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Kashmir: Hizb ready to help
Anti-terror bill gets Pak Senate approval
Plant a tree at Easter, says Nobel laureate
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3 reporters get jail in CIA leak case
US soldier found guilty of murdering unarmed Iraqi
US Marine killed in Iraq
19 Maoists killed in Nepal
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Kashmir: Hizb ready to help
Muzaffarabad, December 10 “The Hizb is ready to provide any and every kind of help which would lead to a desired solution of the Kashmir issue,” Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Salahuddin said in an exclusive interview here in the capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir recently, when the Indian journalists visited Pakistan, PoK and the Northern Areas. “We will never hesitate to participate in such a meaningful tripartite conversation, which would precipitate into an honourable and acceptable solution of the Kashmir problem,” he added. Salahuddin said this when asked as to how the Hizb would respond to an offer of talks by the Indian Government to resolve the contentious issue. Asked if his group would announce another ceasefire if the Indian Government offered some concessions, he said, “until and unless India does not display its sincerity and seriousness in addressing the basic and core issue of Kashmir, there seems no logic or merit in kicking off the second truce.” The Pro-Pakistan Hizb had announced unilateral ceasefire on July 24, 2000, but subsequently withdrew on August 8, 2000, after its negotiations with the Centre failed over the outfit’s condition that Pakistan be involved in the dialogue, which was promptly rejected by the government.
— UNI |
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Anti-terror bill gets Pak Senate approval
Islamabad, December 10 Members of the Democratic Alliance and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said existing laws were sufficient to combat terrorism if the executing machinery were made more efficient and voiced fears that the government and police could use it to suppress dissent or to punish innocent people. Several of them also wanted the term “terrorism” to be properly defined to guard against a misuse of the law. Minister of State for Interior Shahzad Waseem and some other members of the treasury benches defended the amendments in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. The minister, winding up the general debate on the bill, acknowledged concern voiced by some opposition members but said stern measures were needed to correct a grave situation. “Both sides must be addressed side by side.” He said mere fears of misuse should not block a necessary law which prompted Deputy Chairman Khalilur Rehman, who presided over the proceedings, to give his own piece of advice to the minister. “Your last point was very important and those who... (misuse the law) should be taken to task,” the chair remarked. Six amendments moved by Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Raza Rabbani, mainly to delete the proposed amendments, were rejected by the ruling coalition majority by a voice vote. The bill enhances both minimum and maximum punishments for several acts of terrorism, besides the original punishment of death or life imprisonment for the death of a victim, limits adjournment of cases and provides for appeals to be decided by special high court benches of at least two judges. |
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Plant a tree at Easter, says Nobel laureate
Oslo, December 10 “If it was a worldwide campaign it would be wonderful, you can imagine the millions of trees that would be planted,” Maathai said in Oslo, where she received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai, a Christian who has led plantings of 30 million trees across Africa to combat deforestation, said an annual tree-planting drive could symbolise revival for all people. She suggested plantings at Easter, when Christians believe that Christ was crucified on a wooden cross. A tree must have been felled to make the cross, she said. Meanwhile, in Nairobi, the 64-year-old veterinary anatomy professor, who accepted the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday, rose to international fame for campaigns against government-backed forest clearances in Kenya in the late 1980s and 1990s. Maathai’s Green Belt Movement, mainly women, have gone on to plant about 30 million trees around Africa -7 million of them in Kenya-in a campaign to slow deforestation and erosion. The movement has spread to about 20 African nations. “She is the incarnation of an Africa getting on its feet again after the colonial times,” author Jostein Gaarder told a ceremony in Norway where Maathai won a prize for work on the environment, justice and human rights earlier this year. Maathai, an imposing figure and a brave, blunt-speaking personality, spent most of the past 20 years going to court to block the clearing of forests by the former government of President Daniel arap Moi, whose KANU party lost power in 2002 elections. She branded the clearances a political ploy that caused irreversible environmental damage. The courts blocked her suits and Green Belt lawyers complained that their cases were dismissed on technical grounds or their files were mysteriously lost. Experts estimate British colonialists and Kenyan farmers have cleared about three-quarters of woodlands in the last 150 years, leaving about two percent of Kenyan land under forest. Green activists say politicians in the former ruling KANU party sold forest land to fund election campaigns or distributed it to win support from local leaders at the polls. KANU tended to dismiss accusations of wrongdoing as troublemaking. In 1989, Maathai’s protests forced Moi, the president at the time, to abandon a plan to erect an office tower in a Nairobi park. In 1999, she was beaten and whipped by guards during a demonstration against the sale of forest land near Nairobi. She has also been tear gassed and clubbed unconscious by the police, and threatened with death by anonymous phone callers. Asked to clarify her comments, she said her remarks were intended to promote an inquiring attitude to AIDS among Africans and combat the fatalistic notion that it was a curse from God.
— Reuters |
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Bianca Jagger wins “Alternative Nobel”
Stockholm, December 10 Russian human rights and civil liberties lobby group Memorial was also awarded the prize along with Argentine environmentalist Raul Montenegro, for his work with indigenous people and conservation of natural resources. The award, founded in 1980, tries to compete with the prestigious Nobel prizes, set up in 1901 by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel who invented
dynamite. The Right Livelihood Award, worth 2.0 million (Swedish crowns $ 297,300 dollar) this year, was set up by Swedish-German philatelist and former European Parliament member Jakob von Uexkull. Von Uexkull found the peace, medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and literature Nobels too academic and narrowly focused on the industrialised world. He set up his alternative prize to recognise efforts to tackle pollution, poverty, human rights abuse and the danger of nuclear war. Joint awards are frequently made. ‘’Bianca Jagger has shown over many years how celebrity can be put at the service of the exploited and disadvantaged,’’ the Right Livelihood Award Foundation said in a statement.
— Reuters |
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3 reporters get jail in CIA leak case
Washington, December 9 The reporters were convicted after refusing US District Court Judge Thomas Hogan’s order to testify, claiming a special privilege for journalists based on their role in providing information to the public. “For me, the central question is, in the USA no reporter should have to go to jail for doing his or her job,” Cooper said. The case involving Miller, Cooper and other journalists is one of several in the USA that have recently revived the issue of whether reporters should be forced to testify in court about information they learn while doing their jobs. “We’re having a spate of investigations of leaks. That’s a problem. Leaks are not as much of a problem as leak investigations,” said Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for Miller, Cooper and Time magazine.
— AFP |
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US soldier found guilty of murdering unarmed Iraqi
Camp Tahreer (Iraq), December 10 Staff Sergent Johnny Horne was convicted of the unpremeditated murder of a severely wounded Iraqi civilian in Baghdad’s deprived Sadr City district on August 18. A pre-trial agreement limits sentencing to 10 years, without which the charge carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The murder of Kassim Hassan took place when the US soldiers spotted a garbage truck apparently dropping homemade bombs in Sadr City, the capital’s most populous Shiite Muslim neighbourhood. The soldiers started shooting at the truck, which caught fire, and a severely wounded Hassan pulled himself out of the truck and fell to the ground, according to previous testimony. “When I found him, I came to the conclusion that he needed to be put out of his misery,” Horne said. “I fired a shot into his head and his attempts to breathe ceased.” Judge Colonel Stphanie Browne asked Horne as to what his intention was when he fired the shot, to which Horne replied: “I wanted to end his suffering, it was my opinion that he could not be helped.” Horne was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder with two other soldiers, Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban and Second Lieutenant Erick Anderson, who have yet to stand trial. — AFP |
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US Marine killed in Iraq
Baghdad, December 10 No further details were immediately available, including exactly where he was killed. Anbar is a vast province containing the battleground cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. The Marine’s name is being withheld pending next-of-kin
notification. — AP |
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19 Maoists killed in Nepal
Kathmandu, December 10 The Himalayan Times said 19 Maoists were killed during the encounter between Maoists and security personnel in the Ramechhape district, about 100 km north-east of Kathmandu.
— UNI |
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