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Yemen vote ensures Saleh’s exit after 33 yrs Memogate UN inspectors won’t visit N-sites: Iran |
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Syrian forces pound
Homs, Idlib; 57 dead Minister jailed for corruption in Nepal
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Yemen vote ensures Saleh’s exit after 33 yrs Yemen ushered Ali Abdullah Saleh from power after 33 years today, voting to endorse his deputy as President, with a mission to rescue the nation from poverty, chaos and the brink of civil war. Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the sole consensus candidate, billed the vote as a way to move on after months of protests against Saleh’s rule, but the president’s sons and nephews still command key army units and security agencies.
“Elections are the only exit route from the crisis which has buffeted Yemen for the past year,” Hadi, Saleh’s long-time right-hand and former army general, said after casting his vote. Five persons were killed in violence in Yemen’s south on Tuesday, where a secessionist movement is active, a reminder of the challenges Hadi will face in taming a nation where half of the population of 23 million owns a gun. The vote will make Saleh, now in the United States for more treatment of burns suffered in an assassination attempt last June, the fourth Arab autocrat in a year to be removed from power after revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. At stake is an economy left in shambles, where 42 per cent live on less than $2 per day and runaway inflation is driving up food and fuel prices. Long queues formed early in the morning outside polling stations in the capital Sanaa amid tight security, after an explosion ripped through a voting centre in the southern port city of Aden on the eve of the vote. “We are now declaring the end of the Ali Abdullah Saleh era and will build a new Yemen,” Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakul Karman said as she waited to cast her ballot outside a university faculty in the capital Sanaa. Voters dipped their thumbs in ink and stamped their print on a ballot paper bearing a picture of Hadi and a map of Yemen in the colours of the rainbow. A high turnout was crucial to give Hadi the legitimacy he needs to carry out changes outlined in a US-backed power transfer deal brokered by Yemen’s Gulf neighbours, including the drafting of a new constitution, restructuring of armed forces and multi-party elections. — Reuters
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Memogate Islamabad, February 21 Zahid Bukhari, the lawyer of Pakistan’s former envoy to the US, Husain Haqqani, and two of his associates were issued British visas today to go to London to cross-examine Ijaz. Haqqani was forced to resign after Ijaz made public the alleged memo in October last year. A Supreme Court-appointed judicial commission that is investigating the memo issue recently decided to record Ijaz’s statement via a video link after he refused to travel to Pakistan due to concerns about his security. Ijaz will depose at the Pakistan High Commission in London at 2 pm tomorrow and will be cross-examined by lawyers. The National Telecommunication Commission has hired Mansha Brothers, a private firm, for making arrangements for the video conferencing at the judicial commission’s office within the Islamabad High Court complex. However, unannounced power cuts and lack of coordination among government departments could hamper the recording of Ijaz’s statement, the Dawn reported. — PTI
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UN inspectors won’t visit N-sites: Iran Tehran, February 21 The remarks by Ramin Mehmanparast cast doubt on how much the UN inspectors would be able to gauge whether Iran is moving ahead with its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. The two-day visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency team, which started Monday, is the second in less than a month amid growing concerns over alleged Iranian weapons experiments. Iran denies charges by the West that it seeks atomic weapons, insisting its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only, such as power generation. Mehmanparast said the visiting IAEA team was made up of experts, not inspectors. He told reporters that the IAEA team was holding discussions Tuesday in Tehran to prepare the ground for future cooperation between Iran and the UN watchdog. He said this cooperation is at its “best” level. “The titles of the members of the visiting delegation is not inspectors. This is an expert delegation. The purpose of visit is not inspection,” said Mehmanparast. “The aim is to negotiate about cooperation between Iran and the agency and to set a framework for a continuation of the talks.” Visits to individual Iranian nuclear sites were also not part of the IAEA earlier visit three weeks ago. But yesterday, Iranian state radio said the UN team had asked to visit the Parchin military complex outside Tehran, a known conventional arms facility that has been suspected as a secret weapons -making location and also to meet Iranian nuclear scientists involved in the country’s controversial programme. — AP
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Syrian forces pound Homs, Idlib; 57 dead Damascus, February 21 At least 33 civilians were killed in an operation by Syrian forces in the village of Abdita in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Observatory said 16 persons, including three children, died in "intensive shelling" that targeted Baba Amr. Khaldiyeh and Karm al-Zaytoun districts were also pounded by troops. — AFP
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Minister jailed for corruption in Nepal Kathmandu, February 21 A division bench handed down the jail term to Minister for Information and Communications J P Gupta, who is the President of Madhesi Peoples' Right Forum (Republican), after he was found guilty of involvement in corruption. Shortly after he was sentenced, 52-year-old Gupta surrendered before the court. He has been sent to Dillibazaar jail. — PTI
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Yemen ushered Ali Abdullah Saleh from power after 33 years today, voting to endorse his deputy as President, with a mission to rescue the nation from poverty, chaos and the brink of civil war.
Yemenis are voting to rubber-stamp their US-backed Vice-President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi
(inset) as the new head of state tasked with steering the country out of a crisis. The vote can hardly be called an election since Hadi is the only candidate.