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Kite fest
leaves 4 dead, 80 hurt 90 killed in two major fires 26 die as water park roof collapses Pak sincere about talks, says Kasuri |
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Window on Pakistan
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Toll in Pak quakes 21 Islamabad, February 15 The earthquakes also injured 13, five of them seriously, and damaged more than 200 houses, all in the Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP), daily Dawn said. The quakes measuring 5.7 and 5.6 on the Richter scale were also felt in some parts of the central Punjab province including the capital Islamabad. The valleys of Kaghan, Knosh, Alayee and Bhogarmang of Mansehra district, 80 km north of Islamabad were the worst hit where at least 17 people died. Police officials said 13 people including two children were killed when a bus they were travelling in was pushed into a ravine by a landslide set off by the jolts in the Alayee valley. Another eight were killed in different parts of NWFP province when their houses collapsed, the report said. The earthquakes also damaged a government hospital and roads in the Kawai area, according to The News. Occurring within 90 minutes of each other, the epicentre of the tremors was located 200 km northeast of Peshawar city. The first quake was felt at 3:35 p.m. (1035 GMT).
— DPA |
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Kite fest
leaves 4 dead, 80 hurt Lahore, February 15 Among the dead was a six-year-old girl whose throat was slit by a metal kite string stretching across a street where she was walking with her mother last night, said Athar Khan, a police spokesman in the city. Two men were killed when they were hit by cars while trying to catch stray kites in two separate accidents late yesterday, Khan said. A teenage boy fell to his death from the roof of his home while flying a kite. The accidents came during the annual Basant when kites fill the sky and people take to the rooftops for all-night parties.
— AP |
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90 killed in two major fires Beijing, February 15 The first fire occurred at a four-storey building at 11.20 a.m. (8.50 a.m. IST) on the second floor of Jilin city’s Zhongbai shopping mall where many people were busy with their weekend shopping. Of the 71 injured persons, 13 were in a critical condition, while 23 among the dead were females, doctors said. So far 120 persons were rescued with rescue workers and fire-fighters still searching for survivors, Xinhua news agency reported. About 260 firefighters and 60 fire engines put out the fire after over six hours, state media reported from Jilin. A special investigation team headed by Sun Huashan, deputy director of the state administration of work safety, also rushed from Beijing to the fire scene. |
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26 die as water park roof collapses Moscow, February 15 At least 23 bodies have been pulled out from the rubble, four of them of children, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted by Itar Tass news agency as saying. One man succumbed to his injuries in hospital. There were at least 800 persons in the park at the time of the incident. At least 362 of them were in its pool area when the roof of the pool collapsed yesterday, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Vicktor Beltov said. Local television channels put the toll at 26 and the number of injured was 110. Initial reports sparked fears of another strike by alleged Chechen rebels but the authorities have ruled out terrorism and blamed faulty construction or heavy snow piled up on the roof as being responsible for the incident at the Transvaal park in south-west Moscow. “It has been definitely confirmed that it was not an act of terror. The moment the roof caved in was recorded by video cameras,” Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters.
— PTI |
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Pak sincere about talks, says Kasuri Islamabad, February 15 Sounding optimistic about the talks beginning tomorrow, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurishid Mehmood Kasuri said he hoped that both sides would stick to the spirit of the joint statement issued on January 6 after a meeting between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf here. “Pakistan approached Monday’s talks with positive frame of mind and hoped that India would do the same,” he said.
— PTI |
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Window on Pakistan Proliferation of nuclear technology by Pakistani scientists and its consequences for that nation are the subject of endless debate in the entire media. This is natural. The case of selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya is well established not only by the reports of the Western intelligence but also by the public admission of the top scientists in full public glare. People in Pakistan have been fed on the invincibility of the nuclear capability of their country and heroic job done by the scientists and the political and military leadership are struck by the turn of events. The hotly debated point is that why A.Q. Khan has been singled out not by the Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, but American President Bush also. Many newspapers looked at the whole issue of nuclearisation, the monopoly and role of big powers and how should third world countries react to it? The questions have been raised in Dawn, Daily Times, News International, Nation and Urdu papers, Jang and Nawa-e-Waqt besides many public figures. Weekly Independent welcoming the clampdown on proliferation placed the whole debate in a larger context when it questioned the monopoly of five rich nations to monopolise the nuclear weapons technology. “The West has always bulldozed all issues according to its wishes but nuclear proliferation is a sensitive issue and cannot be addressed without reining in the European underworld which is actually responsible for the proliferation of dangerous information and material. The role of the NPT regime has to be analysed as a whole and cannot be alienated from the underdeveloped countries which need nuclear technology for development.” Famous columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee in Dawn had a dig on once famous scientist: “This was not done purely for altruistic reasons, but rather for fame and glory, which he has assiduously courted for many years, winning himself bagfuls of gold and baser medals, and being endowed with countless honorary doctorates. There are also said to be some three- dozen projects - schools, commercial centres, hospitals, sports grounds, roads and even graveyards that proudly bear his name. We know with what dexterity President Musharraf has acted in the national interest.” Daily Times questioned the monopoly of the big powers when wrote,” Like it or not, nuclear weapons remain still the currency of power. No state reflects this reality more than the USA, which refused, even after the end of the Cold War, to review its doctrine of first-use of such weapons in case of a conflict. Except for five nuclear-weapon states, declared legitimate NWS under the treaty, every other state was to remain non-nuclear and sign the treaty. All except four — India, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba.” Times also pointed out, “ The point really is that proliferation cannot be checked effectively until the norm against it is applied globally and then wedded to legal and coercive measures to put down those actors — state or non-state — that might seek such technologies to create mischief.” Shafaqt Munir in the News [Jang] drew attention to poverty and the bomb. “In the eyes of many Dr Qadeer has emerged as an even greater hero because he agreed to be the fall guy or in other words took the entire blame on his shoulders to save the nation. And if you say what about all the money he has made, people say it doesn’t matter. Everyone is a crook in this country, goes the argument, so what is wrong if he the creator of our nuclear bomb made something on the side. This ‘something’ is many, many millions of dollars but idols are made of Teflon. Nothing sticks. We believe that our greatest achievement since independence is the manufacture of this weapon of mass destruction. Other nations are proud of their economic success, of how they have transformed the lives of their people for the better in a generation. We are proud of our bomb even if we continue to live in poverty, filth and disease. To each his own I suppose.” Nation in its comment advised that the government would do well to ponder over the implications of President Bush’s remarks regarding proliferation made in his address at the Fort McNair National Defence University. According to him proliferation poses direct threat to the security of the USA as groups of terrorists could acquire weapons of mass destruction to create even greater devastation than the one effected on 9/11. The black market in nuclear designs and components is a source from which the terrorists can gain access to lethal weapons.” Nation found these warnings serious which needed to be debated. |
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Beijing, February 15
BEVERLY HILLS: