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Friday,
October 18, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Musharraf
to ‘respect’ wish of Parliament Indian law
changed for mediation: Kirpal China
denies aid for N-programme
5 killed
in Philippine blasts 3
protesters killed |
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Move to
seize Sikh outfits’ assets proves futile Missing
Sikh among Bali blast victims? US Cong
men ignorant of Indian issues
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Musharraf to ‘respect’ wish of Parliament
Islamabad, October 17 “Whatever the wish of Parliament, the President will hold it supreme,” Pakistan President Musharraf’s Press Secretary, Major-General Qureshi said here. “It was for the National Assembly now to decide who should be the next Prime Minister and the President had no role to play in this regard. Whatever the choice of the elected representatives, it would be respected,” General Qureshi was quoted as saying by the local media. He said General Musharraf would have no objection to election of a Prime Minister and government which was opposed to constitutional amendments as well as the rules brought in by him during his three-year regime and the referendum held in April this year. General Qureshi’s comments on the amendments and referendum came after all mainstream political parties barring the government-backed Pakistan Muslim League Qaide Azam (PML-Q), made public their opposition to General Musharraf’s amendments as well as the referendum held by him. He, however, did not elaborate on how General Musharraf proposed to continue as President if the new government declined to accept his referendum, in which case the military ruler needed to be elected by Parliament and Provincial Assemblies. General Qureshi said General Musharraf had no problem in working with the new Prime Minister nor was there any apprehension of confrontation between the two.
PTI |
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Indian law changed for mediation: Kirpal
Washington, October 17 The Indian law had been changed from July 1 to make increased use of mediation possible, said Kirpal, noting the American method of settling most court cases through mediation instead of letting the lawyers slug it out. “The USA took 20 years to reach where it is today on mediation. It won’t take that long in India. India could catch up with the USA, may be within five or 10 years,” Mr Justice Kirpal, who is leading an Indian judicial delegation to the USA at the invitation of US Chief Justice William H. Rehnnquist told reporters here yesterday. The US Supreme Court receives about 7,000 petitions yearly, out of which they choose about 100 cases to decide while the Supreme Court of India receives 25,000 petitions and it decides many more cases than does the US Supreme Court, he said enumerating the differences. There is a difference in the method of appointment and tenure of justices also, he said. In India, the retirement age is 65, and the Chief Justice is always appointed according to seniority. In the USA, anyone can be appointed the Chief Justice by the President subject to Senate confirmation, and there is no retirement age for Federal Court or Supreme Court judges, he said. Under the Indian system of seniority, there is no possibility of favouritism because politics does not play any role in the appointment of the Chief Justice, he claimed. Asked why the US judicial system has been more successful than India in prosecuting people in high places, Mr Justice Kirpal said that courts acted only when a person was brought to trial.
PTI |
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China denies aid for
N-programme
Beijing, October 17 “We are opposed to the proliferation of any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. We pursue a policy of not supporting, not encouraging and not helping other countries in
developing weapons of mass destruction,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. “The nuclear issue of North Korea should be settled through dialogue and negotiation and peacefully. Various parties should create a favourable political environment for the solution of this issue,” she said. She said the two sides did not discuss the nuclear issue when the Chinese leaders met the vice-president of the Presidium of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, Mr Yang Hyong sop here yesterday.
PTI |
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5 killed in
Philippine blasts Zamboanga (Philippines), October 17 Five persons were killed and 70 others wounded after two bombs exploded in shopping centers, city councillor Kim Elago and Congressman Celso Lobregat, the representative of the city, said. The first bomb went off on the ground floor of the three-storeyed Shop-O-Rama department store. Minutes later, a second blast hit the adjacent Shoppers’Central store. Lobregat said, the 70 wounded, all came from the first blast.
AFP |
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3 protesters killed Dhaka, October 17 |
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Move to seize Sikh outfits’ assets proves futile
Vancouver, October 17 The ISYF and the Babbar
Khalsa, deemed terrorist organisations in the USA, the UK and India, were added to a federal Finance Ministry list six weeks ago. But the two groups, one of which was founded by a man linked to the 1985 Air India bombing, have not been added to a list of seven terrorist groups banned in July by Solicitor-General Lawrence
MacAulay. The Babbar Khalsa has been linked to the 1985 Air India bombing in which 329 persons were killed. Solicitor-General’s Ministry spokesman Dan Brien has reportedly said no additions have been made to the list of banned terrorist organisations, which currently includes extremist groups linked to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. He said the two Sikh groups were added to the much longer list of more than 100 groups compiled by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. The exercise may be meaningless given that there are no registered assets of the either group. The ISYF has never been a registered charity or non-profit organisation in Canada, so it does not have identifiable assets. The Babbar Khalsa was a registered charity until 1996, when the Revenue Canada revoked its number. It is still a registered non-profit organisation in British Columbia, but has no money in the bank or assets, according to its latest annual report. Liberal MLA Dave
Hayer, whose father was assassinated after writing against Sikh extremists, reportedly remarked that it made no sense to seize assets of the groups without putting them on the list of banned terrorist organisations.
UNI |
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Missing
Sikh among Bali blast victims?
Singapore, October 17 Satwinder Singh, 33, had moved to Bali about two months ago from Jakarta to search for a job. “He liked to go to discotheques,” media reports quoted his aunt Kulwant Kaur as saying. “He said he intended to go to the Sari Club that night.” But the young Sikh remained missing after the blast along with a motorcycle he had borrowed from a friend, Kulwant said. Satwinder’s aunt flew to Bali from Jakarta while his mother arrived from Medan. They have also visited the morgue. “We hope we can find him and we hope he is not dead,” Kulwant was quoted as saying with little conviction. “I hope he is still alive.” Meanwhile, the Indonesian police today questioned four men in connection with the weekend bomb blasts in Bali. An international team of investigators is hunting for clues that might link radical foreign and Indonesian Islamic groups to the devastating Saturday night attacks which killed more than 180 persons, including possibly up to 119 Australians.
UNI |
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US Cong men ignorant of Indian issues It would seem that some American lawmakers need to be educated about India so that their Rip Van Winkle view of some issues or a non-issue like that of Khalistan can be corrected. Foremost among them probably is the retiring three-term democrat member of the House of Representatives, Ms.Cynthia McKinney, who last week took the floor of the House to take note of what she called the 15th anniversary of “the declaration of independence by the Sikh nation of Khalistan.” In doing so, the African-American Congresswoman congratulated the president of the so-called Council of Khalistan, Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh, who has managed over the years to influence a handful of gullible US lawmakers into believing that Khalistan continues to be a live issue. A few other Congressmen like Dan Burton and Edolphus Towns have periodically displayed their ignorance about the situation in Punjab, which has travelled a long way from those years of Khalistan agitation to peace and progress, and indulged in India-bashing for the “suppression” of the aspirations of Sikhs for independence. Ms McKinney has often talked about the “imminent breakup” of India because of its “17 different separatist movements”. Last month, on a single day, she intervened in the House of Representatives four times—thrice to plead the cause of “minorities in India, Sikhs, Christians, Kashmir Muslims and Dalit untouchables” fighting for “self-determination” — and once to speak about the communal violence in Gujarat. Ms McKinney told her colleagues that India’s democracy was a democracy for the Brahmins, but it was a”tyranny for the minorities.” Interestingly, Ms McKinney referred to the “setback” she had suffered in her recent bid for re-election to the Congress, and attributed her defeat by Ms Denise Majette, also an African-American democrat, to the “heavy involvement” of Indians in Georgia with big money against her. Ms McKinney boasted that she had involved herself all these years in the effort to expose New Delhi’s “brutal” record, and said India had a record of “illegal interference” in US elections. She alleged that former Indian ambassador in Washington S.S.Ray had publicly urged the re-election of former senator Larry Pressler and in opposition to Robert Torricelli. Ms McKinney’s parting words to her colleagues were “Watch out, they (Indians) are coming after you too.” The Government of India may be inclined to ignore statements like those of Ms McKinney on Capitol Hill as “aberrations”, but it would perhaps be worth- while to take steps to give a lie to the continuing distortions through other Congressmen and to end the lobbying on a dead issue like Khalistan. The Indian Ambassador in Washington, Mr Lalit Mansingh, may be busy handling many facets of the growing Indo-US relations, but thanks to the NDA government’s innovative initiative, India has now an ambassador-at-large in the USA, functioning, of course, without diplomatic status from New York. His “mandate”, according to the website run on his behalf, is to promote better coordination among NRIs and PIOs (persons of Indian origin), but the incumbent, Mr Bhishma Agnihotri, an NRI himself, also holds the additional rank of adviser to the Embassy in Washington. Mr Agnihotri could perhaps use his office to good effect in countering the false propaganda against India on Capitol Hill by a few Congressmen. The External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, during his recent visit to New York, had predicted a “bright future” for Mr Agnihotri. His words might prove true if the ambassador-at-large takes up the challenge in right earnest. |
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MORE PARCEL BOMBS INTERCEPTED USA
TO RELEASE AT LEAST 1 PRISONER US
GENERAL TO WITNESS EXERCISE |
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In video: Pakistan's
resurgent religious right names a pro-Taliban leader as its candidate
for the post of Prime Minister.
