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Significant fall in Indian tourists to Nepal: Official KATHMANDU, Aug 12: There has been a significant decline in the number of Indian tourists to Nepal over the past few months with officials.......more Sino-Pak
border BEIJING, Aug 12: China has asserted that there is no question of reopening the 1963 Sino-Pak boundary ...more China
condemns BEIJING, Aug 12: China has declined to condemn the recent spurt in militant activities in Jammu and Kashmir while.......more Pak
tells US to talk to ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: Pakistan has said that the US should deal directly with Kabul on the issue of Saudi terrorist........more |
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"Sectarian violence NEW DELHI, Aug 12: With the Pervez Musharraf regime still in the process of finalising a long-awaited ordinance ........more Taliban
sentence KABUL, Aug 12: The Taliban’s supreme ruler today sentenced eight foreign aid workers, charged with propagating Christianity, to three to 10 days in jail,.......more Pak
Air Force fighter ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: A Pakistan Air Force fighter plane crashed in rugged southwestern Baluchistan province.........more Police
officers to JALANDHAR, Aug 12 : Police officers, facing criminal cases in a Special CBI Court at Patiala for allegedly . ......more |
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Significant fall in Indian tourists to Nepal: Official KATHMANDU, Aug 12: There has been a significant decline in the number of Indian tourists to Nepal over the past few months with officials here blaming increased travel formalities and the Indian media for scaring away potential visitors. "Though the arrival of tourists on the whole has not gone down, tourist arrivals from India have certainly shown a marked decline in the past few months", Chief Executive Officer of the Semi-Government Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), Pradeep Raj Pandey said here. "There had been a drop in the inflow of Indian tourists ever since the IC-814 hijacking. Anti-Hrithik protests did not help either. Things, however, improved somewhat and till May, we were witnessing a considerable increase in Indian tourist inflow. But then the royal massacre happened and there was a massive drop of 72 per cent in tourist arrivals in June", Pandey said. The drop has severely affected the tourism industry of the Himalayan Kingdom, which receives nearly one-fourth of its tourists from India. "We, in the tourism industry, are heavily dependent on India... (and) we have been severely hit", Pandey lamented. He blames the decline on increased travel formalities, imposed in the aftermath of IC-814 hijack in December 1999. According to the new rules, it is imperative for air travellers from India to Nepal to possess either of the following - a passport, an Election Commission-issued photo identity card or any identification issued by a state/central level authority. Pandey claimed these restrictions were acting as a deterrent for potential tourists. "There have been cases when people have been turned away from the airport for lack of travel documents", he claimed. Pandey said the section of tourists travelling by air is the one which spends the most. "The affluent section is the one which we desperately need. And this is the section which is being blocked", he said. In a desperate bid to attract the summer vacation crowd, NTB launched an ambitious ‘festival of life - fun next door like never before’ on May one, 2001. It was launched in association with nearly 340 restaurants, hotels, shopping arcades and travel agencies. The programme, offering a free privilege card which allows the Indian tourists special discounts and value added services was discontinued following the massacre at the Narayanhity Palace on June one, he said. "It was relaunched on August one and will now continue till the end of September", Pandey said, adding "we have plans for a bigger event next year". (PTI) |
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Sino-Pak border agreement is final: China BEIJING, Aug 12: China has asserted that there is no question of reopening the 1963 Sino-Pak boundary agreement as reportedly offered by Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee during the Agra summit. "As is known to all, the China-Pakistan border issue has been settled long ago," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. Vajpayee told Lok Sabha this week that Musharraf had offered to take back from China part of Kashmir ceded to it if India and Pakistan reached an agreement on the Kashmir issue. He said that during talks with Musharraf, he had raised the issue of one-third of Kashmir which was under illegal occupation of Pakistan, as also a portion of it which Islamabad had gifted to China. However, Pakistan reacted sharply to Vajpayee’s statement terming it "outrageous." "No such discussion took place at any stage," Pakistani foreign office had said in a statement on August eight. India asserts that Pakistan had ceded 5,180 sq km to China under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement. The two countries signed the boundary agreement for the defence of contiguous areas under the actual control of Pakistan. (PTI) |
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China condemns Jerusalem blast, mum on Kashmir BEIJING, Aug 12: China has declined to condemn the recent spurt in militant activities in Jammu and Kashmir while abhorring the terrorist bombing in Jerusalem. The Chinese Government opposes all forms of terrorism. This stand is very clear, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said when asked whether Beijing condemned the recent acts of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. She declined to condemn the actions of Pakistan-based militant outfits in Kashmir, apparently not to hurt the feelings of Beijing’s long-time ally Islamabad. At the same time, the Foreign Ministry came out with a statement on its own to condemn the bomb explosion in Jerusalem on August nine. According to official Xinhua news agency, China has condemned the bomb explosion and said Beijing opposed any form of terrorist action targeting civilians. Commenting on the Chinese response, an analyst said it clearly showed double standards adopted by the communist country on the question of terrorism. "Acts of terrorism cannot be differentiated whether it occurred in Jammu or in Jerusalem," he said. While Chinese scholars privately acknowledge Pakisan’s hand in cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Foreign Ministry does not want to offend Pakistan on the question of Islamabad’s support to militants in Kashmir. Beijing fears that any deviation from the present stand would hurt China’s own national interests in the already restive areas like Xinjiang in the north-west which shares its border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. (PTI) |
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Pak tells US to talk to Taliban directly on Osama ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: Pakistan has said that the US should deal directly with Kabul on the issue of Saudi terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden and not involve Islamabad in it. "We have told the United States that Afghanistan is an independent and sovereign state and Washington should directly contact Kabul on the issue of Bin Laden," Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said. Haider, a close associate of President Pervez Musharraf, also asserted that Pakistan cannot sever relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban regime on the grounds that the western countries have differences with the militia on certain issues. "Afghanistan is an independent and sovereign state and we do not feel any harm in maintaining ties with that country. We have centuries of religious, cultural, social and geographical relations with Afghanistan and the two peoples have personal relations," he told an Arabic magazine. On growing Indo-Iran ties, he said Tehran should not promote relations with New Delhi at the cost of Islamabad as the two countries shared age-old ties which Pakistan wished to strengthen further. (PTI) |
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"Sectarian violence on rise in Pakistan" NEW DELHI, Aug 12: With the Pervez Musharraf regime still in the process of finalising a long-awaited ordinance to check sectarian violence in Pakistan, such incidents have recorded an "alarming increase" in the first half of this year, according to media reports. The reports, quoting Pakistani Interior Ministry data, said the increase in incidents of sectarian violence rose by a whopping 140 per cent in the first five months of this year, compared with the same period in the previous year. While the number of incidents recorded between January and May this year was 58, the figure was 24 in the same period of 2000. The number of those killed in these incidents this year was 108, compared with 37 in 2000, ‘The Nation’ reported. Stating that the Musharraf regime had announced long ago that it would bring about an ordinance to sternly deal with sectarian violence, the daily said "the proposed ordinance continues to travel from one bureaucratic channel to another and the wave of violence continues unabated". It quoted Interior Ministry sources as saying that the law was "still in the process of being finalised" and that it had been decided to provide for banning of sectarian outfits. Another Pakistani journal, `The Friday Times’, quoted police officials as saying that "it is very difficult to clearly identify the sectarian terrorists. Many are part-time Jihadis and most activists are loosely affiliated with more than one group." "There are thousands of activists on both sides and they have been indoctrinated. They are prepared to kill without remorse and there are enough weapons to do the job," the journal said. A new angle in the latest spree of violence was that professionals like doctors and lawyers were being targetted by sectarian outfits, it pointed out. "Police sources confirm that in the past three years sectarian terrorists have specifically targetted professionals, especialy doctors," `The Friday Times’ said. It said the main reason for targetting these professionals was to coerce them into treating the militants or fighting for them in the courts. But the major area of concern was the sectarian angle to these killings, it added. (PTI) |
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Taliban sentence 8 foreign
aid workers KABUL, Aug 12: The Taliban’s supreme ruler today sentenced eight foreign aid workers, charged with propagating Christianity, to three to 10 days in jail, the Taliban’s radio Shariat reported. The aid workers - two Americans, four Germans and two Australians - will be expelled from Afghanistan within 48 hours of serving their sentence, ruled Mullah Mohammed Omar, the radio broadcast reported. The aid workers, who were arrested exactly one week ago, operated shelter now international, which is part of a Germany-based Christian humanitarian group called vision for Asia. Also imprisoned were 16 Afghan staff. A spokesman for the group said that the bibles and other Christian literature, confiscated by the Taliban were for the personal use of the workers. Earlier last week the Taliban displayed several Bibles translated into the local Dari language, as well as Christian films about the coming of Jesus Christ, also translated into Dari language. Salim Haqqani, Deputy Minister of the Taliban’s Ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, says the material was translated into local languages so it could be used to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity. The Taliban, who espouse a strict brand of Islamic law, have forbidden proselytizing. For Afghans the penalty for proselytising is death, but for non-Muslim foreigners it is a jail term and/or expulsion. It was still not clear how the Taliban will rule on the 16 Afghan staff of shelter now international, who have been held in a separate, undisclosed location. (AP) |
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Pak Air Force fighter plane crashes ISLAMABAD, Aug 12: A Pakistan Air Force fighter plane crashed in rugged southwestern Baluchistan province today, the pilot ejected safely, the state run news agency reported. The plane, which was on a routine training mission, crashed near the Samungli air filed on the outskirt of Quetta, the Baluchistan provinvcial capital, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. The agency gave no details about type of the aircraft. There were no casualties or damage at the site of the plane crash, the report said. The air force has ordered an inquiry. (AP) |
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Police officers to return medals JALANDHAR, Aug 12 : Police officers, facing criminal cases in a Special CBI Court at Patiala for allegedly eliminating Sikh youths during the days of terrorism, today said they would return the President’s Police medals on Independence Day. Sardool Singh, a retired SP, at a press conference here, alleged those police officers who were ordered to conduct encounters had not been prosecuted so far and "we have been made scapegoats". In protest, the police officers would return the President’s Police medals, he said. "We strongly demand that either the then senior police officers should be prosecuted or the criminal cases against us should be withdrawan," he said. Earlier, at a special meeting of these police officers it was decided that their families would sit on dharna outside Punjab Vidhan Sabha on August 22, the first day of the Monsoon session. More than 600 police officers are facing criminal cases for allegedly eliminating sikh youths in encounters. (PTI) |
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