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Tuesday,
July 15, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak intrudes into Afghan territory US soldier killed, six hurt in Iraq
Iraq had ‘preplanned’ guerrilla warfare Britons feel misled over Iraq war: poll Blast in Indonesian Parliament
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Nepal calls Maoists for talks Pravasi Divas to focus on younger NRIs, PIOs Unseen
stars of animated film
Pak Foreign Office for recognition
to Israel
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Pak intrudes into Afghan territory Kabul, July 14 A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said a tripartite commission of Afghan, Pakistani and US security officials are expected to tackle the border problem in talks tomorrow. “There have been encroachments,” presidential spokesman Javid Loodin told a news conference, referring to a report compiled by the team that recently returned from the border. Pakistan has repeatedly denied that any of its forces have crossed into Afghan territory. Afghanistan and Pakistan have long had disagreements over their porous border but the recent intermittent clashes have seriously strained their relations. Protests against Pakistan have erupted in several parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul, where a mob attacked the Pakistani Embassy, smashing windows and office equipment and damaging vehicles last week. Mr Loodin said Pakistani forces were found to have encroached in the Goshte and Lalpur districts to the east of the city of Jalalabad. In one place they were about 600 metres inside Afghan territory, he said. The latest border troubles have coincided with an operation by US-led forces on the Afghan side of the border, and by Pakistani troops on their side, to block the movement of fighters loyal to the ousted Taliban and their Al-Qaida allies. Many Afghans regard Pakistan with suspicion, partly because of Pakistani support for the Taliban for years, until the September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA.
— Reuters |
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US soldier killed, six hurt in Iraq Baghdad, July 14 The attack came the day after the launch of an Iraqi Governing Council of local leaders, which the USA hopes will reduce resentment towards its occupation. US forces have been attacked frequently in postwar Iraq. Officers are braced for a surge this week to coincide with several anniversaries linked to ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party. A convoy of military vehicles was attacked in the central al-Mansour area of Baghdad around 6 am (local time) a military spokesman said. Casualties were taken to a military hospital. Witnesses said one vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and another by machinegun fire. Dozens of US troops searched the area as helicopters hovered above. Soldiers searching an abandoned house in the area found a light machinegun probably used in the attack. Thirtytwo US soldiers had been killed in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Iraqis cooperating with the occupiers who toppled Saddam on April 9, had also been killed and wounded in attacks. Yesterday, a bomb killed one Iraqi near a police station and a local policeman was killed when his patrol was fired on as it tried to help US forces attacked at a checkpoint. A group calling itself the “Armed Islamic Movement for Al Qaeda, the Falluja Branch” said in an audio tape broadcast by Dubai-based Al Arabiya television yesterday that it was behind attacks on US forces in Iraq and warned of more bloodshed.
— Reuters |
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Iraq had ‘preplanned’ guerrilla warfare New York, July 14 In its upcoming issue, Newsweek reports that the document listed 11 steps if the Iraqi leadership falls to “the American-British-Zionist coalition forces.” The first step, it says, was looting and burning of all government institutions that belong to “our Directorates”. The other steps, it says, included sabotaging power plants, assassinating Imams, buying stolen weapons from citizens and generally creating mayhem. The document has not been officially verified, but a senior Pentagon official called it “plausible”, and the magazine says in any case the orders have been largely, if not entirely, carried out. During the last week of June, just in Baghdad, Iraqis launched attacks on US soldiers an average of 20 times a day, Newsweek says quoting confidential military report. “All you do is try to help them and they just throw rocks at you and spit at you and shout at you,” Sgt. Paul Harris, who is stationed outside Baghdad, tells Newsweek. “Good works now seem like a waste of time in the searing desert heat.” Alpha Company brought in bulldozers to clean the trash off a neighbourhood soccer field. The next day people used it as a dump again. “There’s no trust anymore,” says Sergeant Harris. The magazine says L Paul Bremer III, the American civil administrator who heads the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), may have inadvertently recruited guerrillas for Mr Saddam Hussein by disbanding the Iraqi army and the Baath Party, and leaving thousands of men with no visible means of support. Mr Bremer reversed himself and put the soldiers back on a small salary, yet Iraq still swarms with men who are armed and trained to kill and blow things up. “Many Baathists did not support Saddam and would have been happy to work with the Americans, but when Mr Bremer made his decision that Baathists have no place in the future of Iraq, they were desperate,” says Mustafa, an Iraqi professional who works for the CPA and welcomes the American occupation, though not the way it is being carried out. US intelligence officials, the magazine says, acknowledged for the first time last week that resistance seemed as if it was coordinated at the regional, if not the national, level.
— PTI |
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Britons feel misled over Iraq war: poll London, July 14 Sixty-six per cent of those questioned by ICM Research said they believed the Prime Minister had misled them — either knowingly or unknowingly — before he sent troops into action. The poll is a further blow to Blair as he struggles to convince voters that Britain was justified in going to war. Yesterday, former chief of UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix became the latest expert to question the evidence put forward by the British Government in making its case for war. The Mirror poll found that 27 per cent of Britons believed Blair had knowingly given them false information, while 39 per cent thought he had misled the people without knowing. The survey also found that one in three Britons, or 35 per cent, had lost confidence in Blair because of the war, with 11 per cent of Blair’s own Labour Party saying they had lost faith. But the poll was not all bad news for the Prime Minister, as 66 per cent of those questioned believed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at the beginning of the war. ICM Research interviewed 1,012 adults between July 10 and 12.
— Reuters |
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Blast in
Indonesian Parliament Jakarta, July 14 Jakarta city police chief Makbul Padmanegara said he could not yet say what type of bomb was used in the blast, which caused no injuries. “I need time to carry out further laboratory research,” he told reporters. He said the motive and the culprits were not yet clear. Central Jakarta police chief Sukrawardi said today’s bomb was similar to one which exploded on April 24 behind the United Nations headquarters in the city centre and which also caused no injuries. “This bomb was assembled with black packing tape, precisely the same as the one on Wahid Hasyim Street. But there’s no definite conclusion yet. A different assumption could emerge later,” Sukrawardi said. He said today’s bomb at Parliament, which was in recess, almost certainly had a timer. — AFP |
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Nepal calls Maoists for talks Kathmandu, July 14 In a letter sent to the talks convener Baburam Bhattarai, Information Minister Kamal Thapa called upon the rebels to fix a date for formally starting the third round of talks and resolving all differences peacefully, a media report said. Mr Thapa urged the Maoists to resume the stalled talks process at the earliest with a view to resolving the insurgency problem through dialogue and maintaining sustainable peace and stability in the country, according to the government-run The Rising Nepal. The Maoists had taken the government’s letter positively and would come up with a fixed date for the third round of talks in a day or two, said human rights activist K.S. Malla, who is also a member of the government-Maoist talks monitoring committee. Meanwhile, the Nepalese Government had agreed to release all Maoist detainees, including the three central level leaders, gradually to facilitate the peace process, Mr Malla said. The government and the Maoists had during Friday’s informal talks agreed to avoid any armed confrontation and settle matters of dispute through mutual consultations, he said. The five agitating parties had also asked the Maoists to come up with an agenda. They had offered to discuss the three-point agenda of the Maoists, including the constituent assembly elections, if they accepted the 18-point agenda of the parties. The agenda included provisions to curtail the powers of the monarchy.
— PTI |
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Pravasi Divas to focus on younger NRIs, PIOs New York, July 14 The first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was held in New Delhi on January 9-11 this year. About 2,000 delegates from 62 countries, including 700 from the USA and Britain, took part in the conference. The 2004 event will also begin on January 9 to mark the return of Mahatma Gandhi to India in 1915 after a two-decade stay in South Africa. The conference will have three new features, besides the programmes held earlier this year. “The three-day second Pravasi Divas will have a special plenary session aimed at second-and third-generation of overseas Indians, an exhibition of ethnic (Indian) news media and a global business network,’’ Mr Vivek Bharati, adviser to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), which is co-sponsoring the conference with the Ministry of External Affairs, said. At a dinner meeting, hosted here over the weekend by Mr Amarendra Khatua of the Office of the Ambassador-at-large for NRIs and PIOs, Mr Bharati said, “The main aim is to focus on the younger Indians, many of whom have never visited the land of their ancestors. “Some young Indians have expressed interest to volunteer their services.’’ Mr Bharati, one of the officials sent abroad to drum up support for the Pravasi Divas and “sell’’ the event among PIOs and NRIs in the USA, ended his 10-day America visit in New York.
— UNI |
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Unseen
stars of animated film Los Angeles, July 14 The faces of
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michelle Pfeiffer and Brad Pitt adorned
advertisements for Dreamworks studios’s “Sinbad: Legend of the
Seven Seas,” unreeled in US theatres on July 2. Unfortunately, in
the movie itself, their beautiful faces can’t be seen. But that
doesn’t matter to animation expert Jim Hill. “What really
matters is that before the release, the stars are everywhere —
interviews, magazines, televisions, sign ads — and this makes you
(want) to see the film,” he said. Since 1998, when the unique
voice of Woody Allen joined that of actress Sharon Stone in the film
“Antz,” Dreamworks has used the actors’ fame as publicity. “Just
like Steven Spielberg wants the best for his movies, we want the best
talent in the world, too,” Dreamworks cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg
told USA Today. — AFP |
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Pak MPs to visit India Islamabad, July 14 Party spokesman Hafeez Hussain Ahmad, who will be a part of the delegation, told reporters that they had been invited by the leader of the Jamat Ulema Hind, Asad Madani. The Pakistani lawmakers would visit Sirhind in Punjab, New Delhi and Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, the birth place of the Deoband Sunni Islamic sect, considered to have inspired several militant outfits like the Taliban.
— PTI |
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Pak Foreign Office for recognition to Israel Islamabad, July 14 The Pakistan Foreign Office has strongly supported covert, if not overt, diplomatic ties with Israel claiming that the shift would bring about a bonanza of political, military, and economic benefits for Pakistan, media reports said here today. The advantages and disadvantages of this significant decision, which an official described as a “cost and benefit analysis”, had been spelt out in a confidential summary prepared by the Mideast section of the Foreign Office last month on instructions from “some high office”, local daily ‘The Nation’ reported. The recommendation stating that Pakistan would not suffer any disadvantage if it recognised Israel, was handed over to President Pervez Musharraf before he embarked on his visit to the USA. “We don’t see any harm in recognising Israel,” it quoted an unnamed Foreign Office official as saying.
— PTI |
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Pak tribesmen ban women teachers Peshawar, July 14 |
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Fifth Indian held in kidnapping case Singapore, July 14 Sivakumar Muthu, 29, was charged during the weekend with abducting Vigneshvaran Selvaraj, who was kept in a metal container for three days and nights.
— DPA |
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Curiosity
and a quest for neighbour-
(
Islamabad, July 14
