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Tuesday,
July 8, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Indo-Pak peace: USA to ‘keep low profile’ Iraqi killed, 4 US troops
injured Iraq invasion: panel clears
Blair US troops in war-hit Liberia Menon looks forward to new
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Protest in Kabul over Pak
incursions Man sets blood donation record 150 freed on Nepal King’s birthday
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Indo-Pak peace: USA to ‘keep low profile’ Washington, July 7 In the latest issue of its South Asia report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said although the Bush administration had welcomed the peace moves and was clearly encouraging those, it was unlikely to take on a higher-profile role. It pointed out that during the recent US visit by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the India-Pakistan peace issues received less emphasis than anti-terrorism operations within Pakistan. Similarly, the visit by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in early June focused first on the emerging strategic relations with India. These issues are important and deserve the attention that the Bush administration is giving them, the authors of the report said, but added that the opportunity to change India-Pakistan relations may be a ‘fleeting one’ and it deserves the strongest possible US support. In a few months, India will be caught up in the election campaign and Pakistan may have given in to discouragement and allowed the militants to resume their activities in Kashmir. The prospect of a long series of South Asian war scares is dangerous not only for South Asians but also for the USA, it said, calling this the ‘last chance for some time to change that prognosis.’ Meanwhile, a report commissioned for the US Congress says that US concern about Pakistani democracy exists in tandem with the perceived need to have a stable and effectively-administered front-line ally in the international anti-terrorism coalition. Despite the existence of a vocal Islamist parliamentary opposition and the threat of Talibanisation in western provinces, Islamabad repeatedly has insisted that its foreign and economic policies will remain unchanged under the civilian government, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in the report. It said reports indicated that the military continues to dominate Pakistan’s centralised decision-making process and Prime Minister Jamali has referred to President Musharraf as being his ‘boss’. The CRS report pointed out that at a March Congressional hearing legislators had expressed concerns about problems with Pakistans democratisation and the danger of the USA “giving full recognition to a military takeover” through continuous waivers of coup-related aid restrictions. —
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Islamabad, July 7 British High Commissioner to Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant said his country could render help and support both financially and diplomatically. “We would be glad to help if the two governments agree. We have a role to play as do the other members of the international community and are encouraged by the steps taken by both countries to normalise situation in the region,” “The News” today quoted Mr Grant as saying in an interview to a private television channel. Mr Grant termed the peace process initiated by both countries as “encouraging” and said when leaders of both countries engage in a peace process it should be sustainable and irreversible. To a question he admitted that the UK was responsible for creating the Kashmir problem during partition. “We are partly responsible for the border conflict. He, however, said no one including the UK, the USA and the United Nations could impose a solution on Kashmir. —
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Pakistanis buy tickets for Delhi Lahore, July 7 Khaleeq Bukhari, manager at the bus station in Lahore from where the bus will begin its journey, said tickets went on sale earlier in the day at Rs 950 one way and four had so far been bought. One bus is due to leave Lahore for the Indian Capital on July 11 He said buses that will run to New Delhi are being renovated in
Rawalpindi. They are due in Lahore tomorrow. — Reuters |
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Iraqi killed, 4 US troops injured Ramadi (Iraq), July 7 “At about that time, one of our vehicles was attempting to impose a roadblock. A Toyota truck approached. One of the men in the Toyota truck was shot and killed. The other was detained for questioning,’’ Capt Michael Calvert said. US officers did not say who had killed the man. But staff at Ramadi general hospital said US troops arrived there late on Sunday night and left a body of a decapitated man, saying they had shot him because he did not stop at their checkpoint. A US military spokesman in Baghdad said four soldiers had been wounded in the ambush. Ramadi is part of a mainly Sunni Muslim area to the north and west of Baghdad where US forces have faced much of the most violent resistance to their occupation of Iraq. The region was a bastion of support for Saddam Hussein, himself a Sunni. Some residents said two persons had been shot by US forces last night but Captain Calvert had reports of only one death. He said there had also been a mortar attack during the night. “It was the fifth mortar attack in seven days,’’ he said. Two US soldiers were killed in separate incidents in Baghdad overnight and a soldier who was shot at the city’s university died. —
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Iraq invasion: panel clears
Blair
London, July 7 The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was, however, critical of the undue prominence given to a claim that Iraq could deploy the weapons within 45 minutes of the order being given. It said the language in an intelligence dossier published in September last year was “more assertive than that traditionally used in intelligence documents”. And it was highly critical of the way a second dossier, published in February, had been cobbled together from an old student thesis downloaded from the Internet. The conclusions failed to settle finally a row between Mr Blair’s Communications Director Alastair Campbell and the BBC over allegations Mr Campbell had “sexed up” information in the September dossier regarding the weapons. In a split vote, the committee cleared Mr Campbell of exerting “improper influence” on the drafting of that dossier. The BBC reported in May this year that Mr Blair’s office had persuaded intelligence officials to include a section saying the weapons were deployable within 45 minutes in order to buttress the case for war. The committee cleared any minister of misleading parliament. —
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US troops in war-hit Liberia Monrovia, July 7 The first group of the humanitarian survey team touched down in a helicopter at the heavily-fortified US Embassy in the steamy coastal capital. The 20-member team is seen as a possible precursor to a larger force, which the USA is considering and Liberians are praying will come in to save them from nearly 14 years of violence. “We are here to see what we will need to bring with us to provide humanitarian assistance,” said the commander, Capt Roger Coldiron. “I am not here to assess the military situation, but I am here to assess the security situation.” US President George W. Bush, due to leave for Africa today, has not yet decided whether to send peacekeepers to the country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. He insists that the first step should be Mr Taylor’s departure. Hemmed in by rebels and wanted for war crimes by an international court, Mr Taylor said yesterday that he had accepted an offer of asylum from regional giant Nigeria and just wanted to make sure an international force was in place to prevent chaos. West African countries have pledged 3,000 troops and want US forces to help them bring that up to 5,000, but Washington well remembers a bloody withdrawal from Somalia 10 years ago after a humanitarian intervention went awry. The team that flew in from Europe today will visit camps for tens of thousands of refugees from Liberia’s war. It includes experts in water purification, preventive medicine, construction and logistics. —
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Menon looks forward to new assignment Beijing, July 7 “As our Prime Minister (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) said we will make the effort to improve our relationship with Pakistan and bring it back on track,” Menon told PTI here at the Beijing International Airport before leaving for New Delhi en route to his new assignment in Pakistan. Asked about his new assignment in Pakistan, Menon, a seasoned career diplomat said: “it is too early to say. I would like to go there before I say anything about our relationship. Certainly, I look forward to it.” Menon, 54, is expected to have more meetings in Delhi before he reaches Islamabad by mid-July. His Pakistani counterpart, Aziz Ahmed Khan, has already reached New Delhi last week. Menon would succeed Vijay K. Nambiar, who was recalled by India after the terrorist attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Nambiar later took over as India’s permanent representative to the United Nations. Commenting on his nearly three-year stint as India’s Ambassador to China, Menon said he was leaving Beijing “satisfied” with the current upward momentum in bilateral ties, especially after the visit of Prime Minister Vajpayee, the first Indian Prime Minister to visit China in a decade. “I think I’ve been fortunate to see a steady improvement in India-China relations,” he said. “The recent visit of Mr Vajpayee to China has brought these relations to a new level, given a fresh impetus and really opened a road for the future development of our relationship,” Menon said. Menon previously worked in several key assignments, including Ambassador to Israel and as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. Menon, who has the reputation of being a thinker, strategist and a tough negotiator, enjoys high regard among Chinese and Foreign diplomats here. —
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Protest in Kabul over Pak incursions Kabul, July 7 About 150 protesters, mostly moneychangers from the central currency market in Kabul, marched through the city shouting “Down with Musharraf!” The police looked on as protesters headed towards Pakistan’s embassy in east Kabul. No violence was reported. Yesterday, President Hamid Karzai said he would talk soon with President Musharraf about growing tensions between the two countries. He also dispatched government officials to the eastern border to investigate reports that Pakistani forces had crossed the frontier and soldiers from the two countries had exchanged fire. Pakistani officials said yesterday that Pakistani security forces exchanged mortar and machine gun fire over the weekend with suspected Afghan tribesmen near the Pakistani town of Kudakhel Kandao, in a tribal region northwest of Peshawar. —
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Man sets blood donation record Sydney, July 7 That’s roughly enough to fill up the tank of a small car about 10 times. Mr Harrison said he first gave blood as an 18-year-old in 1955, three years after he received a life-saving blood transfusion, and now wanted to go on to reach 1,000 donations. —
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150 freed on Nepal King’s birthday Kathmandu, July 7 Most of the released prisoners had been imprisoned on charges of theft, smuggling and others, officials said, adding that they were not political prisoners. There is a tradition of releasing prisoners on the King’s birthday, Democracy Day, Constitutional Day and other nationally important days in Nepal. —
UNI KATHMANDU: President
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has felicitated Nepal’s King Gyanendra on his 57th birth anniversary. In a message, Mr Kalam extended best wishes for the health and happiness of the king saying, “As close friends and neighbours the two countries share a long tradition of intensive and mutually beneficial cooperation made richer by extensive people-to-people interaction.” —
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Beijing, July 7
