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George
Bush proposes PHILADELPHIA, May 15: Wading into the contentious issue of guns in America, President George W Bush has.......more
Human
capacity BEIJING, May 15: Chinese President Jiang Zemin today cautioned developing countries against lagging.......more |
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Militant outfits clinch a NEW DELHI, May 15: Several major Islamic fundamentalist and militant outfits, which were openly carrying out recruitment and fund-raising drives in different parts of Pakistan, have now "agreed" to the Musharraf regime’s appeals to be discrete about their activities with the Government promising not to actively pursue them......more Women
a guiding force TAIPEI, May 15: When Taiwan’s most devastating earthquake in half a century struck the island in 1999, among the first rescuers to reach the disaster zone was a Buddhist-run organization spearheaded by a nun........more Elections
in DHAKA, May 15: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said elections will be held in late September or early October this year as the opposition turned down her offer for early polls. "Opposition leader Khaleda Zia, by not accepting my offer for early election, has......more |
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George Bush proposes hiring scores of gun prosecutors PHILADELPHIA, May 15: Wading into the contentious issue of guns in America, President George W Bush has announced a plan to hire scores of new federal, state and local attorneys to boost prosecution of gun crimes. The program, called project safe neighborhoods, would cost more than 550 million dollars over two years. A portion of the money has already been budgeted, while some would have to be approved by Congress. "We’re going to reduce gun violence in America, and those who commit crimes with guns will find a determined adversary in my administration," Bush said yesterday in making the announcement in Philadelphia to an audience made up largely of police officers and associations. The program would carry through on a Bush campaign pledge to enforce existing gun laws, the typical Republican answer to appeals from democrats for more gun control in the country. In advance of the Nov. 7 election, republican candidate Bush blasted President Bill Clinton for failing to enforce current gun laws and said there had been a 46 percent decline in prosecutions under his democratic administration. As Bush made his visit, an anti-gun group called Americans for gun safety ran a 60-second radio ad attacking Bush for not doing more to require background checks at gun shows, where criminals can go to buy guns when blocked by doing so due to the background system in place at licensed gun stores. "No one may buy a gun at a pennsylvania gun show without a background check," the AD said. "But felons in 32 states can get guns at gun shows with no questions asked and resell them on the street." Bush supports requiring unlicensed gun dealers to conduct instant background checks at gun shows but opposes the extended check of up to three days allowed under the Brady Handgun Law. Nineteen senators, guardedly hopeful of congressional passage but uncertain about whether Bush will sign it, introduced a bill last month to plug the so-called gun-show loophole. A similar version died in Congress last year. Senators John McCain, an arizona Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut democrat, rivals of Bush in the 2000 White House race, plan to introduce their own joint legislation today to eliminate the gun-show loophole. The program Bush announced is based on project exile, which originated in Richmond, Virginia, in 1997 and has spread statewide as well as to Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, Bush’s home state, and to about a dozen local communities, including Philadelphia. Under details of the plan announced by Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the program over two years will cost 550 million dollars, including 15.3 million dollars to hire 113 new federal prosecutors to work full time on gun cases. Some 75 million dollars will fund 600 new state and local gun prosecutors. That money is already in the justice department budget. And 44 million dollars would go to improve state criminal record keeping, and another 28.8 million dollars would expand and integrate federal computerized ballistic testing. Another 19.1 million dollars would expand a program by the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms aimed at preventing youths from obtaining guns. (REUTERS) |
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Human capacity building vital for all: Chinese President BEIJING, May 15: Chinese President Jiang Zemin today cautioned developing countries against lagging behind in developing human resources and strengthening human capacity building since it has become a decisive factor that has a bearing on the development of all countries. "In today’s world, personnel training and human capacity building are of increasingly decisive significance in the competition of overall national strength," he said addressing the two-day Asia Pacific Economic Council (APEC) meeting on human capacity building here. To strengthen human resources development and human capacity building never looked so important and so urgent as it does today. Noting that mankind now faces new challenges and new development opportunities, Jiang, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party, said for centuries, mankind has been exploring resources on earth for its survival and development. Though many countries have taken steps to boost human resources development and capacity building and have achieved tangible results, human capacity building, on the whole, lags far behind the requirement of development, he said. He pointed out to such problems as scarcity in professionals, irrational and unjust phenomenon in global competition for talents and the widening gap in human capacity building in developed and the developing countries. "Failure to address these problems effectively hinders the development of these countries," Jiang said adding "we shoulder a common responsibility for the world’s future". Jiang said the convention of the APEC high-level meeting in Beijing is of great significance for promoting human capacity building in the Asia-Pacific region. The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah was also present at the meeting It is the first time in the history of APEC that a high-level meeting is devoted to the human capacity building with the presence of heads of state. Government officials, business leaders, educationists and scholars from 21 APEC countries are expected to hold extensive discussions on challenges of the new economy, strategies and policies in human resources, and co-operation among members at the meeting. (PTI) |
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Militant outfits clinch a deal with Musharraf regime NEW DELHI, May 15: Several major Islamic fundamentalist and militant outfits, which were openly carrying out recruitment and fund-raising drives in different parts of Pakistan, have now "agreed" to the Musharraf regime’s appeals to be discrete about their activities with the Government promising not to actively pursue them. Pakistani media reports say that ‘Jehadi’ outfits carried out "prolonged negotiations" during the past few weeks with Pakistani security agencies and decided to carry out their activities without getting into media focus. "After prolonged negotiations with the Government agencies, the mainstream religious organisations (SIC) involved in armed struggle against the Indian armed forces in Kashmir, have agreed to be discrete in their drive to collect donations and recruit volunteers," Pakistani daily `The News’ said in a recent article. "In return, the Government has decided not to pursue -too aggressively - its pledge to force the closure of all such activities," it added. Even former Premier Benazir Bhutto said in a recent article that the main agenda of these groups was "to gain time and create a parallel armed force. One that can take on the regular armed forces should a slowdown be called for". In her article in ‘The News’, Bhutto said "the militants already field an irregular force of one hundred and fifty thousand. In ten years, they hope to have half a million men under arms." A foreign journalist Yvette Claire Rosser wrote in ‘The Friday Times’ that the possibility of an armed uprising by "half million strong, gun toting, Madrassa trained, conservative militant Jehadis .... Is more frightening and imminent than an American or European can fathom." In the same vein, senior leader of the Awami National Party Asfandyar Wali writes in ‘The News’ that there was "complete Talibanisation" of several areas of the federal areas, Quetta, Bannu, Hangu and Laki Marwat. "Where is the state authority when private homes are broken into and their television sets taken away? if the state continues to keep its eyes closed, there would be complete anarchy. ..... If state authority collapses, forces would be of the fundamentalists and no force in the country would be able to take them on," Wali wrote. An article in ‘The Nation’ has estimated that number of armed militants could range even upto 300,000. It says that while the Army can at present "certainly take them on, but there is also the justified fear that the militants have sympathisers in the Army at every level. Some 20 per cent of the Army are fundamentalists, even though we are constantly informed that the army is a highly disciplined force." Columnist M H Askari wrote in ‘Dawn’ about the "rising sectarian and factional violence" in the country. "The growing defiance of the Government’s writ by the more militant among the religious parties and the setting of a deadline by an Islamist group for the introduction of Shariat in Pakistan are a clear indication of the daring that some outfits are showing in their bid to turn Pakistan into a theocratic state," he said. This, Askari said, was "not without implications for Pakistan’s internal peace and stability, already under strain from the growing militancy of religious forces on one hand and sectarian strife on the other". (PTI) |
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Women a guiding force in Taiwan Buddhism TAIPEI, May 15: When Taiwan’s most devastating earthquake in half a century struck the island in 1999, among the first rescuers to reach the disaster zone was a Buddhist-run organization spearheaded by a nun. Its founder, the venerable Cheng Yen, set up the Buddhist compassion relief Tzu Chi Foundation in 1966 to promote charitable causes and has since emerged as one of the most influential voices on social and religious issues on the island. "If people think of a large modern socially active kind of Buddhism, it really is Tzu Chi in the public eye," said Elise Anne Devido, Secretary General of the RICCI Institute for Chinese Studies in Taiwan. The role of Cheng Yen in Taiwanese society illustrates the unique importance of women in the Buddhist clergy on the island that is in sharp contrast to some other parts of Asia. In Taiwan there are an estimated 22,500 fully ordained nuns, also known as Bhikkhunis, or female monks, three times the number of male monks and more than anywhere else in the region. With their shaved heads and loose-fitting tunics, they are a common sight, not just on the island’s streets, but even on television. The Tzu Chi Foundation, for example, has its own Cable TV station broadcasting religious programmes and lectures by well-known monks, both male and female. Researchers say the prominence of Bhikkhunis is unique to Taiwan - where the Mahayana School of Buddhism is dominant - because the full ordination of female monks has met with resistance from male monastics in other countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, over the centuries. Buddhism originated in India, but later developed into Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana schools. Sri Lanka, for example, is currently the only Theravada Buddhist country to have a community of Bhikkhunis. In contrast, at Taiwan’s largest Buddhist monastery in the southern part of the island, women outnumber men two to one. "Fo Kuang Shan itself has more than 1,300 fully ordained monastics, two thirds of which are Bhikkhunis," said the order’s venerable Chueh Men. The monastery holds full ordination ceremonies once every two years and has in the past ordained female monks from countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Germany, she said. Unlike Thailand or Tibet where it is considered a great honour for a family if a son pursues a religious vocation, the status of monks in Chinese society has traditionally been low and seen as an option for orphans or the poor. Such attitudes were to a great extent shaped by confucianism, with its emphasis on filial piety and the need for sons to continue the family lineage, researchers say. As a result, early Buddhist academies on the island were forced to open their doors to women as a means of expanding numbers and their presence in society. For women, meanwhile, the religious life offered an escape from poverty and the constraints of marriage, as well as a channel for education they would otherwise have been denied. Yet it wasn’t until 1953 - following the arrival of monks who had fled the mainland at the end of a civil war in 1949 - that female Buddhist devotees were fully ordained as Bhikkhunis for the first time in Taiwan. Female Buddhist practitioners played a key role in providing support to the mainland monks who lacked the contacts and numbers to carry out their proselytization activities alone. By the mid-1980’s and the onset of an economic boom, institutionalized Buddhism in Taiwan had grown to the extent that Buddhist orders were sending their most promising students, including female monks, overseas to complete degrees in education sciences or even undertake MBA courses. But perhaps another factor has also helped prevent a gender barrier developing in Taiwan buddhism. As the most widely worshipped deity on the island, Kuanyin, the goddess of mercy, has made buddhism more accessible to many women and encouraged their involvement in religious life. "The belief in Kuanyin was the point of entry for many taiwanese women to Buddhism and perhaps even to becoming a nun," said Devido at the RICCI Institute. "It wasn’t a foreign concept ... It would be like praying to mary (in catholicism)." (DPA) |
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Elections in Bangladesh by early October: Hasina DHAKA, May 15: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said elections will be held in late September or early October this year as the opposition turned down her offer for early polls. "Opposition leader Khaleda Zia, by not accepting my offer for early election, has virtually created the scope for me to complete my tenure," she told a meeting of Bangladesh community at the Vub University Hall in Brussels yesterday. Hasina said the next session, beginning on June six, would be the last session of the country’s seventh Parliament when her Government will place the national budget for 2001-2002 fiscal. The Parliament will also complete its full five-year term creating a new history, she said. Since independence in 1971, no Parliament could complete its term because of political turmoil. The tenure of present Parliament will end on July 13 this year. Hasina, who will return home tomorrow (Wednesday), after attending the 3rd LDC conference said her opponents have ended up in frustration in dislodging her Government through movement as people did not respond to the opposition agitation. Sheikh Hasina, eldest daughter of slain independence leader and country’s founding president Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, came to power on June 23, 1996 after her party Awami League won the election after 21 years. She had offered election in June, but the four-party opposition alliance led by former premier and BNP chief Khaleda Zia rejected the proposal and favoured non-stop strike to force her out of power. Despite a series of marathon hartals in April, Khaleda’s camp failed to pull down the Hasina Government. The opposition is now concentrating on electioneering virtually withdrawing from street agitation. The Prime Minister said having failed in the movement, the opposition parties tried to create a law and order situation by killing people in the name of hartal. They also tried to create anarchy by "killing police in mosque" tarnishing the image of religious institutions, she said. Referring to BDR-BSF border clashes last month, Hasina said her Government does not have any conflict with neighbours and resolved all problems successfully by initiating quick actions and through diplomatic efforts. "Awami league, with the help of the people, earned the independence of the country and it is ready to make any sacrifice to protect sovereignty and independence. On the question of independence, the Awami League will be the first to give blood." But, she regretted that the opposition party, instead of extending support during the national crisis, had "tried to gain some political interest out of the trouble." Hasina said the Government is forming a task force to solve all border problems through negotiations with India. (UNI) |
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