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Pak poll put
off to Feb 18
Pak rejects calls for international probe
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Security
Al-Qaida Link to Bhutto Killing
After bullets, lever, now it’s laser beam
Next-gen Bhuttos ready to take the mantle
French minister offers help
Australia to review citizenship test
227 Indians die during Haj
5 die in Colombo blast targeting army bus
NRI’s appointment kicks up row Help arrived 30 min after tiger attack
on Indians Limbo-Skating
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Pak poll put off to Feb 18 The Election Commission on Wednesday postponed general election scheduled for January 8 to February 18. Chief election commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq, while announcing the 40-day postponement, cited law and order situation in Sindh and some other parts of the country apart from administrative problems in the aftermath of assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Opposition parties, the PML-N, Jamaat Islami and the PPP, who dubbed it as a ploy to avoid likely defeat of pro-Musharraf PML-Q, immediately rejected the postponement. They expressed serious apprehensions that the delay would further inflame violence and anti-Pakistan sentiments in Sindh. In a brief but chaotic news conference, the CEC said the commission held “informal” consultations with major political parties besides seeking reports from all four provincial governments. He declined to give details of the response of individual parties saying the consultations were held in an atmosphere of confidentiality. He said the Sindh chief secretary had reported to the commission that the holding of elections in the province was impossible because of the prevailing law and order situation. The Punjab government also reported that a tense situation was continuing. Qazi Farooq said in 11 districts of Sindh, the entire record and election offices were burnt in rioting following Bhutto’s death. The printing of ballot papers in Islamabad and Karachi also remained suspended for four days. “Under the circumstances it is not possible to hold elections on January 8,” Qazi said adding the elections would now be held on February 18. Asked if army would be deployed for orderly polling on February 18, the CEC said this would be decided as the situation demands on that occasion. He assured all political parties that elections would be free, fair and transparent and urged them to participate in them. Asked how could he guarantee that the elections would not be postponed again, Qazi said the commission would ensure that these are held on the due date of February 18. Meanwhile, the PML-Q welcomed the postponement. Information secretary of the party Tariq Azim said the postponement was inevitable because of the situation on the ground. JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the delay was anticipated but voiced concern that past experience of Gen Zia’s long postponement has been very bitter. He, however, pointed out that Zia was still in uniform while Musharraf has weakened after retiring from the army.
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Pak rejects calls for international probe
Islamabad, January 2 Foreign office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said the probe by a UN Investigating Commission into Hariri’s assassination was in line with various resolutions passed by the world body on Lebanon. Ruling out a similar probe into Bhutto’s assassination in Rawalpindi on December 27, Sadiq said the situation in Pakistan is “totally different” from the circumstances that led to the investigation into Hariri’s killing. Sadiq said the government is “committed to a thorough and transparent investigation and is open to receiving assistance from outside” for the probe. France, Britain and the US have offered assistance for the investigation, he said. PPP’s online petition
The Pakistan People’s Party has launched an online petition to press the United Nations to conduct an investigation into the assassination of its chief Benazir Bhutto. The goal of the petition, launched by Javaid Manzoor and Mansoor Qureshi of the PPP’s Washington chapter, is to collect 50,000 signatures to pressure the UN to carry out a probe into the killing of Bhutto. “Our goal is to collect 50,000 signatures and send it to the UN Secretary-General and to each member of the Security Council,” said a statement issued by the PPP. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari, who was appointed the co-chairman of the PPP on Sunday, has said the party’s lawyers are framing a document to approach the UN to conduct a probe into the assassination on the lines of the Security Council’s investigation into the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Harriri. Zardari also said an email sent by Bhutto to her US-based spokesman, which said she would hold President Pervez Musharraf responsible if anything happened to her, could be used as a “dying declaration” to file a police complaint. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Bar Council has demanded a judicial inquiry headed by deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar M. Chaudhry into former premier Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. “Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has become a martyr of democracy by laying down her life for the cause of democracy,” said a resolution unanimously adopted by the council. The council vowed to continue the lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of judges who were deposed for not endorsing the state of emergency proclaimed by President Pervez Musharraf. Calling for a probe into Bhutto’s assassination by Chaudhry, the PBC said: “Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are illegally and unconstitutionally being prevented from performing their functions.” The council said Bhutto’s assassination on December 27 has plunged the country into a constitutional and political crisis. It also accused Musharraf’s regime of having failed to provide adequate security to the Pakistan People’s Party leader. “The Musharraf regime has failed to protect people’s life and property in the aftermath of Mohtarma’s murder,” it said.
— PTI
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Security
New York, January 2 Diplomats at the US embassy in Islamabad, including Ambassador Anne W Patterson, were in daily contact with officials from Bhutto’s party, the New York Times said quoting a senior state department official. The Americans were passing along information and specific advice on private security contractors to hire, but Bhutto and her aides apparently spurned the counsel, the official said. “Diplomats and security experts at the American embassy, for example, discouraged Bhutto from hiring American or British private security firms, fearing that a western guard detail would draw too much attention to her and become a target,” the paper said. “Security officers at the embassy instead recommended the names of half a dozen Pakistani security companies that the United States and other western countries had used to protect their personnel,” the paper said quoting the official. “The local companies employed guards who spoke the language and knew the landscape,” the official said. But Bhutto and her husband rejected that suggestion apparently fearing that extremists might infiltrate even the reputable Pakistani firms, the official was quoted as saying. The senior official also rejected the charge of Bhutto’s husband that the Bush administration did not press President Pervez Musharraf’s government hard enough to provide adequate security for her. The American officials had passed on the constant flow of threat reports to Bhutto and her advisers even before she returned to Pakistan on October 18 from self-imposed exile, the paper
said. — PTI
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Al-Qaida Link to Bhutto Killing
American intelligence officials are not accepting Pakistani claims that a militant with ties to Al-Qaida masterminded the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Soon after the former Prime Minister was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Thursday, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s administration released a transcript of a phone conversation involving Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader. The Pakistani interior ministry said the conversation, intercepted in the hours after the gun and bomb attack, proved that Mehsud was involved. Mehsud promptly denied any role in the killing. In the conversation, the man said to be Mehsud and a man he addresses as Maulvi Sahib are heard to congratulate each other over Bhutto’s death. The man identified as Mehsud says at one point: “It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her.” The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US officials are skeptical since the Pakistani claims are based on a single transcript. “As far as I know, the Pakistanis are saying this is it, this is the proof,” a senior state department official, told the paper. “Before our guys say yes or no, they need a hell of a lot more than one thing, even if it is a substantial piece of evidence.” The Guardian in London, meanwhile, reported that Pakistani authorities have drafted a plan to “eliminate” Mehsud, “despite widespread suspicion within Pakistan that he is being used as a scapegoat.” A Pentagon official told The Times: “There are so many people who’d want to kill her, it’s difficult to ascribe any one agency.” Bruce Riedel, at the Brookings Institution, said in a separate interview he believed Al-Qaida or Al-Qaida’s Pakistani allies were behind the plot. “Al-Qaida has been trying to kill Bhutto for decades. She has been the target of assassination attempts by Al-Qaida before. They were most likely responsible for the attack on her when she first returned to Pakistan.” Riedel noted Bhutto was widely disliked in the intelligence apparatus, but he added, the attack was more likely the work of Al-Qaida and its cohorts.
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After bullets, lever, now it’s laser beam
Islamabad, January 2 Bhutto’s wounds were caused not by bullets but by some sort of laser weapon, The Nation newspaper said quoting sources in the PPP. When Bhutto was admitted to Rawalpindi General Hospital shortly after the fatal attack on her on December 27, doctor Musaddiq Khan, who treated her, told a PPP leader that he had seen “such a case for the first time in his life”,
sources said. Bullets did not cause Bhutto’s wounds and she had died before reaching the hospital. A part of her brain and blood had spilled out from her head, they quoted the doctor
as saying. The sources also claimed both the gunshots and the bomb blast in the attack on Bhutto “were a decoy to hide the real shooters”. The paper further quoted the sources as saying that the militant leader Baitullah Mehsud and the Taliban, blamed for her assassination by the government, did not have such technology. Mehsud had sent two messages to Bhutto after the suicide bombing of her motorcade in Karachi on October 19 in which he said that he had no hostility against her and would not make any attempt to kill her, they said. The PPP sources said after the suicide attack, the “ambulance also picked up a dead body behind the stage of Liaquat Bagh”, the venue of an election rally that Bhutto had addressed. Bhutto was scheduled to meet two US lawmakers after the Liaquat Bagh rally at 9.30 pm. At this meeting, she was about to expose the rigging plans of the government in the forthcoming polls, they said. Bhutto usually used two bulletproof vehicles and often changed cars during a journey if she received an important call. When the attack occurred, there was a distance of 20 to 30 metres between these two vehicles. At the time of the attack, Bhutto and PPP leaders Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Nahid Khan and Safdar Abbasi were sitting in one bulletproof car while spokesman Farhatullah Babar, Babar Awan and Bhutto’s security adviser Rehman Malik were in the other car, sources said. They also said that two wills prepared by Bhutto were presented in the meeting of the PPP’s top leadership. Bhutto wrote both wills and one was about her party while the other related to her personal property. Bhutto’s close aide Sherry Rehman has claimed Bhutto was shot in the head and rejected as “absolute nonsense” the government’s contention that she died of a skull fracture during the suicide attack in
Rawalpindi. — PTI
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Next-gen Bhuttos ready to take the mantle Islamabad, January 2 Sources said following the death of her aunt, Fatima’s relationship with her cousins -- Bilawal and his sisters Bakhtawar and Asifa -- has improved. Her father Murtaza was shot dead outside his home in Karachi in 1996 when Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister. As strongheaded and independent as they come, leading the pack is slain former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto’s suave son 19-year-old Bilawal, who believes “democracy is the best revenge” and whom girls find ‘cute’, ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’. Bakhtawar has expressed her desire to join politics. — PTI
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French minister offers help
Islamabad, January 2 The French minister also offered all possible cooperation to the Pakistan government in the probe over assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto. He met separately with caretaker Prime Minister Mohammad Mian Soomro and foreign minister. Bernard is the first senior foreign official to visit Pakistan after the death of Bhutto. Officials here said Bernard wanted to go to Naudero to condole Bhutto’s death with her spouse and co-chairperson Asif Zardari but was dissuaded because of security concerns. The French foreign minister said Pakistan should play its role effectively in the ongoing war on terror. He said this would get impetus when there is peace and the people elected by the nation are in power.
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Australia to review citizenship test
Melbourne, January 2 Out of 10,636 people who took their citizenship tests after its introduction in October by the previous John Howard government, 2,311 failed, the latest official figures revealed. The new Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday said the government would review the citizenship test in light of the poor test results and could make wholesale changes. “The Government will review the scheme in the new year and assess the process and whether improvements can be made,” Evans was quoted as saying by media here. “The citizenship test should be about increasing awareness of citizens’ responsibilities and of the Australian way of life”, he said. Despite the problems, the minister encouraged people to continue sitting the test. Under laws introduced by the former Howard government, anyone who wishes to be an Australian citizen must pass a 20-question quiz on Australian history, values and way of life, including their understanding of “mateship”, and demonstrate an adequate knowledge of English. Howard had denied the tests had racist overtones and marked a return to the kind of exams used until the 1950s that excluded mainly-Asian migrants under the “White Australia” policy. Only residents who have lived here for four years can apply for citizenship. Those who fail to meet the 60 per cent pass mark can sit the test as often as they want until they get it right. Last year Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was then in opposition, gave his backing to the scheme, as well as plans to make new arrivals to the country sign a so-called ‘values statement’ stating they agree to abide by the Australian way of life. The test was opposed by the Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou, who warned it would create unreasonable barriers for some people wanting to become citizens, especially those who could not speak English or read and write properly. When the test was introduced, immigration minister Kevin Andrews denied it was an election stunt and said new immigrants needed to better integrate into the community. New South Wales state’s Anti-Discrimination Board President Stepan Kerkyasharian said today that the test should be refined to be a test of knowledge rather than culture. — PTI
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Dubai, January 2 An Indian official said that India had sent 1.57 lakh pilgrims that included 1.1 lakh who came through the Haj Committee of India and while the rest arrived through the travel operators from various Indian cities. Suhel Ajaz Khan, the Indian Haj consul, said that so far around 20,000 pilgrims who came through the Haj committee had left. Some 86 Indian pilgrims are still in hospitals receiving treatment for various aliments, he was quoted as saying in Arab News. Indonesians, followed by Indians, top the list of pilgrims who died during Haj this year. The Indonesian Consulate General in Jeddah announced 317 pilgrims had died in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. According to a report from the Central Haj Committee in Makkah, most of the deaths during the pilgrimage were due to natural causes. The report said that 778 traffic accidents were reported during the season. Overall 11,700 pilgrims were admitted to different hospitals due to accidents and various illnesses, out of which 10,900 were discharged. More than 800 pilgrims are still recuperating in hospitals. — PTI
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5 die in Colombo blast targeting army bus
At least five persons were killed and 28 others injured in a claymore mine explosion targeting a bus carrying military personnel in the Colombo city on Tuesday morning, coming just a day after a prominent Tamil legislator was gunned down in the city. The explosion, which the government promptly blamed on Tamil Tigers, at a congested intersection in Colombo, just metres away from the main headquarters of the Sri Lanka Air Force and a police station, left two soldiers and three civilians dead. A military official said the claymore mine was hidden in the outer panel of an air conditioner in a building near by and was triggered by remote control as the bus slowed down in the traffic. This is the second bloody incident in the New Year with the opposition Tamil politician T. Maheswaran being gunned down at a Hindu temple in Colombo as he prayed on New Year’s day on Tuesday. The government has promised a full probe into his killing, but opposition politicians have blamed the government for the killing and said Maheswaran’s security was reduced days prior to his death as he spoke out strongly against the growing human rights violations taking place in the country.
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NRI’s appointment kicks up row London, January 2 Demanding an investigation into the appointment of Lord Khaleed Hameed and the alleged substantial donations made to the Liberal Democratic Party by Alpha Healthcare, The Times daily said the Lords’ vetting panel was unaware of links between the NRI and the Lib Dems new top business donors. “The cabinet secretary, the committee on standards in public life and the appointments commission are being urged to look into relationships,” the newspaper said. Lucknow-born Lord Hameed was proposed for the peerage by the Liberal Democratic Party treasurer and lauded by the only Liberal Democrat member of the Lords Appointments Commission but sits as an independent. All involved deny any connection between the peerage and the payments. According to the report, Alpha Healthcare has handed over nearly 400,000 pounds, the largest single tranche of 125,000 pounds being accepted after the seat in the Lords was confirmed, the report said. Lord Hameed insists that he has never given a penny to a politician and knew nothing of the payments. The former High Sheriff of Greater London, Lord Hameed is a prominent Muslim promoter of interfaith dialogue and a winner of the Sternberg Interfaith Award. His progress to the Lords began in 2005 when he was nominated by the former British airways chief Lord Marshall, a crossbencher. The nomination was formally supported by Lord Clement-Jones, two non-Liberal Democrat peers and two dignitaries. The appointments commission said all procedures had been followed properly. — PTI
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Help arrived 30 min after tiger attack on Indians Silicon Valley, January 2 A 350-pound Siberian Tigress had mauled Paul Dhaliwal (19) and Kulbir Dhaliwal (23) and killed their teenage friend Carlos Sousa Jr on December 25. “They were out there for 30 to 35 minutes and nobody takes them seriously - especially when there was blood. It’s incredible,” Attorney Mark Geragos said. According to the brothers’ account, as related by Geragos to the San Francisco Chronicle, they approached a cafe, 300 yards away, after the initial attack by the big cat at 4.30 pm. Unable to find help at the cafe, which was nearing the closing time, the brothers spotted a woman security officer, but she appeared to be “diffident” after hearing of the tiger attack, Geragos said. According to the police records of that day, somebody from the cafe finally informed the emergency at 5.10. However, it is unclear exactly when the brothers first attempted to notify people in the cafe about the attack, the report said. The newly appointed spokesman for the zoo, Sam Singer, however, dismissed the claims saying the San Francisco Police Department is yet to complete its investigation. — PTI
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Limbo-Skating London, January 2 With legs split and chin almost skimming the road, Aniket is no more than bins above the ground when he disappears under four-wheel-drives in Belgaum, The Daily Telegraph reported today. According to The Times, Aniket now trains for four hours a day and plans to break his world record of 57 cars in 45 seconds with a 100-car skate in New Delhi. He started two years ago and it took him three months to get his body into the right position. Aniket said: “The hardest thing is to go fast enough before I bend down. That’s how you can skate under so many cars at once.” — PTI
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