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Three Britons kidnapped in Gaza
Balochistan, a Bangladesh in the making
NRI doc faces plagiarism charges
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Nepal yet to pay India for military supplies
Pak man says he killed his 4 daughters for ‘honour’
Indian film fest in Israel next year
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Three Britons kidnapped in Gaza
Gaza City, December 29 Witnesses said a group of gunmen snatched a woman, her father and mother, and bundled them into a white Mercedes near the border with Egypt yesterday. A spokesman for the British consulate in east Jerusalem confirmed the kidnappings but without releasing the trio’s identities. However a spokesman for a group called the Al-Mazen human rights centre named the daughter as Kate Burton, 24, from Scotland, saying she worked for them. “We lost contact with her today,” the spokesman told the British Sky News television network. The spokesman said, “we’re not involved in politics, we’re just a human rights organisation.” The spokesman ad local security sources said that it was understood that the kidnappers belonged to a group known as the Black Panthers, an armed offshoot of the mainstream Fatah movement. More than a dozen foreigners, mostly journalists and aid workers, have been abducted in the lawless Palestinian territory this year. —AFP
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News Analysis
On December 14, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf visited Balochistan in his capacity as chief of the armed forces of Pakistan.
The two places he visited — the capital of Balochistan, Quetta, and the oil and gas-rich Baloch-dominated township, Kohlu — made news for the wrong reasons. At both these places, assassination attempts were made on him. General Musharraf wanted his visit to signal to the people of Balochistan that those who were blasting oil and gas installations would be dealt with an iron hand. But he had a foreign constituency also to cater to — the US. Pakistan’s tribal areas, including Balochistan, are under the American intelligence scanner as they believe that Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden is hiding in these regions. Soon after the General’s visit, the Pakistan military forces launched yet another massive operation in Balochistan, targeted at the Marri tribes, who are up in arms against the denial of basic civic amenities even five decades after Pakistan was born. Helicopter gun ships and jet fighters are pounding what Islamabad terms as rebel positions in the area. There is a virtual blackout of news. Unofficial reports put the death toll at over 200. Reports speak of food shortages, spread of diseases, and non- supply of water and electricity in the ‘operations’ zone. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpo declared on December 27 that the government would not relent. “We will not allow anyone to take the law into their own hands”, the minister told the Senate. He left none in doubt that it was an iron fist he was showing, not an olive branch. These remarks came on the very day a general strike was observed in Balochistan. It was obvious that the Federal Government was in no mood for talks. The entire political spectrum of Pakistan has condemned the ongoing operations. Noted human rights activist Asma Jehangir said that using guns was not only violation of the spirit of the federation but also infringement of human rights. Opposition leader Raza Rabbani echoed her views in Pakistan parliament, linking the Balochistan situation to “a crisis of the Federation” with perceived destabilisation in Sindh and Punjab provinces as well. Besides the Marris, the other dominant tribal groups in Balochistan are Bugti, Mengal and Achakzai Pathan. None of them has any say in the administration of the province. A senior Baloch leader, Ataullah Mengal, made an ominous remark the other day that they did not want to leave the Federation but were being pushed out of it. This is the fourth outbreak of violence, officially called rebellion, since the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Phrases like “national movement”, “azadi” and “injustice” are being liberally used by Baloch people. There are frequent references to the similarities between present-day Balochistan and pre-liberation Bangladesh. “Warnings from a Baloch leader similar to what my fellow Bengali journalists gave me in the late sixties of the situation in then East Pakistan now keep reverberating in my ears”, Shamsul Hasan wrote in ‘The Nation’ on December 23, 2005. Balochistan is the largest of the four Pakistan provinces. Density of population is a mere 12 persons per sq km. Around 85 per cent of the population lives in scattered villages, which are not connected by road. The area where the military operations are going on are rich in oil and gas. Within three years of its discovery in 1952, gas started flowing into different areas of Pakistan, particularly Punjab. It reached Quetta, the provincial capital, in 1984, that too to the cantonment area. The total number of gas connections in Balochistan by December 2000 was 112,700 — a number smaller than the total connections in Faisalabad city. Balochistan is demanding a reasonable royalty on oil. Islamabad says a firm no. A strategically important port is coming up at Gwadar with Chinese assistance but it is hardly offering locals any worthwhile jobs. The developments have serious implications for India, which came up with a rather blunt reaction which Pakistan described as an “interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs”. |
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NRI doc faces plagiarism charges
London, December 29 Mr Raj Persaud, famous for his appearances on daytime TV show “This Morning”, is being investigated by a preview panel from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, and the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust after two of his articles were retracted from different publications, media reported today. The latest charge against the doctor, who has nine degrees and was one of the youngest doctors appointed consultant psychiatrist at Bethlem Royal and Maudsley hospitals, relates to a retraction published in last week’s British Medical Journal. “King’s College in London has established formal procedures to investigate the allegations brought. We do not condone plagiarism and take these matters very seriously. One of Mr Persaud’s articles, a review of a biography of social psychologist Stanley Milgram by American academic Thomas Blass, was formally withdrawn “owing to unattributed use of text from other published sources,” ‘The Guardian’ reported today. This followed another retraction in September of his writings in progress in neurology and psychiatry after it appeared that substantial portions were copied from Professor Blass’ work. Mr Persaud told The Guardian his failure to acknowledge his sources in the piece was due to a “cutting and pasting error”. — PTI
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Nepal yet to pay India for military supplies
Kathmandu, December 29 Besides arms and ammunition, India has been providing heavy vehicles, ambulances, helicopters, night-vision and communication equipment etc at the 70 per cent subsidy to help the Nepalese Army fight the Maoist terror. But, the supply of lethal equipment has been discontinued by India along with other major suppliers like the USA and the UK since February 1. The RNA received military supplies worth about $ 111 million from India between 2002 and 2005 and as per agreement Nepal gets around two third subsidy but has to pay one third of the amount.
— PTI
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Pak man says he killed his 4 daughters for ‘honour’
Multan, December 29 The 40-year-old labourer, as he was being shifted to jail, confessed to just one regret - that he didn't murder the stepsister's alleged lover too. Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said yesterday such "honour killings" will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators. Ahmed's killing spree - witnessed by his wife Rehmat Bibi as she cradled their 3 month-old baby son - happened Friday night at their home in the cotton-growing village of Gago Mandi in eastern Punjab province. Bibi recounted how she was woken by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter Muqadas and struck her in the throat with a machete. Bibi looked helplessly on from the corner of the room as he then killed the three girls - Bano (8) Sumaira (7) and Humaira (4)— pausing between the slayings to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm. "I begged my husband to spare my daughters but he said, 'If you make a noise, I will kill you.'" "The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me. I did not have the sense to know what has happened," Bibi said. "I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated," he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven. "We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honour," said Ahmed. — AP
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Indian film fest in Israel next year
Jerusalem, December 29 The January 5-18 Film Festival of India in Israel (FFII) will be inaugurated with 'Apharan', 'The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey' and 'Being Cyrus' in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa respectively. The festival, during which some Bollywood stalwarts like Jha and Mehta will be present, is being organised by the Embassy of India in association with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cinematheques at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. Besides Apaharan, The Rising and Being Cyrus (English), the films that will be screened are Mouna Ragam (Tamil), Vidheyan (Malyalam), Vastu Purush (Marathi), Mr and Mrs Iyer (English) and Yahaan (Hindi). The festival has generated immense interest in the Indian community and young Israeli lovers of Indian culture. "I can't believe they are bringing such recent Bollywood blockbusters for the festival. So far we had to contend with classy Indian stuff generally with one or two commercial films every now and then", said Eliyahu Yosef (67) seeing the list of films. — PTI
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