W O R L D

Bangladesh election chief to stay on, provokes anger
Dhaka, November 1
Bangladesh's Chief Election Commissioner says he has been asked to stay on to oversee next year's poll, raising the spectre of renewed violence after the former Opposition accused him of bias.

Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) activists shout slogans during a demonstration in Dhaka on Wednesday. — AFP photo

Pak reluctant to rein in militants: report
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been reluctant to rein in terrorist groups fighting in Kashmir because he believes the militancy is Islamabad’s only way to keep pressure on India and to force New Delhi’s hand in negotiations over Kashmir, according to a Washington-based South Asia analyst.

Pak court asks husband to divorce wife
Islamabad, November 1
A court in Pakistan has directed a man to divorce his wife following a complaint by the woman that she was abducted and forced to marry him.

N. Korea to return to N-talks to end US curbs
Seoul, November 1
North Korea said today that it had decided to return to international nuclear talks to resolve US financial restrictions aimed at choking the regime’s access to outside banks.

Bangladesh election chief to stay on, provokes anger

Dhaka, November 1
Bangladesh's Chief Election Commissioner says he has been asked to stay on to oversee next year's poll, raising the spectre of renewed violence after the former Opposition accused him of bias.

The 14-party alliance of former opposition parties says Chief Election Commissioner M.A. Aziz backed the previous Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government and would attempt to rig the January general elections.

“The President has asked me to carry on, and take necessary steps to hold a free and fair election within the stipulated time,” Mr Aziz told reporters late on Tuesday.

Violent protests erupted last week over who should lead a caretaker administration to see the fractious country through to the January vote, and analysts fear more trouble after President Iajuddin Ahmed's endorsement of Mr Aziz in the post.

On Wednesday, the former main opposition, the Awami League, renewed calls for Mr Iajuddin to dismiss Mr Aziz and his deputies.

“It is the responsibility of the President to ensure a fair and free election by accepting the demands immediately,” Awami leader Sheikh Hasina said in a statement.

Ms Hasina and her allies have given Mr Iajuddin until Friday to prove his neutrality in the impoverished country of 140 millions.

“Otherwise, we will go back to the streets,” Awami General Secretary Abdul Jalil said.

Mr Iajuddin, who installed himself as caretaker head on Sunday after the political parties failed to agree on a candidate, has already sacked or transferred 27 senior bureaucrats.

“The country still faces a potential threat of renewed violence as the Awami League is trying to push too many demands in a bid to win the election. The government may find it difficult to accommodate them all,” said Mr Ataur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Political Science Association.

On Tuesday, the President appointed 10 advisers to ministerial roles, including former army and police chiefs and a newspaper editor.

They met the president on Wednesday over their first formal meeting, and later told reporters they had discussed challenges ahead and ways to overcome them.

“We are confident to steer the administration without any bias towards a free and fair election within three months,” said Adviser C.M. Shafi Sami, a former foreign secretary.

“We will work with utmost neutrality for a credible election.

They are all non-partisan and efficient and we hope they can conduct a credible election,” BNP Secretary-General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan told reporters today.

The caretaker authority replaced Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia whose five-year mandate ended last Friday. — Reuters

Pak reluctant to rein in militants: report
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been reluctant to rein in terrorist groups fighting in Kashmir because he believes the militancy is Islamabad’s only way to keep pressure on India and to force New Delhi’s hand in negotiations over Kashmir, according to a Washington-based South Asia analyst.

Lisa Curtis, at the conservative Heritage Foundation, says in a paper India’s claim that Pakistan’s intelligence agency was behind the deadly Mumbai train blasts in July could derail Indo-Pakistani talks unless Pakistan takes concrete steps to crack down on domestic terrorist groups.

In her report, “Denying Terrorists Safe Haven in Pakistan,” Ms Curtis says Pakistan has traditionally relied on violent extremists to accomplish its strategic objectives in both Afghanistan and India.

While General Musharraf has articulated his desire to turn Pakistan into a moderate and modern Islamic state, “his government has taken little concrete action to make the country inhospitable for individuals and groups seeking to destabilise Afghanistan or India and plotting international acts of terrorism.”

Ms Curtis suggests the U.S. should “maintain and fortify” its diplomatic efforts to facilitate the building of peace between the two neighbours. Washington must also acknowledge Pakistan’s interest in seeing substantive movement on India-Pakistan talks on Kashmir, she says.

The United States, she adds, should encourage India to take additional confidence-building measures on Kashmir and to involve the Kashmiris in a peace process that addresses human rights concerns and political grievances.

On September 30, Mumbai’s police commissioner A.N. Roy blamed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence for masterminding the train blasts in his city. The attack, he said, was carried out by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Ms Curtis says General Musharraf will find it “politically challenging” to pursue a broader crackdown on domestic terrorists that strike in India and abroad.“The religious parties would label such a crackdown as a surrender to India over Kashmir,” she predicts.

Mindful of India’s aversion to mediation on Kashmir, she suggests the U.S. should not try to involve itself directly in resolving the dispute, but it should continue to talk about the issue separately with both sides and inject ideas into their dialogue process.

“President Musharraf is clearly hedging in talks with India by allowing Kashmiri militant groups to continue to operate. The U.S. needs to convince Musharraf to instead put his faith in the India-Pakistan dialogue,” she says.

A genuine peace process between New Delhi and a wide spectrum of Kashmiri leaders that addresses political grievances and human rights issues will also “help to temper the Pakistani public’s emotional reactions to Kashmir and widen public support for a genuine crackdown on violent groups.”

Ms Curtis contends encouraging travel back and forth across the Line of Control and greater interaction and cooperation between officials from both sides of the LOC will widen what she calls “the constituencies for peace” and help to isolate violent extremists.

Prior to joining the Heritage Foundation, Ms Curtis served as a lead expert on South Asia for Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Richard Lugar and as a senior adviser in the State Department’s South Asia bureau.

She acknowledges the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and continuing links of global terrorist networks to groups based in Pakistan are leading many in the United States to question Islamabad’s commitment to fighting the global war on terrorism.

“Washington should review Pakistani efforts to deny terrorists safe haven and its overall policy toward Pakistan, which is at the centre of international anti-terrorism efforts,” she says.

The U.S. considered labelling Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism for its support to militant groups fighting in Kashmir in the early 1990s. Its relationship changed dramatically after terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, and Washington leaned on Islamabad to help in the war on terrorism.

Contending Pakistan has made “invaluable contributions” to combating Al-Qaida, Ms Curtis adds, “Islamabad will need to adopt a more comprehensive policy against violent extremism to fully deny groups and individuals the use of Pakistani territory as a base for global jehad.”

Ms Curtis warns that the reported links between those involved in the foiled London airplane bombings in mid-August and Pakistani terrorist groups that operate in Jammu and Kashmir “demonstrate the dangers of not cracking down on violent extremism in Pakistan.”

Pak court asks husband to divorce wife

Islamabad, November 1
A court in Pakistan has directed a man to divorce his wife following a complaint by the woman that she was abducted and forced to marry him.

The Lahore High Court issued the order yesterday after complainant Gulshan Fatima told the court that she was forced to marry Waqar Awan after being kidnapped by his family.

The court granted a pre-arrest bail to the accused till December 5, when he will formally divorce Fatima.

In June this year, Fatima’s father Hakim Abdul Islam had filed a complaint under the controversial woman’s law accusing Awan of abducting his daughter and marrying her forcibly.

Awan defended himself before the court, saying Fatima and he had a “love marriage” and the matter had been settled by a village council.

He said his father-in-law had taken Fatima away promising to arrange a formal ceremony but later refused to do so. Fatima denied this before the court, saying Awan forced her into signing some documents.

The court, however, observed that the girl had not been able to explain why she remained silent for so long. — PTI

N. Korea to return to N-talks to end US curbs

Seoul, November 1
North Korea said today that it had decided to return to international nuclear talks to resolve US financial restrictions aimed at choking the regime’s access to outside banks.

China announced yesterday that the North had agreed to end a boycott of the talks after a meeting in Beijing of the top envoys from the US and North Korea.

The North’s Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang “decided to return to the six-party talks on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions would be discussed and settled between the North and the US within the framework of the six-party talks.”

North Korea has refused since November 2005 to return to the arms talks in anger over the US financial restrictions, which blacklisted a Macau bank where the regime held accounts for its alleged complicity in counterfeiting and money laundering.

US officials had sought to rally other countries to prevent the North from keeping bank accounts, saying all transactions involving Pyongyang were suspect.

However, yesterday in Beijing, the US agreed to discuss the financial restrictions at the resumed nuclear talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

The North emphasised today in the statement carried by its official Korean Central News Agency that the breakthrough on returning to six-party talks was made possible by a bilateral meeting on Tuesday with the US in Beijing.

The ministry also alluded to its October 9 nuclear test, noting that the North “recently took a self-defensive countermeasure against the US daily increasing nuclear threat and financial sanctions against it.” — AP