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CJ issue: Gen blames it on ‘tactical errors’
Saddam’s deputy executed
UK schools can ban veil now
More trouble for India-born designer |
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B’desh finds millions in frozen accounts
Dhaka, March 20 Bangladesh’s army-backed interim government, hunting illegal money belonging to corrupt politicians, has found millions of dollars in frozen bank accounts, officials today said. N. Korea refuses to take part in talks US gives visa to Iranian leader 106 dead in Russia mine blast Terrorist given nine British passports 9000 UK doctors may not have jobs Al-Qaida ultra confesses to role in anti-US attacks
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CJ issue: Gen blames it on ‘tactical errors’
Karachi, March 20 The president’s interview with Kamran Khan on a Geo TV talk show was seen as an attempt by the government - 10 days after the country’s most bitter judicial crisis pummelled the ruling establishment - to take the nation into confidence. But the president’s unconvincing answers - though made in a glib manner - found few takers among the close observers of the crisis. It is ironic that while the president blames “tactical errors” on low-ranking government officials, he does not see that he is wrong to restrain the chief justice from discharging his duties. Many fundamental questions were left unanswered and, more crucially, unasked in the TV interview shown on Monday night.The president insisted that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had not been summoned on March 9 - the day the president sent a reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council. “He actually called on me. He had called on me earlier as well. He had told me that he was sending a reference against a high court judge to the SJC. He had also said that a smear campaign had been initiated against him. When he called on me on March 9, I showed him the reference against him. I later called in the prime minister. Then the prime minister and I went off to say the Friday prayers as Justice Iftikhar read the detailed charge-sheet. I afterwards went to Karachi and the prime minister flew off to Lahore,” said the president, smugly. Strangely enough, it was not asked why an acting chief justice was being sworn in exactly when the chief justice - who, according to the president, was not detained in the camp office at the Army House - read the detailed charge-sheet against him. It was also not asked on whose orders a police official intercepted the chief justice’s car on its way to the Supreme Court and “escorted” him home. President Musharraf was also not asked why he - despite his newfound openness about the issue - did not ensure that harsh treatment was not meted out to the chief justice and his civil liberties were not curtailed. His attempt to lay the blame entirely at the doorstep of small-time government officials sounds simplistic, if not misleading, because it had become known on March 10 that the chief justice was being held incommunicado. The president was also not asked under what authority he restrained the chief justice - or, to use the ingenious expression employed by the state minister for information, made the chief justice “non-functional”. Constitutional experts concur that while the president can send a reference against the chief justice to the SJC, he cannot make the country’s top adjudicator “non-functional”. — By arrangement with The Dawn
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Saddam’s deputy executed
Baghdad, March 20 “It was not an execution. It was a political assassination,” he told Al-Jazeera by the telephone from Sanaa. Iraqi officials did not confirm the execution and were not available for comment. The trial court had, in November, found Ramadan guilty of issuing orders for the systematic detention, torture and killing of men, women and children from Dujail after an attempt on Saddam's life in the town in 1982. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. But an appeals court recommended death penalty for him.
Ramadan was captured in Mosul in August 2003 by Iraqi Kurdish fighters and handed over to the US forces. —
Reuters, UNI
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London, March 20 After the case of a 12-year-old girl, who failed in her High Court attempt to overturn her Buckinghamshire school’s ‘niqab’ ban in February, ministers promised to revise guidance for UK taking that into consideration. The new guidelines said efforts should be made to accommodate religious clothing but stressed the importance of teachers and pupils being able to make eye contact. In the Buckinghamshire case, the school, which cannot be named for legal reasons, argued that the veil made communication between teachers and pupils difficult and thus hampered learning. Teachers needed to be able to tell if a pupil was enthusiastic, paying attention or even distressed but full-face veils prevented this, it said. This position was upheld by the High Court - which refused to grant a judicial review - and is expected to form a key part of the guidance. The head teacher of the Buckinghamshire school, who also cannot be named, said it would be very useful to have some clear guidance from the Department for Education and Skills (DFES). “It’s not right that schools should have to be arguing this out case by case,” she told the BBC News website The Muslim Council of Britain has not yet responded to the guidance, but in February it urged schools to take into account Muslim pupils’ needs to dress modestly and avoid tight-fitting or transparent garments. The DFES guidelines also instructs schools to be sensitive to the cost implications of their choice of uniform. — UNI
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More trouble for India-born designer
Silicon Valley, March 20 The prosecution in Los Angeles yesterday slapped further 13 criminal charges on the 33-year fashionista for a range of sex offences following the complaints from the four women. One of the alleged victims is a 17-year-old. Jon, 33, who has dressed celebrities including Paris Hilton, was last week charged with rape and a string of sex crimes on three people-two women and a 15-year-old girl. Jon, whose legal name is Anand Jon Alexander, is at
present in jail on a $ 1.3 million bail. The criminal complaint alleges that the crimes occurred between March 2004 and March 2007. — PTI
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B’desh finds millions in frozen accounts
Dhaka, March 20 “We made a headway in the drive against black money holders as part of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign. So far, the authorities have frozen 53 bank accounts belonging mostly to politicians,” said an official of the National Board of Revenue. “These accounts have an estimated undisclosed sum of 26 billion taka,” the official said, adding that more such accounts of politicians were being investigated. —Reuters
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N. Korea refuses to take part in talks Beijing, March 20 Kenichiro Sasae said that a meeting of the six delegation heads at the talks was canceled today afternoon because Pyongyang refused to take part. ”There was no progress at all today,” Sasae said. “China as chairman (of the talks) urged North Korea to come to the table but they would not come.” The talks between envoy from the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China resumed yesterday shortly after the USA announced that a key sticking point, North Korean funds frozen in the Macau lender Banco Delta Asia, had been resolved. The North Korean deposits have been frozen in Banco Delta Asia since Washington blacklisted the tiny, privately-run Macau-based bank 19 months ago on suspicion the funds were connected to money-laundering or counterfeiting. The US announced the funds would be transferred to a North Korean-held bank account in Beijing, on the condition tha they be used for educational or humanitarian purposes. The Monetary Authority of Macau, a Chinese territory, said in a statement yesterday that it will release the funds “in accordance with the instructions of the account holders” but did not give any other details. — AP
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US gives visa to Iranian leader
Washington, March 20 State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, stated that the US had so far approved visas for 39 Iranian officials -- 13 diplomats and 26 security guards, adding that Iran has requested visas for 33 air crew members, that were being processed. “We are not going to be in any way hindering the ability of President Ahmadinejad to appear before the Security Council,” McCormack said. The US is at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear program and Ahmadinejad wants to address the Security Council in New York before it votes on a resolution imposing new arms and financial sanctions against Tehran. A drafts resolution introduced in the council, would ban all Iranian arms exports, and freeze the financial assets of 28 individuals, groups and companies. The measure requires Iran to halt uranium enrichment and the processing of nuclear fuel within 60 days or face the possibility of additional sanctions. Tehran argues, that its nuclear plans are for peaceful power generation purposes while the US, states that the main object of the program is to build a nuclear bomb. —
Reuters
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Moscow, March 20 Russian prosecutor-generals Office said today that the mine explosion occurred yesterday during equipment check. “It has been established that the explosion took place when equipment was being checked. Methane or coal dust is believed to have exploded, bringing down the roof,” Interfax news agency said quoting a report issued by the Prosecutor-general’s Office. There were 203 miners inside the mine at the time of accident, 93 of them have been rescued, RIA Novosti news agency said. — UNI
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Terrorist given nine British passports London, March 20 Seven of these were issued in his own name and two in false identities. Thirtyfour-year-old Barot from Kingsbury, north-west London, was convicted last year of conspiring to murder a large number of civilians in the British capital by blowing up gas cylinders and detonating a dirty bomb. He is now serving a 40-year sentence. A second terrorist, Salaheddine Benyaich, a Moroccan national currently serving 18 years in his home country for involvement in the al Qaeda-inspired Casablanca bombings also obtained his British passport fraudulently. He obtained two British passports in the identity of a Brighton-born citizen, something officials insist would not have happened had he been interviewed. The astonishing development came as the Home Office was forced to admit up to 10,000 people had managed to obtain passports by deception in the past year. Minister Joan Ryan said the Identity and Passport Service received 16,500 suspicious applications between October, 2005, and September, 2006, and although "almost half" were stopped by existing safeguards, the remainder went undetected. — PTI
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9000 UK doctors may not have jobs London, March 20 The situation forced ministers to order an urgent review into what went wrong and a report is expected to be published later this week advising hospitals to hunt down the best applicants who slipped through the net and invite them in for late interviews. On Saturday, the anger of Britain’s young doctors reached a head when more than 5,000 marched through the streets of London in their white coats and theatre scrubs in protest. — PTI
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Al-Qaida ultra confesses to role in anti-US attacks Washington, March 20 Waleed bin Attash has long been suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the American destroyer when it was refuelling in Yemen’s port of Aden, killing 17 US sailors. His statements to the military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay prison for terror detainees has shown his involvement in militant activities on a much broader scale, if the Pentagon transcripts released yesterday are anything to go by. Attash confirmed that he played a role in al-Qaida’s deadliest attacks against US targets overseas, the near-simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August, 1998, that killed more than 200 persons. “Many roles,” Attash said when asked what it was he did. “I participated in the buying or purchasing of the explosives. I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation. Buying the boat and recruiting the members that did the operation,” he said in reference to the USS Cole attack. Attash also described himself as “the link” between bin Laden and a top deputy at al-Qaida headquarters and al-Qaida’s cell chief in Nairobi, Kenya. “I was the link that was available in Pakistan. I used to supply the cell with whatever documents they need from fake stamps to visas, whatever,” Attash told the tribunal, also suggesting that he helped send African operatives to Pakistan and Afghanistan. —
PTI
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