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Gandhi dismissed VARANASI, Oct 2: Fears of an "Afghan invasion", real or imaginary, dominated the Indian political scene in one of the most........more Terrorist
attacks cost NEW YORK, Oct 2: The terrorist attacks are expected to cost the New York economy a whopping 60 billion dollars in material...more Call
by Laden before NEW YORK, Oct 2: Osama Bin Laden telephoned his mother in Syria the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks to tell....more ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks on the United States has dug himself for the.......more |
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Invisible children are QUETTA, Oct 2: Ansa is five years old and has typhoid. She lies on her back in her white hospital bed, dressed in a traditional afghan dress of dark blue, embroidered with tiny mirrors. ........more LONDON, Oct 2: As great inventions go, e-mail had a rather ho-hum beginning back in 1971. .....more Taliban
try to shore up ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Turning to defence rather thannegotiation, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban raced today toprop up old alliances, woo new .........more Taliban
backers march QUETTA (PAKISTAN), Oct 2: Thousands of supporters of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers marched through the streets of the Pakistan border city of ........more |
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Gandhi dismissed ‘Afghan invasion bogey’ to concentrate on freedom movement VARANASI, Oct 2: Fears of an "Afghan invasion", real or imaginary, dominated the Indian political scene in one of the most crucial phases of the country’s freedom struggle in the 1920s. Mahatma Gandhi, then leading a wider Hindu-Muslim alliance during the non-cooperation and Khilafat movement against British colonialism, dealt with the issue of an Afghan threat and cautioned the people not to be misled by British propaganda aimed at creating a wedge between Hindus and Muslims. In the early 1920s there was unease on the Afghan British Raj borders and a few clashes were reported there involving the Afghan and British Indian Army. The British establishment played up the clashes to warn the people that an Afghan invasion was imminent. Gandhi wrote an article in young India (May 4,1921) entitled "The Afgan Bogey" in an attempt to keep intact the coalition of "non-cooperation-Khilafat movement" and convey to the Indian people his assessment of the Afghan problem and prevailing world situation. He said, "I warn the people against believing in the bogey of an Afghan invasion. Their (British) own military writers have often let us into the secret that many of the punitive expeditions were manufactured for giving the soldiers training or keeping idle armed men occupied." Top leaders of the Khilafat movement, the Ali brothers, Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, were vocal in advocating support to the Amir of Afghanistan in the event of a war between Afghanistan and British Raj. Their remarks served as a warning to the British establishment and even some nationalist leaders expresse reservations on the stand taken by the Khilafat leaders. Gandhi, however, was clear on the issue. He said,"I would in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a Government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power." Reminding the people of the "national goals" Gandhi said, "on the other hand, I would not ask Indians to raise levies for the amir. That would be against the creed of non-violence accepted by both Hindus and Muslims for the purpose of the Khilafat and Swaraj." Gandhi, who saw behind the reason for raising of the "Afghan bogey", wrote "my belief is that the anxiety of the Government always to have a treaty with the Amir of Afghanistan was based, not so much upon the fear of a Russian invasion as upon the fear of losing the confidence of the Indian soldiery - the Sikhs, Gurkhas and the Pathans. Today there is certainly no fear of a Russian invasion. I have never believed in the Bolshevik menace." In the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Gandhi was critical of the British Government which was shielding the butcher of Jallianwala - General Dyer. In a devastating attack on the British Government, he wrote in young India (June 1,1921) "my reading of history is that they (British) do not yield to justice pure and simple. It is too abstract for their "common sense". But they are far-seeing enough to respond to justice when it is allied with force. Whether it is brute force or soul force, they do not mind." Gandhi believed that the soul force of Indians was far superior than the brute force of the amir of afghAnistan. Gandhi also had a word of advice for the Amir of Afghanistan. "It is the duty of the every non-cooperator to let the Afghans know that he believes in the capacity of non-cooperation to restore the Khilafat to the pre war status, and that India does not want their armed intervention, that non-cooperators would appreciate their refusal to enter into any deal with the British Government by holding India in subjugation, and that India has none but the friendliest feeling for her neighbours." (UNI) |
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Terrorist attacks cost New York $ 60 bln dollars: Report NEW YORK, Oct 2: The terrorist attacks are expected to cost the New York economy a whopping 60 billion dollars in material, property and casualty losses, with billions more expected in the ripple effect from last month’s terror attacks, the New York Daily News said. New York city’s economy of 500 billion dollars represents about 5 per cent of the US Gross National Product. The newspaper said the economic aftermath was expected to include property insurance payouts of 25 billion dollars, more than the largest insurance payout in US history to date for 1992 hurricane Andrew of 19 billion dollars and life insurance payouts of 2 to 5 billion dollars. The destruction by hijacked passenger planes of the world trade center, where more than 6,000 of its 50,000 workers are presumed dead, has left about 108,000 people unemployed, the newspaper said. It said federal officials expect at least 700,000 of the city’s 4 million jobs to be affected in some way. Lost city tax revenue is estimated at three billion dollars. With the drop in travel to the jittery city, another 7 million dollars a day is being lost by the hotel business, where occupancy has dropped to 30 per cent from its normal 90 per cent. Businesses that are feeling the economic aftershocks include news stands, restaurants, department stores, supermarkets, and the entire business and trade structure in southern Manhattan. The twin attacks on the two towers on September 11 hit at the heart of the US and global finance system, and have triggered plunging stock market values, the largest since the depression era. (DPA) |
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Call by Laden before attacks is reported NEW YORK, Oct 2: Osama Bin Laden telephoned his mother in Syria the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks to tell her that he could not meet her there because "something big" was imminent that would end their communications for a long time, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The paper quoted a senior foreign official, speaking on the condition of not being named, as saying the account was obtained through an interrogation of Bin Laden’s extended family in Saudi Arabia. If accurate, the account would represent the clearest evidence to date tying Bin Laden to the attacks. But senior American law enforcement officials told the times they knew nothing of the conversation, although they acknowledged some information was so tightly held in the Bush administration that only a handful of people at the white house, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency might be aware of it. The foreign official said the telephone call did not come to light until after September 11 and was uncovered only as investigators for a foreign intelligence agency searched for evidence relevant to the attacks. Details of the conversation were first reported by NBC news. Bin Laden’s mother, a member of the Alawite Sect in Syria, took the phone call from her son while she was vacationing in Damascus, the capital, where she has met with him in the past, the official said. After she returned home to Saudi Arabia on September 12 and learned of the terrorist attacks in the United States, she and members of her traveling party were interrogated by the police. (DPA) |
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ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 terror attacks on the United States has dug himself for the eventual showdown at a state-of-the-art military base, set in an extremely inaccessible nook of Pamir mountain range, a newspaper said today. The news said after innumerable checks and counter-checks through satellite and human intelligence, the American and the allied forces in Afghanistan were convinced that Bin Laden was hiding in pamir mountain range. This sets at rest speculation that Bin Laden and his close aides were hiding in caves dug in a desolate province on the northeast of Kandahar, Ourzugan. The newspaper said Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar was born and brought up in tarin kot town of this province. The desperate "informants" from within the Northern Alliance kept telling the US and its allies that Bin Laden would always feel secure while staying put in the home province of the Taliban leader, it said. The news said to provide ‘the deceptive substance’ to suspicions of his being in ourzugan, Bin Laden and his protectors among the Taliban also plied truckload of provisions to this town from 15th to 20th of this month. The purpose was to create the illusion that Bin Laden’s outfit, the Al-Qaeda was storing provisions to survive in hiding. Some ‘deceptive shapes’ were also created close to some sites in Jalalabad. Britain almost got convinced and appeared rushing for an assault on the said sites. However, the newspaper said Russians were the first to point out a nook in the heights of Pamir mountain range as the possible hideout of the world’s mos wanted man. The Russian intelligence officers also provided route maps to this location to the US forces. Shaped like a panhandle, the marked place has exit routes to three countries. Tajikistan and Pakistan’s northern areas are located in the north and south of it. After turning to the east from this point, there is the Muslim-majority province of China, Xinjiang. The peaks of this range average 20,000 feet while the highest point goes up to 25,000, the news said. Russians were the first to discover the strategic potential of the point called little pamir. During the presence of the USSR troops in Afghanistan, the area was virtually taken over by the former Soviet Union. Pakistan and its allies during the Afghan war made a lot of noise over the "surrender of Wakhan Corridor" to the soviets. But no one could really discover that the soviets were storing the nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles there. That was done with the purpose of providing Moscow with "third strike capability" in case of an atomic war, the newspaper said. Even after the withdrawal of the soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1988, Moscow kept controlling and maintaining the said base till the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. The Saudi fugitive got to know the strategic worth of this base through contacts he cultivated among the Kyrgyz and Kazakh citizens, who joined the Afghan war in mid 1985. Immediately after pushed to war-torn Afghanistan from Sudan because of the American and the Saudi pressure in 1994, he took control of the site, the news said. The base had the supply of electricity in abundance after the Russians abandoned it. Coming from a family of established builders, Bin Laden had no trouble in reconstructing the place as an ultimate citadel, it said. The base has a huge storage capacity where hundreds could survive for years while staying put at this base. "The residential quarters" of it is "buried" well under the mountains south of the Sari Qul Valley, a spot on the Tajik frontier north of Buzai Gumabad. "An alternative fort" is also erected there, in northeast of wakhyir which has exit routes to China, the newspaper said. (UNI) |
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Invisible children are victims of Afghan crisis QUETTA, Oct 2: Ansa is five years old and has typhoid. She lies on her back in her white hospital bed, dressed in a traditional afghan dress of dark blue, embroidered with tiny mirrors. The little girl comes from kilismain near quetta airport in Pakistan’s western Baluchistan province. There are 5,000 people in her village, maybe more, with a single tube well and standpipe for all. Ansa is one of the lucky ones. "It’s the economic crisis," said Dr Munir Ahmed, who is in charge of the intensive care unit at Quetta’s children’s hospital, a modern redbrick building equipped with the latest medical technology and built with German financial support. The interior is spotless, the floors highly polished. A white board carries each child’s name, date of admission and the diagnosis. Several have malaria. Others have meningitis, tuberculosis or typhoid. Malnutrition is commonplace. "The average middle-class man on 5,000 or 6,000 rupees (80 dollars) a month simply can’t afford to send his child here," said Dr Ahmed. Two out of three children arriving at the hospital come from much poorer families. Many were children of afghan refugees in Baluchistan province. "By the middle of the month, after a wage-earner has paid his electricity, water and telephone bill, he doesn’t have the cash. The free hospitals are in a terrible state and if the child lives long enough, he or she usually ends up here anyway." Pakistan’s economic crisis, several staffers said, had been aggravated by the impact of the september 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington, and its aftermath. "So many people are holding onto their money or stocking up on food," said one nurse. "They are tense, worried America will attack Afghanistan and that quetta itself will be a target, so they stay home." Baluchistan’s provincial authorities provide about 75 per cent of the hospital’s operating budget, patient fees about five percent. Germany’s donations make up the rest — but the salaries of consultants, paediatricians and technicians, together with the cost of linen and laundry, ensure more was spent than came in. Dr Kokab Latif, a paediatrician, said he and his colleagues tried to economise to reduce the fees, but many parents simply failed to bring their children to the hospital at all because of the cost. A consultation costs 100 rupees (about 1.50 dollars), but a full day of 20-odd diagnostic tests could cost ten times that figure. "We try to save them money by cutting down on the tests, but that little girl’s mother is typical — she wants to take her daughter home when in fact she needs two or three days more in intensive care," Latif said. "These children come in with protein deficiencies — very often all they have to eat is bread, and maybe the odd cup of milk." How would the 26-bed hospital cope with a sudden eruption of as many as a million new Afghan refugees across the border if the war there intensified as a result of US action or a new assault by Afghan opposition forces on the Taliban rulers? "We’re a hospital, so we’ll do whatever we can. We will cope - for a while," said Professor Ali Khan Tareen, the Hospital’s Executive Director. (REUTERS) |
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LONDON, Oct 2: As great inventions go, e-mail had a rather ho-hum beginning back in 1971. In fact, Ray Tomlinson, the American Engineer considered the "father of e-mail," can’t quite recall when the first message was sent, what it said, or even who the recipient was. "I have no idea what the first one was," he told Reuters. "It might have been the first line from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address for all I know. The only thing I know was it was all in upper case." Tomlinson, Principal Engineer at Cambridge, Mass-based BBN technologies, finds himself in the spotlight again after all these years, having to answer questions about the computer program he designed as it reaches its 30th birthday in the coming weeks. He modestly calls his baby "no major tour de force." It was just 200 lines of code, he says. And the inspiration — one computer program to enable file transfers and a second crude massaging program — already existed, he said. But the programs had their flaws. For example, the message program only enabled a user to send a communique to a colleague’s mailbox as long as that mailbox was located on the same computer as the sender’s. Tomlinson got around this by creating remote personal mailboxes that could send and receive messages via a computer network. He also conceived the now-famous "Z" symbol to ensure a message was sent to a designated recipient. The end product, he said, was simply the combination of the two existing programs, enabling a person to send a message for the first time to a specified computer user on any computer hooked up to the Arpa net, the predecessor to today’s internet, developed by the US Department of Defense. Thirty years on, e-mail has become a vital form of communication. Last month, e-mail became the only reliable link for many frantic souls during the hijacked plane attacks in the United States. It connected friends and family in New York and Washington DC as telephone circuits became overloaded in the hours after planes toppled the World Trade Center and blew apart a section of the Pentagon. Poignant e-mails from survivors have circulated around the world, filling in clues about harrowing escapes and daring rescue attempts. A week later, it was e-mail that helped spread the damaging nimda computer virus, knocking out corporate computer networks around the globe and inflicting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. Like all essential communication devices, e-mail has a love-hate relationship with its users. For every, pick-me-up message of praise or joke sent electronically, it seems there are an equal number of unsolicited e-mail reminders that we can lose weight overnight, make money working from home or earn an honorary college degree. But back in the autumn of 1971 — Tomlinson says he can’t recall which month — e-mail was a relatively small success. That is, he added, simply because there were just a few hundred users of the Arpa net that could put it to use. And, the top-of-the-line modem connection at the time operated at a snail-like 300 baud, roughly one-twentieth of the speed of today’s standard 56.6 kbps modem. It made only the most concise message practical. "Reliance took a few years to happen," said Tomlinson. It wasn’t until the personal computer boom in the mid-1980s that e-mail trickled into the lives of computer enthusiasts and university students. Another major stage in its development came in the mid-90s as the first web browsers introduced the world wide web to the couch potato. As web usage grew so did e-mail. Over the years, Tomlinson said, complete strangers have sent him notes of thanks and a few of criticism for his invention -all by e-mail, of course. (REUTERS) |
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Taliban try to shore up defenses in Afghanistan ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Turning to defence rather thannegotiation, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban raced today toprop up old alliances, woo new friends and retain their own menas they dug in behind the world’s top fugitive, Osama binLaden. With the world’s most modern military force gatheringagainst a state modelled on a society that existed more than1,300 years ago, the puritanical Taliban pitched their crisisas a battle of Islam versus the United States. Reports from within Afghanistan indicated Ministers weremoving around the country, many travelling from the capital,Kabul, to confer with their spiritual and supreme leader,Mullah Mohammad Omar, in his southern stronghold of Kandahar. Others were touring the south and the east to forge newalliances and tell their troops to defend the cause of themovement whose hard-line Islamic Government last week marked its fifth anniversary of the capture of the capital. Defence Minister Obaidullah went to the eastern city ofJalalabad to review his fighters. Striving to shore up theirrule and prevent internal disintegration, the Taliban struck adeal a day earlier with tribal elders in three easternprovinces. The position of the Taliban, and their leader, has neverlooked more perilous, with signs of dissent growing withintheir territory, the opposition nipping at their frontlines andWashington threatening strikes if they don’t surrender theSaudi-born bin Laden. There was little sign Omar was willing to compromise on his"guest" — the top suspect in masterminding the suicide planeattacks that toppled the twin World Trade Center towers andsliced a corner out of the Pentagon. Indeed, for the first time since the September 11 suicidehijacking attacks, the Taliban revealed at the weekend they hadhim in their hands. Previously, the Taliban had said theSaudi-born millionaire was missing. He was being kept at a secret place for his own safety, theTaliban said, and he had yet to respond to a request fromclerics and Omar to leave at his own leisure. Even Pakistan — a fellow-Muslim nation and the onlycountry still to recognise Taliban leadership — distanceditself further from its former allies yesterday when PresidentPervez Musharraf was asked if the Taliban’s days were numbered. "It appears so," Musharraf, who has sent two missions toOmar to try convince him of his danger, told the BBC in aninterview. "It appears that the United States will take action inAfghanistan. Because of the stand the Taliban have taken ...Confrontation will take place," he told the BBC. In a sign the Taliban realises the danger, Omar took theunusual step of speaking to his people late on Sunday over hisVoice of Shariat radio, warning ex-king Mohammad Zahir Shah notto meddle in Afghanistan’s affairs. "Forget Afghanistan, you won’t be able to solve the issueof Afghanistan in your lifetime," the reclusive Taliban leadersaid. Speaking in a hesitant monotone in his native pashto, Omarsaid the attacks in New York and Washington were a result of"mischievous" American policies that bred such antagonism thatdesperation was the inevitable outcome. "America wants to kill Muslims," he said. "You, America,must understand that unless you change your policies, you willnot be able to extinguish the fire you have started." He reserved his ire for the king, his voice rising: "Howdare you think you can return to Afghanistan backed by theUnited States. How are you going to rule the country? how canyou think of such things?" The former king, deposed and exiled by his cousin in 1973,on Monday struck an agreement in Rome with the Taliban’s mainopposition, the Northern Alliance, to convene a council ofAfghan leaders and pave the way for the election of a head ofstate and transitional Government. It was not immediately clear where or when the council, orloya jirga, would meet. The involvement of the former king has fomented dissent,and in areas under Taliban control authorities this week saidthey had arrested six people for distributing "pro-American"pamphlets that called for the return of ex-king Zahir Shah. Taliban fighters said they recaptured a key area of westernAfghanistan lost to opposition forces at the weekend and theirDefence Minister urged troops to fight hard in case of anattack. "Fight hard against attacks, defend your country," MullahObaidullah was quoted as saying by the Pakistan-based AfghanIslamic Press during a visit to troops based at Torkham, nearthe Pakistan border. "If your enemy is strong, our god is the strongest," hesaid in an apparent rallying cry for Taliban forces to prepareto fight the United States, which boasts the most modernmilitary army in the world. The ebb and flow of territory controlled is typical ofAfghan warfare. Mass defections are also common as localwarlords frequently switch allegiance depending on who is inthe ascendancy — usually taking all the men under their command with them.(REUTERS) |
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Taliban backers march in Pakistan border city QUETTA (PAKISTAN), Oct 2: Thousands of supporters of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers marched through the streets of the Pakistan border city of Quetta today, denouncing U.S. President George W. Bush as a "terrorist" and Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, as a traitor. In a carefully stage-managed piece of political theatre, scores of foreign journalists confined to their hotel by armed police watched through, wrought-iron gates as the chanting crowds of Afghans and Pakistanis passed by, beat an effigy of Bush with sticks, waved portraits of Osama Bin Laden and screamed "death to America". The rally started as a welcome for Fazlur Rehman, head of Pakistan’s radical Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), who returned to Quetta after a nationwide tour. The procession of an estimated 2,000 people then headed through the centre of the garrison town, directly past the entrance of the closely-guarded Serena hotel. The white silk turbans of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban were much in evidence. So-called "jihadis" — young Pakistani radicals, many of them students at Pakistan Islamic schools or madrassas who often volunteer to fight in disputed Kashmir or Afghanistan — waved green-and-white flags and called for a holy war against the United States. Despite the noise and dust, the mood was cheerful by south asian standards and the protest seemed tame. Pakistani police armed with teargas launchers and batons controlled the route, channelling the marchers and busloads of Taliban enthusiasts to the other side of town for a mass rally. They also formed up in ranks inside the hotel gates to stop journalists from trying to break out of the premises, and used their batons to force TV crews back. At one stage there seemed to be two protests — one staged by Taliban supporters and one by foreign media. The JUI is a populist Islamic movement that founded the Taliban among refugees from neighbouring Afghanistan. In turn, the Taliban conquered much of the country following the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989. The Taliban stands accused by the Bush administration of sheltering Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident named as chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. General Musharraf says he supports Bush’s so called "war on terrorism" despite Pakistan’s previous support for the Taliban against its foes, Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance. The Taliban are numerous in Pakistan’s border provinces, running mosques and large numbers of madrassas. Foreign journalists arriving in Quetta have been restricted in their movements, and require official permission to leave the city. The visitors are obliged to accept a police escort wherever they go. Today, they were not allowed to leave their hotels for much of the day. Police said it was precautionary move to ensure their safety. Safi Wasiuddin, a retired Pakistani army Major who runs his own private security firm watched the demonstration, scorn written all over his face. "It’s a case of barking dogs don’t bite," he said. "Tell this lot you’re putting them in trucks and taking them over the border to fight for the Taliban and they’d disappear off the streets in an instant."(REUTERS) |
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