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Friday,
November 29, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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PML(Q) resumes talks with MMA Kashmir policy to continue: Pervez Eleven killed in Kenyan suicide bomb attack
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Show cancellation blow to Nigeria Australia, Canada shut down missions NATO in new ‘avatar’ Cloned baby by year-end: sect
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PML(Q) resumes talks with MMA
Islamabad, November 28 The Muttahida Quami Movement yesterday reversed its earlier decision of sitting in the Treasury Benches without being part of the government on the plea that the Jamali government, which was sworn in on November 23, had failed to implement its promise of abolition of “no-go areas” in Karachi. Senior MQM leader Farrooq Sattar told reporters in Karachi that the decision of the party to sit in the Opposition implied that it would not extend support to the government at the Centre. Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali of pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam was elected as Prime Minister in the 342-member National Assembly after the last-minute decision by the MQM parliamentary group to support it from outside. Mr Jamali won with a one-vote majority by securing 172 votes with the help of the MQM and 10 defectors from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), headed by former premier Benazir Bhutto. As fresh differences arose between the PML (Q) and the MQM over the chief ministership of the southern Sindh province, senior PML (Q) leader and General Musharraf’s confidant Sujat Hussain decided to hold talks with the six-party alliance, the MMA, to work out a deal to get its support for the Jamali government. Mr Hussain meet MMA leader Mualana Fazlur Rehman last night to begin fresh talks to thrash our differences on the continuation of General Musharraf as President as well as repeal of controversial constitutional amendments. The fresh crisis for the Jamali ministry was sparked off as the MQM, which has its powerbase in Karachi, was peeved over the reluctance of the PML (Q) and its allies to accede to its demand for chief ministership of the Sindh province, which was reportedly agreed as a quid pro quo deal after which the MQM voted for Mr Jamali on November 21 in the National Assembly. In view of the MQM’s decision, General Musharraf yesterday postponed the session of the Sindh Assembly, which was scheduled to meet today. The PML (Q) and the MMA have decided to resume talks as Ms Benazir Bhutto has made it clear that her party would not in any eventuality tie up with the MMA to form government at the Centre and in the province as it comprised fundamentalist parties whose policies, she said, would endanger Pakistan and Muslims in general. PTI
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Kashmir
policy to continue: Pervez Islamabad, November 28 The President said this yesterday during his meeting with President of PoK Muhammad Anwar Khan here, The Nation reported today. He said a durable solution of the Kashmir problem was vital to peace and stability in South Asia. He maintained that Pakistan would play its role to resolve the issue and bring back normalcy in the region. The President said Pakistan would continue providing political, moral and diplomatic support to people of Kashmir. He said the new government would work for the solution of the Kashmir problem without any change and alteration in Pakistan’ policy on the issue. The PoK President congratulated General Musharraf on taking oath as the President of Pakistan for the next five years. During the meeting, the latest political situation in PoK also came up for discussion.
UNI |
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India’s claim malicious: Pak Islamabad, November 28 Pakistan labelled remarks by India’s External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha yesterday that accused the high commission of being a centre of its ISI agency as “malicious and preposterous”. “The allegation is another cheap attempt by the distinguished minister to blame outsiders for the problems created by the wrong policies of successive Indian Governments,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “No objective observer can be taken in by the type of blatant deception being practised by the Indian Government.” It added that the high commission was “working within the internationally accepted diplomatic norms”. Yesterday, Mr Sinha had charged that Pakistan was active in Bangladesh, and that the Pakistani high commission in Dhaka had become a “nerve centre” for activities of the ISI. AFP
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Eleven killed in Kenyan suicide bomb attack In Jerusalem, a Foreign Ministry official said three Israelis, including two children, were killed in the blast, which coincided with a failed missile attack on an Israeli airliner over Kenya. The bombers aboard a four-wheel drive vehicle rammed into the gates of the Mombasa Paradise hotel around 8.25 a.m. (10.55 a.m. IST), ploughed into the reception area and set off the explosives. The attack occurred just as a group of 140 Israeli tourists were checking into the hotel after arriving on a charter flight by Israeli carrier Arkia. Almost simultaneously, the Arkia plane, which had just taken off again with 261 passengers on board, narrowly escaped being hit by two missiles, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Jerusalem.
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Show cancellation blow to Nigeria London, November 28 Sharia has been declared in only 12 of the Nigerian Federation’s 31 states, since its introduction in Zamfara state in early 2000. But because the 12 northern states tend to form a solid block of votes — without which Obasanjo cannot hope to win re-election next year — he is seen by many Nigerians as having failed to provide the powerful leadership needed to defeat the application of Sharia law. Obasanjo’s Federal Minister of Justice has written to the Sharia states to tell them that Sharia is illegal and that the constitution of Nigeria makes the country a secular state. But the states have taken no notice, whatsoever, of the minister’s legal opinion. Obasanjo’s own statements on the subject have been treated with equal disdain, as coming from a `toothless bulldog’. These harsh views arise from the fact that, although Sharia is supposed to govern only the lives of Muslims who live in the Sharia states, it, in fact, affects Christians and those who adhere to Nigerian indigenous religions, as well. For instance, some of the Sharia states forbid men and women to use the same public transport. If a Christian and his wife who live in the north are travelling by bus they must travel separately. Drinking alcohol in hotels and restaurants is also frowned upon in the Sharia states. In Zamfara, the first state to declare Sharia, the Governor, Ahmed Sani, went to the extent of paying unmarried women $ 250 each from state funds, to prevent them from resorting to prostitution. Sharia, in effect, makes some Nigerians more free than others. In Nigeria, the federal court has to confirm a sentence of death but in the north, such cases are routinely referred to the lowest Sharia courts, which do not hesitate to impose the death penalty. This is what happened to 30-year-old Amina Lawal. She was sentenced to be stoned to death by a Sharia court on March 22 this year at Bakori, in Katsina state, for having had a baby outside marriage. The sentence was due to be carried out once she had weaned her daughter. Amina’s appeal to a higher Sharia court at
Funtua, also in Katsina State, was dismissed on August 19. She has now lodged another appeal with the Sharia Court of Appeal in
Kaduna. When the news of Amina’s sentencing first broke, a campaign was launched on her behalf. This, in turn, led to some of the Miss World contestants refusing to go to Nigeria and attracted adverse publicity in the north to the event. For the sake of the country’s 120 million persons, it is to be hoped that the events surrounding the cancellation of the Miss World contest will concentrate minds more closely around Nigeria’s future. If that happens, then Miss World, surprising as it might seem, will have done the country a favour.
The Guardian |
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Australia, Canada shut down missions
Manila, November 28 Armed police closed streets, set up barricades and circled the Australian Embassy after it was shut when Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra had received a “very specific” intelligence report last night warning of threats by Islamic militants. However, there was no stepped-up police presence immediately seen outside the Canadian mission. Philippine National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told reporters that his government was unaware of specific threats but was working to clarify the situation. “We have not received any information that would indicate they are under any threat,” Mr Golez said. “We have been working very closely with the ambassadors of Australia and Canada so that we can seek more clarification,” he added. Mr Downer told Australian radio that the threat his nation received was “not only location specific, targeting the Australian Embassy itself, but also time specific in the sense that we are talking over the next few days.” The Canadians shut their embassy indefinitely because of a “specific and credible threat”, said spokeswoman Heather Fort. A Canadian Government website said: “Threats against Canadians and Canadian interests in the Philippines have heightened and there has been an upsurge in bombings.” AP
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NATO in new ‘avatar’ Lord Ismay, the first Nato Secretary-General, had long ago said NATO’s goal was to keep “the Americans (in Europe), the Russians out, and the Germans down.” Events in Europe since the early nineties had invalidated that goal. The Nato was formed in 1949 to ward off any Soviet threat and to guarantee its 12 founding members against the expansion and influence by the Soviet Union. Over the past 53 years, Nato had enlarged four times. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany in 1952, Spain in 1982 and Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999. A former senior US official had suggested several years ago that NATO should be given a medal and put to bed. That suggestion is more valid today in the context of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. But President Bush has found a new justification not only to keep NATO going but also to reinvent it. It is to strengthen the western alliance’s military “to confront terror camps in remote regions or hidden laboratories of outlawed regimes.” The NATO summit in Prague last week formally invited seven more nations from the former communist block — Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia—to join the alliance. In his weekly radio address to the nation, President Bush hailed the “historic expansion” and said the addition would increase Nato’s military strength. “These nations will also bring greater clarity to NATO’s purposes,” he went on, “because they know from the hard experience of the 20th century that threats to freedom must be opposed, not ignored or appeased.” NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, underlining the relevance of the alliance in the post-September 11 global war against terrorism, told the summit: “Terrorists and their backers, the failed states in which they flourish, and proliferating weapons of mass destruction pose a genuine threat to everyone in the world. Today NATO will demonstrate that a transformed and modernised alliance is at the very heart of the free world’s response.” The summit has also decided to boost military capability which means provision of more defence funds by member countries. All members are not willing to bear additional burden. Canada, for instance, has openly rebuffed suggestions from the USA for increased defence spending. During the days of President Boris Yeltsin, the Kremiln view has been that Russia will not agree to former Soviet Republics or the Baltic states being admitted to NATO. MrYeltsin’s press adviser had said if such a development took place, Russia would have to review its relations with NATO as also its foreign policy priorities. Many US Congressmen had then warned that the expansion might push Russia in the wrong direction. But President
Putin, with his strategic partnership with the USA, seems willing to wink at the new development. The most charitable view of the expanded NATO can be that, as Jane’s Defence Weekly editor-in-chief Clifford Beal believes, the alliance is an important political organisation crucial for augmenting political stability within western Europe and eastern Europe. “But what remains in question,” says Mr Beal, is how militarily significant it will be in the future.” For instance, the NATO summit endorsed a statement of support to UN-backed demand for Iraq to disarm. But given the reluctance in Europe to back any military action against Baghdad, NATO as an entity is unlikely to be involved in any US — initiated attack. The most uncharitable view of the current NATO is that it will be overwhelmingly a US-dominated organisation. That comes from Christopher Lord, who, in an article in the Prague Post, says:”So this is what NATO membership has come to mean: open-ended support to whatever unprovoked attacks America decrees, with mandates, international law, treaties, courts and such-like rubbish in the trash where it belongs.” |
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Cloned baby by year-end: sect Washington, November 28 “We have five pregnancies under way, of which one is almost due. We will have the first baby soon,” French scientist Brigitte Boisselier, Managing Director of the group’s Clonaid project, told AFP yesterday. Ms Bosselier declined to give an exact date of birth, but said the cloned baby was due sometime before the end of the year. The Raelians, who claim 55,000 followers worldwide, believe that life on earth was established by extra-terrestrials who arrived in flying saucers 25,000 years ago, and that humans themselves were created by cloning. The movement’s founder, Rael — former French journalist Claude Vorilhon — lives in Quebec. He describes himself as a prophet in the line of Moses or Mohammad, and claims that cloning will enable humanity to attain eternal life. In Rome on Tuesday, Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori said the world’s first cloned human being, a boy, would be born in January. Meanwhile, the international scientific community expressed scepticism and irritation yesterday over claims by the Italian fertility expert that the first cloned human would be born in January. Mr Ian Wilmut, the British scientist who cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, said he did not believe the claim. “He has claimed to have cloned very large numbers of pigs, but nobody has ever seen them or the facilities where this was done,” Mr Wilmut told the British media. AFP, DPA
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Scribe
released on bail Kathmandu, November 28 |
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