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Sunday,
December 22,
2002, Chandigarh, India  
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USA vetoes resolution condemning
Israel Pak ultra admits to suicide attack
plan
WINDOW ON PAKISTAN |
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Khatami to visit Pakistan
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UN relaxes financial
freeze Duleep Singh’s gun fetches £
23,500 2 soldiers
among 14 killed in Nepal
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USA vetoes resolution condemning Israel United Nations, December 21 Twelve members, including US’ closest ally UK, voted for the resolution. Cameroon and Bulgaria abstained in the 15-member UN General Assembly. Casting the veto US Ambassador John Negroponte described the resolution as “one-sided” and said the sponsors were more interested in condemning Israel than ensuring the safety of the UN personnel. But Syrian Ambassador Mihail Wehbe, who had moved the resolution, said he had accepted amendments by the council members but rejected the US attempt to “equate victim and the butcher.” Palestinian envoy Nasser al-Kidwa said the veto clearly showed Washington was “biased towards Israel” and warned it against supporting its Right wing which, he contended, had no intention of signing a peace agreement. UN Secretary-Gen Kofi Annan has lodged a protest with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and asked him to investigate the incident and punish the guilty. Israeli soldiers had killed the Briton Ian Hook on November 22 and later explained that they mistook the cellphone he was carrying for a weapon and a week later shot dead two Palestinians. All three worked for the UN. The USA has killed around 30 resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the last time it cast veto was in December, 2001.
PTI |
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Pak ultra admits to suicide attack plan Karachi, December 21 Abdul Aziz, one of four extremists of a banned militant group arrested this week, allegedly told investigators that he had met the two Arabs in early November to plan suicide attacks at the Karachi airport hotel where the forces of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan were staying. “He told investigators that he and one of accomplices associates met two Arabs, possibly Al-Qaida members,” Shafi Rind, a senior police official in the Karachi district of Malir, said. Rind said one Arab was identified by Aziz as Abu Mohammad Badar and the second only as Yusuf. The officer believed they likely used aliases. The other three militants were identified by the police as Riazuddin, Mohammad Kamran and Mohammad Rehman. They were detained this week by the Pakistan Rangers in Karachi, where they were allegedly planning the suicide attack.
AFP |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Managing Pakistan’s new experiment in democracy is proving an uphill task for the President, Gen Pervez Musharraf. Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali may be asserting that his government and those in the four provinces the President has cobbled up, will last full five years and set an example in governance. But he knows that the first vote of confidence on December 30 is a tough task. Benazir’s Peoples Party the Muttiahida Majlis-e-Amal
(MMA) and other splinter groups have joined hands to create a serious problem. While President Musharraf has delayed the implementation of the defection clause to help trading of members of the National Assembly, this could prove counter-productive as members from the ruling Muslim League (QA) could also switch sides without getting any punishment. Jamali was elected on November 21 last by a thin margin of one vote by polling 172 in a House of 342. One concession Jamali had to give was to reach a compromise with the party President Mian Mohammad Azhar. Dawns assessment was that Mr Jamali would depend heavily on General Musharraf to survive. Commenting on the fast political developments, Daily Times said: “Mutahidda Qaumi Movement
(MQM) and MMA are not supporting the government. His majority today is paper thin and unstable, even though the anti-defection laws are held in abeyance so that MNAs from other parties can cross the floor and join the Pakistan Muslim
League-Quaid (PML-QA). The problem is that until Musharraf revives the relevant anti-defection article of the Constitution, Mr Jamali’s own MNAs can also conceivable betray him by doing the same. That is why he has had to patch up with Mian Azhar to prevent a whole group of his party men from raising the flag of rebellion. He has also got to keep an earlier party splinter led by Ejazul Haq in line as his vote of confidence is expected to hinge on just a few members. However, Mr Jamali knows that politics under General Musharraf’s dispensation has been reduced to a game of personal advancement. Consequently, he has announced a crore of rupees for each MNA as a discretionary development fund, besides a quota of job. The argument in favour of this total manipulation of the political system is that General Musharraf wants to save the order he has created and wishes to remain army chief and president. The elections were manipulated with the help of the state agencies who identified his two “enemies” as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party. Meanwhile, his establishment probably remained divided over the erstwhile friends-turned-enemies in the pro-Taliban religious parties. Pakistan has a political spoils system that can only be maintained through sheer deception. It is another matter that this order is losing legitimacy with each passing day. Is this what he is so proudly talking about all the time. At another level, General Musharraf is afraid of the 1973 constitution. In South Asia Tribune, Prof Tarique Niazi from Wisconsin wrote that there is only one person who stands between Pakistan and its Constitution: General Pervez Musharraf. Deep down, he knows that the day Constitution comes into force, he will be out of his job. There are three major constitutional issues that neither sleep nor let him sleep. Niazi wrote: “First, Article 63 (k) that prohibits a serving officer to run for public office, such as presidency, dictates him to swap his fatigues for a change of civvies. Once in civvies, the same article further requires him to wait as long as two years before he can run for President. Second, the Constitution lays out well-defined procedures for electing a President through a pre-determined electoral college that is made up of Parliament (Senate, National Assembly, and four provincial assemblies). In contravention of the Constitution, however, General Musharraf rushed to claim the presidency on November 16 without even the electoral college having been completed. The Senate had yet to be formed and provincial assemblies had yet to be sworn in. “Third, the Constitution does not substitute a referendum, such as the one that he called on April 30, for a presidential electoral college. The Supreme Court upheld this constitutional criterion in its March 2002 ruling. Unless these issues are resolved, constitutional deck is stacked against General Musharraf. As of now, he cannot survive in his job unless he garners a two-thirds majority in Parliament to have it swallow his constitutional infractions as constitutional amendments. But Parliament, despite his rigging feat — before, during and after elections — stands evenly divided between his hangers-on and his democratic opposition. He is resolving this split by pressing and bribing his way to the opposition”. President Musharraf is thus corrupting the democratic process by keeping the defection clause suspended to bid for any member of Parliament who has a price. Second, he is using the criminal justice system to help the Muslim League of turncoats into government — both in Islamabad and in the provinces. In
Balochistan, he swung open the prison portals on those who reportedly reeked of corruption, smelled of narcotics, and dripped with the blood of the innocent in exchange for their patrons’ vote for a government of the Muslim League. Third, he is using the police force to end so-called “no-go areas” in Karachi to enlist the support of Muttahida Qaumi Movement to form a MuslimLeague government in Sindh. Perversely, he has been patronising the keepers of these “no-go areas” — the Muhajir Qaumi Movement — for three years in an attempt to turf out his bete noir — Altaf Hussain. But then how long he will manage. Perhaps for a considerable time since he is paying the price for each member that counts. Some democracy indeed in that hapless country. |
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Khatami to visit Pakistan Islamabad, December 21 Their relations have been complicated over Pakistan’s support for the US-led campaign in Afghanistan.
AP |
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UN relaxes financial freeze United Nations, December 21 A resolution to this effect was adopted unanimously yesterday in the UN Security Council on humanitarian grounds after several individuals reported that they face extreme hardship because of freeze of their financial resources. Funds amounting to around $ 115 million have been frozen since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA.
PTI |
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6 die
in chopper crash Kabul, December 21 |
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Duleep Singh’s gun fetches £ 23,500 London, December 21 The gun a .12-bore side-lock ejector gun, was built in 1895 by the famous London gunmaker, James Purdey and Sons, for Duleep Singh’s eldest son, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh. When Punjab was annexed by the British in 1849, 12-year-old Duleep Singh was exiled to England with the status of a European prince and provided with pension. The sale of Prince Frederick’s gun at Sotheby’s auction of sporting guns is a symbolic link with the 19th century Sikh dynasty. A vendor had acquired the gun about 30 years ago, knowing its history, but the purchaser, a private collector based in the UK, bought it because it matches another in his collection. The case was offered by a different owner and bought by a different purchaser.
ANI |
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2 soldiers
among 14 killed in Nepal Kathmandu, December 21 Two army personnel were killed yesterday in an accidental explosion when they were defusing a pressure-cooker bomb planted by the Maoist at a public place in Jumla district, they said. The Maoists were killed during the anti-terror campaign launched in Myagdi, Bardiya, Kanchanpur and Dadeldhura districts, officials said. Meanwhile, a school teacher at Shyampatichaur village of Kavre district was brutally killed by the guerrillas.
PTI |
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