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Bhutto protests move ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: Pakistan’s self-exiled....more US compensates China for Embassy bombing victims BEIJING, Aug 31: The United States has paid....more
Kant recalls ancient ties between Kyrgyzstan, India BISHKEK, Aug 31: Vice-President Krishan Kant....more |
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Visa restrictions will not apply to qualified: UAE DUBAI, Aug 31: United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials have said that visa restrictions imposed on unskilled workers from India and Pakistan would not apply to qualified people from the two countries. The restrictions put into place last month by the UAE Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs were only applicable to unqualified manpower, the officials told local newspapers. Mr Mohammed Esa Al Suweidi, Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, told the Dubai-based Khaleej Times that the Government had not rejected any visa application from qualified Indians or Pakistanis as along as their qualifications matched the jobs they were recruited for.....more Pak urged not to react to In a statement published today, the National Council of the Pakistan Peace Coalition said the Indian doctrine was "calculated to cause a constantly accelerating arms race in Asia by its aggressive, indeed provocative, language and content". This "bellicose programme of unending military build-up in all conceivable fields" needed to be rejected "firmly and purposefully", the statement said......more |
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Bhutto protests move to unseat Hindu judge of Pak HC ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: Pakistan’s self-exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto today denounced a citizen’s move to unseat a provincial High Court judge on the grounds that he is a Hindu. Ms Bhutto said she suspected the move against Justice Bhagwan Das of the Sindh High Court was aimed at precluding him from becoming Chief Justice of that court. "This suspicion is lent credence by the fact that (Prime Minister) Nawaz Sharif’s regime has never appointed a member of the minorities to the superior judiciary," she said in a statement from London. "Nawaz Sharif had publicly declared that he wished to impose a (Afghan) Taliban-like system in Pakistan and discriminate against women and minorities," she said. Ms Bhutto feared that the Government would collude with the private petitioner in challenging the status of Justice Bhagwan Das. She directed her Pakistan People’s Party to deal with the issue when it is heard in court and urged the Lawyers’ Associations and the human rights bodies to do same. (DPA) |
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US compensates China for Embassy bombing victims BEIJING, Aug 31: The United States has paid 4.5 million dollars in compensation for the three people killed and 27 wounded when NATO bombs destroyed Beijing’s Embassy in Belgrade in May, a U.S. embassy official said today. Washington last week "transferred 4.5 million dollars for the people who were injured and the families of those killed in the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy", the official said. U.S. State Department legal adviser David Andrews began a second day of talks with the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing today over compensation for damage to each other’s diplomatic missions, the official said. NATO bombs destroyed the Chinese mission on May 7 during the alliance’s war against Yugoslavia over Kosovo. Three Chinese journalists were killed. Agreement on compensation for damage to each other’s missions could pave the way for the two sides to reopen talks on China’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Beijing has refused to reopen WTO talks with Washington until China receives a satisfactory explanation for the bombing. It rejected as "unconvincing" U.S. explanations that the bombing was an error stemming from bad intelligence. China’s official media labelled the bombing a deliberate attack. The United States has apologised for "the tragic and mistaken bombing". (REUTERS) |
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Kant recalls ancient ties between Kyrgyzstan, India BISHKEK, Aug 31: Vice-President Krishan Kant today recalled the ancient relationship between Kyrgyzstan and India and urged the Krygyz people to work together with Indians in a spirit of partnership to overcome problems faced by both nations. Though Kyrgyzstan, a part of USSR, became independent eight years ago, there were numerous contacts between the Kyrgyz and Indian peoples for several centuries, Mr Kant said while speaking at the Independence Day celebrations of the Kyrgyz Republic. Mr Kant, who was here as the first ever chief guest of the Indendence Day celebrations, said independence has been a way of life with the Kyrgyz people for thousands of years as confirmed from the great epic "manas." Recalling the centuries old tie between the two countries, Mr Kant said Central Asia, of which Kyrgyzstan is a key member, is an area where several civilisations, religions and even empires had inter-mingled. "Buddhism from India travelled to China through Central Asia, I have heard of several Buddhist ruins in Kyrgyzstan. Babar, founder of the Mughal empire in India, grew up in osh. Sufi Islam came to India through Central Asia," Mr Kant observed and added that these contacts between India and Kyrgyzstan clearly showed the depth of relationship between the two countries. Noting the frequent exchange of cultura programmes between the two natins, he said that manas was translated into the Hindi language and one of the great epics, Mahabharata, has been translated in to the Kyrgyz language two which the Kyrgyz President had graciously written the foreword. (UNI) |
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Visa restrictions will not apply to qualified: UAE DUBAI, Aug 31: United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials have said that visa restrictions imposed on unskilled workers from India and Pakistan would not apply to qualified people from the two countries. The restrictions put into place last month by the UAE Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs were only applicable to unqualified manpower, the officials told local newspapers. Mr Mohammed Esa Al Suweidi, Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, told the Dubai-based Khaleej Times that the Government had not rejected any visa application from qualified Indians or Pakistanis as along as their qualifications matched the jobs they were recruited for. However, he stated that apart from the ban on specific categories of workers from these two countries, other factors were also taken into account. One of the main criteria was the actual need of the company for new employees. "This is usually decided in the light of the inspection report conducted by the Labour Department of the company’s business. The report shows whether a company has new projects or job vacancies which justify the need for more employees", Mr Al Suweidi explained. Indian officials told UNI that they had sought clarifications on the restrictions from the UAE Government. They also felt that the Indian Labour Ministry should regulate the flow of unskilled workers to the UAE, in the light of the present ban, through a process of consultations with the Indian missions in this country. This oil-rich Gulf state is heavily dependent on expatriate labour and Asians—mainly Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis —account for the bulk of the workers in the unskilled categories. Mr Al Suweidi said the restrictions were the result of a regular evaluation of the local labour market. "We noticed that there are a large number of jobless Indians and Pakistanis in the country. So we imposed the ban on recruitment of new people from abroad in order to provide jobs to these people by encouraging companies to recruit workers from those available in the country", he added. Highlighting the advantages of the decision, Mr Al Suweidi said it made more sense for companies to recruit workers from the surplus in the local labour market because they were aware of the UAE’s rules and usually had good experience that could save the employers a lot of time and effort in training them. He said the relaxations already made in the sponsorship transfer rules, which allow a change of visa to all employees regardless of their professions, had made the process of recruitment from within the country easier and less complicated than hiring inexperienced people from abroad. Mr Al Suweidi also clarified that all employment visa applications for unskilled Indian and Pakistani workers filed before the restrictions were imposed would be processed by the visa committees. Such workers would be granted visas if they met all the requirements, he added. (UNI) |
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Pak urged not to react to indian nuclear doctrine ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: A national peace group today advised Pakistan against responding in kind to India’s recently declared nuclear doctrine. In a statement published today, the National Council of the Pakistan Peace Coalition said the Indian doctrine was "calculated to cause a constantly accelerating arms race in Asia by its aggressive, indeed provocative, language and content". This "bellicose programme of unending military build-up in all conceivable fields" needed to be rejected "firmly and purposefully", the statement said. Though the doctrine, propounded by the Bharatya Janata Party-led interim Government ahead of India’s general election, talked of a minimal deterrence, the conditions attached to it made it a maximal programme, it said. Since the doctrine wants the programme to be "effective, enduring, diverse and flexible", the group said "the Indian nuclear forces are to be a triad of land-based missiles, aircraft as well as ship-based weapons with supporting facilities in space". "It seems to make one pleasing sound: India will not be the first to use the nukes. But then goes on to talk menacingly of punitive retaliation that will inflict damage on the aggressor that will be unacceptable to it. "Let Islamabad not rush in reaction to propound a Pakistani nuclear doctrine that will be much the same in content as the Indian one except for the provision of first strike right," the group said. It appealed to "sane people" in India "to undo the mischief of their rightist war mongers and join us in the great enterprise of keeping South Asia free of all mass destruction weapons". "We reject the notion that having been invented and fabricated, nothing can prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons. So were the killer gases. "Just as the gas warfare has been outlawed and all chemical, biological and other mass destruction weapons have been banned by common agreement, so atomic weapons of all kinds can also be abjured," the group said. (DPA) |
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