Kulsoom Nawaz

Any move to replace
Sharif to be defeated,
assure PML members

NEW DELHI, July 29: An overwhelming majority of Muslim .....more

Saddam Hussein

Kuwait is thriving
but its citizens still
feel insecure

KUWAIT CITY, July 29: Mohammed races his bright red sportscar down ......more

The two faces of Saddam

BAGHDAD, July 29: They call him a "dictator", the "butcher of Baghdad" and a "Megalomaniac" - there’s hardly an insult that hasn’t been hurled at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yet guests who were welcomed to the West Asian country this year remember his "long, firm handshake" and tell of a "polite, very....more

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee

Vajpayee invited to address
joint session of Congress

WASHINGTON, July 29: Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee has been invited to address a joint session of Congress during his forthcoming visit to Washington. Speaker of the US House of Representatives J Dennis Hastert today formally extended an invitation to Vajpayee, through the Indian Embassy to address........more

Any move to replace Sharif to be defeated,
assure PML members

NEW DELHI, July 29: An overwhelming majority of Muslim League members of Pakistan’s dissolved Parliament have assured deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz that any move to replace Mr Sharif as party president would be defeated.

The central executive committee and the parliamentary party of the Muslim League is meeting tomorrow to take stock of the situation arising from the national accountability court’s sentence to Mr Sharif recently.

Radio Zahedan’s Urdu Service reported from Lahore last night that 80 members of the dissolved Parliament have assured Ms Kulsoom that they will not allow any change in leadership of the party in the Sunday meeting.

Tomorrow’s meeting is expected to be stormy as a section of the party leadership has been demanding replacement of Mr Sharif. Raja Zafarul Haq, who has been acting as party coordinator in Mr Sharif’s absence has emerged as the favourite for the post. His meeting with Gen Pervez Musharraf early this month had raised speculation to this effect and about his own subsequent agenda.

Ms Kulsoom Nawaz has told the press that only a small section of the party’s senior rung is demanding change in leadership. According to her, the masses are still with Mr Sharif and said she would continue to work for the removal of the military Government.

Her assertion received a setback recently when Mr Sharif’s brother Shahbaz Sharif, too, suggested change in the party leadership. (UNI)

Kuwait is thriving but its citizens still feel insecure

KUWAIT CITY, July 29: Mohammed races his bright red sportscar down Kuwait’s seaside highway, trying to catch the attention of some Kuwaiti girls adjusting their hair and make-up while driving equally luxurious cars.

The flirtatious parade is a daily event for carefree teenagers in this country some of whom were just turning eight or nine years old when Saddam Hussein marched Iraqi troops over the border to occupy their homeland on August 2, 1990.

The Kuwait highway spectacle is a stark contrast to the parades of Iraqi mothers who stream through Baghdad’s streets every Friday carrying their children’s caskets on the way to burial. The children in Iraq are victims of food and medicine shortages from the 10-year United Nations trade embargo imposed on Iraq as punishment for invading its Southern neighbour.

Ten years ago the world had sympathy with oil-rich Kuwait as a victim of Iraqi terror during its seven-month occupation that ended with the 1991 Gulf war - fought by a US-led military coalition.

On the surface the signs of that dark era have all but disappeared from the emirate which is experiencing a new oil boom as a result of high oil market prices.

"We have forgotten about those occupation days, that sick time thank god. It’s better that way, I am busy with my wife and baby," said Abdul Aziz filling up a grocery basket at a local supermarket. The former member of the Kuwaiti resistance who, unlike many of his compatriots, stayed inside the occupied country said it took him years to get over the lingering paranoia and nightmares of that guerilla war.

But underneath the fighter’s apparent emotional recovery, and beneath the veneer of the flashy cars, lavish spending, and economically secure lifestyles of the average Kuwaiti family there lies an insecurity. They worry about what might come next from the northern neighbour which has been mending political fences throughout the Arab and Gulf world.

Baghdad has reestablished diplomatic ties and opened embassies in four - Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates - of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states that backed Kuwait during the Gulf war.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait stand alone in the GCC keeping ties frozen with iraq until baghdad meets all UN, Gulf war-related resolutions including the return of stolen property and disclosing the whereabouts of some 600 Kuwaiti and other prisoners of war still thought to be held by Iraq.

Most educated Kuwaitis are aware of the diplomatic headway Iraq is making regarding it as something like a dull headache.

For someone like Mariam Al-Jassem, who herself was held prisoner and tortured by the Iraqis for four months - her pain, a different type, lingers as she waits for her pow son Meshal to come home. Taken as a teenager, Meshal would be nearing 30 soon.

"I won’t feel good until he is back," she said.

Although Washington keeps as a deterrent, a sizable military presence in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and offshore, Kuwaitis still feel uneasy.

"For me, it seems like only yesterday the iraqis were here. The feeling lingers because the problem lingers," said Kholoud Al-Feeli a Kuwaiti journalist.

Kuwaiti veteran political writer Hussein Abdul Rahman put it like this: "After 10 years the view should be clear about iraq. But it isn’t. We don’t know, or trust how United States policy might change in the region. Iraq is rebuilding its missiles and weapons. The UN lost control there. It is like being in a dark tunnel, seeing no light, not knowing which way is out," he said.

True, UN weapons teams have done no work in Iraq since 1989 and since then pentagon analysts warn that Saddam Hussein has been rebuilding his war machine.

No one knows exactly how the world body expects to reestablish another weapons inspection team in Iraq, if ever.

What Kuwaiti officials do know is that the United States, along with other allied powers, continues trying to sell billions of dollars of weapons to the Gulf state.

Washington is also pushing hard for Kuwait, along with the other Gulf states to purchase collectively a several billion-dollar state-of-the-art radar and anti-missile defence system to protect against any potential aggression.

Some Kuwaitis have found other ways to ease their insecurity. Those, who could afford it have purchased second homes in other arab countries such as Lebanon or Egypt. "I would too, if I could. It would be a place to go - just in case," said Ali, a Kuwaiti oil worker. (DPA)

The two faces of Saddam

BAGHDAD, July 29: They call him a "dictator", the "butcher of Baghdad" and a "Megalomaniac" - there’s hardly an insult that hasn’t been hurled at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Yet guests who were welcomed to the West Asian country this year remember his "long, firm handshake" and tell of a "polite, very hospitable man able to conduct the intelligent, historically -informed conversation with a high degree of concentration."

Visitors are struck by Saddam’s "penetrating glance" as well as by his "incredibly self-confident demeanour". Saddam frequently corrects interpreters as they put his Arabic remarks into English Saddam is also convinced that the "Arab nation" is behind him and that Iraq will ultimately surmount all obstacles in its way.

"If you didn’t know who you were dealing with you would think you had just met a perfectly normal, cordial person," said one politician who prefers not to be named.

In what has become a standard work "the republic of fear", Iraqi Kanan Makiya describes Saddam Hussein’s political style as a blend of "mistrust, suspicion, conspiracy and fraud". Like the old leaders of Mesopotamia Saddam is more afraid of losing face than he is of the entire United States arsenal."

Born in the village of Auja near Ikrit on April 28, 1937 Saddam grew up fatherless and among petty criminals. He quickly learned to prevail and use weapons to rid himself of opponents. His second tenet was equally writ large: you don’t get anywhere without a strong family behind you.

In 1963 Saddam married his cousin Sajida and so entered the sphere around the subsequent President Hassan El-Bakr, who he succeeded in July 1979.

Since that time the three Abu-Nasir clans, with whom Saddam is related, have occupied all the key posts in the state, the security apparatus and the army.

During three decades at the top Saddam has left behind a bloody trail. A coup in 1968 was followed by show trials against Jews, the persecution of Shiite Muslims and Communists, the execution of opponents in the party and army, eight years of war against Iran, a poison gas attack against Kurds in August 1908 and finally the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Saddam also has a vision - using weapons of mass destruction to turn Iraq into the leading Arab and regional superpower and protective force and he does not take kindly to people who stand in his way.

It seems he did not see eye-to-eye with his brother-in-law, former Defence Minister Adnan Khairallah, who died not long afterwards in a helicopter crash in May 1989.

Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamil also learned that family ties are no guarantee for longevity and after his flight to Jordan in 1995 and spectacular return with numerous assurances about his future well-being the man was shot dead in February 1996.

Despite the debilitating effect of United sanctions, observers agree that Saddam still has his hands firmly on the reins of power. According to the U.S. Business magazine forbes, Saddam’s private fortune has increased in the past two years from three to five billion U.S. dollars, enough to buy the loyalty of a lot of people.

Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter believes there is "virtually no chance whatsoever" of Saddam being overthrown from within. Every officer is a product of post-1968 Iraq, that is after the Baath party seized power that year.

In addition, the years of confrontation have enabled Saddam to forge a "unique Iraqi identity" and a "perverted sense of pride" at having defied the west for so long.

Ritter regards it as "unthinkable" that Iraqis would want to take "Fort Saddam" by storm. Special security units along with the four brigades of Republican guards provide complete bodily protection.

Key members of the closer circle are the 40 Murafiqin or Escorts. They search the rooms where Saddam sleeps, the vehicles used to transport him and even the fishing rods used if a spot of angling is on the agenda.

At the top of the pyramid are Saddam’s four closest associates, his son Kussia in charge of security, "troubleshooter" and cousin Ali Hassan El Madshid, bodyguard Rokan Abdel Ghafur, and the second most influential man in Iraq, administrative secretary Abid Hamid Mahmud. (DPA)