our own, before giving any statement on the demise of my son.”

A statement issued by the family also questioned the suicide theory. PTI

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Pak graduation clause challenged

Islamabad, June 26
A pro-government political party today moved the Supreme Court against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s new order stipulating that only graduates could contest elections to the country’s law-making bodies.

The Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam), a breakaway faction of deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) challenged the government order in the Supreme Court amidst reports that the military regime was considering tightening of election rules to make it difficult for Musharraf’s main political rivals Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

In a petition filed with the apex court, Iftikhar Gilani, who joined the PML (QA) recently, said the government order, making it mandatory for contestants to the National Assembly and the four Provincial Assemblies to be graduates, was tantamount to amending salient features of the Constitution for which the present government had no authority. The order would also dismantle the parliamentary form of the government. PTI

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Sept 11: hijackers’ room-mate held

Washington, June 26
A Jordanian national arrested in Baltimore for visa-violation was a room-mate of two of the suspected September 11 hijackers and US investigators say he might be able to provide information about the plot, ABC News has reported.

Rasmi Al Shannaq acknowledged during an interrogation after his arrest on Monday that he shared an apartment in Northern Virginia with Nawaf Al Hazmi and Hani Hanjour for two months last summer, ABC reported yesterday.

Hazmi and Hanjour were among the suspected hijackers of American Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, killing 64 persons on board and 125 on the ground.

The drivers’ licence of Hanjour and two other hijackers on the plane carried the same Falls Church, Virginia, address.

A US Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed the federal agents had arrested Al Shannaq in Baltimore on Monday and that he was being held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“He is in custody on a visa over-stay violation,” the spokeswoman confirmed.

Sources told ABC Al Shannaq might have been in a position to know a lot more about the hijackers than anyone investigators have talked to so far.

A man identified as Al Shannaq’s father, Subhi Al Shannaq, said the network agents had informed his son that he was being arrested because his visa had expired, but immediately began asking about any association he had with the hijackers.

“They question him, you know, where he was, where he had been, with whom he lived, with whom had he been living before,” Subhi Al Shannaq said.

Al Shannaq’s family insisted he had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 persons, ABC said. Reuters

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2 planes enter restricted airspace

Washington, June 26
Two private planes penetrated a restricted area over Washington two days after a similar incident prompted a partial evacuation of the White House, US officials said.

No fighter aircraft were scrambled in response to the incursions on Friday in a restricted area, 24 km around the Washington Monument, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defence Command.

“One of them involved a small private airplane near College Park, Maryland, and the other one was just on the edge of the area about 14 miles from the monument west of the city,” said William Shumann, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Shumann said the violations were recorded by air traffic controllers, but he did not know if they either made radio contact with the aircraft or alerted the defence command. The latest violations came only two days after two F-1 fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday. AFP

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Al-Qaida groups still active: USA

Washington, June 26
The Pentagon believes that Al-Qaida are still active in small numbers in Afghanistan even though US forces have encountered no large groups of its fighters in the country since March, a senior US military official said yesterday. Brigadier General John Rosa, Deputy Director of Operations of the Joint Staff, was unable to say whether any members of the predominantly Arab terrorist group had been captured in US raids in recent weeks.

“The large pockets of people as we saw back in March, we haven’t seen,” he said. “The folks that we are going (after) pocket to pocket, have mixed in with the civilian population, and it’s a difficult task as we thought it would be.”

Rosa said it was too soon to tell whether the latest attack was carried out by Al-Qaida or Afghan fighters loyal to the countries former Taliban regime. AFP

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Indo-Fijians feeling rootless

Suva, June 26
After four generations living in Fiji, the Pacific nation’s ethnic Indians are being forced into rethinking their definition of “home”.

While political turmoil, including three coups, has left many feeling unsafe in the country of their birth, an equal majority are now finding that their ancestral home — India — has equally little to offer.

“They maintain family, economic and cultural links to various Pacific Rim countries while India’s role is best a marginal one,” says Australian Carmen Voight-Graf who is doing PhD research on Fiji’s Indians. Disillusioned and discriminated against, many have sought new homes outside Fiji.

According to Voight-Graf since Fiji’s independence in 1970 at least 150,000 Indo Fijians have left and are now scattered across Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Today they make up 44 per cent of the 800,000 people in Fiji. Graf estimates that a third of the Indo Fijian population lives outside the Pacific nation. Indians were, first, brought to Fiji by the British in the late 1800s to work as indentured labourers in sugarcane farms, marking the start of their split from India.

“Despite the fact that most individual Indo-Fijians did not maintain contact with their relatives in India and never visited the sub continent again, they did maintain links in the form of sentimental memories and emotional attachment,” she said.

These illusionary memories however were dashed when those who could afford to return to India were met with an experience “not only intense but often quite shocking.”

“A number of respondents commented that they would not visit again as they found it hard to deal with the daily life in India... while those who visited the ancestral region were overwhelmed by the number of people who claimed to be their long lost relatives, hoping to share in their relative wealth,” Voigt-Graf said. Asked about their interactions with Indians from India, respondents in Sydney could hardly hide their disappointment.

Such responses from Indo-Fijians interviewed by Voigt-Graf include: “Indians from India are arrogant”.

“They think they are better and treat us very badly”. “We tried to reach out to them but we were rejected”. “They don’t even marry their children to ours”. “We are more tolerant but they think they are culturally richer”. “They are very conservative”. “They have their caste system and all those traditions”. “Indians from India shake their head when they talk”. “They laugh at the way we speak Hindi”.

The realisation that they are rejected, ridiculed and kept at a distance by the very people they have regarded as their brothers and sisters is a bitter experience, she said.

Voigt-Graf said Pacific rim countries will witness the arrival of many more Indo-Fijians as they seek to find a new homeland that will accept them for who they are. AFP

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