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Terror strike:17 die in Istanbul blasts
ISI under interior ministry
‘Anybody can make mistakes’
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Pak scribe in US custody
Bush asks Pak PM to rein in militants
Woman detained by ‘friend’ released
Oath Row
Suicide bombers kill 50 in Iraq
Haneef Case: Evidence not to be made public
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Terror strike:17 die in Istanbul blasts
Istanbul, July 28 NTV said the toll reached 17 after one person died from wounds sustained in the Sunday evening blasts in a working class neighbourhood on the European side of Istanbul. More than a dozen people were seriously injured in the two explosions. The site was still cordoned off early on Monday and the police was not allowing people into the area other than shop owners, as forensic teams examined the scene and the police investigated security cameras in the largely residential area. “'We know the killers,” Sabah newspaper said in a headline above a picture of bodies strewn across a busy pedestrian area where two bombs had torn through the crowds. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the deadliest in Turkey since 2003. Newspapers said three persons had been detained in connection with the bombings. Kurdish separatists, far-left groups and Islamist militants have all carried out bombings in Istanbul in the past. Several newspapers said the police was focusing their investigations this time on the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), saying it has used similar explosives. The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the USA, Turkey and the European Union, has waged a deadly campaign for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey since 1984. The PKK usually does not target civilians. Officials said an initial loud blast last evening brought people onto the streets and a larger bomb hidden in a rubbish bin exploded 10 minutes later and 50 metres away in the Gungoren district, near Istanbul's main international airport, where families gather in the evenings to dine and stroll. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court, Turkey's highest judicial body, began deliberating on Monday on whether the AK Party has engaged in Islamist activities and should be closed. The party denies the charges. A ruling is expected in early August. The court case is linked to a power struggle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which are at odds over the direction of the officially secular but predominantly Muslim country. Tensions have also risen in recent weeks over a widening police investigation into a suspected ultra-nationalist group accused of seeking to overthrow the government. — Reuters
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ISI under interior ministry The government has reversed the decision to place country’s premier civil spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) under the interior ministry amid countrywide furore. The notification issued by the cabinet division on Saturday afternoon placing the ISI and the civilian Intelligence Bureau (IB) under the interior minister was withdrawn late night. The move that could have made the controversial advisor on interior, Rehman Malik, as the most powerful figure in the country, was projected as an attempt to clip the ISI's wings. The formal notification was issued hours after Malik left for the US in the company of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. A government spokesperson later said the notification was “misinterpreted”. The agency would continue to report to the PM, he said, adding another notification would be issued to remove the confusion. But critics said the notification by the establishment division clearly stated the two spying networks, ISI and IB, had been administratively, financially and operationally placed under the interior ministry. Technically, the ISI is supposed to be under direct control of the PM as against the Military Intelligence (MI) which reports to the army chief. Both are chartered to perform operations to protect the security of the country, but the ISI also assumed a pervasive role in country’s civil and political spheres. The notification created a mixed response. PPP’s co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari claimed that the decision to place the ISI under the interior ministry was a step towards the civilian rule and also to save the army from controversies. Some political leaders welcomed it as a step to bring the ISI away from Musharraf’s hold and formally put it under civilian control.
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‘Anybody can make mistakes’
While the government continued to receive flak from the opposition and the media, army spokesperson Maj Gen Athar Abbas had confirmed that the army played a role in the reversal of the decision. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Zardari who had welcomed the move as “historic” acknowledged in a TV conversation that a very delicate issue was handled without due deliberations. However, opposition PML-Q’s secretary general Mushahid Hussain Sayed said the move was actually a conspiracy to weaken the Prime Minister. “It also reflected covert tussle between the elected Prime Minister and the extra-parliamentary forces within the PPP,” Mushahid said in an apparent reference to adviser on interior Rehman Malik and PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari. Talking to Geo’s Hamid Mir from Dubai, Zardari said there was no bad intention in placing the ISI under the control of the interior ministry and stressed: “We don’t want any confrontation between different state organs and that was why the Prime Minister tried to remove some misunderstandings through a clarification released by the Press Information Department.” He agreed that some more homework and detailed consultations were needed before such a sensitive decision was announced but claimed: “Its a new government with a lot of challenges and problems. Anybody can make mistakes in such a situation but nobody should doubt our intentions.” Army spokesperson Gen Athar told mediapersons that army chief Gen Ashfaque Pervez Kayani was not consulted. But he tried to play down the serious blunder committed by the civilian government saying it was the result of a misunderstanding. “The spirit behind the government’s announcement was to re-emphasise more co-ordination between the interior ministry and the ISI in matters such as the war on terror and internal security,” he said. “We were not consulted on the notification particularly, but matters for ensuring better co-ordination between the institutions responsible for national security were discussed, he said.
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Pak scribe in US custody
Nayyar Zaidi, the well-known US-based Pakistani journalist, has been in US custody for the last four months on what are said to be terrorism-related charges. A Washington report said Zaidi was being held on the charge of “obstruction of justice”, a very serious offence. He was also said to be awaiting a trial. Zaidi is an American citizen and has been filing for Jang Group of papers for the past 25 years. His family believed he was in Pakistan but has not heard anything about him for four months. The homeland security department or the FBI has made no announcement about his arrest or incarceration. The news of Zaidi's arrest (he is believed to be in an Ohio prison) was broken by the New Jersey-based website Des Prades at the weekend. On February 20, 2003, Zaidi was visited by three FBI agents at his residence in Prince County, Virginia, while he was away from home. They left a message, asking him to come over to the FBI's Washington field office and asked several questions about his personal, social and religious activities. The agent questioning him also asked him to bring his phone notebook with him because of an FBI claim that Zaidi's home phone had been used for making calls to 10 numbers in Pakistan, China, India, the Netherlands and Thailand. Those numbers, an agent by the name of Chris MdKinney added, were under investigation for links with the events of September 11, 2001. One of these numbers in Pakistan was traced to his newspaper's Karachi office where he used to send fax messages. Zaidi offered to cooperate with the FBI but refused to hand over his phone notebook or any records unless the agents came up with legal grounds to make such a demand. He was left alone until August 8, 2003, when two FBI agents came to his home while he was away. When he called them on August 11, leaving three messages, his calls were not returned. The embassy also took up the issue of this FBI intrusion with the state department, which promised to look into the matter.
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Bush asks Pak PM to rein in militants Washington, July 28 During a meeting at the White House, US President George W Bush told visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that his government should ensure that the Pak-Afghan border should be secured “as best as possible”. “I told the Prime Minister (Gilani) that the US is committed to helping the Afghan democracy succeed, which is in Pakistan’s interest,” Bush said, adding that the sovereignty of Pakistan would be respected. — PTI
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Woman detained by ‘friend’ released
Lahore, July 28 The woman, identified as Shabnum, alleged that she was illegally detained by her ‘friend’ since June 14 with the connivance of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Punjab Police officials. She said she was tortured and robbed of property worth more than Rs 90 lakh. North Cantt Police finally released Shabnum on a court’s order. “The detainee appears to be a crippled lady as she has been brought in the court on a chair. She has named a few persons who had illegally confined her and had robbed her of her immovable and moveable property,” the Daily Times quoted a report prepared by a bailiff as saying. She said after a few months of her wedding to a Pakistani national, Ali Ahmad, she came to Pakistan but found that he was already married and had five children. She said his first wife and children did not accept her, after which she returned to Bahrain and got a divorce. Shabnum further said she had met a Pakistani family in Bahrain, one of whose members named Mirza Shaukat Baig convinced her to invest her money in Pakistan by setting up madrassas. She visited Pakistan in 2006 and bought two houses for around Rs 59 lakh. She rented out one of the houses and set up a madrassa in the other. But when she returned to Bahrain she found that Shaukat and his accomplices had taken over both the houses. She got two cases registered against them in the South Cantt Police Station. On June 14, while she was heading towards the airport to buy a ticket for Bahrain, some armed men, including two uniformed policemen, ‘arrested’ her and took her to one of the houses she had bought in Khawar Town. She alleged that the officials snatched Rs 22,000 and jewellery worth Rs 5,00,000 from her. They also made her sign two cheques worth Rs nine and Rs 16 lakh for her release. — ANI
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Oath Row The Supreme Court of Nepal on Monday issued directive to the newly elected Vice-President of Nepal Paramananda Jha and the government of Nepal to furnish a written reply for taking oath of office and secrecy in Hindi language by Jha. Issuing a show-cause order, a Single Bench of Justice Damodar Prasad Sharma on Monday ordered Jha and Council of Ministers to furnish explanation within seven days. It had also decided to give high priority to the case. On Friday, an advocate and central committee member of Rastriya Janashakti Party Bal Krishna Neupane had filed a writ petition at the apex court claiming that the oath was unconstitutional as it was taken in a language not recognised by the interim constitution. Neupane had also asked the court to issue an interim order preventing Jha from doing any official work in his capacity as the Vice-President as his oath was “unconstitutional”. According to Neupane, the constitution had categorically stated that the President and the Vice-President, among others who hold constitutional posts, should take oath of office and secrecy in the form and language specified in its appendix 1. The oath as mentioned in the appendix is in Nepali. Moreover, Neupane further argued that Article 5 (2) says that Nepali, not Hindi, is the official language Shortly after Vice President Jha took oath in Hindi instead of Nepali or his mother tongue Maithili, various students unions and people from different walk of life had intensified nationwide protest against the Vice-President that continued for the fifth consecutive day on Monday as well. Jha and chairman of Madhesi People’s Rights Forum, Upendra Yadav, have been defending the oath in Hindi saying that it was their own language used as lingua-franca in Tarai-- southern plain-- by the Indian origin Nepali nationals. Meanwhile, endorsing a motion of urgent public importance at the Parliament meeting all 25 political parties in the Constituent Assembly on Monday urged people to maintain social, cultural and communal harmony by stopping such violent
Concrete proposal to form new govt demanded
Amidst looming uncertainty, 23 political parties, including the CPN-UML and the Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) on Monday asked the CPN-Maoist, the largest party in the Constituent Assembly, to come up with a concrete proposal At an all-party meeting called by the CPN-Maoist today, all parties, except the NC, said the new government should be formed under the leadership of the CPN-Maoist. They also urged the Maoists to bring out a clear proposal for an agreement in this regard. However, the Nepali Congress maintained silence over the issue during the meeting. Emerging from the meeting, the Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, said they would come up with a clear-cut proposal within one or two days. “We are preparing to draft a common proposal for the formation of a new government as per the parties’ call,” Prachanda said.
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Suicide bombers kill 50 in Iraq
Baghdad, July 28 The attacks mark one of the bloodiest days in Iraq in months and underscored the fragility of recent security gains in the country, where violence is at its lowest level since early 2004. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Baghdad blasts but Sunni Islamist al Qaeda often targets Shi’ite pilgrims. It considers Shi’ism -- the majority Muslim denomination in Iraq -- heretical. “These blasts that happened today will increase our determination to finalise this ceremony ... and defeat terrorism,” pilgrim Taher Abd-Noor said. At least 1 million people are expected to take part in the pilgrimage in the Iraqi capital, which peaks on Tuesday and marks the death of one of Shi’ite Islam’s 12 imams, one of the most important events in the Shi’ite religious
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Haneef Case: Evidence not to be made public
Melbourne, July 28
Former NSW Supreme Court judge John Clarke said he has not sought the declassification of the documents because he believed the hurdles would be “virtually insurmountable” and said it was for the Australian Government to decide how and in what time frame does it make the content public.
“Faced with the need to advance the investigation, which has already been significantly delayed, I felt that I had no choice but to advise the Attorney-General that the inquiry will be unable to proceed effectively unless it is able to withhold publication of a large part of the proceedings,” Clarke said. “Recognising the difficulties, the inquiry has accepted my advice,” said Attorney-General Robert McClelland, while admitting that the step will disappoint the 28-year-old Indian doctor and others. The Australian police had received severe flak for its handling of the Haneef case, who was kept in detention for three weeks following his arrest at Brisbane airport on July 2 last year in connection with the failed London car bombings, only to be absolved of the terror charges later. When the inquiry began in February, Clarke had asked for powers of a royal commission in the event of the agencies failing to cooperate fully. But the former judge now said he would not seek such powers to conduct the rest of the inquiry as he did not believe the limitations on the public disclosure of sensitive material could be overcome by the move. —
PTI
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