 |
Friday,
August 16, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Benazir,
Nawaz parties agree on seat adjustments
Benazir
contests poll bar Islamic
groups forge alliance Sindhis
for autonomy within Pakistan Lanka to
lift ban on LTTE before talks |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Don’t
listen to govt rhetoric: Arundhati Saddam
named for another 7-yr term
Elbe’s
highest level at Dresden Russia
may bar Dalai Lama’s visit Nepal
celebrates I-Day
|
|
Benazir, Nawaz parties agree on seat adjustments
Islamabad, August 15 The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), a new wing of the party of self-exiled ex-Premier Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League of deposed premier Nawaz Sharif have agreed to plan their electoral seat strategy together. “We are making electoral seat adjustments together,” PPPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said. “We are looking at seats, and saying OK, you are strong here, you field a candidate and we will withdraw, while we take care of this other seat which we particularly want, and they will not field a candidate for this particular seat.” PPPP officials had been engaged in talks since Monday with officials of the Nawaz Sharif party, the PML-N, Babar said. The local press has been rife with speculation for months of an alliance between the two parties, both of whose leaders are banned from contesting the polls under new laws brought in by President Pervez Musharraf. But Babar stressed that the joint approach did not amount to an electoral alliance. “We remain independent parties with an independent platform, but we are cooperating in order to get a majority of pro-democracy parties in Parliament,” Babar said. Meanwhile, Christians observed a ‘black day’ by mourning for the victims a chain of attacks on Christians, who feel they are bearing the brunt of Islamic militants’ fury at Pakistan’s support of the US-led war on terror. “We have selected this day as a symbol of protest against the ongoing attacks against Christians,” Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian rights activist, who heads the All-Pakistan Minorities Alliance, told AFP. Eleven people were killed last week in attacks on a Christian-missionary run school and a hospital chapel at Taxila, in the latest in a chain of bloody violence since Pakistan took up a frontline role in the US-led war on terrorism. As part of the day of mourning, peaceful protests by marchers wearing black armbands were planned in several cities and towns, but authorities in Islamabad had refused permission deeming a Christian protest too high a security risk. A memorial service was to be held in Taxila’s Christian Hospital chapel, 25 km west of the capital Islamabad in the afternoon.
AFP |
|
Benazir contests poll bar
Islamabad, August 15 In a petition filed before the Sindh High Court in Karachi, Bhutto asked the court to prohibit the Musharraf Government from refusing to accept her nomination papers as a candidate for the October elections. She said the military regime sees her as a threat to its dictatorship. The government was politically motivated to prevent her from contesting the polls as it feared that she would win, the former premier added. In the petition filed by her lawyer Farooq Naik, Bhutto questioned the legality of an anti-corruption court sentencing her for her failure to appear before it in person.
PTI |
|
Islamic groups forge alliance
Islamabad, August 15
Fazal-ur-Rehman, head of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), said, however, that the alliance would not make Islamabad’s backing of the international war against terror an election issue in the October 10 parliamentary vote. “It is a major tragedy that has not yet disappeared from the minds of people...but we want to contest the elections on the basis of ideology and not for the sake of a single issue,’’ he told Reuters in an interview. The JUI and five other hardline Islamic groups have forged an election alliance — Motahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) or United Action Committee — that Rehman says will strive to make Muslim Pakistan a true Islamic state. It will also seek to resolve the long-standing Kashmir issue with India in line with the UN Security Council resolutions passed more than 50 years ago which call for a referendum. While analysts doubt the MMA will make significant inroads into parliament in the October poll, the groups it unites are powerful forces in Pakistan society, especially in tribal and other remote areas where they provide a strong education network. The main hardline groups, such as the JUI and Jamaat-e-Islami, have never won more than a handful of seats in parliament, which has been redundant since General Musharraf’s 1999 military coup. “They may improve their vote percentage as compared to previous elections through this alliance, but it would not increase their popular vote,” Professor Rasul Bakhsh Raees of Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University said.
Reuters  |
|
Sindhis for autonomy within Pakistan
London, August 15 This was the biggest demonstration staged by Sindhi and Baloch protesters in support of their demands for autonomy within Pakistan. The demonstration was called in protest against “the crimes and injustices that the Sindhis and Baloch people have suffered over the 55 years of the existence of Pakistan”, the protesters said in a petition to the high commission. The protest was organised by the Sindhi Baloch Forum, the first international alliance of Sindhis and Balochis, supported by the World Sindhi Congress (WSC), the Balochistan National Party (BNP) and Baloch Voice (BV). Lakhu Luhanna from the World Sindhi Congress, Javed Mengal, former Senator and leader of the BNP, and Balach Marri, chairman of the BV, led the demonstration. “Sindhis have seen the colonial eras of Greeks, Arabs, Afghanis, and British but nothing compares with the systematic, cruel and calculated yoke of slavery that started with the inception of Pakistan for the people of Sindh,” Luhana said. He pointed to several instances of discrimination against
Sindhis, among them repeated federal dismissal of elected assemblies of Sindh and other provinces in 1992, 1995, 1998 and 1999; the construction of Asia’s largest military cantonments in
Sindh; spending of more than 65 per cent of money raised from Sindh on defence and debt servicing; forced migration of Sindhi Hindus from
Sindh, as a result of which Sindh was deprived of its educated and skilled middle classes; continuous migration from Punjab and resettlement of Afghan refugees in
Sindh; and forced Islamisation and denial of indigenous cultures and Sufi traditions.
IANS |
|
Lanka to lift ban on LTTE before talks
Colombo, August 15 “Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s promise will be fulfilled. We will select the best possible means to do it,” Cabinet spokesman G.L. Peiris told a media conference here. The LTTE had laid down removal of the ban as a pre-condition for entering into negotiations. He was answering a question on whether the government would remove the ban on the Tamil Tigers, now that the talks had been fixed to begin sometime between September 12 and 17. The two sides agreed in Oslo yesterday on a time window for the talks, with the exact date to be announced later by peace facilitator Norway. However, the government admitted today that the parties did not yet have an agenda, which would be prepared only at the negotiating table. This left the contentious issue of what matters would be discussed and in what sequence was yet to be finalised. “The agenda has received a great deal of attention. We still have some time, there will be more discussions,” Mr Peiris said. He, however, said the agenda for the talks would not include any discussion of a separate homeland for the Tamils. “The Prime Minister has said everything is open to discussion, except division of the country,” Mr Peiris said, when asked if the government had ruled out discussions on a separate state.
PTI |
|
Don’t listen to govt rhetoric: Arundhati
Islamabad, August 15 Her campaigns have got her often on the wrong side of the authorities but have caught the public imagination. This week, in a radical step, she has made her first trip to Pakistan, a country in a tense stand-off with India. If she has a message for the people of both countries, it is simple: ‘’Don’t listen to your governments.’’ The 41-year-old author shot to fame when her 1997 novel ‘’The God of Small Things’’ won the Booker Prize. Speaking to Reuters late yesterday after addressing a peace seminar in Islamabad, organised by Pakistan’s Daily Times newspaper, she said ordinary Indians and Pakistanis must stand up for themselves. ‘’We are all members of an ancient civilisation, not a recent nation. We have so many things in common and there is absolutely no reason to point nuclear weapons at each other. Eventually we have to ally ourselves with each other and we have to blow a hole in this huge dam between us”, she stated. “Bigots and fundamentalists on both sides can twist things to suit their own needs. I am terrified of that happening both in India and Pakistan... It is not about Muslims or Hindus. It’s about fascism, majoritarianism, bigotry, these things,’’ Roy stated.
Reuters |
|
Saddam named for another 7-yr term
Baghdad, August 15 During a meeting headed by the Iraqi strongman himself, the council “unanimously decided to present the candidature of leader Saddam Hussein for post of President of the republic,” state television reported. Saddam, who is in his 60s and has been in power since 1979, won a 99.96 per cent “yes” vote in the unprecedented referendum held in 1995, according to official results. The move comes as the USA pushes for a “regime change” in Baghdad. The vote followed amendments to Iraq’s interim constitution that included a provision to elect the President by secret ballot for a seven-year term. Government figures showed Saddam won 99.96 per cent of more than eight million valid votes cast on a turnout of 99.47 per cent. LONDON: The US Government has offered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) millions of dollars to set up humanitarian relief projects in Iraq and neighbouring areas ahead of military action against Baghdad, a newspaper report said today. The US State Department had called on NGOs to bid for $ 6.6 million of government funds to pay for at least five US humanitarian projects, The Financial Times (FT) reported. It would mark the first time that the USA has funded relief work in Iraq since United Nations sanctions were imposed on the country 12 years ago following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the FT quoted a US official as saying.
AFP, Reuters |
|
Elbe’s highest level at Dresden
Dresden (Germany), August 15 The Elbe River, which had receded slightly after bursting its banks this week and leaving some of Dresden’s cultural treasures under water, swelled by up to six inches an hour in the morning and was forecast to continue rising to 28 ft — close to an all-time high of 29 ft reached in 1845. Already, floodwaters have damaged landmarks of the Saxony state capital, including the famed Semper Opera and Zwinger Gallery, where volunteers helped in bringing thousands of priceless masterworks to higher floors for protection this week. The city’s waterlogged main train station has been closed for days. Workers were pumping river water out of the Semper Opera’s basement, where it damaged stage equipment and costumes, said Christoph Bauch, the opera’s chief of stage technology. State officials said no damage to paintings at the Zwinger Gallery had been discovered so far after hundreds of masterworks were evacuated from storage in the basement. The gallery’s upper floors were not touched by the floods.
AP |
|
Russia may bar Dalai Lama’s visit Moscow, August 15 “There may be problems with the Dalai Lama’s visit,” a senior Foreign Ministry official told the news agency. Cultural and religious associations of the Siberian republics of Buryatia and Tuva, as well as the Caspian Sea republic of Kalmykia, the three republics where most of Russia’s one million Buddhists live, issued the invitation in February.
AFP |
|
Nepal celebrates I-Day Kathmandu, August 15 Reading out the message of the President, Mr
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the Charge d’ Affaires, Mr Ashok Kumar, who hoisted the National Flag at the embassy, said the bonds of culture, religion, geography and history between Nepal and India had brought the two countries together.
UNI |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
