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Militants seize over two-thirds of Swat Valley
Imran issues video message from hiding
Ban rejects Pak protest
’75 coup leader alleges ex-prez’s involvement
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US Air Force grounds ageing F-15s
‘Emergency to go in
2-3 weeks’
Denial of visa Pak lodges protest
Russian Duma votes to suspend arms treaty
Over 60 dead in fresh violence
Afghanistan probes blast
Three dead in Finland school shooting
Myanmar rejects joint talks with UN, Suu Kyi Discovery lands in Florida ‘India to be third biggest CO2 emitter by 2015’
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Militants seize over two-thirds of Swat Valley
Peshawar, November 7 Dozens of paramilitary troops and police surrendered their weapons to militants and retreated from the mountain town of Kalam in the Swat Valley - dubbed Pakistan's Switzerland - early Wednesday, a police official said. Announcements about the advance were made on a pirate FM radio station run by cleric Mullah Fazlullah, as militants hoisted their party flag on police stations and government buildings, and distributed sweets. President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency on Saturday, saying it was necessary to tackle Al-Qaida and pro-Taliban rebels. He also cited repeated interference in government by a hostile judiciary. The militants' advance into Swat was one of the key factors, indicating that rebels are branching out into new areas from their traditional base in the troubled tribal belt that borders Afghanistan. The government moved 2,500 troops into Swat last week to counter Fazlullah, who is also known as "Mullah Radio" for his speeches on his private radio station, in which he calls for a holy war on authorities. Officially, more than 150 militants have been killed in clashes with security forces in the past week. But the militants have hit back in recent days. Before taking Kalam, which lies at the end of the valley, they captured the town of Bahrain, a strategic town poised over the raging Swat river, having seized the town of Madyan later on Tuesday, officials and residents said. But Fazlullah's aide, Maulana Shah Dauran, said in a radio address that militants also took control of a paramilitary base in Kalam manned by a platoon. Some 40 Frontier Corps soldiers had left the paramilitary base before the militants arrived, residents said. Residents said some 150 turbaned militants were roaming through Kalam, chanting ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ (God is greatest) and hoisting their black and white flags atop key government buildings. An official privately admitted the militants were in control of around 70 per cent of the valley's 94-km (60-mile) stretch from Sangota to Kalam. The government hold was confined to Mingora and the nearby town of Saidu Sharif, which has the valley's lone airport, the official said. Analysts say the militants' advance mirrors a Taliban style march seen in neighbouring Afghanistan in 1994-1996. — AFP
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Imran issues video message from hiding
Islamabad, November 7 Khan went underground on Sunday, a day after the police placed him under house arrest at his home in the eastern city of Lahore. "If we don't resist, it will take Pakistan to the path of destruction," said Khan in the short video message aired on private Geo television. But it did not say how it obtained the tape. He was filmed against a plain grey background and was unshaven, speaking animatedly to the camera. "Imran is safe. From an unknown place he is leading the movement," said retired Admiral Jawaid Iqbal, a spokesman for Khan's Movement for Justice party. "For his security we are not disclosing his location. But he will soon be with the people of Pakistan. The situation in Pakistan is worse than that in Iraq at the moment," Iqbal added. Khan sent an email to the media on Monday, accusing General Musharraf of using "sheer force" against lawyers, human rights groups and political activists and throwing opposition leaders in jail. "The police has ransacked my house and ill-treated my family members," he said in a statement published by the Britain's Press Association news agency alongside with comments from his ex-wife, the socialite Jemima Khan. Jemima Khan said the police ransacked her ex-husband's home and "roughed up" his family. "He managed to escape just before they returned with an arrest warrant to cart him off to Kot Lakpat jail,” she said.— AFP
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United Nations, November 7 Ban said he was in contact with the "leaders in the region" over the situation in Pakistan but had not talked to President Pervez Musharraf directly. Talking to reporters yesterday, he did not identify the leaders but firmly rejected the verbal protest lodged by Pakistan's UN ambassador Munir Akram that Ban's statement asking Islamabad to free all detainees and return to democratic rule constituted interference in the country's internal affairs. "I stand by my statement," Ban said, adding that he had expressed his "deep concern and regret" to Akram over what had happened in Pakistan. Earlier, a Pakistani United Nations Mission spokesman had told the reporters that Akarm had lodged a protest on Ban's statement regarding "internal developments" in his country. — PTI
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’75 coup leader alleges ex-prez’s involvement
Dhaka, November 7 "The then deputy chief of army staff Major-Gen Ziaur Rahman was involved in the coup," sacked Lt- Col Abdur Rashid, facing a death sentence, alleged during an interview with private Channel I television from an undisclosed location possibly outside Bangladesh. Rashid admitted his role in the coup and alleged that ahead of the August 15, 1975, coup Ziaur Rahman called him to his residence and asked him to contact another ex-army officer Col Abu Taher to be briefed about the post-coup plans. Channel I broadcast the first episode of the long interview late last night when Rashid said "I too believe Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is our father of the nation". Ziaur Rahman emerged as the army chief and subsequently the president of Bangladesh in a series of coups and countercoups in the next several months but himself was killed in another abortive coup in 1981. Rashid and 11 other former army officers were sentenced to death in a delayed trial that began when the Awami League returned to power in the 1996 under the leadership of Mujib's surviving daughter now detained ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina..— PTI
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US Air Force grounds ageing F-15s
Washington, November 7 The decision was taken when Japan on Sunday grounded its F-15 fleet after being informed by the US forces that an Air National Guard F-15 fighter jet had crashed. "The cause of that accident is still under investigation. The preliminary findings indicate that a possible structural failure of the aircraft may have occurred. The suspension of flight operations is a precautionary measure. The Air Force has more than 700 F-15s in its fleet. But until further notice, they will only be used for emergency missions in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said the US Air Force. — AFP
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‘Emergency to go in 2-3 weeks’
Islamabad, November 7 Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, a former Prime Minister and member of General Musharraf’s inner circle, said the President understood the ramifications of failing to lift the widely criticised measure. “I’m sure it will end in two to three weeks as President Pervez Musharraf is aware of the consequences of long Emergency rule,” Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, President of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, said in the Dawn’s Wednesday edition.
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Denial of visa Pak lodges protest
Islamabad November 7 India's deputy high commissioner Manpreet Vohra was summoned to the Pakistan foreign office to lodge the protest. The controversial minister had requested for the visa, saying he had been invited as a guest by the Pakistan Cricket Board. But the Indian government refused to entertain the request in view of his controversial background. — PTI
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Russian Duma votes to suspend arms treaty
Moscow, November 7 Ignoring appeals from the USA, the Duma (lower House of parliament) approved 418-0 a law allowing Moscow to stop complying with the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, seen by the West as a cornerstone of European security. The suspension, part of a wave of increasingly aggressive Russian moves against the West ahead of an election season, will take effect on December 12. Russia’s top General Yuri Baluyevsky said the CFE treaty, which limits the number of heavy conventional weapons deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia’s Ural mountains, unfairly penalised Moscow. ''The current treaty fully suits the USA and NATO,'' Baluyevsky, the chief of general staff, told parliament. ''The treaty allows, practically without any limits, the realisation of the strategy for NATO to move eastwards, carrying out the reconfiguration of the US’s military presence in Europe and for constant monitoring of the composition and state of Russia’s military in the European zone,” he said. Russia had no plans to immediately deploy more forces in the West and in the Caucasus, he added, though it reserved the right to do so. Russia’s move comes after months of sparring with the USA and EU over plans for a missile defence shield and proposed independence for Serbia’s Kosovo province. Putin, who has sought to restore the Kremlin’s international clout gave formal 150-day notice in July about suspending the treaty. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats said Moscow was trying to send a message to the West that the treaty needed to be reworked and ratified but that the West had “not heard” Moscow’s concerns —Reuters
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Over 60 dead in fresh violence
Chandani Kirinde writes from Colombo according to the military as well as the LTTE even though there are conflicting reports coming from the two sides. The defence ministry said the army lost 11 men while at least 52 LTTE cadres were killed in the heavy fighting when the Tigers attempted to advance on an army Forward Defence Line (FDL) at Muhamalai in Jaffna. It admitted that 41 soldiers were also injured defending the forward defences. The LTTE, however, made a different claim saying that 10 soldiers were killed and up to 70 injured on the governments side while they lost only one fighter. The pro-LTTE Tamil Net website quoted its spokesman Rasaiah Illanthiriyan as saying the fighting erupted when troops tried to advance from the FDLs. This is the heaviest fighting that has erupted between the two sides in several months and comes less than a week after a top LTTE member S.P Tamilselvam was killed in a air strike by the air force. The LTTE’s has vowed revenge while the government has said it will not stop in its efforts to destroy the LTTE militarily. The fighting began the same morning that President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented his government Budget for 2008 in Parliament in his capacity as finance minister. Next year’s defence expenditure has gone up by 20 per cent going up to SL Rs 166.4 billion ($1.5 billion) from SL Rs 139 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) for 2007. “We have no alternative but to completely eradicate terrorism if an environment in which a political solution upholding human rights in the interests of those who are still in the grip of terrorists is to be created,” the President told Parliament. The LTTE has lost control of the eastern province and now controls several areas in two northern districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. Since the death of Thamilchelvan, a euphoric government has launched a fresh recruitment drive for the army and hinted that the day when the LTTE leader Vellapulai Prabhakaran meets his end is not far away.
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Kabul, November 7 The investigations would try to establish exactly how many persons were killed and wounded in yesterday's blast in the town of Pul-i-Khumri, the interior ministry said. — AFP
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Three dead in Finland school shooting Tuusula, November 7 The YouTube video shows a still photo of a school that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo then fragments to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a gun at the camera. Three people were wounded in the shooting, according to early reports. One of those shot was the school principal, said Tuula Panula, spokeswoman for the Tuusula municipality, some 60 km from the Finnish capital Helsinki. “He (the gunman) was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors,” Kim Kiuru, a teacher at the school, said at the scene. The police surrounded the school and a city official announced shortly before that the siege was over. — Reuters
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Myanmar rejects joint talks with UN, Suu Kyi Yangon, Novémber 7 The generals also rejected what they termed foreign or UN “interference” in their affairs, information minister Brig Gen Kyaw Hsan told the visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari during talks. Gambari had proposed a meeting between himself, Aung San Suu Kyi and labour minister Aung Kyi, whom the junta appointed last month to liaise But Kyaw Hsan said “currently the tripartite meeting will not be possible,” according to the New Light of Myanmar newspaper. —AFP
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Discovery lands in Florida Cape Canaveral, November 7 The space shuttle touched down just after 2330 IST, after safely crossing the continent in the first coast-to-coast re-entry since the Columbia disaster almost five years ago. Commander Pamela Melroy was greeted by crisp fall weather as she brought Discovery down on the runway. The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs ever attempted in orbit, but the future of the space station was riding on it and Scott Parazynski pulled it off in a single spacewalk. On its way home, Discovery crossed over Canada’s British Columbia and made a diagonal descent over Montana, Wyoming, the Great Plains, the Deep South and, finally, down into Florida. NASA opted for the more populous route to avoid a riskier landing in darkness and to give the crew some extra rest after such a long and strenuous flight. — AP
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‘India to be third biggest CO2 emitter by 2015’ London, November 7 “India and China will account for around 45 per cent of the increase in global primary energy demand through 2030, when the world’s energy needs are expected to be well over 50 per cent higher than they are today,” the IEA, an energy policy adviser for its 26-member countries, including the USA and 19 European countries, said in a statement. In its 2007 World Energy Outlook, the Paris-based agency said: “How China and India respond to the rising threats to their energy security will also affect the rest of the world.” IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka, however, said that rapid economic growth in China and India was a “legitimate aspiration” that would improve the quality of life of more than two billion people and that needed to be supported by the rest of the world.
— PTI
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