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Chaudhry’s plea shot down
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Pakistan’s N-factor
Sharif, Bhutto can take part in poll, Pak tells US
Tech transfer: India seeks info
Troop pullout: Bush vetoes Bill
‘Facilitate HSMP visa holders’
Dalits problems: Resolution moved in US Congress
Lanka violence claims 15 lives
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Chaudhry’s plea shot down
While the government on Wednesday toughened measures to stem the ever-increasing tide of protests against removal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) turned down his request to stay its proceedings pending the verdict by the Supreme Court on his constitutional petitions challenging the entire process. Outside the court and across all major and small cities in the country, lawyers boycotted courts and together with political parties and civil organisations staged massive rallies braving hot weather and roadblocks. The police briefly clashed with demonstrators in Islamabad when it tried to block a procession of workers of Nawaz Sharif faction of the Pakistan Muslim League from reaching the Supreme Court. In another incident the police resorted to baton charge when it stopped a water tank from being driven towards the site of demonstration. Para-military Rangers and the police restricted traffic coming from twin-city Rawalpindi and other parts of Punjab and North West Frontier Province into the Capital. On Wednesday Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and cousin Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the ruling PML, also held an urgent meeting with Musharraf. Pervez then called a top-level meeting in the Punjab House here to reassess the strategy to control the agitation. An immediate challenge confronting the government is Chief Justice Chaudhry’s plan to travel to Lahore by road on May 5 to address Bar’s reception there. The provincial government has unleashed a crack down on opposition leaders and activists arresting scores of them in various cities to prevent them from organising public reception for the Chief Justice on May 5. In the SJC on Wednesday, Iftikhar’s lead counsel, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, argued for his objection that the council and President Musharraf had passed illegal orders to restrain the chief justice from performing his functions. The council adjourned the hearing till Thursday when government lawyers would respond to Aitzaz after he concludes his arguments. Government lawyers moved the Acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Rana Bhagwandas to hear the constitutional petitions filed by Iftikhar in a full court instead of the five-judge larger Bench he has constituted. The government move came amid widely held belief in the Bar that the bench comprises very independent judges with reputation of great integrity. The Bench is due to hear the petitions on daily basis from May 7.
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Pakistan’s N-factor The Pakistan Government has been handed over a copy of the dossier “Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, AQ Khan and the rise of proliferation networks” on the 30-year secret activities of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and the covert links of his network with Iran, Libya and Korea. The dossier has been researched and documented by the widely respected British think-tank, the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). It contains a lot of evidence to establish the “crimes” of Dr Khan and his “collaborators” within the Pakistani establishment. The Pakistani Foreign Office in Islamabad has formally got the copy of the dossier from IISS, London and the country’s top military and diplomatic officials were minutely scanning its contents.
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Islamabad, May 2 “The NSG member countries have been told that in case of their readiness to establish nuclear reactors, only they could operate them and Pakistani scientists would do nothing with those reactors,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M. Kasuri was quoted as saying by The Nation newspaper. Moreover, the NSG states could also take back the spent fuel of the nuclear reactors established by them, Kasuri said. He said Pakistan was all willing to remove the concerns, if any, of the countries, including the NSG countries for the acquisition of nuclear power reactors to meet the growing energy demands of Pakistan. — PTI
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Sharif, Bhutto can take part in poll, Pak tells US
Islamabad, May 2 The government during its briefings to US and EU on measures being taken to hold free and fair polls, due after November this year, has assured them that the two leaders, who lived in exile abroad, were free to participate in the polls and take part in the campaign, 'The Nation' newspaper reported. Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam declined to react to the report saying that such issues were not under her purview. The daily quoted officials as saying that it was premature to say anything as to when the two leaders would come back. However, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and its allies had been conveyed that they should formulate their election strategy keeping in mind that the exiled leadership would be in the country in the coming elections, it said. Sharif was exiled to Jeddah after the military coup in 1999 and he later moved to London while Bhutto lived in self exile for about a decade fearing arrest in connection with the corruption cases registered against her. Bhutto also admitted recently that she held talks with Musharraf to work out a deal to return and lead her party. During the 2002 polls, Musharraf had introduced a new set of rules which barred the two from leading their parties or to become Prime Ministers for a third time. — PTI
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Tech transfer: India seeks info
Washington, May 2 "... we have seen reports and we saw an indictment. It is not two Indian nationals, it is one Indian national. And we actually asked today of the United States for information. We would like to know what is there," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told reporters at the Indian Embassay here when asked to comment on the indictment and its implications. Menon said "If there is something we should be looking at investigating, we'd like to get to the bottom of it. So we actually asked for information and we are hoping to get it." The Justice Department has charged that agencies of the Indian government participated in a conspiracy to sidestep US export regulations and obtain secret weapons technology from American companies over several years. The indictment goes on to slap charges against an electronics firm, Cirrus Inc., operating in Singapore, South Carolina and Bangalore, of working as an agent of the Indian government to obtain sensitive missile and weapons technology for its military programmes. Four of the company officials including the founder Parthasarathy Sudarshan, were charged. The indictment also has a number of unidentified co-conspirators including an official of the Indian Mission in Washington. — PTI
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Troop pullout: Bush vetoes Bill
Washington, May 2 The showdown came last evening with Bush casting the second veto of his Presidency on an issue he is totally on the opposite side of not only the Congress, but also of the American public. Bush said ‘No’ to the Bill that would have required the first American combat soldiers to be withdrawn from Iraq by October 1 with an eventual goal of total pullout six months later. The legislation said Bush would mandate a rigid and artificial deadline for troops pullout. But Democrats, who have long criticised the President for leading the country into a ‘colossal mistake’ that has left some 3,350 military personnel dead, were quick to take Bush to task for continuing the stalemate. “The President wants a blank cheque,” quipped house speaker Nancy Pelosi, shortly after Bush’s
appearance.— PTI
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‘Facilitate HSMP visa holders’
London, May 2 Expressing concern about the impact of changes on the people, the mayor said, “To change rules retrospectively in this way for the people, who have made a major commitment to a productive role in the UK, is manifestly unjust.” “I urge the government to allow the people admitted under the HSMP before November 7, 2006 to apply for permanent settlement after four years, according to the rules in force (further visa extension on economic activity and permanent settlement in 4 years), when they got HSMP approval,” he said. — PTI
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Dalits problems: Resolution moved in US Congress
Washington, May 2 The resolution to express a Sense of Congress was moved by Congressman Trent Franks yesterday. It has 13 co-sponsors cutting across party lines, including Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana and Democrat Dennis Kucinich of Ohio who is currently running for his party's nomination for the Presidential elections of 2008. The Resolution has been referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. — PTI
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Lanka violence claims 15 lives
Colombo, May 2 Troops shot dead 10 rebels in sporadic clashes at Mannar district while three more were killed in Weli Oya yesterday, Defence Ministry officials said. In the northern town of Vavuniya, two Tamil civilians were gunned down last night, the police said.
— PTI
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