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179 Muslims detained in China
50 detained for B’desh blasts
Musharraf faces test in civic poll
US deports two Pakistanis for running seminary
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Mullah Omar man held in Pak
Top cop ordered Brazilian to be taken alive: report
Wind spoils Indonesia’s record flag unfurling bid
‘Doctor Death’ believed to
be in US
India, Russia sign defence agreement
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179 Muslims detained in China
Beijing, August 18 The authorities in the Yili district on China’s north-western border are trying to wipe out the Salar sect as an `evil cult,’ said Dilxat Rait, who advocates for China’s Muslims, in a phone call from Sweden. The local authorities are “fighting the Salar sect and have seized 179 persons, who are still being held,” said Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uighur Congress, which represents China’s Uighurs, another Muslim group. A police official contacted by phone in Yili confirmed that the authorities were fighting “an evil cult” but denied that anyone had been detained. The official, who would give only his surname, Feng, said he did not know the group’s name. According to Rait, the Salar sect was a type of Islam practiced by some Chinese Muslims who are members of the Hui ethnic group and were native to western China. It was not related to the similarly named Salar ethnic group, who were also Muslims, he said. Hui were descendants of Muslim traders from central Asia and members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group who converted to Islam. Raxit described the Salar sect as within the bound of mainstream Islam. “I confess that I don’t know a lot about it but from what I’ve read it follows the rites that any Muslim anywhere would understand,” he said.
— AP |
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50 detained for B’desh blasts
Dhaka, August 18 Roughly 200 home-made bombs exploded on the streets, at courts and near key government buildings in various places across the Islamic nation shortly after Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia left Dhaka yesterday on a five-day visit to China. No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but copies of a leaflet found at the bomb sites carried a call by a banned Islamic group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, for Islamic rule in Bangladesh. The police said they had detained around 50 suspects but was yet to identify the masterminds of the crime. Khaleda has ordered a countrywide crackdown on suspected militants. “We are acting under strict directives from the Home (Interior) Ministry to hunt down those responsible for the bombings. We will spare no efforts,” said a Dhaka metropolitan police officer. Besides calling for Islamic rule in Bangladesh, the leaflet also warned the United States and the Britain against occupation of Muslim nations. In a message from Beijing, Khaleda condemned the bombings as a “heinous, cowardly, conspiratorial and well-planned act of terrorism.” “I want to say that the attackers are enemies of the country, people, peace, humanity and democracy," the official BSS news agency quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
— Reuters |
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Musharraf faces test in civic poll
Islamabad, August 18 Security was high with tens of thousands of troops and police guarding polling stations in the first elections here in almost three years. A homemade bomb exploded near a polling station while clashes between supporters of rival candidates left four dead and 70 others wounded, the police said. Islamists, who traditionally have won only a small share of the vote, are trying to seize seats at the expense of the pro-Musharraf ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, and the two main secular opposition parties. Officially, the elections for district councillors and mayors are being held on a non-party basis to avoid the political violence that has blighted the country in the past, but in practice groups have been openly backing candidates. Hardliners have been enraged by military ruler Musharraf’s crackdown on Islamic extremism and seminaries in the wake of the July 7 London bombings. The homemade bomb exploded in Khuzdar, a town about 400 km south of Quetta, local government administrator Amir Farooqi said. No one was injured. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, which damaged a perimeter wall at a school that was being used as polling station, Farooqi said. Rival supporters of opposing candidates also clashed across the country, leaving four people dead and 70 others wounded, police said. One man was shot to death in Multan, said Mohammed Riaz, an area police official. Another person was killed in the industrial city of Gujranwala, a third man died in Baluchistan, and another death was reported in Daska town in Punjab province.
— AFP, AP |
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US deports two Pakistanis for running seminary
Islamabad, August 18 The sources said that Dr Adil and his son Hassan Adil had been running Madressah-i-Farooqia in California for the past many years. The actual reason for their repatriation could not be ascertained. The two had been living in the USA for over a decade. The sources said that Dr Adil’s father had also been running a seminary in Karachi for several years. At their arrival in Pakistan, both were handed to the Federal Investigation Agency for interrogation. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told Dawn that Dr Adil and his son remained in the custody of the US law enforcement agencies for one year after their visas had expired in 2004. He said the US government had given two options to Dr Adil and his son: they could either face a trial in the US or be repatriated on a voluntarily basis. “They opted for voluntarily repatriation and returned to Pakistan,” the minister said. Meanwhile, the minister said that Yasir, the spokesman for the Taliban leader Mulla Omar, had been arrested. He said Yasir had been picked up from Mardan “in the recent past.” |
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Mullah Omar man held in Pak
Islamabad, August 18 “Yasir was a wanted person in Pakistan,” Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said adding that the militia leader was being interrogated. The Taliban had appointed Yasir as head of the Taliban Information and Culture wing several months ago. Yasir was associated with Afghan jehadi leader Abdurrab Rasool Sayyaf’s Ittehad-e-Islami, but joined the militia after Sayyaf announced support to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
— PTI |
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Top cop ordered Brazilian to be taken alive: report
London, August 18 Metropolitan Police Commander Cressida Dick instructed officers tailing Jean Charles De Menezes, (27), to detain him before he entered a subway station on July 22, the Daily Mirror tabloid reported. Despite the command, a firearms team followed the electrician onto a train at Stockwell station, south London, and shot him dead at point blank range after wrongly suspecting him of being a suicide bomber. The report adds a further twist to a tale of error and misfortune that led to the slaying of de Menezes one day after four would-be bombers tried but failed to repeat the July 7 attacks on subway trains and a bus that killed 56. Documents, leaked on Tuesday, contradicted initial police and witness statements about the chain of events and triggered calls for Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair to resign. “There’s no doubt that Commander Dick did not instruct anyone to shoot De Menezes,” a senior source at Scotland Yard was quoted as telling the Mirror. “The gun team were there as a precaution. It looks as if they didn’t have time to tell them to grab the man, not shoot him dead,” the source said. “The difference between De Menezes living and dying may have been five seconds.” De Menezes’ death, which uncovered a controversial shoot to kill policy adopted by the police, came at a particularly high state of alert in London.
— AFP |
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Wind spoils Indonesia’s record flag unfurling bid
Jakarta, August 18 The flag, 156 metres long, 50 metres wide and weighing 1.3 tonne, was unfurled from the top of a new building in Central Jakarta yesterday but the wind tore the seams apart, the Jakarta Post said. “I guess the cloth and thread aren’t strong enough to handle the high pressure of the wind,” Djan Faridz, director of the property company organising the event, said. The flag, which the company had wanted to register as the world’s largest flag with the Guinness Book of World Records, was reportedly sewn in 89 hours by 24 tailors using 300 bolts of cloth. “We will replace it with a new one within a few days,” Faridz said, adding that more tailors and better quality cloth and thread would be used.
— AFP |
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‘Doctor Death’ believed to
be in US
Sydney, August 18 Patel, dubbed as “Doctor Death”, is facing an inquiry in Australia on why he was allowed to practice freely in Queensland state despite being banned by the US states of New York and Oregon earlier. Dr Geoffrey de Lacy, a surgeon who had examined Patel’s records and performed corrective surgery on at least 100 of his patients, told the panel that a lot of the records were rubbish. “Before I operated, I thought they were slipshod, but now I have operated on them I believe they are untruthful,” he said. Meanwhile, Australian detectives, who are in the US collecting information on Patel, said they believed the elusive doctor was living in Portland, Oregon in US north-west coast.
— PTI |
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India, Russia sign defence agreement
Zhukovsky (Russia), August 18 Director of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation Alexander Denisov said the signing of the agreement was part of a tender on the development of an engine for the Indian HJT-36 trainer. He said re-sale of the aircraft to third parties was one of the main obstacles in the negotiation process, although the two sides eventually found a mutually beneficial solution.
— PTI |
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Waitress gets Porsche as tip
Stockholm, August 18 Justin was waiting tables at the Njuraanger Cafe in Sundsvall in central Sweden when the man, who had recently retired and was dining with a group of gentlemen, asked her age. When she told him, “he said I would get his Porsche as a tip.”
— AFP |
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Michael Jackson fined in abuse case
Miami, August 18 |
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