W O R L D

Pervez rules out unilateral shift on Kashmir
Islamabad, January 22
President Pervez Musharraf has ruled out any unilateral shift in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, saying that both New Delhi and Islamabad would have to show flexibility to resolve the issue for peace in South Asia.

Beg flays Musharraf on scientists’ questioning

Detained Indian fishermen queue up inside a police station in Karachi on Thursday. Pakistan maritime officials detained 21 Indian fishermen for illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. — Reuters

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A journalist points out the back door of a bus fitted with a protective metal gate which was displayed to reporters at the Israeli Military Industries headquarters in Ramat Hasharon on Thursday. The metal gate has been installed on buses in a pilot experiment to prevent suicide bombers from getting on a bus through the back door.— Reuters

Poll not to hit talks, India assures Pak
Islamabad, January 22
India has assured Pakistan that the coming general election in the country would not affect the composite dialogue process which the two neighbours have agreed to hold next month.

French Sikhs upbeat about turbans
Paris, January 22
France's small Sikh community grew confident yesterday as its boys could continue to wear turbans to state schools after talks with officials to explain their headgear was not a religious symbol taboo under a looming ban. Community leaders reported encouraging talks with senior officials in the foreign, interior and education ministries aimed at explaining why the turbans should not be banned like Muslim veils, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

Rape victim seeks counselling
Durban, January 22
The South African national who claims to have been raped by a fellow countryman judge four days ago has said she wants to undergo counselling. The alleged rape victim, who returned home yesterday from Mumbai on the same flight as Winnie Mandela, said she wanted to return to normal life and undergo counselling.

Pervez rules out unilateral shift on Kashmir

Islamabad, January 22
President Pervez Musharraf has ruled out any unilateral shift in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, saying that both New Delhi and Islamabad would have to show flexibility to resolve the issue for peace in South Asia.

“There is no question of unilateral shift in Pakistan’s position on the Kashmir issue...it has to be mutual,” General Musharraf told editors of leading Turkish newspapers in Istanbul yesterday at the conclusion of his Turkey visit.

To a question, the President clarified that he had never said that Pakistan would give up its principled stand on Kashmir and added that his remarks were quoted out of context.

“We have a stand (on Kashmir). I have always been saying that if we want to go for a solution, ultimately we have to show flexibility,” he said.

General Musharraf stressed that both Pakistan and India would have to go beyond their stated positions. “Both of us have to do that.”

However, he made it clear that if anyone was expecting that Pakistan is going to leave its old position and India does not leave its stand “I am afraid that is not reality”.

He said both Pakistan and India “ought to be bold enough to move beyond their stated positions and show flexibility if we want to reach any conclusion.”

There has to be mutual flexibility, the President said, adding “otherwise we are not going to reach any conclusion,” the official APP news agency reported.

Replying to a question, General Musharraf said he described his meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Islamabad as “historic” as for the first time Kashmir had been accepted as an issue which needed to be resolved.

In the past meetings between the leaders of the two countries, never had Kashmir been accepted as an issue, he added.

General Musharraf said both sides reached a written agreement in which Kashmir was accepted as an issue.

The President also said the two countries must initiate composite dialogue process which must include all issues, including Kashmir. — PTI

Beg flays Musharraf on scientists’ questioning

Islamabad, January 22
Pakistan’s former Army Chief General Aslam Beg has criticised President Pervez Musharraf for ordering interrogation of the country’s nuclear scientists.

Asked about remarks by two former ministers, who recently alleged that a former Chief of Army Staff had conveyed to the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif about Iran’s willingness to pay a handsome price for transfer of nuclear technology, General Beg termed the charges as “sheer lies.”

The former Army Chief said Musharraf’s decision to question nuclear scientists to verify the allegations of proliferation of technology had “demoralised” the country.

He said Musharraf should have withstood the international pressure on nuclear proliferation, cross-border terrorism and extremism. He denied that he was questioned by investigation officials to verify the allegations of his attempts to prevail upon the Sharif government to pass the nuclear technology to Iran. — PTI

Poll not to hit talks, India assures Pak

Islamabad, January 22
India has assured Pakistan that the coming general election in the country would not affect the composite dialogue process which the two neighbours have agreed to hold next month.

The peace process will continue as External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has assured the Pakistani leadership that the change of government after the general election in India would not affect the dialogue process, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said in Kalat in Baluchistan province yesterday.

Jamali said “I think initially dialogue would be held at the secretaries’ level.”

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan later clarified that the level of talks to be held next month was yet to be decided.

“The level, date and agenda are still being worked out,” Mr Khan told PTI here.

Asked about the construction of a fence at the Line of Control (LoC) by India, Jamali said Pakistan had formally informed the United Nations about its concern on the issue.

He said he also took up the issue during his meetings with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpaee and Mr Sinha during the SAARC summit here earlier this month. India should not take the benefit of the ceasefire, and must stop this process, he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan denied media reports that India had objected to some of the statements made by Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad reiterating Pakistan stand on the Kashmir issue.

There was no truth in such reports, Mr Khan said. — PTI

French Sikhs upbeat about turbans

Paris, January 22
France's small Sikh community grew confident yesterday as its boys could continue to wear turbans to state schools after talks with officials to explain their headgear was not a religious symbol taboo under a looming ban.

Community leaders reported encouraging talks with senior officials in the foreign, interior and education ministries aimed at explaining why the turbans should not be banned like Muslim veils, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.

The Sikhs, of whom about 5,000 live in the Paris area, say turbans are a practical covering for the hair they never cut rather than an expression of faith like an Islamic headscarf, the main target of the ban France wants to impose.

''I think they realise they're in very muddy waters,'' said Jasdev Singh Rai, a London-based human rights activist appointed by the Golden Temple to help French Sikhs fight the looming ban.

''We are pigeonholed into categories we don't fit in,'' he said. ''There is almost an Orientalism here — the West defines who we are and we have to live by it.''

Mr Rai said senior French officials he had met
accepted that Sikh boys could wear the ''patka,'' the simple headscarf they use under a turban, but this was not enough for them.

France has debated itself into a twist over the ban, which President Jacques Chirac proposed last month to stem rising Islamist influence among some of the five million Muslims here. There is wide support for a ban and its passage seemed secured. — Reuters

Rape victim seeks counselling

Durban, January 22
The South African national who claims to have been raped by a fellow countryman judge four days ago has said she wants to undergo counselling.

The alleged rape victim, who returned home yesterday from Mumbai on the same flight as Winnie Mandela, said she wanted to return to normal life and undergo counselling.

Her husband said, “The fact is we want to forgive desai and to forget. Winnie Mandela talk to my wife, she spoke a lot of wisdom and we have to sit down and decide .”— PTI

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3 DIE IN PLANE CRASH
TOKYO: A light plane crashed into a residential area in central Japan on Thursday, killing the woman pilot and two male passengers, officials said. The plane, a Cessna 172P, crashed in Kofu, 110 km west of Tokyo. It was flying low to take aerial photographs of a school. — AP

40 PC WOMEN UNFAITHFUL
BERLIN: Four out of every 10 women have had an affair or still have an affair outside an existing long-term partnership. Men with a quota of 51 per cent, however, are still more unfaithful, according to an opinion poll conducted by the Gewis Institute in Hamburg, Germany. Psychologist Konstanze Fakih from Berlin sees many reasons why women are having extramarital affairs, including the will to escape and be spoiled. — DPA

532 TO BE SUED FOR PIRACY
LOS ANGELES: The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday said it was suing 532 persons, identified only as “John Doe”, under the anti-piracy law. — Reuters