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Monday,
July 28, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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BBC accuses ministers of vendetta US soldier killed in Iraq 2 Al Jazeera men held in Iraq Liberian homes
shelled, 14 die New law compels Kanishka witness to testify
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Afghan firing Pak for Foreign Secy level talks with India Ready for Samjhauta Express Council joins hunt for Sodhi’s killers Hunt on for
Indian prisoner
Underwater gas pipeline opened
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BBC accuses ministers of vendetta London, July 27 “We are chastised for taking a different view on editorial matters from that of the government and its supporters. Because we have had the temerity to do this, it is hinted that a system that has protected the BBC for 80 years should be swept away and replaced by an external regulator that will ‘bring the BBC to heel’,” Davies wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. The BBC Chairman’s remarks underline the level of animosity between the corporation and Mr Blair’s senior Cabinet allies, the newspaper commented. The BBC, it said, had informally agreed not to continue the feud until after Lord Hutton delivered his judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the government scientist who was the source of the BBC’s story that intelligence about Iraq’s pile of weapons of mass destruction were “sexed up”. But the BBC felt provoked by last weekend’s claim by former minister Peter Mandelson that it was to blame for Kelly’s death and by subsequent hints from Tessa Jowell, Culture Secretary, that the corporation’s governors were not fulfilling their statutory obligations. According to the report, a senior executive in the corporation claimed that Jowell had privately left the BBC chiefs in no doubt that she could use the forthcoming review of the BBC charter to put pressure on the governors to sack Director -General Greg Dyke, change the composition of the board or even change the size and scope of the broadcaster. The BBC, on its part, is sticking by its claim that Kelly was correctly described by its correspondent Andrew Gilligan as “an intelligence source”. According to a separate report in the Observer on Sunday, Kelly spoke openly to fellow members of a religious sect about his concerns over the ‘interpretation’ of intelligence material in the government’s September dossier on whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. As Kelly’s family met Lord Hutton yesterday, new details emerged of Kelly’s views on the dossier during a discussion with worshippers of the Bahai faith. Kelly made his comments at the home of Geeta and Roger Kingdon, two fellow worshippers, in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, on October 5 last year. Also present were 30 other Bahai guests. According to the newspaper, the disclosure of new evidence about his “unhappiness” with the dossier came as Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had a private lunch with the weapons scientist shortly before the Iraq conflict, undermining government claims that Kelly was a middle-ranking official with little access to intelligence. Mr Hoon met Kelly to discuss Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. Although it is not clear whether Kelly raised his concerns about the use of intelligence to make the case for war, it is unusual for a member of the Cabinet to meet officials unless they have high levels of information unlikely to be known by the minister, the report said. —
PTI |
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US soldier killed in Iraq Baghdad, July 27 The attack occurred on Highway 10 near Abu Ghuraib yesterday. The soldiers were with an engineer unit attached to the 3rd Infantry Division, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Two soldiers were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital for emergency treatment where one subsequently died and the other is in stable condition, the statement said. A third soldier was treated on site and returned to duty. Three Iraqis were also wounded in the attack. The attack came hours after three U.S. soldiers were killed in a grenade assault at a children’s hospital in Baquba, 50 km north of Baghdad. Residents said an attacker had hurled a grenade from the roof of the building. The latest death brings to 48 the number of US soldiers killed since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1. —
Reuters |
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2 Al Jazeera men held in Iraq Doha, July 27 “They were filming a civilian Iraqi car shooting at American forces in Mosul. So the Americans arrested the driver and correspondent,” an Al Jazeera official told Reuters, but said he had no further information. Al Jazeera had said the earlier arrests were sparked by tension with US forces in Iraq over its coverage of attacks on American troops. The network has been widely criticised by Washington for its reporting of the US-led war on Iraq and for broadcasting footage of Iraqi
causalities as well as airing video and audio tapes of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network. —
Reuters |
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Liberian homes
shelled, 14 die
Monrovia, July 27 It was the third day of deadly bombardments in neighbourhoods, schools and churches, crowded with refugees in Liberia’s besieged Capital, target of a two-month-old rebel drive to oust President Charles Taylor. One round landed on a tin-roofed shack near a government-held bridge leading to the port before dawn today, killing four persons, according to aid workers collecting bodies. Another shell fell on a nearby house late yesterday, killing an entire family of eight adults, two children and a pet dog. Rebels attacking Monrovia are pressing home a three-year insurgency to drive out Mr Taylor, a former warlord behind 14 years of conflict in this West African country. Fighting has focused on the port and three bridges leading to downtown, one of Mr Taylor’s last strongholds. Both sides have blamed one another for shelling of civilian neighbourhoods. Yesterday, shells hit a church packed with refuge seekers, killing at least three. Shells pounded a neighbourhood around Monrovia’s US Embassy on Friday, killing at least 26, and injuring more than 200. Meanwhile, Mr Taylor has agreed to a ceasefire and a US proposal to make the Po river in Monrovia serve as a buffer between his forces and rebels, US Ambassador John Blaney said today. Mr Blaney said Washington was in talks with the leadership of the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group fighting with government troops in the war-devastated Capital to agree to the plan. —
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New law compels Kanishka witness to testify Vancouver, July 27 British Colombia Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes ruled after another secret hearing that the mystery witness must answer questions about the bombing and a related blast under a Criminal Code Amendment passed in December 2001, following terrorist attacks in the USA. She also rejected an application by Canadian daily, “The Vancouver Sun” to provide access to submissions and transcripts from two secret hearings on the Air-India case held over the last month at courts here. Holmes said the order forcing the witness to answer questions before a judge was valid even though the law came into effect more than 16 years after the Kanishka flight crashed off the Irish coast, killing all 329 persons on board. The Air-India case involved Vancouver millionaires Ripudaman Singh Malik (56) and Kamloops mill worker Ajaib Singh Bagri (53), who were on trial for eight counts, including murder and conspiracy related to the two bombings on June 23, 1985, and at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. Under the new law, the mystery witness, whose name was sealed by the court, had been ordered to appear before a judge at an in-camera hearing and provide information he or she was believed to have about the bombing, the daily said. The order compelling the mystery witness to talk was made by Holmes on July 21 and the hearing to interrogate the mystery witness then began in secret the next day but was adjourned after the person’s lawyer Howard Rubin sought leave to appeal Holmes’ order to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the daily’s lawyer Rob Anderson argued for more access to information from the secret proceedings, especially given the “profound public interest” in the Air-India case. In response, Holmes released a synopsis of her ruling, confirming the hearings were related to the Air-India probe and the constitutionality of the new anti-terrorism law but rejected the newspaper’s request for detailed information. Holmes acknowledged the freedom of the Press and intense public interest in the case but said the administration of justice must prevail. “Certain judicial practices are inconsistent with public access,” she said. She said the witness was neither a suspect nor an accused in the bombings and was expected to provide information which was only incidental to Malik and Bagri’s trail which would resume on September 8. Holmes said her decision was based on the need to protect the individual’s privacy along with the integrity of the courtroom investigation. —
PTI |
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Afghan firing Quetta, July 27 |
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Pak for Foreign Secy level talks with India
Karachi, July 27 “Foreign
Secretary level talks must start soon as Pakistan wants to resolve all
outstanding issues with India, including Kashmir,” Mr Kasuri told
mediapersons in Karachi. “Talks at lower level than at the Foreign Secretary level, as proposed by India, will serve no purpose. “We are prepared for talks on bilateral level or trilateral level and the delay is not from our side,” Mr Kasuri said.—AFP |
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Ready for Samjhauta Express Islamabad, July 27 About the tracks, the sources said they were in “perfect condition” as they were routinely maintained. Pakistan had last week proposed to India that train services between the two countries, snapped in the wake of the attack on Indian Parliament in 2001, be resumed. —
PTI |
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Council joins hunt for Sodhi’s killers Washington, July 27 Score contributed $ 5,000 this week to the growing reward fund leading to the capture and conviction of the perpetrators of the hate crime. The donation brings the fund to more than $
20,000. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas station owner, was shot dead when he was standing outside his Mesa gas station, five days after the September 11 attacks. —
PTI |
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Hunt on for
Indian prisoner Singapore, July 27 The search for Allagan Nalliappan (31), has been on since Friday night, according to Channel News Asia today. Allagan, who had been working in
Singapore since 1999, was charged with kidnapping an 18-year-old boy at Marine terrace on July 5. He was brought to the hospital for treatment after he complained of chest pain and breathing difficulties. But there, a handcuffed Allagan, taking
advantage of the distraction of the police officer escorting him, pushed open a window, climbed out and ran off barefooted into a housing estate around the hospital on the east coast of Singapore, a police spokesperson said. —
UNI |
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‘Mujra’ moves to Britain London, July 27 The highly lucrative racket is part of an explosion of Asian-organised crime which is rapidly becoming a major threat to law and order in London and other places, a senior police officer has said. “The growth in Asian prostitution is part of a general expansion of the sex trade in London. We are seeing a significant increase in the number of saunas and brothels, partly as a response to a decline in street prostitution,” Mr Tarique Ghaffur, Assistant Commissioner of Police, who is heading the Specialist Crime Operations at the Metropolitan Police, told the Observer. “A large proportion of the women involved come from eastern Europe but we are increasingly becoming aware of prostitution rackets and human trafficking around music groups linked to the Indian and Pakistani film industry,” he said. The sex slave trade revolves around “mujra”. Publicised almost entirely by word of mouth, performances take place after normal closing hours at a small number of venues in the heart of the Asian community, the report said. A typical show involves up to 16 women, all wearing traditional costumes, dancing one at a time on a stage to the sound tracks of hit Bollywood films. The audience is exclusively male. As the evening progresses, the girls come down from the stage and perform private dances for the men and offer them sexual services for between £75 and 100, the report claimed. The money earned has to be passed back to the organisers. Top promoters are said to make profits of up to £10,000 per night. The women are usually smuggled into the country on the pretext that they would be involved in promotional work. Many are lured away from their homes on the promise of well-paid jobs as dancers or actresses and only learn the truth when it is too late. — PTI |
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Underwater gas pipeline opened Aqaba, July 27 The two leaders arrived by boat from the Egyptian resort of Taba where they held an earlier official opening ceremony for the first phase of the project, which is to be extended elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe. The pipeline, 270 km in length, passes 15 km under the Red Sea between the two coastal resorts, allowing Jordan to receive some 1.1 billion cubic metres of Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year. The ceremonies not only highlighted Egypt’s growing importance as a gas exporter, but also showed a rare level of economic cooperation among Arab states, which critics complain is stifled by high tariffs and bureaucracy. Jordanian Energy Minister Mohammed Batayneh said in a brief address, “The project is an expression of the political will of the leaders of both countries and was completed in a record time of 18 months.” —
AFP |
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Monrovia, July 27
Karachi, July 27
