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Presidential Poll
Burqa-clad bomber kills 15 in Pak
17 LTTE militants killed
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India, Pak leading buyers of weapons: US report
Author compares Pak army with Indonesian military
UN envoy makes last-ditch effort to meet junta chief
HC stays corruption cases against Khaleda Zia’s son
N-deal : Israel plan may affect US efforts
Israel frees jailed Palestinians
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Presidential Poll
Amid prevailing uncertainty due to court battles, President Musharraf kept Senate chairman Mohammad Mian Soomro as his covering candidate on the last day of withdrawal of nominations for the presidential poll, which left five contestants in the field.
The Election Commission on Monday released the final list of candidates, which includes Gen Musharraf, Justice Wajihuddin, sponsored by lawyers, Makhdoom Amin and Faryal of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), besides Soomro. Speaker National Assembly, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, another covering candidate for Musharraf, withdrew his name. The polling will be held on October 6. Justice Wahiduddin, who had vowed to challenge the acceptance of Musharraf’s nomination by the commission in the Supreme Court, could not file his petition. His lawyer Tariq Mahmood said the commission did not provide the copy of ruling of Chief Election Commissioner rejecting Justice Ahmed’s objections to Musharraf’s candidature in time. The petition would now be filed on Tuesday, he said. Justice Wajih said he would request the court to stay the election till the decision on his petition. He also sought hearing in full court, saying he would not mind that six judges who last Friday dismissed earlier petitions, challenging Musharraf’s eligibility to contest as army chief. On an eventful day, however, an eminent jurist Dr Farooq Hasan moved the Supreme Court to declare the presidential election illegal. Faryal and Makhdoom Amin Fahim also filed petitions in the Sindh High Court against ruling by the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Mohammad Farooq Qazi rejecting objections to General Musharraf’s candidature.
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Burqa-clad bomber kills 15 in Pak
Islamabad, October 1 Four policemen were among those killed in market place bombing in the garrison city of
Bannu, Army spokesman Major General Waheed Arashad said. Around 20 people were injured in the blast and many of them were in a critical condition, officials said. The bomber, who was travelling in an auto-rickshaw, detonated the explosives in a crowded place near a police van, they said. The
burqa-clad bomber set off the explosives when the police tried to intercept the vehicle, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said, adding it was not known whether the attacker was a woman or a man. The army spokesman denied reports that a convoy of security forces was the target. “It was a suicide attack. It was not targeted at military convoy,” he said. Pakistan has been faced regular suicide attacks by Pakistani Taliban since the military raid on Islamabad’s Lal Masjid in July in which nearly 100 extremists were killed.
— PTI
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17 LTTE militants killed
Colombo, October 1 The violence flared in the districts of Jaffna and Mannar, the focus of renewed civil war between the state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are fighting for an independent state for minority ethnic Tamils in the island's north and east. "The army killed 10 terrorists who came to attack the forward defence line in Jaffna on Sunday night. Ground troops confirmed about 20 injured from the attack," a military spokesman said.
— Reuters
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India, Pak leading buyers of weapons: US report
Washington, October 1 The report said Russia and Britain followed the USA in the list of arms suppliers, adding that the global arms market was highly competitive and arms-producing countries not only aimed at raising profit margins but also tried to influence these developing nations politically. However, due to rising fuel prices, the sales plummeted to $ 28.8 billion in 2006 as against the sales of $ 31.8 billion in 2005. During this period, many developing countries, except the oil producing economies, preferred to upgrade the current stock of weapons than purchasing the new ones. Titled as ‘Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations’, the report prepared by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, presented and elaborated many observations connecting weapons sales and global politics. Russia had been a major supplier of weapons to Iran in past years, including their $ 700 million deal for surface-to-air missiles in 2005, the New York Times quoted the report as saying. But, anxious over the country’s nuclear programme, Russia did not finalise new conventional arms deals with Iran in 2006. The report also observed that the USA signed weapons-sale agreements with the nations whose performance regarding democracy and human rights were under scepticism and drew official criticism. Last year’s announcement by the USA of signing arms agreements with Pakistan aroused the debate whether the Bush administration’s priority was to combat terrorism or to spread
democracy. Pakistan was a major recipient of American arms in 2006, including the $ 1.4 billion purchase of 36 new F-16C/D fighter aircraft and $ 640 million in missiles and bombs. The deal included a package for $ 890 million in upgrades for Pakistan’s older versions of the F-16, the report noted.
— UNI
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Author compares Pak army with Indonesian military
The Pakistan army bears resemblance not to the Turkish army, with which it is often compared, but with the Indonesian army under Sukarno and Suharto, according to Shuja Nawaz, author of a forthcoming book on the Pakistan army.
Shuja was speaking at Johns Hopkins University about his book, “Crossed Swords: Pakistan Army and the Wars Within”. He stressed that the army of today reflected the increasingly urban origin of its soldiers in Pakistani society, which was a good thing, according to a report from Washington. The army, he explained, had gradually expanded its ambit to include protection of national ideology, as defined by itself. He said ideology had changed from a loose definition of a Muslim state at birth to an Islamic polity under Zia-ul- Haq, and now to the “enlightened moderation” of Gen Pervez Musharraf, even as the growing urban population appeared to prefer the conservative end of the social and political spectrum. According to Shuja, Pakistan was at the crossroads as a partner of the West in the global “war on terror”. The army is operating in a changed and highly-charged domestic political environment.After decades of conflicts with India, it is now waging a largely futile war against an unseen enemy: Islamist terrorists within its own borders. The author pointed out that there was no hard financial scrutiny or supervision of the army’s commercial enterprises or even its overall defence spending, which distorted the allocation of scarce domestic resources and retarded economic development. Shuja said: “The army and the armed forces in general remain a key element in Pakistan’s polity. They are well- entrenched ... (However) unlike the Turkish army, they do not have any constitutional role in the country’s polity, (and) they have crafted a role for themselves and equipped themselves to tackle whatever problems they perceive, without an invitation from the government. This has created an inherently unstable system.” He was of the view that the army was ill-equipped and untrained for low-intensity conflicts and had suffered heavily at the hands of well-trained guerrillas. Their major target had been General Musharraf himself. Shuja told the meeting “It is important for the army to help create a stable national polity by subjecting itself in practice to civilian oversight and control ... (and) on its side, the civilian government needs to ensure that it follows the constitution fully and does not involve the military in political disputes.” Shuja warned that while the army remained a conservative institution at heart, it was not yet a breeding ground for large numbers of radical Islamists that many fear was the case.
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UN envoy makes last-ditch effort to meet junta chief
Yangon, October 1 After days of intimidation that snuffed out public protests, soldiers and the riot police were redeployed from the city centre to the outskirts today, but were still checking cars and buses and monitoring the city by helicopter. Traffic was still light and most shops remained closed. Some monks were allowed to leave monasteries to collect food donations. “It’s outwardly quite normal at the moment. The traffic seems to be flowing, there’s a lot of military tucked away in less visible locations,” said British Ambassador Mark Canning. “They’ve obviously for the moment squeezed things off the streets,” he said. Public anger that ignited on August 19 after the government hiked fuel prices turned into mass protests against 45 years of military dictatorship when Buddhist monks joined in.
— AP
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HC stays corruption cases against Khaleda Zia’s son
Dhaka, October 1 A Division Bench comprising of Justice Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman and Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury stayed the proceedings of the cases by the Anti-Corruption Commission following a writ petition filed by the lawyers of Tarique. The court passed similar orders in connection with corruption cases against detained former law minister Moudud
Ahmed and former communication minster Nazmul Huda and his wife Sigma Huda. The court also ordered the anti-graft panel to explain why its notice asking Tarique to submit his wealth statement to the ACC should not be declared illegal, the
UNB news agency reported. However, the court did not pass any order regarding bail to Tarique. On September 26, the anti-corruption watchdog filed a case accusing Tarique, his wife Zubaida Rahman and mother-in-law Iqbalmand Banu of concealing information regarding their wealth.
— PTI
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N-deal : Israel plan may affect US efforts
Washington, October 1 Documents outlining Israel's proposal were distributed to the 45-member NSG in March and have been circulated on Capitol Hill in recent days, just as the administration is pushing to clear the final hurdles blocking a groundbreaking agreement with India, the influential US daily reported. Countries such as India, Israel and Pakistan that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are prohibited from participating in international nuclear trade, including buying reactors, uranium fuel or yellowcake. Israel, which has a small nuclear programme, has not confirmed that it has nuclear weapons, saying only that it would not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Estimates of its stockpile range from 75 to 400 weapons. The Israeli presentation, made in a "nonpaper" that allows for official deniability, was offered in the context of the NSG's debate over India's bid for an exemption, according to a March 17 letter by the NSG's chairman cited by the Post. Among the nations that have not signed the treaty, only India and Israel would qualify for admission to the NSG under the Israeli proposal. The Post quoted David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, as saying it would be "grossly inaccurate" to suggest that Israel is demanding an exemption or linking its efforts to any other issue, such as the India debate. "Israel has never asked the NSG for any exemption to its nuclear supply guidelines, nor has Israel made any Israeli-specific request of the NSG," Siegel said. "Israel, recognised to be a full-fledged adherent to the NSG guidelines, has urged the NSG to consider adopting a generic, multi-tiered, criteria-based approach towards nuclear technology transfers." He noted that some NSG countries previously have suggested such an approach. "Modification of the NSG guidelines, were it to take place along the lines proposed by Israel, would considerably enhance the nuclear non-proliferation regime," Siegel said.
— IANS
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Israel frees jailed Palestinians
Beitunya (West Bank), October 1 In a surprise move, Israeli President Shimon Peres, a strong advocate of peacemaking with the Palestinians, did not sign all of the pardons for the Gaza residents and the group remained behind bars, Israeli officials said. A spokeswoman for Peres declined to comment. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had promised to include Gaza residents in the release as part of his confidence-building moves with Abbas ahead of a U.S.-proposed middle east conference on Palestinian statehood, expected to convene in mid-November. A spokesman for the Israel Prisons Service blamed the delay on “technical problems” that did not originate with the agency. After a delay of several hours, 57 prisoners who make their home in the occupied West Bank were taken to the Palestinian government compound in the city of Ramallah, where they received an emotional welcome from relatives and supporters.
— Reuters
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