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India, China hold
talks on Indo-Pak thaw due
to US efforts, Pak yet to decide
on inviting Advani 2 members of
political party shot in Pak
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Pak, Afghans to jointly fight terrorism French panel did
not quiz Sikhs on turban ban
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India, China hold talks on border dispute Beijing, January 12 The second round of two-day negotiations between National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra and Chinese Executive Vice-Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo which began today were held at the tightly-guarded Diaoyutai State guest house, official sources said without divulging the details of the talks. As per an understanding reached between Beijing and New Delhi, the details of the deliberations between Mr Mishra and Dai, both special representatives of the two governments, would be kept secret. Indian Ambassador to China Nalin Surie also participated in the negotiations which remained inconclusive. Ahead of the meeting, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had expressed hope that the two sides could “positively explore” the framework of resolving the boundary issue at the second round of talks. Both Mr Mishra and Dai were nominated as “special representatives” by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, respectively, during Mr Vajpayee’s historic visit to China in June last year. Tomorrow Mr Mishra is expected to call on Chinese leaders and further discuss the outcome of his negotiations with Dai. He is also expected to brief the Chinese leaders on the latest situation on the India-Pakistan front after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s successful meetings with Pakistani leaders on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Islamabad. China has already welcomed the peace initiatives taken by both New Delhi and Islamabad. The first round of talks between Mr Mishra and Dai was held in New Delhi on October 23-24, which was described by both sides as “constructive”. India says China is illegally occupying 43,180 sq km of Jammu and Kashmir including 5,180 sq km illegally ceded to Beijing by Pakistan under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement in 1963. On the other hand, China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq km of Chinese territory, including the whole of Arunachal Pradesh.
— PTI |
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Indo-Pak thaw due to US efforts, says Powell
Washington, January 12 “The work we have been doing with the Indians and the Pakistanis” produced a breakthrough over the past several days “but there is more work to be done,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview with the “US News and World Report” during the weekend. He said: “We have offered our good offices to the Indians and the Pakistanis over the past couple of days.” “We have been working with the Indians and the Pakistanis for almost two years. And so I think a lot of these seeds that were planted are now germinating and you’ll (see) us harvesting crops.” During the SAARC Summit in Islamabad, India and Pakistan decided to hold composite dialogue on all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir. Observing that Musharraf was doing a “good job,” Powell said: “I would be greatly concerned because I don’t know what might come after him. He is a good friend and partner of the USA. We support him. He has been an ally in the war on terror”. The Secretary of State said there had been “some concerns expressed” about nuclear proliferation from Pakistan but “earlier this week he (Musharraf) indicated that he was going to look into this thoroughly to make sure that is not the case”. “So he is taking steps and riding a difficult political horse, but we are going to support him and we believe he is doing a good job,” Powell said.
— PTI |
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Pak yet to decide on inviting Advani Islamabad, January 12 Playing down a media report that Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat had extended an invitation to Mr Advani, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told reporters that “no decision has been taken yet about this invitation. I also read some reports in the press. “But no invitation has been extended yet and as and when it is extended you will know about it”. He also denied reports about speculations on India and Pakistan moving towards signing an extradition treaty. “Nothing of that sort is happening at the moment, let me clarify”, Mr Khan said.
— PTI |
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2 members of political party shot in Pak Karachi, January 12 The attackers opened fire yesterday, killing Mohammed Ali Sunara and Abdul Samad, members of the Pakistan People’s Party (Shaheed Bhutto Group), a breakaway faction of the opposition party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the killings, and Karachi’s police chief, Tariq Jamil, said the police was still investigating.
— AP |
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Pak court frees two French journalists
Islamabad, January 12 The Sindh High Court reduced the sentences imposed by a sessions court on reporter Marc Epstein and photographer Jean-Paul Guilloteau from six months to seven days. But as they had already spent that long in police custody, they were set free. However, the court doubled the fine imposed against the two to Rs 200,000 each from the earlier Rs 100,000. The journalists working for the French weekly, L’Express, were jailed on Saturday after the District Sessions Court sentenced them to six months’ jail term. The High Court said the two were free to leave as soon as the fines were paid.
— PTI |
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Pak, Afghans to jointly fight terrorism
Islamabad, January 12 In the fight against extremism and terrorism, there is no turning back. We have to go ahead with this, it is a menace all over the world. We go ahead hand in hand," Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali told reporters here at the end of his day-long visit to Kabul during which he held one-to -one talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He assured Karzai that Pakistan would not permit Taliban to use its soil to destabilise peace in Afghanistan. He said Pakistan apprised the Afghan leadership about the steps taken by it to bolster security along the Pak-Afghan border and the measures to counter the threat from terrorist.
— PTI |
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French panel did not quiz Sikhs on turban ban
New York, January 12 The Sikhs’ outcry so late in the game has stunned and dismayed French officials and experts involved in the commission, a New York Times report said. “Why didn’t the Sikhs come forward, why didn’t they protest while we were doing our investigation?” Bernard Stasi, who led the commission that produced the report, said in the reported interview. “I have finished my job and it’s too late to change the report. Now it’s in the government’s hands.” He, however, acknowledged that no French Sikhs were among the more than 200 persons interviewed by his commission during its six-month investigation. As part of a struggle to separate religion from the state, France is poised to pass a law banning religious symbols like Muslim veils, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from public schools. France, the NYT report said, is home to only several thousand Sikhs, compared with around 600,000 Jews and five million Muslims. Historically, the Sikh population is quiet, law-abiding, apolitical and almost invisible living, working and worshiping mainly in a few isolated pockets of suburban Paris, it added. The news report carried a chorus of protest from around two dozen Sikhs sitting barefooted and cross-legged in a large worship room in the Gurdwara Singh Sabha in the working-class Paris suburb of Bobigny. “I’m 100 per cent French, I speak French, I was born here,” it quoted Dhramvir Singh, a 17-year-old student who wears a dark-blue turban to school every day, as saying. “But it’s impossible for me to take off my turban. If they force me, I’ll have to drop out, and never be able to do anything except a job that no one else wants.” He said he had no identity card — a violation of French law — because he refused to remove his turban for the official photo, according to the report. Others recalled Sikh soldiers who fought and died for France in World War I with their turbans on. An official at the Ministry of National Education, which is responsible for negotiating the law with Parliament, declined comment, except to say: “What? There are Sikhs in France?”, according to the news report. It quoted a senior official at the Ministry of the Interior responsible for religious matters as saying: “I know nothing about the Sikh problem. Are there many Sikhs in France?”
— UNI |
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Beijing, January 12
