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Thursday,
October 24, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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USA okays
oil for North Korea
Iraqi air defences attacked Brawl on
border accident: Pak 40 Pak men
sentenced for trafficking in girls
Top US
officials to visit Pak next week |
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Sept 11: Moroccan admits to money transfer
UK
scraps death penalty in another territory Russians
can marry at 14 Chandrika
meeting cancelled
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USA okays oil for North Korea
Washington, October 23 The decision to go ahead with the delivery reflects the administration’s cautious approach to the announcement, a stance that will continue over the next week as President George W. Bush meets leaders of China, Japan and Russia to work out an acceptable way to increase pressure on North Korea, reports here said. The officials told the Washington Post that the USA would not formally renounce its 1994 arms agreement with North Korea. Though the North Koreans told US officials on October 4 that the 1994 agreement was “nullified,” the administration allowed the delivery to North Korean ports on Friday of 43,500 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, as required under the agreement. “It was previously scheduled,” the official said, adding, “The next one is scheduled in about a month”. Though the official said no decision had been taken about how to handle the next shipment, others in the administration said it would not occur. Another senior US official said the administration decided not to block the shipment because officials “are looking at everything very carefully right now”. He said rather than halting various parts of the aid at different points, “we want to do it as one package” after consulting allies.
PTI |
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Iraqi air defences attacked
Washington, October 23 The US central command said the jets attacked an air defence communications facility near Al-Jarrah, 145 km south-east of Baghdad and an air defence operation centre near Tallil, 257 km south east of Baghdad in response to attempts to shoot down patrolling aircraft US and British jets attacked air defences in a northern Iraq no-fly zone yesterday, the Pentagon said earlier. An air defence spokesman in Baghdad charged that the aircraft targeted civilian installations. The warplanes have now attacked air defences in the two no-fly zones 52 times this year in raids that have escalated sharply as speculation has grown that the USA might invade Iraq to remove President Saddam Hussein, accused by Washington of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. “Today’s strikes came after the Iraqi forces fired surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery at coalition aircraft in the southern no-fly zone,’’ said the Central Command, which is responsible for US military operations in the Gulf
region. Reuters |
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Brawl on border accident: Pak
Islamabad, October 23 Reports said the military guard of honour ceremony, which occurs daily at sunset in Punjab on the Wagah border, degenerated into a fight between an Indian Army flag-bearer and a Pakistani soldier. A Pakistani paramilitary trooper sparked the brawl at the end of the ceremony by allegedly hurling insults, the report said. But a Pakistani military spokesman said the “minor” incident occurred as part of the flag-lowering ceremony. “After flags were lowered the rope was thrown back onto the flagpost by a Pakistani guard. It slipped and hit the guard on the other side. The Indian guard punched the Pakistani soldier in the neck,” Pakistani rangers spokesman Maj Mohammad Sharif said. “The Pakistani guard tried to respond to the Indian’s behaviour but senior officers intervened and the ensuing brawl was put down,” he added. “This was a minor incident and merited no publicity. The ceremony went on as usual afterwards,” Major Sharif stated.
AFP |
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40 Pak men sentenced for trafficking in girls
Islamabad, October 23 A Pakistani daily, ‘The News International’, quoting an Iranian newspaper ‘Khorassan’, said today that these Pakistani nationals presented themselves to the poor Iranian families and sought their young daughters’ hand in marriage. After marriage, they usually came back to Pakistan and sold these girls, aged between 12 and 20 years, to brothels. The Iranian judge, Justice Reza Daneshvar Sara, handing down the judgement, said, “The girls who managed to escape from these brothels and were somehow brought to Iran were in a state of mental and physical trauma.” The other accused, who had helped the girls in their escape back to Iran, were granted “Islamic forgiveness”. Asking all accused to hand themselves over to the Iranian authorities, Mr Justice Sara said, “In case they do not do that, they will be declared absconders and the case will be handed over to Interpol.”
UNI |
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Top US officials to
visit Pak next week
Islamabad, October 23 “One of these will be a Cabinet-level visit or one step less than that. We cannot give you more information at this stage,” spokesman for the US embassy here, Terry White, said commenting on the visit by top level US officials. The visit of the US officials would follow last week’s visit of the US central command chief, General Tommy Franks, who was here to witness the ongoing joint military exercises. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powel, meanwhile, met leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians Makhdoom Fahim and was scheduled to have another meeting with him today, media reports said. Mr Powell has reportedly decided to make efforts to get the PPPP and the PML (QA) together to avert the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal from taking control of the power structure at the centre and in provinces.
PTI |
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Sept 11: Moroccan
admits to money transfer Hamburg, October 23 Defendant Mounir el Motassadeq said he made the transfer to Ramzi
Binalshibh, now in the US custody, in August 2000. AP |
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UK scraps death
penalty in another territory London, October 23 The order was made yesterday at the Privy Council under powers conferred to the monarch by the West Indies Act 1962. The move completes the process of abolishing capital punishment in British overseas territories and fulfils one of the objectives of the 1999 White Paper on Britain and the Overseas Territories, “Partnership for Progress and Prosperity’’. Henceforth, there will be no death penalty for treason and piracy in the territory where capital punishment for murder was abolished by a previous order in the council in 1991. Local legislation has been passed to substitute life imprisonment for death penalty for treason and piracy.
UNI |
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Russians
can marry at 14 Moscow, October 23 Three hundred and eighty deputies in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, voted through the second reading of the law modifying the family codex and setting a nation-wide legal marriage age.
AFP |
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Chandrika meeting cancelled
Colombo, October 23 “The President will not meet the Norwegian deputy minister this evening as scheduled due to her busy schedule,’’ Director General of Media for the President’s office Janadasa Peiris said. He, however, refused to divulge further details on the cancellation of the meeting with the Norwegian facilitator. Mr Helgesen is in Sri Lanka on a four-day visit, which is concluding this evening, to prepare the ground for the second round of talks between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The second round of talks is scheduled to commence on October 31. Mr Helgesen was in Kilinochchi in Wanni last night to meet elusive LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran today, and was to attend the meeting with the President thereafter. The political observers said the worsening political tug-of-war between the President and the United National Front (UNF) government led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe could well have prevented the President from meeting the Norwegian delegation.
UNI |
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In video: Leader of Teherik-e-Insaf party Imran Khan protests the
detention of a Pakistani physician, who treated bin Laden and is
suspected of sending Anthrax laden letters to the US government.
