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Sunday,
September 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak Oppn calls for probe WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Dhaka dares India on terror camps Arafat accepts PM’s resignation
Bachchan to be honoured at film fest |
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Women in California take on ‘terminator’
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Pak Oppn calls for probe Islamabad, September 6 The opposition parties have said they want a judicial probe into the reports that contents of the meeting have been allegedly leaked to India. They also want an investigation into the detention of four army personnel for links with extremists. At a press conference addressed jointly by the PPP, Pakistan Muslim League-N, (PML-N) and the six-party Islamist alliance, Muthahida Majlis Amal (MMA) yesterday, PML-N leader Javed Hashmi alleged that the arrested army offices were taken into custody for attempts to stage a military coup against General Musharraf. Mr Hashmi, former Minister in Sharif government also demanded that government should tell the public about the time General Musharraf informed the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif about the army’s plans to take over Kargil. The report which was also carried by the local media here was denied by Pakistan Defence spokesman. Mr Hashmi said the Army should enquire into the reports. “The watchmen have become thieves and vice versa,” he claimed adding that defence secrets were not safe in the hands of the Generals. MMA leader, Liaqat Baluch said the government attempted to divert the attention of the people from the crisis arising out of opposition’s agitation against General Musharraf’s constitutional amendments. Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali government yesterday informed the National Assembly that it sought the opinion of the legal ministry about recent remarks made by Ms Bhutto to the Indian media, stating that she shot down a move by General Musharraf to stage a Kargil type attack on Jammu and Kashmir during her second tenure as Prime Minister, to know whether she violated the Official Secrets Act. Ms Bhutto, in her recent interview, said the proposal to take over the mountain peaks was proposed by General Musharraf who then held the post of Director-General of Military Operations. The pro-military Jamali government considered her remarks as amounting to breach of oath of office and to committing treason as she had revealed military plans. The government wants to prosecute Ms Bhutto, who lives in self-exile in Dubai and London and also wants to use it as a tactic to pressure Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party members of Parliament to fall in line.
— PTI |
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Window on Pakistan Religious assertion through madarsaas is not recent to Pakistan, but the success of the alliance of six Islamic parties [MMA] has provided them with a fresh impetus. From primary to the university level, about 1.5 million study in roughly 11,000 seminaries. It is largely religious education, which forms the basis of the curriculum and maulivs and mullahs are the teachers. With poor environment and lowly paid teachers, the emphasis is more on religion and whatever the half-educated, ill-paid teachers teach. Seminaries are a hot topic of discussion. While English language newspapers like Dawn, Nation, Friday Times, News International and magazines like Herald and Newsline have been blaming these seminaries for keeping Pakistan a backward state where jingoism rules, Urdu newspapers have been more sympathetic towards them. According to Jang newspaper, Jamiat Talaba Arabia, an organisation of madarsaa-trained students, put up a big show of strength in Islamabad on August 21. The statement was loud and clear: the Islamists are on the rise as a political force. “Jamiat Talaba Arabia meetings had so far been largely restricted to madarsaas students affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami. At a time when the Islamist parties are occupying political centre-stage, Jamiat Talaba Arabia’s latest overtures point to a hastening of the Islamisation of politics. The organisation had run a vigorous and prolonged campaign to ensure ijtama’s success. A team headed by Nazrul Islam Danish had travelled all over the country and was able to secure favourable statements from the Islamists of all hues.” News International reported. With the rabid speeches of the MMA leaders at this conference, there could be little doubt that the fundamentalists are on the rise. The more the USA demands reform or ban of these institutions; the more strident becomes the response. The parties with poor social and economic agenda rely heavily on religious jingoism. These students carry this to all nooks and corners of the country. But it is largely the failure of the state and the civil society that students belonging to lower middle and poor families have nowhere to go, but to these institutions where hardly any fee is charged. These institutions get funds from many countries, including Saudi Arabia besides from local resources. Most teachers are, however, underpaid. The government could not meet the demand of the villages and towns for new schools where the young minds could have been given modern education. Writing in Dawn, Noman Ahmed lamented: “Confounded images and nebulous narrations are cobbled together to show the various activities taking place in these institutions. It is pre-conceived that every such site is propagating anti-Western and anti-imperialist sentiments among its pupils. But more than anything else, the seminaries are described as sites of orthodoxy, obstinacy and ignorance, which are entirely mediaeval in outlook and actions. From curricula to the attire of those attending them, every aspect is tagged as outdated. In other words, seminaries are seen as being against reforms of any kind.” Ahmed’s complaint is: “Over the time, the images of seminaries have changed. At one moment in history, they were the ideological flag carriers of the regime. As a holy war was to be fuelled by a zealot crop of recruits, all kinds of state patronage was extended to this otherwise esoteric branch of learning. The worthy West was also composing new hymns to recognise the valour of the youthful Mujahideen term that later became the most horrendous. All that was connected to seminaries was held in high esteem. The establishment, predominantly the armed forces, carved a special niche for seminaries in their manuals of operations. In short, those were the days when seminaries were labelled as the saviour of the capitalist agenda in this part of the world.” The feudals and the landed aristocracy also hold clerics and seminaries run by them in high esteem as they normally share the common perception of anti-progressivism. Dawn quoted Federal Education Minister Zobaida Jalal saying that government had registered these madarsaas and grants and salaries for teachers would be available to those which modernise and accept the common curriculum, which has both, modern education and religious components. Islamists naturally are disturbed. But given the enthusiasm of the students and their parents, this programme may have some success. But those parties that draw their cadres from these seminaries would try their best to sabotage. |
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Dhaka dares India on terror camps Dhaka, September 6 “The helicopter is ready, come and show us where the camps are,” Mr Khan told reporters in Chittagong while referring to India’s charge that ISI is running training camps here. “We have never allowed our territory to be used against others and will never do so in the future,” Mr Khan said. Commenting on Dhaka’s relations with New Delhi, the Foreign Minister said all existing troubles and disagreements with India, including disputes along the border, would be solved through discussions. On the issue of gas export, he said “if the resources are surplus, it would certainly be exported”. Referring to main opposition Awami League’s stand against export, Mr Khan said by signing the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), the party gave approval to export. On India’s demand for transit and trans-shipment facilities from Bangladesh, he said if a situation was created for allowing such facilities, then India as a neighbour would get it first. He said trading and commercial activities with Myanmar would be further expanded as part of government’s ‘Look East Policy’. He also said talks are being held with the Yangon authorities for the return of remaining Rohingya Muslims.
— PTI |
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Arafat accepts PM’s resignation Ramallah, September 6 “Mr Arafat has accepted the resignation and asked (Abbas) to run a caretaker cabinet until a new cabinet is formed,’’ a Palestinian official said. The moderate Abbas’s departure threatened to destroy a US-backed plan for peace with Israel which envisaged a Palestinian state in 2005. The plan, known as the “road map’’, was already in a shambles after a renewal of attacks by Palestinian militants and the Israeli army. Mr Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, had told Palestinian lawmakers on Thursday to sack him if they would not back him in his bid to win authority from Mr Arafat to carry out reforms and rein in militants, steps required by the ‘’road map’’. The European Union said it was extremely concerned by the Abbas’s resignation. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told a meeting of EU foreign ministers, that the bloc was “deeply worried by the serious risk of dangerous instability at the head of the Palestinian executive’’. Mr Abbas resigned today, said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. The resignation dealt a serious blow to US-backed peace efforts. Mr Abbas submitted his resignation in a letter to Mr Yasser Arafat, said Mr Erekat. It was not immediately clear whether Mr Arafat would accept his resignation. Mr Abbas had been weakened by his wrangling with Mr Arafat, the near-collapse of a US-backed peace plan and his inability to improve the daily lives of Palestinians. —
AP, Reuters |
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Bachchan to be honoured at film fest Rabat, September 6 American director Ridley Scott, who has shot at least two movies in Morocco, Oliver Stone who is preparing to shoot his Alexanderv epic in the kingdom, French actor Alain Delon, Egyptian actress Youssra, Moroccan actress Amina Rachid will also be felicitated at a series of tributes during the Marrakesh film festival to be held in Ochre city from October 3 to 8, organisers of the festival said. French actress Nathalie Baye will host the presentation ceremony, which will feature Moroccan movie “Mille Moisv” (one hundred months) by young director Faouzi Bensaidi. The short movie selection jury will include artistes and intellectuals from India, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, France and Morocco. Oscar-winning director Schlondorff and British actor Jeremy Irons are also among the jury. A special tribute will be paid to the late French director and film critic, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, who helped organise the festival’s two precedent editions. Organisers have selected around 73 movies which will be shown at the festival, out of over 1,000 movies and 200 short movies.
— MAP |
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Women in California take on ‘terminator’ Los Angeles, September 6 “His comments are degrading for women”, Karen Pomer, founder of the “Rainbow Sisters Project,” a group of sex abuse victims, told reporters. Her group and others planned a protest outside the “Join Arnold” offices in Santa Monica. “I said crazy things,” the actor told a press conference of the 1977
interview. “It was the summer I was promoting bodybuilding, because bodybuilding was nowhere to be found. We tried to get headlines, we tried to get attention...many (things) were exaggerated and not true, to get the headlines. The fact is, you have to forget about the 70s. “I was a different person then. Today we have to look in the future which is the future of this state.” It wasn’t the first time the former Mister Universe raised a few eyebrows with his remarks about women.
—AFP |
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Rabat, September 6
Los Angeles, September 6
Illusionist’s daring stunt
