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| Pak sets 90-day
limit to clear Afghan camp ISLAMABAD, July 8: The Pakistani Government intends to clear more than 60,000 Afghan refugees from .....more Pak poet says ISLAMABAD, July 8: Noted Pakistani poet Ahmed Faraz has said it is unrealistic for any one to expect....more Illegal arms flooding into DHAKA, July 8: Illegal arms are flooding into Bangladesh ahead of the country’s October general election, .....more Iran police kill TEHRAN, July 8: Police in southern Iran have killed three drug traffickers in a shoot-out and......more |
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Iraq holds talks
with UN on new oil-for-food deal BAGHDAD, July 8: Iraq is conducting talks with the United Nations on signing a memorandum that would enable it to resume oil exports under the "oil-for-food" programme for another five months, the official Iraqi news agency reported......more Jaffna magistrate COLOMBO, July 8: A Jaffna magistrate has refused to release the 66 Indian fishermen languishing in jails here after being arrested for poaching in Sri Lankan waters........more 2 stabbed, 120 police LONDON, July 8: Two persons were stabbed and 120 police officers injured last night when an anti-racist rally in Bradford predominantly inhabited by people of Pakistan-origin exploded into "the worst violence the ........more |
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Pak sets 90-day limit to clear Afghan camp ISLAMABAD, July 8: The Pakistani Government intends to clear more than 60,000 Afghan refugees from a camp on the outskirts of Peshawar in West Pakistan within three months, the minister in charge of the programme said. Abbas Sarfaraz Khan, minister responsible for camps housing an estimated 1.65 million Afghans, yesterday said he wanted to start a three-month screening programme to determine which residents of Nasir Bagh should be sent home or transferred to other camps. "Within the shortest period time, let me say not even 90 days, we want the screening process to be completed so that camp can be cleared and construction work can start on low-income housing," he said in an interview with Reuters television. The planned clearance of Nasir Bagh to build housing for civil servants is part of a broader clampdown on Afghan refugees, but one that has created friction with the United Nations. The clearing would be followed by screening to remove some 70,000 Afghans huddled in squalid conditions at Jallozai, a makeshift camp with no official status 112 km west of Islamabad. Khan said he was still seeking UN agreement for the UN. High Commissioner for Human Rights to contribute members to screening teams, which have been scaled back from 100 proposed by Pakistan to 30. Khan said those Afghans who met UN criteria for refugee status would not be sent back, but a very large proportion were fleeing economic hardship caused by severe drought in Afghanistan and should return to their homeland. While Khan said he would not use "punitive action" to force refugees from Nasir Bagh, where they have lived since the early 1980s, he said three houses had been bulldozed to symbolise the state’s determination to take the land. Thirty-nine families left for Afghanistan on Thursday in trucks piled with belongings following the Government vow to clear the camp. The original deadline was June 30. "We want to go ahead with the screening," Khan said, "so we can be very clear on who the genuine refugees are and those who are here as common migrants, because we do feel there is a very large proportion of them in these camps." Khan said legitimate refugees would likely be transferred to new Shamshato camp in Peshawar, which has already taken more than planned when the United Nations opened it less than a year ago. "If we find there is not much space left there we have indicated to the UN. We will assist them to try to put up another camp," said Khan, who is also responsible for Kashmir and northern areas of Pakistan. "But the negotiations with local people will have to be conducted by the UN because we are finding a lot of resistance now from locals who are not prepared to give up their land," he said. Khan said he realised conditions inside Afghanistan were very difficult after more than two decades of war and four years of drought. But the peace established in the parts of the country run by the Taliban would allow refugees to go home. (REUTERS) |
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Pak poet says one summit not enough ISLAMABAD, July 8: Noted Pakistani poet Ahmed Faraz has said it is unrealistic for any one to expect breakthrough in the forthcoming Indo-Pak summit but a couple of such meetings could take the two countries closer to a settlement. The Agra summit between Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee alone could not bring any good as "no one can expect the 50-year-old cancer to be treated with two tablets of Aspro," Faraz told reporters at Karachi Press Club yesterday. "It will take couple of such meetings to arrive at a settlement, if this summit remained eventful in terms of results," he said adding if it does then it would be the "century’s biggest happening." Denying reports that he had recently been sent to India as a goodwill ambassador by Musharraf, Faraz said like every Pakistani he is an ambassador of Pakistan but his recent visit to India has no official connotations to it. "I was there for the publication of my books. I was not there on anybody’s behest," Faraz said. "The Government should not mind my personal visit to India because everybody is an ambassador of his country abroad," he said. Faraz said he would leave for New Delhi again on July 13 to take part in a symposium of Indo-Pak poets being organised in connection with the summit on July 14. About his expectations from the summit, he said "no one can say what will be the result of this meeting but the move itself can be deemed as silver lining on very dark clouds." (PTI) |
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Illegal arms flooding into Bangladesh ahead of vote DHAKA, July 8: Illegal arms are flooding into Bangladesh ahead of the country’s October general election, an independent research body said today. Nearly 30 leading crime syndicates have an estimated 50,000 small arms like revolvers, sawn-off rifles and shotguns in their possession, the National Small Arms Forum said. The warning came as outgoing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told her opponents she would not allow them to incite violence in the run-up to the vote. Forum secretary Syed Tamjid-ur Rahman said another 150,000 small arms belonged to over 50 other criminal gangs involved in killings, extortion and hijacking. Arms would play an important part in the run-up to the election, he told Reuters. "The proliferation and misuse of illegal arms are endangering personal security and undermining social justice, development and peace," said Rahman, a development consultant. Political parties and police were not available for comment. Newspapers however gave accounts of rising numbers of political and unexplained killings in recent months. They also reported that even weapons like AK-47 assault rifles had reached hands of hired guns in the country, and that their use, along with explosives, might increase in the run up to the elections. The Forum, in a report made available to Reuters on Sunday, quoted Sheikh Hasina as telling Parliament recently that some 30,000 illegal arms had been recovered by security forces during her rule. Hasina’s five-year term in office expires on July 13, after which she will hand over power to a caretaker authority to oversee the elections. Both the ruling and opposition parties have asked the incoming caretaker authority, to be headed by retired Chief Justice Latifur Rahman, and the Election Commission to launch a vigorous drive to seize illegal weapons to make the voting free and fair. Addressing a meeting of her Awami League, Sheikh Hasina said the party’s workers and activists were being killed every day. "If there is any further attack on my party by any quarter it will not go unchallenged," the official BSS news agency quoted her as saying. A bomb blast, which Hasina blamed on her political rivals, killed 22 leaders and workers of the Awami League last month in Narayanganj, 15 km (nine miles) from the capital Dhaka. Opposition parties led by Hasina’s predecessor Begum Khaleda Zia, head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, have threatened to stage a series of "street shows of strength" starting with a big rally in Dhaka on Monday. (REUTERS) |
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Iran police kill three smugglers, seize drugs TEHRAN, July 8: Police in southern Iran have killed three drug traffickers in a shoot-out and seized two tonnes of opium, state radio reported today. Two traffickers were also arrested and an unspecified number of weapons seized after the clash yesterday in Hormozgan province on the Gulf Coast, the radio said. Iran lies on a main drug transit route from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the so-called "golden crescent", to lucrative markets in Europe and oil-rich Gulf Arab states. The country has an estimated two million addicts and casual users in a population of 65 million. (REUTERS) |
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Iraq holds talks with UN on new oil-for-food deal BAGHDAD, July 8: Iraq is conducting talks with the United Nations on signing a memorandum that would enable it to resume oil exports under the "oil-for-food" programme for another five months, the official Iraqi news agency reported. "Talks are continuing between the United Nations and Iraq to sign the oil-for-food deal," INA quoted Iraq’s UN envoy as saying in a dispatch from New York late yesterday night. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri is expected to sign the Memorandum of Understanding, or MoU, at the beginning of the week, INA said. An MoU must be signed to allow Iraq to sell oil despite being under UN sanctions. The UN Security Council last Tuesday approved a five-month extension, to November 30, of the oil sale programme. Iraq suspended its oil exports on June 4 to protest against a UN-British proposal to revise the sanctions regime. Tuesday’s Council vote did not include those proposals — a political boost for Baghdad. Yesterday, an Iraqi oil industry source played down the significance of any delay in signing the MoU. "We will be on (exporting oil)," the source said. "There are some logistical matters that need to be addressed...But practically there is no problem and we are ready for export." (REUTERS) |
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Jaffna magistrate refuses to release Indian fishermen COLOMBO, July 8: A Jaffna magistrate has refused to release the 66 Indian fishermen languishing in jails here after being arrested for poaching in Sri Lankan waters. The fishermen, all from Tamil Nadu, had moved an application before the magistrate for their release from Jaffna jail. The prosecution said the relevant papers which police sent to the Attorney General have not been returned. Meanwhile, Fisheries and Aquatics Minister Mahinda Rajapakse was quoted by Sri Lanka radio as assuring fishermen from Mannar that stringent action would be taken against those fishing in Sri Lankan waters. They had complained about the entry of Indian trawlers and boats in Sri Lankan waters. From April to June this year, 66 Indian fishermen were nabbed and 15 fishing vessels seized by the navy. Official sources here said 73 Sri Lankan fishermen were lodged in Indian jails on poaching charges. Senior officials of the Indian High Commission here have met the fishermen to inquire about their welfare. (UNI) |
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2 stabbed, 120 police officers injured in anti-racist riot LONDON, July 8: Two persons were stabbed and 120 police officers injured last night when an anti-racist rally in Bradford predominantly inhabited by people of Pakistan-origin exploded into "the worst violence the city has seen". Cars were overturned and set ablaze and petrol bombs hurled at police as more than 500 Asians youths, mostly of Pakistan origin, ran riot, police said today. The clashes began after a group of white youths coming out of a pub shouted racial insults at a crowd of Asian men, who were protesting against the right extreme national front. As the violence escalated and spread from the city centre, two men were stabbed, pub windows shattered, cars set alight and petrol bombs hurled at police. In one of the two reported stabbing incidents, about a dozen Asian youths surrounded a white man, according to a witness. A police spokesperson told PTI that the situation has been brought under control "after hours of senseless criminality." At least 28 people have been arrested. The rioting marked a serious escalation of tension that has been growing in towns including Bradford, Oldham, Burnley and Accrington over the past three months. Many have blamed the trouble on the national front and the British National Party for fomenting racial divisions among deprived communities. Tension was building up in the worst-hit Manningham district area right from yesterday morning. For several hours during the afternoon 200 police had faced peaceful protesters as a planned visit by far-right national front sympathisers failed to materialise - the few supporters who arrived to face the anti-Nazi League were turned back at the railway station. But violence erupted when some national front supporters, wearing their trademark bomber jackets and sunglasses, began shouting racial abuse. A group of mainly asians youths charged up one of the main city centre roads and a fight broke out which spilled into neighbouring streets. As the night wore on the violence got worse - "Wanton and pointless violence, the worst bradford has seen," said Chief Superintendent Stuart Hyde. The Asians, one carrying a Pakistani flag and some chanting ‘Allah Akbar (god is great) went on the rampage. Shoppers, buses, cars and taxis were caught in the crossfire and a pregnant woman had to be led to safety by riot police. Shoppers dashed for cover as bricks and rocks rained down on police lines. Much of the centre of the city was sealed off as Asian youths ran from street to street attacking police, shops and pubs. Mounted police were used against the mobs and two horses were hurt, one of them stabbed. Community leader Mohammed Riaz appealed for calm. "There’s no logic to this," he said. "I cannot believe these scenes." Tahir Hussein, 28, of Bradford, which has an asian population of 10,000, said "some white lads were calling us Pakis and it all went off from there. The police seem "to have lost control." (PTI) |
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