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Put own house in order first, Pervez tells UK
US Congress okays sale of 2 old F-16s
to Pak
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Foreign students with papers can stay: Shujaat
UK team in Brazil to discuss compensation issue
1 held for racist attack in London
Saudi govt gagging reform drive, fears rights group
Police, students clash in Kathmandu
Astronauts begin second spacewalk
20 bodies dumped in Baghdad
5 army men held for rape in PoK
Pak bans import of Indian films
Japanese lawmaker hangs himself
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Put own house in order first, Pervez tells UK
London, August 1 "Many people around the world find it convenient to leave their countries and go to Britain, which they regard as a safe haven as it wants to project itself as a champion of human rights," President Musharraf told the Sunday Times. "They should have been doing what they have been demanding of us to do — to ban extremist groups like they asked us to do here in Pakistan and which I have done," he said. Musharraf said Britain should have banned Al-Muhajiroun and Hizb ul-Tahrir — groups that he accuses of preaching anger and hatred and of calling for his own assassination. "They could have banned these two groups. Good action is when you foresee the future and pre-empt and act beforehand, instead of reacting as in the case of Britain — which waited for the damage to be done and is now reacting to it," he said. Musharraf, an ally of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the war on terror, took "strong exception" to accusations levelled against Pakistan since it emerged that at least two of the July 7 bombers had visited the country for several weeks up to February this year. One of them, Shehzad Tanweer, from the Leeds suburb of Beeston, is said by relatives in Pakistan to have spent time there with militants from the banned extremist Jaish-e-Mohammed organization. Blair has intensified pressure on Mr Musharraf to clamp down on militant training camps and radical madarsas. The Pakistan President announced last week that all 1,400 foreign students at Islamic schools in Pakistan would be made to leave. Musharraf said while he had already implemented sweeping measures, much remained to be done in Britain. "But now they have to reconsider and take action against these groups," he said. Condemning the London bombers as "people who needed to be eliminated", the Pakistan President bristled at suggestions that the outrage might have been masterminded from Pakistan because three of the bombers were British nationals of Pakistani parentage. "They came on their British passports — what do you expect us to do? Prevent British passport holders from entering? “Intelligence services were till trying to verify whether one of the bombers had attended a madarsa in Pakistan: "If he has gone to a madrasa we will take action against that madarsa," Musharraf said. He said Pakistani investigators were using phone records provided by London to interview everyone in the country whom two of the bombers had called from Britain.
— PTI |
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US Congress okays sale of 2 old F-16s
to Pak
Washington, August 1 "They (Bush administration officials) didn't want to start moving F-16s to Pakistan until after the Indian Prime Minister had come and gone," The News quoted the unidentified Congressional source as saying. He further said announcing the decision just before the August recess was aimed at "blunting any backlash among the friends of India in the Congress". According to the paper, earlier, the White House had announced the plans to sell F-16s to Pakistan in March, but offered few details about the number of fighters and specifications. The US administration officials reportedly said the policy change on the planes reflected Islamabad's role in helping the United States in the region after the 9/11 attacks. The single engine, multi-role F-16 is built by Lockheed Martin Corporation. Pakistan's planned purchases would boost its fleet of about 32 F-16s acquired before the US Congress cut off sales in 1990 over Islamabad's nuclear programme.
— ANI |
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Foreign students with papers can stay: Shujaat
Lahore, August 1 Talking to reporters at his residence on Sunday, he said such students would be allowed to complete their studies in Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf had asked all foreign students — estimated at 1,400 — studying in madarsaas to leave Pakistan. Chaudhry Shujaat said he would take up the matter with the President and the Prime Minister to get it resolved. He said madarsaas should register with the government in their own interest. Answering a question, he said no foreign student of any madarsaa had been given military training. He told a questioner that PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto could come to Pakistan at the time of her own choice. However, he said, the Sharifs were living in exile as a result of an agreement under which they had left the country. At the expiration of the agreement period, the PML leader said, the Sharifs would be free to return to Pakistan. He said passport would not be an important issue at that time. Replying to another question, the former Prime Minister said the government could produce the exile agreement reached with the Sharifs if the Supreme Court asked it to do so. NO SOLUTION: Chaudhry Shujaat said expelling foreign students was no solution to the problem. He said President Musharraf’s statement pertaining to madarsaas was misinterpreted and added that he would meet the President in this regard, adds PPI. The PML chief said foreign students had taken admissions to madarsaas here because of their high quality inexpensive education. These students came from African states and other poor countries, he added. In reply to a question regarding talks with the opposition, Mr Shujaat said he was ready to meet anyone in the greater interest of the country. |
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UK team in Brazil to discuss compensation issue
Sao Paulo, August 1 De Menezes, 27, was killed on July 22 after British police followed the electrician from a London address they had been watching in connection with four failed suicide bomb attacks the day before. Apparently fearing he was a terrorist carrying explosives, officers cornered the Brazilian inside a subway train and shot him eight times at close range, seven times in the head. He was buried in Gonzaga on Friday in a ceremony that attracted an estimated 10,000 people and was marked by anti-British protests. The arrival of the British delegation yesterday could not be confirmed with the Brazilian Ministry of Foriegn Affairs. — AFP
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1 held for racist attack in London
London, August 1 The 18-year-old student, Anthony Walker, was left with the axe embedded in his skull in the “vicious and unprovoked” assault near his home in Liverpool on Friday night, in a shocking case in multi-cultural Britain. “Merseyside police has arrested a 17-year-old man from Huyton in connection with the death of Anthony Walker. He has been taken in a Merseyside police station where he will be questioned,” the announcement said. An 18-year-old had earlier been arrested in connection with the case, but he was released on bail pending further enquiry, the police said. The dead man, who had hoped to train as a lawyer, was attacked by a group of three or four men after spending the evening at home with his girlfriend, who is white, police said. “What we are dealing with here is a vicious and unprovoked attack on a young black man which we believe to be racially motivated,” said the region’s deputy police chief Bernard Lawson after the attack.
— AFP |
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Saudi govt gagging reform drive, fears rights group
Human rights activists are concerned that the confirmation of harsh prison sentences for three Saudi reformers will “chill” the reform movement in the kingdom.
A general court in Riyadh had sentenced Ali al-Dumaini, Matruk al-Falih and Abdullah al-Hamid on May 15 to prison terms of between six and nine years after they attempted to circulate a petition calling for a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia. On July 23, an appellate court in Riyadh informed the legal representatives for the three men of its decision to uphold the sentences. The men can only be set free by a royal pardon. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch, said the Saudi judges “seem unable or unwilling to protect Saudi citizens from arbitrary detention when they try to exercise basic rights like free speech”. “Instead, they have backed the government’s relentless repression of all peaceful political criticism,” she said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice referred to the three jailed reformers in a speech in Cairo in June. Ms Rice told an audience at American University in the Egyptian capital that many people in Saudi Arabia “pay an unfair price for exercising their basic rights. Three individuals in particular are currently imprisoned for peacefully petitioning their government. That should not be a crime in any country”. The three men were among 12 petitioners arrested in March, 2004. Saudi security forces purportedly pressured the detainees to sign a pledge to stop all future political petition activity in return for their release. The government released the nine detainees who signed the pledge. Human rights activists say none of the charges against the three men is codified as a punishable offense under Saudi law, which follows Islamic law, or Shariah. “The government is relying on vaguely defined offenses that it can apply arbitrarily to silence citizens critical of the government,” Ms Whitson said. In addition to prosecuting the men on charges that had no legal basis, the government denied the men basic due process rights, the Human Rights Watch said. The court refused to grant the men their request for a public trial, insisting on holding all sessions on camera. The general court judge also denied the men access to counsel of their choice. The judge imprisoned the lead lawyer, Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, in November, 2004 after he spoke on television about the case. He remains in jail without charge, according to the rights group. The State Department has warned US citizens of ongoing security concerns in Saudi Arabia due to terrorist activity in the kingdom. Non-emergency employees at the US Embassy in Riyadh and consulates general in Jeddah and Dhahran, and all their dependents, were ordered to leave the country on April 15, 2004. Earlier this year, a senior Saudi official suggested the kingdom would move toward a constitutional monarchy. Saudi Arabia is a society in “flux,” said Thomas Lippman, adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. “There has been some movement toward more popular participation in a sort of national dialogue, but there has been no change — and none is imminent or likely — in the basic facts of power.” |
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Police, students clash in Kathmandu
Kathmandu, August 1 The clash occurred after the police intervened during a demonstration by students protesting the detention of their leaders, including former Nepal Students Union general secretary Gagan Thapa. The police used batons to disperse a group of stone-pelting students on the Shankar Dev Campus in Putalisadak here which left six of them injured. The agitating students shouted slogans against the King and the Royal Commission for Corruption Control. The students also displayed black flag in colleges across the country as part of their agitation programme. Meanwhile, six pro-democracy student leaders were jailed on the charges of burning school textbooks carrying pictures of King Gyanendra and shouting anti-King slogans. The six were summoned by the Kathmandu district administration on Sunday and offered bail. However, they refused to pay for the bail money. Thapa, who has been arrested for shouting anti-King slogans during a pro-democracy rally here, was interrogated by the office of the Kathmandu District Attorney yesterday. “If the King wants to be active in politics he should also be ready to face any criticism,” Thapa said during interrogation, according to student sources. The administration has decided to keep him in custody for another seven days to carry out investigations. Amnesty International has declared him prisoner of conscience and asked the government to ensure his safety and early release.
— PTI |
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Astronauts begin second spacewalk
Houston, August 1 Donning bulky space suits, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi and American Steve Robinson moved into Discovery’s airlock and switched on their autonomous electrical batteries, a procedure that formally marked the beginning of the walk at 2.12 pm. As opposed to Saturday’s walk when the astronauts juggled several tasks, the main purpose of their excursion today is to replace the gyroscope, one of four devices that help keep the station in predetermined orbit. In a slight adjustment to the programme, Noguchi and Robinson will also test the exit hatch after they move into the cargo bay. The change was prompted by some “difficulties” the astronauts experienced while closing the hatch after their spacewalk on Saturday, according to US space officials.
— AFP
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20 bodies dumped in Baghdad
Baghdad, August 1 The source said witnesses told the police they saw a truck dump the bodies near a school in the Om
al-Ma’alif area in south west Baghdad. Many bodies have been discovered in similar circumstances over the past few months in killings that have fueled sectarian tensions.
— Reuters |
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5 army men held for rape in PoK
Islamabad, August 1 The police, which had refused to register the case for two weeks initially, succumbed to pressure after mass demonstrations by local people and human rights activists against the “indifferent attitude” of the authorities. Three army officials had allegedly raped a woman at a village about 60 km from Muzaffarabad when she had gone to collect firewood from the jungles. The police was reluctant to register a case. But mass demonstrations and vociferous protests forced the police to register a case against five army
officials.
— UNI |
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Pak bans import of Indian films
Islamabad, August 1 A list of 30 banned items under the government’s Import Policy Order of 2005 also included translation of Koran books from India without the Arabic text. The new order banned any “cinematograph film wholly or partly exposed or developed in any Pakistani or Indian language, with or without a sound track and depicting Pakistani or Indian way of living either silent or dubbed, or in which leading roles have been played by Pakistani or Indian actors or actresses.” The government’s move has already been explained by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to a delegation of Pakistani film makers when they met him recently urging the government to re-examine the policy of banning Indian films from being screened in Pakistan. The ban had adversely affected theatre owners, who incurred heavy losses and started converting the buildings into shopping malls.
— PTI |
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Japanese lawmaker hangs himself
Tokyo, August 1 Yoji Nagaoka, 54, a
former elite bureaucrat who was in his second term in parliament, committed suicide at his home in Tokyo, a police official said, while declining to comment on the motive. Nagaoka was part of a faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) opposed to Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi.— AFP
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Kathmandu, August 1
