 |
|
|
Nuclear Deal
Mukhtaran Mai gets acclaim for courage
Karachi killings shattered
interest in deal: Benazir
|
|
|
|
Nawaz, Bhutto can’t
return before poll: Musharraf
Judicial crisis caught on canvas
|
|
Nuclear Deal
Despite public declarations both in Washington and New Delhi that undersecretary of state R. Nicholas Burns did not cancel a visit to India this week, sources have told The Tribune that the trip was shelved because the State Department official was not satisfied with the level of progress on the civilian nuclear deal.
“Burns will be ready to go when the deal is close to finalisation. He doesn’t feel it is there yet,” said an official. Another source said as late as Wednesday Burns was planning to travel to India and there was definitely a cancellation. Burns spoke to foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Wednesday and they agreed that the American would visit India before the G8 summit in June. “Part of the problem is that, following their meetings, both the sides have felt that they have made progress only to find that this unravels after going back to the capitals,” an official said. While PM Manmohan Singh faces stiff opposition to the deal from nuclear scientists and opposition parties in India, in Washington the Bush administration faces similar pressure from the entrenched nonproliferation lobby. The State Department official said the Bush administration’s negotiators were willing to make concessions, but the Indians too need to be flexible. Daryl Kimball at the Arms Control Association said the cause for optimism, following the latest round of the Burns-Menon meetings, was probably because the Indian side had, for the first time, come with some compromises. On the so-called 123 Agreement that the two sides are attempting to iron out, Sean Mc Cormack, spokesman at the State Department, said: “We are working on it. We are making progress on it. It’s not completed yet. But I understand that over the course of the past several weeks there have been some positive discussions on concluding that agreement. We certainly want to do the deal. The Indian Government too wants to conclude the agreement. We will like to do it sooner rather than later, but these are important issues. So we want to get it done in a timely manner.” Some of the key sticking points in the agreement negotiations are Indian demands to have a right to test nuclear weapons, which the US says will lead to Washington suspending nuclear cooperation. A congressional source said if the Bush administration approached Congress and asked for a change in the law to allow India to test nuclear weapons, members of Congress would probably say “Hell No”. But the administration had not requested any further changes
in the law.
|
|
Mukhtaran Mai gets acclaim for courage
Mukhtaran Mai, who first gained prominence five years ago for her refusal to keep silent after being gang-raped in revenge for a relative's alleged crime, has been acclaimed for her courage in battling for human rights, earning the name 'Pakistan's Rosa Parks'.
Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist who refused to take her 'designated' seat on a segregated bus. 'Shame,' directed by Muhammad Ali Naqvi, premiered recently at the Tribeca Film Festival and is a documentary chronicling the events in Mai's life after June 22, 2002, the day she was gang-raped after a tribal court ordered it as retribution for an alleged rape by her 12-year-old brother of a female relative of the men who carried out the gang- rape. Naqvi, a Canadian-born film director, grew up in the US and Pakistan, and was in Pakistan working on his first documentary when the news broke. "There were so many people interested in learning more about her," he said. Initially, he had no plans to document her story, but after their meeting he was astonished by her unwavering conviction in the face of adversity. "It makes me feel proud as a person of Pakistani origin that a woman could be so strong,'' said Fajah Najam, a moviegoer who saw the film and thought the story was a fairy tale until Mai walked into the theatre and was greeted like a rock star. "This movie is about this woman's strong character." With the help of a local imam and against the wishes of her family, Mai filed a police report, which started her on the first steps of her long journey towards justice. A local reporter ran her story, which quickly made national and international headlines. The men were then rounded up and arrested. Since the traumatic event unfolded, Mai has been victimised by her community, the police and other government officials. After her testimony at the trial, the court handed down death sentences to her tormentors. However, despite using money received from the government to set up the first of many schools in her town, Mai continues to receive death threats. She tries to make time for her own studies as a fifth grader at her own school alongside overseeing students and running a women's welfare organisation as well as building a local hospital.
|
|
Karachi killings shattered
interest in deal: Benazir
The prospect of a political deal between Gen Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto appears to be dead, according to an analysis based on an interview with the PPP leader, published in the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) yesterday.
Bhutto said the killing of a large number of people in Karachi by a pro-government mob had shattered her interest in cooperating with Musharraf. “With 42 people dead in Karachi, I just cannot envisage such a thing at this moment.” While some would have viewed the Bhutto-Musharraf deal as “pragmatic,” others would have seen it as Bhutto blessing Musharraf’s military dictatorship, effectively splintering opposition to the regime. With the deal called off, the impact on the emergence of a united opposition would be “dramatic,” adds the report. Bhutto admitted that from the end of the last year until the beginning of this year, she had been speaking to the Musharraf government about possible political cooperation. She refused to elaborate but insisted that the closure of a NAB wing did not mean that the corruption cases against her had been dropped. Although she would not go into details, Bhutto says the talks had already been faltering because she distrusted Musharraf’s side. She referred to an assassination attempt on her sister-in-law Azra Zardari.The police refused to file a criminal complaint against a provincial minister and his bodyguards who were accused of the shooting attempt.
|
|
Nawaz, Bhutto can’t
return before poll: Musharraf
Denouncing efforts to establish his ethnic links with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and to attribute the Karachi killings to ethnic factors, President Pervez Musharraf has said elements engaged in this dangerous exercise are “playing with the destiny” of the country.
“If ethnic violence starts in Karachi, we will turn back to the 1990s to the detriment of the country,” General Musharraf said in an interview with a private TV channel . He said he had no hesitation in acknowledging that he was Urdu speaking. “But I am concerned about entire Pakistan and not one ethnic entity”. The President said that for him, Pakistan and its interests were the most important thing and there was no question of his linkage with any group. Musharraf said the issue of the presidential reference against suspended CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry was being politicised, and the May 12 violence in Karachi was a result of this. The President said former prime ministers living in exile, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, would not be allowed to return to Pakistan before the next general election.
|
|
| 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 | |
Videos
