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Ex-PM Zia told to quit home within 15 days
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Taliban firm on extending Sharia beyond Swat
New York Times wins 5 Pulitzer prizes
Obama did not change anything: Qaida
N Korea can resume nuke plan: IAEA
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Ex-PM Zia told to quit home within 15 days
Dhaka, April 21 Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has reacted in anger to the eviction notice and vowed to step up its protest rallies against the action of the Sheikh Hasina government. The Directorate of Military Lands and Cantonments sent the notice on Monday afternoon. Zia has threatened confrontation, but has also said that she would take the legal course. Zia was allotted the house, located within the Dhaka Cantonment, as a gesture when her husband Ziaur Rahman, then country’s president, was killed in a military putsch in 1981. BNP spokesperson Nazrul Islam Khan said the notice has no legal basis. “This is purely out of personal grudge. We’ll face it politically. It seems ousting Khaleda Zia from her house is their (Sheikh Hasina government’s) only task,” he said. The notice lists five reasons for asking Zia to return the house to the military estate officer. The house could not be sold or leased to a civilian under the Military Services Regulation. This made the 1981 allotment illegal, the notice said. It was illegal to conduct political activities inside the protected area of a cantonment. This is also a threat to military discipline, safety and security of defence establishments, the notice mentioned. The army cannot lease out any military land to an individual, according to the Cantonment Act. Brig Gen (retd) Hannan Shah, adviser to the BNP chief, told The Daily Star, “Asking her to leave the house within 15 days is a violation of the Cantonment Act.” On April 7, the government cancelled the allotment citing a number of “anomalies in the way the house was allotted”. The decision came at a cabinet meeting presided over by Hasina. A week before that, Hasina told parliament that the BNP chief was given the house “bypassing the rules of the Cantonment Board”. The government denies that it is a tit-for-tat against Zia who had cancelled a house allotted to Hasina’s younger sister, Sheikh Rehana. Hasina urged Zia to leave the house of her own accord so that a block of flats could be built for the families of the army officials killed in the Feb 25-26 Bangladesh Rifles carnage. Over 80 persons, including 55 army officers, were killed by mutinous border guard troopers at their headquarter located on the outskirts of Dhaka. The troopers had rebelled over low wages and poor working conditions.
— IANS
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Taliban firm on extending Sharia beyond Swat
Recently grabbing world attention following implementation of shariah law in Swat valley, the Pakistani Taliban now aim to extend the harsh law in other parts of the country.
Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Muslim Khan said: “The holy Quran is not only for Swat. It is for all humanity, for all Muslims and we will go for the implementation of shariah in other parts of Pakistan as well.” Also, he declared that the Taliban would not lay down weapons unconditionally, a private TV channel reported on Monday. Reacting to the Taliban declaration, PML(N) chief and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif voiced his concern over the radicals trying to extend shariah in other parts of the country. "How did we deal with the situation in Swat?" asked Sharif, in an interview with a foreign daily at his house in Lahore. "They are now threatening to get out of Swat and take other areas into their custody. So, we've got to avoid that situation." The former premier said the militants in Swat were trying to export their particularly-harsh version of Shariah, in which the hands of thieves are amputated, women are forbidden from going outside and adulterers are stoned to death. In the National Assembly on Tuesday, Federal Minister and senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Farooq Sattar, said the Taliban had occupied Buner without any fight as security forces did not try to challenge them. “They have seized houses of influential people there and vowed to establish the shariah and Islamic justice system in Buner as well. The Taliban are only 100 km away from Islamabad and may be overrunning it soon if the government and the political and religious parties continued to capitulate or remain silent as had been done in Swat," he said. Manner of enforcing it incorrect: Cleric Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has criticised the manner in which Sharia is being implemented in Swat. “The process of enforcing Sharia in Swat is incorrect. It must be implemented on the basis of recommendations of the Council of Islamic Ideology,” Fazl said while addressing a news conference in Lahore at the end of a two-day meeting of the party’s central executive committee here on Monday. Fazl said whatever Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi chief Sufi Mohammad had limited knowledge of democracy, adding that the JUI accepted the present democratic system which guaranteed legislation under Quran and
Sunnah.
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New York Times wins 5 Pulitzer prizes
New York, April 21 In a year in which online publishers were allowed to compete for the first time, the strength of the award winners showed that journalism still offered tremendous value even as it faces a financial meltdown, said Columbia University. The only online outlet to get a mention was politifact.com, a section of the St Petersburg Times, which was recognised for its fact-checking project of candidates’ assertions in the US presidential campaign. “The watchdog still barks. The watchdog still bites,” said Sid Gissler, administrator of the prizes. “Who would be doing this day-to-day if we didn’t have newspapers?” The Las Vegas Sun won the prestigious public-service prize for reporting on the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas strip, while the Los Angeles Times won for explanatory reporting on the growing cost and threat of wildfires. The New York Times prizes included awards for photography of Barack Obama on the campaign trail and for uncovering the sex scandal that led to the resignation of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post won the commentary prize for his columns on the election campaign of Barack Obama. The prize for fiction went to Elizabeth Strout, whose book “Olive Kitteridge” is a collection of stories centred on coastal Maine. The history prize went to Annette Gordon-Reed’s “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family”, about slaves owned by President Thomas Jefferson.
— DPA
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Obama did not change anything: Qaida
Washington, April 21 “The new President Obama did not change anything of the image of America towards Muslims and the oppressed,” according to excerpts of Zawahiri’s statement released by the SITE Intelligence Group. “It is America that is still killing Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan,” the Al-Qaida’s number two continued in the video that was released yesterday. “It is America that steals their fortunes, occupies their land, and supports the thieving, corrupt, and traitor rulers in their countries, and consequently the problem is not over. Rather, it is likely to deteriorate and escalate” Zawahiri insisted.
— AFP
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N Korea can resume nuke plan: IAEA
Beijing, April 21 International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei said today “it could be a question of months” when asked how soon North Korea could restart its nuclear facilities. N.Korea vowed last week to restart its nuclear program and quit six-nation disarmament talks because the UN Security Council criticised its April 5 rocket launch
— AP
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28 Hindu temples to be relocated in Malaysia 'Indian Saris' launched Turmeric can sooth bowels
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Bangladesh’s opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia has been given 15 days to leave her home, in which she has lived since the early 1980s, or face eviction.
Her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has reacted in anger to the eviction notice and vowed to step up its protest rallies against the action of the Sheikh Hasina government.
