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Police deems key Kanishka
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Second round of Indo-China
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post 9/11 detainees: court Colour panorama
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Syria turns down Israel’s invitation
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Police deems key Kanishka witness unreliable Vancouver, January 13 The woman, who cannot be named under court orders, had given different accounts of her conversation with Bagri to William Laurie, former agent with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and to Canadian Police (RCMP) during investigations, former RCMP officer Rick Rautio told the British Columbia High Court. Laurie had reported that the woman said Bagri had asked for her car to take baggage to the airport on the evening before the 1985 Air India bombing. However, when Rautio interviewed her, the woman told him that Bagri had come to borrow the car after and not before the Air India disaster, a media report said here. Rautio told the court that he was concerned about how the woman changed her account in several ways and after discussions with other police officers concluded that the woman could not be counted on to be a reliable witness. Rautio also said he was concerned that the woman’s recollections had been “contaminated” by information provided by Laurie about the Air India disaster, The Globe and Mail reported. Reading from internal RCMP memos, defence lawyer Michael Code said Rautio told his supervisors the fact that the woman “changed her story” and she could not be counted as reliable witness. The prosecution says the woman changed her account after speaking to the CSIS because she feared for the safety of her family if she testified against Bagri. However, an RCMP memo said Rautio found the woman more concerned about an allegation of her having an affair with Bagri becoming common knowledge than the fear of threats to her family and herself. The prosecution is trying to declare the witness hostile after she changed her story on the stand claiming she can’t remember what she told the police about Bagri’s role in the bombing. —
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Indian-American co-chairman of UN body New York, January 13 Mr Gupta, who has also been associated with the United Nations in other capacities, succeeds Mr John Chalsty who stepped down after a two-year term. He would be sharing the post with Mr Josh Weston. Mr Gupta became senior partner, Worldwide, of McKinsey and Company, Inc. after serving the maximum-allowed three terms as Managing Director of the firm in 2003. He joined McKinsey in 1973 and became the head of its Scandinavian Offices in 1981. In 1987, he moved to McKinsey’s Chicago offices and was appointed Managing Director of the firm in 1994. Mr Gupta has been actively involved with the United Nations for several years in an advisory capacity and he is a member of the Board of the Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. UNA-USA is the largest grassroots foreign policy organization in the USA, and the nation’s leading center of policy research on the United Nations and global issues. It carries out its action agenda through a combination of public outreach and education, policy analysis and international dialogue. “We are extremely pleased that Rajat and Josh have accepted this appointment,” said William Luers, president of UNA-USA, which is a member of the World Federation of United Nations Associations. —PTI |
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Second round of Indo-China border talks ends Beijing, January 13 “India’s special representative on the India-China boundary question and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra held the second round of talks with the Chinese special representative and Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo on January 12 and 13 in a friendly and constructive atmosphere,” the Indian Embassy said in a press statement at the end of the two-day meetings. “The special representatives agreed to meet again on mutually acceptable dates in New Delhi to be decided through diplomatic channels,” the bland statement said without going into the details of the Mishra-Dai negotiations over the past two days. —
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Pak officials warn of more attacks Islamabad, January 13 Top officials of Pakistan’s security establishment are devising strategies to face the threat as investigations revealed that a new outfit “Brigade 313” had been formed by several banned militant outfits, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba, to target General Musharraf and other moderates. Over dozen people, including an intelligence official, who tipped off the suicide attackers on December 25, have been taken in custody in connection with the assassination bids. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad virtually confirmed the reports of the involvement of such an alliance in the December 14 and December 25 attacks on General Musharraf. “There is not one group involved in it. There are number of groups involved,” he said adding that the authorities had reached almost all culprits. “The entire network is before our sight,” he told the media here last night. Hinting at Al-Qaeda links, he said “there are Pakistanis in front”. “Investigation is under way to trace the people behind the scenes. Obviously, there could be foreign links in this case. However, their local network has been broken totally”, he said. —
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USA can withhold information on
post 9/11 Washington, January 13 The court refused to hear the petition filed by the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), the American Civil Liberties Union and several human rights organisations challenging the George W Bush Administration’s refusal to disclose the identities of hundreds of people arrested in the aftermath of the terror strikes. The petition argued that the Bush Administration’s refusal to release information about the detainees violated the Freedom of Information Act and the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. The Washington Post Co filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the petition. Although it sets no precedent, the court’s decision is still a significant victory for the Bush Administration, which has argued that fighting an unconventional war against terrorists requires it to assert broad new authority to arrest and detain terror suspects. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft called the decision a “victory” and stressed that the Bush Government was committed to protecting civil rights. The decision let stand a 2-1 ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which found the administration’s claim that terrorist networks could reap advantage from any disclosure of information about the detainees, even their names, “reasonable”. Kate Martin, Director of CNNS, said the DC Circuit’s ruling broke with “200 years of tradition in which arrests have always been public”. “We have a situation where the government arrested more than a thousand people in secret, and the courts have let them get away with it,” she said. FBI and Justice Department officials had testified that the disclosure would let terrorists draw a “road map” of the government’s investigation, Mr Olson wrote. —
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Colour panorama of Mars released Pasadena (USA), January 13 A team of 24 scientists and engineers assembled the sweeping panorama from 225 separate images yesterday. “The whole panorama is there before us. It’s a great opening for the next stage in our mission, which is getting off the lander and out into this field,” said Michael Malin of the Malin Space Science Systems, a member of the Mission Science team. NASA planned to cut a final cable to free the rover from its lander more than a week after touchdown. The umbilical that supplies power and communications to the rover will be severed via programmed instructions, officials said. —
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Syria turns down Israel’s invitation Jerusalem, January 13 “I invite President Assad to come to Jerusalem to seriously negotiate with Israeli leaders on the conditions of a peace accord,” Katsav said yesterday on Israeli public radio. “Mr Assad will be welcome, but there should be no preconditions.” But Syrian Expatriates Minister Bussaina Shaaban said Israel must declare its willingness to resume negotiations from where they broke off four years ago over the fate of the Golan Heights. “This is not a serious response to Assad’s call last month for a revival of contacts,” Shaaban said, accusing Katsav of seeking a “photo opportunity”. —
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Islamabad, January 13
