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Pak arrests Swat deal broker
27 militants killed
Islamabad not sheltering Afghan Taliban: Qureshi
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No defence deal with India: Nepal
Bangladesh to preserve Basu’s ancestral house
Bruni’s flower bill puts Sarkozy in a spot
NRI Lord faces probe into rent allowance claims
Zardari turns 54
42 dead as ‘Taliban’ sect, police clash in Nigeria
Indian banks safer, stronger: Swraj Paul
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Pak arrests Swat deal broker
Islamabad, July 26 Sufi, who heads the banned Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi, was arrested with his sons Ziaullah and Rizwanullah and an accomplice by a large police contingent during a raid in the City Town area of Peshawar. The four men were taken away to an unknown location. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Information Minister for North West Frontier Province, told a news conference that Sufi Muhammad was arrested for speaking against the government and encouraging violence and terrorism in Malakand division, which includes Swat valley. “We arrested him today under the Maintenance of Public Order (law) for the sake of maintaining peace and security,” Hussain said. Sufi’s role in militant activities in Malakand will be investigated and cases will be filed against him after the probe is completed, he added. The influential cleric brokered a controversial deal with the NWFP government in February to restore peace in Swat and other parts of Malakand. However, the agreement collapsed in May when Taliban from Swat took advantage of the pact to extend their influence to the nearby Buner and Dir districts. The hardline cleric mediated between Taliban fighters led by his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah and the NWFP government and finalised the peace deal whereby authorities agreed to set up Islamic courts in exchange for the militants laying down their arms. However, Hussain said Sufi Muhammad never cooperated with the government to restore law and order. He went underground to avoid dialogue on several crucial occasions and even declared that democracy and the judiciary were “un-Islamic”, Hussain said. The federal government scrapped the peace agreement in May and launched a major military offensive in Swat and nearby areas. Over 1,700 militants and nearly 170 soldiers have so far died in the fighting. One of Sufi Muhammad’s sons was recently killed in a military operation in Dir. Earlier in the day, media reports here said Sufi, who disappeared after a military operation in Swat, has resurfaced in Peshawar in a new look to hide his identity. A private television channel caught him during his outfit’s meeting yesterday. “Sufi left the meeting after he spotted the camera,” the channel had reported. A TNSM supporter told the Daily Times that Sufi had “trimmed and dyed his beard red to keep his identity secret” and had been residing in a rented house in Peshawar.
— PTI
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27 militants killed
Islamabad, July 26 The security forces carried out shelling on hideouts of militants in Dogdara and Ghazi areas of Upper Dir, killing 23 Taliban, TV channels reported citing sources. A ‘Lashkar' or tribal militia also killed three militants and destroyed their training centre, the reports said. In Swat, security forces killed Taliban commander of the Qambar region, Maaz, during a search operation. Ten people were arrested during search and clearance operations in Malakand, which includes Swat valley, over the past 24 hours. Among them was an imam of a mosque who was a “supporter and sympathiser of terrorists.” Six militants were captured during a search near Charbagh, a former Taliban stronghold in Swat. Three more militants were apprehended during an operation at Pia village near Madyan.
— PTI
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Islamabad not sheltering Afghan Taliban: Qureshi
Pakistan is not providing sanctuary to top militant commander Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in an interview to the Sunday Times. “We vow to fight those who challenge the writ of the government”, he told the newspaper.
Qureshi said Islamabad will “deal with all the elements that are challenging the state’s writ and are trying to destabilise Pakistan”. The government will not allow anyone to use the country’s soil to plan and execute acts of terrorism anywhere in the world, he added. When asked whether this included acting against Omar and his Quetta shura that runs the Afghan Taliban, the minister replied: ‘Absolutely, we'll be taking them on”. He said there is “no more differentiation between good terrorists and bad terrorists”. He noted the prevailing wave of terrorism had created havoc in the country and made its environment insecure.
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No defence deal with India: Nepal
Kathmandu, July 26 The reports about arms deal between Nepal and India was totally wrong as there was no such deal reached during Defence Minister Vidya Bhandari's India visit, the Prime Minister told the State Affairs Committee (SAC) under the Legislative Parliament. The Prime Minister's clarification came after the Unified CPN-Maoist blocked Parliament, demanding clarification from the government regarding the reported arms deal between Nepal and India during Bhandari's visit to India. Earlier today, the Maoist lawmakers surrounded the Rostrum as soon as the Legislative Parliament session started in the afternoon. The meeting was postponed for half an hour and later the Speaker adjourned the Parliament. Speaking at the Parliament session, Maoists' deputy leader in the Parliamentary Party Narayan Kaji Shrestha accused the coalition government of reaching an agreement with India to import arms and warned that the peace process would be derailed if the government imported arms from India. The Maoist leaders have argued that acquiring new arms will violate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Maoists and the previous government. India, which had been supplying arms to Nepal to fight the Maoists during the decade-long civil war, decided to halt supplying lethal weapons in February 2005 after then King Gyanendra assumed absolute powers.
— PTI
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Bangladesh to preserve Basu’s ancestral house
Dhaka, July 26 "A plan has been taken to set up a museum and a library of international standard at the home as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the initiative to preserve it," an official said. He added that a high-level committee was also formed in this regard with Parliamentary Standing Committee Chairman for Cultural Affairs Obaidul Qader as its head. The official said the PM directed the concerned officials to take quick steps for rehabilitation of the age-old two-story building on over two acres of land at Barudi union, some 8 km off the Sonargaon sub-district headquarters. The cultural affairs ministry, communication ministry and works ministry would jointly work for rehabilitation of the Basu's ancestral home, which the Basu family left when India was partitioned in 1947, he said. — PTI
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Row over Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate
Washington, July 26 The controversy linked to Obama’s birth and whether he was “genuinely” born on US soil has come alive as the President’s reaction to last week’s arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, a black Harvard professor, threatens to spark a racial row and dent his reputation. Conspiracy theorists in the United States and far right wingers, who have begun to call themselves “birthers”, claim that Obama is not entitled to be in the White House simply because he is “foreign-born”, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. According to them, there is something suspicious in the absence of a photocopy of Obama’s original birth record, known as the “long form”, even as the White House has published copies of his official birth certificate - a printed summary of his birth details, including the name of the medical centre in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was born. The “birthers” claimed that the photocopy of Obama’s original birth record would have been prepared by doctors or hospital officials involved in his birth and would contain fuller details - including the address of his parents, the report in the British daily said. The conspiracists have dismissed as a distraction a birth announcement for Obama that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser on August 13, 1961 - nine days after he was born. Conservative radio host George Gordon Liddy, who was linked to the Watergate burglary, said the whole thing “could be settled in a minute if the President would simply produce a valid birth certificate”. According to Liddy, Obama was in fact born in Kenya, his father’s home country. He claimed to have seen a deposition by the President’s Kenyan step-grandmother, 86-year-old Sarah Obama, stating that the city of his birth was Mombasa, the report said. The President was therefore “an illegal alien”, Liddy said.
— PTI
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Bruni’s flower bill puts Sarkozy in a spot
London, July 26 The effort of President Sarkozy to open Elysée Palace to greater "transparency" may have backfired on him as its account revealed a colossal waste of public money amid the worst economic recession in generations. Apart from Sarkozy, the 41-year-old former Italian supermodel-turned-pop singer is particularly fond of fresh flowers, and is frequently pictured arranging huge vases full of them inside the Elysee. Philippe Séguin, the state auditor, recommended cutting the floral bill after the first inspection revealed that his palace spent 600 pounds a day on bouquets. The exorbitant florist’s bill can be attributed to the President’s wife, who has a passion for freshly cut flowers, The Times newspaper said. Though her predecessor, Bernadette Chirac, had a similar obsession, particularly for roses, she checked the bill by growing them in the palace. Recommending a cut in the floral bill, the auditor complained the palace always went to the same suppliers even if it meant paying twice as much, according to the British daily. The grand annual July 14 garden party had been organised by the same firm since 1995 and cost 250,000 pounds in 2008, even though a competitor had offered to stage it for 160,000 pounds, the report said. — PTI
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NRI Lord faces probe into rent allowance claims
London, July 26 According to a report in The Sunday Times, 72-year-old Lord Bhatia, a businessman and philanthropist, has lived with his wife in a £1.5-million home in southwest London for two decades. Almost two years ago, he decided to “flip” the designation of his primary residence to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which has been his brother’s home for three years. Peers whose main residences are outside the capital are able to collect £174 a night as reimbursement for the cost of a hotel or maintaining a second home while attending parliament. Bhatia claimed he had spent many weekends at the flat and he intended to move there with his wife after selling his family home. Angus Robertson, a leader at Westminster, said he would be writing to the police and the Lords asking for an investigation into Bhatia’s claims. The police is already investigating the overnight allowance claims made by Baroness Uddin, who hailed from Bangladesh, and Lord Clarke of Hampstead following inquiries by the newspaper. — PTI
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Zardari turns 54
Islamabad, July 26 Birthday celebrations were held at the PPP's Central Secretariat and other offices with simplicity. Goats were sacrificed to mark the occasion at Bilawal House, the PPP office in the southern port city of Karachi. Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said Zardari had, earlier issued directions that instead of festivities, prayers should be offered for the country, the PPP and Benazir
Bhutto. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, his sisters Aasifa and Bakhtawar and Zardari's sisters Faryal Talpur and Azra sent separate messages to the President.
— PTI
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42 dead as ‘Taliban’ sect, police clash in Nigeria
Kano (Nigeria), July 26 “We have received a total of 42 bodies,” a nurse Awwal Isa at Bauchi Specialist Hospital in the northern city of Bauchi, where the violence took place, told AFP by telephone. They were the victims of “fighting between the security personnel and members of the Taliban,” he said, alluding to the sect founded in Nigeria in 2004, with a mission to set up a strict Islamic state in Nigeria.
— AFP
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Indian banks safer, stronger: Swraj Paul
London, July 26 Asked to comment on the state of the Indian economy, Lord Paul, recently appointed member of the Privy Council by the British Queen, said: “India has been affected by the global crisis quite a bit. The good thing about India is that the banks there did not make the same mistakes as some of the western economies. They are fairly strong and safe,” he said.
— PTI
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