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Disqualification case against Benazir adjourned ISLAMABAD, Apr 24: Pakistan’s top Election Commission today...more
ISLAMABAD, Apr 24: Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif, who has weathered...more Ershad’s Jatiya Party formally splits DHAKA,
Apr 24: The
Jatiya Party (JP) of former Bangladesh...more |
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Former
Nepal PM struggling for life KATHMANDU, Apr 24: With his vital organs slowly deteriorating, former Prime Minister and President of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists- leninists) Manmohan Adhikary remained hooked to life-support systems battling for life in hospital here for the sixth day today. .....more KATHMANDU, Apr 24: Suspected Maoists, advocating a ....more NATO attack targets BELGRADE, Apr 24: NATO launched a fierce blitz .....more Bomb attack on Sunni Muslim
mosque KARACHI, Apr 24: Unidentified men hurled a hand ....more Bangla police arrest DHAKA, Apr 24: Police have arrested 1,686 suspected ...more |
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Disqualification case against Benazir adjourned ISLAMABAD, Apr 24: Pakistan’s top Election Commission today adjourned proceedings to disqualify from Parliament former Premier Benazir Bhutto and her jailed husband, sentenced to five-year imprisonment in a corruption case, thus allowing the opposition leader some time to appeal against the High Court verdict in the Supreme Court. Following a request from Benazir’s lawyers, Chief Election Commissioner Abdul Qadeer Choudhury fixed May 17 the next date for hearing the disqualification references, fowarded by Pakistani Parliament, against the former Premier and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. The CEC had earlier summoned the couple in the case after National Assembly Speaker and Senate Chairman forwarded the disqualification references to the Commission following their conviction in a corruption case. Benazir and Zardari were found guilty of receiving kickbacks while hiring a Swiss-based leading cargo inspection group Societe Generale De Surveillance to root out tax fraud. The court had sentenced them for five-year jail, disqualified from politics and fined 8.6 million dollar. Benazir and Zardari can appeal against the verdict in country’s apex court latest by May 15. Benazir, who is currently in London and faces immediate arrest on her arrival in Pakistan, has announced she would not return to the country until Supreme Court gives its verdict on her appeal. (PTI) |
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ISLAMABAD, Apr 24: Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif, who has weathered many a storm in his country’s increasingly turbulent politics, is faced with a new problem and this time at home — growing disputes among his family members over the vast property the Sharif family has amassed over the years. The Prime Minister suffered a setback on Thursday when a Division Bench of the Lahore High Court stayed the decision of Justice Malik Muhammad Qayyum dividing the vast assets of the Ittefaq Group of Industries among Sharif’s family members. Mian Shafi, a cousin of Nawaz Sharif, argued before the Bench that justice was not done while dividing the properties by Qayyum, who is perceived to be close to the Sharif family. Qayyum is the same judge who convicted former premier Benazir Bhutto in a corruption case sentencing her and her husband, Asif Zardari, to five years in jail and ordered their disqualification from Parliament. Shafi said that he was ordered to pay Rs 199 million to the Sharif family and claimed that according to the accounts of the Ittefaq Group Nawaz Sharif owed him a huge amount but the judge included other expenses while directing him to pay instead. The Sharif family has also been accused by another family member of usurping other member’s properties through illegal means. Mian Muhammad Yousuf Aziz, another cousin of Nawaz Sharif, in a letter to Sharif’s father, Mian Muhammad Sharif, a few days ago alleged that Ittefaq Group is not owned by a single person but by a group of seven brothers. (PTI) |
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Ershad’s Jatiya Party formally splits DHAKA, Apr 24: The Jatiya Party (JP) of former Bangladesh President Hussain Mohammad Ershad has formally split with the party dissidents holding a parallel council session to elect a new leader. The rebel JP faction led by former Prime Minister Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury and Anwar Hossain Manju a minister in the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Cabinet claimed that they have the support of 14 party MPs out of 33. The two-day council which started yesterday is being dubbed as special council of the Jatiya PArty and would conclude this evening after electing a new leader, a working committee and a Constitution. The dissident leaders have accused Ershad of forging an "opportunistic alliance" with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) with the sole aim to unseat the Awami League Goverment. Chowdhury said the new party would not tolerate anti-people act of the Government, but it would protest in a democratic way without destroying the image or the economy of the country. Meanwhile, Ershad told that the parallel party council will not make any dent in my party, rather it will help my party. The betrayers have gone and they have failed to take a single central leader with them. (PTI) |
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Former Nepal PM struggling for life KATHMANDU, Apr 24: With his vital organs slowly deteriorating, former Prime Minister and President of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists- leninists) Manmohan Adhikary remained hooked to life-support systems battling for life in hospital here for the sixth day today. Doctors attending on the septuagenarian Marxist leader at the Intensive Care Unit of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital said his kindneys had become "completely dysfunctional" but his heart-beat and respiration were being maintained-he was hooked to an artificial respirator to assist him breathe while adrenaline injections were being administered to him to enable his heart perform its function. The doctors had declared yesterday that deprived of oxygen for at least twenty minutes on Monday last-when a sudden attack of hypoxia felled him unconscious, Mr Adhikary’s brain had now stopped responding to stimuli and had "completely stopped functioning." A chronic asthma patient, Mr Adhikary was felled unconscious by a sudden attack of hypoxia while campaigning on the Kathmuandu outskirts last monday for the forthcoming parliamentary elections-now nine days away. He was rushed to tuth with all vital signs-pulse, heart-beat and respiration- missing but doctors in the tuth emergency ward immediately revived him through cardio- pulmonary resuscitation. However, since then the sole survivor now from among the co-founders of the Communist movement in the Hindu Himalayan Kingdom fifty years ago has remained in a coma-save on Tuesday when he regained consciousness briefly. (UNI) |
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KATHMANDU, Apr 24: Suspected Maoists, advocating a boycott of the forthcoming parliamentary elections, are believed to have kidnapped a Nepali Congress (NC) rebel candidate in mid-Western Nepal, police said here today. NC rebel candidate in Jajarkot-2 parliamentary constituency Dipak Jung Shah - who was elected as the NC nominee in the November, 1994 mid-term parliamentary polls but denied the party-ticket this time - was reportedly kidnapped along with his security-guard Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police Khemraj Kadayat while on the campaign-trail. Recently, Mr Shah had been involved in a clash with supporters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxists-Leninists) following which five fire-arms belonging to him had been confiscated by the authorities. Police search teams had fanned out in the area - considered to be the stronghold of Maoists who for the last more than three years have been waging an armed "people’s war" for the establishment of a republican Nepal as against the present constitutional monarchical system. Since the launching of the Maoists insurgency, more than 650 people have been killed in various parts of the country. Most recently, the Maoists have called for a boycott of the coming parliamentary polls and warned of "dire consequences" if the call is flouted. (UNI) |
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NATO attack targets Serbian town of Nis BELGRADE, Apr 24: NATO launched a fierce blitz overnight against the Serbian town of Nis, about 220 kms South of Belgrade, hitting several civilian buildings and leaving one person injured, Serbian sources said. A series of powerful explosions shook the town early today shortly after midnight (2200 gmt), Tanjug news agency said. It said NATO planes had dropped about 20 bombs on the Northwest district of Nis, the site of an industrial complex. One person was injured during the half-hour attack, during which several civilian buildings were damaged, Tanjug said. Water and electricity supplies to the Northwest part of the town were cut off, the private studio B Television channel reported. In Pristina, the Kosovo provincial capital, five explosions rang out yesterday between 1600 and 1630 gmt. The blasts came from the Southern part of the town, an AFP correspondent said. NATO warplanes also hit targets in Gracanica, Laplje Gela and Veternik, sources close to the police said. Tanjug meanwhile said 15 NATO bombs or missiles landed on Pristina and the surrounding area overnight. Quoting witnesses, Tanjug said one NATO plane had been hit by Yugoslav anti-aircraft fire over Kosovo on last night. "The plane hit, left a trail of smoke in its wake as it flew off towards Albania," the witnesses said. NATO officials immediately denied that any alliance plane had been damaged. At Novi sad in Northern Serbia, Tanjug said NATO had launched a fresh attack on the refinery there early today at 03:15 p.m. (0115 gmt). Eight missiles crashed into the complex triggering a fire, Tanjug said, adding, it had no reports to casualties. Elsewhere, a fuel depot was hit at 02:45 a.m. today (0045 gmt) near Kraljevo, 150 kms South of Belgrade, according to Tanjug. The blast damaged the road between Kraljevoand Raska, a town 70 kms to the South. A bridge 15 kms Southwest of Belgrade and several electricity installations were also targetted overnight. In Belgrade, sirens sounded at 10:15 p.m. Friday (2015 gmt) but there was no attack on the capital. The all clear went at 06:13 (0413 gmt). On Thursday night, NATO planes bombed the headquarters of Serbian state television rts, killing at least 10 people and leaving 18 injured. (AFP) |
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Bomb attack on Sunni Muslim
mosque KARACHI, Apr 24: Unidentified men hurled a hand grenade at a Sunni Muslim mosque in the Southern port city of Karachi today, wounding at East 14 devotees, police said. The victims, including several children, were asleep in the mosque in a central neighbourhood of Karachi when the assailants tossed the grenade inside the building, they said. Two of the wounded were said to be in critical condition. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack however it is believed to have been carried out by militant rival Shiite Muslims. Radicals belonging to both sects have been battling each other in recent months in an escalating conflict that has left scores of people dead. While most of the violence had been restricted to the Eastern Punjab province Karachi, the capital of Southern Sindh province occasionally feels the brunt of the sectarian strife. Earlier today also in Karachi several men, wearing masks, tossed a powerful firecracker into the middle of a group of Shiite Muslims who had gathered in Eastern Karachi to mourn the death 1,400 years ago of the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. Police and paramilitary rangers in bullet-proof vehicles and in jeeps with machine guns mounted on the rear stepped up their patrols in Karachi and in particular in the troubled neighbourhoods following the two incidents. But Karachi is not the only city to see additional security. Additional police and security has been ordered for most cities and towns throughout Pakistan to try to prevent violence during the Islamic holy month of Muharram, which began last week. During this month devout Shiite Muslims mourn their Prophet’s grandson Imam Hussain. The mourning peaks on the ninth of Muharram, which is Monday and on Tuesday, the tenth of Muharram. On these two days Shiite Muslims in large numbers march through the streets beating themselves in memory of Hussain’s death. Extremists Sunni Muslims are opposed to the self-beatings Shiite Muslims and consider it against Islam. The authorities and religious leaders have urged followers of both groups to avoid violence. While most people in Pakistan are Sunni Muslims they have no quarrel with their Shiite brethren. However, the extremists from both sects are the ones who clash. They routinely attack the others mosques, houses and religious schools. Scores of people have died in recent months. The worst-hit area has been the Eastern Punjab province, where more than 100 people have been killed in religious violence during the last one year. Yesterday, gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslim worshipers in Multan, a major Southern city of the Punjab province, injuring 14 people. (AP) |
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Bangla police arrest 1,686 terrorists DHAKA, Apr 24: Police have arrested 1,686 suspected terrorists in 24 hours across Bangladesh in a crackdown on crime, reports said here today. Of those arrested, 1,067 were wanted on various charges and the rest were listed with police as terrorists, The New Nation newspaper said. The arrest came a day after the Government announced a drive to root out terrorism and curb growing crime. Outlawed leftwing activists in Western Bangladesh, who were offered an amnesty by Home Minister Mohammad Nasim this week, were also targeted by police. Terrorism in the country’s western region has left 12,000 people dead since 1971. (AFP) |
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