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Sunday,
July 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Saddam’s
bodyguards captured Three US
soldiers killed in Iraq
WINDOW ON PAKISTAN
10 Pak
jail officials fired |
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Surgeon
sets record straight 9
civilians killed in Aceh Anti-US
protest in Seoul
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Saddam’s bodyguards captured Washington, July 26 Thirteen people were captured during the raid, which followed a tip from an informant, said Maj-Gen Ray Odierno, speaking from Tikrit via teleconference to reporters at the Pentagon yesterday. “Based on the informant south of Tikrit, we detained 13 individuals. Somewhere between five and 10 of those — we’re still sorting through it — are believed to be Saddam Hussein’s personal security detachment,” General Odierno said. “We picked them up this morning. So, we’re still working through the intelligence with them and we’re really interrogating them now.” “Iraqis are coming forward in greater numbers with information for the US military,” he said, after it acted on a tip and attacked a house in Mosul, killing Saddam’s son, Uday and Qusay Hussein, on Tuesday. The US State Department said yesterday it expected to pay the tipster the maximum $ 30 million it had offered for the arrest or capture of the two men. The USA is continuing to “tighten the noose” around Saddam through such tips and through an increase in arrests of, or contacts with, people close to him, General Odierno said. A series of raids in the past three weeks picked up his personal bodyguard and security adviser, and US forces recently spoke to one of Saddam’s wives, or ex-wives, he said.
— AFP |
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Three US soldiers killed in Iraq Baghdad, July 26 The deaths of the soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division brought to 161 the number of troops killed in Iraq since the start of the war, 14 more than were killed in the 1991 Gulf War. The killings marred what had been a quiet day in Iraq, as residents debated the authenticity of video images of Odai and Qusai Hussein released yesterday. There had been a number of explosions and bursts of gunfire in the city throughout the day, but no reports of soldiers injured or killed. The guerrilla-war style attacks on American forces have been averaging 12 a day, according to the military.
— AP |
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WINDOW
ON PAKISTAN WHEN Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a bloodless coup in October, 1999 ousted a democratic government in Pakistan, he promised economic reforms that would remove poverty, sickness and want from the face of his country and establish a just and peaceful society. In four years, the number of poor has increased by nearly 8 per cent. It is at a staggering 3.3 million. This estimate provided in the annual economic survey may not be correct, given the state of statistical collection system. These are mostly young educated or illiterate. Its social fallout is visible on increasing lawlessness, crime, suicides and social tensions. Side by side, the economic growth, which was 4 per cent in the last decade, is now down to 3.6 per cent. Military spending has increased and the nearly $ 3 billion available from the benevolent Bush Administration seems to be going into debt servicing and other compulsory government spending. While presenting the annual budget for the military-led civil government last month, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz for the fourth time again promised the moon. Over $ 1.8 billion from the donors, mainly World Bank and the IMF, is available to what he called remove poverty, develop strong human resources, and improve education, skills besides providing health services. Economists are pessimistic for good reasons. Shafakat Munir asserts: “The new budget essentially continues policies of the past several years, in which period the poverty rate of Pakistan touched 32 per cent, according to official data, and nearly 40 percent according to independent sources and international agencies. This is up from a 1993-94 World Bank poverty estimate of 29 per cent. Second, the budget no longer even reflects the interests of the Pakistanis” The development model, which the government has been following over the years, is skewed. It does not take care of the developing infrastructure either for agriculture or for industrial development. Bad relations with India does not mean only more spending on defence but a more backward industrial society for Pakistan. The trade delegation that visited India recently candidly admitted this. In fact, the kind of tensions like those in Okara (Punjab) or in the North West Frontier Province which have been witnessed recently, prove that agrarian crisis is now taking the shape of straight violence. How long empty stomachs and vacant hands can be fed with religious fundamentalism and chauvinism. Under the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF, in the name of reforms, new industrial relations laws have been pushed. These squarely ban trade union activity on the farm labour front. So no unions for the 45 per cent of the country’s workforce. In Pakistan today only 3 per cent of the labour is unionized and the government has been increasingly bidding goodbye to its commitment to International Labour Organisation and its welfare obligations. All this in the name of reforms. A civil society
analyst. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar says: “The problem with structural adjustment policies is their history of destructive effects in countries where they have been introduced. The primary thrust of these policies is reducing subsidies and budget deficits, increasing revenues and privatisation, and encouraging trade liberalisation. To meet these terms, governments, instead of increasing revenues by taxing high-income individuals and industries, place the financial burden on the common man, increasing the incidence of poverty.” The government has not devised a practical programme to increase economic growth or to raise the standards of living. To do so would first require a plan to improve the lives of the country’s agricultural labourers, who, at 48 per cent of the workforce, represent the largest section of the employed population. But despite its importance, agriculture has continuously received little government support, a trend continued in this year’s budget. |
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10 Pak jail officials fired Lahore, July 26 A police commando raid ended the six-hour standoff yesterday at the Sialkot jail, 100 km northeast of Lahore. Three judges and five of their inmate captors died in the raid. Two other judges survived the raid unharmed, along with 50 female prisoners. The judges had come to inspect the rundown jail, which had been built for 1,800 prisoners, but currently had 2,700. The jail superintendent and nine other jail officials were dismissed on negligence charges for allowing the prisoners to sneak in weapons. The prisoners initially captured nine judges, but freed four early in the hostage-taking to convey their demands to
officials. — AP |
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Surgeon
sets record straight Singapore, July 26 In a letter to The Straits Times, Dr Benjamin Carson, Director of Paediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre, said some remarks he made at a press conference were taken significantly out of context concerning the operation on Laleh and Ladan Bijani. “I would like to set the record straight,” he added. The 29-year-old conjoined twins fused at the head died on July 8 at Raffles Hospital from blood loss 90 minutes apart. Over three days, a team of 28 doctors and 100 assistants participated in the unprecedented and high-risk operation on adults. “I was a full member of the international team that came together in this great humanitarian effort, and which we undertook ‘with a full understanding of all risks involved,” Dr Carson said. “When the team paused for consultations during the surgery, it was to reconfirm the wishes of the twins; the next of kin indeed confirmed this to be so, despite the greatly increased risks due to unknown rearrangements in the vascular drainage systems,” Dr Carson’s letter said. Dr Carson reportedly said earlier that his observations in the operating room convinced him that the procedure should not be carried out in one operation, but in three to four stages. “It is tradition in medical practice to re-examine every case and to learn from them, regardless of the outcome,” Dr Carson said. “It was in this context that I said that it would make a lot of sense to stage the procedure in future,” he noted.
— DPA |
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9 civilians killed in Aceh Jakarta, July 26 The housewife, Cut Zainabah (52), was executed by two unidentified men who arrived at her North Aceh house last night. She received gunshots on the head and chest. In Aceh’s Besar district, newly wed Zaini (24), was shot dead and his wife, Cut Zuraida (20), was wounded by unknown attackers, on Thursday night. Seven persons, including five village officials, were killed in separate incidents, blamed by the military and police on separatist Free Aceh Movement rebels. Chief rebel spokesman Sofyan Daud denied that the organisation was responsible for the killings.
— AFP |
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Anti-US protest in Seoul Seoul, July 26 Around 500 protesters outside the Yongsan Garrison chanted “US troops out of Korea” and “Don’t instigate war”, accusing the USA of plotting to attack North Korea over the communist country’s suspected development of nuclear weapons. Dozens of protesters briefly scuffled with riot police as they tried to march toward the headquarters of the 37,000 US troops in South Korea. There were no reports of injuries. The demonstration came ahead of the 50th anniversary tomorrow as day of the truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean war. Yesterday, 20 students forced their way into another US military base in Seoul and burned a US flag.
— AP |
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