 |
|
|
Pak gags DSP who witnessed Bhutto killing
Bilawal’s Appointment Mush for exhuming Bhutto’s body Bhutto Killing |
|
|
Court indicts Hasina in extortion case
Bruni’s paternity under scrutiny
Laden’s son wants UK visa to live with wife
India’s luxurious trains among top 25
Pak singer freed
|
|
Pak gags DSP who witnessed Bhutto killing
A Canadian newspaper report claims that Ishtiaq Hussain Shah, DSP, who was alongside former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s vehicle when she died, has been gagged with no one allowed to visit him in the Rawalpindi hospital where he is recovering from the injuries he suffered in the December 27 blast.
According to the Globe and Mail, there was no security cordon around Benazir as she left Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi where she was killed. The doctors at the hospital, who, on the night of her death, said she died of bullet wounds on the head and neck, mysteriously changed their story the next day. The report states: “To many in Pakistan, it all smacks of state complicity in the assassination. To others, it points, at the very least, to a concerted attempt to hide the extent of the security failure.” The PPP leader’s “own private security arrangements seemed poor and chaotic”. According to that suppressed report on the assassination, the authenticity of which could not be verified, a pistol made by the Chinese company Norinco was recovered from the scene, with lot No. 311-90. An MUV-2 triggering mechanism for the bomb was also found, similar to the ones used in 15 previous suicide bombings, and with the same lot number and factory code. Another report in the Seattle Times notes: “The first report is from Ishtiaq Hussain Shah of the Rawalpindi police, who witnessed the assassination and said as Benazir’s car headed onto Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Road after an election rally on December 27, a crowd appeared from nowhere and stopped the motorcade, raising slogans of her Pakistan People’s Party and waving party banners. Benazir, apparently thinking she was greeting her supporters, emerged through the sunroof of the bulletproof car to wave. “I don’t know who they were or from where they came …. They just appeared on the road.” But 10 feet from where he was standing, a man in the crowd wearing a jacket and sunglasses raised his arm and shot at the former Prime Minister. “I jumped to overpower him,” Shah said later. “A mighty explosion took place soon afterwards.” Shah, recuperating from injuries suffered in the attack, is in a Rawalpindi military hospital, guarded by agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
|
|
Bilawal’s Appointment
London, January 13 The 25-year-old newspaper columnist also rejected her own claim to the Bhutto legacy and called for a ''new era'' of politics ''based on platforms rather than personalities''. ''The idea that it has to be a Bhutto, I think, is a dangerous one. It doesn't benefit Pakistan. It doesn't benefit a party that's supposed to be run on democratic lines and it doesn't benefit us as citizens if we think only about personalities and not about platforms,'' she said in an interview with The Times, her first to the western media since Benazir's death. Launching a blistering attack on her cousin's appointment, Fatima accused those around him of perpetuating dynastic politics and trying to cash in on his mother's blood. ''That's the problem-- it's a field that's held hostage by so few and it's become in a sense the family business, like an antique shop, where it's just 'So and So and Sons' and then grandsons and great grandsons. It just gets handed down,'' she said. Fatima's father Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir's younger brother and the eldest son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was killed in a police shootout in Karachi in 1996 when Benazir was Prime Minister. Talking about family ties Fatima said her doors are ''always open'' to Bilawal and his sisters. ''We were there for those three days of mourning. So it's up to them now.''
— UNI
|
|
|
Mush for exhuming Bhutto’s body New York, January 13 “Yes, exhume it (the body). A hundred per cent. I would like it to be exhumed. Because I know for sure there is no bullet wound other than on the right side. Whether it was a bullet or a strike, I don’t want to comment, I don’t know,” Musharraf said in a wide-ranging interview to ‘Newsweek’. The President said the man in charge of the security of Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide attack on December 27 in Rawalpindi after addressing an election rally, was “her own handpicked superintendent of police”. “This area (where she was killed) was known to be dangerous. There was a death threat, intelligence that there would be an attack, and we told her, yet she wanted to go.... She went into a dangerous place, and if you get out of the (bullet-proof) vehicle, you are responsible. All the others sitting inside the vehicle were safe,” he said. About the allegations that in some way the government was complicit in the killing of Bhutto, he said, “I refuse to listen to such accusations.... I am the government, Ok? I am not feudal, and I am not tribal.” Asked if he had seen the X-rays of Bhutto, he said “Yes,” adding “I am a soldier, I’ve seen a lot of bullet wounds. A bullet wound is a small hole, and if the bullet goes through it makes a big hole on the other side. Now that is what I understand to be a bullet wound. This was not that, although I’m not an expert. But how does it absolve the government if it was a bullet or not?” — PTI
|
|
|
Bhutto Killing London, January 13 The Scotland Yard experts in video evidence, forensic science and explosives are in Pakistan after President Pervez Musharraf took up an offer from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for help in the investigation into the December 27 killing of Bhutto in Rawalpindi. British officials have revealed that evidence collected by Scotland Yard experts in Pakistan points at Al-Qaida’s hand in the killing of Bhutto, The Sunday Times reported. Musharraf was quick to blame the killing on Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander in southern Waziristan tribal area with links to Al-Qaida. But, Mehsud has denied his involvement in Bhutto’s assassination. “Linking Mehsud to Bhutto’s assassination was done for strategic reasons and had nothing to do with the ground realities,” Sajjan Gohel, an expert on Al-Qaida, was quoted as saying by The Sunday Times. “Although Mehsud has ideological sympathies with the Taliban, his influence does not extend beyond the tribal areas and he certainly does not have the resources to plan an attack in the centre of the country like the assassination of Bhutto.” But some British and American officials share Musharraf’s view that Mehsud is behind most of the suicide bombings in Pakistan. — PTI
|
|
|
Court indicts Hasina in extortion case
Dhaka, January 13 Judge Aziz-ul-Haq framed charges against Awami League chief Hasina, her expatriate younger sister Sheikh Rehana and cousin and former health minister Sheikh Selim after several days of hearing and fixed January 17 for next hearing to record witnesses’ statement. “I never took a single penny in my life,” Hasina said in an emotionally-choked voice. The Awami League chief is charged with extorting about Taka 3 crore from businessman Azam J Chowdhury during her tenure in 1996-2001 after threatening him with cancellation of his power project. Hasina has alleged that she was given proposals to stay abroad to evade the charges when she was outside the country several months ago. She recently charged that the military-backed Bangladesh government was trying to bar her from contesting the parliamentary polls by framing her in the extortion case and demanded general election in the country within six months. Hasina has been lodged in a temporary sub-jail on the Parliament complex since her arrest on July
16 last year. — PTI
|
|
Bruni’s paternity under scrutiny
London, January 13 Remmert has reportedly confessed that Sarkozy’s lover is his love-child, the Daily Mail reported quoting Estado newspaper. Breaking his 40-year silence, Remmert allegedly admitted that the rich heiress was the result of a secret six-year affair he had with her mother, Marisa. “I have known Carla was my daughter since she was born,” he said. The romance began in their home city of Turin in the 60s, where she was a concert pianist, while he was a classical guitarist. The businessman claimed that Alberto might had been in the dark about his wife’s infidelity at the time, and possibly did not suspect the baby was not his. Remmert alleged that Carla’s mother broke the news when her husband was dying. Italian author Gian Piero Bona, however, said Alberto, who died in 1996, was aware of the situation and passed on the shocking news to Carla on his deathbed. He said Carla, whose previous conquests included rock stars Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, was upset when she first learnt who her real father was, but then she quite took to the idea. The impending visit of the French President and his girlfriend is creating ripples in India and sending diplomatic circles into a tizzy over how to accommodate them after their much-publicised trip to Luxor drew criticism from Egyptian MPs.
— UNI
|
|
Laden’s son wants UK visa to live with wife
London, January 13 Omar bin Laden (26) who admits attending terror training with the Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, was interviewed with his wife Jane Felix-Browne (52) by British Embassy officials in Cairo, where he is currently living. The couple plans to settle down in Jane's £550,000 villa in Moulton, Cheshire, have a child through a surrogate mother and work as 'peace activists'. Omar and six-times-married Jane, who changed her name to Zaina Al Sabah Bin Laden, have given the Embassy access to their bank accounts to check on the authenticity of their relationship. The son of the world's most wanted man divorced his first wife, the mother of his two-year-old son, to prove his marriage to Jane was genuine.
— UNI
|
|
India’s luxurious trains among top 25
Houston, January 13 The Society of International Railway Travellers, which celebrates its 25th year in 2008, said some on the list are over-the-top luxury, such as the all-first-class “Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express,” Rovos Rail’s “Pride of Africa” and India’s “Deccan Odyssey”. Others offer the most stylish and comfortable way to see less-developed regions, such the world’s newest private train, the “Danu be Express,” which offers weeklong, rail-based “cruises” through Central Europe.
— PTI
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
