 |
|
|
Opposition accuses Musharraf of disclosing state secrets
Senators play blame game on US-India Bill
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Earth close to being hottest: NASA
US amphibious Navy ship
for India
|
|
Opposition accuses Musharraf of disclosing state secrets
Islamabad/Lahore, September 27 Commenting on ‘In the Line of Fire’ launched in the US on Monday, a spokesman for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Gen Musharraf seemed to have decided to make some money, realising that his ‘political demise’ was near. In a statement mailed to Dawn from London, spokesman Nadir Chaudhri described the book as anti-Pakistan and a pack of lies aimed at rewriting history. He said the General had made personal attacks on Mr Sharif and lied about the Kargil disaster and the ‘illegal coup’ he mounted to overthrow a democratically elected government in 1999. He said the Pakistan Muslim League (N) would soon give a comprehensive and befitting reply to Gen Musharraf’s ‘lies’ about these issues. The spokesman condemned what he called the maligning of Dr A.Q. Khan and said it was reprehensible and unprecedented that an army chief had presented such a negative image of Pakistan. He said the only motive could be his desire to rake in as much money as he could which was understandable given the fact that he presides over “the most corrupt regime in South Asian history”. Mr Chaudhri said the general’s ‘sorry explanation’ for his post-9/11 decision to take a U-turn on Afghanistan had exposed his decision-making process as seriously limited, flawed and defeatist that had led to the present gloom in Pakistan. PML-N’s acting parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan at a news conference in Islamabad alleged that Gen Musharraf had made false claims about the Kargil operation only to gain publicity. He said the General’s revelation that the US had paid millions of dollars to Pakistan for capturing Al Qaida operatives had come as a humiliation for the country. Under the law, he pointed out, the US could not give the prize money to any government or institution. He asked Gen Musharraf to tell the nation where the money had gone. The PML-N leader said that being a public servant Gen Musharraf could not write a book and disclose state secrets. He said the joint Opposition would discuss if it should take Gen Musharraf to court. Mr Khan claimed that at a meeting held in the Governor’s House at Lahore during the Kargil operation Gen Musharraf had told the Cabinet Committee on Defence that the army was in great trouble at Kargil. The then air chief and the naval chief had expressed reservations over the Kargil situation and complained that they had not been taken into confidence before the launching of the operation. PML-N information secretary Ahsan Iqbal said the General had written his own FIR in the book which was a charge-sheet against himself. PPP spokesman and former senator Farhatullah Babar said the book had raised the ‘moral and political’ question whether a sitting army chief and president should take public positions on national policy issues and whether he should spend public funds for promoting his book. “It has set a new and dangerous precedent for the chiefs of air force and navy to also record their memoirs while in service and then take official jets to set out on tour to Europe and America on promotional campaigns,” he said, adding that Gen Musharraf’s visit to the US along with a dozen ministers was less for promoting national interests and more for boosting the sale of his book. At best, he said, the book is a one-sided version of critical events namely nuclear proliferation, war on terror, the Kargil conflict and the Oct 12, 1999, military takeover. He said Gen Musharraf had been claiming for five years that Pakistan’s decision to support the war on terror was a principled stand, but now he said it was because of the US threats. Referring to claims in the book about Dr
A.Q. Khan’s role in proliferation, the MMA leader said Gen Musharraf had, in fact, tried to ‘bail out’ some generals and other influential people involved in nuclear proliferation.
|
|
Senators play blame game on US-India Bill
Democrats and Republicans in the Senate on Tuesday accused each other of delaying a crucial vote on the US-India civilian nuclear cooperation Bill. In similarly worded statements, Republican Senator Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, and Democratic Senator Harry Reid, chamber’s minority leader, said the other was to blame for blocking a “unanimous consent agreement”. They said the agreement would have guaranteed Senate consideration of and a final vote on the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Bill before the Congress adjourned at the end of this week for the November mid-term elections. The Senate could take up the Bill when it returned after the elections for a “lame duck” session, but that delay would push future action on the Bill to 2007. Saying he had offered the “unanimous consent agreement” on Monday night, Mr Reid said, “Unfortunately, the Republican leader objected to the proposal.” Mr Frist said it was the Democrats who blocked his offer of a unanimous consent agreement. “Senate Democrats have been strong supporters of the Bill since the [Bush] administration announced the proposal in March and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved it in June,” Mr Reid said. “Unfortunately”, he added, “since the Bill was approved by the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Frist had chosen to bring 16 different legislative matters on to the Senate floor rather than this important legislation, which is critical to the US-India relationship.” “The facts are that Republican differences over the substance of this Bill have delayed its consideration and some of those disagreements have still not been resolved,” Mr Reid contended. In the debate on the unanimous consent request on Monday, Mr Frist said a few amendments — on annual presidential certification that India is in full compliance with its non-proliferation commitments; fissile material production curbs; Indian cooperation with US action against Iran; and an assurance that Indian nuclear waste will not be dumped in the Yucca Mountain in Nevada [Mr Reid’s home state] — should be included in the Bill before it was acted upon. Mr Frist sought one-hour debate on each amendment, and one-hour general debate on the Bill. He said following the passage of the bill, the Senate should insist upon its amendment and request a conference with the House of Representatives to combine the two versions of the Bill. The House overwhelmingly passed the Bill in July after a debate that stretched late into the night. The Bush administration has been urging the Senate to act on the Bill before the recess. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with Mr Reid about the Bill earlier on Monday. Mr Reid told Miss Rice that he supported the legislation and thought it was “very important for the full Senate to act on it very quickly”. The Democratic leader said the Bill was “strongly supported” by a sizeable majority in the Senate. He called the Democrats’ amendments “manageable” and added these were few in number. The chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Senator Richard Lugar and Senator Joseph Biden, a Republican and a Democrat, respectively, — still have some differences over the Bill that need to be worked out. Mr Reid said once the disagreement was resolved, the Senate could begin considering of the Bill.
|
|
Earth close to being hottest: NASA
Washington, September 27 Global warming, which has added 0.2 degree Celsius per decade over the past 30 years, has caused temperatures to reach and now pass through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which lasted almost 12,000 years, according to the study led by James Hansen, a leading climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The study, published in the September 26 of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that Earth was now within about 1.0 C (1.8 F) of the maximum estimated temperature of the past million years. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration researcher said that was the most important finding of the team’s research. —AFP
|
|
US amphibious Navy ship
for India
Washington, September 27 The transfer is expected to take place sometime this December, Commander of the American Pacific Fleet Admiral Gary Roughhead told PTI here. “USS Trenton”, the Admiral said, will give capability to the Indian Navy to move troops and equipment to great distances and the ability to remain off shore for a prolonged period of time. He maintained that free and open access to sea was an important and critical challenge and the two navies were “very closely aligned”. The American Navy official, who was recently in India, said discussions with his counterparts were comprehensive that included future operations, exercises and exchanges.
— PTI
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
