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US:
Sharif’s deportation Pak’s internal matter
Pervez denies role in Sharif’s deportation
Sharif disregarded his pledge: Saudi Arabia
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Suicide blast kills 16 in Pak
Peshawar, September 11 A suicide bomber blew himself up in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday killing 16 people as police tried to search him, police said. The bomber was trying to get into a van taxi in the city of Dera Ismail Khan when police confronted him and told him to remove a shawl he had wrapped around him, police said.
CNN: New Osama video appears on 9/11 anniversary
Laden taunts US on 9/11 anniversary
Lanka navy sinks LTTE ships carrying arms
Minors paraded, tonsured for theft
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US:
Sharif’s deportation Pak’s internal matter
Washington, September 11 "It's a matter for Pakistanis to resolve.... This agreement
which was arrived at among the Pakistani government, Nawaz Sharif, his
brother and the Saudi government -- we're not party to it. It's up to
the parties involved to interpret that agreement as they will,"
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters here.
".... I would note only as a factual matter that the Pakistani
Supreme Court has made a judgement about this issue, and that the
decision to deport Sharif runs contrary to that," he said, adding
it was still a pending legal matter.
"So we're not going to have anything to say about it. But this
is wholly, entirely a Pakistani issue to resolve." McCormack
refuted suggestions that the developments had anything to do with the
presence of assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia
Richard Richard Boucher in Pakistan." As a matter of fact, it's
coincidence that the timing of this particular strategic dialogue takes
place right now.
"This is something that had been scheduled prior to the
political calendar, shall we say, that's unfolding now in
Pakistan," the spokesman said.
The spokesman said those involved in the existing "political
transition" in the country should work within the framework of the
Pakistani law and insisted that the US' main interest was in seeing
elections that are "free, fair and transparent, and consistent with
Pakistani law and the Constitutions."
"And that, for the current moment, anybody involved in this
existing political transition, that is undergoing in Pakistan now with
upcoming elections, that they take all their steps and all their actions
in a manner that turns away from violence, and that is within the
framework of the Pakistani law -- Pakistani constitution and laws,"
McCormack said.
"... there is going to be a democratic process in Pakistan.
There are legal issues that are currently outstanding in Pakistan with
respect to this deportation, I said that we're not going to have
anything more to say about it as it moves through the Pakistani legal
process," he said. — PTI
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Pervez denies role in Sharif’s deportation
Islamabad, September 11 After Sharif, the PML-N leader, was sent to Jeddha within hours of his arrival here yesterday following a seven-year exile, Musharraf said the former Premier was morally bound to stay out of the country
by virtue of his deal with Riyadh before going in exile in 2000, 'Dawn News'
TV reported. Defending the government's decision to deport Sharif, Musharraf said at a meeting yesterday that everything
was done according to the law and all legal formalities were fulfilled, the report said. Referring to the agitation by Sharif's supporters, he said nobody would be allowed to take the law into their hands and stressed that the government would do all it could to maintain law and order in
the country. Apparently considering the legal implications arising out of the contempt petitions filed by Sharif's family in the Supreme Court, which had allowed the deposed
Premier to return home in a landmark verdict last month, Musharraf's office
claimed that the President had no role in the deportation. The President played no role in Sharif's deportation, Musharraf's spokesman Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi (retd) said. "Put this question to the government. The Presidency has nothing to do with it", he was quoted by The News daily as saying. Qureshi was reluctant to speak more on the issue. Another senior official, who deals with the media, was annoyed by queries about the Presidency's involvement. When asked who decided to deport Sharif, the unnamed official at the Presidency said "Ask the government," the daily reported.
— PTI
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Sharif disregarded his pledge: Saudi Arabia
Jeddah, September 11 An official statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency said: “The Kingdom welcomes him again after his return to Islamabad, disregarding his pledge that he will stay away from Pakistan and politics.” According to a media report here, Muhammad Ibn Ahmed Tayeb, director general of the foreign ministry’s office in the Makkah region, defended Saudi mediation in the Musharraf-Sharif standoff, saying it was aimed at safeguarding the interests of the Pakistani people and protecting the country’s stability. Tayeb underscored the long-standing historic relations between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. “The Kingdom’s main concern is the security, peace and stability of Pakistan... We consider Pakistan a strategic ally”, Tayeb told the English-language newspaper Arab News. Sharif was treated like a VIP on his arrival here after an abortive attempt to return to his country. Arab News reported that he was accorded treatment that is normally reserved for former prime ministers when he arrived at the King Abdul Aziz International Airport’s Royal Terminal.
— IANS
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Suicide blast kills 16 in Pak
Peshawar, September 11 The bomber, who was in his teens, then set off his explosives killing two policemen, a paramilitary soldier and 13 civilians. “Most of the dead were in the vehicle,” said police officer Abdul Hayee Babar. Separately, security officials said at least seven people were killed in clashes with pro-Taliban fighters in the South Waziristan region, also in the northwest on the Afghan border, where militants are holding about 240 soldiers captive. Two paramilitary soldiers and four militants were killed in the fighting while a villager was killed when a mortar bomb hit a house, a security official said. The deteriorating security has fuelled concern that President Pervez Musharraf might use it as a reason to declare a state of emergency and cling on to power, as he faces mounting opposition to his plans to secure a second five-year term.
— Reuters
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9/11 comes around again, as emotive as ever
New York, September 11 Across the United States, the day will have much of the same emotional impact that has gripped the American psyche and dominated U.S. political discourse for six years, an impact that will not soon ease, say analysts. New York city will mark the event as it has for the past five anniversaries with a solemn ceremony punctuated by the reading of names of the 2,750 innocent people who died at the World Trade Center. “I think one of the challenges that we as a society have is, how do you keep the memory of 9/11 alive and the lessons of something like 9/11 alive going forward for decades?" Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters on Monday. New York television station WABC tried to deviate from the past by not broadcasting the reading of the names of the dead but backtracked in the face of stiff public opposition. Bloomberg himself attempted to move this year's commemoration entirely off site because Ground Zero, the site of the Twin Towers, is now a busy construction zone. Families of the victims protested and Bloomberg relented, allowing them limited access. “It inhibited political speech,” said Doug Muzzio, public affairs professor at New York's Baruch College. “That's beginning to diminish but as long as there is a war on terror and a politics of the same, 9/11 is going to be a symbol of it.” “Without doubt it will persist through this election cycle,” he said. The term 9/11, using the American convention of enumerating the month before the date, summarises the entire experience associated with the hijacked jetliner attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon and crashed a plane into a Pennsylvania field. In all, 2,993 people died, including the 19 hijackers. “It is the kind of event that will not really fade emotionally until everyone who was alive at the time has died,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “It takes a while. It was really the 1960s before you could discuss Pearl Harbor rationally without using epithets for the Japanese,” he said of Japan's attack on the U.S. base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Nor can 9/11 be separated from politics, especially with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani running for President. He leads most of the national polls for the Republican nomination, largely on the strength of his performance that day and his pledge to keep the country safe. Some groups representing the families of victims opposed giving Giuliani a speaking role in the commemoration, raising concerns he would use the platform to promote his presidential aspirations. But Giuliani will speak as planned, and his aides have insisted that he will not politicise the event.
— Reuters
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CNN: New Osama video appears on 9/11 anniversary
Washington, September 11 The video shows a still image of Bin Laden with a voice identified as his praising September 11 hijacker Walid al-Shehri, who was aboard the American Airlines Flight 11 which crashed into the World Trade
Centre, CNN reported. The authenticity of the video was not immediately confirmed, the television network said, adding that the video did not appear to show any moving images of Bin Laden. CNN said the video released on Tuesday appeared to be purely a eulogy of Shehri, who like Bin Laden hails from Saudi Arabia. There is also no indication of when it was recorded, the US news network said.
— AFP
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Laden taunts US on 9/11 anniversary New York, September 11 As Americans remembered the almost 3,000 persons killed, an attempted bomb attack in Turkey and a security alert at a US military base in Germany kept the world on terrorist alert. The Al-Qaeda leader praised hijacker Walid al-hehri as a “champion”. Al-Shehri was “a young man, who personally penetrated the most extreme degrees of danger, and is a rarity among men: one of the 19 champions,” according to Intel Center, a US-based monitoring group that obtained the video. Al-Shehri was one of 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001. He was on American Airlines flight 11, the first jet to crash into the World Trade Center in New York. The US administration made no immediate comment on the video or its authenticity. — AFP
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Lanka navy sinks LTTE ships carrying arms
The Sri Lanka navy sank three ships believed to be carrying three light aircraft, a high speed boat, a bulletproof vehicle as well an artillery and weapons for Tamil rebels off the south eastern seas of the island on Monday night, commander of the navy Vice-Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda said.
The LTTE vessels had been destroyed by the Navy following intelligence reports it received of Tamil rebel movements in the area in the high seas about 600 nautical miles (1,200 km) from the south east coast of the country, the commander told reporters at a press briefing. The navy had received information from intelligence sources about the movement of the LTTE vessels carrying arms through thus sea route and had been monitoring them for the past last one and half years. Monday nights attack followed more specific details of the whereabouts of the LTTE ships, which were sailing within the exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka. With the destruction of the three LTTE ships on Monday, a total of six rebel ships have been destroyed since February 2007 by the navy. The attacks on the ships came as news came from Thailand that the authorities had arrested Kumaran
Padmanadan, alias “KP”, who is believed to be the LTTE main man in charge of the global procurement of arms and ammunition for the Tigers. The government is awaiting official confirmation from the Thai authorities regarding the arrest.
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Minors paraded, tonsured for theft
Nawada, September 11 Mochu (13) and Budhan (12) had to bear the ignominy for allegedly stealing a few packs of detergent from the shop of their employer Sahu Lal yesterday, the police said today. The children, whose very employment is violative of law, were accused by Sahu Lal of having stolen some packs of detergent and subjected to torture, officer-in-charge of Nawada police station Arun Kumar Tiwari said.
— PTI
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