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Pak Polls
Blast kills 13 in Pak
Anti-Castro warriors now too old to fight
N. Korea opens N-reactor to foreign media
Queen apologises to 6-yr-old girl
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Plane with 46 crashes in Venezuela
Pak detains six Indian fishermen
6 die in Iraq mosque blast
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Pak Polls
Several former ministers not only lost their seats but could not save their security deposits, which have been confiscated by the election commission of Pakistan.
Mian Mohammad Azhar, who led the split in the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) with Gen Musharraf’s blessing to form the PML-Q in 2002, lost heavily and could not save security deposit in Lahore. Azhar could only secure 11,073 votes out of total 94,620 polled in a Lahore constituency. He had also lost in 2002 and was ousted as party chief. Other party heavy weights forfeiting their security deposits include Sheikh Rashid, Humayun Akhtar Khan and Chaudhry Wasi Zafar. The former provincial law minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, also had confiscated his security from NA-54 Rawalpindi. In NA-254, Ghinwa Bhutto, the chairperson of Pakistan People’s Party-Shaheed Bhutto, could not obtain the required proportion of the votes out of the total polled votes and had her security deposit confiscated. Former NA Speaker Elahi Bux Soomro also forfeited his security from NA-208 (Jacobabad, Sindh). He obtained 3,586 votes out of the total 76,961 cast.
PML-Q loses in presidency
The repudiation of President Musharraf and his allies in Monday’s general elections was equally thorough in the Presidential Colony that houses his staff and families, as elsewhere in the country. Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) lost the elections even in the presidency. The PML-Q candidate, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, could get only 65 out of 397 votes (16.2 %) polled at the polling station set up in the Presidential Colony. He was distant third in a three-way contest in which PML-N candidate Dr Tariq Fazal got 172 and PPP’s Nayyar Boikhari 160. The officers and staff serving in the presidency reside in the Presidential Colony adjacent to the Army House, the official residence of the army chief. President Pervez Musharraf continues to live there and maintain his office even after he retired from the army in November 2007.
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Islamabad, February 22 “Thirteen persons have been killed and several others have been wounded, including women and children, in the blast,” said security official Major Aurangzeb. More than 450 persons have been killed in militant-related violence in Pakistan since the start of the year, which intensified after the army stormed Islamabad’s Red Mosque to crush an armed student movement last July. Many of the fatalities have been in the scenic Swat valley, until recently a tourist destination, where the military began an offensive in October to clear out al-Qaida-linked militants who had infiltrated from strongholds on the Afghan border. Many al-Qaida and Taliban militants fled to Pakistan and took refuge in its lawless tribal area, after the US-led military invasion toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. — Reuters
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Anti-Castro warriors now too old to fight
Miami, February 22 The men routed by Castro's forces at the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 or who fought his troops afterward, scheming against him in the cafes of Miami's Little Havana or training with weapons in Florida's Everglades swamplands, are now in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Many died before realising their dream of seeing Cuba freed from communism and from Castro, who retired this week after nearly half a century in power. Those that remain are more likely to be dressed in guayaberas or suits than military fatigues, shaking hands and lobbying in support of Cuban dissidents rather than practising combat at the training camp that Alpha 66, an anti-Castro paramilitary group, says it still maintains south of Miami. ''We were fighting for Cuba's freedom with guns. After many years, we understood that was not the way,'' said Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, secretary-general of Alpha 66. ''The times changed.'' Diaz, who was 24 when he was named chief of military operations for Alpha 66, was captured in Pinar del Rio province during a combat operation several years after the Bay of Pigs invasion. He spent more than 20 years in a Cuban jail, seven in solitary confinement without ''any kind of clothes other than my underwear.'' Now 68 and the group's leader, he said Alpha 66 remains a large organisation with some 10,000 ''members or contributors'', including a lot of supporters inside Cuba and chapters in Miami, New York, Boston and other US cities. Diaz would not say how many were actual members of the group, which for years launched commando raids on Cuba and advocated the violent overthrow of Castro. Havana considers the group a terrorist organisation. The Alpha 66 training camp in Homestead, a city to the south of Miami, no longer allows guns or explosives out of respect for US law, and is only used on weekends, he said. — Reuters
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N. Korea opens N-reactor to foreign media
Yongbyon, February 22 Broadcaster APTN was permitted to visit the reactor facility in Yongbyon, the heart of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Its footage showed North Korean workers in white head-to-toe protective suits removing spent nuclear fuel from the facility's 5 MW reactor. The visit came as six-nation negotiations on the nuclear dispute are stalled over differences on whether North Korea has fully declared its nuclear programs under an October accord reached with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. At the site, a senior Yongbyon official reiterated the government's position that it is disabling the reactor as promised in the disarmament-for-aid deal, but that it has slowed down its compliance because the other countries were not meeting their commitments.
— AP
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Queen apologises to 6-yr-old girl
London, February 22 Elishia Stevenson wrote to the Queen, who owns the birds under an ancient charter, after being bitten by the swan while she was enjoying a stroll at Coronation Park in Helston with her dad and her visiting grandparents. And here’s the reply from the Buckingham Palace. “The Queen wishes me to write and thank you for your letter which you have sent to Her Majesty. The Queen thought it kind of you to write to her and was sorry to hear about the swan,” the Queen’s Lady-in-waiting wrote back to Elishia. The decorate letter now has pride of place in Elishia’s bedroom wall. “Elishia came back in tears. There were about six swans. She was literally feeding the swans and one just pecked out. It was one of those stick a plaster on it, kiss it better and tell her everything will be fine. It was only one little cut. I think that she was a bit shocked,” the British media quoted her mom as saying. However, the family is now delighted with the reply. “I just thought that this was such a lovely story and makes me smile when I think of all things going on in the world today. “I know others that I have spoken to and told about Elishia’s letter, have all smiled and said it was such a nice feeling that the Queen took the time to respond to a six-year-old’s letter. “So I hope that this may bring a smile to others,” Elishia’s mom said.
— PTI
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Plane with 46 crashes in Venezuela
Caracas, February 22 Nelson Marquez, head of the Civil Defence for Merida, 500 km southwest of Caracas, said local people in the Andean region of Coyado del Condor reported seeing the aircraft go down yesterday. The Globovision television channel earlier said that air rescue services reported that a Santa Barbara Airlines flight had gone missing after departing from Merida at 0415 IST, headed for Caracas' Simon Bolivar airport.
— AFP
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Pak detains six Indian fishermen
Islamabad, February 22 The Maritime Security Agency apprehended the Indian fishermen yesterday inside Pakistan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The fishermen will be handed over to the Docks police station in Karachi for further legal action, officials said.
— PTI
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6 die in Iraq mosque blast
Baghdad, February 22 The blast occurred near a police checkpoint, the police said. No further details available.
— Reuters
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