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Tuesday,
July 30, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Indo-Pak talks after Oct, hints Powell My win blow to Pervez: Benazir
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Outcry against TIPS UN sees bombing cover-up
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N. Korea ‘ready’ for talks with USA Australia
cancels advice on travel to India
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Indo-Pak talks after Oct, hints Powell Islamabad, July 29 While speaking to the media on-board the plane to Bangkok, Secretary Powell said: “I would say that by the middle of the fall, if things go well across the LoC and we actually do see what President Musharraf is assuring us of, and if the election unfolds in a reasonable manner, then I think there is very good opportunity to really press for that dialogue to begin.” On the question of the situation on the incursion issue, he offered a restrained remark, “It became a forceful discussion back and forth as I pointed out that we can’t verify that yet and the Indians certainly don’t accept it yet.” “We have to do everything we can to make sure that what he is saying is the case in order for that argument to have credibility,” he added. “The two parties will have to make that judgement, but I don’t think it’s as far off as it was, say a few weeks ago or a few months ago,” The News quoted Secretary Powell as saying. Meanwhile, Pakistan said there was no pressure from the USA to support assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and claimed that Secretary of State Colin Powell’s remarks that the exercise was a first step to bring peace in the valley were made in the context of Islamabad’s demand to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir. Reacting to Powell’s comments on the polls, Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told reporters here today that there was no pressure on Pakistan to support the state elections in Jammu and Kashmir. He claimed that Powell’s remarks were made with reference to the plebiscite. “The plebiscite issue still remains... and his (Powell’s) view was that elections might be a step in that direction.” The Secretary of State, after meeting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf yesterday, told the media here: “We hope free and fair elections will serve as the first step to bring peace to the region.” But Khan said Pakistan feels that the elections to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in the past have not helped. “It is not the first elections. These were held in the past, were massively rigged and boycotted by the Kashmiri people and again the Hurriyat have totally rejected these elections. “Elections are no substitute to the plebiscite promised to the Kashmiri people through UN resolutions and by the international community,” he said. He said Pakistan had nothing to do with the elections as the process was being held by the Indian government in a territory held by it. To a question over the recent visits of Western diplomats, he said their visits and dialogue with both sides would have positive effects.
UNI, PTI |
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My win blow to Pervez: Benazir Islamabad, July 29 Thanking party workers for reposing faith in her in defiance of political orders preventing her from heading the party and barring her from contesting the October 10 general election, Bhutto said her unanimous election as PPP leader, despite the government efforts was a rebuff to the Musharraf government. Benazir made these remarks after she was formally declared unanimously elected by PPP election officials, party spokesman Fratullah Babar told newsmen here.
PTI |
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Outcry against TIPS Washington, July 29 The Justice Department’s Operation TIPS — Terrorism Information and Prevention System — is a nation-wide programme “giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, utility employees and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity.” The Attorney-General, Mr John Ashcroft, encountered strong criticism from a bipartisan group of US Senators last week during a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told Mr Ashcroft: “We are all concerned. We don’t want to see a 1984 Orwellian situation here.” Senate judiciary committee chairman, Democrat Patrick Leahy, commented: “Under the guise of being vigilant, we may become vigilantes.” Mr Ashcroft sought to allay the
apprehensions of the Senators by saying that he had recommended that no data base would be created to store information under the programme and that the information provided through the hotline would be forwarded to appropriate agencies. The American Civil Liberties Union said: “The last thing that we need is a programme to encourage utility workers and cable installers to become government-sponsored peeping toms.” The New York Times, in an editorial, called the idea of citizens spying on citizens “a staple of totalitarian regimes” and urged that “this ill-considered domestic spying programme should be stopped before it starts.” The paper added: “The Bush administration’s post-September 11 anti-terrorism tactics — secret detentions of suspects, denial of the right to trial and now citizens spying — have in common a lack of faith in democratic institutions and a free society. If TIPS is ever put into effect, the first people who should be turned in as a threat to Americans’ way of life are the Justice Department officials who thought up this most un-American programmes.” The Post-Master General has already written to Mr Ashcroft expressing serious reservations about participation by the Postal Department in the TIPS programme which is expected to be launched in the late summer or early fall. |
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UN sees bombing cover-up London, July 29 A preliminary UN investigation on the bombing last month that raised a hue and cry found no corroboration of US assertion that its aircraft reacted in what they believed was self-defence after being fired upon from the ground, and there were inconsistencies in US accounts of the events. UN sources said the findings pointed to a US cover-up and suggested that American investigators were dragging their feet, hoping that the issue would pass. The attack took place in the early hours of July 1 as American forces hunted down pockets of Taliban and
Al-Qaida resistance. A US helicopter gunship opened fire on targets around the village of
Kakarak. The report was produced by a team of “experienced and reputable UN people, who have been in the region a while and know it well,” The Times quoted a highly placed UN official as saying. The report says the
investigation claims that coalition forces had arrived on the scene quickly after the air-strikes and “cleaned the area,” removing evidence of “shrapnel, bullets and traces of blood”. Women on the scene had their hands tied behind their backs. Investigators had found no weapons, “no corroboration” on the ground that the US had been fired on, and that are differences between the various American accounts of what happened.
UNI |
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Al-Qaida
Web sites
shut down Islamabad, July 29 The
Web sites, www.jehad.net and www.jihad-online, could not be accessed on Friday and Saturday with a message that the page can’t be opened and that it was forbidden, daily News said today. The websites were a major source of information on Bin Laden and Al-Qaida and carried news, views and comments about other Islamic movements.
PTI |
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N. Korea ‘ready’ for talks with USA Moscow, July 29 “Pyongyang is ready for a constructive dialogue with the USA and Japan without any preconditions,” Ivanov said in the North Korean capital. He was earlier in South Korea. Ivanov is the first major foreign emissary to visit either of the Koreas since their deadly naval clash last month. Rome: North Korea urgently needs more food aid to prevent millions of people from going hungry before the main harvests in September and October, the United Nations said today. “Food aid shipments must be increased to prevent the poorest sections of the population from facing extreme hardship in the coming months,’’ the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme.
Reuters |
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Australia cancels advice on travel to India Canberra, July 29 But the foreign office warned Australians considering going there that tensions between India and Pakistan remained and a warning to avoid all travel to Pakistan remained in effect. “Some progress has been made in reducing tensions but the situation remains unpredictable and could deteriorate at short notice,” a spokeswoman from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told said today. Australia’s foreign office said its advice not to travel to the border areas between India and Pakistan or to Jammu and Kashmir stood. The USA, Britain and Germany are among those who have relaxed their advice over India.
Reuters Floods in B’desh Dhaka, July 29 |
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In
video: Southeast Asian Foreign Ministers have sat down for talks to
hammer out a declaration on counter-terrorism to be signed with US
Secretary of State Colin Powell in Brunei later in the week. (
