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Pak gets $135m aid from World Bank
Is army behind Zardari’s decision to skip NAM? Iran poll fair, protests not acceptable: Khamenei |
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Hunt on for Taliban chief: Pak Traces of ancient lake on Mars Maoists to intensify
stir in Nepal Suu Kyi
turns 64 NRI killed by robbers Indian MPs to attend classes at Yale
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Pak gets $135m aid from World Bank Washington, June 19 The bank noted that the increase in global food and fuel prices and Pakistan’s ongoing energy crisis had raised the vulnerability of the country’s less privileged to an unprecedented level. It said the $60 million Pakistan Social Safety Net Technical Assistance Project would enhance the operation and management of a nationwide, effective and transparent safety net system for the less priviledged in Pakistan to cushion the negative effects of the food and economic crisis. “The government of Pakistan is committed to developing a modern social safety net system,” said Yusupha Crookes, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan. “This project will assist Pakistan in establishing an effective social safety net system that provides the less priviledged with basic income support.” Simultaneously, the World Bank also approved $74.68 million to support the Pakistan government’s efforts to eradicate polio. Although Pakistan has made progress in its efforts to eradicate polio since 1997, with the number of confirmed polio cases decreasing substantially from around 1,147 in 1997 to 32 in 2007; in 2008 there was an increase in virus transmission with 117 cases reported, spread across all four provinces. — PTI
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Is army behind Zardari’s decision to skip NAM? New Delhi, June 19 Who is in the driver’s seat in Pakistan - the civilian government or the army? This question is once again doing rounds in official circles. India certainly did not expect Zardari would opt out of the visit to Egypt, where Pakistan will now be represented by Prime Minister Yousaf Reza Gilani. Asked if India would avoid a meeting with Gilani in Egypt or go ahead with it, sources said the situation had certainly changed after Zardari’s decision not to go Egypt. Since Zardari was the executive Head of the State of Pakistan, it would have been ideal if the meeting had taken place between him and Manmohan Singh. India, however, would not be reluctant for a meeting between Manmohan Singh and Gilani either, provided the talks between the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries, likely to be held in early July, on terrorism were fruitful. There is no change in New Delhi’s stand that any decision on formally resuming the dialogue hinged entirely on what action Pakistan takes against those who have committed crimes in India, including the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. When Manmohan Singh met Zardari in Yekaterinburg (Russia) earlier this week, he conveyed to him in unequivocal terms that his mandate was to tell the latter that the territory of Pakistan should not be allowed to be misused for terrorist acts against India. Zardari was visibly embarrassed over the Prime Minister’s comments, which the civilian leadership as well as the army in Pakistan have found difficult to digest. An official said, “We would test Pakistan’s sincerity in dealing with terrorism only when it acts with determination against the groups launching attacks in India.”
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Iran poll fair, protests not acceptable: Khamenei Washington, June 19 Khamenei insisted the recent presidential elections showed off the country’s religious democracy for the world to see, shrugging an unprecedented challenge to the country’s ruling clerics by opposition supporters, who claim the June 12 presidential election was rigged. He said there was “definitive victory” and no rigging in the disputed presidential elections, offering no concession to protesters demanding the vote be cancelled and held again. He remained staunch in his defense of Ahmadinejad, saying his views were closer to the president’s than to those of Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful patron of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. In his first public address since demonstrators flooded the streets, Khamenei said protests should cease and the opposition must pursue its complaints within the confines of the cleric-led ruling system. He said protesters would be held responsible for chaos if they didn’t end days of massive demonstrations. The unrest has posed the greatest challenge to the system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power. Khamenei said official results showing a landslide for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were beyond question. “There is 11 million votes difference, Khamenei said. “How one can rig 11 million votes?” “The enemies (of Iran) are targeting the Islamic establishment’s legitimacy by questioning the election and its authenticity before and after (the vote),” FOX News quoted Khamenei, as saying. Khamenei has already approved the June 12 election results that gave hard-line Ahmadinejad a landslide victory, but he has not been able to ignore the powerful defiance of the opposition, which has called the vote rigged, of his authority. The address comes one day after hundreds of thousands of protesters in black and green flooded the streets of Tehran in a somber, candlelit show of mourning for those killed in clashes after Iran's disputed presidential election. The supreme leader has tried to strike a compromise. On Monday, he ordered the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to Khamenei, to investigate Mousavi's voter fraud claims. — ANI
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Hunt on for Taliban chief: Pak The fighter planes of Pakistan’s air force bombarded Taliban strongholds in the volatile South Waziristan tribal region today. The jets hit targets in preparation for a full-scale military operation which Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said would take off as soon as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud was spotted. “The focus is now being shifted to South Waziristan. Mehsud wanted to create chaos in the country by carrying out suicide attacks and, therefore, the government had decided to hit back. We have a huge network of informers who are after him and the moment his whereabouts are known the forces are going to hit him,” the minister said. According to reports, the warplanes struck Taliban hideouts at Sarwakai, Madiyan and Barwang in South Waziristan Agency near the border with Afghanistan during early morning strikes. “Fighter aircraft targetted the places where Mehsud’s militants are active and we have unconfirmed reports of casualties,” TV channels quoted military officials as saying. Regarding Mehsud’s foreign links, the Defence Minister said they have no concerete information or evidence. “His operations are financed by drug money and worldwide donations given to him in the name of fight against the United States, and now against Pakistan,” he added. When asked whether the drone technology would be used to trace and kill Mehsud, the minister said F-16 fighter jets were better than drones, and faster as well, and they would be bombing his sanctuaries. “Mehsud is working against the interest of the state of Pakistan and we have to protect our interests at all costs,” he said.
Taliban bomb 2 schools
Islamabad, June 19 “Bombs planted in the schools went off early this morning destroying the buildings,” local officials were quoted as saying by the local TV channels. Militants also bombed boys’ degree college in nearby Mamound town, officials said. No loss of life was reported in the two attacks.
— PTI
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Traces of ancient lake on Mars Washington, June 19 The lake, which dates back some 3.4 billion years, appears to have covered as much as 207 sq kilometres and was up to 500 metres deep, said the team from the University of Colorado. “This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars,” said Boulder research associate Gaetano Di Achille in a study published in the latest edition of Geophysical Research Letters. “The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago.” Analysis of the images has shown the water carved out the canyon in which it was found, which then opened out into a valley depositing sediment which formed a delta. “Finding shorelines is a Holy Grail of all sorts to us,” said assistant professor Brian Hynek, adding that it showed the lake existed at a time when Mars was thought to have been cold and dry. “Not only does this research prove there was a long-lived lake system on Mars, but we can see that the lake formed after the warm, wet period is thought to have dissipated,” he added. — AFP
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Maoists to intensify stirin Nepal Expressing wrath against the government’s decision to uphold President Ram Baran Yadav’s move to retain the sacked chief of army Staff Rookmangud Katawal, Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) on Friday decided to intensify nationwide protest programme against the government. Just a day after the CPN-UML and the Nepali Congress (NC)-led coalition government decided to revoke the erstwhile government’s controversial decision to sack Katawal and appoint number 2 in army Lt Gen Kul Bahadur Khadka, the Parliamentary Party Board meeting of the Maoists this morning took the decision in this regard.
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Suu Kyi turns 64
Yangon, June 19 Nyan Win, a lawyer defending the Nobel laureate who faces up to five years in jail, said Suu Kyi would be allowed a few visitors to Yangon’s Insein prison, where she is on trial on the charge of breaking the terms of her house arrest. Confined for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, Suu Kyi’s birthday has become an annual ritual inside and outside Myanmar for campaigners seeking an end to decades of military rule in the country.
— Agencies |
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NRI killed by robbers
Washington, June 19 On June 14, four armed robbers shot Gurjeet Singh of Merriville, Indiana, who worked in his uncle’s gas station. Community activists have expressed outrage over the senseless murder and “insensitive and shocking” behaviour of shoppers who made no effort to help him or call the police after the incident. “The perpetrators of this shocking and senseless murder of a member of our community must be apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Dino Teppara, Director Government Relations, USAsian, an NGO. Singh was in the store when four men approached the store, one of them shoot him in the neck. While he lay dying, other shoppers continued to walk in and out of the store, the shop’s surveillance video released by the police shows. The police
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Indian MPs to attend classes at Yale
Washington, June 19 Apart from Singhvi, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar, along with former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumarasamy; and son of the former Indian Prime Minister, Inder Kumar Gujral, Naresh Gujral, are other senior members of the delegation. Most of the members of the delegation are children of senior politicians.
— PTI
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Washington, June 19
