 |
|
Man being quizzed for lead to
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manmohan had great strength of mind: teacher
Left, Right complicate Indo-US ties
Tamil Tigers training Nepal’s Maoists: report
Pak intelligence opposes visits of religious tourists
|
|
Man being quizzed for lead to
London blasts
Peshawar, July 9 In subsequent interrogation, he said he was a British national and that he was suspected of involvement in a failed plot to bomb pubs, restaurants and rail stations in London. Mr Siddique, 25, from Heston Hounslow, Theville, London, has revealed little as, according to investigators, he works himself into a fit to avoid interrogation but what he did say prompted the security agency to dig deeper into his past, an official investigating the case told The Dawn. Investigators are focusing on a note in which Mr Siddique states that one of his comrades was unwilling to proceed further while another had informed him that ‘wagon’ had now been called off. The reference to ‘wagon’ has prompted security officials to take a fresh look at the whole case with particular reference to the bombings in London that has left scores of people dead and hundreds others wounded. “It is still premature to say anything. But we believe that the guy is holding back a lot of information,” said one investigator. During the course of initial interrogation, the suspect had blamed Muhammad Junaid Babar and Omar Khayyam for falsely implicating him in the foiled bombing plot in London. Junaid Babar, 30, a naturalised Pakistani-American from Queensborough, New York, was arrested by the NYPD/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in April 2004 while he was on way to a taxi driving school in Long Island. Babar, who had reportedly first caught the attention of the FBI after his anti-US interview to a Western television channel in Pakistan following the 9/11 attacks, had admitted before a federal judge in New York of being an Al Qaida sleeper in the United States. He also owned up to smuggling money and military supplies to a senior Al Qaida member in Pakistan, setting up a Jihad camp in South Waziristan and assisting in a bombing plot in the United Kingdom. Officials said that Babar had not only admitted to having visited Shakai, hitherto a bastion of militants in South Waziristan, but also having met Zeeshan Siddique there. Official sources said that the US and British security agencies were taking keen interest in Siddique and appear to have a great deal of information about him. Lately, they say, the British have been requesting for his immediate deportation. |
|
Manmohan had great strength of mind: teacher
Oxford, July 9 In his tribute to the Prime Minister, the warden, while going down memory lane to Manmohan's days here in the 1960s, said he had done some research into college archives to find a certificate from noted economist Joan Robinson, from Singh's days at Cambridge, from where he did his graduation. In that letter Robinson, a contemporary of Milton Keynes, wrote about Singh at that time having a "good head for theory but one who kept his head firmly on the ground". "He had great strength of mind and a determined resistance to bunkum of all kind," Robinson wrote of Singh then. The college lunch took place after Manmohan Singh was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University at a ceremony at the centuries-old Convocation House.
— IANS |
|
Left, Right complicate Indo-US ties
Vociferous protests from Indian communists against rejuvenated defence cooperation between New Delhi and Washington need to be dealt with by both the administrations if they want to push ahead with their relationship. While in Washington last month, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed a 10-year agreement with U.S. Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. In a statement issued after the meeting, the two sides noted they were “transforming our relationship to reflect our common principles and shared national interests”. The Left parties in India are concerned that India will end up playing “second fiddle” to the United States. “There is a great deal of suspicion of the U.S.A. among communists in the government”, said Walter Andersen, associate director of the South Asia studies programme at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “Within the bureaucracy and among intellectuals you have quite a few people who are wedded to the old view that the U.S. is a problem”, he said admitting that in Washington too “we have a lot of old Cold War people around”. The problem is not restricted to the Left, however. On the far Right, groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Mr. Andersen said, believe the U.S. represents a cultural threat. Sometimes these suspicions seep into the geo-strategic sphere. In a statement protesting growing defence ties between India and the U.S.A, the Communist Party of India-Marxist cited an “unstated” understanding of the “U.S. aim of containment of China using India as a counter-weight”. Some in the Bush administration, a majority of them in the Pentagon, are extremely concerned about a Chinese military buildup. This buildup, Mr. Andersen said, is “partly responsible” for recent statements from senior Bush administration officials promising to make India a major world power in the 21st century. Dana R. Dillon, a senior policy analyst in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, said in a recent lecture that the U.S.-India relationship was valuable for its own sake and, in the Indian view, “should not be thought of as an anti-Chinese alliance”. “Beijing fears an American containment strategy with India as its South Asian cornerstone,” he said, adding, an American strategy that openly attempted to use India to balance China would be counterproductive to the development of U.S.-India relations. For India, outright confrontation with China would be expensive and pointless as long as China can be convinced to cooperate on key Indian interests such as border dispute resolutions, nuclear and missile proliferation with Pakistan, and Islamic terrorism, he said. For the United States, policy should focus on building India’s economic competitiveness, its military capability, and its international standing in forums such as the United Nations to counter growing Chinese hegemony if necessary. “Both the Indians and Americans have an interest in a peaceful, non-threatening China, and both need to take careful, sophisticated measures to move China in that direction while at the same time preparing for other contingencies”, said Mr. Dillon. “It is in the U.S. advantage to ensure a strong India for a balance of power in Asia”, said Mr. Andersen. “That has always been the case. But India is also opening up - there is more trade and investment that is attracting Americans. India has influence in what is a very unstable part of the world. It is to our advantage to have a country which is strong and more stabilized”, he said.
|
|
Tamil Tigers training Nepal’s Maoists: report
Kathmandu, July 9 In its Friday edition, the South Asia Tribune, an ezine — magazine published on the Internet — from Washington said the Lankan rebels were teaching Nepalese outlaws to form human bomb squads for suicidal missions. The Tigers are said to be running a training camp in Narkatiaganj and Ghorasahan in Bihar near Nepal's border. "Women and teenage boys and girls were being recruited for these squads. "They also carry cyanide capsules with them," the report said. The report is said to be based on an interview taken in New Delhi with a Maoist leader. Though the report did not name the leader, who was described as having come to the Indian Capital from Purnea in Bihar, other media reports speculated whether it was Baburam Bhattarai, once the second-in-command of the Maoists, who visited New Delhi in May and met Indian politicians as well as Nepalese political leaders. The LTTE, also known as Tamil Tigers, and prominent Indian separatist group United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) were present as special invitees. The secret meeting reportedly decided the Tigers would provide full support to the Indian and Nepalese Maoists and Indian Maoists would provide shelter and training camps to Nepal's Maoists. "Tamil Tigers have formed four Human Bomb Dalams (squads) of women," the report said. "Each dalam has 20 women. Similarly, 12 dalams of the suicidal squads have been formed. Each dalam has 40 young boys and girls. Indian and Nepalese Maoists are being jointly trained in this camp." The report also says French trainers are providing training to Nepalese rebels in the Indian state of Uttaranchal, in districts like Tanakpur, Pithoragarh and Bageshwar. The report also said the Maoist leader admitted that Nepal's rebels had joined hands with the Indian outlaws to attack a police station and two state-owned banks in Bihar last month, in which at least 21 persons were killed. However, the Maoists' top leadership had issued a statement soon after such reports, denying any involvement in the raid. — IANS
|
|
Pak intelligence opposes visits of religious tourists
Islamabad, July 9 Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf had proposed to allow tourists from India to visit ancient Hindu temples in the country as part of the various confidence building measures between the two countries. The agencies protested the proposed move which came up at a Tourism Ministry meeting last month, a media report said quoting an intelligence official. They said opening the country to religious tourists from India would undermine the two-nation theory which formed the basis of the creation of Pakistan. Due to their ‘’unexpected’’ objections the meeting had to be adjourned. General Musharraf had approved the summary prepared by the Tourism Ministry on the subject which said the move would earn foreign exchange.
— UNI |
|
8-year-old Pak boy weds
4-year-old girl!
Lahore, July 9 The local police are yet to confirm the marriage, but say that once the marriage is proved, legal action will be taken against both families and the Nikah Registrar. Though the families of the `bride' and `groom' denied occurrence of the marriage, one of the relatives from the boy's side confirmed it, saying that such marriages take place to avoid problems of choosing a life partner at a later stage when the kids attain marriageable age. According to him, on many occasions, when children grow up, they want to select partners of their own choice, but their parents force them to abide by their customs. — ANI |
|
| 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 | |
