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Confusion over status of suspects
Menon holds talks with Nepal PM
Slowdown lesson: Keep
one mistress
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Abandoning of Refugees
Pak approves regional task force
Call to stop auction of Bapu’s belongings
Youth mental illness costs US billions
France admits role in Holocaust
Taliban targeting Swatis in US for ransom: Report
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Confusion over status of suspects
Islamabad, February 17 Anti-terrorism court Judge Sakhi Muhammad Kahut yesterday remanded Hamad Amin Sadiq, an LeT activist described by Pakistani authorities as the “main operator” behind the Mumbai incident, to FIA custody for 15 days. There was no official word on the status and whereabouts of five other suspects, who interior ministry chief Rehman Malik had said were in the custody of the authorities. Though Malik had not named these suspects during a news conference last week, according to sources, they included senior LeT operatives Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, who have reportedly been named in the Indian dossier submitted to Islamabad. Sadiq was remanded to the FIA custody during the proceedings held in a makeshift court set up in the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. The media was not allowed to photograph him. In its first information report, the FIA has filed charges against Sadiq under the Anti-Terrorism Act, Pakistan Penal Code and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance. Official documents presented in court said Sadiq, who hails from Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab province, was arrested in Faizabad area of Rawalpindi on Sunday. However, Malik had said during his news conference that Sadiq was arrested much earlier in Karachi. Media reports on Saturday had said an anti-terror court had remanded at least six suspects to the FIA custody. Diplomatic sources indicated that the Pakistani authorities were deliberately being vague about the status of the suspects due to security concerns and ongoing investigations aimed at uncovering more details about the planning of the Mumbai attacks.
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Menon holds talks with Nepal PM
Foreign Secretary Shiva Shankar Menon, who arrived in Kathmandu on Tuesday for his two-day visit, intensified hectic parleys with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, including top leaders of various political parties. Menon met Dahal and discussed implementation of the agreements signed during Dahal's last visit to India. According to Nepal foreign affairs adviser Hira Bahadur Thapa, the duo discussed progress of the Noumure hydropower project that is to be constructed by India, ongoing reconstruction of Kosi embankment, and Nepal’s power crisis. Thereafter, Menon met main opposition party president and former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. During the meeting, Koirala is reported to have blamed the CPN (Maoist)-led government for destabilising the ongoing peace process. He alleged that the government had failed to adhere past pacts and understanding in practice. “In response, Menon stressed the need of politics of consensus and collaboration among the major political parties so that the country would be able to draft new constitution and take the ongoing peace process to a logical end,” Girija’s daughter Sujata Koirala said. Earlier, talking to mediapersons Menon dubbed that it was a routine visit and he would inquire on Nepal’s peace and constitution-drafting process. “I am looking forward to the conversations with the leaders in Nepal. We have whole range of issues on which Indian and Nepal have worked together and are looking to carrying them forward,” he added. It is Menon’s second visit to Nepal in the last four months. He is also scheduled to meet foreign affairs minister Upendra Yadav and other Madheshi leaders.
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Slowdown lesson: Keep
one mistress
Shanghai, February 17 The contest took a tragic turn when one of the mistresses, who was eliminated based on her looks, drove her former lover and the four other women off a mountain road in an apparent fit of anger, the Shanghai Daily reported. The driver died in the December 6 crash while the man and four other women were hospitalised, the report said. Initially, it was thought to be an accident, but then details of the bizarre contest emerged in a letter left by the dead woman, a 29-year-old former waitress surnamed Yu, the newspaper said. The woman met the entrepreneur, surnamed Fan, at the restaurant where she worked in the coastal city of Qingdao in 2000 and became his lover, the report said. Fan later introduced her to the four other mistresses two of his employees and two former clients with all given a $733 monthly allowance and rent-free apartment, the report said. However, when Fan’s business ran into tough times, he decided to lay off all but one woman, the report said. Fan hired an instructor from a modelling agency to judge a private contest he held at a hotel in May, but he did not tell the women about his intentions.
— AFP
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UN shedding responsibility, say Tamil Tigers
Colombo, February 17 The UN had charged the LTTE of detaining thousands of civilians in the areas still held by them and having “shot and sometimes killed” to prevent some of the people from crossing over to ‘safe zones’. A front organisation of the LTTE, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), in a statement on the pro-rebel website Tamilnet, said the UN and other international humanitarian organisations had failed to protect Tamilians. TRO said the UN organisations had withdrawn its local staff from the conflict zone in Wanni, “completely shedding its responsibility of caring for people trapped in battle”. He said, “ The UN’s inability to fulfil its obligations to civilians is explicit” but the world body is mum on “who is preventing it from performing its duties”. — PTI
Displaced Tamils cared for: Rajapaksa
Colombo: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has asserted that the Tamil civilians escaping from the LTTE captured areas in the North are being treated most humanely.
He said his government would never ever display to the world “his motherland or its people as sympathy evoking exhibits.” Rejecting allegations made in certain quarters, including sections of the international community, about the ill treatment of IDPs, the President said it was the tigers who were perpetrating atrocities on displaced Tamil civilians.
— PTI
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Sufi on Swat peace mission
With President Asif Zardari linking his final approval for the agreement on the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation to restoration of peace in the troubled Maland/Swat region, a delegation of the militant Tehrik-e-Nifaze Shariah Malakand and a delegation of Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) led by its chief and the main signatory Maulana Sufi Muhammad on Tuesday reached the Swat valley to fulfil their promise of restoring peace. TNSM spokesman Ameer Izzat Khan told newsmen on arrival in Mangora, capital of Swat district, that Sufi would remain in here till the end of violence in the valley. During his stay in Swat, he will convince the pro-Taliban rebel and his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah to renounce militancy after the enforcement of Nizam-e-Adl Regulation. Khan said Sufi would hold public gatherings in the valley to persuade the people, particularly those who had picked up arms, to stop fighting and have faith in the government commitment to enforce shariah. Officials said Zardari had given prior nod to the accord signed by the NWFP government with Sufi Mohammad. But his seal of approval is required for promulgation of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation in Malakand region that includes Swat. There were intense consultations at all federal and provincial levels and other authorities concerned before the provincial government actually signed the agreement on Monday. Information Minister Sherry Rehman in a statement here said the President would approve the regulation as clear indication of restoration of peace.
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Pak approves regional task force
Pakistan has signalled interest in the Dhaka-proposed South Asian Anti-Terrorism Task Force, according to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's special envoy Mirza Zia Ispahani. But he said Islamabad thought it was not a good idea to hold a special war-crime tribunal, as announced by the government, to try individuals who have allegedly committed war crimes during the 1971 war. Ispahani said Pakistan appreciated the idea of the regional task force as the nation itself is a victim of terrorism. “It is a very good idea. It’s a new idea so we discussed it with the foreign minister,” Ispahani told reporters. Ispahani, however, suggested Bangladesh should stall the planned formation of a war-crime tribunal. The accused war criminals are alleged to have collaborated with the Pakistani army in committing the crimes.
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Call to stop auction of Bapu’s belongings
Dubai, February 17 The Co-ordination Committee of Indian Associations (CCIA) here issued a call for action to stop the sale by a private American collector, who currently owns all the items. “The news makes a disturbing headline for all patriotic Indians,” CCIA vice-chairman Ratna Kumar told Bahrain's Gulf Daily News. The committee also urged the Indian government to buy these valuables at any cost and bring them back and keep them at the Gandhi Museum in Rajghat. “These are cherished possessions of a great leader and should have been honourably handed over to Indian government or the Indian Embassy in the US. The authorities should step in immediately and do something to stop this and to keep them as a national asset,” Kumar said. As per the reports here, Bapu's trademark leather sandals and steel-rimmed glasses are to be sold by Antiquorum auctioneers in New York on March 4 and 5. — PTI
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Nakagawa not to quit over ‘drunken act’ at G-7
Tokyo, February 17 Meanwhile, the opposition camp is set to submit a censure motion against him. "I was sick and caused much trouble to people concerned," 55-year-old Nakagawa told reporters after a Cabinet meeting. He was referring to what appeared to be drunken behaviour at the news conference that followed a Group of Seven financial leaders' meeting in the Italian capital. "I will do my best to execute my duties," Nakagawa said. Earlier in the morning, he said he would "make a final decision (on whether to step down) after hearing various opinions and the premier's judgement." Last evening, Prime Minister Taro Aso told Nakagawa to continue as finance minister. Major domestic and overseas news organisations reported that Nakagawa was slurring his words and closed his eyes during the post-G-7 news conference. The minister admitted yesterday that he sipped wine at a luncheon before attending the news conference. Nakagawa's fondness for drink is well known in Japanese political circles. — Kyodo
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Youth mental illness costs US billions
Washington, February 17 The panel set up by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine urged the White House to set prevention goals and coordinate government action to attack the problem. The panel looked at the financial toll from mental , including depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia, as well as drug and alcohol abuse and behavioral problems by people up to age 24. The figure excludes criminal justice and education, workplace disruption and social welfare spending which would certainly add many billions more to the price tag. — Reuters
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France admits role in Holocaust
London, February 17 The Council of State, France's highest judicial body, ruled that the Vichy government of the time was "responsible" for the deportations of the Jews during the Occupation, which lasted from 1940 until 1944, The Daily Telegraph reported. "The court considers that because the acts and actions by the state led to the deportation of people, considered Jews by the Vichy regime, they constituted errors and became its responsibility," the ruling said. But the court said the "anti-Semitic" persecution was actually carried out by France willingly and it didn't betray its citizens under "pressure" from Adolf Hitler-led Nazis in the neighbouring Germany. Yesterday's verdict came in the wake of an application by a Paris court to the Council of State, seeking its opinion on a compensation request by the daughter of a French deportee who died at Auschwitz concentration camp. Between 1942 and 1944, some 76,000 Jews were said to be deported from France by the Vichy regime in collaboration with the German-occupying army. Until now post-war governments in France refused to acknowledge any role in the Holocaust by the Vichy.
— PTI
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Taliban targeting Swatis in US for ransom: Report
New York, February 17 Some immigrants claimed they, too, were being threatened in the US by the Taliban or its sympathisers while some said they were being attacked or kidnapped when they returned home, the New York Times reported.
— PTI
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