Larkana, December 29
Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif today visited the grave of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and offered condolences to her husband Asif Ali Zardari and son Bilawal.

Sharif, who was accompanied by a 40-member delegation of his PML-N party, laid a floral wreath at Bhutto's grave at her family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh in the southern Sindh province.

Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday shortly after she addressed a rally at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi.

Sharif read the 'fateha' or special Islamic prayers for the dead and prayed for the peace of Bhutto's soul.

Earlier, he visited Bhutto's ancestral residence in nearby Naudero village and offered condolences to Zardari and Bilawal. Sharif also had a one-to-one meeting with Zardari.

Sharif had originally intended to participate in Bhutto's funeral yesterday but put off his visit after consulting Zardari.

The PML-N leaders who accompanied Sharif included former president Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, Zafar Iqbal Jhaghra and Ahsan Iqbal.

Bhutto was laid to rest by the side of her father and the Pakistan People's Party founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Thousands of her supporters from across the country attended the funeral. — PTI

The Central Committee of slain leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) will meet in Larkana on Sunday to choose her successor amid indications her spouse Asif Zardari might take the responsibility to run the affairs of the party.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim, vice-chairman, PPP, is likely to be designated as party's candidate for office of Prime Minister to head a national government of consensus.

The committee will also decide whether to demand postponement of elections or not. Top Opposition leaders including Nawaz Sharif, Mahmud Achakzai, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and others have also reached Larkana to offer condolences.

They will also hold consultations with the PPP leadership to work out the future political strategy.

PPP sources here said Zardari is a natural choice to keep the country united though he will not command the emotional attachment of party workers like Benazir. He is the only experienced adult male member left in the family and can keep intact the family and the party.

There is also a feeling within the government and opposition parties that only a Sindhi leader would be able to calm the enraged reaction to Benazir’s assassination. Angry Sindhi mobs have also been raising anti-Pakistan slogans during demonstrations for past three days.

Amin Fahim, who commands respect among a broad section on both sides of the political divide, has also kept in touch with Musharraf who once offered him the Premier's job in 2002 provided he severed ties with Benazir Bhutto.

Zardari has also quickly moved to unite the Bhutto family in adversity. Estranged Ghinwa Bhutto, widow of Benazir's brother Murtaza Bhutto, joined the funeral along with her children. Zardari showed extreme warmth towards her and Murtaza's elder daughter Fatima Bhutto and son Zulfiqar Bhutto.

While his own three children Bilwala, Bakhtawar and Assefa have shown little inclination towards politics, Fatima Bhutto appears to have inherited the fiery family spirit among all Bhutto children.

Zardari has said in an interview that Benazir Bhutto had left instructions about the PPP's future in case of her death which he would disclose during the party meeting on Sunday. Asif Zardari said in an interview that his son Bilawal would read out the instructions.

Zardari also revealed that his wife had made detailed plans for her burial, including changing the location of the plot from his family's ancestral tomb to her family's mausoleum following another recent suicide bomb attack.

"She has left a message for the party and she has left a will, so we shall be doing that tomorrow after the third day (of official mourning,)" he said.

"We have called for a meeting and her will will be read out there and the instructions she has left will be read out there."

Asked if he would succeed her as party leader, Zardari said, "It depends on the party and depends on the will."

Islamabad, December 29
Describing Benazir Bhutto as a “victim of senseless killing”, her niece Fatima, who shared a love-hate relationship with the former Premier, says she is yet to see someone dying of natural causes in the family.

Fatima, who called Bhutto “Wadi bua”, a Sindhi term for a father’s elder sister, said “I am in shock because I have yet to bury a loved one who has died from natural causes. Four - that’s the number of family members, immediate family members, whom we have laid to rest, all victims of senseless killing.

“I was born five years after my grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s assassination. I was three when my uncle Shahnawaz was murdered. I remember ‘Wadi bua’ sitting with me and telling me stories while the rest of the family was with the police. When I was 14, my life was ended. I lost my heart and soul, my father Murtaza,” Fatima, who is often compared to Bhutto, wrote in ‘The News’.

Fatima had recently authored another article on Bhutto - “Aunt Benazir’s False Promises” - in which she called her a “twice-disgraced former prime minister” who was “hashing out a deal to share power with General Pervez Musharraf”. — PTI

The assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has prompted calls for the US to rethink its Pakistan policies.

By continuing to invest all of its trust in President Pervez Musharraf, touted in government circles as a crucial ally in the so-called ‘war on terror’, Washington runs the risk of further alienating the Pakistani people.

In an online chat on the Washington Post website on Friday, Syeda Abida Hussain, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party and a former Pakistan ambassador to the US cautioned, “If President Bush keeps pressing on with his pro-Musharraf policies he will lose the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan.”

A close friend of Bhutto’s, Hussain said, “One of Benazir’s family members had told me that you and Benazir were crazy to believe the Americans. The Americans are nobody’s friends. They pushed her in the direction of Musharraf and they could not persuade Musharraf to spare her life. The Americans are a failure, they make failed commitments, failed promises. Bush cannot deliver on anything, either to his own people nor to the people of the world. This was one relative’s outrage expressed to me.” But, she added, “The same thought has been echoed by numerous Pakistanis.”

The US had, in recent months, played an active role in trying to forge an alliance between Bhutto and Musharraf and was responsible for facilitating a meeting between the two in the United Arab Emirates to discuss a power-sharing formula. Following Bhutto’s assassination in Rawalpindi on Thursday there has been intense second-guessing on the US role in pushing Bhutto back on the political scene in Pakistan.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey dismissed the criticism saying, “US policy isn’t to anoint candidates or pick leaders for Pakistan or for any other country. Our goal in Pakistan is to support a political process, to support the development of democracy, to support a government that has the broadest possible support from all that country’s people,” he said.

“The selection of candidates is a decision that the Pakistanis themselves are going to have to make,” he said. But Casey acknowledged, Washington has been “Vocal and continuously supportive of the idea of having all moderate forces in the country, regardless of who their individual leaders are, work together to confront a common enemy and a common set of problems. And that’s still our goal and that’s what we’re going to continue to pursue.”

Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution suggested “It is now probably too late for the United States to do much; We placed all of our bets on Musharraf, ignoring Benazir’s pleas for some contact or recognition until a few months ago.”

“In Pakistan, it is likely that separatism will increase, as will violent, extremist Islamism, Benazir’s death will cripple the already besieged, moderate elements of civil society,” Cohen predicted.

Meanwhile, Hussain slammed a claim by the Interior Ministry in Pakistan that Bhutto did not die from shrapnel or gunfire but from hitting her head on the sunroof of her bulletproof car. “They took her body to government hospital and the autopsy was performed by government doctors and they have kept changing their statements. First it was gunfire, they then said it was shrapnel and now they’re saying it was the sunroof that fell on her,” Hussain said.

She added, “The government is guilty and they’re desperately attempting a clumsy cover up - that is why there are various reports of the cause of her death.” Musharraf is being widely blamed for the assassination by Bhutto’s party, either directly or for complicity in not providing her sufficient security.

“He again has demonstrators on the streets. And, he has lost the one principal opposition leader with whom he appeared to be able to work,” said Xenia Dormandy, director of the Project on India and the subcontinent at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “It is unclear whether whoever replaces Benazir will hold the same accommodative views as she did.”

The assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has abruptly shifted the focus of presidential campaigns toward Pakistan and provided an opportunity for White House hopefuls to burnish their foreign policy credentials.

As news of Bhutto’s death spread on Thursday, candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties churned out condolences and offered their assessments of the situation.

With presidential primaries for parties to pick their White House nominees just days away, pollsters predicted candidates with strong foreign policy credentials may now be eyed favourably by voters.

Pollsters predicted Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr., both Democrats, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen John McCain, both Republicans, stood to gain politically from the development.

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden has strong foreign policy qualifications. Until the September 11 attacks on America, however, these were not considered vital for a presidential candidate.

In a pre-election debate before winning his first term in the White House, President George W. Bush struggled to name the president of Pakistan. On Thursday, underscoring his personal friendship with Mrs. Bhutto, Biden said, “It was a privilege to know her these many years and to call her a friend.”

Biden was convinced Bhutto would have won “free and fair” elections on January 8 and said he had twice written to Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf urging him to provide better security to her.

The letters were sent before Bhutto’s return from exile in October, and after an assassination attempt soon after. “The failure to protect Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and security services that must be answered,” he said.

Clinton played up her close association with the late leader. “I came to know Mrs. Bhutto over many years, during her tenures as Prime Minister and during her years in exile,” the former first lady said, adding, “Her death is a tragedy for her country and a terrible reminder of the work that remains to bring peace, stability, and hope to regions of the globe too often paralyzed by fear, hatred, and violence.”

Giuliani, who has based his campaign on his response to 9/11 attacks while he was mayor of New York City, didn’t stray far from message on Thursday.

He described Mrs. Bhutto’s death as “a reminder that terrorism anywhere - whether in New York, London, Tel-Aviv or Rawalpindi - is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the terrorists’ war on us.”

McCain underscored his “numerous visits” to Pakistan. “Given Pakistan’s strategic location, the international terrorist groups that operate from its soil, and its nuclear arsenal, the future of that country has deep implications for the security of the United States and its allies. America must stand on the right side of this ongoing struggle,” he said.

The Arizona Republican said that during his visits to Islamabad, Peshawar and the tribal areas of Waziristan.

“I have seen first hand the many challenges that face the political leadership there, challenges so graphically portrayed by today’s tragedy.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said the assassination was a “stark reminder that America must not only stay on high alert, but remain actively engaged across the globe.”

“Pakistan has long been a key part in the war against extremism and radical jihadists. For those who think Iraq is the sole front in the War on Terror, one must look no further than what has happened today,” Romney, a Republican front-runner, added.

Former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, noted that he and Bhutto had spoken at a conference together a few years ago. He said “she spoke then about the importance of the democratisation process, her personal commitment and risk of her own life, which she recognised, and how the democratisation process in Pakistan was, I think her words were, ‘baptised in blood.’”

Edwards called Musharraf and urged him to continue the democratisation process and allow international investigators into Pakistan “so that, for the rest of the world, there can be credibility in determining what the facts were and what actually occurred.”

Using the “SHIV”, Narayan was able to test a variety of vaccines, including the one that was to be used in human trials in the near future. — PTI

Dhaka, December 29
The Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital, a 45-metre vessel which has been reconstructed into a hospital and moves every two and a half months, is the lifeline for poor islanders on Bangladesh's mighty Brahmaputra river who are otherwise at a geographical disadvantage to access help in a medical emergency.

The vessel is hailed as a “symbol of hope” by poor and illiterate islanders, mostly daily labourers, rickshaw pullers and farmers. The creators of this hospital are Yves Marre, a French sailor and his Bangladeshi wife, Runa Khan.

The hospital run by their NGO ‘Friendship’ boasts of all features of a modern health care set up -a pathological laboratory, an X-ray unit, an ECG machine, digital dental X-ray, two operation theatres and a French oxygen delivering machine sans cylinder.

It provides operations for cleft lips, tumours, reconstructive surgeries for burns and paediatric surgeries.

Runa Khan told The Tribune, “The meandering journey for a patient through the maze of rivers can take six to eight hours to reach a hospital which may be thirty kilometre away.”

“Right now, the vessel is in Kawabadha island in the north on the river in Gaibanda, one of the poorest areas.”

The hospital provides primary health care to about 5,000 patients. Another 2,000 to 5,000 patients come to consult doctors and surgeons who come from abroad and even from Bangladesh. Apart from this, ‘Friendship’ runs more than 100 mobile clinics a month. Runa decided to set up mobile clinics two and a half years back when a girl living in Jamalpur island died of diarrhoea as her parents could not afford a boat.

Many islands don't have boats and natives have to depend on a fisherman boat or hope for a boat to pass by. Runa is looking forward to a second hospital which will be sponsored by the Emirates Airlines Foundation.

Runa likes to give the entire credit to her husband, Yevs Marr, the inventor of paramotor, who made the right move at a time when Europe was scrapping its river barges.

He sailed the boat down to Bangladesh as a world record in 1994 to use it for a humanitarian cause by giving it to an organisation.

It was by chance that Jeff Frazer, chairman of Unilever rented our wooden country tourism boat plying on the Meghna river in 1999 and took keen interest in funding the project. “Donors wanted statistics to fund us. Nobody wanted to fund us till Unilever came. We built the ship. Unilever renovated it in 2000. Besides, they pay Rs 87 lakh annually for primary care.”

“Surgeries are done free of cost. We have dentists coming through out the year from Holland. Dr Henrik Kinder, the first dentist who came here was from Holland and he was so interested that he has made the Bangladesh Association to raise funds to enable their unit to come and work here on their own expense.”

‘Friendship’ also hires trawlers to enable children living in islands to reach immunisation camps organised by the government.

Dhaka, December 29
Authorities in Bangladesh’s National Museum have initially confirmed the recovered broken pieces to be the parts of the stolen 1,500-year-old Vishnu statues as elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) retrieved more such pieces from a dump on the outskirts of the city, officials said today.

Museum officials said they identified the pieces primarily by matching them with photographs of the statues and their experience.

RAB officials yesterday said so far they managed to gather 27 pieces of the Gupta era idols - ‘Vishnu’ and ‘Bust of Vishnu’, at the Baliarpur municipal garbage dumping ground.

But they said they were yet to know the motive behind the theft and destruction of the age-old objects that were stolen from the Zia International Airport last weekend, which were to be flown to Paris along with 143 others for an exhibition.

“We are now concentrating on further interrogation of those arrested,” RAB’s additional director-general Colonel Gulzar Uddin Ahmed said.

Several suspects arrested earlier confessed to having a role in stealing the seventh century images and tearing them to shreds and named Abbas to be the mastermind.

One of the 13 cartons that contained two terracotta statues of Lord Vishnu were found missing during the final check as an Air France cargo plane was preparing to take off, carrying the second consignment of the relics.

The theft prompted resignation of education and cultural affairs adviser of interim government Ayub Quadri in the wake of a huge public outcry, as the relics were being sent abroad defying protests from the civil society leaders and connoisseurs. — PTI