 |
Wednesday,
March 26, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
USA, Iraq ‘violating’ Geneva Convention
USA believes Saddam is alive Stop producing extra oil: Iraq tells Arabs Grisly images stoke media debate |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
China for cessation of war Interest groups preventing talks: Jamali
|
|
USA, Iraq ‘violating’ Geneva Convention Washington, March 25 According to the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, a detaining authority in wartime has a clear obligation not to parade POWs or allow them to be exposed to the public, the group said in a release. The prohibition was not a blanket ban on any image whatsoever of a POW, it said. For example, the prohibition would not extend to incidental filming of POWs when journalists were documenting broader military operations, it added. But a detaining authority in wartime had a clear obligation not to parade POWs, or allow them to be exposed to the public, the group said. The provision protecting POWs from ‘’public curiosity’’ appeared to have been violated by the Iraqi and the US governments, Human Rights Watch said. The Iraqi government had filmed American POWs and interrogated them before cameras. On the other hand, the US Government had taken insufficient measures to prevent journalists embedded with US forces from filming Iraqi POWs held by the United States, the group charged. ‘’US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld has appropriately criticised the Iraqi filming of American POWs. However, he had said nothing to date about the filming of Iraqi POWs by media operating alongside US forces,’’ the group said.
UNI |
|
USA believes Saddam is alive Washington, March 25 One of the officials told the Post: “The person on television looked so much like Saddam that the Central Intelligence Agency did not have to run a voice analysis to confirm the identity.” Saddam, dressed in olive green military garb, yesterday pledged a long and bitter war against US and British forces in a second “victory” speech broadcast in Iraq. While the US officials said the presentation might have been recorded, they believed the recording had come after Thursday’s attack on Saddam’s residential compound in Baghdad. The US intelligence officials remain convinced that Saddam was inside the compound when it was hit by two bunker-busting bombs and some three dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles. Soon after the speech was broadcast, the US and British officials had publicly cast doubt on its authenticity, suggesting that it was taped and noting Saddam’s use of doubles in the past. Meanwhile ‘USA Today’ has reported that the US intelligence officials believe Saddam could be in a Baghdad bunker receiving treatment from military doctors. “We know we hit him. We know he was wounded,” a US intelligence official told the newspaper.
AFP |
|
Stop producing extra oil: Iraq tells Arabs Baghdad, March 25 “Oil-producing countries, especially Arabs, should not be increasing their production. This is the least thing to do to make the cost of war high for the Americans,” Rashid said. OPEC Secretary General Alvaro Silva Calderon had said on Thursday that the oil cartel would make up for any shortage of oil caused by the Iraq war. Oil prices have fallen back from about $ 35 a barrel two weeks ago, when uncertainty about the war was high, to within the $ 22-28 a barrel band that is the OPEC target. Rashid said Iraq was still exporting oil, but he declined to say how much. Last week the United Nations suspended the “oil-for-food” programme that allowed Iraq to export about two million barrels a day under close supervision.
AFP |
|
Grisly images stoke media debate London, March 25 Iraqi TV footage showed the first pictures of American corpses and interviews with captured soldiers shaking with fear, leaving news editors grappling with the ethics of carrying grisly images and being swept up in a propaganda war. Most US networks refused to carry the footage on Sunday after coming under pressure from the Pentagon. Many US newspapers followed suit on Monday apart from tabloids such as the New York Post which showed the corpses on its front page. In the Arab world, the media were less squeamish about splashing the pictures alongside images of mutilated Iraqi children and bloodstained bodies. And in Europe, many newspapers carried front-page photos of the US prisoners while TV channels, including CNN International and Britain’s BBC and Sky B, showed snippets of the footage. ‘’These images were necessary to show an important aspect of the conflict. It’s important to let the audience form its own view,’’ said Tony Maddox, senior vice president Europe, Middle East and Africa for CNN International, which showed snippets of the captured soldiers and a still photo of the corpses. So where do the media draw the line? News editors say it usually comes down to a gut instinct.
Reuters |
|
China for cessation of war
Beijing, March 25 “The status and authority of the United Nations must be upheld, and its leading role in resolving the Iraq issue should be guaranteed,” the newly-appointed state councillor Tang Jiaxuan said. During a meeting with Samuel Berger, a former National Security Adviser to the US President, Tang said China urged the USA, Britain and other countries to stop the military action as soon as possible, to try their best to avoid casualties of innocent civilians. Tang, till recently China’s Foreign Minister, urged Washington to return to the “correct path” of a political settlement of the Iraq issue. During the meeting, Tang also reiterated China’s strong appeal for an end to military action against Iraq, and called for a political settlement of the Iraq issue, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
PTI |
|
|
Interest groups preventing talks: Jamali Beijing, March 25 “There are interest groups who, for domestic reasons, whip up communal politics and maintain hostility towards Pakistan,” Mr Jamali alleged here in a hard-hitting speech on his second day of his three-day maiden official visit to China. While describing such thinking as “dangerous,” Mr Jamali told his Chinese audience that Pakistan was hopeful that India would “see path of reason and respond positively to our offer of dialogue.” “In today’s world there is no alternative to dialogue,” he said while describing the Kashmir issue as the “prime source” of tension between the two south Asian nuclear powers. Speaking on the subject “Pakistan’s policy on peace and security in South Asia,” at the Chinese people’s association for Peace and Disarmament, a thinktank of the Chinese government, Mr Jamali said the principal source of tension between Pakistan and India was the Kashmir dispute. Accusing New Delhi of “suppressing the wishes of Kashmiri people by deploying over six lakh troops and security forces in Kashmir,” the Pakistani Prime Minister alleged that India had been attempting to exploit the “international sentiment against terrorism.” “India has vainly tried to project the Kashmir dispute as a problem of terrorism. This cannot mislead the international community,” he said. “The character of the Kashmir dispute has been defined by the UNSC resolutions and it cannot be altered because of Indian campaign to malign the Kashmiri struggle,” Mr Jamali said. He alleged that India resorted to military pressure tactics last year by mobilising one million troops against Pakistan along the Line of Control in Kashmir and the international border. Mr Jamali said the main elements of Pakistan’s approach to relations with India included, dialogue for settlement of all outstanding disputes, including Kashmir; secondly, restraint and security balance in South Asia. “We must begin a process of talks in an effort to resolve problems. The process will pave the way for confidence building and improvement of political environment in the region needed for the settlement of all issues,” Mr Jamali said.
PTI |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
