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Students, university dons join stir
Hundreds of Bhutto supporters arrested
Nepali Cong protests against rising violence
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Pak’s top nephrologist resigns
Sacked CJ’s daughter not allowed to take exam
Pak N- arsenal worries Pentagon
Two Indian Americans lose Senate race
NASA discovers another planet
N-deal will be clinched soon, hopes Burns
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Students, university dons join stir Bracing for a showdown in defiance of ban on her planned public meeting in Rawalpindi tomorrow, PPP chairperson Benazir today dismissed General Musharraf’s statement that elections would be held by February 15. “General Musharraf must give a precise election date and shed military uniform by November 15 instead of continued attempt at subterfuge through vague promises,” Benazir told a news conference here. She also threatened to stick to her resolve to stage a long march if Musharraf failed to announce the dates by Friday. With students joining lawyers and civil society activist in protests demonstrations across the country, authorities launched a crackdown on PPP workers in major cities of Punjab ahead of the Rawalpindi meeting and the promised long march. But Benazir said she would not be intimidated by these arrests and would go to the venue of the meeting without fear of her own arrest. In Lahore, more than 100 university professors boycotted classes and marched on the campus of the state-run University of the Punjab. Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz told reporters that there were very specific intelligence reports that as many as eight suicide bombers had entered Rawalpindi posing a serious threat to the PPP gathering. But PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the police must arrest them if it has such precise report. He said the administration had used similar tactics on May 12 and October 18. Benazir also joined Imran Khan in urging the student community to come forward and wage a struggle for democracy. She also invited religious grouping the MMA and other opposition parties to join her in public rallies and the long march for restoration of the Constitution, an end to emergency, reinstatement of deposed judges and free and fair elections. “I beseech them to rise above partisan differences,” she remarked adding:” You can bring your own flags and chant own slogans but let us struggle together to save this country from dictatorship.” PPP leader said by sticking to his military uniform, Musharraf had made the army leaderless undermining its ability to defend national security. “Extremists have virtually run over the entire Swat and a day may come when they reach other parts of the country while Musharraf is busy arresting and brutally suppressing lawyers, civil society activists and political workers,” she said. Lawyers all over the country continued to boycott courts and staged demonstrations despite stringent police curbs. Courts in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta and other towns failed to conduct routine business for fourth day since the promulgation of emergency. Meanwhile, journalists’ organisations would observe November 9 as protest day against the continued closure of private TV channels and to press for demand to rescind recently promulgated draconian press laws. |
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Hundreds of Bhutto supporters arrested
Islamabad, November 8 Most of the arrests were made in the Punjab province, where the government has banned a rally to be held by the PPP in Rawalpindi tomorrow. The Punjab Chief Minister today said any move to go ahead with the rally would be ‘dealt with sternly’. PPP leaders said the police had launched a crackdown on party activists last night, shortly after Bhutto called for protests and said she would lead a ‘long march’ from Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, to Islamabad if Musharraf did not lift emergency and hold elections as scheduled in January. About 300 PPP workers were arrested in Lahore and another 200 in Sialkot and Faisalabad, a news channel quoted PPP leaders as saying. There were also reports of arrests in other parts of Punjab and across the country. A defiant Bhutto said she would go ahead with the rally in Rawalpindi despite the ban and urged people and PPP workers to join the meeting ‘at all costs and under any circumstances’. Since emergency was imposed on November 3, hundreds of opposition workers, rights activists, lawyers and judges of superior courts have been detained or put under house arrest. Among those placed under house arrest are sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and rights activist Asma Jahangir while cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has gone into hiding to evade detention. Leaders from around the world, including US President George W Bush have condemned emergency and asked Musharraf to restore the Constitution and fundamental rights. During a telephone conversation yesterday, Bush bluntly told Musharraf to quit as Army Chief and hold elections. The legal fraternity organised the first protests against emergency on Monday and the Pakistan Bar Council has said lawyers would continue a countrywide strike and boycott courts till judges of the Supreme Court sacked under Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order are reinstated. After maintaining a silence on protests for four days, the PPP yesterday called for mass protests against the emergency. The police yesterday used teargas and batons to disperse PPP supporters who staged a protest outside the Parliament. But observers said Bhutto’s move might be aimed at kick-starting her stalled negotiations with Musharraf on a possible power-sharing arrangement.
— PTI
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Nepali Cong protests against rising violence
Kathmandu, November 8 Shouting slogans like ‘Stop violence, terror and abduction’, ‘Stop extortion drive’ and ‘Take action against those involved in violence’, around 5,000 Nepali Congress workers led by acting party president Sushil Koirala and vice-president Prakash Man Singh marched through Kathmandu’s streets starting from Ratnapark in the heart of the city. The protest was organised following the killing of young radio journalist Birendra Shah by Maoists in Bara district and increasing incidents of killings and abductions in the capital and in the country’s south. The Nepali Congress threatened to organise a nationwide protest in the coming days, if incidents of abduction, killing and extortion by Maoists and other armed groups did not end. The Nepali Congress, the largest party in the country’s ruling alliance, in a statement also denounced the Maoists’ ‘acts of intimidation, abduction, extortion and threats against leaders and cadres affiliated to other political parties in different parts of the country’. The party, to which Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala also belongs, urged the Maoists to abide by past pacts and understanding reached with the government by immediately halting such activities.
— PTI
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Body of scribe found
The Nepal police in the Bara district have recovered the dead body of a journalist, Birendra Kumar Sah, from a jungle on Thursday afternoon.
According to senior superintendent of police Ramesh Shekhar Bajracharya, the body was recovered from a ditch in the jungle, south of Tangiyabasti area, in Bara at around 1.30 pm with the help of sniffer dogs after the body was not found despite two days of massive search operations.
He said, “The body was exhumed near the site stated in the Maoist report.” Sah’s relatives have identified the decaying body. Maoist cadres had shot him in his temple and chest and buried the body in a ditch.
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Pak’s top nephrologist resigns
One of country’s top nephrologists has resigned as head of the Nephrology Department of the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in protest against the proclamation of emergency.
In his resignation letter dated November 4, a day after the imposition of emergency, Prof (Dr) Sameeh J. Khan, cited the events, following March 9 - May 12 massacre of Karachi, a celebrating rally in Islamabad same evening, unlawful detentions, human rights violations and media censorship - as the reasons for his decision. Khan is a Pakistani origin US national. Prof Khan said, “The bombshell of November 3 in the form of emergency or mini martial law suspending fundamental rights and desecrating the sanctity of superior judiciary tantamount to the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
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Sacked CJ’s daughter not allowed to take exam
Islamabad, November 8 Policemen guarding the house of Chaudhry, who was detained shortly after the imposition of emergency by President Musharraf on November 3, did not allow his daughter Ifra Iftikhar to step out of the house to write her A-level tests on Wednesday. When her pleas fell flat on the guards’ ears, she turned to the British Council for help.
Though the Council could not persuade the authorities to allow Ifra to take the exam at the centre, it arranged for her to write the test at home. Athar Minallah, a Supreme Court lawyer, confirmed, “The authorities did not allow Ifra to appear in the A-level exam. But the British Council was later allowed to conduct the examination at the residence.” Minallah, who spoke to the former Chief Justice and described him to be ‘in high spirits’, said Chaudhry’s personal guard Hameed too has been arrested and taken to an undisclosed destination. The lawyer also said that Chaudhry’s seven-year-old son Iftikhar Mohammed, who is physically challenged, has been denied medical attention.
— PTI
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Pak N- arsenal worries Pentagon
Washington, November 8 Washington was keeping a close eye on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal following the recent upheaval, said Lieut- Gen Carter Ham, Director of Operations with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. "We will watch that very closely," he told reporters. "Any time there is a regime that has nuclear weapons and that experiences a situation like in Pakistan, of course there is a primary concern." Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said in an interview with the German daily, Bild, yesterday that she was worried about what would happen if extremists managed to get hold of the country's nuclear arsenal. Pakistan has been a declared nuclear power since carrying out its first tests in May 1998 in a series of tit-for-tat tests with India. General Ham yesterday stressed Pakistan's contribution to the war in Afghanistan, even though Washington is currently reviewing its aid programme to Islamabad. "Secondly, the US and other forces in Afghanistan receive most of their supplies through and over Pakistan.Well over half of the supplies for forces in Afghanistan come through or over Pakistan," he
added.— AFP
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Two Indian Americans lose Senate race
New York, November 8 Upendra Chivukula, deputy speaker of the assembly, seeking a fourth two-year term as a Democrat from New Jersey’s 17th district, romped home comfortably on Tuesday. Born in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, Chivukula is an electrical engineer. Seema Singh, contesting as a Democrat from the 14th district, could only get 37 per cent votes and lost to Republican Bill Baroni. Singh is a former Ratepayer Advocate for New Jersey and president of the Asian Indian Chamber of Commerce. Wasim Khan, a Democrat seeking election to the Senate from the 17th district, polled 34 per cent votes, losing to Republican Joseph
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NASA discovers another planet Washington, November 8 The new planet is much bigger than Earth, but is a similar distance away from its sun, a star known as 55 Cancri, the astronomers said on Tuesday. Four planets had already been seen around the star, but the discovery marks the first time as many as five planets have been found orbiting a solar system outside our own with its eight planets, said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University. Life could conceivably live on the surface of a moon that might be orbiting the new planet, but such a moon would be far too small to detect using current methods, the astronomers said. "The star is very much like our own Sun. It has about the same mass and is about the same age as our Sun," Fischer told reporters. "It's a system that appears to be packed with planets." It took the researchers 18 years of careful, painstaking study to find the five planets, which they found by measuring tiny wobbles in the star's orbit. The first planet discovered took 14 years to make one orbit. They said 55 Cancri is 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer, a light-year being the distance light travels in one year — about 5.8 trillion miles. The newly discovered planet has a mass about 45 times that of Earth and may resemble Saturn, the astronomers said. It is the fourth planet out from the star and completes one orbit every 260 days — a similar orbit to that of Venus. "It would be a little bit warmer than the Earth but not very much," said Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. The planet is 72 million miles from its star — closer than the Earth's 93 million miles, but the star is a little cooler than our own Sun. "If there were a moon around this new planet ... it would have a rocky surface, so water on it in principle could puddle into lakes and oceans," said Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. But the moon would have to carry a lot of mass to hold the water, he said. Water is, of course, key to life. "This discovery of the first-ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks," Marcy added. "We now know that our Sun and its family of planets is not unusual." — Reuters
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N-deal will be clinched soon, hopes Burns Washington, November 8 ''We are working on civil-nuclear cooperation, as I'm sure you are aware, and all of us in government are deeply grateful for the strong support the Indian-American community has shown for this initiative,'' he said. He said, ''we are proud to share in the celebrations of Diwali, for the fifth year, here at the White House.'' Also present at yesterday’s function was Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson, Jr who, as Burns put it, ''just returned from a very successful trip to India.'' Though President Bush was not present, a letter with his signature was given to participants, greeting them on the occasion. Representatives of the Indian-American community also attended. Burns said, ''Secretary Paulson is working on a major infrastructure initiative that would harness the private sectors in India and the United States to help build what India needs.'' ''Expanding our engagement on all levels of government, civil society, and the private sector will encourage India’s emergence as a positive force,'' he said. Last week, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution recognising the significance of Diwali, the 'festival of lights.'The House adopted the resolution by a vote of 358-0, with 204 Democrats and 154 Republicans supporting it. Earlier,Burns said the rate of legal immigrants from India who become American citizens had now increased from 56 per cent in 1995 to 65 per cent. ''That is a remarkable statistic. It means that two-thirds decide not simply to live here as permanent residents, but to take that next step of allegiance to the United States. I think there is no question that the United States is better off as a result.''He said students from India come here to learn, and end up becoming leaders in their fields and changing American life -- people like Rajat Gupta, or Indra Nooyi, or the late astronaut Kalpana Chawla. Burns said, ''Cooperation between our two governments has risen to unprecedented levels in the history of our bilateral relations. In the last few years, we have launched important initiatives in areas, including education, agriculture, clean energy, counter-terrorism, space research, and economic development.'' — UNI
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