W O R L D

Maoists’ integration into Army
Nepal to form special panel
Kathmandu, October 25
Nepal’s Maoist-led government today decided to form a special committee to integrate the former guerrillas into the country’s national army, a step that would help push forward the landmark peace process in the Himalayan state.

US training Pak forces to fight Taliban
Islamabad, October 25
US special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia not to employ illiterate Pakistanis
Saudi Arabia will no longer employ illiterate Pakistanis according to new laws about manpower enforced with immediate effect. A statement issued by the Saudi embassy here said Pakistanis who could not read and write would not be allowed to enter Saudi Arabia for employment.

Baxi wins Asian of the year award
London, October 25
NRI entrepreneur Ranjit Singh Baxi, founder of a recycling firm that has emerged as one of the top companies in Europe, has won the prestigious Asian of the year award.

French writer and 2008 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (C) receives the Stig Dagerman Prize (a Swedish literary award) in Alvkarleby church in Sweden on Saturday. — AFP

Indian found guilty of manslaughter
London, October 25
An illegal Indian immigrant, who strangled two NRIs in a flat above a Shropshire village chip shop in the UK, has been found guilty of manslaughter.

ASEAN summit venue changed
Beijing, October 25
Thailand has changed the venue for a series of summit meetings involving the Association of South East Asian Nations and its major trading partners in mid-December from Bangkok to the northern city of Chiang Mai for security reasons, officials said.

Paralysed Sikh asks for deportation
Vancouver, October 25
A paralysed Sikh, whose case made headlines in Canada as he evaded deportation by seeking sanctuary in gurdwaras here for 15 months after failing to get refugee status, has now decided to leave Canada.

2 foreigners shot in Kabul
Kabul, October 25
Two foreigners working for an international shipping company were shot dead yesterday here, the police said. An Afghan was also killed in the attack. The shooting took place in front of the DHL office in downtown Kabul.

Maoists’ integration into Army
Nepal to form special panel

Kathmandu, October 25
Nepal’s Maoist-led government today decided to form a special committee to integrate the former guerrillas into the country’s national army, a step that would help push forward the landmark peace process in the Himalayan state.

Ending months of deadlock over the issue, the coalition government decided to form the special panel on Monday to begin the process to integrate and rehabilitate the 19,000 Maoist combatants stationed at the UN monitored cantonments.

A cabinet meeting today decided to set up a special committee to manage the Maoists' PLA that would involve representatives of four major political parties, including the opposition Nepali Congress, minister for commerce and supplies Rajendra Mahato said.

On Friday, a meeting of the major parties decided that such a committee would be headed by one of the non-Maoists parties, he said.

There has been a deadlock over the issue after the Maoists put forward its claim to head the special committee. They had rejected the ruling Maoists’ proposal to set up a panel headed by the former rebels on integration of ex-guerrilla combatants into the army.

Besides the Maoists, representatives of the Nepali Congress, the CPN-UML and the Madhesi Peoples Rights Forum will be included in the committee. The members of the committee could not be decided today as further discussion was needed on the terms of reference and modality of forming the panel, sources said.

The UN secretary-generals special representative Ian Martin, has said the peace process in Nepal would be completed only after the Maoists’ PLA was integrated and rehabilitated.

“No peace process can be said to be complete while there are two armies in one country, he said, addressing a function in Kathmandu. He also asked the government to form at the earliest the special committee to accomplish this task. — PTI

US training Pak forces to fight Taliban

Islamabad, October 25
US special forces have begun teaching a Pakistani paramilitary unit how to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaida, hoping to strengthen a key front-line force as violence surges on both sides of the border with Afghanistan.

The sensitive mission puts rare American boots on the ground in a key theatre in the war against extremist groups, but it risks fanning anti-US sentiment among Pakistani Muslims already angry over suspected CIA missile attacks on militants in the same frontier region.

“The American special forces failed in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Ameerul Azim, an official in the hard-line Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami. “Those who failed everywhere cannot train our people.”

Despite such complaints, the training programme comes as some tribes in the frontier zone are setting up militias to help the Pakistani government combat extremist movements. The new forces have been compared to the Sunni Arab militias in Iraq that helped beat back the insurgency there.

Still, the US training program is reportedly smaller than originally proposed and was delayed, apparently reflecting misgivings in Pakistan’s government about allowing U.S. troops on its territory.

Its start has not been officially announced. But Pakistani army officers confirmed today that 32 Americans were training 116 senior personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at an undisclosed location in the restive northwest, adjacent to Afghanistan. — AP

Saudi Arabia not to employ illiterate Pakistanis
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad

Saudi Arabia will no longer employ illiterate Pakistanis according to new laws about manpower enforced with immediate effect.

A statement issued by the Saudi embassy here said Pakistanis who could not read and write would not be allowed to enter Saudi Arabia for employment. It would now be mandatory for the labour force to be able to read and write the native language.

“The new rules are being introduced in view of serious difficulties that Saudi Arabia has encountered in dealing with totally illiterate labour force that has gone to the kingdom in the past,” the statement said, while asking all Pakistani recruiting agencies to dispatch applications of all people wanting to go to Saudi Arabia in line with the new manpower laws. If needed, the applicants could also be tested in Urdu during the scrutiny of their applications, the statement said.

The ban is likely to deal a body blow to country’s already beleaguered economy, according to analysts here. The announcement comes ahead of President Asif Zardari’s planned visit to Saudi Arabia early next month in a bid to seek Saudi backing to avert looming free fall of the economy. Embassy officials said the ban was not Pakistan-specific, but applies to all incoming labour.

Baxi wins Asian of the year award

London, October 25
NRI entrepreneur Ranjit Singh Baxi, founder of a recycling firm that has emerged as one of the top companies in Europe, has won the prestigious Asian of the year award.

Baxi, chairman of J and H Sales (International) Ltd, the company he founded, received the award at a glittering ceremony organised by ‘Asian Who’s Who International’, a publication about leading Asians in the UK, at the Dorchester Hotel here last night.

Matthew Amroliwala and Riz Lateef, the BBC news presentation team, handed over the award to 56-year-old Baxi, who is also the president of the European division of the World Punjabi Organisation.

Lord Swraj Paul, NRI industrialist and winner of the first Asian of the year award in 1987-88, who was the chief guest at the event, lauded the achievements of the Asian community because of their family values and hard work.

According to the citation, Baxi’s company had grown to become one of Europe’s leading fibre recycling exporters, operating across the USA, Europe and the Far East. In 2001, the company received the Queen’s Award for enterprise.

Baxi was recently appointed president of the paper division of the Bureau of International Recycling in Bruxelles, a trade federation representing the recycling industry in over 70 countries.

Teji Singh, founder of international communications agency Sterling Media, bagged the Asian leadership in Harmony Award while Kamel Hothi, Asian marketing director - Corporate Markets, Lloyds TSB Group, received the Asian leadership in the Diversity Award.

Lord Paul hoped that under the leadership of Brown, Britain would emerge stronger. “This country has a very bright future,” he stated.

Jasbir Singh Sachar, managing editor of Asian Who’s Who International, said he was pleased to see most of those who were in the first edition of the publication in 1975, were present at the function and were doing extremely well now.

The main purpose of the publication was to identify and recognise Asian community leaders for their success and achievements.

Lord Paul said he would make his own contribution to match the amount raised for the Rocko Cancer. The amount was not disclosed. — PTI

Indian found guilty of manslaughter

London, October 25
An illegal Indian immigrant, who strangled two NRIs in a flat above a Shropshire village chip shop in the UK, has been found guilty of manslaughter.

A jury at the Stafford Crown Court cleared Sukhdev Singh of the murder of Jaswant Singh Bajwa and Kulwant Singh Dodar following a three-week trial, but concluded that 26-year-old Singh was provoked before bludgeoning the victims with a hammer in Shawbury.

Bajwa and Dodar were found dead at the flat above Shawbury Fish Bar on December 7 last year.

Judge Simon Tonking remanded Sukhdev Singh into custody. Singh, who will be sentenced on a date to be fixed, had been living in the flat and working in the chip shop since arriving in Shawbury in 2004. He was arrested on December 11 last year by the police, who found him hiding in a Sikh temple in Smethwick.

Giving evidence through a Punjabi interpreter, Singh said he had been smuggled into the country after his family in Punjab paid traffickers 6,500 pounds to fund his journey to the UK.

According to a report, detective chief inspector Dave Morgan, of West Mercia constabulary, described the killings as brutal and horrific. — PTI

ASEAN summit venue changed

Beijing, October 25
Thailand has changed the venue for a series of summit meetings involving the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its major trading partners in mid-December from Bangkok to the northern city of Chiang Mai for security reasons, officials said.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday that they were informed of the change of venue by Thai officials on the sidelines of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of leaders from the two regions that began yesterday in Beijing.

Ongoing political disturbances in Bangkok, involving massive anti-government protests, have forced the change, they said.

For this year’s summit meetings, Thailand has invited UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the heads of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to join a special session to discuss how to mitigate the global financial crisis. — Kyodo.

Paralysed Sikh asks for deportation

Vancouver, October 25
A paralysed Sikh, whose case made headlines in Canada as he evaded deportation by seeking sanctuary in gurdwaras here for 15 months after failing to get refugee status, has now decided to leave Canada. Laibar Singh (48), who came to Canada on a fake passport in 2003, was ordered to be deported in 2006. But before he could be deported, Singh became paralysed and was admitted to hospital. “After 15 months, I am now tired and ready to go back to India. The Canadian border agency have been threatening me all the time - that I have no choice but to leave Canada. I don’t want to land to jail as I have my children waiting for me in India,” said Singh. — IANS

2 foreigners shot in Kabul

Kabul, October 25
Two foreigners working for an international shipping company were shot dead yesterday here, the police said. An Afghan was also killed in the attack. The shooting took place in front of the DHL office in downtown Kabul.

Kabul’s deputy police chief has said the two slain foreigners were German, but another police official, Abdul Raouf, later identified them as a Briton and a South African.

The two were employees of the company and were shot in their SUV as they were apparently pulling into their office. — AP