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PPP rejects LONDON, June 13: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has rejected the "so-called conviction" of its Chief Benazir Bhutto as"an unjust act carried ....more Bush
suspends decision WASHINGTON, June 13: US President George W Bush has suspended for another six months his controversial decision to move the American . ...more Teenage
Sex Traffic into GENEVA, June 13: An increasing number of East European, African and Asian teenagers are being smuggled into the European Union (EU), often to ....more |
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Cautious Pakistan wants LONDON, June 13: Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar has called for normal relations with arch-rival India, but urged caution ahead of an expected ....more Mehdi
Hasan waits to ISLAMABAD, June 13: Thanking Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for his soothing letter and wishing him an early recovery, noted Pakistani ghazal......more Fugitive
on boat linked NICOSIA, June 13: A militant on the run from Lebanese authorities and who fled Cyprus by boat last week is .....more |
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PPP rejects conviction of Bhutto LONDON, June 13: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has rejected the "so-called conviction" of its Chief Benazir Bhutto as"an unjust act carried out on the orders of the Military Dictator General Pervez Musharraf". "The accountability court mechanically carried out the orders of Gen Musharraf. Such orders are illegal and will fail to detract from the democratic movement," the party said. "Gen Musharraf and his regime took advantage of his visit to India to pass the order. They felt that world attention was diverted by the fact that the man who sent Pakistani soldiers to their death in Kargil was now ready to travel to New Delhi in a bid to buy political time," the party said. "Even as Gen Musharraf embraces premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he turns the knife into the back of Pakistan’s elected leaders who gave the country an impregnable defence and economic prosperity," the PPP said in the hard-hitting statement. Describing it as a "shameful act", the party said it would go down in the annals of history as a dark chapter in the country’s history. "Such butchery of justice cannot silence the people nor their democratic aspirations," it said. "The day is near when the people will triumph. History is witness to the triumph of truth and justice against tyranny," the statement said. A Pakistani anti-corruption court had slapped a three-year prison sentence against Bhutto on June 9 for her failure to appear before it in response to summons issued in connection with a disproportionate assets case. (PTI) |
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Bush suspends decision on Jerusalem Embassy WASHINGTON, June 13: US President George W Bush has suspended for another six months his controversial decision to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The new waiver takes effect on June 15, the date he was required by law to act on the matter. In a memorandum to the Secretary of State, Bush said that he has determined that the suspension "is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States," however, he added that his "administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our (American) embassy to Jerusalem." Arab leaders are opposed to the idea of shifting the embassy from Israel to Jerusalem. (PTI) |
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Teenage Sex Traffic into EU on rise, agency says GENEVA, June 13: An increasing number of East European, African and Asian teenagers are being smuggled into the European Union (EU), often to work in the sex industry, a report said today. The International Organization For Migration (IOM) gave no exact figures but said yesterday surveys of Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium left no doubt that trafficking in teenagers was on the rise throughout the 15-member bloc. "There is obviously an increase in the number of minors trafficked for sexual exploitation," the IOM said, adding that others were put to work in illegal factories or sent out on the streets as professional beggars. In Italy, for example, social workers estimate that 16-30 percent of the prostitutes they help are under-age foreigners, the Geneva-based agency said. After being brought across the EU’s porous borders, girls and boys aged 12 to 18 would often seek asylum or residence in a European country before disappearing into the underworld. Residence was easier to obtain for an unaccompanied minor than for an adult because authorities frequently could not simply return a young person to his or her country of origin. Aware of this, smugglers advised teenagers to claim when seeking asylum that they had been left homeless, the report said. Since 1996, the number of young East Europeans, Africans and Asians seeking asylum in the Netherlands had more than doubled to 4,835 in 2000, while in Germany it had doubled to 10,000 last year from 15 years ago. Crime-Europe-trafficking two last geneva with asylum granted, the youths would be sent to reception centres from which they often escaped to work in prostitution and other illegal activities, the IOM said. In the Netherlands, girls from Nigeria or Sierre Leone in particular quickly left the reception centres and some had been found in brothels in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. China was the largest source of immigration by minors into the Netherlands. Many youths arrived claiming to be second children, denied any rights or education at home under begging’s one-child only official policy, the IOM said. In Germany, Rumanian gangs used young Rumanians as thieves. In Italy, young Albanians, Moroccans and Rumanians became street beggars under the orders of adults of their own nationality. Many young people came with parental approval, either because living conditions were harsh at home or because they had been seduced by false visions of quick prosperity in Europe. The IOM said the solution lay in raising public awareness and living conditions in the home countries, while EU states should provide the under-aged with alternatives to illegal work. But it warned EU states against responding with tougher asylum procedures because this could simply drive the young people more firmly into the clutches of criminal networks. "Strict migration policies, combined with the lack of opportunities in their countries of origin, may in fact increase reliance on well-informed traffickers and smugglers," it said. (REUTERS) Y |
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Cautious Pakistan wants ‘normal’ ties with India LONDON, June 13: Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar has called for normal relations with arch-rival India, but urged caution ahead of an expected meeting between leaders of the two states. Pakistan’s Military Ruler General Pervez Musharraf is due to visit Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in New Delhi, although the timing of the key talks is unclear because Vajpayee is recovering from knee surgery. The main issue will be disputed Kashmir. "Pakistan and India have been caught in a time warp for half a century and it is time we moved towards a normalization of relations," Sattar told a news briefing in London, where he met newly appointed Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "We are moving into a future where we should rule out the possibility of another war." But he tempered his optimism by saying that the road to a settlement would be long. "We need to determine a positive direction for the future," Sattar said. "It may take time to find a solution." "I am not sure the positions have been stated in inflexible terms by either side," he said at the Pakistan High Commmission in London. "We (Pakistan) will be going to New Delhi with a positive and an open mind." Sattar said he discussed with straw Pakistan’s timetable for holding democratic elections. The country was suspended from the commonwealth’s main decision-making bodies after a bloodless 1999 coup. "There is a problem of synchronization between the commonwealth expectations of a return to an elected Government in a period of two years and our own timeframe for elections, which extends to three years," he said. He added that people’s perception of the military leadership had changed over time. "With the passage of time a more sophisticated understanding has developed. We had a so-called democracy and now we have a so-called military regime." Sarrat touched on corruption during talks with straw, and explained that it posed as great a threat to the country as the deadly AIDS virus. "Corruption is as malignant as narcotics trafficking. For us it is as bad as AIDS, because it is impoverishing our people." He vowed to continue a crack down on money laundering and corruption, which he said had already netted around 600 million pounds in the last 18 months. (REUTERS) |
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Mehdi Hasan waits to
perform at Vajpayee’s ISLAMABAD, June 13: Thanking Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for his soothing letter and wishing him an early recovery, noted Pakistani ghazal singer Mehdi Hasan has said he looked forward to visit India and perform once again at Vajpayee’s residence. Replying to Vajpayee’s letter written to him last week, Hasan said "I shall be honoured to perform at your place again and consider myself fortunate if I am able to walk through the streets of my native village Luna," Pakistan daily `The Dawn’ reported today. "I am looking forward to the time when I shall be able to overcome the problems caused by the stroke and will be able to perform both in Pakistan and in India, where incidentally my last concert was held," he said. "More than that I am looking forward to the time when the relationship between our two countries will become friendly and the people of the entire subcontinent will join hands to fight disease and poverty," The Dawn quoted him as saying. In his letter Vajpayee had recalled Mehdi Hasan’s performance at his residence in 1978 and had hoped that the singer would be able to visit his native village Luna in Rajasthan. Hasan, who suffered from paralytic stroke and later underwent an operation for hernia is convalescing at his Karachi residence. (PTI) |
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Fugitive on boat linked to Bin Laden: Cypriot NICOSIA, June 13: A militant on the run from Lebanese authorities and who fled Cyprus by boat last week is an associate of Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden, Cypriot newspapers reported today. Cypriot Police, who raised the initial alert on the boat sailing from Lebanon earlier this week, were not immediately available for comment. Two newspapers and a local television station reported the 35-year-old man, whom they identified, was travelling in international waters close to crete on a fishing boat with 50 other people. Police said the other passengers on the boat were immigrants of Arab origin. Cyprus’s Coastguard issued an alert on Monday for interception of the 14-metre vessel which it said sailed from the Lebanese city port of tripoli on June 9. Police said the militant was travelling with an associate and some 4 million in cash. "He was barred from leaving the country legally so he left with immigrants," Cyprus Coastguard Commander Theodoros Stylianou told Reuters yesterday. Bin Laden has been indicted in New York for allegedly masterminding the bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in 1998, killing more than 200 people. He has taken refuge in Afghanistan, where the dominant Taliban has refused to hand him over to the western powers. (REUTERS) |
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