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Sunday,
November 24, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN |
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China ready to mediate in Indo-Pak talks Moscow, November 23 China is ready to facilitate a political dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve their outstanding issues, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jixuan today said. “India and Pakistan must resolve their differences through talks. And we are always ready to facilitate this process,” Mr Tang told reporters here.
‘Suicide bombers have killed 163 in Kashmir’ |
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Heathrow robbery: 5 Indians convicted London, November 23 Five persons of Indian origin have been convicted by a court in Surrey, in West London, for varying terms in connection with the robbery of more than £ 3 million at Heathrow airport in March this year.
Gates also most
generous ‘Berlin, ich liebe dich,’ says
Jackson Farmer of Indian origin killed Chaplin’s Swiss mansion to be
museum AIDS major killer of African women
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Jamali becomes Pak PM Islamabad, November 23 A powerful figure in the southern Baluchistan province, Jamali (58), was administered the oath of office by President Musharraf at a function at the Presidential Palace attended by top military brass, newly elected parliamentarians, civil officials and diplomatic corps. Besides the 14 Cabinet ministers and seven ministers of state, President Musharraf also administered the oath of office to four advisers to the Prime Minister, including outgoing Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz. The Cabinet ministers included three of the 10 defectors from Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Surprisingly, the ceremony was attended among others by the leaders of the hardline Islamic alliance, Muthahida Majlis Amal (MMA) who had vowed in their debate at the National Assembly on November 16 not to recognise Musharraf’s presidency and his controversial constitutional amendments. The MMA’s leader, Mr Fazlur Rehman, who lost to Mr Jamali in the election for prime ministership and the alliance’s floor leader and chief of the Jamat Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, attended the ceremony. Mr Jamali has promised to continue President Musharraf’s policies, including pursuing the war on international terrorism. His first crucial test will come within two months when he faces a vote of confidence in the National Assembly. The federal ministers who were sworn in along with Mr Jamali included Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, Sheikh Rashid, Zubaida Jalal, Aftab Sherpao, Liaquat Jatoi, Awais Leghari, Faisal Saleh Hayat, Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Naurez Shakoor, Nasir Khan, Ghous Bakhsh Mehar, Yar Mohammad Rind, Abdul Sattar Lalika and Hamyaun Akhtar. Ahead of today’s ceremony, President Musahrraf dissolved his Cabinet last night, a step seen as an attempt to facilitate the smooth transfer of power from the three-year military rule to an elected government. Surprisingly the Muthahida Quami Movement (MQM), which voted for Mr Jamali has declined to join his Cabinet. Ahead of the swearing of the Cabinet President Musharraf also summoned the meetings of the provincial Assemblies of the four provinces to meet next week.
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN BRAVO! Gen Pervez Muharraf can pat himself and also seek an approval from the world leaders, particularly from the Americans, that Pakistan today has a democratically elected Parliament. And after five long weeks of horse-trading where the army establishment played the role of kingmaker, there is at least a Prime Minister. A hand picked politically lightweight Baluch feudal; Mir Zaffarullah Khan Jamali from the frontier areas bagged 172 votes in a house where 328 members voted to become the Prime Minister. With a dozen members not voting, he, in fact, won by just a single vote. President Musharraf has assured that his term, which began last week, is not disturbed. There is no one to question the army’s misrule and all the laws proclaimed by the military dictator who seized power in October 1999. So there is a semblance of democracy for the hapless people of Pakistan to enjoy some drama. Most newspapers saw the game and sharply criticised the army junta and the politicians who played dirty games during these five weeks. Absar Alam, writing in Nation, said” “Musharraf has put the ‘label’ of democracy on a tailored arrangement that the establishment has helped design. Unashamed floor-crossing by 10 members of the PPP-P, made easy through suspension of the defection clause of the Constitution, gave Mir Zafarullah Jamali the minimum required majority to become the Leader of the House. Pervez Musharraf is a lucky man. In a House of wits and dimwits he has been able to secure the success of a Prime Minister and a Speaker who are expected not to create problems for him as Muhammad Khan Junejo and Fakhr Imam had done for Gene Zia-ul- Haq.” Everything seems to be as conceived and orchestrated by the directors and is apparently moving in the right direction. However, these are but early days. It is not clear whether the life of the present Parliament will prove more durable than of its predecessors and whether the representative government will come to be accepted, worked and respected as a permanent pillar of state. But even as the repeatedly betrayed and bluffed but essentially trustful people of Pakistan keep their fingers crossed on this halting march towards democracy, it is to be seen how the PML [Q], the King’s Party, behaves. Much of the victory would have been less had the PPP and the MMA made common cause. But right until the end Ms Bhutto preferred to play a role both unprincipled and witless — first negotiating with one lot, then the other, she ended up with nothing. What will this poor Jamali do on whom this greatness has been thrust upon? Ayaz Amir in Dawn found him a nice soul —the last description of the spineless — and he shouldn’t be expected to rock any boat. In Baluchistan the Jamalis have never been known as rebels, swimming always with the tide, a quality PM Jamali now brings to Islamabad. This should endear him to the Republic’s uniformed President. Commenting on the chicanery, Amir said: “The PPP will sit nominally on the opposition benches but for any real difference of approach with the new government it could well be sitting on the Treasury benches. Faisal Saleh Hayat, leader of PPP’s splinter group, was right after all. When there was no principle to defend, why not mount the gravy train?” Amir’s assessment was different when he said; “The true opposition will be that of the clerics in the MMA. Don’t count on the MMA losing steam. As time passes and it consolidates the high ground of anti-Americanism, people disgusted with the toadyism of the Q League and the wishy-washy line of the PPP will look for other alternatives to express their anger. As things stand, that alternative is provided only by the clerics of the MMA.” The Americans who worked hard behind to have the King’s party manage the formation of the government should be worrying over this assessment indeed. Strategically speaking a carefully nurtured scheme like the one that has seen the Speaker support the Opposition on the Legal Framework Order that gives Musharraf vast powers has all the potential of falling apart. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s sharp criticism of the horse-trading and the role that the ISI played, and Musharraf’s attempt to keep the maximum powers with him through the controversial Legal Framework Order, was supported by loud thumping of desks that reflected the mood of a formidable opposition that will give the Treasury benches a tough time in the days to come. But all in all for the people of Pakistan, there is going to be neither a well represented nor a responsible government. Musharraf can easily pat himself now for having a pliable government, but his troubles will not cease as those deprived from power have a platform to attack him. A weak government will mean strong anti Musharraf and American sentiments growing with each passing day. Even the small gains made during these three years on the economic front may be wasted. |
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China ready to mediate in Indo-Pak talks Moscow, November 23 “India and Pakistan must resolve their differences through talks. And we are always ready to facilitate this process,” Mr Tang told reporters here. Mr Tang is in Moscow to attend the Foreign Ministers’ level meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Both India and Pakistan have expressed their desire to join this international organisation uniting China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrghizistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Initially set up as a mechanism for confidence building along former Sino-Soviet border, SCO later declared anti-terror cooperation and economic interaction as its prime goals. At Moscow meet the SCO Foreign Ministers have adopted an interim framework pact for SCO’s cooperation with other international organisations like ASEAN.
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‘Suicide bombers have killed 163 in Kashmir’ London, November 23 Speaking on “Fighting the Suicide Bomber” at a meeting on “Militant Islam in Asia”, organised by the Asia Pacific Foundation, an independent think tank, Eric Herren of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism said Kashmir presented a particularly difficult problem in stopping the suicide bomber. Herren said there had been 50 suicide attacks in Jammu and Kashmir last year. “It is becoming something of a mass movement among terrorists,” he said. “Almost every mission is a success.” Stopping the suicide bomber presents a difficult problem for law enforcement officers, Herren said. The best chances of success are “working backstage
with the organisation aiming the human bomb” But while every law agency would want such intelligence, it is not always available, he said. As a preventive step, it is vital to take incisive steps “against the circle of activists who are around the suicide bomber”. Herren pointed to several players usually involved in a suicide bombing: the initiator who is the mastermind of the operation (not necessarily the organisation) — effectively the trigger; a bomb factory; the spiritual leader — effectively the brainwasher; a ring of collaborators whose job it is to arrange the logistics for the bomber such as finding rooms and transport and to hide his footprints; and finally, as the outer circle, a ring of sympathisers. Herren, who is based in Switzerland and is considered a leading authority on suicide bombings, said such killings are not new. “But the kind of weapons they use, their choice of target, is new. The suicide bomber often uses a truck or some vehicle but also often operates on foot. “A suicide attack by foot is the most difficult to counter,” Herren said. Tackling a suicide bomber is a three-stage process, he said — to identify, isolate and then dismantle the bomber. “It is important to remember that it is difficult, but a suicide bomber can be stopped,” Herren said. “A suicide bomber is not some cold-blooded thing. “He is a person working to an operation plan under great stress. If that mental plan is disturbed, he can get very nervous.” The suicide bomber knows that if he is caught, interrogation can lead to the mastermind, Herren said. The suicide bomber in Kashmir has a certain profile, Herren said. “He is between 15 and 25 years of age, male, and may be Kashmiri but is most likely to be Pakistani, Afghan, Arab or a European-born Muslim.” If intelligence has not stopped the operation, much will depend on “a split-second decision by a law enforcement officer,” he said. The manner of a youth with a purpose and a bomb wrapped around him can often give him away. “Finally it comes down to that feeling in the stomach that something is not right here,” Herren said. This kind of surveillance is best done outside likely target areas by officers in plain clothes. Closer to likely targets, the security can make use of dogs and electronic devices that can point to explosives. “Checkpoints need to be set up with fragmentation protection for law enforcement officers,” he said. Once suspicion is aroused, a policeman has a “passive” or an “active” option, Herren said. “The passive option is to shoot him,” but that may risk triggering the bomb. The active option would be to overpower him. He pointed to a simple way of deciding which option to take. “As a law enforcement officer, if I can see his hands, I can do something, otherwise I am helpless.” According to Herren, trained dogs can be a particularly useful tool in isolating the suicide bomber in a crowd.
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Heathrow robbery: 5 Indians convicted London, November 23 Four of them were convicted at Kingston Crown court yesterday for robbery and another for handling stolen goods from two consignments of foreign currency stolen from a South African Airways 747 jet. All men pleaded guilty to the charges. Sundeep Sidhu, 22, a part-time security guard who had volunteered to help unload high-value cases from the 747 which had arrived from Johannesburg, was sentenced to five and a half years and the remaining four were jailed for five years each. Judge Kenneth MacRae described their raid as “amateurish” and “a totally unsophisticated enterprise”. After the daylight robbery, Sidhu told the police that two Asian men had been hiding in the back of the van. They forced him to drive out of the airport and they then fled with the money. But the police suspected that the raid was an inside job, carried out by Sidhu who enlisted the help of his brother, Harjit Sidhu, 25, and three other men, Anil Parmar, 37, Manish Bhadresa, 23 and Harbhajan Padda, 33. The police mounted a heavy surveillance operation. It compiled over 20 videos of the men talking about the money which they gave to a deaf lip-reader, 20-year-old Jessica Rees, to interpret.
PTI |
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Riots rage on as Miss World
contestants flee Kaduna, November 23 Fighting, which began as protest by Muslim youths against a newspaper article on the pageant, has now degenerated into a bloody street war between Muslims and Christians. An AFP journalist was forced to join around 1,000 refugees hiding in the Kronenbourg brewery in the south of the city near the main road to Abuja, protected by troops and an armoured car. “We had to run for our lives. They came to my house in two cars and tried to burn it. We really don’t known what is happening,” 20-year-old Julie Adabo told AFP. Another woman said a gang came to kill her after turning her out of her home and only let her live when she lied and claimed to be a Muslim. One man said he had seen his brother cut down before him. Miss World’s
organisers announced early today that they would quit Nigeria and seek to hold the December 7 ceremony, which was set for the Nigerian capital Abuja, in London instead.
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Gates also most generous
Washington, November 23 Microsoft founder Gates had announced a $ 100-million long-term initiative to arrest the spread of AIDS in India earlier this month. Gates, who is said to be worth more $ 55 billion despite the technology slump, has given or pledged $ 25.6 billion since 1998, said the report. That was four times as much as Intel co-founders Gordon Moore and his wife Betty who were second on $ 6.6 billion. Out of the top 15 US givers, Gates and seven others made their fortunes in the 1990s tech boom. Charitable donations have soared from $ 110 billion in 1990 to $ 164 billion in 2001, according to Business Week, which noted the list was not entirely accurate given the amount of anonymous donations preferred by many of the super rich. Not since the time of industrialist Andrew Carnegie, an 18th century tycoon who gave away the bulk of his wealth during his lifetime so he could see it properly spent, has there been such a generation of donations, it said. Gates has followed that philosophy — championing children’s vaccinations in Africa and India. “Bill learned enough about the burden of infectious disease to believe that his dollars are best used now,” Patty Stonesifer, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, told the magazine.
AFP
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‘Berlin, ich liebe dich,’ says Jackson
Berlin, November 23 Instead of flying home to California, he planned to remain in the German capital until today to give him time to tour Frederick the Great’s country retreat Sanssouci in suburban Potsdam. ‘’Ich liebe Deutschland,’’ a visibly nervous Jackson told a national TV audience on Thursday when he was feted as the ‘’biggest music legend of our time’’ in Berlin, where he picked up a lifetime achievement award sponsored by a German TV magazine. After receiving his Bambi media award from German tennis star Boris Becker, the 44-year-old American told the 1,000 guests, ‘’I love Germany. It has a very special place in my heart. Berlin, ich liebe dich! (Berlin, I love you!)’’ Among other entertainers receiving Bambi prizes on Thursday night were Oscar-winning American actress Halle Berry, Swiss brother-and- sister actors Maria and Maximilian Schell for their lifetime of work and the German national football team coach Rudi Voeller for sport. Although the reason for Jackson’s trip to the German capital was to pick up his award, he made headlines far ahead of the ceremony for dangling a baby, presumably his own 9-month-old son, from a fourth-floor window of his hotel after his arrival on Tuesday. He issued an apology for the incident the next day. The Berlin police looked into prosecuting Jackson for dangling a baby out a fourth-storey window, but said they had found nothing that constituted a legal offence. Pictures of the kicking 9-month-old boy hanging from Jackson’s wrist flashed across world TV screens. The child, Prince Michael II, had his entire head wrapped in a cloth, so shrieking fans on the street below Tuesday saw only a torso and limbs. Outraged viewers reported Jacko, 44, to the German police, but a police spokesman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), the German penal code only made it a crime to endanger a child if the act was capable of harming the infant’s development. There was no evidence at this point that Jackson’s child had been scarred by the experience, the spokesman said.
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Farmer of Indian
origin killed Durban, November 23 Chuthurdarry Manna Nehore (70), a mango farmer, was found strangled with his hands and feet tied and mouth gagged yesterday at his Hazlemere home, near Verulam, the police said. Nehore was brutally attacked by unknown intruders apparently when he was fetching mangoes, it said, adding that two buckets of ripe mangoes were found near his body. The farmer’s house was ransacked and his firearm and cash were taken away by the miscreants, the police said.
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Chaplin’s Swiss mansion to be museum
Corsier (Switzerland), November 23 The estate at Manoir de Ban overlooking Lake Geneva is to open in 2005 as a museum devoted to the life and work of the filmmaker. Chaplin and his last wife Oona and family moved to Switzerland in 1952. He was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in 1975 and died on Christmas Day 1977, aged 88. The rooms of the 1830 house will be preserved to give an idea of Chaplin’s private lifestyle in his last years, his son Michael told journalists yesterday. The basement and a nearby farmhouse will display exhibits from Chaplin’s life and career, starting with his early childhood on the London music hall stage through to his great Hollywood successes. A 200-seater cinema in the gardens will screen classics from a cinema career that began with silent shots for the Keystone Studios in Hollywood in 1913 when Chaplin was 24. Michael said the project had the full support of Chaplin’s eight children. “It will reflect the man, the artist and the humanist,” said French-Canadian Yves Durand, a specialist in museum concepts who is responsible for the project. The estate, valued at some $ 6.85 million is to be sold by the family next month to the Charlie Chaplin Museum Foundation, set up last year.
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AIDS major killer of African women Durban, November 23 The study said AIDS was a predominant killer of South African women in this age group and they were 14 to 15 times more likely to die from the disease than their counterparts belonging to Indian, white and coloured ethnicities. Most Indian-origin women died of cerebrovascular diseases, while white and coloured women mostly died due to diabetes and ischaemic heart diseases, it found. The study was commissioned after a report by the Medical Research Council last year said AIDS caused 40 per cent of female deaths in the age group 15-49 in 2000. The results of the study were released yesterday after they were presented to the South African cabinet.
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