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Chaudhry stopped from offering Id prayers
Protect rights of sexual minorities, court tells Nepal
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Diana wanted to move abroad: Report
Dalai Lama is not a call girl, says Canada’s PM
Churchill’s granddaughter dies after her son gets jail
Solar system 4,568m
years old
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Chaudhry stopped from offering Id prayers
The police on Friday stopped deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry from offering Id prayers in the capital’s main Faisal Masjid and intercepted Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), from driving towards Iftikhar’s residence. Aitzaz and fellow lawyers Justice Tariq Mahmood (retd) and Ali Ahmed Kurd were rearrested after brief freedom for a day. Aitzaz had come from Lahore, where he was released for three days later on Wednesday night to say Id prayers. Tariq went to express solidarity with journalists at their protest camp, set up by Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) against draconian curbs imposed on the media after the imposition of emergency on November 3. According to a report from Quetta, another prominent leader of the lawyers’ movement, Ali Ahmed Kurd, was also rearrested. Officials here said the three top lawyers were released for three days to allow them to say Id prayers and visit graves of their forefathers in a gesture of goodwill in response to a letter written by Aitzaz. However, after his release, Aitzaz began visiting deposed judges, press club and other places, where he declared his intention to launch a countrywide movement for the reinstatement of deposed judges and independence of judiciary after the elections. The government also took strong exception to his statement invoking army chief Gen Ashfaq Kiyani’s intervention for restoration of independence of judiciary. Musharraf accused Iftikhar and Aitzaz of conspiring with former premier Nawaz Sharif to destabilise him that prompted him to impose emergency to foil the conspiracy. A large number of lawyers and civil society activists on Friday marched towards Justice Iftikhar’s residence to escort him to Faisal Masjid for Id prayers amid speculations that Justice Chuahdry may also be temporarily released on Id occasion. However, Iftikhar had also come out of his house, but the police stopped him from joining the crowd. Later, authorities allowed Iftikhar to offer Id prayers at the adjacent Balochistan House along with some lawyers. Tariq addressed the journalists at the Islamabad Press Club and expressed disappointment over indifference shown by ordinary Pakistanis in restoration of judiciary. He claimed that Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was still the Chief Justice of Pakistan. He said the government was humiliating 60 deposed judges of the Supreme and High Courts, who had refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO). He said Justice Iftikhar and his children were being intimidated to leave the country. He rejected the impression that SCBA president Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan had sought any relaxation from the government but had only requested to let him offer Id prayers and pray at the graves of relatives.
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Protect rights of sexual minorities, court tells Nepal
The apex court of Nepal for the first time issued a verdict on Friday directing the government to take immediate initiative to ensure the fundamental rights of sexual minorities in Nepal. Issuing a verdict in a case lodged by the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), an organisation of sexual minorities in Nepal, including four other groups, a Supreme Court bench mainly comprising justices Balaram KC and Pavan Kumar Ojha asked the government to either formulate a new law or amend the existing laws in order to protect all kinds of rights equally enjoyed by men and women. Similarly, the bench has decided to formulate a seven-member panel to carry out a detailed study regarding the possibility of same sex marriage in Nepal. The existing Civil Code of Nepal outlaws homosexual or transgender sex, saying that it is “unnatural sex” that breaches existing social, cultural and religious norms. According to Sunil Babu Pant of the BDS, thousands of people have been found to be involved in such activities but they are not being able to identify themselves as lesbian or gay due to lack of social security and social stigma.
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Diana wanted to move abroad: Report
London, December 21 “Perhaps my destiny is to go abroad.” She felt the British people “must be sick of seeing me in the papers”, Richard Kay, a correspondent with the Daily Mail told the jury. Kay said the Princess of Wales phoned him to discuss her fears, concerns and dreams for the future. In the conversation, which lasted for 20 to 30 minutes, Diana said she was concerned that the Fayeds were leaking details of her movements to the press. Diana was puzzled at how she and Dodi’s every move was being anticipated by the press, Kay told the jury. Diana feared that the police and the security services were monitoring her calls, said Kay. “She used to change her mobile phone number regularly. After she had dispensed with her police protection around late 1993, she was at times concerned that she was being bugged,” the correspondent was quoted by the Daily Mail as telling the jury. The princess also revealed a desire to start a global charity called the Diana Hospices in her last conversation with the correspondent. Kay (50), the Mail’s diarist, said their final conversation was on the evening of August 30, 1997, when Diana called him on his mobile phone from Paris, where she was staying with Dodi. — PTI
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Dalai Lama is not a call girl, says Canada’s PM
Ottawa, December 21 “I met the Dalai Lama in my office but I meet everyone in my office. I don't know why I would sneak off to a hotel room just to meet the Dalai Lama. You know, he's not a call girl,” Harper told OMNI television. He quickly added: “As I say, he's a respected international spiritual leader.” China condemns the Dalai Lama as a separatist and presses world leaders to shun him. German Chancellor Angela Merkel met him in September, but only in private, and last month the Vatican called off a meeting with the Pope set for Dec. 13. Harper is a strong critic of China's human rights record and what he calls the 'undemocratic regime' in Beijing.
— AP
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Churchill’s granddaughter dies after her son gets jail
London, December 21 Nicholas Jake Barton was arrested at his Sydney home in June last year during a series of raids, in which officers seized some 250,000 ecstasy tablets worth around $ 13 million. The 34-year-old Briton, who is the son of James Barton and Arabella Spencer Churchill,
pleaded guilty before Sydney’s District
Court last month to knowingly taking part
in the supply of a commercial quantity of the prohibited drug. The British hero’s grand-daughter died yesterday without ever being reunited with her son. Judge Colin Charteris was told Arabella Spencer Churchill, who had pancreatic cancer, was expected to live until April and her son would be free in time to visit his mother, the Daily Mail newspaper reported today. The judge sentenced him to a minimum term of 20 months, which backdated to his arrest, made him eligible for parole in February. But Arabella, 58, founder of the Children’s World Charity, died at her home yesterday in Somerset. Barton emigrated to Australia at 18, studied marine biology and at
one stage ran a pearl farm. — PTI
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Solar system 4,568m
years old
Washington, December 21 Researchers from the University of California Davis have shown that planets in the solar system started forming 4,568 million years ago when microscopic interstellar dust united into mountain-sized chunks of rock within a range of about 2,080,000 years. They established the dates by analysing a particular type of meteorite, called a carbonaceous chondrite, which represents the oldest material left over from the formation of the solar system, the Science Daily reported. The physics and timing of this first stage of planet formation are not well understood, one of the researchers Dr Qing-zhu Yin said. So, putting time constraints on the process should help to guide the physical models that could be used to explain it. In the second stage, mountain-sized masses grew quickly into about 20 Mars-sized planets and in the third and final stage, these small planets smashed into each other in a series of giant collisions that left the planets we know today. The dates of those stages are well established. The researchers estimated the timing of the formation of the carbonaceous chondrites at 4,568 million years ago, ranging from 910,000 years before that date to 1,170,000 years later. “We’ve captured a moment in history when this material got packed together,” Dr Yin said.
— UNI
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