|
|
ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Pakistan’s deposed Prime Minister....more Fresh fighting kills 24 COLOMBO, Oct 31: Sri Lankan officials today said that Government ..more N Korea- New supplier WASHINGTON, Oct 31: North Korea has replaced China in providing....more Govt lifts ban on ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The post-coup Pakistan Government...more US challenged WTO ruling BERLIN, Oct 31: The US has challenged a World Trade Organisation.....more |
 |
Prince Charles under LONDON, Oct 31: Britain’s Prince Charles came under ....more Japan might lift TOKYO, Oct 31: Japan, apparently satisfied with New ....more
Pak military ruler ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf......more |
 |
|
ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Pakistan’s deposed Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, has grown a beard in military detention and misses his favourite dishes from the Prime Minister’s house kitchen, the mass-circulation newspaper Jang has reported quoting "reliable sources". Sharif, 47, is being held incommunicado since being overthrown by the army on October 12 after he sacked the Army Chief, General Pervez Musharraf. Jang said the fallen leader, who is fond of good food, is being served "simple food" against his desire for burgers of an American fast food franchise. Sharif has been shifted from place to place but not interrogated so far. Doctors monitoring his health had detected some irregularity in his blood pressure, the newspaper said. Sharif told his guards several times that he was willing to quit politics for seven years - the punishment the law provides for a disqualified politician - or even go into exile, it added. When asked for his choice of newspapers, Mr Sharif, a keen player of the game of cricket, chose magazines related to the game. (DPA) |
|
Fresh fighting kills 24 rebels in Sri Lanka COLOMBO, Oct 31: Sri Lankan officials today said that Government forces had killed another 24 tiger rebels in fresh fighting as militants admitted 27 cadres were killed in a previous battle. The Defence Ministry said, 10 female and 14 male cadres of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were killed near the town of Elephant Pass yesterday. The fighting came as tiger rebels gave names of 27 cadres killed by Government forces in another confrontation near the village of Ampakamam. The LTTE said over their clandestine voice of tigers radio that they had lost 27 of their fighters in the Wanni region on Friday. The rebels made the announcement after accepting the remains of the 27 cadres handed over to them by the military through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). There had been heavy fighting near Ampakamam village in the past few days with the Defence Ministry saying that over 50 militants were killed for the loss of five soldiers. (AFP) |
|
N Korea- New supplier of missiles to Pak WASHINGTON, Oct 31: North Korea has replaced China in providing Pakistan with long range modern missiles and the relationship is likely to continue so long as India pursues its own longer range and solid fuel missiles, a leading US defence Think Tank has said. China has provided Pakistan M-11 missiles and technology which have a 300-km range in the late 1990s...But us pressure to halt missile and nuclear technology transfers overcame its interests in helping Pakistan and North Korea replaced Beijing in supplying Islamabad with longer range, more modern missiles, says the National Defense University (NDU). North Korea supplied the 1,500 km range No Dong’, which Pakistan christened as Taliban Ghauri’ and this arms relationship is likely to continue so long as India pursues its own longer range and solid fuel missiles, the University said in its latest strategic assessment. Pakistan turned to China in the early 1990s for political and technological support and Beijing provided Islamabad with low-cost conventional arms. More importantly, China became a source of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes, it noted. However, improvement in US-China relations and the end of Soviet threat has put paid Beijing’s interest in helping Islamabad although mutual friendship and defence cooperation continued, the University said in its report. Chinese technology assistance to Pakistan increasingly lagged behind that which India obtained from Russia and France, the report said. The Clinton administration, analysts noted, had stubbornly refused to acknowledge the existence of M-11s in China for political reasons as it would call for extensive sanctions against Beijing at a time when the American goal was to persuade the Communist country to accept terms for entry into the World Trade Organisation as well as for other reasons. Generally the North Korean missile is called the Ghauri’ but the University insists that its actual name is Taliban Ghauri’, apparently in recognition of the fact that Pakistan played a major role in creating the Islamic militia and Mohammed Ghauri was one of the old Afghan predators in India, which had made him popular in Pakistan. (PTI) |
|
Govt lifts ban on Pakistani Islamic Party leader ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The post-coup Pakistan Government has lifted a ban on prominent fundamentalist leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s entry into the country’s North West Frontier Province, his Jamaat-i-Islami party said today. Ahmad was ordered not to enter the region bordering Afghanistan for 30 days following what officials called an objectionable speech in defiance of a ban on public gatherings in Peshawar on October 23. The Jamaat leader had criticised reported remarks by the military ruler General Pervez Musharraf lauding Mustafa Jamal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Ahmad said there was no room for secularism in Pakistan and advised Musharraf, who deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif in an Army coup on October 12, not to follow Ataturk’s example, claiming that even the Turkish had rejected un-Islamic values. The Jamaat last week challenged the ban through a writ before the Peshawar High Court. The court had issued notice to the provincial Government for a hearing next week. Officials said the restrictions had been withdrawn as a goodwill gesture. Newspapers quoted officials as telling ahmad in a phone call the ban was clamped by the local administration and the military authorities were not consulted. A party official, Sirajul Haq, welcomed the decision, accusing the bureaucracy of attempts to create a wedge between the well-organised Islamic Party and the military authorities. (AFP) |
|
Prince Charles under fire over fox hunting LONDON, Oct 31: Britain’s Prince Charles came under renewed attack from anti-hunting groups as he and his son Prince William took part in the traditional fox hunt. The league against cruel sports yesterday accused the Prince of Wales of making a "political statement" in view of Government plans to ban fox hunting. The chairman of the group, John Cooper, said Charles was clearly out of touch with public opinion. "Charles is engaging the practice of setting a pack of hounds on a wild animal for fun. But this is animal abuse in the name of tradition," Cooper said. Pro-hunting groups were meanwhile planning a rally today against the planned legislation. Several public demonstrations have been held in recent weeks by the hunt supporters. (DPA) |
|
Japan might lift sanctions against India: Daily TOKYO, Oct 31: Japan, apparently satisfied with New Delhi’s "positive and forward-looking stance" regarding signing the CTBT, is inching towards ending economic sanctions against India, a leading daily claimed here today. The Government is actively considering lifting sanctions on imposed after the May nuclear tests of last year following recent assurances from New Delhi on the CTBT, largest-circulated Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said. Japanese Foreign Vice-Minister Ichita Yamamoto, who met External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh during a recent visit to New Delhi, found the Indian assurances "forward looking and positive, the daily reported. Japan also believes, the daily said, that it is necessary to begin lifting sanctions to help India attain a national consensus for joining the CTBT. The Asahi report said Japan’s move was motivated by a desire to stop erosion of the nuclear nonproliferation movement by encouraging India and Pakistan to join the CTBT. The World Bank devised aid India consortium could also meet early next year in Paris or Tokyo after a two years gap caused primarily due to Japan’s opposition, sources said. The consortium was due to meet in Tokyo last year but the Japan refused to host it and slapped sanctions to punish India for conducting nuclear tests. (PTI) |
|
Pak military ruler formalises structure of interim set-up ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Pakistan’s military ruler General Pervez Musharraf has formalised the structure of his interim administration to govern the country following an Army coup three weeks ago, an official said today. The General made three decrees overnight laying down rules for the oath and functioning of a seven-member National Security Council (NSC) and the Federal Cabinet, he said. Musharraf, who deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on October 12 and proclaimed himself Chief Executive, will head both the NSC and the cabinet, the official said. The NSC members and ministers will aid and advise him in exercise of his functions, they said. NSC, the apex decision-making body, includes Naval Chief Admiral Abdul Aziz Mirza, Air Force Chief Air Marshal Pervez Mehdi Qureshi, and four civilian experts on legal, financial, foreign and national affairs. Musharraf last week picked up Sharifuddin Pirzada, jurist and former secretary general of the 55-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Attiya Inayatullah, a minister under the late military ruler Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yaqub, Governor of the Central Bank, and Imtiaz Sahibzada, a former bureaucrat, as his NSC members. He has already inducted Governors in all four provinces but so far made only two appointments to the cabinet. Abdus Sattar, a career diplomat and retired top Foreign Ministry official, has been named as Foreign Minister and Shaukat Aziz, a senior banker, as Finance Minister, also be in charge of commerce. (AFP) |
|
US challenged WTO ruling on trade dispute with EU BERLIN, Oct 31: The US has challenged a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling in a trade dispute with the European Union (EU) after the trade body held that Washington was ‘illegally’ subsidising major American Corporation by giving tax breaks for their subsidiaries in off-shore fiscal havens. The challenge came when the US appealed on Friday against a ruling by a three-member arbitration panel last month with the US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky asserting that the panel of the Geneva-based WTO committed multiple legal errors on both substantative and procedural issues, according to a WTO official. The EU had complained to the wto in the dispute over a system of granting export subsidies to US companies through so-called foreign sales corporations located in off-shore areas that the tax breaks amounted to an illegal subsidy and a drain on American tax payers. The amount involved in tax breaks to US companies with overseas subsidiaries like Boeing Co, Microsoft and General Motors and others is estimated to be about 2.5 billion dollars. Barshefsky in a statement maintained that the existing tax breaks do not not give US companies an unfair advantage and that a careful review of the history of the issue, the fact of record and the applicable wto legal rules concerning income tax measures should result in a ‘reversal’ of the panel’s decision. Current US law allowed domestic companies to set up foreign corporations in off-shore tax havens, which allowed manufacturers to get the tax exemption on generally US made products and some 3,600 such companies are located in the US virgin islands, it has been reported. The EU had complained against this provision stating that the tax practice violated trade rules with the Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy observing that the US export subsidy had created an ‘important distortion of international trade by granting an unfair advantage to US products in third markets. The ruling by the arbitration panel in favour of the EU was seen as a victory of sorts for the Europeans in securing a moral high ground in world trade in its diplomatic battle with the US after losing two cases in the WTO to America in recent months relating to imports of hormone treated beef and banana into Europe. The EU’s losses in the banana and beef cases have led to punitive tariffs worth slightly more than 300 million dollars on wide ranging European products. The appellate review by the trade body following the American challenge is expected to take three months. The arbitration panel had given Washington time untill October One 2000 to change its export tax laws, after which the EU would be authorised to take retaliatory measures. It has been reported that this was the second time that US tax provisions have been challenged in the global trading system. (PTI) |
|
