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Blast kills 3 in Pak
2 alleged ‘handlers’ of Bhutto’s assassins arrested
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Sharif denies completing Bhutto mission
Judges’ Restoration N-Deal: US to continue cooperation with India
Headscarf ban in Turkey varsities to go
Higher UK Training
UK youth take to alcohol
at age of 13
Tornadoes kill 55 in US South
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Quetta, February 7 The explosion blew off the bomber’s legs in Dera Murad Jamali, a town about 300 km southeast of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province. “He was trying to place the explosives in a sewerage drain near the bus stand when it exploded, killing two people on the spot,” senior police official Mujahid Akbar told Reuters. A third man later died in the hospital. Akbar said the wounded bomber had been arrested. It was not immediately known which group the man belonged to, but ethnic Baluch rebels have waged a low-scale insurgency for autonomy and a larger share of the profits from resources in the gas-rich province. The tribal militants also attack security forces, but there is no evidence that they have links with Islamist insurgents who are fighting government forces in the tribal belt in Baluchistan and the adjoining North West Frontier Province on the Afghan border. — Reuters
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2 alleged ‘handlers’ of Bhutto’s assassins arrested
Islamabad, February 7 The two men, identified as Hasnain and Rafaqat, were arrested by a special investigating team for their alleged involvement in the suicide attack on Bhutto at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on December 27, Geo News channel reported today. They were arrested in Rawalpindi and were being interrogated. The channel quoted sources as claiming that the men accompanied two other persons, Bilal and Ikram, who allegedly carried out the attack on Bhutto. Hasnain and Rafaqat were described by the sources as the alleged “handlers” of the two attackers. The sources also said they had allegedly brought the attackers to Rawalpindi and had accompanied them to the site of the attack. The channel did not say when the men were arrested. The news of the arrest broke as Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) marked the end of 40 days of mourning for her ‘chehlum’ ceremony at the Bhutto family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Baksh in Sindh province. Addressing a gathering of thousands of people, Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari vowed to complete her mission of ushering in complete democracy to Pakistan. He also pledged to avenge her assassination. Last month, authorities in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan arrested 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, who claimed he was part of a five-member suicide squad sent by Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud to target Bhutto. Officials were trying to corroborate Shah’s claims. President Pervez Musharraf blamed Mehsud for masterminding Bhutto’s assassination, but the militant leader denied the charge through his spokesman. — PTI
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Sharif denies completing Bhutto mission
Repudiating a vigorous ad campaign by the pro-Musharraf PML, former premier and chief of (PML-N) Nawaz Sharif has denied saying he would complete slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's mission.
Talking to a private TV channel, he expressed solidarity with the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), but denied that he had "vowed to complete Benazir's mission" during a visit to the Rawalpindi General Hospital after Benazir's body was brought to the hospital following the attack on her. He said President Musharraf had requested the Saudi king not to allow Nawaz to return to Pakistan.
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Judges’ Restoration Top jurist and president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) has contested President Musharraf’s claim that two-third majority of the Parliament would be need to reverse his dismantling of the independent judiciary. A two-third majority in Parliament is not a prerequisite for the restoration of the deposed judges and any authority above the army chief can do so, Airtazaz was quoted by Geo TV as saying during a visit to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC), where he was brought for a medical checkup. He rejected President Musharraf’s remarks that only a two-third majority of the Parliament could bring the deposed judges back in action. He said, “The judges were deposed by the army chief through an executive order under the state of emergency after November 3, and any officer of a higher rank than the military chief could recall that order and restore all those judges through an executive order.” “The government is afraid of me, that is why I am put under house arrest,” he said, adding that, whenever he had been released from detention, he pressed for the restoration of the deposed judges. He said he had been requesting the authorities for a medical check-up, but they had taken him to hospital on a holiday, fearing a protest demonstration by lawyers on a working day. He said around 60 judges had been deposed on account of a ‘conflict’ with Musharraf’s wider plan to purge the judiciary of independent judges and were put under house arrest. Rejecting the news that he was in a critical condition, he said, “I am all right and fit to fight. I am here for a routine check-up.” He said the Sindh and Punjab home secretaries had not so far responded to his applications, asking for permission to attend the chehlum of his late leader Benazir Bhutto at Naudero. Ahsan was brought to the PIC in his own vehicle, which was driven by his driver. Heavy contingents of the police accompanied him to the institute. Advocate Javed told reporters that Ahsan felt congestion in the left half of his chest and a little dizziness on Tuesday night, due to which he (Ahsan) called up the home secretary and asked him for a medical check up. Ahsan’s associate said that after an hour’s check-up, ECG (electrocardiogram) and blood test reports showed him normal. Kayani reversing Mush’s policies Gen Ashfaq Kayani, chief of army staff, according to a report published in the Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday, has “begun to systematically reverse some of the most significant policies of his predecessor, President Pervez Musharraf.” “This is saying that we are not in the business of manipulating politics”, the newspaper quotes Daily Times editor Najam Sethi as saying. The report lists as evidence of the “reversal” two key directives: prohibiting soldiers from meeting with politicians and ordering all active officers who hold posts in civilian agencies to resign from those positions. Those orders contrast starkly with those promoted by Musharraf when he was army chief. Knowledgeable sources told The Tribune that Kayani did take action against at least two major-generals, who met Musharraf without prior approval. He also held long meetings with two groups of generally independent minded journalists during the absence of Musharraf, which did not sit well with the latter. The newspaper sees these steps as an indication that Gen Kayani is taking his army in the direction that the USA had hoped he would - attempting to refocus officers on the task of securing the country from terrorists, rather than playing politics or vying for public perks.
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Headscarf ban in Turkey varsities to go
Ankara, February 7 Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who heads the Islamist-rooted ruling the AK Party, has pledged to uphold secularism but says he wants to allow the headscarf on the campus to boost religious and personal freedoms. Two-thirds of Turkish women wear headscarves and many stopped going to university after a ban on wearing them in public institutions was extended to universities in 1989. In the final vote of the first round, the planned amendment to the constitution to end the ban was approved by 404 parliamentarians to 92, easily exceeding the required two-thirds majority of 367. The amendment, sponsored by the AKP and the Opposition MHP, is expected to be approved in a final round of voting on Saturday as both parties have more than the two-thirds majority in seats between them.
— Reuters
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N-Deal: US to continue cooperation with India Washington, February 7 White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto was asked as to where the two sides stand on the accord given that Washington’s pointsman for the deal, under secretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns, is scheduled to depart the state department by the end of March. “We’ll continue our cooperation in order to achieve that goal of getting the agreement completed," Fratto said. Burns is stepping down from the foreign service at the end of March but US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said he would continue in the capacity of an envoy on the civilian nuclear deal. Political analysts here have cautioned that the deal is running out of time and the ball is in India’s court to move it along. Warning to the Indian political establishment has also been that the civilian nuclear arrangement has its best chances in a Bush administration and the deal stands a difficult time to get through White House with a Democratic President and a fully Democrat-controlled Congress.
— PTI
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Higher UK Training
London, February 7 But “Indian doctors can come for service jobs”, said Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. Mehta said the new Home Office rules made it clear to the international medical graduates currently overseas, who were planning to come to the UK, that it would be difficult for them to obtain post-graduate training here. But the rights of those IMGS, who were already in the UK would be protected. “We have been lobbying the Home Office and the department of health for the past 5 years asking them to take action to limit the number of international graduates entering the UK. This is necessary since there are limited places for post-graduate training. This is in the best interests of both UK doctors and IMGS.” The change, which was announced yesterday, imposes a condition on Tier 1 (general) migrants and highly skilled migrants prohibiting them from taking a post as a doctor in training. The new rules, coming into effect from February 29, will not have impact on recruitment until 2009. Those who currently have leave to remain in the UK as a highly skilled migrant and postgraduate doctors or dentists, who are seeking leave to remain as a Tier 1 (general) migrant will be exempt from the new rules. “The International doctors will still be able to come and work in UK in non-training jobs,” Mehta said. — PTI
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UK youth take to alcohol
at age of 13
London, February 7 Informing this, British home secretary Jacqui Smith signalled tougher action against parents who encourage home drinking as she disclosed that ever-growing numbers of children regularly sampled alcohol when they entered their teens. ''We have now reached a point where more 13-year-olds have drunk alcohol than have not. This is clearly a cause for concern,'' the Independent quoted Smith telling a conference on drink-fuelled crime here. Nearly half of all violent attacks were linked to alcohol and that more than one quarter of people believed drunken rowdiness was a problem in their neighbourhood, she said, adding that nearly half of alcohol consumed by teenagers had come from the family home. Calling for greater use of parenting orders, requiring families to keep better control of their children, when youngsters were found drinking in public, she said parents who refused to co-operate risked a 1,000 pound fine or a community order. The police would mount a new drive from this month's school half-term holiday to confiscate alcohol from under-18s caught drinking in public, Smith added. She disclosed that the Home Office had commissioned the auditors KPMG to carry out undercover work to check whether pubs, clubs, off-licences and supermarkets were abiding by voluntary agreements to sell alcohol responsibly. It would focus on cut-price drink promotions and could result in a change in the law to force retailers into line. A 10-million-pound advertising campaign this year would highlight the dangers of binge-drinking and raise awareness on the recommended levels of alcohol consumption among the minority of 18-to 24-year-olds, ''whose capacity for alcohol consumption seems to be matched in some cases only by an appetite for destruction,'' Smith said.
— UNI
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Tornadoes kill 55 in US South
Lafayette (US), February 7 It was the country's deadliest barrage of twisters in almost 23 years. Dozens of tornadoes plowed across Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. The storms flattened entire streets, smashed warehouses and sent tractor-trailers flying. Houses were reduced to splintered piles of lumber. Some looked like life-size dollhouses, their walls sheared away. Crews going door-to-door to search for bodies had to contend with downed power lines, snapped trees and flipped-over cars. "We had a beautiful neighbourhood. Now it's hell," said Bonnie Brawner, 80, who lives in Hartsville, Tennessee, a community about an hour from Nashville where a natural gas plant that was struck by a twister erupted in spectacular flames up to 120 metres high. "It looks like the Lord took a Brillo (scouring) pad and scrubbed the ground," said Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, who surveyed the damage from a helicopter. Hundreds of houses were damaged or destroyed. The authorities had no immediate cost estimate of the damage. President George W Bush gave assurances his administration stood ready to help. Teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were sent to the region and activated an emergency centre in Georgia.
— AP
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