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Pak polls
Malaysia to set up hotline for ethnic Indians
Andhra woman back home
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US welcomes Mush decision to lift emergency
NRI gets life for stabbing lover’s wife
50 rebels arrested in Philippines
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Benazir promises ‘Five Es’
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto today announced her party’s manifesto for elections on January 8, but reiterated that she was taking part in the polls under protest. Benazir Bhutto held up a copy of the document for television cameras as she said her party would not boycott the elections following President Pervez Musharraf’s announcement that he would lift the emergency rule on December 16. “We are taking part in the elections under protest, we are not giving them any legitimacy. But if we do not participate we leave the field for others,” she said announcing the manifesto in Islamabad. “Our policy is based on five Es -- employment, education, energy, environment and equality,” the former premier added. She said she could “review our decision” on participating in the elections if she could agree on a common agenda with fellow former premier Nawaz Sharif and other parties. “But it has to be a joint opposition, it must be a joint opposition,” she said. On this occasion, she added: “We have filed our nomination papers, we are preparing for the elections and appealing to the people to help the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and vote for them. I did not meet General Musharraf yesterday. We have already denied it,” she added.
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Malaysia to set up hotline for ethnic Indians
Kuala Lumpur, November 30 The hotline will be connected to the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), an ethnic Indian party in ruling coalition, S Samy Vellu, works minister and MIC president, said today. He said it would help register public grievances and problems such as those involving temples and Tamil schools. Vellu said he met Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi yesterday, who also asked his party to form a special committee to prepare a complete report on demands by the community as a follow-up to the MIC’s proposals in June. The Prime Minister said the committee should put in new proposals including data on non-Malayas in the public sector, posts and vacancies at the federal, state and local authority-level, and giving priority to recruiting them in areas where they have high population, Vellu told the official Bernama news agency. Some 10,000 ethnic Indians took part in a rally here on Sunday last on a call by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a non-governmental group. They wanted to march to the British High Commission and hand over a memorandum complaining of marginalisation of Indians from the time their ancestors were bought to the then Malaya as indentured labourers. The police used tear gas and water cannons to break up the protest and detained scores of people. Indians allege discrimination by an affirmative action policy which they say favours Malays in jobs in government departments and businesses.
— PTI
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Andhra woman returns from Pak jail after 17 yrs
Islamabad, November 30 Yellamilli Kejiamani was brought to Pakistan in 1990 by a man named Riaz from Kuwait, where both of them were then working. “Riaz, a resident of Lahore, snatched everything she had and burnt her Indian passport. He tortured her before finally throwing her out of his house six months after she reached Pakistan,” Rao Abid Hamid, an official of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told the Dawn newspaper. The next 10 years were very hard for Kejiamani. “I had lost my senses. Then I met Muhammad Amin, a cook, who took me to his house and provided me shelter. But soon my presence in his house started causing trouble for him,” she said. Amin’s wife did not want to keep Kejiamani at their home and one of the neighbours filed a case against Amin for keeping a woman in his house without legal permission. Amin then took Kejiamani to his native village in Sahiwal district and arranged a marriage “on paper” with her after giving her the Muslim name Ayesha. He helped Kejiamani, a Christian from Sakhinetialli Mandal village in Andhra Pradesh, obtain a national identity card and a Pakistani passport. Kejiamani also succeeded in contacting her family in India and one of her two sons working in Qatar. One of her cousins in Britain came to know about her whereabouts in Pakistan, and his contacts in Lahore initiated efforts to help Kejiamani reunite with her family. The woman’s case finally reached the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which wrote to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on September 24. Suresh Reddy, visa counsellor with the High Commission, said: “As she had a Pakistani passport, we contacted Kejiamani’s relatives in India and verified her antecedents. A visa was immediately issued to her. Rights activists said they believed there could probably be other Indian women being held against their will after being brought to Pakistan following marriages in the Middle East. But Kejiamani’s was the first case where a woman had contacted the authorities to seek help to go back home, they said. The activists also pointed out that she would have to take steps to regain her Indian citizenship, which she had lost on obtaining a Pakistani passport. Kejiamani left Lahore for Delhi on an Indian Airlines flight and is expected to be united with her family by Saturday. She said she was very happy and looking forward to see her family
. — PTI
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US welcomes Mush decision to lift emergency
The United States has welcomed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to lift emergency rule by December 16 saying it is an “essential step” in order to put Pakistan on the path to democracy. In a sign that the White House would stand by its man, spokeswoman Dana Perino said Musharraf should be given credit for shedding his military uniform and giving up his post as army chief. She denied the US had threatened Musharraf to take these steps, but admitted the White House had been constantly in touch with him on the matter. “I think you have to give President Musharraf some credit here, because while he made the decision to establish the emergency order - which we believed was a mistake and we counseled against - he did take the step to take off the uniform,” she said. “The President [George W. Bush] has said that it should be lifted as quickly as possible, as soon as possible. President Musharraf has indicated that December 16th would be the date, and we hope that he follows through on that,” she said. Amid calls from political parties to boycott the January elections, Perino urged the “candidates and the people of Pakistan” to “fully participate in these free and fair elections.”
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NRI gets life for stabbing lover’s wife
London, November 30 Dentistry student Harmohinder Kaur Sanghera was convicted of knifing 11-week pregnant Sana Ali of Pakistani origin nearly 42 times in her Greater Manchester residence in an act which was "borne of jealousy and desperation". As he passed the sentence, Judge John Saunders of the Manchester Crown Court told Sanghera that he had considered the "degree of planning and premeditation" that had gone into the crime, the media reported today. "She (Ali) was trying to make her marriage work and she was 11 weeks pregnant at the time of her death, a fact of which you were well aware. You waited until you could be sure nobody was in the house. You tried to disguise her death as suicide. That was unsuccessful because she fought to save her life," the judge told Sanghera. Sanghera had been having an affair with Sana's husband Sair Ali since July 2005. — PTI
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50 rebels arrested in Philippines
Manila, November 30 Planned rallies by the Leftists to mark a national holiday drew small crowds, and several hundred protesters were blocked by police from approaching the Presidential palace. But those gatherings were tiny in comparison to the uprisings that ousted Presidents in 2001 and 1986, and it appeared President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has survived yet another crisis. The latest bid to oust her came yesterday, when 27 soldiers walked out of their trial on earlier insurrection charges and commandeered the five-star Peninsula Hotel. They were joined by Brigadier General Danilo Lim, suspected of involvement in another failed coup plot last year.
— AP
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