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US poll: Most Pakistanis anti-Musharraf
Mush amends constitution
Pak lawyers all set to launch ‘judicial bus’
Abdullah defends detaining Hindraf members |
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Toll in Algiers blast rises to 17
Hitler’s son living in UK? US visa application fee up
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US poll: Most Pakistanis anti-Musharraf
President Pervez Musharraf’s spokesman, Major-Gen Rashid Qureshi, has rubbished as “motivated and devoid of credibility” an opinion poll conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), that majority of Pakistanis want to see Musharraf step down,
“The poll has no validity or credibility whatsoever.” Official APP news agency quoted Rashid as saying . Sixtyseven per cent of those surveyed said Musharraf should resign immediately, according to the poll. Over 70 per cent judged that his government did not deserve re-election and two-thirds “expressed anger at the current state of affairs,” the IRI said. Only one-third were “supportive of Musharraf and were positive about the condition of the country”, while 56 per cent said the army should stay out of civilian government. Overwhelming majority (70 per cent) denounced the imposition of emergency on November 3 and the dismissal of the Supreme Court judges, the poll said the voters overwhelmingly opposed the measure. Rashid said the survey represented only a small section of people. Random picking of people from certain areas reflected the designs of those people who were involved in conducting the survey.
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Islamabad, December 14 Musharraf, who proclaimed emergency on November 3, has finalised the order to withdraw the measure tomorrow. He will also address the nation on television and radio at 8 pm tomorrow. “The President has promulgated some amendments in the constitution, including one which says that all those judges who did not take oath under emergency rule cease to hold their offices,” said Attorney General Malik Qayyum. Musharraf, who first came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999 by deposing then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, amended six articles of the constitution to consolidate his grip on power ahead of the January 8 parliamentary polls. According to statement issued by the law ministry, an amendment was made to Article 41 to allow the election of the President before the completion of his tenure of five years. Article 44 was amended to change the grounds for the disqualification of the President. Article 270C of the constitution was amended to provide that the judges of the superior judiciary, who did not endorse the emergency and take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order(PCO), would “cease to hold office with effect from” November 3. The judges, who took oath under the PCO, will continue to hold office. — PTI
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Pak lawyers all set to launch ‘judicial bus’
The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has finalised arrangements to launch a “judicial bus” for deposed judges’ restoration. However, the decision on when to flag it off will be made in the next few days.
The idea was floated last week by the detained SCBA president Aitzaz Ahsan in an open letter to lawyers across the country. Aitzaz drove deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry during the judicial crisis after March 9. Justice Chaudhry evoked tremendous popular response till he was reinstated by the full court of the SC in a historic judgment on July 20. He was sacked again on November 3 along with many independent judges, many of whom continue to be under detention since imposition of emergency on November 3. The government says it has withheld the release of Aitzaz Ahsan and his other colleagues besides restricting the movement of judges ever since Aitzaz made the announcement regarding the judicial bus. President Pervez Musharraf maintains that any movement planned to disrupt elections would not be allowed. Secretary of the SCBA Chaudhry Muhammad Amin Javed will drive the bus. Meanwhile, the US-based National Law Journal has named deposed Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry its lawyer of the year. “Chaudhry is not a household name to the legal profession in the US, but we think he should be," said the journal.
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Abdullah defends detaining Hindraf members
Singapore, December 14 Even though the government gives freedom of expression to every Malaysian citizen, national security was paramount than anything else, said Abdullah, who is also the internal security minister. “Between the freedom of expression and public safety, I will give importance to public safety. If you want to speak up, you must follow procedures,” Abdullah said in a report carried by the Malaysian national news agency Bernama. “This is not a nation that shuts everyone’s mouth. The people are not dumb. If we want freedom, we must be responsible. Freedom cannot be given without responsibility,” he told reporters late last night in Kuantan on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. “Threats to national security must be given serious attention as we need to value peace and national security. We won’t be able to develop this country and its people the way we want it to be without these ingredients. Barisan Nasional has announced many plans and has the money to carry them out in the years to come,” he said. Hindraf’s allegations of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and marginalisation of ethnic-Indians had hurt the country’s image and could seriously impair efforts to attract investors and tourists. “These actions could be deemed as treachery,” Abdullah was quoted as saying by the media here.
— PTI & UNI
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Toll in Algiers blast rises to 17
United Nations, December 14 Al Qaeda’s North African wing claimed responsibility for twin car bombs on Tuesday that killed more than 30 persons at the UN offices and a court building, saying it had targeted what it called “the slaves of America and France”. “The efforts on the ground to clear away the rubble following the bomb blast at the UN offices in Algeria on Tuesday have, as we feared, helped us find and identify more bodies,” said UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe. “Consequently I can now confirm that 17 UN staff were killed in the Algiers attack,” she said. Previously the United Nations had confirmed 11 deaths. “I have learned with profound sadness that the death toll on the bombing in Algiers is even higher than we feared,'' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
— Reuters
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London, December 14 Journalist Martin Bright has claimed that Unity Mitford, an English aristocrat in love with the Nazi ruler, gave birth to a son at a nursing home in the UK where she was taken to after she survived a suicide attempt in Munich, “The Sun” reported here today. Unity, one of the six famous Mitford sisters, had shot herself in the head in the park when the UK had declared war on Germany in 1939. According to Bright, “Her aunt, Betty Norton, had run a maternity home in Oxfordshire during the war and said that Unity Mitford had been one of her clients. “Her aunt’s business, in the tiny village of Wigginton, had depended on discretion and she had told no one except her sister that Unity had a baby. Her sister had passed the story on to her daughter, Val.” Bright said when he had asked who the father of the child was, “Ms Hann paused before replying, ‘Well, she always said it was Hitler’s’”. Expelled from three boarding schools, Unity was sent to Germany in 1933 where she was determined to meet Hitler and dined at his favourite Munich restaurant night after night on the off-chance of seeing him. Eventually she was invited to join his table and within months she was part of Hitler’s inner circle. Hitler, who told friends he considered her “a perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood”, also gave her a luxurious Munich apartment, snatched from deported Jews. — PTI
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US visa application fee up
Washington, December 14 The fee hike helps to cover the costs of security changes and other modifications to the visa application process, the department said in a statement. The new fee applies to visas inserted in passports and to border crossing cards issued to certain categories of visitors from Mexico, the statement
said. — Reuters
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