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Monday,
August 4, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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45 killed in Pak blast
Pak not privy to US remarks on 9/11 attack Al-Qaida tape warns USA on prisoners USA suspends two travel programmes Peacekeepers to police Kabul, not beyond Flags stolen from graves of
Uday, Qusay |
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UK firm may get order for Hawk jets Mulford may be US Ambassador to India: report Doc of Indian origin wins $ 50,000 in damages
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45 killed in Pak blast Islamabad, August 3 The blast occurred in district Diamer in Gayal village some 400 kilometers from Islamabad at 2 am, when an explosive device detonated after catching fire in a house of a contractor. The explosive was being used for blasting in mountains to cut channels for using the stones in building houses and bridges. The state-run television reported that people in Gayal village were trying to extinguish the fire which broke out in the house of the contractor Abdul Warris, without knowing that the explosive material was stored inside the building. The explosion killed a majority of those who were trying to put out the blaze. Officials fear the toll figure may rise. The injured were admitted to hospital in nearby Chilas district, reports said. Deputy Secretary of northern Pakistan Mohammad Rehmani said the army and the police had rushed to the site and have started rescue operation. Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Sunday ordered an inquiry into the Gilgit blast, while expressing grief over the loss of life in the incident. The toll in the blast was expected to go up even as rescue workers continued to dig for injured and the dead, buried in the rubble of some 30 houses razed to the ground in Diamir village in the Gilgit area. The Prime Minister also ordered the Northern Areas Ministry to provide relief and rescue to the affected people in this remote part of the country. A senior official in Islamabad, Federal Secretary for Interior Tasneem Noorani, said the incident was not an act of terrorism. —
PTI |
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Pak not privy to US remarks on 9/11 attack
Islamabad, August 3 “The contents of the statement have not been communicated to Pakistan by the US Government,” a senior Pakistani official said. He said under the pre-9/11 international monetary transfer system, terrorist funding had moved from place to place and its trail had been traced to several countries, reports the official news agency. Since 2001, steps had been taken by the international community and the United Nations to choke terrorist financing, he claimed. As part of its war on terrorism, Pakistan had frozen the assets and accounts of entities and individuals linked to terrorism in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, he added. The issue had come up on Thursday when John S Pistole, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism
division, while testifying before the US Senate Committee said investigators traced the origin of the funding for the terror attacks to financial accounts in Pakistan. —
PTI |
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Al-Qaida tape warns USA on prisoners London, August 3 The voice on the tape, broadcast by the Dubai-based Arabic television, Al Arabiya, also told the USA that the “real battle” against it had not started yet. “America has announced it will start putting on trial in front of military tribunals the Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and might sentence them to death...,” said the voice, which Al Arabiya television identified as Zawahri’s. “I swear in the name of the God that the crusader America will pay a dear price for any harm it inflicts on any of the Muslim detainees...” It was the first audio tape said to be by Zawahri — considered to be Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man — since May 21 when another tape, sent to an Arabic television, also made threats against the USA. The Al Arabiya television gave no other details about the tape. “We tell America only one thing. What you have suffered until now is only the initial skirmishes. The real battle has not started yet,” the voice said. “Let those who conspire with America know that America is incapable of protecting itself... and let every captive held by the infidels be assured that the day of liberation is near...,” it added. The USA is holding more than 600 persons from 42 nations as prisoners at the special camp at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. The prisoners include nationals from UK, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. —
Reuters |
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USA suspends two travel programmes Washington, August 3 Nearly 6,000 travellers, primarily from Asia and Latin America will be affected by the decision in the next two months, Homeland Security and State Department officials said yesterday. The suspension of the Transit Without Visa and the International to International programme formally took effect at 11 am yesterday. The Transit Without Visa programme has been used primarily by passengers from Brazil, Mexico and Peru who stopped at US airports while travelling to and from Asia. The International to International programme limits the number of US transit points to one airport and barred travellers from leaving international transit lounges while waiting for connecting flights. The State Department said international terror network Al-Qaida and other terrorist organisations had planned to use the programmes as a way of getting access to flights to and from the USA. —
PTI |
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Peacekeepers to police Kabul, not beyond Kabul, August 3 However, NATO was prepared to remain in Kabul as long it was wanted if the UN Security Council approved an extension of its mandate beyond elections due to be held in June 2004, said Colonel Thomas Lobbering, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force. Lobbering said NATO’s takeover of the International Security Assistance Force was designed to ensure consistency and continuity in command, which has changed three times since the peacekeepers were sent to Kabul in late 2001. Germany and the Netherlands, which have led ISAF since February, are to transfer command to NATO on August 11. Lobbering said high-ranking German, Dutch and NATO officials were expected in Kabul for the change of command. ISAF draws its 5,000 troops from 30 nations and was sent to Kabul to help the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai maintain security after a US-led coalition toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime. With election to be held in less than a year, repeated attacks by Taliban guerrillas in the south of the country and clashes between pro-government warlords elsewhere, Karzai has repeatedly asked for the expansion of ISAF beyond Kabul. His call has been backed by the United Nations, aid agencies and politicians, but the will has been lacking for such an expensive and potentially dangerous commitment in the international community. —
Reuters |
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Flags stolen from graves of Uday, Qusay Awja (Iraq), August 3 Some bricks had been placed around the hard-dirt mounds where the bodies had been laid to rest in a low-key ceremony yesterday, which US troops barred onlookers from joining. US soldiers searched cars today as they left the grounds and said they had seen no one remove the Iraqi flags. Residents of Saddam’s birthplace, meanwhile, complained about the presence of US soldiers and said they would not visit as long the foreign troops guarded the plot. —
AFP |
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UK firm may get order for Hawk jets London, August 3 After more than a decade of talks between India and BAE Systems, if the company finally secures the order it will be the second big one for Hawks after the UK Government promised to spend $ 800 million. According to a report in The Independent, sources close to the talks have been quoted saying the Indian contract could be confirmed “within a matter of weeks’’. The final details, however, are yet to be agreed upon. The importance of the deal for Britain was obvious given the intense lobbying by the British Government, with Prime Minister Tony Blair, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw trying to persuade India to buy the jets. The report claims that Hawk is the favourite, following the report that Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes has set up a special Parliamentary committee to ensure that an order for trainer jets is placed quickly. Quoting Mr Fernandes’ speech in Parliament:’’We are in the last stage to procure the advance jet trainers. We have asked the British Government a question pertaining to this particular jet trainer. If the answer comes today, we will buy it tomorrow,’’ the report states that a well-placed source said the question the Minister was referring to was whether the British Government would itself place an order for Hawk trainer jets. The source has been quoted in the report saying, the Indian Government was worried that without the security of a British order, the ageing Hawks may become obsolete. But the British order came in on Wednesday. Mr Hoon, backed by Mr Blair, overruled advice from his own officials and Chancellor Gordon Brown to buy 20 Hawk jets and establish an option on a further 28. Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials had held discussions with other firms, particularly with the Aermacchi jet, developed by Italy’s Finmeccanica. An MoD spokesman said: “We hope the Indian Government will reach a decision as soon as possible. Hopefully, our decision will give them the confidence to place the order.’’ A Department of Trade and Industry spokesman said: “The export potential (of the Hawk) was taken into account when the decision was made.’’ If the Hawk deal comes through it will provide a life-line to BAE Systems. But now with the British contract in place, and growing possibility of the Indian contract, BAE will also be able to muscle into an MoD Private Finance Initiative Project worth up to £ 20 million, that will provide the Royal Air Force, Army and Navy with training facilities for at least 20 years. — UNI |
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Mulford may be US Ambassador to India: report New York, August 3 According to a report published in ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ David Mulford, is a front-runner for the post.” The New York-based newspaper, in its Washington Wire column, said Mr Mulford was Treasury Under Secretary under the previous Bush Administration. With a three-decade-old investment background, Mr Mulford is expected to prod New Delhi more on the economic reforms front. “Country reforms and sound economic policies are an absolute requirement for attracting investment, for sustaining growth and for stability,” he once said. —
UNI |
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Doc of Indian origin wins $ 50,000 in damages Washington, August 3 The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a wing of the Homeland Security Department, has agreed to change its procedures and pay $50,000 as part of a settlement of a lawsuit by Dr Bob Rajcoomar, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserves. Dr Rajcoomar, a naturalised American who was born in Guyana, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the government in April after he was detained by air marshals in a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia on August 31 last year. He was handcuffed and hauled to a police cell at Philadelphia airport for four hours and his luggage
searched without his knowledge. — PTI |
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Couple held for suspected RAW links Islamabad, August 3 A special FIA team raided a house in the Model colony locality yesterday and arrested Syed Rashid Ali and his wife, Razia
Bano, ‘The News’ daily reported today. —
PTI |
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Chief of Mi6 to quit early London, August 3 58-year-old spymaster is thought to be dismayed by the visible rift between his organisation and the Downing Street, The Observer, a leading newspaper, claimed. Dearlove had been widely expected to stay in the post for another two years, but is now likely to have left by early next year, a little more than four years after he started the job in September 1999, the report said. —
PTI |
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