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Saturday,
September 14, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Benazir’s pleas on poll rejected
Poll body disqualifies Kulsoom, Shahbaz |
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UN draft only by month-end Delay poll: top Nepal cop
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Benazir’s pleas on poll rejected
Islamabad, September 13 The special election tribunal, comprising of two High Court judges, upheld the decision of the Returning Officers to reject her nomination papers filed to contest from three constituencies from her native southern Sindh province, ending her grim battle from self-exile to contest the October 10 poll. “The appeals are rejected,” the tribunal said in a short judgement. The police arrested more than a dozen Bhutto supporters, including 12 women, from outside the courtroom as the judgement resulted in the angry protests. Hundreds of policemen and thousands of supporters of Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had gathered outside the Sindh High Court building in Karachi. The police barred PPP activists from entering the courtroom. Some 200 PPP supporters managed to push past police cordons into the court premises, but not the courtroom. An anti-corruption court last night sentenced her jailed husband Asif Zardari to seven years’ imprisonment along with Rs 40 million fine in a corruption case in which he was accused of taking kickbacks to the tune of Rs 32 million while awarding a government contract. He has been in prison since 1996. The court which sentenced Mr Zardari also directed him to pay a fine of Rs 4 crore, failing which he will have to serve another one-year term in prison. He has also been debarred from taking part in politics for five years. Mr Justice Mumtaz Hussain Shah announced the verdict late in the night in a court packed with Mr Zardari’s supporters, and PPP leaders. Mr Zardari listened to the verdict with patience and when the Judge was about to leave the court, shouted “Thank you, sir”. Later the election tribunal sentenced Ms Bhutto’s lawyer to six months’ jail term for contempt of court for shouting “shame” after the court dismissed her nomination papers.
Agencies |
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Poll body disqualifies Kulsoom, Shahbaz Islamabad, September 13 The two-judge panel observed last night that Shahbaz’s signatures on his original papers and on the affidavit produced by his counsel Ashtar Ausaf Ali were not the same which had given rise to suspicion of forgery. The tribunal has rejected their nominations upholding the objections filed by their rivals. The tribunal also said different oaths required to be given by the two candidates and their proposer and seconder in their nomination papers were required to be attested by the Consulate General in Jeddah which had not been got done. The rejection followed even though Sharif accompanied by Kulsoom and Shahbaz visited the Pakistan Consulate in Jeddah to get attestations for their signatures last week. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s opposition Muslim League (PML-N) has flayed the disqualification of its leader Shahbaz Sharif’s from October polls, accusing President Pervez Musharraf’s government of “pre-poll rigging”.
PTI, AFP |
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UN inspectors no way: Iraq Dubai, September 13 “The return of inspectors without conditions will not solve the problem ...because we have had a bad experience with them. Is it clever to repeat an experience that failed and did not prevent aggression?” Aziz told Dubai-based Arab satellite station MBC in an interview to be broadcast later. UN weapons inspectors responsible for accounting for Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic weapons were pulled out of Iraq in December 1998. “Is the great diplomacy they are talking about to delay the US aggression four or five months and then to take place after the inspectors had returned?” Aziz asked. CAIRO: Arab League chief Amir Mussa today said US President George W. Bush’s speech on Iraq was “a good thing” because it underscored that the United Nations needed to play a role in disarming Iraq. “Bush’s speech, in which he said the United Nations should shoulder its responsibilities towards Iraq, is a good thing. It is possible (for Arabs) to deal with this,” Mr Mussa told the state-run radio station Voice of the Arabs. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher has said the country would give its reluctant support to military action against Iraq if it was endorsed by the United Nations. BEIJING: UN Security Council member China undertook on Friday to play an active role at the United Nations to resolve the Iraq crisis, following US President’s call for the world to disarm Baghdad. Though short of offering Mr Bush support, the statement reflected a more receptive attitude to action on Iraq than 10 years ago when China abstained from almost all UN Security Council votes in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War, diplomats said. MOSCOW: The potential for a political and diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis is “far from exhausted”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said while responding to US President Bush’s ultimatum to Baghdad. “As the Russian leadership has repeatedly stressed, the potential for a political and diplomatic solution is far from exhausted. There is real potential to achieve a solution through political means,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Reuters, AFP |
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UN draft only by month-end United Nations: September 13 US President’s speech on Iraq was “not a declaration of war,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said after Mr Bush’s address before the UN General Assembly. “It was not a declaration of war. It was a statement to the United Nations that it is time to act. It is time to do something,” he said. NEW YORK: Mr Bush took pains not to give his appeal for tough UN action against Iraq leader Saddam Hussein an overtone of personal vengeance, according a top US official. In a speech to the UN General Assembly here yesterday, Mr Bush reiterated a US charge that Saddam masterminded a 1993 plot to kill Kuwait’s Emir and a former US President — but did not name his father, George Bush.
AFP |
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Delay poll: top Nepal cop Kathmandu, September 13 Nepal’s Election Commission had huddled together all major parties yesterday to discuss arrangements for the November 13 vote — a date set two years ahead of schedule after Parliament was suddenly dissolved in May. “In my view, the election should be postponed in view of the law and order situation,” Mr Pradeep Shumshere Rana, chief of Nepal’s police, told partymen. “It would not be appropriate to hold elections in mid-November,” he said.
AFP |
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in Lahore has disqualified the brother and wife of exiled former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to contest the forthcoming polls claiming their nomination papers had been falsified.
The two-judge panel observed last night that Shahbaz’s signatures on his original papers and on the affidavit produced by his counsel Ashtar Ausaf Ali were not the same which had given rise to suspicion of forgery.
