The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Egyptians pack Tahrir on eve of Mursi’s inauguration as Prez Stage set for long struggle between Islamists, Army Cairo, June 29 Muslim Brotherhood supporters flocked to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to hear Mohamed Mursi speak on the eve of his inauguration as Egypt's first Islamist civilian president. The rally's slogan, "Powers of the President", heralds what may prove a prolonged struggle between the Islamists and Army generals who have imposed stark curbs on presidential prerogatives before they formally hand over executive authority. Crowds in Tahrir, the hub of last year's revolt against ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, chanted "Mursi is President of the republic" and waved Egyptian flags with his picture inset. "A full revolution or nothing. Down, down with military rule," they shouted. "We, the people, are the red line." The military council that pushed Mubarak aside on Feb. 11, 2011, has supervised a chaotic stop-go transition since then, holding parliamentary and presidential elections, but then effectively negating their outcome to preserve its own power. Mursi will swear his oath of office on Saturday before the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo. The usual venue is Parliament, but the same court dissolved the Islamist-led lower house this month in a ruling backed, if not orchestrated, by the army, apparently unwilling to let Islamists control the legislature as well as the presidency. "Do we accept that Parliament is dissolved?" cheerleaders from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) asked the throng in Tahrir. "No," the party faithful thundered back. Mursi was declared President last Sunday, a nerve-racking week after a run-off vote in which he narrowly beat ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafik, who was Mubarak's last prime minister. After being sworn in as the first freely elected civilian president of the most populous Arab state, Mursi will give a speech at Cairo University, a presidency statement said. Hundreds of protesters have been camped out in Tahrir for weeks to press the army to transfer power to civilians. "I'm here to tell the military council that we, the people, elected parliament so it is only us, the people, who can dissolve it," said Intissar al-Sakka, a teacher and FJP member. — Reuters
	Afghans face mass deportation from Pak Kabul, June 29 Hundreds of thousands of Afghans face the threat of deportation back to their war-torn country from Pakistan once a deadline expires tomorrow, but Kabul is crying foul over the move. Pakistan is home to 1.7 million refugees and hundreds of thousands more unregistered migrants from its neighbour, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). But Islamabad says it cannot be expected to tolerate illegal migrants, and 400,000 undocumented Afghans in Pakistan's northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the bulk of the Afghan community live, face the imminent prospect of removal. The UNHCR describes the situation of Afghans in Pakistan as the "largest and most protracted refugee crisis in the world" and warned that the question of how to deal with it was becoming "increasingly politicised". Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's information minister, said law enforcement agencies have been told to compile lists of illegal Afghans and once the June 30 deadline passes, orders will be issued for their arrest, appearance in court and subsequent deportation to Afghanistan. "No country allows illegal immigrants, how it is possible to legalise something which is illegal?" Hussain said. "We have been accommodating Afghan immigrants for 32 years. The provincial government cannot take their burden any more. They should go back to their country." The government in Kabul denied the expulsions would take place. Afghan refugee ministry spokesman Islamuddin Jurat conceded there was a "small problem" in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but said the two sides had agreed to solve the issue and give the Afghans "some legal status to stay there". The Afghan-Pakistani border is notoriously porous and even if the deportations were to go into effect there would be little to stop returnees going back to Pakistan. — AFP
	Ashraf plans Kabul visit next month Afzal Khan in Islamabad Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will embark on his first foreign trip to Kabul next month after assuming the country's top office last week. According to a foreign office official, Ashraf is expected to visit Afghanistan in mid-July to discuss a range of issues, including steps to make peace with the Taliban. In his maiden address to the National Assembly after being elected as Prime Minister, Ashraf said Pakistan considers Kabul the 'most important capital.' Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had confirmed Ashraf's visit to Kabul in the near future during a meeting with the Afghan Ambassador, Umer Daudzai. Khar also informed the envoy that she would lead the Pakistani delegation to the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for July. She said Pakistan would allocate $20 million to support the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), most of which will be used for capacity building and technical assistance to ANSF.
	For Pakistanis, India ‘bigger threat’ than Taliban, Qaida Washington, June 29 Only one in five Pakistanis have a favourable view of India with almost six in ten considering it a bigger threat to their country than the Taliban, or Al-Qaida, according to a new survey made available here. But as the survey of Pakistan by the Pew Research Centre's Global Attitudes Project notes 22 per cent of Pakistanis having a favourable view of India is actually a slight improvement from 14 per cent last year. Pakistanis have consistently identified India as the top threat since the question was first asked in 2009, it noted. The percentage fearing India has increased by 11 points to 59 per cent since then, while the percentage naming the Taliban has decreased by nine points. Despite these negative sentiments, 62 per cent of Pakistanis say it is important to improve relations with India, the survey found. And roughly two-thirds support more bilateral trade and further talks to try to reduce tensions between the two nations. Most Indians also want better relations, more trade, and further talks between the two nations, Pew reported. Still, Indian attitudes toward Pakistan remain largely negative. Roughly six-in-ten Indians (59 per cent) express an unfavourable opinion of Pakistan, although this is down slightly from 65 per cent in 2011. India is not the only country, however, where negative views of Pakistan prevail, the survey found. Majorities or pluralities give Pakistan a negative rating in six of the seven other countries where this question was asked, including China, Japan, and three predominantly Muslim nations - Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Pakistanis and Indians agree that Kashmir should be a priority for their countries. Roughly, eight-in-ten Pakistanis and about six-in-ten Indians say it is very important to resolve the dispute over Kashmir. The survey also found that following a year of tensions between their country and the United States, Pakistanis continue to hold highly unfavourable views of the US and offer bleak assessments of the relationship between the two nations. Roughly three-in-four Pakistanis (74 per cent) consider the US an enemy, up from 69 per cent last year and 64 per cent three years ago. And President Barack Obama is held in exceedingly low regard. Indeed, among the 15 nations surveyed in both 2008 and 2012 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, Pakistan is the only country where ratings for Obama are no better than the ratings President George W. Bush received during his final year in office. According to Pew Research Centre, the survey in Pakistan is part of the larger Spring 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in 21 countries under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. — IANS survey findings z Six in 10 Pakistanis consider India it a bigger threat to their country than the Taliban, or Al-Qaida z Indians’ attitude towards Pakistan also remains largely negative. Roughly six in 10 Indians (59 per cent) express an unfavourable opinion of Pakistan
	Chinese astronauts return after 13-day space rendezvous Beijing, June 29 China's astronaut trio, including its first woman cosmonaut, returned to Earth safely today after accomplishing the country's first-ever manual docking that helped it join the exclusive US-Russia club and took it a step closer to setting up a space station by 2020. Watched anxiously by Premier Wen Jiabao and other top leaders at the control room here, the Shenzhou-9 (Divine Grace) spacecraft carrying the three astronauts had a bumpy but safe touchdown in grasslands of Inner Mongolia as it withstood severe heat and friction during the re-entry phase following a 13-day space rendezvous. The metallic parachute ejected 10 km above the earth slowing down re-entry vehicle and it landed with a big thud on the ground at a designated spot. After the touchdown of the Shenzhou-9, it took about an hour for the astronauts to emerge out from their modest re-entry capsule. Jing Haipeng, commander of the Shenzhou-9 crew, was the first to come out, followed by 33-year-old Liu Wang and the country's first woman astronaut Liu Yang. During a brief welcoming ceremony held near the capsule, Jing said "we successfully completed China's first manned space docking mission and we are now safely home." "Tiangong was our home in the space. It was very cozy and comfortable. I am proud of my country," said Liu Yang. The three, who were carried on chairs, greeted the official media and were later flown to Beijing after physical examinations in ambulance helicopters at the landing site. — PTI