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Saturday,
December 7, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Kashmir
policy to continue: Pak leaders 10
Palestinians killed in Gaza camp
Winter
storm kills 22 in USA Bush joins
Id celebrations US President George W. Bush (L) makes remarks during a visit to the Islamic Center of Washington
on Thursday to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. Bush praised the contributions of Muslim-Americans in a bid to deflect criticism of the
Administration's anti-Iraq campaign. |
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US
delegation’s peace mission to Iraq Ethiopia
again faces spectre of famine
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Kashmir policy to continue: Pak leaders
Islamabad, December 6 In his message on Id-ul-Fitr, President Musharraf said he prayed for the success of the “Kashmiri freedom movement” and reiterated his government’s resolve to continue providing all possible political, moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris. He said Pakistan would persist with this policy until a fair settlement of the Kashmir issue was reached in accordance with the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. In a similar message, Prime Minister Jamali praised Kashmiris for their “valiant” struggle and asked India “to resume a purposeful dialogue with Pakistan for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute”. “For more than half a century, our Kashmiri brothers and sisters have been engaged in a courageous and legitimate struggle for freedom from Indian subjugation,” he said. Mr Jamali also paid tributes to the leadership of the separatist Hurriyat Conference and called for the release of its jailed leaders. He said Pakistan was a “recognised” party to the Kashmir dispute and had moral and legal obligations to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Mr Jamali said India should end its “human rights violations” and allow the Hurriyat leadership to freely engage in political activity, as well as to travel. In his message, leader of the Pakistan-based militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, Saeed Salahuddin targeted the new government in Jammu and Kashmir and Mr Ram Jethmalani’s Kashmir Committee for attempting to damage the Mujahideen groups, particularly the Hizbul Mujahideen.
PTI |
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10 Palestinians killed in Gaza camp
Bureij Refugee Camp (Gaza Strip), December 6 The incursion into the Al-Bureij camp, which the Palestinians branded an Israeli “massacre”, came a few hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon claimed that Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network was operating in the Gaza Strip. Nineteen Palestinians had also been wounded, five of them seriously. Four members of the same family were killed when their house was hit by a tank shell, the sources added. The army confirmed the incursion, saying that a soldier was lightly wounded in a fierce shootout between the troops and armed Palestinians. The commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Gen Israel Ziv, told public radio four of the dead were members of the hardline Islamic group Hamas. During a press conference in Tel Aviv yesterday, Mr Sharon accused Lebanon and the Gaza Strip of sheltering operatives from the Al-Qaida network, which is suspected of being behind last week’s twin anti-Israeli attacks in Kenya. Mr Sharon also said Al-Qaida was present in Lebanon and joining hands with the fundamentalist militia Hizbollah, although both the Lebanese President and the Shiite group denied the charge.
AFP |
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Winter storm kills 22 in USA
New York, December 6 |
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Bush joins Id celebrations Washington, December 6 “Millions of our fellow Americans practise the Muslim faith. They lead lives of honesty and justice and compassion,” Mr Bush said at the Islamic Center of Washington, where he honoured Muslims celebrating the Id-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of fasting. It was Mr Bush’s second visit to the Islamic Center since the September 11, 2001, attacks, which sparked off hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims across the USA.
Reuters |
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US delegation’s peace mission to Iraq
Even as President George W. Bush continues to indulge in bellicose rhetoric against Iraq, religious leaders from the USA are set to embark on a “peace journey” to Baghdad in support of a diplomatic, non-violent solution to the impending crisis. The delegation, which will leave on December 8—the UN deadline for Iraq to disclose its weapons of mass destruction—includes Roman Catholic priests, religious sisters, and lay leaders representing a variety of inter-faith and church-affiliated social organisations. A statement released on Wednesday on behalf of the delegation by Pax Christi USA, the national Catholice peace movement, said: “Our world today is scarred by fear: fear of war, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction. Our government’s pervasive rhetoric of fear distorts our vision, divides the human family, and ultimately creates the very violence we dread. We need to deal with terrorism, but we in the USA cannot allow fear to rule our hearts...We oppose the push to war on Iraq, as we oppose any effort to tear our human family apart.” According to US Newswire, the 11-member delegation, while in Iraq, will meet with religious leaders, UN agencies, relief organisations and government officials. Visits are planned for hospitals, orphanages and schools, where delegates will come to know some of Iraq’s 22 million people who will suffer the most in the event of war. The delegation, which will be headed by Mr David Robinson, National Director of Pax Christi USA, based in Pensylvania, will spend about 12 days in Iraq. |
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Ethiopia
again faces spectre of famine London, December 6 Drought is the immediate cause of this human tragedy in the Horn of Africa, as it is in southern Africa where another 14 million people are badly hit by food shortages. This year the drought in Africa has been particularly severe and widespread. In Ethiopia, a complete failure of the short ‘Belg’ rainy season, which runs from February to May, was followed by a late start and early finish of the main ‘Meher’ rains, usually lasting from June until September. Dust swirls from shrivelled crops and parched fields in once-fertile areas; hundreds have already abandoned homes and villages in search of food and there are reports of increases in deaths, especially among the young and elderly, from diarrhoea and marasmus and kwashiorkor, diseases associated with malnutrition. The country, where the average annual income is $ 100 per head and the average life expectancy 44 years, suffers from cyclical droughts but aid agencies say these are becoming more frequent, leaving the country less time to recover and cope with really bad years like this one. Some environmentalist and aid workers blame the West for erratic weather patterns and droughts and floods in Africa, which they link to climate change and global warming exacerbated by the developed world’s energy policies. Ethiopia is also hit by low world coffee prices. Coffee bean exports account for about two-thirds of its foreign earnings. But the price has halved on world markets over the past three years and is now less than the cost of producing the crop. Small-scale Ethiopian farmers have been badly affected and have no reserves to fall back on when drought strikes. The devastating famine in 1984, in which nearly one million Ethiopians died, touched the conscience of the world after internationally televised pictures of listless children with swollen bellies and stick-thin adults triggered a massive aid effort led, notably, by the rock singer, Bob Geldoff. In the aftermath, Ethiopia needed help to revive its battered economy, especially agriculture. But aid from Western countries, which amounted to $ 20 per head in 1988, has tumbled in real terms since then by about a half. And Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi, appealing last month for two million tonnes of food, warned that the situation could be worse than in 1984, although aid experts, concerned about reports of ‘donor fatigue’ and ‘empathy burn-out’, stress that a major crisis can still be averted if sufficient aid is sent soon. About 85 per cent of Ethiopia’s population of 65 million are dependent on farming and the agriculture sector suffers from poor cultivation practices as well as the frequent droughts. All land is government-owned and leased out to farmers in one-hectare plots, which many feel is not big enough. It is claimed the insecurity of the leasing system discourages farmers from investing in their land. Land reform is a controversial issue. Land was nationalised under the former Marxist government to replace the feudal system which had existed before Haile Selassie was desposed in 1974. Another factor touching as many as three million of the country’s small farmers is the so-called ‘fertiliser debt’. Since the mid-1990s, in a programme based on an experimental project run by the aid agency, Sasakawa Global 2000, Ethiopian government officials have persuaded farmers to buy fertiliser on credit. In a good year, farmers may earn enough to repay their fertiliser debt, said an official of another aid agency, ‘but when the rains fail, they may be left with only the debt’. But there are other causes behind the looming famine. The brutal, two-and-a-half-year border war with neighbouring Eritrea — a third of whose 3.5 million people also face severe hunger — took its toll and the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS in the country has not helped. As in many other African states, the problem of HIV/Aids in Ethiopia, linked to conflict and unrest, is compounding those of drought and hunger. At least ten per cent of Ethiopia’s adult population is believed to be HIV positive and the numbers have been climbing, driven, in part, by the demobilisation of many thousands of soldiers after the 30-year civil war with Eritrea — which ended with Eritrean independence in 1993 — and more recently after the border war with Eritrea in which 70,000 persons died. Relations with Eritrea are still tense and playing a part in the unfolding tragedy. Despite the ceasefire in December 2000 ending the border dispute, which was costing the two impoverished nations about $ 1 million (US) a day each, the now-landlocked Ethiopia, last month spurned an offer from its former foe to use Eritrean Red Sea ports to transport food aid to famine victims.
The Guardian |
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US President George W. Bush visited
a mosque yesterday to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan,
hoping to shore up relations with Muslim-Americans strained by the Iraq
campaign and anti-Islamic remarks by Bush supporters in the Christian
right.
