Islamabad, June 29
India and Pakistan will free 57 civilian prisoners held in each other’s jails tomorrow while the much-awaited release of 462 fishermen by the two sides will not take place as announced earlier.

Pakistan has informed India about its decision to release 19 Indian civilian prisoners who have completed their prison terms while India would release 38 Pakistani prisoners, officials here said.

The prisoners, who are being released tomorrow by both sides through the Wagah border, have been identified through the consular access.

However, both sides are not going to release 462 fishermen — 432 Indians and 30 Pakistanis — as announced earlier.

The Pakistan Foreign Office had recently announced that 432 Indian fishermen languishing in prisons in Karachi would be released.

Indian High Commission officials said they were hoping that Pakistan would release at least 240 Indian fishermen who have already been identified through consular access.

“It is a pity that they are not being released. We have not been told why,” a senior Indian diplomat here said.

Pakistan Foreign Office officials could not be reached for comment. — PTI

Washington, June 29
In a sharp rebuke of President George W Bush’s tactics in the war on terrorism, the US Supreme Court today struck down as unlawful the military tribunal system set up to try Guantanamo prisoners.

By a 5-3 vote, the nation’s highest court declared that the tribunals, which Mr Bush created right after the September 11 attacks, violated the Geneva Conventions and US military rules.

“We conclude that the military commission convened to try (Salim Ahmed) Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate” the international agreement that covers treatment of prisoners of war, as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court majority.

The decision was a stinging blow to the administration in a case brought by Hamdan, who was Osama bin Laden’s driver in Afghanistan. Hamdan, one of about 450 foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was captured in November 2001.

At the White House, Mr Bush said he had not fully reviewed the ruling and would consult with the US Congress to attain appropriate authority for military tribunals. “We take the findings seriously,” he said.

A Pentagon spokesman declined immediate comment but reiterated the need for a US facility to hold dangerous captives.

The ruling, handed down on the last day of the court’s 2005-06 term, followed the deaths of three Guantanamo prisoners this month and increased calls for Mr Bush to close the prison camp. US treatment of inmates at Guantanamo and in Iraq and Afghanistan has drawn international criticism.

One of Hamdan’s lawyers, Lt Cmdr Charles Swift, praised the court action. “All we wanted was a fair trial,” he said outside the Supreme Court. “Yes, it is a rebuke for the process. ... It means we can’t be scared out of who we are.”

Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union said, “The Supreme Court has made it clear that the executive branch does not have a blank check in the war on terror and may not run roughshod over the nation’s legal system.”

Stevens, at 86 the high court’s longest serving justice and a leading liberal, said the military commissions were not expressly authorized by any act of the US Congress. But in reading part of the decision from the bench, he said Mr Bush was free to go to lawmakers to ask for the necessary authority.

Stevens also wrote the Supreme Court decision two years ago that handed the Bush Administration another major setback in ruling the Guantanamo prisoners can sue in US courts. — Reuters

Islamabad, June 29
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s proposals of demilitarisation and self-governance can form the basis of concrete progress for the settlement of the Kashmir issue, the country’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said.

Islamabad is committed to the peace process with India through the ongoing composite dialogue process, Aziz told a British MPs delegation headed by Malcolm Bruce, Chairman, Liberal Democrat head of House of Commons International Development Committee. He said India and Pakistan need to show courage, leadership and magnanimity to resolve Kashmir.

Both India and Pakistan need to show courage, leadership, and magnanimity and the will to resolve the outstanding “dispute” of Kashmir, he said, adding peace in South Asia would remain elusive without settlement of the Kashmir issue.

About Afghanistan, Aziz said Pakistan had been consistently supporting Kabul in its reconstruction efforts and to achieve peace, stability and prosperity.

The events in Afghanistan have a spill over affect on Pakistan. “We will continue to extend our full support for peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan in order to maintain regional stability,” he said. — PTI

Multan, June 29
Four Pakistani men were hanged today for gang-raping a Christian woman at gunpoint during a 1999 robbery, a jail official said.

The police arrested the men, all Muslim, shortly after attacking the woman in Faisalabad, an industrial city, about 300 km east of Multan, a main city in the eastern Punjab province.

There appeared to be no sectarian motivation for the crime.

An anti-terror court sentenced the men to death after finding them guilty of raping the woman and robbing her family of about (US) $ 1,000. The men lost appeals last year, including a mercy plea to President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Faisalabad Jail Superintendent Yousaf Ghauri said the men were hanged at the high-security prison early today. Their bodies were handed over to relatives waiting outside the jail.

Those hanged were identified as Umar Hayat (35), Mubarak Ali (36), Mohammed Ashraf (32) and Mohammed Shahzad, (31).

The victim’s family did not attend the executions, Ghauri said. Her father had told the court that the four men took turns in raping his daughter inside his home and threatened to kill him if he raised the alarm. — AP

Dubai, June 29
Kuwaiti women created history today by exercising their franchise for the very first time in the oil-rich Gulf state's parliamentary poll which also witnessed 28 female candidates running for office.

Braving the blazing summer sun and searing heat, eligible women in all ages dressed in traditional black burqas were seen lining up in front of the polling stations at the crack of dawn, eager to cast their ballot at separate booths set up for them.

Women, who constitute the majority of voters, won their full political rights, including that of franchise and run for office, in May 2005 and this year among the 252 persons contesting the 50-member National Assembly polls, 28 are female candidates.

On a visit to one of the constituencies, Kuwait's Chief Justice Humoud Hamad Al-Sanae said the large turnout of women voters was “excellent.” The first Kuwaiti woman candidate to run for the municipal council, Ms Jenan Boshehri, said her experience in the municipal elections in 2005 proved that the predominantly patriarch Kuwaiti society had tolerance for women's political participation.

Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah also visited some of the constituencies.

There are 17,823 eligible voters in the 19th constituency — New Jahra and Sulaibiya — of which 5,952 are men and 11,871 are women.

According to Article 31 of the Elections Law, the election process extends from 8 am to 8 pm and ends before time if all constituents have cast their ballots.

There are 11 candidates running in the first constituency where there are 6,959 voters. — PTI 

United Nations, June 29
An estimated nine million people are living with HIV in the Asia Pacific region, including one million who were infected in 2005 alone, a year in which half a million AIDS victims died.

A comprehensive response to the AIDS pandemic will require an estimated investment of $ 5.1 billion annually by 2007, a new United Nations (UN) report says and estimates that only $ 1.6 billion would be available.

Most of it would come from bilateral donors, foundations and international institutions, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

To close the resource gap, the report calls for a significant increase in international assistance, particularly for the lower income and the least developed countries. At the same time, domestic resources would have to be bolstered, it adds and suggests “creative financing mechanisms, such as taxes on alcohol and tobacco.”

The report finds high prevalence of HIV among brothel-based sex workers with more than 50 per cent of female sex workers in Mumbai infected with the deadly disease.

In Cambodia, HIV among brothel-based sex workers accounted for 21 per cent of the total in 2003. In Vietnam, the average prevalence of HIV among sex workers is about 16 per cent.

HIV prevalence, the report says, could rise further among injecting drug users (IDUs) as the sharing of injection instruments is a very effective way of transmitting HIV.

According to the report, injecting drug use accounts for at least 40 per cent of all HIV transmission in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam. More than 50 per cent of injecting drug users in India, Thailand and Myanmar are aged between 15 and 21 years. — PTI

Kathmandu, June 29
Every Nepali citizen owes a foreign debt of Rs 13,000(Nepalese currency), the country’s Auditor General said.

The government of Nepal has so far taken 324 billion and 540 million Nepalese rupees worth foreign loans, according to the statistics of the Office of the Auditor General.

An audit of the expenditure accounts of the Government of Nepal showed arrears of Rs 28 billion and Rs 530 million, local media quoted Auditor General Gehendranath Adhikari as saying.

He said the arrears stood at Rs 7 billion and Rs 240 million in 2005 and the ministries with the highest amount of arrears are the Ministry of Finance with arrears of 25 per cent, the Ministry of Defence 12 per cent, the Ministry of Home Affairs 10 per cent, the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works 8 per cent and the Ministry of Local Development 7 per cent. — UNI