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considers Id cards to curb illegal workers LONDON, July 3: Britain will float plans today for its citizens to carry identification cards to help .....more Pak-FBI tighten grip over Al ISLAMABAD, July 4: Continuing its crackdown against Al Qaeda, Pakistani forces......more Afghan women protest KABUL, July 4: Dozens of Afghan women wearing head-to-toe blue Burqas staged......more Dilemma of divorced Indian couple SYDNEY, July 4: A divorced Indian couple willing to live separately in India and Australia is facing......more |
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Nilima Ibrahim, stalwart of Bangla liberation struggle, dies DHAKA, July 4: Nilima Ibrahim, a leading light of the Bangladesh Liberation Movement and a close ........more Musharraf says ISLAMABAD, July 4: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has described his controversial .....more Gang rape of a tribal girl ISLAMABAD, July 4: Terming as "shocking" the "revenge" gang-rape of a teenaged tribal girl in Multan, Pakistan’s Supreme Court has taken suo motu notice of the incident and summoned the Inspector General of Punjab police tomorrow to apprise it of the action taken against on the June 22 episode........more |
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Britain considers Id cards to curb illegal workers LONDON, July 3: Britain will float plans today for its citizens to carry identification cards to help combat illegal immigration and benefits fraud. Home Secretary David Blunkett will launch a consultation process on the issue, examining the risks and benefits of what he has called "entitlement cards". But he will stress in a statement to Parliament that no decisions have yet been taken. Rights groups have branded the idea discriminatory and a breach of civil liberties. Home Office Minister Beverly Hughes told BBC radio the cards would obviously serve as a form of identification, but added that she hoped the consultation process would encourage a "debate about citizenship and about cohesion in society". "There may be a role for a card in underlining people’s entitlements in society and in emphasising their citizenship and their membership of society," she said. Britons have only ever had to carry identity documents during wartime, unlike the vast majority of europeans who have to produce Id cards at the request of police or officials. But the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States and efforts to clamp down on illegal immigration into Britain through other European countries has prompted blunkett to look at the balance between liberty and the need for identification. "We need to look at how entitlement cards could help tackle illegal working which defrauds all of us who pay taxes," the Home Secretary told the daily mail newspaper on Monday. "It’s a major pull factor to the trafficking gangs who encourage people to risk life and limb every night hanging on to trains getting into Britain." Cards, which would have the picture, name, date of birth and nationality of the bearer on them, could be required to claim welfare benefits and receive state healthcare. Opposition Conservative Home Affairs spokesman Oliver Letwin said his party would be looking carefully at the consultation paper and added he would not support Id cards if they represented a serious threat to the civil liberties of honest citizens. "If what we are talking about is an entitlement card, which is a device to prevent fraud when people are claiming things like benefits, that is I believe unobjectionable and indeed is something which we ourselves proposed," he told BBC radio. "If the Government proposes to go beyond that...Then we will come to a view of whether it is tolerable or not," he said. (AGENCIES) |
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Pak-FBI tighten grip over Al Qaeda, 4 killed, 8 arrested ISLAMABAD, July 4: Continuing its crackdown against Al Qaeda, Pakistani forces have shot dead four militants, suspected to have links with Bin Laden’s outfit and arrested eight of his men, including six foreigners, in a joint operation with America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. Four militants of the banned sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), were shot dead in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, while eight Al Qaeda men were arrested from a LJ warehouse in Karachi and huge cache of arms seized from them in late night operations yesterday. Reports reaching here said the militants were shot dead when a mobile patrol tried to stop the vehicle in which they were travelling, but they opened fire. "They were killed in retaliatory firing," police officials were quoted as saying. In Karachi, a joint FBI-Pak police swoop on a warehouse in Shershah locality led to the arrest of eight Al Qaeda men, including three Arabs, three Afghans and two Pakistanis, The raid came after the FBI intercepted a conversation on a mobile phone and tracked down the suspects, it said. According to FBI the arrested included some top wanted militants but there was no confirmation about the identities of the detained. Three rifles, three pistols, three motorcycles, three satellite phone sets, fake passports and visa stamps of various countries, fake stamps of US Consulate, and literature about Jihad, were also seized from the place, it said. The detained were taken by the FBI for interrogation and it was not decided whether they would be handed over to the local authorities or extradited to the US or any other place, the daily reported. The operations come close on the heels of reports of Pakistan security forces clashing with Al Qaeda militants in Kohat town near the Afghan border in which four Al Qaeda men and two Pakistani policemen were killed. According to the details in the local media the encounter took place when four Al Qaeda men of Chechen origin were coming from the tribal area of Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan agency. Four Kalashnikovs, one machine-gun, two pistols, 15 hand-grenades and one rocket launcher were siezed from the vehicle in which they travelled, said an official, adding that the van had crossed five strictly-guarded checkpoints between Kohat and Miranshah before it was intercepted at the sixth checkpoint. (PTI) |
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Afghan women protest against US bombing tragedy KABUL, July 4: Dozens of Afghan women wearing head-to-toe blue Burqas staged a peaceful protest outside the UN offices in the capital Kabul today to denounce the US bombing of a wedding party in Uruzgan province. The Afghan Government says at least 40 people, many of them women and children, were killed when the US bombed four Uruzgan villages on Monday — including the wedding party, apparently mistaking celebratory rifle fire for a surface-to-air attack. Protest banners carried slogans such as "we condemn the Uruzgan bombings" and "condolences to the bereaved", but there was no strident anti-America propaganda. None of the 50 or so women on the street called for the US Military, fighting remnants of the Al Qaeda and disgraced Taliban, to leave Afghanistan. The coalition front for unity and democracy, a social and cultural organisation with no known political links, said it decided to hold the protest away from the US Embassy for security reasons. At first, the women were blocked from approaching the UN headquarters but were later allowed up to the gate. Asked if the US should pull out of Afghanistan, Mariam, carrying her child, told newsmen: "No. If the Americans leave, then the political factions will turn on each other again." "We condemn terrorism," the organising coalition said in a pamphlet. "We are not against the Americans, but it doesn’t mean they should drop bombs on residents, happy ceremonies and sanctuaries instead of military targets. "The US should get through to its officers that this kind of incident could destroy relations and the trust between the two nations." The United States said on Tuesday it had responded to sustained, hostile fire from the ground in the area around the villages and was investigating what happened. The US military played a large role in the ouster of the fundamentalist Taliban last year, something that was welcomed by millions of Afghans. But as special forces comb the country for fugitive Taliban leaders or their Al Qaeda allies, there have been some civilian casualties. One man joining yesterday’s protest, Abdul Qader, was angry. "This sort of thing has happened several times and (President Hamid) Karzai last time expressed his concern. If it happens again, it will be unacceptable." Inside the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) offices, spokesman David Singh told a news conference a UN assessment mission had been sent to Uruzgan fo find out the damage and report back on the needs of the victims. A team of Afghan Government officials accompanied by US military investigators and an Embassy staffer also visited the site on Wednesday. Afghans going about their business in Kabul on Wednesday vented their fury at the United States. "It’s our tradition to shoot guns at weddings — it doesn’t mean we’re Al Qaeda," said Abdul Wadood, 43. Karzai has been one of the US-led coalition’s firmest supporters in the war against terrorism. He was brought to power under a UN-sponsored accord after the fall of the Taliban last year, but his critics see him as a stooge for Washington. (AGENCIES) |
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Dilemma of divorced Indian
couple SYDNEY, July 4: A divorced Indian couple willing to live separately in India and Australia is facing a dilemma as the family court here would not allow the woman to move to India with their daughter. "Until you don’t have freedom to move, you don’t know how bad it is," said the Indian mother, who has been living in this peculiar situation for nearly three years as a result of an Australian family court injunction. She is restrained from moving her eight-year-old daughter outside the Sydney-Wollongong area. Her passport is in the court’s possession and hence she can not visit India even to see her family. She has appealed against the family court decision to the High Court. The father of the child, an Australian citizen of Indian origin, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he would feel "absolutely cheated" if the daughter is moved to India and he lost fortnightly and school holiday contacts. "To have your child stripped off you in that way, it’s almost like you go into mourning." He said when their daughter is with the mother she is very pro her, but when she is with him, she’s happy to be with her father and she knows that there is a big dispute on. Together the couple has spent something to the tune of 300,000 Australian dollar in legal and court fees. The child’s right to contact with both parents is conflicting with the parents’ right to freedom of movement, in many cases even to move inter-state or to different towns in the same state. In most cases, it is the mothers comprising 84 per cent of custodial parents and almost never wanting to leave the child, who are at the receiving end. In a full bench hearing of an appeal against the family court decision in the above case, High Court Judge Mary Gaudron said, "if she does not say `I will subordinate my interests’, the values of this society will immediately judge her to be a bad mother. "We are dealing with notions, male notions, that are going to be imposed on any woman in this situation which are essentially, in my view, unfair and it puts the mother in an absolutely impossible position. "It does not seem to me to be in the child’s best interests that one parent’s legitimate expectations with respect to life should be subordinated to the child’s interest or the other parent’s interests." The severe restraint on the husband and wife’s civil liberty and right to contact and shared responsibility for the child are being questioned here in the legal circles. (PTI) |
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Nilima Ibrahim, stalwart of Bangla liberation struggle, dies DHAKA, July 4: Nilima Ibrahim, a leading light of the Bangladesh Liberation Movement and a close associate of the country’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, died here recently. She is survived by her physician husband Dr Mohammad Ibrahim and three daughters. Contributions of Ibrahim, who died on June 18, were recalled at a memorial meeting here last evening where former Prime Minister and Awami League chief, Sheikh Hasina said "in her death I have once again lost the love of a mother". Stating that she had left "a big void" in Bangladesh polity, Hasina said Ibrahim could not die peacefully as the country continued to be ravaged by growing instance of atrocities against women. Ibrahim, who also headed the Bangla Department of Dhaka University, was a prolific writer with several novels to her credit and had made her mark on gender issues, communal harmony and social reforms in the country. Hasina exhorted the women to imbibe the ideals of Nilima Ibrahim who had worked all her life for women’s empowerment and social reforms. The meeting was organized by the Bangladesh Mahila Samity, the leading women’s organization of the country, which was once led by her. Eighty one-year-old Ibrahim, who was a senior Professor of Dhaka University which became the hotbed of the liberation struggle in the late 1960s, was later involved with various social and cultural organisations and had authored over 20 books on Bengali literature and social issues. Born in Bagerhat district in 1921 in the Roy Chowdhury family, she had her early education at Khulna and later in Kolkata. She got her PhD from Dhaka University in 1959. Though she was declared an outcast by her own family after her marriage with Dr Ibrahim, she continued to be a symbol of communal harmony throughout her life as also during the bloody days of partition, the speakers at the memorial meeting said. (PTI) |
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Musharraf says amendments are "necessary checks" ISLAMABAD, July 4: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has described his controversial constitutional amendments as "necessary checks and balances to avoid the mis-governance of the past" and said they ensure a permanent "power sharing" role for the Army. Observing that there was lot of misunderstanding about the proposed amendments, Musharraf said at a cabinet meeting late yesterday that the changes were aimed at establishing checks on the authority. "What we are aiming at is not a balance of power or sharing of power, but what the proposed amendments seek are checks on the exercise of authority to ensure that governance is well delivered," he was quoted as telling his cabinet by Pakistan daily The News today. Musharraf’s proposed changes, made public ahead of the October polls, empowered the President to sack the Prime Minister and elected heads of provincial assemblies and even appoint a non-elected member to these posts. Political parties across the board have criticised the changes saying they give sweeping powers to the President and are undemocratic. In an effort to stem criticism, Musharraf said in the cabinet meeting that he would hold meeting with a large cross section of society including the media and intelligensia to discuss his ‘political package of reforms’, the daily said. Refuting criticism that the amendments vested more powers in him, Musharraf said the executive powers would lie with the Prime Minister and the legislative powers would be the exclusive domain of the Parliament. "We, must not lose sight of the political history of Pakistan and the unfortunate experience of mis-governance of the past. We must avoid its repetition and disruption of the democratic process," he said in an obvious reference to the recurring military coups including his own two and half years ago. On the criticism that the Army was being given a permanent role in power sharing with the formation of a 10 member National Security Council (NSC), proposed in the amendments, Musharraf argued that the proposed NSC would have no executive or legislative authority. "It would have an advisory and consultative role," the daily reported quoting musharraf. He further argued that even the President’s powers were not sweeping unlike in the past when they were "discretionary and solely exclusive." In the new amnedments, the presidential powers would be subject to consultation with the NSC. "This is a step ahead of the past," he said adding that he wanted to institutionalise even the powers of the President so that he consults the NSC which was not meant to be an "intrusive body." Musharraf at present is also the head of the armed forces. The proposed NSC is to comprise the three service chiefs, the Army’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, besides the President, Prime Minister and Chief Ministers of the four provinces. (PTI) |
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Gang rape of a tribal girl Pak
SC summons ISLAMABAD, July 4: Terming as "shocking" the "revenge" gang-rape of a teenaged tribal girl in Multan, Pakistan’s Supreme Court has taken suo motu notice of the incident and summoned the Inspector General of Punjab police tomorrow to apprise it of the action taken against on the June 22 episode. Taking suo motu notice of the incident that took place at Jhugiwala (Meerwala) in Muzaffargarh district, Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmad also summoned the Advocate-General and three other police officials along with the record to appear before the court. The court said "according to a news item, a teenaged girl was subjected to gang rape by four persons and made to return home without clothes in pursuance of a panchayat (Jirga) verdict. This is a shocking incident in the 21st century concerning blatant violation of human rights as well as human dignity," the local daily Dawn reported today. "Therefore, taking suo motu notice I would direct the Inspector General of Police, the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Multan range, the District Police Officer, Muzaffargarh, and the SHO concerned to appear in this court on 5th July, 2002, along with the relevant record to apprise this court about the action taken by them in this case. The Advocate-General shall also appear on the said date." The court orders came amidst reports that the police had arrested nine people in connection with the case. The nine arrested were members of the self styled tribal jury that ordered the "punishment" in Meerwala village in Multan district. The authorities are still on the look out of four persons alleged to have committed the rape. The DIG of Dera Ghazi Khan range, Asif Nawaz, said the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of the Jatoi tehsil had been given 24 hours to ensure arrest of all the culprits, or else face action under the removal from services ordinance. He also said members of the jirga would be tried for abetment under Section 109 of PPC. According to reports the Mastoi tribe had demanded "punishment" after the teenaged girl’s brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a Mastoi girl in a deserted part of the village. The tribe detained the boy named Shakoor and then called for jirga, village assembly to sort out the matter. Shakoor was rescued from the custody by police and detained. The jirga consisted of six members with three members representing each side. About 300 people of the village also gathered to witness the proceedings. At the jirga the jury threatened that all women in the accused’s family would be raped unless the 18-year-old submitted herself to the gang-rape. Four men took turns to rape the girl on the orders of the jirga. She was then ordered to return home without any clothing while dozens of villagers watched. One of the jurists took part in the rape. The girl is still in a state of shock, the reports said.(PTI) |
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