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Wednesday,
July 30, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Rahman denies Oct deadline for Pervez
USA names 30 nations ready to help in Iraq Oil smuggling rampant in Iraq |
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Myanmar under US pressure to release
Suu Kyi Edit page: Suu Kyi: the lonely road once more? Israel calls for crackdown on Palestinian ultras Bob Hope
to be buried privately
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Rahman denies Oct deadline for Pervez Islamabad, July 29 “The government has misled the nation by asserting that the alliance offered to accept General Musharraf to continue as army chief till October 2004,” the Muttahida Majli-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary-General Fazlur Rahman told reporters yesterday. “We did not offer to accept General Musharraf as COAS till October 2004, and rather the government demanded the same from us, which we agreed to upon their request,” Mr Rehman said, adding that it was their victory to force the government give a date for Pervez Musharraf to give up his uniform. “This is our moral victory to make them change their rigid stance on the issue,” he claimed. Regarding the policy of not boycotting the talks, Mr Rahman said, “We have laid the basis of the whole process on Mr Jamali’s speech on the floor of the National Assembly, which was accepted by all main Opposition parties, including the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) member parties.” Meanwhile, the government has refused to confirm or deny Mr Rahman’s claim on the issue. The ARD comprising the Peoples Party of Mrs Benazir Bhutto and the Muslim League of Mr Nawaz Sharif boycotted talks with Prime Minister Jamali and his allies. “We would not let the whole talks process become hostage to hawks in the ruling alliance,” Mr Rahman said. Meanwhile, both Mr Rehman and MMA’s deputy chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed have said the Legal Framework Order (LFO) could not become part of the constitution without parliament’s approval. “We have categorically presented our stance. We have also clarified that LFO cannot become part of the constitution without the approval of the parliament,” media reports here said. “Though we said we want to discuss those points of the LFO, which were termed controversial in the meetings held before, we took up those points in the meeting. The PML-N and the PPP have sought clarification about the agenda of the talks.”
— PTI |
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Saddam’s bodyguard held
Tikrit, July 29 The suspected regime loyalists also included a possible Brigadier General, said Major Troy Smith of the Fourth Infantry Division (4ID), which is scouring Saddam’s old hunting grounds for holdouts of the defeated Baath party. “There are dozens of former bodyguards and former regime folk in Tikrit,” said Major Smith, who was very cautious about the significance of the catches. In Baghdad a US military spokesman said a Saddam bodyguard was among the four captured, and that the authorities were interrogating the detainees to assess their relation to the former leader. “I can confirm that we did catch a Saddam bodyguard, but we are still waiting for more information to come down,” Corporal Todd Pruden said. Dozens of soldiers stormed two or three homes as the raid unfolded at 4 a.m. in an upmarket neighbourhood in Tikrit. Over the weekend, the 4ID arrested 13 bodyguards of Saddam, in testament to the flood of tips coming in, according to the military, since the fallen dictator’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed by US forces in the northern city of Mosul on July 22. — AFP |
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USA names 30 nations ready to help in Iraq Washington, July 29 Some of the countries do not have the means to pay for their own contributions so they are talking to the USA about US financial assistance, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing yesterday. The USA is anxious to muster as much international support as possible for its forces in Iraq, who face daily attacks and are costing about $ 1 billion a week. The list of governments willing to contribute included many of those who supported the US invasion of Iraq in March and none of the major opponents of the war. The countries are: Albania, Azerbaijan, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, El Salvador, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovkia, South Korea, Spain and Ukraine. The spokesman said he could not say what each government would contribute or how much Washington would pay them. Some of the countries most able to help, such as France, Russia and India, have said they will need a new United Nations resolution on Iraq before they consider taking part. The USA has said it is considering a new resolution but officials say Washington would want to know in advance that a resolution would persuade countries to share the military and financial burden of the occupation.
— Reuters |
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Oil smuggling rampant in Iraq Hamdan (Iraq), July 29 Each day, dozens of trucks and fuel tankers wind the road along the waterway from the port of Basra, delivering their contraband to boats which sneak away into the Gulf waters with valuable cargo. The smugglers communicate stealthily by portable satellite phones and avoid anyone who might question them and untangle their secret networks. Hands blackened by oil, a former engineer in Saddam’s once burgeoning weapons industry is now a smuggler. He waits in the harbour of Hamdan village for a 36-tonne delivery of oil for his rickety old boat. After he dodges military patrols, he’ll receive $ 500 for his labour. He has been lying low in this sleepy village, waiting for his shipment of oil coming from Salaheddin province to the north.
— AFP |
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Myanmar under US pressure to release Suu Kyi Washington, July 29 The Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 bans the import of Myanmar products among others. The executive order freezes the assets of senior Myanmar officials and bans virtually all remittances to the country. “These measures reaffirm to the people of Myanmar that the USA stands with them in their struggle for democracy and freedom,” Mr Bush said in a statement yesterday. “By denying these rulers the hard currency they use to fund their repression, we are providing strong incentives for democratic change and human rights in Myanmar,” he added. There was only scant opposition to the Bill in the US Congress. The House passed it on a vote of 418-2, while the legislation was carried with 94-1 vote in the Senate on July 16.
— PTI |
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Israel calls for crackdown on Palestinian ultras Jerusalem, July 29 The death threatened a relative calm that has prevailed in the month since the Palestinian militants declared a ceasefire, vital to a US-backed peace plan that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will discuss with US President George W. Bush. Bedouin trackers and the police found the 20-year-old soldier’s body in an olive grove. Israeli troops fired rubber bullets to break up a protest by the Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners who surged towards the fence and tried to tear down a gate, witnesses said. At least five persons including an American, were wounded in the clash near the village of Anin, the witnesses said.
— Reuters |
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Bob Hope
to be buried privately Los Angeles, July 29 Linda Hope said a public memorial service would be held on August 27, a month after his death on Sunday, following a burial that would be attended by relatives. “Dad had an amazing send-off,” Ms Linda Hope told reporters in Los Angeles yesterday. “I can’t tell you how beautiful, serene and peaceful it was!”. “He really left us with a smile on his face and no really last words,” his daughter told a press conference amid an outpouring of grief over the death of an American icon.
— AFP |
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