 |
|
|
Pakistan remembers quake dead
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
London bombers were told to kill English, Australian cricketers
Saddam lawyers to boycott trial
Hunt on for killers of German scribe
Bhutto, Sharif to meet on Oct 19: report
Musharraf denies supporting Taliban
Prince Harry barred from fighting in Afghanistan
Another UK minister in veil row
Second Indian sailor found dead
Chained Indian worker rescued
Rushdie to join Emory varsity faculty
|
|
Pakistan remembers quake dead
Islamabad, October 8 Sirens wailed at 8:52 am (0922 IST), the exact time when the temblor struck, to begin a minute’s silence throughout the country. President Pervez Musharraf laid a wreath near a ruined university in PoK capital Muzaffarabad and led a memorial ceremony held amid tight security in the wake of a couple of security scares triggered by a blast near his residence and recovery of rockets near his office. General Musharraf vowed to rebuild devastated areas on modern lines and announced housing and agricultural loans write-off for affected people. “We have a comprehensive plan to rebuild the ravaged areas better than ever before,” he told some 1000 quake survivors in Muzaffarabad, defending the handling of the relief and reconstruction efforts. The government had come under severe criticism from the public and the media as thousands of affected people faced the prospects of going through a second harsh winter due to delay in disbursement of reconstruction assistance. Angry survivors held a protest yesterday in Islamabad expressing fears that up to half of the 3.5 million left homeless will have to spend this winter in makeshift homes. According to UN, 33,000 quake survivors still live in tent camps in Pakistan. Aid group Oxfam had put the number at 1.8 million, but General Musharraf had rejected it.
— PTI
|
|
London bombers were told to kill English, Australian cricketers
London, October 8 Quoting a friend of one of the terrorists, ‘The Sunday Times’, said Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer allegedly received the orders at a training camp near Kotli, in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, in December 2004. The claims have been made by a family friend of Hasib Hussain, the bus bomber who killed 13 persons. The friend, who is willing to pass his information to the police, uses a pseudonym, Ahmed Hafiz. According to 32-year-old Hafiz, the bombers were instructed to get jobs as stewards at the Edgbaston cricket ground and spray sarin gas inside the changing rooms. The second Test between England and Australia, whose governments have supported Washington in the war on terror, began on August 4, 2005. Hafiz, whose family have known the Hussains for 25 years, said he had received details of the bombers’ visit from members of his extended family, who are involved in running the camp in PoK. He claimed 22-year-old Tanweer objected to the plot, possibly because he himself was a cricketer. He was told by a witness that Tanweer argued with Khan, 30, and a scuffle between them had to be broken up by a minder. Both the England and Australian teams are currently in India for the 10-nation Champions Trophy Cricket Tournament which began in Mohali, Punjab yesterday. Hafiz also provided a picture of the minder, who was allegedly shot last August. Later, Hafiz claims, the camp’s commanders — militants affiliated to Al-Qaida — revealed the plot to bomb the London underground to Khan and Tanweer. “It was always there, as Plan B,” said Hafiz. Although it was known the two bombers visited Pakistan in November 2004, until now no details have emerged about which camp they attended. However, last week, locals in Kotli said all training camps in the region had been suspended since autumn 2004, under pressure from the ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence agency. But there are still militant safe houses in the area, the report said. According to Hafiz, the camp commanders put Khan and Tanweer in touch with a bomb-making expert, who was based in Birmingham. The expert, known as Afzal Shaan, is said to be a chemistry graduate from a British university who is in his forties, bald and usually clean-shaven. Hafiz also provides an explanation for Khan’s emergence as the ringleader of the London bombers. Khan was a friend of Omar Sharif, the Derby-based terrorist who tried to blow himself up in Tel Aviv in 2003. While his associate killed three persons, Sharif’s bomb failed and he fled the scene. His body was found two weeks later washed up on the beach. “That was the turning point for Sidique. He felt angry,” said Hafiz. “He changed from being a cheerleader of jihad to one of those people who became active.” Hafiz claimed that Khan first visited the camp in PoK in the summer of 2003 on his own, after being given an introduction by an ‘imam’ in Leeds. Neither the police nor the security services know of the Muslim cleric and his involvement with Khan. The camp commanders were impressed when they saw Khan ceremonially sacrifice a bull and told him to return to the UK and prepare a group of friends willing to be martyrs.
— PTI
|
|
|
Saddam lawyers to boycott trial
Amman, October 8 “We met president Saddam Hussein on October 2 and presented him a series of observations about the trial and he instructed us to boycott Monday’s hearing,” Mr Dulaimi said on the eve of the trial’s resumption in Baghdad. “The defence team has therefore decided to boycott the entire Anfal trial,” he told AFP. The ousted Iraqi leader is on trial with six co-defendants over the 1987-1988 Anfal campaign of bombings and gas attacks against the Kurds which prosecutors say left 182,000 people dead. Mr Dulaimi said defence lawyers will stay away from the trial because of Iraqi “government intervention”, including the sacking in September of chief judge Abdullah al-Ameri who was replaced with Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah. “We denounce the government’s blatant intervention to replace the judge,” Mr Dulaimi said. Ameri’s caused an uproar in court, prompting a walkout by the entire defence team who then went on to boycott the hearings. “The new judge is now considered an enemy in the trial, particularly after the murder of one of his relatives,” Dulaimi added. Gunmen last month killed Oreibi’s brother-in-law and wounded his nephew in a drive-by shooting, in the latest attack targeting people involved in the legalproceedings against Saddam.
— AFP
|
|
Hunt on for killers of German scribe
Mazar-I-Sharif, October 8 The two Germans, a man and woman, were killed in the early hours of yesterday when gunmen attacked them in their tent in Baghlan province, about 120 km north of Kabul. “We have identified from four to six persons in the area where the attack took place,” said the Governor of Baghlan, Sayed Ikram Mahsomi. “We are going to make arrests as soon as we get more information.” The Germans had not been robbed, Mahsomi said, adding the attackers were “government opponents”. “They just wanted to kill them to disrupt security,” he said.Violence has surged across Afghanistan this year, mostly in the south and east where Taliban militants have been battling foreign and government troops. Attacks have also taken place in Kabul, the west and the north but Baghlan had been quiet recently. Crime has surged across Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban five years ago. Afghan authorities said the two journalists worked for the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. They were travelling from Baghlan to the central province of Bamiyan when they stopped to camp for the night on Friday evening. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said the Taliban were not responsible.The two journalists had just spent some time with German NATO troops in the north of the country. Germany has a contingent of about 2,750 troops with NATO’s Afghan mission. — Reuters
|
|
Bhutto, Sharif to meet on Oct 19: report
Islamabad, October 8 The two leaders would discuss constituting a grand alliance of the opposition parties before the next elections, Pakistan’s Online news agency reported. However, Faratullah Babar, spokesman for Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, said the former Prime Minister would be in London on October 18-19 but he was not aware of any scheduled meeting with Sharif. Ms Bhutto and Sharif, former political rivals-turned-allies who both lived abroad, have met twice in the recent past and even signed a charter to work for the removal of the army from holding political
power. — PTI
|
|
|
Musharraf denies supporting Taliban
Islamabad, October 8 The Daily Telegraph of London had reported on Friday that Nato commanders from the US, Britain, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands were demanding their governments to get tough with Pakistan over its alleged support to the Taliban militia. The President told Gen Abizaid that UN’s September 11 report had clearly said that Pakistan was not supporting Taliban. On the contrary, it was extending all its support to strictly deal with the Taliban and Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and elsewhere, he added. — By arrangement with The Dawn
|
|
Prince Harry barred from fighting in Afghanistan
London, October 8 The decision not to send Harry — a Second Lieutenant in Household Cavalry regiment — to the front line was taken after senior officers reviewed the Prince’s personal safety in the wake of savage fighting, the ‘Mail on Sunday’ reported. With a spurt in Taliban attacks in recent months, the officers could not risk a “constitutional crisis” by putting Harry’s life on the line, the newspaper said. “Second Lieutenant Wales is an officer in a very famous regiment and we would like to see him deploy. We must respect that he is a member of the Royal family”, the newspaper quoted a regimental
source. The decision might come as a blow to the Prince who had recently threatened to quit the army if not allowed to fight alongside his fellow officers.
— PTI
|
|
Another UK minister in veil row
London, October 8 Communities Minister Phil Woolas urged Muslims to show understanding for the views of non-Muslims who found the veil "frightening and intimidating", in an article for the 'Sunday Mirror' newspaper. Woolas -- whose responsibilities include community cohesion, race and faith -- backed former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's decision to trigger the debate, which has raged since Thursday. "It can be hard to tell whether women wear the veil as an expression of their faith or because they are compelled to do so," Woolas said. "Most British-born Muslims who wear it, do so as an assertion of their identity and religion. This can create fear and resentment among non-Muslims and lead to discrimination.
— AFP
|
|
Second Indian sailor found dead
Tokyo, October 8 The body of Thomas William, an Indian crew member of the ‘Giant Step’ that caught fire and ran aground after being caught in stormy weather on Friday, was found on a beach in Kamisu, Kyodo news agency reported. The ship had 25 Indians and a Pakistani in its crew, out of which 17 were rescued. But a 34-year-old Indian man succumbed to injuries in the hospital yesterday. Japan Coast guard aircraft and patrol ships resumed searching for the eight missing Indian crew members today. Before running aground, the 98,587-tonne freighter, which was heading to Kashima port from Australia with 190,000 tonnes of iron ore, reported a fire in the cabin. — PTI
|
||
|
Chained Indian worker rescued
Dubai, October 8 Dharmarasan Sengottai(24) hailing from Tamil Nadu came to Bahrain two years
ago on a tailor's visa. According to his sponsor, the shop owner, Sengottai ran away few months after arriving in Bahrain and as his visa had expired on September 21 the sponsor wanted to send him back to India. "I kept him chained because I feared he might escape through the air-conditioner hole in the room," the shop owner said.
— PTI
|
||
|
Rushdie to join Emory varsity faculty
Atlanta, October 8 Rushdie’s five-year appointment as a distinguished writer in residence in the English Department begins in the spring of 2007. “Salman Rushdie is not only one of the foremost writers of our generation, he is also a courageous champion of human rights and freedom,” Emory President James Wagner said in a statement. “Rushdie brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to help us understand the fault-lines between cultures that threaten to rupture societies around the world today.” said Robert Paul, Dean of Emory College. Included in the archive are Rushdie’s private journals detailing life under the fatwa, as well as personal correspondence, notebooks, photographs and manuscripts of all of his writings, including two early unpublished novels.
— AP |
||
|
|
| 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 | |
