W O R L D

Bickering over Pak anti-terror policy
The in-camera briefing to the lawmakers by the military was adjourned on Monday till Tuesday morning because of death of a member of the National Assembly and amid continuing disaffection by the opposition over the procedure adopted during first two days last week.

Obama goes door-to-door for votes
Ohio, October 13
The US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama walked door-to-door in a working class Ohio neighbourhood, urging committed Democrats to vote for him and trying to win over wavering independents.

Credit crunch hits Diwali festivities
London, October 13
Credit crunch and economic downturn here has affected Diwali festivities with people of Indian origin buying less gold and jewellery for the occasion as compared to previous years. The festivities here are reputed to be the largest outside India.

Pak woman 1st Asian to skydive from 29,480 ft
Islamabad, October 13
Pakistani national Namera Saleem has become the first Asian to skydive from a height higher than Mount Everest. Talking to BBC Urdu from Nepal after her successful jump, Namera said she had skydived from a height of 29,480 feet.

Bickering over Pak anti-terror policy
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad

The in-camera briefing to the lawmakers by the military was adjourned on Monday till Tuesday morning because of death of a member of the National Assembly and amid continuing disaffection by the opposition over the procedure adopted during first two days last week.

Nasrullah Bijarana, an MP from Sindh belonging to the PML-Q, died in a local hospital after a massive cardiac attack. The joint sitting of Parliament was held briefly to offer condolences and then adjourned till Tuesday morning. Nasrullah’s body was flown to home town Jacobabad in the presidential plane.

National Assembly Speaker, Dr Fehmida Mirza, met heads of all parliamentary groups for nearly three hours to discuss the modalities of the briefing. The opposition, including PML-N, PML-Q, Jamaat Islami and members from tribal areas, insisted that the military has failed to provide any new information. They wanted to know full details on the policy and strategy framework under which military operations are continuing in tribal areas and Swat.

Leader of the Opposition, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan (PML-N), also demanded that former President Pervez Musharraf be called to lay before Parliament the secret arrangements he made with the United States before sending troops to the tribal areas and Swat. He said Musharraf must also be held accountable for allowing the United States to intrude in Pakistani territory.

The government informed the opposition that information minister Sherry Rehman will make a comprehensive presentation before the session on all aspects of policy and strategy in the war against terror. This would be followed by questions-answer session in which four ministers including those of foreign, defence and interior would respond.

Leader of the opposition in the Senate, Kamil Agha (PML-Q), said the briefing is just an eyewash. “Vital decisions have already been taken and being implemented while Parliament is now required to endorse them.”

The new ISI chief, Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha who had led the briefing during first two sessions, met Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani here and discussed with him the issued raised during the briefing. Shuja has restricted himself to operational and tactical aspects of the war on terror saying it was up to the political government to explain the policy. Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani has said his institutions would follow the directives of the elected government.

Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters in Multan that the government was trying to evolve consensus in Parliament on the war on terror. After the briefing, a resolution reflecting the sense of the house would be adopted while a committee representing all political parties would be constituted to recommend concrete proposals for review of the present policy.

President Asif Zardari is due to leave for Beijing on a three-day trip. He told a group of journalists here that he would meet PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on his return to discuss the issues relating to terrorism and political and economic stability in the country.

Obama goes door-to-door for votes

Ohio, October 13
The US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama walked door-to-door in a working class Ohio neighbourhood, urging committed Democrats to vote for him and trying to win over wavering independents.

Obama’s stroll down Shrewsbury Street in Ohio, Holland, was a relatively rare foray into retail politics for the Illinois Senator, who appears to be pulling away from Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona according to national opinion polls.

“Remember: everybody can vote right now. There is early voting in Ohio. Don’t wait,” Obama, his sleeves rolled up, said yesterday as he walked down the street knocking on doors, shaking hands and fielding questions in the Toledo suburb of modest brick homes.

With 20 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the November 4 presidential election, Ohio is a central front in this year’s campaign and was the state that secured Republican President George W Bush his 2004 re-election victory.

Obama will spend the next three days in Ohio, where recent polls show a statistical dead heat with him slightly ahead of McCain, to prepare for their last televised debate on Wednesday.

Several people Obama met stressed their anxieties about the US economy, which many economists believe is headed for a recession amid the global financial crisis that dragged the major US stock indices down some 18 per cent last week.

“'We’re in a scary time right now,” said Mike Klear, a truck driver who hauls steel for a small firm called Keep It Moving of Toledo. “We just had a meeting on Saturday, about how everyone is scared what the future holds.” Klear said he was an independent who typically supports Democrats and planned to vote for Obama.

Obama exhorted Democrats to vote - early, if possible, as permitted in Ohio and he passed out flyers with information about where to cast their ballots before election day.

As is typical in such get-out-the-vote efforts, Obama did concentrate on committed Republicans, including Dan Crandall, a customer service worker sitting in front of his house with a McCain sign planted in his front lawn. — Reuters

Credit crunch hits Diwali festivities

London, October 13
Credit crunch and economic downturn here has affected Diwali festivities with people of Indian origin buying less gold and jewellery for the occasion as compared to previous years. The festivities here are reputed to be the largest outside India.

Yesterday, Indian-origin Lord Mayor Manjula Sood led the switching-on ceremony of Diwali lights along the Belgrave Road in Leicester, a hub of Asian cultural and business activity.

The road is also called the Golden Mile due to a large number of shops selling gold and jewellery, mainly to an Asian clientele. However, this year the shops have recorded almost a 50 per cent drop in sales.

"We noticed the recession about eight months agoand I think our trade is down this year about by at least 50 per cent," a local trader Alpesh Dana said.

"Every year, we seem to be getting more and more people coming to Leicester to see Diwali lighting," Chairman of the Diwali Working Party, Councillor Vijay Patel, said.

"We have similar celebrations in Mauritius, Malaysia, Singapore but the one in this country, the one in Leicester, is the biggest by all means," Patel said.

However, local residents say that this year the festivities are on a low key due to the credit crunch and many people losing jobs.

"People used to buy a lot of gold just before Diwali but gold price is so high this year that many people are not celebrating Diwali as they would," a resident of Belgrave Road Alka Patel said. — PTI

Pak woman 1st Asian to skydive from 29,480 ft
Tribune News Service

Islamabad, October 13
Pakistani national Namera Saleem has become the first Asian to skydive from a height higher than Mount Everest. Talking to BBC Urdu from Nepal after her successful jump, Namera said she had skydived from a height of 29,480 feet.

“That included one minute of free fall, meaning that I had to open the parachute one minute after jumping from the aircraft,” she added. For a moment, she said, she felt as though she was ‘suspended’ in the air.

Namera said she did not need a lot of training for the jump, and that she did it with only a few weeks’ of exercise.

Namera was also the first Pakistan national to reach the North and South poles, in April 2007 and January 2008, respectively.

Fumes in cabin forcelands BA flight

London, October 13
A British Airways plane from France today made a priority landing at Heathrow airport after fumes detected in its passenger cabin, a day after the airways' Delhi-bound flight made an emergency landing at Berlin.

Flight BA 341 took off from Nice at about British Summer Time (BST) 0630 with 137 passengers on board and landed at the west London airport shortly after 0800.

There were no reported injuries among passengers on the flight from Nice. "The captain of the flight requested a priority landing as a precaution after it was reported that fumes had been detected in the cabin," a spokesman of the airways said.

"The plane with 137 passengers on board landed safely and passengers disembarked as normal," he said. He added that emergency services were put on standby as a routine precaution but their help was not needed.

Yesterday, a Delhi-bound flight Boeing 777 with 222 passengers and 16 crew members made an emergency landing at a German airport following technical problems with its in-flight entertainment system. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Saudi prince to build tallest building
RIYADH: Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world’s tallest building in the Saudi city of Jeddah. A statement issued by his firm, Kingdom Holding Company, on Sunday said the building would be more than a km (3,281 feet) high and would be a part of a larger project that would cost $ 26.7 billion. The project, called Kingdom City, would span 23 million square meters (248 million square feet) and would include luxury homes, hotels and offices. Al-Waleed is a billionaire businessman and member of the royal family. — AP

Bid to impeach Filipino Prez
MANILA: Opposition groups in the Philippines on Monday filed an impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, but admitted they did not have the numbers in the Congress to make it stick. Arroyo has fended off three impeachment complaints in each of the past three years with her domination of the House of Representatives. The complaint accuses Arroyo of corruption, extra-judicial killings, torture and illegal arrests. Opinion polls say Arroyo is the most unpopular Philippine president since late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Arroyo's term in office lasts until 2010 and she is not eligible to seek re-election. — Reuters

First Miss Bhutan
THIMPHU: Tshokey Tshomo Karchung, a 24-year-old graduate whose interests range from painting on canvas to modern digital art and video, has been crowned the first Miss Bhutan. Karchung also walked away with two other titles, Miss Talented and Miss Photogenic, at the contest held this weekend and judged by seven distinguished personalities, including model-turned-Bollywood actor Kelly Dorji and former Miss Thailand and actress Onwarin Osathanond. She will be representing the country at the Miss Earth 2008 in Philippines and Miss Young International in Taiwan. — PTI

David Lazarus dead
KUALA LUMPUR: A well-known journalist and former information chief at the UN Information Service in Bangkok, David Lazarus (59), died on Sunday. Lazarus had worked as a foreign correspondent with the now defunct Asiaweek and was also a journalist with the Malaysian daily New Straits Times. He joined the UN in the late 1980s and was posted as information coordinator at the United Nation Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. He was information chief in Bangkok from 1993. — PTI

Garlic popular among Aussies
MELBOURNE: Aloe vera, garlic and green tea are the most popular herbal medicines used by Australians, according to a new study. A report by Charlie Xue of RMIT University, on the first study of its kind surveyed 2526 people in Victorian state of Australia on the use of 24 most common herbal medicines. Previous studies have shown a sharp increase in the use of herbal medicines by Australians, Xue said. — PTI