London, May 3
Taliban militants were holding 2,000 persons in Buner district of restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan to use them as human shield in case the army attacked. Taliban’s move came as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat. 

The military said they had killed more than 100 militants and lost several soldiers since fighting began on Tuesday.

Taliban militants were holding 2,000 people as human shield in Pir Baba in Buner district, The Sunday Times reported today.

“Kidnapping has become routine in our village. Armed Taliban pick up people and then demand a huge ransom for their release,” said an elderly refugee now living with his family in a tent in Timergara, a town in Dir.

According to the paper, many of the 90,000 refugees fleeing the conflict zone in NWFP welcomed the military action despite their anger at being forced to leave their homes.

The militants promised to disarm but instead moved their forces into neighbouring Dir and Buner, about 100 km from federal capital triggering panic in Pakistan and heightening fears in the US about the stability of the nuclear-armed state. 

Although Pakistani officers described their onslaught as a “mopping up” operation, much of Buner remained under Taliban control, the report said. — PTI 

Colombo, May 3
With the Tiger rebels on their last legs, the Sri Lankan government is mulling a general amnesty to the surrendering LTTE cadres as well as to those who are in detention in the Island country.

"Regulations are being worked out in consultation with the Attorney General and they would cover anyone who agrees to lay down weapons and surrender before the security forces," Minister for Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe said.

However, the amnesty will not be granted to those who have already been charged or convicted in courts.

"In these cases, the legal process will be applied," the minister told reporters.

He said an undisclosed number of LTTE members had come along with the displaced people to the camps in Wanni. "While some have confessed they are members of the LTTE, others are being investigated for their links with the group".

Samarasinghe said he was not aware of the exact number of the LTTE cadres among the displaced people but some estimates put it at 3,000.

The LTTE members will be rehabilitated and later allowed to re-integrate with others once the investigators get convinced that they have shunned separatism, Samarasinghe was quoted as saying by the 'Sunday Times'.

Officials said that around 1,000 rebels had already confessed their involvement with the LTTE and were undergoing rehabilitation in special transit camps in Wanni and elsewhere, the newspaper said.

Earlier the United Nations had urged the government to consider a general amnesty for the LTTE members willing to give up arms.

Late last month, President Mahinda Rajapksa had said there would be no amnesty for Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran as he has "spurned chances for pardon".

"The LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has spurned the possibility of pardon by us. In doing so, by not giving up arms and surrendering as required, he must now face the consequences of his acts," Rajapaksa said. Rajapaksa said his government has earlier shown the example by offering clemency to Karuna Amman and Pillaiyan, who are now a minister and a Chief Minister respectively.

"Such clemency would have been possible for Prabhakaran if he had surrendered, given up arms and abandoned violence, as called for on several occasions, and not caused so much suffering to the people," the President had said. — PTI

London, May 3
Ashamed of her growing popularity, two brothers allegedly shot dead their singer sister in Peshawar last week for performing on television.

The murder of Ayman Udas, who was in her early thirties, has shocked the city’s cultural community as it symbolises a backlash against women and cultural freedom in an area that is increasingly dominated by Islamic fundamentalists, ‘The Sunday Times’ reported today.

Udas sang and wrote compositions in her native Pashto language, spoken in the tribal areas and the North West Frontier province. She also frequently performed on PTV, the state-run channel.

Despite Udas’s popularity, her family felt it was sinful for women performing on television and strongly opposed her. According to the report, her two brothers reportedly entered her flat last week while her husband was out and fired three bullets into her chest. Neither has been caught. — PTI

The recession has put the brakes on the number of foreign workers flocking to the US in pursuit of the fabled American dream. A month since it started accepting applications, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has received approximately 45,000 H-1B visa petitions, far less than the congressionally-mandated 65,000 cap. 

The H-1B visa programme is used by US businesses to employ foreign workers. In past years, this cap has been filled within days of the process being opened prompting calls for an increase in the H-1B visa cap.

While there are a few reasons for this slowdown, the key question on most minds is whether the American dream has turned into a nightmare.

A combination of factors are responsible for this slowdown. As US companies tighten their belts in order to cope with the financial crisis, thousands of American workers have been put out of jobs. Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow with the Labour and Worklife Programme at Harvard Law School, says US firms are reluctant to hire foreign workers because they are worried about the "negative publicity" that such an action will attract. "It has become toxic for US firms to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas," Wadhwa says. "It's the equivalent of giving out corporate bonuses in the current environment."

Others point to the stricter enforcement of visa rules by President Barack Obama's administration. Sheela Murthy of Murthy Law Firm in Owings Mill, Maryland, says, "Every single desi-owned company we deal with has told us they will not be filing any new H-1B visa petitions this year."

In February, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 11 people of Indian origin in seven states as part of an investigation into suspected visa and mail fraud.

Vision Systems Group Inc., a New Jersey-based firm, was at the centre of the investigation. "There is a high level of fraud involving desi-owned companies," Sheela admits, adding, "This is extremely troubling and disturbing."

Arlington, Virginia-based immigration attorney Rajiv S. Khanna says the Obama administration has "become ridiculous about criminalisation" and that applications are being audited on the flimsiest of excuses. The fact that the H-1B visa quota has not been filled so far is a "sad commentary on the state of affairs," he says.

The slowdown hasn't hit visa applicants who have advanced degrees. The USCIS reported it had received the maximum of 20,000 petitions. However, it continues to accept advanced degree petitions "since experience has shown that not all petitions received are approvable," the agency said in a statement.

Meanwhile, foreign students at US universities have been told they will not get jobs in America after graduating, so fewer prospective college applicants are looking for opportunities here. "In the past, word of mouth brought students to America, now word of mouth is keeping them away," says Wadhwa, who in a recent paper noted the start of a reverse brain drain in America well before the financial crisis erupted. 

"Since even before the 2008 financial and economic crisis, some observers have noted that a substantial number of highly skilled immigrants have started returning to their home countries, including persons from low-income countries like India and China who have historically tended to stay permanently in the United States," Wadhwa writes, adding, "These returnees contributed to the tech boom in those countries and arguably spurred the growth of outsourcing of back-office processes as well as of research and development."

In the end, Wadhwa contends, America will be the biggest loser. "It is losing out on the best talent from around the world," he says.