Melbourne, July 13
Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef, detained in connection with the failed UK terror plot, has told the Australian investigators that he "is not a terrorist" and is "an innocent pawn".

According to media reports, the medical practitioner has claimed himself to be an innocent pawn, wrongly deemed guilty by association and family ties to known British terror suspects.

"He (Haneef) is not, he insists, a terrorist," 'The Australian' said.

As the Law Council of Australia yesterday described Haneef's predicament as "indefinite detention by stealth", top-level documentation reveals the reasoning of the AFP, its suspicions and vague circumstantial evidence.

The documentation, known to the newspaper, refers to police suspicions, relations, connections, phone numbers, borrowed SIM cards and overseas terrorism.

But nowhere does it confirm any finding yet of sufficient substance to justify charging Haneef. — PTI

President Gen Pervez Musharraf presided over a top-level meeting on Friday even as religious parties and groups organized countrywide rallies to protest the Lal Masjid siege. The gun battle had led to the death of leading cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and scores of his militant colleagues.

Discussing measures to contain the protests, it was noted that certain political groups like the MMA were trying to incite religious passions by exploiting the situation for advancing their political agenda.

It was also felt that restrictions on media’s access to information about the operation and the death toll had done a lot of damage to government credibility and spurred speculations.

President Musharraf directed all agencies concerned not to withhold information relating to the Lal Masjid operation. He also called for an aggressive media drive to project the government version.

The meeting urged the provincial governments to make all possible efforts for the maintenance of law and order and it was decided that the federal government would assist them in this regard.

Addressing the meeting, the President advised all concerned not to conceal the facts relating to the operation - the details regarding the persons wounded, dead and those released be provided to the media, he said.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, DG ISPR Maj Gen Waheed Arshad and the chiefs of the law enforcing agencies also attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday directed the government to restrict curfew only to the Lal Masjid and Hafsa seminary.

Islamabad’s DC appeared before the court and assured that the authorities were taking all possible measures to alleviate the difficulties faced by area residents.

Breaching past pacts and understanding reached between Nepal's seven-party alliance and Maoists, local cadres of All Nepal Peasants' Association (Revolutionary) and Trade Union Federation, both sister organisations of Maoists, have seized land belonging to former prime minister and chairman of Rastriya Janashakti Party, Surya Bahadur Thapa, located in Dhankuta, in eastern Nepal.

The activists of the former rebel organisation on Thursday announced seizure of the land and planted 25 flags of their organisations in the area. Ram Prasad Banstola, federation's district chairman claimed that they would distribute the land to poor peasants, workers and to the family members of martyrs.

While reaching Comprehensive Peace Accord with the seven-party alliance, Maoist leadership had agreed not to carry out such activities and return all illegally seized properties of all individuals and members of different political parties. However, the local level Maoist cadres have been continuing such activities including extortion across the country.

London, July 13
The bookstore chain Borders is removing the comic “Tintin in the Congo” from the children’s section from its British stores, after a customer complained that the work was racist, the company has said.

David Enright, a London-based human rights lawyer, was shopping at Borders with his family when he came upon the book, first published in 1931, and opened it to find what he characterised as racist abuse.

“The material suggests to (children) that Africans are subhuman, imbeciles, and half savage,” Enright said yesterday. But “Tintin in the Congo” has been widely criticised as racist by fans and critics alike. — AP

London, July 13
Mahatma Gandhi, Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler have been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching under a radical new secondary school curriculum in the UK.

Under the new curriculum to come into force next year, schools in Britain will no longer be specifically advised to focus on Churchill, Gandhi, Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Benito Mussolini in their lessons on 20th century history.

Specific periods such as the Wars of the Roses have been cut from the notes accompanying the statutory curriculum. Pupils aged 11 to 14 will, however, study broad topics including the First and Second World Wars, the Holocaust, the British Empire and slave trade.

The new list of recommended authors for 11 to 14-year-olds includes contemporary writers such as Douglas Adams and Alan Bennett, 20th century writers including T S Eliot and George Orwell and earlier writers such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

Pupils will also have to study “at least one play by Shakespeare”.

Among the few named figures to remain under the new curriculum are William Wilberforce, who will be studied for lessons on the slave trade. The history of the development of the EU has also survived as a specific topic for study. — PTI