 |
|
Republican convention
opens, lauds Bush
Indian envoy meets Pak Foreign Secy
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hate crimes against minority students surge in USA
Blast in Pakistan leaves 3 dead
Clerics guide
Iraqi opinion: poll
|
|
Republican convention
opens, lauds Bush
New York, August 31 “We are engaged in a hard struggle against a cruel and determined adversary. Our enemies have made clear the danger they pose to our security and to the very essence of our culture - ,” Arizona Senator John McCain told thousands of Republicans, who repeatedly interrupted his speech with cheers and standing ovation late last night. Lauding the President’s response to the September 11 attacks, McCain, a former rival to Bush, told the four-day convention, being held amid tight security just a few km from Ground Zero - where the 9/11 attacks toppled the World Trade Centre, that only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of war on terror. Urging the Americans to give four more years to Bush, he said the “President has been tested and has risen to the most important challenge of our times and I salute him.” McCain’s support is very important for Bush as he was prisoner of war for five years during Vietnam war and carries a lot of influence with army veterans. But he did not criticise Bush’s opponent Kerry, who had also fought war in Vietnam. One of the strongest criticism of Kerry came from lawmaker Dennis Hastert who questioned the Democratic challenger’s stance on both economy and war on Iraq. “This is no time to pick a leader who is weak on the war and wrong on taxes. George W. Bush is a strong leader with the right vision for America,” he said. Rudy Giuliani, former New York Mayor, put up a strong defence for Bush, saying he has the qualities of a great leader, including strong beliefs and the ability to stick with them through popular and unpopular times. Painting Kerry as indecisive, Giuliani said “President Bush sees terrorism for the evil that it is.... John Kerry has no such clear, precise and consistent vision.” There was little talk about economy on the opening night of the convention which would end with speech by Bush accepting the nomination on Thursday.
— PTI |
|
Indian envoy meets Pak Foreign Secy
Islamabad, August 31 According to Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan, the meeting was significant as it helped the two sides coordinate their positions on the talks. The Pakistan Foreign Secretary will be in New Delhi on Friday for talks with his Indian counterpart Shyam Saran, a day before the meeting of Foreign Ministers. The two Foreign Secretaries will give final touches to the agenda for the crucial talks. Mr Khan said the two Foreign Secretaries would look into the progress achieved so far on eight outstanding issues, including peace and security, including confidence building measures (CBMs) and Jammu and Kashmir. The spokesman added that his country would carry forward peace process and engage India in the talks to produce good results.
— UNI |
|
Hate crimes against minority students surge in USA
Responding to a surge in hate crimes against minority students at schools across America, a senior US official has sent a letter to the departments of education of all 50 states warning them about these ugly and hateful incidents.
“Specifically,” Assistant Attorney-General R. Alexander Acosta writes, “we have seen ugly and hateful incidents of violence and discrimination directed against Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian students, motivated by religious or national origin intolerance.” The letter, circulated on August 20, prior to the commencement of the new school term, was the culmination of an effort by groups belonging to the affected communities. September 11 will mark the third anniversary of the attacks on the USA. Hate crime statistics have spiralled since that day in 2001. Since September 11, 2001, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division has investigated nearly 600 incidents of violence directed against Arabs, Muslims, South Asians or Sikh-Americans. Over 140 of these incidents have resulted in local or state criminal prosecutions, Mr Acosta noted, adding, nearly 20 have resulted in federal criminal prosecutions. Earlier this month, in a meeting with Mr Acosta, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee President Mary Rose Oakar recommended a letter from the Assistant Attorney-General address the school systems’ obligations to uphold federal and state laws protecting minority students. “Children are harassed based on their perceived connection to terrorism and Osama bin Laden,” Preetmohan Singh, Director of the Washington-based Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force, said in an interview. The issue with teachers is that many a time they are not aware what happens during the lunch break or before and after school is in session, Mr Singh explained. Larger class sizes also often contribute to the teacher not being aware of such incidents. In a visit to the Islamic Centre of Washington after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush said: “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behaviour.” |
|
Blast in Pakistan leaves 3 dead
Islamabad, August 31 A top bureaucrat of the province, Mr Abdul Rauf told the local TV channels that the blast took place at a shop in the Shahi bazaar area of Kalat and the dead included the shop-owner. The blast was seen as a part of violence and civic unrest being experienced by the Baluchistan province, bordering Iran and Afghanistan, which the Baluch nationalist leaders blamed on continued neglect of the province by the federal government. The violence increased in recent weeks with the provincial capital, Quetta, experiencing eight explosions on Pakistan’s Independence Day.
— PTI |
|
Clerics guide Iraqi opinion: poll
Ayatollah Ali-Al Sistani, a Shi’ite cleric who halted the three-week-long fighting in Najaf, is the most popular public figure in Iraq, according to a poll which shows a deep undercurrent of respect for religious parties and religious figures ahead of the campaigning for elections planned for January.
The poll shows that even before the three-week-long battle for the control of Najaf, Iraq’s most-venerated Shi’ite cleric came just ahead of the leading figures in the interim Iraqi government and well ahead of Mr Muqtada al Sadr, the man he ordered to lay down his arms last Thursday night. Almost 70 per cent of those polled agree with the proposition that Islam and Sharia law should be the “sole basis” of all laws, and 70 per cent say they would prefer a “religious” state compared with 23 per cent who would opt for a secular one. Mr Sadr, a leading figure in the agitation for a US pull-out from Iraq, was nevertheless high up the league table of public figures with 57.19 per cent of the Iraqi public viewing him positively before his gunmen fought a three- week-long battle with the coalition and Iraqi forces in the holy city. The confidential poll, carried out for the International Republican Institute, which is chaired by Senator John McCain and is an offshoot of the US Republican Party, is one of the most comprehensive surveys of the Iraqi public opinion since the fall of Saddam Hussein 16 months ago. It shows that the vast majority of Iraqis see the restoration of electricity supply as their primary concern in relation to the reconstruction of the country, while the biggest group regard crime as the issue affecting them most personally and an ability to maintain “order and stability” the key factor by which they will judge the various political parties. At the heart of the survey carried out at the end of July, which was leaked to the Independent after being shown to several Iraqi political parties and is a snapshot of opinion a month after the handover of sovereignty, is a complex and sometimes contradictory set of attitudes to the role of religion in the future of the country. The Islamic parties Dawa, SCIRI, and the IIP are currently viewed most positively by potential electors and 29 per cent -the biggest single group - see religious figures as making the best candidates in the planned elections, ahead of university academics (24 per cent) party leaders (16 per cent) and dissidents against the former regime (5.25 per cent). Only 4.74 per cent regard a party’s religious ties as a key factor by which it will judge whether to vote for a political party compared with nearly 20 per cent who regard stability and order as the key criterion. Even fewer, 4.52 per cent and 4.28 per cent, respectively, say they will judge a party according to whether it is from their own religious or ethnic group. But despite the reflexive emphasis on the importance of Sharia law, a total of 68 per cent say that they would prefer politicians to be “pragmatic” compared with only 26 per cent who value “principled” politicians most, while 63 per cent would prefer them “modern” to 18 percent “traditional.”
— By arrangement with The Independent, London |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
(
