 |
Saturday,
September 20, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
Dhaka-Agartala bus service begins
Pak against India’s bid for Security Council Pak denies visas to Indian artistes Federal judge to rule on Indians’ wages Vajpayee leaves for New York 10 Indians in Turkish jails Hurricane Isabel lashes US coast |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
3 US soldiers killed in ambush Marathon monk completes 7-year running ritual Pervez becomes grandfather
|
|
Dhaka-Agartala bus service begins Indian Minister for Road Transport and Highways B.C. Khanduri and Bangladesh Communication Minister Barrister Nazmul Huda formally opened the bus service following a decision of the India-Bangladesh Joint Economic Commission. Bangladesh Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar were also present on the occasion. This is the second bus service between the two neighbours after commissioning of first Dhaka-Kolkata bus service on July 9, 1999. Two decorated buses carrying Ministers, politicians, journalists, artists and high officials of the two countries left for Agartala at 10.10 am for the inaugural ceremony in India. The ‘’Sarak Bhavan’’ in the Capital this morning termed the bus service as a historic moment and said it would further strengthen relations between the two countries and encourage development, trade and tourism. Mr Khanduri said economic and commercial relations between India and Bangladesh had flourished significantly during the last decade. Despite overall progress, substantial trade and investment opportunities remain untapped. He said, ‘’In the past few years we have been making continuous efforts to realise the potentials of our North-Eastern region as a bridge for expanding India’s trade relations with other countries.’’ Such arrangements had already started with Myanmar and China through Manipur and Sikkim.
— UNI |
|
Nepalese police arrests Sobhraj Kathmandu, September 19 Identified as Charles Sobhraj, the suspect, during a 1975 visit to Nepal, allegedly murdered Canadian Laddie du Parr and American Annabella Tremont and burnt their bodies. He fled the country after the charred bodies of the two victims were found in the outskirts of the Nepalese capital. The police said Sobhraj was arrested at a casino in a Kathmandu five-star hotel early this morning and was likely to be produced before court on Monday. Sobhraj, Vietnamese-Indian by birth and a French national, was reported to have entered Nepal two weeks ago and spent most of the time in five casinos in the Kathmandu Valley. According to the ‘’Himalayan Times’’ which first broke the story about Sobhraj’s presence in Nepal two days ago, he is alleged to have killed unsuspecting tourists in Nepal, Thailand and India. He was released from Tihar Jail in India in February, 1997, after serving a jail term and was reported to have moved to Paris. Though wanted for the past 28 years in Nepal, legal experts say the police might have difficulties prosecuting him as most government files in Nepal are destroyed after a lapse of 20 years.
— DPA |
|
Pak against India’s bid for Security Council Islamabad, September 19 “We do not support expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council. No new centres of privilege should be created in the UNSC,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman, Masood Khan has been quoted as saying by the ‘Dawn’ daily. Reacting to the UN proposal to expand the Security Council beyond the size of its five permanent members, Masood Khan said Pakistan wants the expansion of the representation of the non-permanent members in the UN, specially from the developing countries but not the permanent membership. “The Security Council can be expanded in the non-permanent category to make it more representative and democratic. Such a step will give the developing countries a great say in the decision-making process of the council,” he added. He said “Pakistan believes that India does not qualify to be a permanent member of the council as it has violated dozens of UNSC resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir”.
— PTI |
|
Pak denies visas to Indian artistes Islamabad, September 19 The artistes were invited to take part in next month’s World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore. According to sources, repeated attempts by the event organisers Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, who have written to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi to permit the group to visit Lahore, have not yielded any results. Early this month a high-level delegation of serving and retired judges from India, which was invited to visit Pakistan by its Supreme Court Bar Association were denied visas, much to the embarrassment of the Pakistan legal community. The association officials allege that the visas were denied to Indian jurists in view of its own agitation against the judges and the government. Pakistani media quoted the Registrar of the Supreme Court as saying that the Chief Justice of Pakistan wanted to invite the Indian jurists himself to visit Pakistan at a later date.
— PTI |
|
Federal judge to rule on Indians’ wages New York, September 19 The skilled Indian workers, including welders, fitters and electricians, have also complained that they were confined in the factory premises of John Pickle Company and given substandard food. The company though has said they were temporary trainees destined for its plant in Kuwait. If the court decides that they were full time employees, then the issue about their alleged denial of minimum wages would be taken up. The defence rested the case yesterday after producing only two witnesses and the judge gave the two parties till October 31 to submit their concluding arguments. John Pickle Company, which manufactured specialised oil equipment, has since shut its doors, citing bad publicity generated by the case. The workers allege that they were given two or three dollars an hour in 2001, much lower than the federal minimum wage of five dollars and fifteen cents. “They can easily be given a place to live, little bit of food, they might not know what they were missing and that’s exactly what happened to the folks coming from India,” worker’s attorney Robert Canino said. The company had been using an Indian agency to recruit workers and after six months they were either sent to Kuwait or returned to India. John Pickle had argued that the foreign workers were paid wages that were considered fair by the Indian standards but federal officials rejected that argument.
— PTI |
|
Vajpayee leaves for New York Istanbul, September 19 Issues of terrorism, developments in Iraq and the West Asia situation are likely to dominate the Prime Minister’s address to UNGA on September 25 and his talks with US President George W. Bush possibly on September 23. During his week-long stay in New York, Mr Vajpayee is also expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders on the sidelines of the UNGA to discuss international, regional and bilateral issues. On the West Asia situation, the Prime Minister has emphatically opposed any move by Israel to expel Mr Arafat, saying he is the elected leader of the Palestinians. In sharp contrast, Mr Bush today described Mr Arafat as a failed leader while acknowledging US-sponsored road map for West Asia was now stalled. In New York, a resolution demanding Israel to drop its threat to expel Mr Arafat from West Bank would be taken up by the UNGA. A similar resolution was vetoed by the USA when it came up before the Security Council last Tuesday. On Iraq, Mr Vajpayee, who is the first Indian Prime Minister to address the General Assembly for five consecutive times, has said there is no clarity as yet on further action on the issue by the Security Council. Indian officials said Mr Vajpayee or any member of his team would have no talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.
— PTI
|
|
10 Indians in Turkish jails Ankara, September 19 Indians, however, form a minuscule percentage of the total number of illegal aliens, who use Turkey — which strategically straddles Asia and Europe — to get across to the more prosperous west European nations, according to an official in the Indian Embassy here. An estimated 150,000 illegal aliens passed through Turkey to western Europe every year, the official said. Of these, some 5,000 to 6,000 were from India. The bulk of the illegal aliens were Pakistanis, Iraqi Kurds, Somalis, Russians and Afghans.
— IANS |
|
|
Hurricane Isabel lashes US coast Ktty Hawk (North Carolina), September 19 Towns along the North Carolina and Virginia coasts were desolate and boarded up as the storm brought 165 km winds and started moving toward the US capital. Isabel headed up the Atlantic seaboard and a tropical storm warning had even been issued for New York by the National Hurricane Center. Nearly 4,00,000 homes in Virginia were without power, its Governor Mark Warner said, and electricity companies said tens of thousands more had been hit in North Carolina. Warner told CNN Television the blackouts could last “a few days”. In Elizabeth City, North Carolina city manager Tommy Combs said: “It’s going to get much worse as the winds pick up. Lines are knocked down by the wind and stuff like branches flying around,” he said. Flooding was immediately reported in parts of North Carolina and Fred Gentry told how the hurricane tore down his house in the beach resort of Kitty Hawk, despite his wall of wood and sand bags to keep out the waves. “I was pumping water out with my buddy Mike, but the front wall caved in,” he told AFP. “We were in the hallway. I jumped in one bedroom, he jumped in another. It scared the hell out of us.” “The wall literally just split in half horizontally. It just caved in, taking the furniture with it. It just blew it up. It sounded like a bomb blowing off. “Debris came down the hallway, slammed the backdoor, trapping us in,” he said. The federal capital came to a virtual stop with an estimated 350,000 government workers given the day off and public transport ordered closed down.
— AFP |
|
3 US soldiers killed in ambush Baghdad, September 19 Corporal Vernon O’Donnell said the soldiers of the US 4th Infantry Division were attacked, 8 km south of the central town of Tikrit. “They were inspecting a suspected mortar launch site when the ambush occurred,” he told AFP, adding that the toll was three dead and two wounded.
— AFP |
|
Marathon monk completes 7-year running ritual Tokyo, September 19 The 44-year-old monk, Genshin Fujinami, returned yesterday from his 1,000-day, 40,000-km spiritual journey in the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient Capital of Kyoto, said an official at Enryakuji Hoshuin, guardian temple of the grueling tradition. Dressed in his handmade sandals and robe with a straw raincoat draped over his head, Fujinami was greeted at the end of his journey by a crowd of worshippers, who knelt to receive his blessings, said the official, who declined to give his name. “I entrusted everything to god. I am satisfied”, Fujinami was quoted as saying in a newspaper
report.— AP |
|
Pervez becomes grandfather Islamabad, September 19 The President’s son Bilal Musharraf who works in the USA flew down to Islamabad as his wife gave birth to a boy yesterday. General Musharraf, who turned 60 this year, rushed to the hospital to bless his grandson.
— PTI |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Dhaka, September 19