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Troops out in Louisiana as Gustav rolls in
Parliamentary govt only option for Pak: Zardari
Jamia Faridia madarsa reopened
China’s official paper questions N-deal
Japan PM resigns over deadlock
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95 killed in Pak clashes
Islamabad, September 1 Nearly 95 people were reportedly killed and 200 injured in a single day of clashes between rival tribes in Pakistan’s troubled North-West Frontier Province, which is already engulfed by steep rise in militancy violence.
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Troops out in Louisiana as Gustav rolls in
New Orleans, September 1 Gustav was expected to make landfall before midday as a Category 3 hurricane, but its outer bands were already hitting the Gulf coast early on Monday. Nearly 2 million people fled the Gulf coast in one of the biggest evacuations in US history. More than 11 million residents in five US states were threatened by the fast-moving storm. Oil companies shut down nearly all production in the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico, a region that normally pumps a quarter of US oil output and 15 per cent of its natural gas. But Gustav failed to draw as much power as once feared as it rolled across warm Gulf of Mexico waters. Forecasters said it was unlikely to grow stronger now and would begin to weaken as it moves inland. US crude oil futures slipped to below $115 a barrel on Monday morning as fears of major damage to oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico eased. Prices had hit more than $118 per barrel in a special trading session on Sunday. Hurricane Gustav also took centre stage in US politics as Republicans prepared to open their convention on Monday to nominate presidential candidate John McCain with a bare-bones program stripped of the usual pomp and circumstance. The eye of the storm was on track to hit west of New Orleans, sparing the city a direct hit from the worst of its gusting winds. But the US National Hurricane Centre said Gustav was still likely toss up “an extremely dangerous storm surge” of up to 14 feet (4.3 meters) that could test the holding power of rebuilt levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina. By Sunday night, the streets of New Orleans were ghostly quiet after some 95 per cent of the city’s population responded to desperate calls by officials for a sweeping evacuation. Hurricane Katrina brought a 28-foot (8.5 meter) storm surge that burst levees on Aug. 29, 2005 and flooded some 80 percent of New Orleans, which sits partly below sea level. The city degenerated into chaos as stranded storm victims waited days for government rescue and law and order collapsed. An estimated 1.9 million people fled coastal areas as Hurricane Gustav drew closer, state officials said. Only 10,000 people were believed to have stayed behind in New Orleans. Police and several thousand national guard troops patrolled the empty city, sometimes in convoys of Humvees, as a curfew went into effect in a bid to prevent looting. On Monday morning, Gustav was packing maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph), making it a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It was expected to swamp parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas with up to 12 inches (30 cm) of rain and 20 inches (50 cm) in some small areas. Isolated tornadoes were also possible. — Reuters
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Parliamentary govt only option for Pak: Zardari
PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari has discounted apprehensions that his elevation to the presidency would create an imbalance of power because of his hold on the party and Parliament. Reaffirming his commitment to the parliamentary system in a statement here, Zardari noted that the office of the President was a symbol of the federation and attempts to make it absolutely powerful had landed the country in a crisis. “The survival and stability of the political system is tied to the strengthening of the institution of Parliament,” he added, emphasising that parliamentary supremacy was the key to the solution of all political problems of Pakistan and any attempt at stripping the representative body of its power would only work against the country, as it had in the past. Zardari said that in the past all political crises faced by the country came from a presidency that sought to override the parliamentary system. “We want to facilitate a system that allows Parliament to work as the supreme representative institution,” he said. Meanwhile, talking informally to reporters at the Prime Minister’s house, Zardari said he believed that a government of national consensus was the only solution to the problems faced by the country.
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Jamia Faridia madarsa reopened
The government has agreed to release Lal Masjid’s chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz as a part of a deal with Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) in return for his support to Asif Zardari in the presidential race, a senior JUI leader said here today.
The Jamia Faridia madarsa, a sister seminary for boys, was closed during the military operation last year against the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa seminary for girls, as a part of the same deal, Maulana Amjad Khan, vice-president JUI said. He said Maulana Aziz was expected to be released any day. A spokesman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) confirmed here that Jamia Faridia had been reopened but refuted the report that the government had reached any agreement with the Lal Masjid administration before opening the madarsa.
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China’s official paper questions N-deal
Beijing, September 1 The article criticised the “multiple standards” followed by the US on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation when it agreed to sign the deal with India, a view that could be worrying to New Delhi, which is trying to get the deal approved by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group at its meeting in early September. “Irrespective of the fate of the US-India nuclear agreement, the United States’ multiple standards on non-proliferation issues have met with a skeptical world,” the article written by a scholar of a state-run think-tank, said.
— PTI
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Japan PM resigns over deadlock
Tokyo, September 1 ''If we are to prioritise the people's livelihoods, there cannot be a political vacuum from political bargaining, or a lapse in policies. We need a new team to carry out policies,'' Fukuda said. Speculation has been simmering that the unpopular prime minister might be replaced ahead of a general election that must be held by September 2009. However, Fukuda's resignation does not automatically mean an election. His party, the Liberal Democratic Party, must pick a new leader and win the confidence of parliament's lower house if it wants to carry on leading Japan's coalition government. — Reuters
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Islamabad, September 1 The fighting between Khurram and Bangash tribesmen re-erupted on Saturday after a brief lull and a bloody Sunday left a trail of 95 tribesmen killed. The clashes in the Khurram agency, media reports said, were sparked almost a month ago by the burning of a tribesman’s tractor by a rival tribesman. Reports suggested that local Taliban militia was supporting the Bangash tribe.
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Hurricane Gustav lashed the Louisiana coast on Monday with pounding rain and heavy winds, posing the biggest threat to the New Orleans area since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
