Gambling, music, videos to be banned
Pro-Taliban party takes over power in NWFP

ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: The pro-Taliban Government in Pakistan’s sensitive North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan would ban playing of music and videos in public transport as also gambling dens and promised to implement its pre-election pledge of introducing Islamic system of governance.

"We cannot allow the VCRs and tape recorders in passenger vehicles in our province," Akram Durani of Muttahida Majlis e-Amal (MMA) said after he was elected as Cheif Minister of the province yesterday.

Durani said he would order a ban on playing of tape recorders, VCRs and music in buses, coaches and passenger vehicles.

"Pubs and gambling dens will be closed soon," the 42-year- old Durrani told the Assembly amid assertions by the opposition benches that there were no pubs and gambling outlets in Pakistan.

Durrani, who hit the headlines before his election for his threats to stop the American and Pakistani crackdown on Taliban and Alqaeda leaders reportedly hiding in the border areas, also said that drivers of the buses should stop their vehicles at mosques during prayer times, if passengers makes specific requests.

Durani said it would be a legal offence if any driver turned down such a request.

He also promised to set up separate mosques for women at bus stands in the province, saying the facility was needed since there was no separate place for women to offer their prayers.

Replying to felicitations on his victory in the election for Chief Ministership yesterday, Durrani said, "the enforcement of Islamic system was the MMA manifesto. We will endeavour for the enforcement of Islamic system in the country and province and take guidance from the central MMA leadership and strictly follow that."

"We will sacrifice everything to bring in an Islamic system to the province and ensure that the NWFP gets all its rights," Durrani said adding that his Government would bring concrete changes to the law and order situation, education, health and industrial sector.

He said poverty and unemployment were the most pressing areas where they would seek federal Government’s assistance.

The MMA is also poised to share power in the neighbouring Baluichistan province as Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has said that his party Pakistan Muslim League-Q, (PML-Q) has reached an agreement with them to form a coalition Government.

Under the deal the PML-Q would get the Chief Minister’s slot while the MMA would some of the prominent ministries, Jamali said.

Baluchistan is located next to NWFP and also shares borders with Afghanistan. (PTI)

Pak says war threat receded as withdrawal of troops on

ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: The chief of Pakistan Airforce, Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, has said that the threat of war between India and Pakistan has receded as troops on both sides of the border are "rapidly disengaging" after a year-long eyeball-to-eyeball deployment.

"The potential threat of war is over but our army and Air Force personnel still man various important forward positions to deter any possible threat," he told local daily Dawn.

"The potential threat of a major armed conflict was averted between May and July this year, when the situation had turned very serious. But then better sense prevailed," he said, referring to the deployment of about one-million- strong troops along the borders by both the countries after an attack on the Indian Parliament last December.

He discounted the possibility of a nuclear war between the two countries claiming that Pakistan had the deterrence. "But then there is no doubt ... That both Pakistan and India narrowly escaped a very serious outbreak of war," he said.

Mir said Pakistan had to bear some financial cost of taking our troops close to the Indian border, but claimed India bore a higher cost in the withdrawal exercise.

Pakistan’s defence spokesman Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi told the media yesterday that Pakistan would "automatically" retaliate in a "dignified manner" any threat to its security and accused India of carrying "unprovoked shelling and indiscriminate firing" across the LoC.

To a question on withdrawal of troops by India, he said it has proved "our stance that the Kashmir issue could not be solved through force," rather India should sit on the negotiating table with Pakistan.

He alleged it was India which had posed threats to Pakistan by amassing her troops along the borders and Pakistan would withdraw from the areas India would pull out.

He said that the agreement between Pakistan and India regarding giving prior intimation to each other on the movements of troops or Air Force aircraft or any other activity within in a certain limits along the borders is still intact. (PTI)

EU targetting India: Shourie

NEW DELHI, Nov 30: A day after EU won a case against India on bed linen at the WTO, New Delhi today accused Brussels of "targetting and singling out" Indian exports.

"There is a feeling in India that the EU is targetting India out of proportion in terms of the number of cases pitted against it. We fail to understand why we are being singled out," Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Shourie said here.

Reacting to the ruling, Shourie told reporters, "in the trade negotiations, losing and winning is part of the game and changes every day".

Though he was yet to study the ruling, Shouire told reporters that the bed linen issue had been taken up by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the recently held India-EU summit at Copenhagen.

A WTO panel had yesterday ruled that the EU had fully complied with the recommendations of a WTO dispute settlement body in March 2001 concerning EU’s anti-dumping measures on imports of cotton bed linen.

The implementation panel rejected all claims made by India against the EU’s implementation measures.

Reacting to the ruling, EU’s Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said in a statement yesterday that, "this is a clear sign of EU’s high standards of adherence to the WTO law. It also shows the EU’s prudent use of trade defence instrument, in particular against developing countries".(PTI)

UN arms experts resume inspections in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Nov 30: UN weapons experts inspected a military industrial complex and a suspected missile site outside Baghdad today as they resumed arms inspections in Iraq after a one-day break.

A group of inspectors drove from their headquarters in Baghdad to the complex run by the public company of the mother of all battles in Yusoufiyyah area some 15 km (10 miles) south of the capital.

The company, whose title incorporates the name used by Iraq to describe the 1991 Gulf war over Kuwait, is an arm of the state’s military industrialisation commission in charge of developing weapons.

Another group of inspectors drove to a suspected missile site at Balad, 75 km North of Baghdad. The town is almost halfway between Baghdad and Tikrit, the birthplace of President Saddam Hussein.

Both groups were accompanied by Iraqi officials.

Iraqi guards barred journalists from entering the large complex south of Baghdad where portraits of the Iraqi leader stood at the gates.

Later, the guards barred a Government four-wheel-drive from entering the facility while inspectors were inside in line with a policy of "freeze" on sites under inspection.

The Inspectors, who carry out unannounced visits, did not work on Friday, the Muslim holy day. They had visited five sites on the first two days back at work and reported that inspections had gone smoothly.

Iraq has pledged full cooperation with the inspectors, who returned to Iraq this week after a four-year gap to search for chemical, biological and nuclear arms under a tough UN resolution that gives Baghdad one last chance to disarm.

But an Iraqi official newspaper denounced on Saturday UN demands that Baghdad produce a full account of its arms programme by December 8.

"It is quite clear that this paragraph explicitly accuses iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction," Al-Jumhouriya said in a front-page editorial.

"It also casts doubts about Iraq’s sincere cooperation with UN Security Council resolutions," it added. UN Security Council resolution 1441, passed on November 8, establishes the terms for UN Weapons Inspections in Iraq and threatens serious consequences for Iraqi noncompliance. It also set a December 8 deadline for Iraq to submit a full account of all banned weapons programmes.

Earlier this month Iraq vowed to submit a declaration of all its weapons files — nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic.

Jumhouriya said the United States had insisted Iraq issue the declaration in order to make things difficult for Baghdad and eventually use it as a cover to "launch its vicious aggression against Iraq".

With the December 8 deadline approaching, Washington announced that one of its top diplomats would visit eight european countries and Turkey next week to consult on Iraq.

Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman will visit NATO offices in Brussels, Britain and Turkey between December 1 and 3 as part of a delegation led by Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the State Department said in a statement yesterday.

Wolfowitz will return to Washington from Ankara while grossman, who ranks third in the State Department hierarchy, will travel on to Cyprus, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Portugal on December 6.

"This trip is part of our ongoing consultations with our allies and partners in Europe and elsewhere on Iraq and efforts to ensure iraq complies with Security Council resolution 1441 and other relevant UN resolutions," it added.

In Paris, Iraqi Kurdish leaders appealed to world leaders to let Iraqi opposition groups piece together a pluralist, democratic Government that could replace Saddam’s Government if he were removed from power. Addressing a conference on the future of Kurds in Iraq, the two heads of the Kurdish enclave in Northern Iraq said they were confident talks next month to hammer out a power-sharing accord between six Iraqi opposition groups could succeed.

"We don’t want to see a military ruler ruling iraq, whether it’s an Iraqi dictator or a foreign military ruler. Our goal is to set up a multi-ethnic, pluralist and democratic Iraq," Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) head Massoud Barzani said.

Barzani and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) head Jalal Talabani said Kurds wanted to be part of a federal Iraq giving them a degree of autonomy and a say in Central Government.

The opposition groups have lined some 300 delegates for talks in London on December 13-15, after previous attempts to plan a Government were thwarted by squabbling.

In Sydney, Australia, several thousand people marched peacefully today as part of a nationwide protest against any pre-emptive strike on Iraq by the United States and its allies. Smaller protests were also held in other cities, including the capital, Canberra.

Australia’s Government has maintained its stated preference for a peaceful solution in Iraq, but the recent withdrawal of its troops from the US-led coalition in Afghanistan has sparked speculation they would be shifted to Iraq. (AGENCIES)

Jamali Govt considering review of cases against Benazir Bhutto

ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: Amid reports that Pakistan Government was considering review of cases against former Premier Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Asif Ali Zardari to get her PPP’s support, Prime Minister Mir Zarfarullah Khan Jamali held parleys with President Pervez Musharraf to discuss a way out of the crisis following withdrawal of support by MQM.

The Jamali Government was reviewing the option of getting PPP’s support to prop up his fledgling Government which was reduced to minority following the withdrawal of support by the Muthahida Quami Movement (MQM), which has 17 members in the National Assembly, media reports said.

In view of the crisis, the Jamali Government has planned to review cases against Bhutto and Zardari, local daily ‘The News’ said today.

The files relating to their cases have been sought by Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and Defence Minister Rao Sikandar from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials, it said.

However, Jamali told reporters last night that there was no bar on Bhutto’s return, but "she must attend the court cases and clear herself of all the charges."

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) dismissed Jamali’s remarks as "total farce" and "publicity gimmick".

"His remarks that Bhutto should face trial on her arrival have no meaning as she went abroad with the permission of the court", PPP spokesman Faratullah Babar told PTI.

Jamali also held his second meeting with Musharraf in as many days to discuss the political situation in the wake of withdrawal of support by MQM.

Despite the defection of 10 PPP members, the party has 70 members in the National Assembly and could enable Jamali achieve a comfortable majority if he and Musharraf reached an understanding on withdrawal of cases against Bhutoo as well as curtailment of powers of the President.

Meanwhile, to stave off the immediate crisis, the Jamali Government has decided to accede to MQM’s demand of lifting the 10-year-old ban on its visit to "no go" areas in Karachi, inhabited by the rival Haqiqi faction.

The Government was committed to abolishing "no-go" areas in Karachi so that the MQM could resume its political activities there, Information and Media Development Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told PTV last night.

Stating that MQM was a "patriotic" political force, he said it was the Government’s responsibilty to redress its grievances though the party should have patience as the problems could not be solved overnight. (PTI)

Tamil newspaper office attacked

COLOMBO, Nov 30: A Tamil-language newspaper office was attacked today hours before Government negotiators left to attend the third round of peace talks with Tamil Tigers rebels, police said.

Police in the Colombo suburb of Kohuwela said unidentified arsonists had doused the editorial office of the ‘Navamani’ weekly newspaper with petrol and set it on fire.

"We have suffered extensive damage, the entire floor is full of thick black smoke," said M P M Azhar, a spokesman for the paper.

The paper, which is managed by Muslims, had been highlighting the plight of Muslims in the multi-ethnic eastern province of the country.

Muslims have complained of extortion and abduction by Tamil rebels, even since the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) entered in a Norwegian-brokered cease-fire agreement in February.

The Muslim negotiator at the peace talks, Rauf Hakeem, visited the site of the attack before leaving for Oslo, the venue of the third round of talks starting Monday.

The Government and the LTTE have already held two rounds of talks in Thailand since September.(AFP)

Probe lurches along in twin attacks on Israelis in Kenya

MOMBASA, KENYA, Nov 30: The investigation into a pair of simultaneous attacks on Israeli tourists along Kenya’s lush coast inched forward today, with security officials questioning 12 foreigners, including six Pakistanis, and trying to trace the vehicle used in a missile attack.

Kenyan and Israeli authorities sealed off the blackened shell of the paradise hotel hit by a suicide car bomb attack that killed 16 people Thursday - 10 Kenyans, three Israelis and three bombers.

Defence Minister Julius Sunkuli said the missile launchers - which had been painted blue - were "most likely" Russian, but could be German or American.

Kenyan security said it appeared the missiles were fired by someone standing in a grassy gulch across a two-lane highway from the airfield.

The plane carrying 271 passengers and crew members narrowly missed being hit by the missiles.

Police have detained 12 people for questioning, including an American woman, a Spanish man with resident status in the United States, six Pakistani men and four men from neighboring Somalia, Sunkuli told reporters.

Sunkuli said he did not think the American woman and the Spanish man, believed to be her husband, were involved in the attacks.

"When they’re involvement is totally ruled out the police will release them," he said.

The previously unknown Army of Palestine has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But Palestinian officials denied that any Palestinian group was involved, and Kenyan and Israeli officials have said they suspect Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network was behind the attacks.

In Washington, initial suspicion centered on two groups: Al-Qaida and Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamic group suspected of having links to Bin Laden’s network, a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday. It is also possible the two groups were working together, the official said. (AP)

NATO support grows in Slovenia after membership invitation

LJUBLJANA, Nov 30: The support for NATO membership in Slovenia has grown by more than ten per cent after the country received an invitation to join, according to a poll published yesterday.

The poll was carried out by Delo - one of Slovenia’s most influential dailies and 49 per cent of nearly 700 people polled said they were in favour of the membership.

Before the NATO summit in Prague last week, when the former Yugoslav Republic was invited to join along with six other former communist states, support among Slovenes was only around 37 per cent.

Premier Janez Drnovsek said the country would hold a referendum on NATO membership in the first half of next year. It is believed he plans to use the intervening time to further boost interest among citizens.

Slovenian authorities have been trying to boost interest in NATO ever since it became apparent that the country was a serious candidate, but the slovenes were reluctant.

Drnovsek explained that Slovenes were disappointed because they were not invited to join in 1997, when Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were invited. (DPA)

Swedish floats to strengthen Indo-Bangla riverine borders vigil

SHILLONG, Nov 30: Five Sweden-made engine-propelled floats, each complimented by eight speedboats, will soon be in action to strengthen patrolling along the porous riverine borders with Bangladesh in Assam’s Dhubri.

Assam’s riverine borders with the neighbouring country has remained achilles’ heels with large unprotected areas leading to infiltration by migrants to this side.

BSF Additional Director General (East) A K Mitra said here that the Rs eight crore project to man the riverine border was close to its completion and the first batch of two floats would be ready for deployment in Dhubri sector by February.

Each float measuring 90 by 40 feet would be manned by a platoon strength, Mr Mitra said.

"The sanction for the remaining three floats along with its compliment of 24 speed-boats is expected during the next financial year," he said.

The fully air-conditioned crafts will have living quarters and working area for the men, besides storage space for equipment, fuel and provisions, enabling the troops to sustain themselves for 15-20 days at a stretch without any support from land.

The eight speed-boats attached with each float will enable proper patrolling of the riverine stretches. After patrolling, the speedboats would return to the mother-boat which could be moved from place to place.

With no physical barriers, the riverine border, including the mighty Brahmaputra, had been a perennial headache for the BSF which had to contend with infiltration, smuggling and cross-border crimes in the area. (UNI)

Sinn Fein rejects reports IRA disbanding

BELFAST, Nov 30: Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness rejected newspaper reports today that the Irish Republican Army guerrilla group was edging towards disarming and disbanding.

"All of this is part of the unhelpful speculation which is mainly, I think emanating from London...And I think the reports are mischievous," he said at a meeting in dublin of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political ally.

"They basically amount to totally unfounded speculation."

Several British newspapers reported today that the IRA was moving towards a historic declaration that its war with Britain was over and that it had given up military operations and would decommission all weapons.

The reports coincided with a private meeting in england between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern.

"The negotiations are at a very early stage and our focus at this time is getting the British Government to spell out clearly how it plans to deal with reinstating the political institutions and implement the good Friday agreement," a Sinn Fein source said earlier. "And they have not been able to do that at this time."

Britain suspended Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly last month after protestant unionists said they would no longer sit in Government with Sinn Fein while the ira remained active. (AGENCIES)

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