W O R L D

Benazir, Sharif meeting today
To discuss poll boycott issue
Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif are set to meet in Islamabad on Monday to discuss the poll boycott issue. The meeting is taking place against the backdrop of the decision by All Parties Democratic Movement under Nawaz Sharif to boycott the polls unless Musharraf rolls back draconian measures including purge in the judiciary.

Justice Bhagwandas hospitalised
Islamabad, December 2
Deposed Supreme Court Justice Rana Bhagwandas, who was placed under house arrest after imposition of the emergency last month, has been admitted to a hospital here, where he is undergoing a cardiac treatment.

US says it has right to ‘kidnap’ UK citizens
London, December 2
The United States has told the Britain that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America and this can be done without using formal extradition procedures.

A Malaysian paratrooper, who survived a fall into the sea, is carried into an ambulance after an incident while training for the Langkawi International Air Show on Langkawi Island, in Malaysia’s northern Kedah state, on Sunday. Three Malaysian paratroopers drowned and five were injured during a training exercise for an airshow on the resort island of Langkawi, the air force said. — AFP

Kipling’s birthplace to be a museum
London, December 2
Noted English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling’s birthplace in Mumbai is being converted into a museum devoted to him. A dilapidated bungalow on the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai, where Kipling - the creator of ‘Mowgli’ and other famous characters of ‘The Jungle Book’ -- was born on December 30, 1865, and lived until he was five.

... In Nepal, Koirala down with chest pain
Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has been suffering from chest infection and asthma from Sunday morning due to cold weather. According to a source at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar, the octogenarian Nepali Congress President Koirala has been kept at his residence this afternoon.

RPP to drop monarchy
At a time when the major ruling seven-party alliance have locked horns over the Maoist proposal to abolish monarchy by declaring the country a republic through the interim parliament immediately.

Benazir, Sharif meeting today
To discuss poll boycott issue
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Nawaz Sharif are set to meet in Islamabad on Monday to discuss the poll boycott issue.

The meeting is taking place against the backdrop of the decision by All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) under Nawaz Sharif to boycott the polls unless Musharraf rolls back draconian measures including purge in the judiciary. The APDM formed a committee in its Lahore meeting on November 29 to talk to Bhutto and Maulana Fazlur Rehman who stand for contesting elections. Bhutto is currently busy galvanising the party workers for the election campaign but is also expressing her apprehensions that Musharraf has rigged the entire system to secure desired results.

Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have not talked to each other since Sharif’s return to Pakistan. Both could not agree on a joint strategy during earlier communication on the question of reinstatement of deposed judges. Bhutto also fears that the boycott would leave the field open to Musharraf’s allies and particularly benefit the Q-League headed by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

But latest statements by Bhutto have created an opening between the two sides to workout a common election strategy. Bhutto hinted that the option to boycott is open and that she would be willing to talk to other opposition if alternatives are suggested. Bhutto is in Peshawar and Nawaz in Lahore. They would be converging in Islamabad on Monday and have agreed to meet.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar when contacted confirmed: “Yes, the PML-N has contacted the PPP for a meeting with Benazir Bhutto to discuss whether or not to boycott the January 8 general polls as well as the post-boycott scenario,” Bhutto has said she is prepared to review the boycott option if convinced.

Nawaz Sharif is reaching Islamabad on Monday and is likely to hold separate meetings with Benazir Bhutto and Turkish President Abdullah Gul. When asked about the PPP’s stance on the judiciary, Farhatullah Babar said the PPP believed in the independence of the judiciary and wanted revocation of emergency. “If emergency is revoked, then the sacked judges ought to be reinstated automatically and if they are not, the matter will be decided by the next parliament as and when it comes into being,” he added. He said the issue of legitimacy of November 3 action and actions taken after emergency would have to be decided by the next Parliament.

PML-N vice-president Syed Zafar Ali Shah said Nawaz Sharif would be accompanied at the talks by some members of the APDM.

Justice Bhagwandas hospitalised

Islamabad, December 2
Deposed Supreme Court Justice Rana Bhagwandas, who was placed under house arrest after imposition of the emergency last month, has been admitted to a hospital here, where he is undergoing a cardiac treatment.

Bhagwandas, the only Hindu judge of the apex court, was admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) yesterday, the Post newspaper quoted sources as saying.

Bhagwandas is a heart patient and has been under detention since the emergency was imposed on November 3 by President Musharraf. He was among the seven judges who issued an order declaring the emergency as unconstitutional before they were placed under house arrest.

Bhagwandas, who has not been well for some time, had been advised by his doctor to go for regular walks. However, his request to walk in the Judges Colony was turned down by the authorities, who confined him to his official residence.

He was given medical treatment at his residence some days ago. Yesterday, when his health became critical, he was brought to PIMS where a team of senior doctors checked him, the report said. — PTI

US says it has right to ‘kidnap’ UK citizens

London, December 2
The United States has told the Britain that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America and this can be done without using formal extradition procedures.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under the United States’ law as the country’s Supreme Court has sanctioned it, ‘The Sunday Times’ reported.

“It’s acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they’re wanted for offences in America. The US does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared.

“If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s,” Alun Jones told the UK court.

The statement came when one of the Court of Appeal judges asked Jones, representing the US government, about treatment of Stanley Tollman’s nephew, who is a former director of Chelsea football club. — PTI

Kipling’s birthplace to be a museum

London, December 2
Noted English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling’s birthplace in Mumbai is being converted into a museum devoted to him.

A dilapidated bungalow on the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai, where Kipling - the creator of ‘Mowgli’ and other famous characters of ‘The Jungle Book’ -- was born on December 30, 1865, and lived until he was five, is being restored to house a hoped-for collection of associated memorabilia, The Sunday Telegraph reported today.

The move may be the first sign of his rehabilitation by the people who inspired some of his most memorable works.

According to the report, the jingoistic and apparently racist tone of some of his work has kept him largely off the literature syllabus of Indian schools and nowhere apart from the bungalow is a single monument statue dedicated to him. But now part of the 150-year-old stone and wood bungalow on the campus of the school, where he spent his happiest childhood days, is being devoted to the writer.

Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, was the first principal of the school. The bungalow is set in an overgrown tropical garden in the heart of Mumbai. The only sign that he lived there is a bust at the entrance.

The museum will open next year and will attract Indian admirers and visitors from overseas. — PTI

... In Nepal, Koirala down with chest pain
Bishnu Budhathoki writes from Kathmandu

Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has been suffering from chest infection and asthma from Sunday morning due to cold weather.

According to a source at the Prime Minister’s official residence in Baluwatar, the octogenarian Nepali Congress President Koirala has been kept at his residence this afternoon with oxygen mask under the doctor’s surveillance as he was suffering from chest pain. The PM’s personal physicians have suggested Koirala to take rest as the cold winter has affected him badly, adding to his asthma.

RPP to drop monarchy
Bishnu Budhathoki writes from Kathmandu

At a time when the major ruling seven-party alliance have locked horns over the Maoist proposal to abolish monarchy by declaring the country a republic through the interim parliament immediately, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), which is known as a royalist party of Nepal, has also decided to drop the term ‘constitutional monarchy’ formally from its party statute.