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Putin: Stability will ROME, June 5: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia was enjoying a period......more
Pak reiterates its offer DUBAI, June 5: Pakistan has reiterated its offer of a dialogue with .......more Lankan media bearing COLOMBO, June 5: "Censored". The Sunday Times newspaper ....more |
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Lanka elections as scheduled, says President COLOMBO, June 5: President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said the general election in the.......more Cobra sneaks into RAWALPINDI, June 5: Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been shifted to a judges’s room at the Attock. ........more US should get tough on Pak, Greece: Comm WASHINGTON, June 5: Pakistan and Greece should be considered as countries "not cooperating fully" in the battle against .......more Jewish women fight orthodox to pray at holy site JERUSALEM, June 5: Paula Hyman defiantly donned her white knitted skullcap while standing beside Jerusalem’s Western wall at Judaism’s ....more Pak religious groups oppose joint electorate system LAHORE, June 5: Religious parties have again urged Pakistan military Government not to revive the proposed joint electorate system for minorities.....more |
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Putin: Stability will help Russia’s growth ROME, June 5: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia was enjoying a period of political stability that had boosted its prospects for economic growth. In an interview published in the financial daily Il Sole 24 ore on the eve of his visit to Italy yesterday, Mr Putin said he believed faster growth hinged on coupling market and democratic principles with "Russia’s peculiarities". "The results of parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia have without a doubt opened prospects of economic development in conditions of prolonged political stability," Mr Putin was quoted as saying. "We will be able to have a good future if we are able to unite the universal principles of market economy and democracy with Russia’s peculiarities." Mr Putin arrives in Rome on Monday for talks with Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. A highlight of the trip is his first audience with Pope John Paul this evening. Tomorrow, Putin travels to Italy’s financial capital, Milan, to meet business leaders. "Our countries have similar problems to solve. Among them, we have to ensure industrial development, reduce unemployment, make social reforms, overcome unbalances in domestic regional development," Mr Putin said. "That is pushing us to further increase Italo-Russian cooperation in economy and trade ...We also think both countries are interested in intensifying cooperation to build European security and strengthen the United Nations’ role in the face of future challenges, such as international terrorism." Italy is Russia’s third most important trade partner among industrialised nations, with over 17 trillion lire (8.21 billion dollars) worth of trade exchanges between this year. Mr Putin invited Italian businesses to invest more in Russia and said new collaborations could be started in the high-tech and scientific sectors. He said he would discuss with business leaders in Milan new cooperation projects in the space, transport and environmental sectors. Two of Italy’s biggest firms, oil giant ENI and car maker fiat are already active in Russia. "We look at Italy as an authoritative partner in the international arena ... We are interested in making our bilateral cooperation an increasingly important factor in European and world politics," Mr Putin said. (REUTERS) |
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Pak reiterates its offer of a dialogue with India DUBAI, June 5: Pakistan has reiterated its offer of a dialogue with India to resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries, particularly Kashmir. "We want a solution to the Kashmir issue that is in conformity with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people." Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said in an interview to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on the eve of his visit to Iran. Observing that the All Party Hurriyat Conference had been emphasising its agenda of "Azadi", he said ``we fully support that agenda.’’ The United States had historically recognised that any durable solution to the Kashmir issue had to take into account the wishes of the people of Kashmir, Mr Sattar said, adding that Washington was pursuing the same policy. "The US as a great power has expressed concern about relations between Pakistan and India. The US President, in his talks with Gen (Pervez) Musharraf on March 25, reiterated his interest in promoting a dialogue for peace between Pakistan and India", the Pakistani Foreign Minister said. Replying to a question on a shift in Washington’s policy for South Asia, Mr Sattar said the shift was natural because of the end of the cold war. The countries which were affected by the ideological rivalries between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war period had to reorient their policies."If any of us has been slow in making adjustment, we ourselves have to be blamed". Mr Sattar said since 1990, Pakistan had not received assistance of any kind from America. The US has policies and we have to adjust to those policies and do what we can to protect our own interests",he stated. He said "it is desirable that we should promote the positive and not all the time talk about negative. We believe that cooperation between the US and Pakistan is mutually beneficial." he said "Pakistan and the US have common interests in trade, in investment. We have intrest in countering terrorism and the terrorist forces in our region and within our own country. We have common interest in promoting peace in Afghanistan". The Pakistani minister said "the American officials have told us that they welcome improvement in relations between Pakistan and Iran and that the US itself would like to see its relations with Iran improved." on Afghanistan, he said his country supported the Iran-led Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) efforts for peace in the trouble-torn country. "In principle, we support the formula of a broad-based representative and multi-ethnic Government in Afghanistan. (But) we do not have a specific view as to how this objective could be achieved", he added. Mr Sattar described Iran as a "cradle of our civilisation" and said Pakistan had fundamental interest in cooperative relations with the Islamic republic. (UNI) |
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Lankan media bearing brunt of censorship COLOMBO, June 5: "Censored". The Sunday Times newspaper splashed the single word across the Op-Ed page after the Government censor spiked its entire report on the escalation of the war against Tamil separatists in Northern Jaffna Peninsula. Iqbal Athas, the writer of the article, had submitted his manuscript to the Government censor ahead of publication, as all journalists reporting about the civil war in Sri Lanka are now obliged to do. It came back with a rubber stamp: "this article, picture/ map are censored and not permitted to be published." "They gave no explanation for censoring the piece," Athas said in an interview. "It was about how the President’s cabinet met and what is happening on the ground in Jaffna. The map just had all the towns in the North ... Something you find in any atlas, and the photo was a generic picture of a multibarrel rocket launcher." Every day, Sri Lanka’s English, Sinhala and Tamil language papers publish truncated news reports and opinion pieces with "censored" in bold type sprinkled across the pages, representing portions deleted by the censor. On May 3, the Government invoked the public security ordinance to ban the media from reporting news that officials think will create public disturbance or harm the national interest. (AP) |
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Lanka elections as scheduled, says President COLOMBO, June 5: President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said the general election in the country will be held as scheduled. Speaking to "Sandeshiya," a Sinhala programme, the President said she was hopeful of overcoming all obstacles, both constitu-tionally and democratically, before the general election. The term of present Parliament expires in August this year and a new election is to be held October. The President has also indicated early lifting of censorship as she thought it was not possible to hold democratic election in the midst of censorship. Meanwhile, media reports quoting Government sources said a new draft constitution will be presented to Parliament in mid-July for discussion. The talks between the ruling Peoples’ Alliance (PA) and opposition United National Party (UNP) on constitutional reforms which started in March this year was to be concluded on May 29, but was extended till June 15. Official sources said immediately after the UNP talks are concluded, the Government hoped to start talks with all Tamil political parties to discuss the reforms and the consensus reached between PA and UNP on the reforms. Several rounds of discussion between PA and UNP have already been held during the past few months. The President had also held discussion with Tamil political parties. Meanwhile, a crucial round of talks between the PA and UNP on constitutional reforms is scheduled for today. Both parties will discuss the most important aspects of the unit of devolution and the nature of the Sri Lankan state during the talks which will be chaired by the President, the sources said. There more meetings between PA and UNP have been fixed for June 9, 12 and 13 to discuss all other issued. (UNI) |
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Cobra sneaks into Sharif’s room: Report RAWALPINDI, June 5: Deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been shifted to a judges’s room at the Attock Fort after he complained that a cobra had appeared in his room, the newspaper reported. Sharif, presently detained at the fort, was given the room of Accountability Court Judge Farrukh Latif. After a complaint by Sharif that a cobra had sneaked into his room, Latif, staying in an adjacent room, offered his room to Sharif which the latter accepted, the daily reported yesterday. Latif has reportedly been shifted to Sharif’s room at the fort. (PTI) |
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US should get tough on Pak, Greece: Comm WASHINGTON, June 5: Pakistan and Greece should be considered as countries "not cooperating fully" in the battle against terrorism and their citizens should be banned from travelling to US without visas, a Blue-Ribbon Commission says. Pakistan provides "safe haven, transit and moral, political and diplomatic support to several groups engaged in terrorism" and greece - a NATO ally - "has been disturbingly passive in response to terrorist activities," according to the US National Commission on terrorism, a panel of private experts and former Government officials. The Commission was created by the U.S. Congress two years ago after bombings of American embassies in Africa. Currently, America allows certain countries’ citizens to visit the United States for three months without a visa. But Congres should ban countries in the "not cooperating fully" category from the visa-waiver program, the Commission said. Right now, only Afghanistan is the only country in the "not cooperating fully" category and Pakistan currently is not in the visa-waiver programme. Greece was just approved for the programme, however. U.S. officials said in February they would continue excluding the country until it tightens its passport procedures against fraud, though. U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright said she hadn’t seen the report but said the Government was looking at what the appropriate means are to deal with this." "As far as Greece and Pakistan are concerned, it is a subject of discussion with them and was raised both when President Clinton and I were in pakistan and in Greece recently," Albright said. "And we are pressing them on it but we are not considering sanctions." (AP) |
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Jewish women fight orthodox to pray at holy site JERUSALEM, June 5: Paula Hyman defiantly donned her white knitted skullcap while standing beside Jerusalem’s Western wall at Judaism’s holiest site. "It feels appropriate, as a sign of respect to god," said the Professor of Jewish history at Yale University yesterday. But for some 40 jeering orthodox Jewish men, the skullcaps worn and the prayers sung by Hyman and around 100 other women who gathered at the wall for early morning worship were a desecration of Jewish law. In traditional Jewish practice, the skullcaps are reserved for male use and public singing by women is shunned. "Go home," shouted a man from behind a metal chain separating the women’s section from the men’s under a status quo arrangement governing secular-religious issues in Israel. In a landmark ruling, Israel’s Supreme Court two weeks ago allowed the women to hold their prayers at the wall and gave the Government six months to set up arrangements for them to pray "according to their custom". The decision protects the women’s legal right to wear the skullcaps, to pray publicly and wear prayer shawls traditionally only worn by men. But objections remain. Reform Jews make up 90 percent of the U.S. Jewish community, but they are a tiny minority in Israel where ultra-orthodox Jewish parties flex political muscle. "You are worse than (Christian) missionaries. You want to destroy our religion," shouted a woman, her head covered by a traditional orthodox headscarf, as the group huddled before the wall, the sole remnant of the biblical temple complex. Police said three young orthodox men were detained for planning to throw eggs at the women who belong to the women of the wall, a group of Jewish women from Israel and abroad waging an 11-year-old battle for the right to pray and sing together. Despite the Supreme Court success, condemned by ultra-orthodox Rabbi Moshe Gafni as a knife in the back to devout Jews, their victory may be short-lived. Parliament last week passed an orthodox-sponsored preliminary bill that would impose a maximum seven-year jail sentence for women who pray at the wall, wear prayer shawls and read aloud from the torah scroll, the five books of moses. "It’s an outrageous law that equates israel with the worst of the fundamentalist countries like Iran and Afghanistan," leftist lawmaker Naomi Chazan told Reuters. Women of the wall has been praying at the wall since 1988 when more than 100 mostly North American women participating in a Jewish Feminist Conference in Jerusalem held the first such service at the site. "Maybe because they were born in a land with a constitution and bill of rights, they were able to integrate their religious and democratic beliefs and asked the one question the Israeli Government is not able to deal with: ‘why not?"’, said Anat Hoffman, a leading member of the group. "I think Israeli women from a very early age have this kind of thinking bred out of them," she said. Women of the wall now has 110 regular attendees, American-and Israeli-born, and works with organisations in the United States and the International Committee for Women of the Kotel (Western wall) based in New York. But not all reform and conservative Jews believe the right for women to pray at the wall is the most pressing issue for their movements, which are struggling to gain a foothold in Israel. A reform movement spokesman said a more crucial matter was recognition of their conversions of non-jews to Judaism — a sticking point with the orthodox who control religious matters from cradle to grave in the Jewish state. But lawmaker Chazan said: "this is a gender issue, it’s a religious issue, it’s a democratic issue about freedom of worship and freedom of choice. It’s everything rolled into one and that’s why its so important." (REUTERS) |
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Pak religious groups oppose joint electorate system LAHORE, June 5: Religious parties have again urged Pakistan military Government not to revive the proposed joint electorate system for minorities. In a joint communique issued yesterday after a meeting organised by the alliance of religious parties - Milli Yakjehti Council - the parties demanded incorporation of all islamic sections of the suspended constitution in the provisional constitutional order, issued by General Musharraf on October 12, last year. They also demanded restoration of weekly holiday on Friday. The meeting of 16 religious parties expressed concern over the continued strike of traders, saying the widening gulf between the traders and the Government was dangerous for the country and both the parties must therefore adopt a middle course. The religious parties maintained that at a time when it was required to build confidence of people and traders, the Government had committed a mistake by implementing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank agenda. "It was unwise on the part of the Government to treat taxpayers and tax evaders equall. It must introduce a tax system whereby everyone could willingly take part in nation-building," they said. The religious parties, in the communique, said instead of getting entrapped into the conspiracies of anti-Pakistan elements, the Government should concentrate on its original agenda, accelerate the pace of accountability and correct the system within the time-frame given by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, talking to reporters, head of the alliance Maulana Noorani said the Government is mistaken if it thought that the religious parties would not take any step to press for their demands. He said the Government could not resolve its own issues by avoiding negotiations with religious parties. Maulana Noorani alleged that the NGOs were working against Pakistan and the Government would be committing a mistake if it tried to change the Islamic identity of the country under pressure from America. The religious parties would not allow it to change the 1973 Constitution. (PTI) |
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