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New PM’s message positive, says Pervez Window on Pakistan Six top militants arrested 2 US soldiers killed near Falluja
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Rocket attack on security forces Head scarf costs woman Harry Potter chains film buffs Two Indians win fellowship
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New PM’s message positive, says Pervez Islamabad, May 24 “I had a 20 minute-long telephone talk with Manmohan Singh. I am very glad, it was an extremely positive message that he gave me. He showed complete desire to resolve all disputes with Pakistan and to have an excellent relationship with Pakistan. We reciprocate that feeling and I did,” he said. “I will also speak to Sonia Gandhi soon. This is the way forward. We want to resolve our disputes Insha Allah (god willing) and the core issue is Kashmir of course and we must resolve it,” he said, while interacting with students participating in a government-sponsored anti-extremism convention here. Musharraf made the comments while narrating the dangers Pakistan faced due to wider perception of the outside world that the country promoted terrorism and that the perception included that Kashmir “freedom struggle” was terrorism. “The perception is wrong. Freedom struggle is going on there (Kashmir). That freedom struggle has its own indigenous character. But peace is required between India and Pakistan and we are going for that. I do not want to go into details,” he said before referring to his conversations with Mr Singh.
— PTI |
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Window
on Pakistan Those in the Pakistani media, who strongly believe that democracy means economic and social justice and development, have got a chance to laud the Indian experience and urge for a similar dispensation for their country. Ayaz Amir, the best-known columnist wrote in Dawn: “Pakistanis can be forgiven for thinking that the whole purpose of holding the Indian elections was to heap scorn on Pakistan. There was nothing unusual about Atal Bihari Vajpayee conceding defeat when it became obvious that his party was trailing the Congress. This is what happens in every parliamentary democracy and this was not the first time it was happening in India.” Amir who hails from Jhelum did not forget to call Manmohan Singh as ‘the honoured son of Chakwal’ and reminded his countrymen in his usual sarcastic manner, “But for Pakistanis this normal exercise was thoroughly amazing. Conditioned to the marvels of military rule, the idea of a peaceful transfer of power after an election, no one crying foul and everyone accepting the result, seemed so alien and unbelievable. They were not slow to express their wonder. As if this first shock to Pakistani sensibilities wasn’t enough, a second was administered when Mrs Sonia Gandhi declined the prime ministership, passing the mantle instead to Manmohan Singh. Consider the grace and dignity Mrs Sonia Gandhi has shown. Consider her measured words, no empty rhetoric (Ms Bhutto please note), and no verbosity. Compare this with the desire for eternal power evident in Islamabad and it is tempting to conclude that the Pakistani political class and leadership are simply incapable of getting it right about the country’s affairs.” He advised Gen Musharraf “who thinks he is saving Pakistan to have a bit of Sonian renunciation, or call it Sonian wisdom, should do him a world of good.” Weekly Independent from Lahore dilating on the Indian elections thought the two countries would continue to make moves for peace and something better could be expected. Why Congress won and BJP lost, it wrote: “The victory of Sonia Gandhi should not come as a surprise to the BJP leaders because she gained where they failed. For example, in Gujarat the BJP used to win 26 seats where it lost 13 to the Congress in these elections because of its role in the racial violence in which scores of Muslims were killed. The BJP lost the polls due to its racist policies. It failed to come up to the people’s expectations. However, there is a lesson for Pakistanis to learn from these elections, the very fact that Vajpayee submitted his resignation when he saw that the NDA Alliance he led did not secure majority in the Lok Sabha speaks volumes about the maturity of the Indian political system.” Daily Times wrote in a similar vein: “A nation of a billion people chucked out a government that, at least according to the excitable Indian media, was going from strength to strength under the wise leadership of Mr Vajpayee. How did this hyped edifice crumble like a house of cards? This question will be debated for some time to come. But the initial reaction in some quarters, including in our country, is to interpret this as people’s verdict against the economic policies of the outgoing government. The argument runs that economic reform benefited the middle class and the rich and that the poor were left out. The poor, therefore, have hit back by throwing out the government. This is plain nonsense.” Daily Times gave different reasons, “Those who interpret the pro-Congress vote as anti-reform vote forget that the real architect of reform in India was not the BJP but the Congress government of the late 1980s. They forget that it was Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister who began the long process of unshackling India from the license raj. India’s economic liberalisation happened under his tutelage. The trouble was that the BJP tried to claim too much. The strident hyperbole about 10 per cent GDP growth and ‘India Shining’ was overplayed. Sane voices in India that questioned the tall claims were drowned out in the self-congratulatory din of BJP stalwarts and the over-zealous media. Voters knew that there were still many large and dark crevices under ‘India Shining’ and they found the gloss distasteful.” |
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Six top militants arrested Karachi, May 24 The militants — members of a group known as Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami — were captured at a house in a congested low-income neighbourhood of southern Karachi and a large quantity of weapons were seized, a police statement said. “The terrorists started firing at the police and hurled a hand grenade which did not explode,’’ it said. The police returned fire and forced the militants to surrender after firing teargas into the house. The statement described the militants as ‘’highly trained and dangerous’’. The police has blamed Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami for a spate of high-profile attacks in Karachi, including a June 2002 suicide bombing outside the US Consulate that killed 12 Pakistanis. Last October, three of its members were sentenced to 10 years in jail for taking part in a plot to blow up Musharraf’s motorcade in April 2002.
— Reuters |
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2 US soldiers killed near Falluja Baghdad, May 24 ''Reports indicate the device was placed in a parked vehicle and detonated as two US convoys passed on the highway," the statement said. The US military also reported that four soldiers were wounded by roadside bombs and four others by mortar attacks on a military facility in Baghdad yesterday.
— AFP |
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Abuse by US military due to frustration Washington, May 24 At the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, “the worst human qualities and behaviour came to the fore” in an atmosphere of “danger, promiscuity and negativity” within a closed environment, the report by an Air Force psychiatrist, Col Henry Nelson, who studied the episode for the US Army said. The report was published by The Washington Post, which said it was provided the unclassified report, which has been appended to Army Major-General Antonio M. Taguba’s 2,000-page analysis of the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. It is based on a review of thousands of pages of interview transcripts and other documents the Pentagon has not released. Besides training lapses, the report said the soldiers’ unfamiliarity with Islamic culture, their pervasive sense of danger and the indefinite nature of their tenure were factors that wore them down. “Abuse with sexual themes occurred and was witnessed, condoned and photographed but never reported,” he wrote Col Nelson’s report, the Post points out, “is at odds with recent Congressional testimony by top Army and military intelligence officials that the prison abuse involved only low-ranking soldiers and was not known by more senior officers. On August 23, Col Nelson wrote, an intelligence officer “kicked and beat a passive, culled detainee who was suspected of mortaring Abu Ghraib.” The incident, he asserts, “was witnessed by officers and NCOs (senior enlisted officers) alike”. Military officials have generally described the abuses as a function of “aberrant behaviour” and weak leadership within the military police units stationed at the prison rather than as a result of orders passed down the military chain of command. Col Nelson’s study suggests that the abuses were “wanton acts of select soldiers in an unsupervised and dangerous setting.” In highlighting psychological and cultural factors underlying the abuses, Col Nelson noted that soldiers sent to Iraq were immersed in Islamic culture for the first time and said “there is an association of Muslims with terrorism” that contributed to misperceptions, fear and “a devaluation of a people.” Col Nelson describes the climate at Abu Ghraib as grim and the living conditions as “deplorable” and dangerous, a circumstance that he said provoked some of the US soldiers’ anger and hostility towards their prisoners. The prison, he says, was “lacking most of the amenities at other camps.” The prison has “both depressive and anxiety-laden elements that would grind down even the most motivated soldier and lead to anger and possible lack of control. “It is important to remember dominance in and of itself is not improper. In fact, interrogators knowingly dominate their subjects and sometimes intimidate their subjects. But, clearly, behaviour at Abu Ghraib crossed the line.”
— PTI |
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Rocket attack on security forces Kabul, MAY 24 He declined to say whether they were injured or
killed.” There was an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) vehicle involved. I am not able to say their nationalities,” he added, declining to give further details. A peacekeeper was wounded earlier this month in a rocket
attack on a base used by ISAF. A Canadian and British peacekeeper were killed in separate suicide attacks in Kabul in
January. — Reuters |
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Head scarf costs woman Disney job Orlando (Florida), May 24 “To stop you from working for
practicing your religion doesn’t seem right to me,” Aicha Baha said yesterday, several days after her civil-rights suit was served on the company. “There is a family here that is almost out on the street because of Disney.” Disney policy generally prohibits any headwear but Disney-issued hats and visors. Disney spokeswoman Veronica Clemons said exceptions to the dress code for religious reasons are made on a case-by-case basis. “We do have cast members who have attire significant to their religions,” she said. Disney policy prohibits discussion of lawsuits, she told the Orlando Sentinel. Baha, 32, worked at Walt Disney World from 1997 until mid-August 2002 and wore uniforms in her jobs as a part-time bellhop and a full-time sales clerk at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, according to interviews and the lawsuit she filed last week in federal court in Orlando. She started wearing a hijab after taking maternity leave in 2002. She said her faith grew during that time. “It wasn’t something just for fun,” she said. “It’s like God is asking you to do it.” Disney fired her from the part-time post because she refused to remove the scarf, the suit says.
— AP |
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Harry Potter chains film buffs
Inside the hall, an enthusiastic audience cheered the young trio and eight other cast members brought out on stage before the screening,. The third film of fantasy book series written by J.K. Rowling is a briskly paced movie that deals with sophisticated themes . |
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Two Indians win fellowship New York, May 24 Mr.Vijay Seshadri, a poet and Mr. Manil Suri, a mathematician-turned-novelist, were among 185 artists, scholars and scientists from across North America who participated in the foundation’s competitions, offering a total money of $ 6.9 m , according to a news release here. Mr. Seshadri is a professor and director of the Graduate Nonfiction Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College while Mr. Suri, teaches mathematics at the University of Maryland. He is the author of an acclaimed novel ‘’The Death of Vishnu’’. The news release said Guggenheim Fellows are declared on the basis of laudable achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment
— UNI |
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