The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Afghan rivals study UN vote proposal as Kerry mediates Kabul, July 11 Afghanistan's presidential rivals were today mulling a UN plan for a sweeping review of the disputed polls, as US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to broker an end to the political turmoil. Under a proposal put forward by the United Nations, the country's elections commission would audit ballot boxes from just over 8,000 polling stations where suspicions have been raised about the vote count. The bitter standoff between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani over the run-off vote to succeed President Hamid Karzai has plunged Afghanistan into crisis and raised fears of a return to the ethnic violence of the 1990s. As Kerry met separately with the rival candidates, he stressed that results released on Monday showing Ghani in the lead were only "preliminary". "They are neither authoritative nor final, and no-one should be stating a victory at this point in time," Kerry said, as he held back-to-back meetings in the heavily-fortified US embassy after arriving in the early hours. "We want a unified, stable, democratic Afghanistan. It is important that whoever is president is recognised by the people as having become president through a legitimate process," he said. Despite Monday's announcement, Abdullah, who has already lost one presidential bid in controversial circumstances, has declared himself the true winner, saying massive fraud robbed him of victory in the June 14 run-off vote. In a swift boost for Kerry's diplomatic efforts, Ghani threw his backing behind US calls for a wide audit of the elections. "Our commitment is to ensure that the election process enjoys the integrity and the legitimacy of the people of Afghanistan and the world," Ghani told reporters as the two men met. "Therefore we believe in the most intensive and extensive audit possible to restore faith." UN officials late yesterday presented a plan to outgoing Karzai to audit polling stations across 34 provinces. These would be selected according to five criteria that could indicate voting fraud-such as whether the results were multiples of 50, or where women's polling stations were staffed by men. — AFP A comprehensive audit * A statement from the office of outgoing President Hamid Karzai said UN officials had put forward a plan to audit some 8,000 ballot boxes, representing 43 per cent of the total votes, or around 3.5 million votes. * Auditors may look at districts with a very high turnout, or a perfectly round number of recorded votes, or where the number of women voters outnumbered men, "which in the Afghan context seems like an unlikely outcome". * UN officials have said a full audit of the results could take up to two weeks, but some Afghan officials are pressing to stick by an election calendar that would see the new president inaugurated on August 2. Fears of ethnic violence * Abdullah Abdullah is a former anti-Taliban resistance fighter. He draws his support from the Tajik minority in the north. Ashraf Ghani has strong support from Pashtun tribes in the south and east * The election stand-off has sparked fears that protests could spiral into ethnic violence and even lead to a return of the fighting between warlords that ravaged Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war
	special to the tribune ISIS demanding ‘tax’ from Christians Shyam Bhatia in Baghdad The Jizya sanctioned by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb is being routinely imposed on those parts of Northern Iraq controlled by Islamic extremists belonging to the ISIS terrorist group. Jizya is described as a poll tax specifically aimed at non Muslims and Aurangzeb was the last of the great Mughals who considered it his duty to tax all his non Muslim subjects, whether Hindus, Christians, Buddhists or others. Iraq's ISIS militants, according to government sources in Baghdad, take their cue from a verse of the Holy Koran where the Prophet Mohammed is alleged to have said: "Fight those who believe not in Allah…until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued." In Baghdad Dr Sallama Al Khafaji, a member of the Iraq High Commission for Human Rights, is the source of allegations that ISIS began demanding the Jizya from local Christian families, soon after they over ran the Northern city of Mosul. "The Christians have told me that they cannot pay this tax," Dr Al-Khafaji is quoted as saying, "and they say 'what am I to do, shall I kill myself?' " But Jizya is the least of the worries for non-Muslims living in areas controlled by ISIS intent on enforcing a reign of terror over all those who live in the so-called new Islamic state ruled over by Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. Under Baghdadi's instructions, according to Iraqi government and diplomatic sources, Christian women have been warned that they risk severe punishment if they refuse to wear veils, Islamic style. According to one Arabic website, Al Ghadeer, four Christian women who refused were shot and killed. It was Baghdadi who ordered the detention of Indian, Chinese and Turkish foreign hostages. The Chinese working on a power station near Beiji have been rescued by government troops, drivers working for the detained Turkish Consul General in Mosul have been set free, as have Indian nurses who were working in Tikrit. But the precise whereabouts of 39 other Indian male hostages detained in Mosul are not known. Until two weeks ago they could be contacted via their mobile telephones. Now some of their mobiles are still working but remain unanswered. Meanwhile concern continues to mount over ISIS human rights atrocities. The worst of these appear to be reserved for captured Iraqi government soldiers. Videos published on ISIS supported jihadist websites show Iraqi government soldiers taunted as enemies of God who deserve to be killed.
	30 Ukrainian troops killed in missile attack Kiev/Donetsk, July 11 A rocket attack by pro-Russian rebels on a border post on Ukraine's border with Russia on Friday may have killed as many as 30 soldiers and border guards, an Interior Ministry adviser said, promising swift retribution from Kiev. President Petro Poroshenko called an emergency meeting to discuss what could be the deadliest rebel attack on government forces since the Ukrainian military ended a unilateral ceasefire on June 30. The pro-Russian separatists, who have added powerful weapons to their arsenal, launched a volley of Grad missiles at around 5 am on the border post at Zelenopillya, in Ukraine's easternmost Luhansk region, military sources said. Kiev, which has been trying to take greater control of its border with Russia, blames Moscow for fanning the violence and allowing fighters and high-powered weaponry to cross the frontier from Russia to Ukraine. The attack comes after government forces appeared to be gaining the upper hand in a three-month battle with separatists who have set up 'people's republics' in the Russian-speaking east of the country and said they want to join Russia. Last weekend Kiev scored a notable victory by pushing rebels out of a stronghold in Slaviansk and forced them back in Donetsk, where they have now dug in. — Reuters ‘Kiev will destroy rebels behind attack’ Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Kiev would ‘find and destroy’ the pro-Russian separatists responsible for the missile attack."For every soldier's life, the militants will pay with scores and hundreds of their own. Not a single terrorist will avoid responsibility, each will get what they deserve," he said in a statement on his website following an emergency meeting of security chiefs.
	Gaza toll hits 100 Militants threaten to fire rockets at Israeli airport in Tel Aviv Gaza/Jerusalem, July 11 A fourth day of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 11 more Palestinians on Friday, raising the death toll in the coastal enclave to at least 100, most of them civilians, Palestinian officials said. Facing a possible Israeli ground invasion, militants warned international airlines they would fire rockets at Tel Aviv's main airport. A rocket also caused the first serious Israeli casualty, one of eight people hurt when a fuel tanker was hit at a service station in Ashdod, 30 km north of Gaza Medical officials in Gaza said at least 74 civilians, including 23 children, were among those killed in the unrelenting aerial bombardments which Israel began on Tuesday. A day after US President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he was willing to help negotiate a ceasefire, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the United Nations Security Council to order an immediate truce. But Israel said it was determined to end cross-border rocket attacks that intensified last month after its forces arrested hundreds of activists from the Islamist Hamas movement in the occupied West Bank following the abduction there of three Jewish teenagers who were later found killed. Israeli strikes breaching laws of war, says UN Geneva: Israel could be violating the laws of war by bombing Palestinian homes in Gaza, the UN's human rights office said on Friday. "We have received disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes," said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani. International humanitarian law is UN-speak for the laws of war, and Shamdasani said targeting homes was a violation unless the buildings were being used for military purposes. — Agencies
	Saeed spews venom against India in Lahore Lahore, July 11 Just days after his organisation was declared a terror outfit by the US, Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed, who orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, addressed a seminar at the Lahore High Court spewing venom on India and America. This is the second time that Saeed, who is the founder of banned terror organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba, has addressed lawyers and others within the court premises this year. In May, Saeed, who roams around freely in Pakistan despite being a designated terrorist, was invited as chief guest at the Lahore High Court Bar Association, one of the premier bar associations in Pakistan. At that time, the decision was opposed by a section of the lawyers. Saeed addressed the seminar at the Lahore High Court building organised by the Pakistan Justice Party. Tightening its noose around the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the US had last month added its affiliates, including the JuD to its list of designated terror organisations. — PTI Seminar address at Lahore High Court * This is the second time that Hafiz Saeed (pic), who is the founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba, has addressed lawyers and others within the court premises this year * In May, Saeed was invited as chief guest at the Lahore High Court Bar Association, one of the premier bar associations in Pakistan * At that time, the decision was opposed by a section of the lawyers. Saeed addressed the seminar at the Lahore HC building organised by the Pakistan Justice Party