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Tuesday,
January 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Palestinian
bombers kill 22
USA, Pak agree on ‘quiet’ hot pursuit India opposes Quattrocchi’s plea |
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Kirpal
prefers life term for rapists Karachi
bombing suspect remanded Indian-born
among 20 UK novelists
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Palestinian
bombers kill 22 Gaza, January 6 Witnesses in the Gaza Strip’s main city said at least 14 missiles streaked into targets which included two metal foundries. Electricity suddenly went out, plunging the city into darkness. The missile strike, which started just before midnight yesterday, came after two Palestinians blew themselves up by detonating shrapnel-packed explosives in a Tel Aviv district crowded with foreign workers. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had convened his security Cabinet to consider military responses to the bombings, the first such attacks in Israel for six weeks but common during a two-year-old Palestinian uprising against occupation. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the helicopters destroyed a weapons-making workshop in the southern Askola neighbourhood of Gaza City. “It was used by terrorists to make mortar shells and other weapons but mainly mortars.” Palestinians said the helicopters appeared to target the middle of Gaza City, the largest in Palestinian-ruled areas of the coastal strip where just over one million Palestinians lived. Palestinians also reported a build-up of Israeli armoured forces outside the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah and said helicopters overhead fired machineguns, wounding two persons. They said troops blew up a three-storeyed building belonging to the family of Hassan Abu Armana, a wanted militant, and detained two who were in the house.
Reuters |
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Israel closes down 3 Palestinian varsities Tel Aviv, January 6 In an overnight meeting, Israel’s security Cabinet decided to bar Palestinian officials from attending a meeting in London this month where they were to discuss reforms demanded by the USA as a first step toward the establishment of an independent state, said Raanan Gissin, aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Cabinet also decided to shut down three Palestinian colleges and universities that incited “terrorism,” he said. An-Najah University — the largest in the West Bank and a Hamas stronghold — would likely be closed, he added. The Cabinet also decided to prevent the Palestinian Central Council from meeting in Ramallah on January 9 and to place travel restrictions on senior Palestinian Authority officials, who would now have their cars inspected at checkpoints, he said. He said Israel would also increase “pinpoint” attacks meaning it would hunt down and kill Palestinian militants, acts which the Palestinians condemn as assassinations.
AP |
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USA, Pak agree on ‘quiet’ hot pursuit Islamabad, January 6 Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and US Secretary of State Colin Powell have agreed that troops on the ground would react according to the situation but neither side would issue a statement without consulting the other, diplomatic sources in Washington told the daily Dawn. “This means that if a situation requires hot pursuit, it will be done but there will be no angry remarks from either side, as we saw after the December 29 incident,” a Washington-based diplomat said. In Pakistan, the clash caused angry protests in several cities against the US forces while the US military officials insisted that they reserved the “right to cross the border” The assertions by the US military officials that they had a right to hot pursuit the fleeing Taliban and Al-Qaida forces drew angry reaction from Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Muhammad Kasuri who in a statement rejected the US officials’ claims on hot pursuit. However, according to the newspaper, the US forces could go in hot pursuit without making their chase public. Meanwhile, military officials of Pakistan, USA and the allied forces in Afghanistan met yesterday at Angoor Adda, a village in southern Wajiristan agency, to defuse tension and to boost efforts to counter activities of Taliban and
Al-Qaeda operatives. The meeting, which lasted throughout the day, was held amid tight security, The News reported. The Pakistani delegation was represented by GOC Kohat Mohammad Tahir and Commandant Waziristan Scouts Force Mohammad Saeed Khan while a US general stationed in Afghanistan headed the eight-member team of the allied forces. The meeting followed tension between the two sides after a Pakistani scout allegedly fired on a US soldier and wounded him on December 29. Subsequently, a US plane bombed a madarsa located close to the border. The meeting took stock of the situation on the Pak-Afghan border in the wake of the border clash. During the meeting all shops were closed. Earlier, Kasuri told the media yesterday that the USA and Pakistan wanted to avoid any repeat of the December 29 skirmish and would cooperate to prevent miscommunication, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister said. However, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Saleh Hayat struck a belligerent stand by saying that the US troops would not be allowed to approach any person within the territory of Pakistan without permission. He said the Durand line incident was being probed by high officials and Pakistan had informed the USA of its concerns. He said Pakistan’s defence was in strong hands and if anybody dared challenge it, he would have to face the consequences.
PTI |
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India opposes Quattrocchi’s plea
Kuala Lumpur, January 6 A three-member Bench of the Court of Appeal reserved the judgement after hearing Quattrocchi’s plea as also India’s appeal challenging the high court verdict rejecting his extradition to stand trial in the Bofors case. During arguments, deputy public prosecutor Kamarulhisham
Kamaruddin, representing India’s case, objected to Quattrocchi’s plea and demanded that he should first comply with the
ex-parte order and then ask for injunction, but judge Hamid Mohamad, who presided over the court, overruled it. Justice Hamid also allowed counsel Cyrus V. Das and Steven
Thiru, appointed by India, to present the case, overruling an objection by Quattrocchi’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah that the Indian government could not have two representatives in the case.
PTI |
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Sri Lanka, LTTE resume talks Thailand, January 6 While both parties struck the confident note that difficulties over the de-escalation at high-security zones, a point which the Tigers are insisting upon for the return of normalcy in the war-ravaged peninsula, will not affect the peace process, a government delegation member said the talks are going to be “tough’’. Besides the sensitive security-related matters, the resettlement of displaced Tamil people and the normalisation of conditions in their areas of residence will be the other issues to be taken up during the four-day talks, which have been spread into six sessions. Sri Lankan delegation leader and Constitutional Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris said: “One has to expect thorny issues to come up. We have succeeded in resolving several issues before and I do not see any reason why we can’t sort out them this time also.. We have embarked on along and a difficult journey.’’
UNI |
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Kirpal prefers life term for rapists London, January 6 “Judicial history tells us that in cases involving capital punishment, the accused have got away even in cases when there was little doubt in the investigation of the case”. Justice Kirpal said, while participating in BBC Hindi weekly phone-in programme, Aapki Baat BBC Ke Saath. “I do not favour a death sentence for the offence of rape as it would only help the guilty to get away with the benefit of doubt,” he said. “What is required is a stringent punishment in rape cases, including life imprisonment, but the talk of death sentence would act as an over-deterrent, which would be counter-productive as there should be no doubt while pronouncing the death sentence,” the former Chief Justice said. When asked repeatedly on the allegations of judicial corruption, Justice Kirpal said “new laws are required to deal with such allegations. I do not say there is no corruption in judiciary, but by and large it is free from this menace”. Referring to recent allegations on judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Karnataka High Court, Justice Kirpal said investigations were on and nobody would be allowed to get away.
PTI |
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Karachi bombing suspect remanded Karachi, January 6 Asif Zaheer, who the police says belongs to the Islamic extremist group Harkat Jihad-e-Islami, was arrested last month, giving the police its biggest breakthrough so far in investigations into the May 2002 attack. Zaheer, 28, is the only person to have been formally arrested in the case. An investigator said he had confessed to planting explosives in the car used in the blast. He was linked to the attack — in which three Pakistanis, including the bomber, were also killed outside the Sheraton hotel in Karachi — after being picked up for allegedly plotting to ram an explosives-packed Volkswagen into a car carrying two US diplomats in December. Karachi anti-terrorism court Judge Shabber Ahmed extended his remand until January 13. AFP |
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Indian-born among 20 UK novelists London, January 6 The Granta Best of Young British Novelists list was published yesterday when it was discovered that several writers who probably would have made it on to the list had been submitted in error by publishers, in defiance of rules that state that writers must hold a British passport and be under 40. Granta’s list is a marketing exercise on behalf of contemporary literature and was the brainchild of Desmond Clarke who ran the Book Marketing Council in the early 1980s before literary novelists acquired their present status as minor celebrities. This is the third list published in the last three decades. The first list published in 1983 included India-born Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes and William Boyd.
PTI |
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Maoists abduct 150 students Kathmandu, January 6
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