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Monday,
September 2, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Benazir barred from contesting poll
Powell breaks ranks with hawks on Iraq PM’s aide holds talks with
LTTE UK Sikh world’s
youngest rich |
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2 Indians strike gold with US
lottery Deal on biodiversity
struck Maoists damage Indian trader’s 22 cars
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Benazir barred from contesting poll
Islamabad, September 1 Mr Abdul Ghani Soomro, a Returning Officer at the Bhutto family stronghold in Larkana, 1,200 km southeast of Islamabad, said the nomination was rejected on the grounds that Ms Bhutto had been convicted for “absconding” from two graft trials earlier this year. “She has been convicted by an accountability court to three years in jail and under the election rules, a convict stands disqualified. I regret that her nomination cannot be accepted,” Mr Soomro said. After the decision was announced, hundreds of Ms Bhutto’s supporters who had gathered outside the electoral commission offices chanted slogans and hurled abuse aimed at Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Despite tight security, they pounded the doors and stormed into the building, beating their chests and shouting “Go, Musharraf, go. Our Prime Minister is Benazir Bhutto.” The police did not intervene, apparently intimidated by the mood and size of the crowd, witnesses said. Today’s hearing on Ms Bhutto’s nomination for candidacy in Pakistan’s October 10 elections lasted about 40 minutes, during which her counsel cited several legal precedents in favour of her nomination’s acceptance. “If she is disqualified, the voters will stand disenfranchised and they will not be allowed to chose their own candidate,” counsel Farooq Naik said, adding that the disqualification would be appealed. In a related development, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has launched countrywide protests to force the military regime to allow party chief Benazir Bhutto to contest the October poll. The entire country today witnessed protests by PPP activists, who vowed to continue their campaign till the military regime relented. “Despite the fact that our people are being arrested we will continue to protest the rejection of Ms Bhutto’s candidature,” party secretary-general Raza Rabbani said. He said at least 800 PPP activists had been arrested all over Pakistan. But he said the PPP would go ahead with its campaign for the October 10 elections with or without its Chairperson, Ms Bhutto. “This is the very reason why the official spin-off, the PPP Parliamentarians, was created,” he stated. Ms Bhutto’s appeal against the rejection of her nomination papers is likely to come up for hearing on September 8 in the Election Commission tribunal nominated by Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hassan Khan. Meanwhile, Ms Bhutto has thanked former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for withdrawing from the October 10 general election as a mark of solidarity with her. In a telephonic talk from London with Mr Sharif, in exile in Saudi Arabia, Ms Bhutto appreciated his gesture “towards the restoration of democracy in the nation under military rule”. Mr Sharif told the leader in self-exile that he considered her a sister and that she must forget the bitterness of the past. Ms Bhutto had fled the country in April, 1999, while being hounded by the Sharif government on corruption charges. Criticising the Larkana Returning Officer for rejecting Ms Bhutto’s nomination papers, Mr Sharif said the people would resist such undemocratic methods of the military government. The two leaders decided to wage a struggle against the military government. Mr Sharif yesterday withdrew his nomination papers for the poll in protest against “unethical and illegal” measures of the ruling military regime. He also said the decision of the election authorities to reject the nomination papers of Ms Bhutto, was “highly regrettable.”
Agencies |
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Justice at last: gangrape victim Multan, September 1 A special anti-terrorism court in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab province sentenced four rapists and two jurors early today for the June 22 rape of 30-year-old divorcee Mukhtaran Mai. Eight other men who sat on the jury that authorised the crime were released. Mai, who says her family has received death threats, was not in court when the judge announced the decision shortly after midnight. She was given the news at dawn by a relative in her home village Meerawali, the scene of the crime. “God has provided justice to me,” she said. “If courts start giving decisions like this, I am sure rape cases will be reduced. I am satisfied with the decision.” Mai’s father Ghulam Farid Jat said his daughter was overwhelmed by the news. “She cried loudly and fainted a few times,” he said. Mai was raped by four men after approaching a traditional jury, or panchayat, to settle a dispute with the more powerful Mastoi clan. Mai said she went to the jury after her 12-year-old brother Abdul Shakoor was kidnapped and sodomised by members of the Mastoi family as a punishment for having an illicit affair with one of their female relatives. The jury ruled that to save Mastoi honour, Shakoor should marry the woman with whom he was linked while Mai was to be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man. When she rejected the decision, she was gang-raped and made to walk home nearly naked in front of hundreds of people. The police sent extra armed men to Meerawali and cordoned off Mai’s house to prevent any revenge attack. Mastoi family members said the police had detained eight of their men as a precaution, but no independent confirmation was available. On August 30, Mai had said she and her family had been threatened with revenge if the men were convicted. She asked for government help to move to a safer place. “We are receiving death threats,” she said. “They have told us that if the four men are sentenced to death, they would kill eight of our men. Not only my family, but those who supported us are being threatened with dire consequences.” Lawyers for the convicted men have said they will appeal. Execution in Pakistan is by hanging. Generally this is done only after a lengthy appeals process, but the anti-terrorism law under which the case was tried requires appeals to be filed within seven days. Even though gang rapes and “honour” killings are common in rural Pakistan, the case caused an outcry when it was publicised in national newspapers to highlight the plight of women in rural areas, where feudal behaviour codes still rule. Village councils are often convened to settle local disputes and women often end up as pawns of village elders. Women’s rights organisations welcomed the verdicts. “This was a correct decision,” said Farzana Anjum of the Progressive Women’s Association. “This will deter criminals from committing such heinous crimes as gang rape.” Mai’s father said his daughter had offered special prayers after the verdict and intended to visit a shrine to give thanks. But he said she had refused to accept sweets brought as gifts by several villagers after the verdict. “There’s nothing to celebrate,” he quoted her as saying. “Whatever punishment they got is because of their crime.”
Reuters |
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Powell breaks ranks with hawks on Iraq London, September 1 Powell’s comments appeared to contradict the stance taken by US Vice President Dick Cheney, who said last week there was no point in sending inspectors back into Iraq but instead hammered home his case for pre-emptive military action. Speaking in an interview recorded for BBC television, Powell said US President George W. Bush wanted to see the inspectors, who were forced out in December 1998, go back in. “The President has been clear that he believes weapons inspectors should return,” Powell said in an extract of the BBC interview. The full interview is due to be broadcast on September 8. “Iraq has been in violation of these many UN resolutions for most of the last 11 or so years,” he said. “So, as a first step, let’s see what the inspectors find, send them back in.” Powell also said he understood that the international community needed more information about the threat posed by Saddam before it decide on what should be done. “I think that the world has to be presented with the information, with the intelligence that is available,” he said. “A debate is needed within the international community so that everybody can make a judgment about this.” Powell’s comments underlined an emerging split between so-called hawks in the American administration such as Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who back military action against Baghdad, and more restrained voices in Britain who say getting weapons inspectors back in should be the priority. Powell appeared to side with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who last week insisted that weapons inspections were the priority of London’s policy on Iraq, not the “regime change” in Baghdad called for by Bush and Cheney. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is trying to tread a path between the two — insisting that some action must be taken against Iraq, but refusing to specify what that should be. Blair said on Saturday that the world could not stand by and allow Iraq to develop weapons of mass destruction in “flagrant breach” of United Nations resolutions. Opposition Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith warned Blair against prevaricating over Iraq and accused him of allowing debate on the issue of military action to “drift”.
Reuters |
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PM’s aide holds talks with LTTE Colombo, September 1 Weerakoon, who is Secretary to the Prime Minister, held three hours of talks with S.P. Thamilselvan, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam political wing, the Voice of Tigers radio said. It gave no details of the talks which came as President Chandrika Kumaratunga dropped a bombshell saying she opposed Wickremesinghe’s move to lift a ban on the Tigers ahead of peace talks on September 16. Ms Kumaratunga favoured lifting of the ban only after talks formally began and recorded satisfactory progress, the President’s media division said in a statement here. She conveyed her position to a delegation representing 46 Sinhala Buddhist organisations that called on her yesterday, the statement said. The rebel group has made lifting of the ban a pre-condition for the commencement of talks, and a date has been fixed for negotiations after the government promised to de-proscribe the LTTE 10 days before the event. Cabinet spokesman G.L. Peiris indicated on Friday that a notification revoking the existing ban under the Prevention of Terrorism Act was likely to be issued on September 6 to pave the way for the first round of talks to take place in Thailand from September 16 to 18. Ms Kumaratunga also opposed any move to set up an interim administration for the north and east without an agreement on “core issues” concerning the ethnic conflict.
PTI |
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UK Sikh world’s youngest rich London, September 1 Manchester-born Reuben Singh, who is worth £ 97.62 million, is placed 39 on the list compiled by business magazine Fortune. He launched his fashion company, Miss Attitude, at the age of 18, and went on to sell it in a multi-million pound deal. His RS Group is involved in property, retail, currency trading and construction and his latest venture — AllDayPA — is a service that allows people to have their own virtual personal office with telephone answering and call management. Another Indian Entrepreneur, Kumar Birla, with a fortune worth £ 1.36 billion is in the eighth slot. The Chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust came in seventh. British media magnate Viscount Rothermere, 34, creeps into the top 10 with his £ 1.4 billion fortune.
UNI |
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2 Indians strike gold with US lottery New York, September 1 One is a teenager, Akash Patel, who came from Gujarat to the USA last year and is working in the city as a news-stand operator. He sold the lucky ticket and earned a cool $50,000 for his efforts — $25,000 as commission and another $25,000 as bonus for selling the winning ticket. Sunny Philip from Kerala, the winner, has made more money — around $3.5 million after taxes. The $108-million prize money is being divided between 11 New York City Housing Authority workers who validated the winning ticket. Philip chose not to pick the lotto numbers for the August 27 draw and requested one of his co-workers to undertake the job. That, perhaps, shaped their fates. “Sunny asked me to pick the numbers and God blessed me to pick the right numbers,” an excited Christine Hanks told reporters here, adding that the numbers she chose were either birth dates or ages of members of her family. He has not decided what he would do with the cash like the others in the group, which calls itself “Operation 11”. Patel, who sold the lucky ticket, was thrilled to bits. He confessed to being a lottery addict. When he came here after discontinuing his college education in Ahmedabad, his uncle suggested he join the newsstand business. Patel said the sum of $ 50,000 had come at the right time. “My father is looking around for a bigger news-stand in Connecticut, New Jersey or upstate New York. We will put this money in that,” he said.
IANS |
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Deal on biodiversity struck Johannesburg, September 1 Working groups agreed on the text in a draft plan of implementation on “achieving a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss by 2010’’, officials said. But Friends of the Earth spokesman Daniel Mittler described the compromise as a “weak text’’ with the UN Convention on Biodiversity a much stronger instrument which had not been ratified by the USA. Mr Mittler said environmentalists were concerned that the USA now supported the text in the Earth Summit while “massively putting Brazil under pressure to drop its energy targets’’ in the negotiations on renewable energy. German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said today that the negotiations remained logjammed on the issue of renewable energy. A scheme aimed at bringing rainwater harvesting to remote villages stricken by months without rain and struggling to survive after their conventional water supplies have all but dried up was unveiled at the summit. “The whole of Rajasthan used to have traditional systems of harvesting rainwater, but the methods fell into disuse,” said Geoffrey Smith of Oz Green, an Australian environmental group that specialises in water. “We want to empower villagers to draw on traditional methods such as building tanks on rooftops and piping to collect and store rainwater and find new underground catchment areas,” said Swami Jasrajpuri of the International Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship, a Vienna-based yogic organisation that is heading the initiative. “Rajasthan accounts for 10 per cent of India’s land area, but gets only one per cent of the nation’s water resources”, Swami Jasrajpuri explained. DPA, AFP |
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Maoists damage Indian trader’s 22 cars Kathmandu, September 1 A group of 15 to 20 Maoists attacked Tej and Karan Co., a car dealership at Teku, damaging the cars, including a Mercedez-Benz, which caused a loss of about Rs 50 lakh, its owner Tej Karan Jain said. However, no one was injured in the attack.
PTI |
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