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IAEA backs Indo-US N-deal, waits for talks
N-deal not to contain China, says Pranab
Angry Afghan Sikhs take coffin to UN HQ
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Amendment of Poll Rules
N. Korea nuclear talks put off
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IAEA backs Indo-US N-deal, waits for talks
Vienna (Austria), September 17 After opening the 51st General Conference of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), its director general Mohammed ElBaradei told a press conference that the agency was waiting for Indian authorities to come for talks on safeguards. "So far, they have not approached us," he said. Signalling its support for the Indo-US nuclear deal, the IAEA also said it was ‘good’ and a step in the right direction’. It will provide clean energy to millions of people in India, ElBaradei said at a joint press meet with Austrian Minister Ursula Plassnik. Meanwhile, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar continued to evade the media, obviously aware of the sensitivities back home. About a fortnight back Kakodkar had said he will take a call on discussing the safeguards agreement with IAEA two days before leaving for Vienna. On September 13, the top nuclear scientist had said he had not received any directive from the government on the matter. Kakodkar, who was contacted here yesterday, refused to speak on the issue. In his opening remarks at the IAEA meet, ElBaradei emphasised the need for safeguards agreement for nuclear progammes which will be carried out by member states. "Without safeguard agreements, the agency cannot provide any assurance about a state's nuclear activities," ElBaradei said, implying that in the absence of such an agreement, the IAEA
member countries could not provide nuclear cooperation. — PTI
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N-deal not to contain China, says Pranab
Seoul, September 17 In carefully-worded comments, Mukherjee said the civil nuclear cooperation "we are trying to have" would be a "landmark agreement" of bilateral cooperation in multilateral framework, "if it finally materialises". Elaborating, he said though the Indo-US nuclear agreement was a bilateral pact, "its implications will be involvement of large number of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) countries and India-specific agreement with IAEA".
— PTI
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Angry Afghan Sikhs take coffin to UN HQ
Kabul, September 17 Shouting slogans the Sikhs broke through the hastily-assembled police barriers and reached the gates of the UN mission. The protesters said Muslims had beaten them as they tried to cremate a community elder, Lachman Singh. “Aren’t we human? Isn’t God created for us as well? If God is only for Muslims, go ahead and kill us all or hand us over to the UN,” Autaar Singh, the Parliament’s Sikh representative, told Reuters. “We want our rights and freedom,” he said. “We weren’t even stopped from performing our religious ceremonies by the Taliban.” The head of criminal investigations at Kabul police, Ali Shah Paktiawal, came to calm the demonstrators and after brief talks with Sikh representatives inside the UN compound, agreed to escort them to the site of the funeral. Most Sikhs, along with the country’s handful of Hindus, came with the British from India in the 19th century. But after more than 30 years of war in Afghanistan, most have fled. In 2001, the Taliban ordered Sikhs, Hindus and other religious minorities to wear yellow patches, ostensibly so they would not be arrested by the religious police for breaking Taliban laws. Having placed the coffin in the back of a car and squeezed into two buses, the Sikh protesters arrived at their temple escorted by several dozen armed police. A small crowd of Muslim men looked on warily as the Sikhs carried the coffin, draped in a silver cloth, inside the temple compound where they built a funeral pyre. Prayers were chanted as the body of the dead man was placed in the centre and cremated. Bemused Afghan policemen took pictures with their mobile phones. “We are grateful to the authorities who helped us burn our dead on our land,” said Autaar Singh while thanking the police. — Reuters
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Amendment
of Poll Rules Opposition members will resign from the assemblies and pull out of provincial governments the day Gen Pervez Musharraf files papers for presidential election, the All- Party Democratic Movement (APDM) announced here evoking immediate response from Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that it would make no difference. Aziz told reporters that the presidential election would be held on time and its schedule would be announced in a day or two. The ruling coalition had enough votes to elect General Musharraf for the sake of stability and continuity in economic policies, he said. Former premier Benazir Bhutto, apparently frustrated by the obstacles in finalisation of her deal with Musharraf also warned that the PPP might join the APDM in tendering resignations. But the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly was sceptical and said Bhutto might shift her stance again if Musharraf removed impediments in the deal. "The APDM component parties have decided to resign from the national as well as provincial assemblies to block Musharraf's re-election. All APDM parties will quit the assemblies and launch a mass protest movement the day President Musharraf's nomination papers are accepted by the Election Commission of Pakistan," Raja Zafar -ul- Haq, convener of the Joint Action Committee of the APDM and chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), told reporters. The national and provincial assemblies make up the electoral college for the presidential election. Haq was speaking after APDM leaders, including Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Javed Hashmi, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Imran Khan, Masood Khan Achakzai and Liaqat Baloch, met to chalk out the alliance's response to the deportation of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the president's re-election plan. Haq said the PPP, which is the largest opposition party but not part of the APDM, had contacted the PML-N for the revival of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, but the latter had told the former that the fight for the restoration of democracy would now be launched from the APDM platform. The APDM also expressed a sense of outrage over the notification issued by the Election Commission validating Musharraf's eligibility to contest despite constitutional provisions and said the commission had seriously compromised its position to act as an independent institution by unabashedly accepting the General's diktat. The grouping said it would challenge the notification in courts and resist its operation. Haq said the alliance of over 30 opposition parties sans the PPP would hold rallies and public meetings on September 21 in protest against the deportation of Nawaz Sharif, arrest of APDM leaders and "police brutality" against PML-N workers on September 10.
CJ ready for ‘ultimate sacrifice’
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry(58) is willing to make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ to ensure that history remembers him, says his son, Dr Arslan.
“His new resolve is to go down in the history as the best judge Pakistan has ever had and he is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to impart justice to everyone,” Arslan (28) told London’s Sunday Teleghraph. For months, the Chief Justice has lived as a partial prisoner in his own home, venturing out only to attend the court proceedings or meet fellow lawyers, the paper quoted Arslan. He was named as the prime figure in the presidential reference for whom the Chief Justice used his influence to secure a senior job in the police. The paper said fa ready mily and close friends disclosed Chaudhry was determined to do what he believed was right in his country’s constitutional crisis and that he was “like a man reborn”. Arslan was speaking at his heavily- guarded house outside Islamabad that Chaudhry shares with his wife, Faiqa(46) two sons - Arslan and Balaach(6) - and three daughters, Ayesha(28), Afra(20), and Palwasha(16). His son said the government had halved the security around their house and bugged their telephones. In the wake of threats to his life,Chaudhry’s family rarely leaves the house. The Chief Justice has refused to meet the intermediaries sent by Musharraf in recent weeks.
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N. Korea nuclear talks put off
Seoul, September 17 The talks were expected to start around the middle of this week, but Japanese and South Korean officials said they would instead meet at a later date that has not yet been set. No reason for the delay was given. The six-nation talks- among China, Japan, Russia, the USA and the two Koreas- have dragged on for years and been beset by delays, but have this year finally made some progress. The North shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor in July and had been displaying willingness to take further steps in exchange for political and economic concessions. Last week, nuclear experts from the US, China and Russia visited the North's nuclear facilities to discuss technical details of disabling them and they reportedly reached an agreement with Pyongyang on how to proceed. On Friday, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in Washington that the talks were expected to begin in the middle of this week. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said today that host China had informed Japan today that the talks would be postponed. China gave no reason for the postponement and gave no new date for the start of the talks, the official said on condition of anonymity due to policy.
— AP
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