W O R L D

Musharraf free to leave Pak
Former military dictator Pervez Musharraf could leave Pakistan as soon as Thursday after a decision by a court paving the way for his release, his lawyer said on Wednesday. A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday granted bail to Musharraf in the Akbar Bugti murder case in Quetta.

Pervez Musharraf in Dubai. AFP file photo

B’desh ex-minister jailed till death for war crimes
Dhaka, October 9
A special Bangladeshi tribunal today sentenced Opposition BNP’s 83-year-old leader Abdul Alim to jail until death for committing large-scale killings and other war crimes during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Karplus, Levitt, Warshel win Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Stockholm, October 9 Three molecular chemists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry today for devising computer simulations that are used to understand and predict chemical processes, the jury said. (From left) Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt & Arieh Warshel. — AFP

No change in year: A school assembly in Mingora town, Pakistan. Malala Yousafzai, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, says she has not done enough to deserve the award, as her old school was shut on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of her shooting by the Taliban. — AFP

UN faces lawsuit over Haiti cholera epidemic
United Nations, October 9
Human rights lawyers representing Haitian victims of a cholera epidemic they blame on UN peacekeepers announced on Wednesday they were filing a lawsuit against the United Nations, with a New York court seeking compensation from the world body.

Passenger lands plane after pilot falls ill
London, October 9
A passenger with almost no flying experience landed a light aircraft after being talked down by an instructor on the ground when the pilot fell ill at the controls mid-air, a British airport said on Wednesday.

Ibne Abbas to be new Pakistan envoy to India
Islamabad, October 9
Veteran Pakistani diplomats Syed Ibne Abbas and Jalil Abbas Jilani would be the new Pakistani envoys to India and the US, respectively, as part of a wide-ranging reshuffle of envoys in key capitals around the world.

Musharraf free to leave Pak
* Gets bail in all three cases against him
* Could fly to Dubai today
Afzal Khan in Islamabad

Former military dictator Pervez Musharraf could leave Pakistan as soon as Thursday after a decision by a court paving the way for his release, his lawyer said on Wednesday. A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday granted bail to Musharraf in the Akbar Bugti murder case in Quetta.

The court then stated that no substantial evidence was available to implicate Pervez Musharraf in the murder case.

In August 2006, Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was killed in an explosion in a cave, where he had taken refuge during a military crackdown allegedly ordered by Musharraf who was President and army chief at the time.

Musharraf was also ordered by the Supreme Court to pay two bail bonds of Rs 1 million each.

Though the court had summoned Jamil Bugti, a son of Nawab Akbar Bugti who is a complainant in the case, he remained absent from the hearing.

Musharraf is also involved in two other cases, namely the Benazir murder case and the judges detention case. He has been granted bail in both the cases.

"The jail staff present at his house will pack up and leave as soon as they get the orders from the lower court," Ahmed Raza Kasuri, who heads the Musharraf defence team, said. "Musharraf can fly to Dubai tomorrow once these legal formalities are completed."

Musharraf, who has been under house arrest in a villa on the outskirts of Islamabad, was army chief when he took power in a 1999 coup. He later became President as well. He stepped down after the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto won the election in 2008. He returned to Pakistan in March after nearly four years of self-imposed exile to contest a May 11 general election, but he was disqualified from standing because of pending court cases.

Many observers believe a face-saving reason for his departure, possibly on grounds of ill health, will be found. The current army chief has also suggested that the military is unhappy with how the authorities have treated Musharraf.

(With Reuters inputs)

B’desh ex-minister jailed till death for war crimes

Dhaka, October 9
A special Bangladeshi tribunal today sentenced Opposition BNP’s 83-year-old leader Abdul Alim to jail until death for committing large-scale killings and other war crimes during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

"He shall be kept in jail till he is dead," pronounced chairman of the three-member International Crimes Tribunal Obaidul Hassan in a packed courtroom as wheelchair-bound Alim was brought to the dock.

Hassan said the prosecution had been able to prove Alim's involvement beyond a shadow of doubt in nine of the 17 charges, including the one of genocide.

He said Alim deserved death sentence for his crimes but his old age and physical condition prompted the panel to relax the punishment.

"No physically or mentally unfit person should be made to face the gallows," Hassan said, adding the convict is old and cannot walk on his own.

Once a Muslim League leader, the fallen politician is the second BNP leader to be convicted and the third former minister to be found guilty of crimes committed to stop Bangladesh’s emergence as a sovereign nation.

According to the charges, Alim killed or ordered killings of some 600 persons. In one such incident, he raided a village inhibited by minority Hindus along with his men, dragged some 370 residents out of their homes, lined them up and shot them dead at northwestern Joypurhat, his hometown. — PTI

in bad company

Abdul Alim is the second BNP leader to be convicted and the third former minister to be found guilty of crimes committed to stop Bangladesh’s emergence as a sovereign nation

Karplus, Levitt, Warshel win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Stockholm, October 9
Three molecular chemists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry today for devising computer simulations that are used to understand and predict chemical processes, the jury said.

Martin Karplus, a US-Austrian citizen, Michael Levitt, a US-British citizen, and Arieh Warshel of the US and Israel, were honoured "for the development of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems," the jury said.

Their prizewinning work has helped develop computer models mirroring real life, "which have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today."

As a result, powerful computer programmes can be used to predict complex chemical processes, providing pharmaceutical engineers and manufacturing chemists with a fast-track way to solve problems.

These processes can take place in a fraction of a millisecond, defeating conventional algorithms that try to map them step by step.

The contribution of the three was to combine classical physics with quantum physics in their model.

This hugely boosts the number of permutations for calculation, although it also requires enormous computer power to crunch the data. — AFP

UN faces lawsuit over Haiti cholera epidemic

United Nations, October 9
Human rights lawyers representing Haitian victims of a cholera epidemic they blame on UN peacekeepers announced on Wednesday they were filing a lawsuit against the United Nations, with a New York court seeking compensation from the world body.

The decision to file a suit comes after the UN said earlier this year that it would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by cholera victims in impoverished Haiti, where the epidemic has killed over 8,300 persons and sickened more than 6,50,000 since October 2010.

"The plaintiffs include Haitians and Haitian Americans who contracted cholera as well as family members of those who died of the disease," the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said in a statement. The statement said lawyers were filing the suit in the US District Court in New York's Southern District.

There were no details about the amount of compensation victims were seeking. An independent panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to study the epidemic issued a 2011 report that did not determine conclusively how the cholera was introduced to Haiti. But the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found that evidence strongly suggested UN peacekeepers from Nepal were the source. — Reuters

Passenger lands plane after pilot falls ill

London, October 9
A passenger with almost no flying experience landed a light aircraft after being talked down by an instructor on the ground when the pilot fell ill at the controls mid-air, a British airport said on Wednesday.

The two men, who had been enjoying a day’s flying, were in a four-seater Cessna 172 when the pilot, who later died, became unwell as they headed back to the small Sandtoft airfield near Doncaster in northeast England on Tuesday.

Having received a mayday message, the plane was divert ed to the Humberside Airport nearby where a flying instructor was called in. — Reuters

Ibne Abbas to be new Pakistan envoy to India

Islamabad, October 9
Veteran Pakistani diplomats Syed Ibne Abbas and Jalil Abbas Jilani would be the new Pakistani envoys to India and the US, respectively, as part of a wide-ranging reshuffle of envoys in key capitals around the world.

Abbas would be replacing current High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir, official sources here said. "Bashir was reemployed after retirement. So the new government is appointing a new envoy," an official source told PTI.

Abbas is a career diplomat and had earlier served as Counsellor (political) at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. He had also served as the Director of the Kashmir Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here and was the Director General of the South Asia division.

His appointment comes at a time when tensions along the LoC have increased. Bashir was appointed as the High Commissioner to India by the previous PPP-led government after his retirement as the Foreign Secretary. — PTI