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Online visa applications to UK suspended Bush backs proposed immigration reform bill Pervez may take extra-constitutional steps to extend term |
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Clerics kidnap 4 cops 8 govt officials kidnapped in Pakistan
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Online visa applications to UK suspended London, May 19 As many as 4,70,000 Indians had applied for visa to Britain last year and around 50,000 had applied online. According to a report telecast by Britain's Channel 4, the internet visa applications had some serious security lapse, which made personal details of 50,000 online applicants freely available on the net. Britain's opposition Conservative Party has expressed concern that this security breach was open to being exploited by terrorists. Terming it as an “Indian Visa Fiasco”, the shadow immigration minister, Damian Green, said “This may have been a treasure trove for international terrorists.” The British Information Commissioner, the government's data privacy watchdog, is probing into the lapse, an official said today. The Commissioner has demanded a “full explanation” from the Foreign Office. The channel reported that one of the applicants noticed the lapse in April last year. The applicant alerted the company as well as the British High Commission in India. After the revelations, Britain has suspended its online visa applications not only in India but also in Russia and Nigeria, the official said. Visa processing in India has been contracted out by the Foreign Office to a private Indian company, VFS Global. The same company provides the services in Russia and Nigeria also. There is a looming suspicion that personal data may have been stolen. Home addresses, dates of birth and passport numbers were all said to be accessible for more than a year. Britain's Foreign Office had in February awarded VFS a five-year contract worth 190 million pounds for visa processing. “This VFS system is used only to record details of visa applicants applying online through VFS, and to allow those applicants to see how long it will take to have their passport returned. It is not connected to the secure UK government in formation system used to process the applications,” the Channel 4 report quoted the Foreign Office as saying. — PTI
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Bush backs proposed immigration reform bill Washington, May 19 “This legislation includes all the elements required for comprehensive immigration reform. It will improve security at our borders. It will give employers new tools to verify the employment status of workers and hold businesses to account for those they hire,” Bush said in his weekly radio address today. The bill, championed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, seeks to tackle the problem of 12 million illegal immigrants, and provide a temporary worker programme. “It will create a temporary worker programme. It will help us resolve the status of millions of illegal immigrants who are here already, without animosity and without amnesty. And it will honour the great American tradition of ‘the melting pot’ by strengthening our efforts to help new arrivals assimilate into our society,” Bush said. While the proposed legislation has provision for increasing H1B visa allocation from the current 65,000 to 115,000, a bi-partisan group of senators had made it clear that the “last word on the subject had not been said”. Praising the work of bipartisan group of senators, Bush said the legislation will mandate tough border security and enforcement benchmarks that will include stringent on-site inspections at workplaces and tamper-proof identification cards. —PTI
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Pervez may take extra-constitutional steps to extend term President General Pervez Musharraf has indicated he may consider extra-constitutional methods to enhance his term after the forthcoming general elections. “I have some options in mind to enhance my standing,” Musharraf said in an interview with Aaj television aired on late Friday night. He said the Constitution allowed him to keep the uniform till the end of this year but the term could be extended if the next Assembly approves it with two-third majority. The President, however, said that he would decide about his uniform after December 2007, and would not violate the Constitution in this matter. Observers noted a major change in Musharraf’s demeanour in the aftermath of the most serious challenge he is facing since the eruption of popular outpouring of support to Chief Justice Iftikhat Chaudhry after the General sacked him in his army house. The interview gave an insight into the how the judicial crisis has taken its toll. The tell-tale facial expressions, twitching and wringing of hands, furtive looks, absence of usual verve and cockiness, betrayed a lot about a perturbed and uneasy state of mind. Looking tense and edgy, Musharraf, who is normally very articulate and fluent, was often found incoherent, groping for words and unsure of moral basis of his claims and assertions. Asked what would he do if the parliament’s two-third majority asked him to retain his uniform, Musharraf said, “Well, if this happens I will think about it...After all this is democracy in which you can’t ignore the people’s will.” Commenting on the May 12 violence in Karachi, Musharraf said he didn’t know who started firing on May 12, but he had directed the Prime Minister to determine the facts. Musharraf backed the Muttahida Quami Movement’s decision (MQM) to stage a rally on May 12, saying that it had the right to show its public strength. He said the violence in Karachi on May 12 would have happened even if the MQM had called off its rally because the CJP and his supporters had to pass through MQM-dominated areas and this would have challenged the party’s clout in the city. Musharraf admitted that the government had made ‘technical’ mistakes in the reference against the CJP. The president said that his photograph with the CJP in uniform should not have been released to the media. Musharraf said that he had not summoned the CJP because Chaudhry had himself sought an appointment from his military secretary to discuss with him (Musharraf) a letter written by a Peshawar High Court judge. He said that he discussed the presidential reference with the CJP and the latter demanded evidence of the charges against him. The President said that on the CJP’s insistence for evidence, he summoned intelligence officials, who had gathered proof against Chaudhry. Musharraf denied that law enforcement officials had dragged Chaudhry from his hair, saying the officials were actually providing security to the CJP. Musharraf said that moderate and extremist forces would face each other in the forthcoming elections and he would ensure that moderate forces win the polls. The President claimed that India and Pakistan were close to resolving the Kashmir issue through back channel diplomacy.
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Clerics kidnap 4 cops Islamabad, May 19 The policemen were abducted late last night amid fears of a crackdown against the mosque. Its chief prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz, who established the so-called Shariat court in April, had announced to carry out suicide attacks against the government According to the mosque’s deputy cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the plain clothed policemen were outside the mosque on a ‘spying mission’. “We had already advised the local administration not to carry out such acts, which could aggravate the situation but it chose to ignore our warnings,” he said. Senior police officials today said there was no headway in the ongoing negotiations between the local authorities and mosque administration to secure the release of the policemen. Meanwhile, the Dawn newspaper reported that interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah and senior security officials held a meeting with the clercis last night and put all security agencies on high alert. The Lal Masjid administration abducted the policemen after they complained of the government’s failure to release 11 of their colleagues, who had been arrested earlier. Meanwhile, the Pakistani police has registered a case against radical clerics of a mosque here and their followers for abducting the four policemen in an apparent retaliation to the arrest of some of the students of the madrassas run by them. A case under the Anti-Terrorism Act has been registered against the Lal Masjid management for the abduction of the policemen, who continue to remain in the custody of the clerics in the well-guarded mosque located in central Islamabad. — PTI, UNI
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8 govt officials kidnapped in Pakistan
Karachi, May 19 The eight were kidnapped after their vehicle was ambushed last evening in the north Waziristan area bordering
Afghanistan, Arif Khan, a government official said. They were travelling from Peshawar to north Waziristan to conduct a survey on the schools and other educational projects in the restive tribal belt. The kidnapped officials included five women.
— PTI
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