Baghdad, October 15
In unexpected calm, millions of Iraqis voted on Saturday in a referendum on a new constitution that is designed to reshape the country after Saddam Hussein but which many fear may tear it further apart.

Insurgents fought gunbattles with Iraqi and U.S. forces in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, but throughout the capital and much of the rest of the country, voting appeared to go smoothly and securely, with polls set to close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). More than 15.5 million Iraqis were eligible to vote in the referendum, which asked them to say “Yes” or “No” to a new draft constitution proposed by parliament, a body dominated by Shi’ite Muslims and ethnic Kurds. Most Sunni Arabs shunned the ballot in January that elected the assembly.

Many Sunnis were turning out this time, however. Sunni insurgents threatened to attack the vote, but while mortars landed near a polling station in Baghdad, and several roadside bombs went off around the city and elsewhere, there was much less violence than the U.S. military said might be possible. It was in marked contrast to the elections in January, when guerrillas carried out more than a hundred attacks on the day, including suicide bombings, killing at least 40 persons.

The run-up to the referendum saw a deepening of divisions among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, leading some analysts to fear the constitution will reinforce the split between Sunni Arabs on one side and Shi’ites and Kurds on the other.

Most Sunni Arabs, the politically dominant community under Saddam, oppose the constitution, saying it provides too much power and influence to the Shi’ites and Kurds, giving them control over Iraq’s rich oil reserves in the north and south. Others argue the constitution could bring the nation closer together, if more Sunni Arabs can be brought on board. The referendum will pass and the constitution be ratified if most voters say “Yes”, and as long as two thirds of voters in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces do not say “No”. The Electoral Commission said results would take three or four days.

Despite the positive turnout in most places, in the western city of Ramadi, a Sunni Arab bastion, insurgents attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces and very few people went out to vote. The same was true in other rebellious towns in the west, residents said. And in Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city and a flashpoint of insurgent activity in the north, voters were at first scarce as fliers warned people to keep away. Attendance picked up later. The leaflets showed an American Uncle Sam figure looming over a voter depicted as a donkey placing a ballot paper into a voting box that is shown at the bottom to be a meat shredder. “Stay home; Don’t believe in the constitution”, a caption read. — Reuters

Muzaffarabad, October 15
Ms Zarina Bibi has lost all her three children to last week’s killer earthquake, her husband is badly injured, but she will not be moved from a lonely vigil in front of Muzaffarabad’s Women’s Degree College.

The body of her eldest daughter, Zainab Abdullah, lies in the ruins of the college hostel and Bibi is determined to give her a proper Islamic burial.

Until then, Bibi intends staying in a tent in front of the hostel in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, where Zainab’s body lies with those of at least seven other young women.

“Our life is ruined, but I want to give a burial to her, it will give some peace to my heart,” Bibi sobbed, after recounting how she had already buried Zainab’s two younger sisters at the family home at Haddian Bala, 40 km (25 miles) from Muzaffarabad.

Leaving Zainab unburied would be a sin, she said.

“We were proud of her as she was the only girl who reached college in our family,” Bibi said. “But she does not have life to complete her education.”

At least 38,000 people died in Pakistan in the 7.6 magnitude earthquake, according to official estimates released a week after it struck.

Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir bore the brunt and its capital, Muzaffarabad, is devastated.

About 1,300 people died in Indian Kashmir.

Bibi said an army helicopter took her and her husband from their home to a sprawling tented camp and clinic at Muzaffarabad university two days after the quake. Her husband was treated for broken ribs and an injured left shoulder.

Trying to cover her head from heavy rain with a thin woollen blanket, she described how she saw body after body being brought out of the rubble of the university hostel and rescuers said there was no hope that anyone could have survived. — Reuters

Islamabad, October 15
With hundreds of children rendered orphan by last week’s killer quake, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has banned adoptions until a proper policy was put in place to decide their fate.

Until a policy is evolved, the children will not be given for adoption, General Musharraf told a meeting of Federal Relief Commission yesterday.

The Federal Relief Commission meeting was informed that adoptions have been banned for the time being in order to avoid abuse of children who have lost their parents in the earthquake, reports here said.

Pakistan’s Jamait Islami has said that it would oppose any policy to permit foreigners adopting the surviving kids. The party has offered to take responsibility of all children who lost their parents and other relatives during the earthquake.

JI leader Naimatullah Khan told reporters here that his party would strongly oppose any move to hand over these orphans to foreign missionaries and NGOs. “We will not allow the foreign missionaries or NGOs to adopt these children. We will not let foreign missionaries to take these children with them,” he said. — PTI

Muzaffarabad, October 15
The prison’s main building has collapsed, most of the guards have fled and the walls have crumbled. For prisoner Bashir Ahmad, there are no obstacles between him and freedom.

Still, he and two other inmates are living in a makeshift hut amid the rubble of what used to be the region’s main prison, patiently waiting for their jailers to return and put them back behind bars. Two guards share the hut with them, but make no attempt to control their movement.

“Why should I escape when I have only one year left to go?” asked Ahmad, 55, a bearded, heavy-set man who had traded his prison uniform for a waistcoat and a traditional salwar kameez, which he got from a nearby relief camp.

The Central Jail in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, is among thousands of buildings that caved in after the 7.6-magnitude quake ripped through this mountainous region on October 8.

For the most part, the result was what you’d expect: more than 100 of the jail’s 116 prisoners’- nearly all of whom were in the central yard when the quake struck - immediately fled into the streets of the ruined city, where well over 10,000 people are believed to have died. About 10 death row inmates, who were in a special locked ward, were killed when the building collapsed on them.

But Ahmad and two other prisoners - Hidayat Ullah, 50, and Abdul Latif, 58, - stayed. All three were convicted in connection with separate murder cases, and all have just a year left on their sentences.

Nursing injuries from the quake, Ahmad stays in the hut all day, while his two friends wander into the streets to find food and water for themselves and the two guards.

Strange as it is, the system works, the guards say.

“I have seen some prisoners (in Muzaffarabad) doing relief work,” said Mohammed Fayyaz. “Some of them saw me too and promised to come back.”

Forcing them back into prison now would be pointless. “We don’t have any place to keep them,” he said. — AFP