ISI GAMEPLAN AGAINST INDIA
Arrests at march over sharia lawTUTORING THE TALIBAN?
Afghan Women Fear the Loss of Modest Gains
At least 15 militants killed in Orakzai blitz
From Germany to Radicalism for Young Muslims
THE STRANGE CASE OF COLONEL IMAM
41 Sri Lankan workers stranded in Riyadh
PLO official says Obama sends warning to Abbas
UN demands that rebels join Darfur peace talks
Israeli air strike kills Hamas commander in Gaza
Ex-militia chief blames US for Iraq govt delays
Dutch troops leave Afghanistan after 4 years
Maid mafia becomes active with advent of Ramadan
IIRO-Saudi Arabia gains membership in UN body
4 killed, 11 wounded in bombing south of Baghdad
Alam & Andrabi the quiet hawks behind the Valley’s angry mobs
Unrest costly for Valley
Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus in Afghanistan
Iran says it will set Tel Aviv ablaze if attacked
Pak scraps spy talks with UK
Six Afghan civilians die in roadside bomb blast
Syria, Saudi Arabia help ease tensions in Lebanon, for now
Disunity greatest enemy of Muslims: Abdullah
Islamic banking probe taking place in Malaysia
US sleuths tried to bribe suspect to limit WikiLeaks expose: Report
Fresh violence in Kashmir, PM convenes meeting
Iraq civilian death toll almost doubles in July
Afghanistan: War via the web
Pakistan floods: Death toll reaches 800
Pak wants relations with India on mutual basis: Gilani
New Rafi, Madan Mohan songs out
`Minister bribed to kill Sohrab'
Case transfer insult to Gujarat judiciary: Modi
Peace cannot be built on Pakistan's lies
Israel’s Peres heads to Egypt for talks with Mubarak
US hikers being probed for anti-Iran activities
A revelation that should make a difference Samaoen Osman, Cape Town
We sacrificed more than Nato, says Gilani
Quake in northeast Iran injures 170 people
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
Photo: Several arrests were made at an English nationalist protest
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ISI GAMEPLAN AGAINST INDIA
By Manoj Joshi
Aug 1, 2010
Last week’s WikiLeaks disclosures vindicate India’s claims of an ISI terror plot against it. A look at the outfit that’s grown into a rogue state
Over the years, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate of the Pakistan Army has gained a formidable reputation as an intelligence service. Call it notoriety, or call it fame, but the ISI is now spoken of in the same breath as agencies like the Israeli Mossad or the Russian KGB (now called FSB) or its one-time ally, the CIA. But unlike these agencies, or even its Indian counterparts, the ISI’s role is larger than life. For one, it combines the attributes that India has for the internally focused Intelligence Bureau, the external intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing, the Defence Intelligence Agency and the National Technological Research Organisation. For another, it is much more political. Besides political surveillance, it involves itself directly in Pakistani politics. In Operation Midnight Jackal, for example, Brigadier Imtiaz along with former ISI operative Major Amir conspired with other political leaders to bring down the first Benazir Bhutto government in 1989 at the instruction of the then Army Chief Mirza Aslam Beg.
One of the scandals that has brought out the baleful influence of the ISI is what is called the Mehran Bank Scandal. It was in this insolvent bank that the ISI had parked its money as a payoff for the bank’s bank-rolling in 1990, the creation of the Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad, a right- wing alliance headed by the ISI’s new find, Nawaz Sharif. The scandal came out when Javed Ashraf Qazi who had taken over the agency in May 1993 (from the jihadist Lt Gen Javid Nasir who had been pushed out at the instance of the United States) sought to clean up the ISI. He ordered the agency to pull out its funds from the private bank and put it in state-owned banks. Only then was it discovered that there was no money left. Later, it emerged that its owner Yunus Habib had transferred the money to some 39 fictitious parties. He later admitted that among those who got the money were Aslam Beg and a clutch of politicians, including Nawaz Sharif. This is only a glimpse we have of the ISI’s role in Pakistan’s domestic policy. It is evident from this that the ISI, and its patron, the Pakistan Army was bitterly anti-Benazir Bhutto. Is it any surprise that she felt that she faced the greatest threat from the Pakistan Army, or that the three-man United Nations team that investigated Benazir’s assassination noted that “Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources, including Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and local Islamic militants and potentially from Pakistan’s ruling establishment.”
It went on to suggestively note: “The investigation was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials, which impeded an unfettered search for the truth… The ISI conducted parallel investigations, gathering evidence and detaining suspects.” This is what the ISI does at home. Its role abroad is even more sinister. Two countries are its principal focus — India and Afghanistan. In his book Ghost Wars, Steve Coll has outlined the manner in which the ISI systematically undermined the anti-Soviet mujahideen and promoted its own lackeys like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar so as to gain control of Afghanistan. Later they threw in their lot with the Taliban — which they successively managed using jihadist operatives like Colonel Imam. The Wikileaks documents have since detailed the continuing role that the ISI is playing in undermining the American effort in Afghanistan and in organising attacks against Indian targets there.
India is an obsession with the ISI. Even as the organisation gained its present orientation in the Afghan war, its then chief General Akhtar Abdur Rehman began planning for the Kashmir insurgency. As part of this, they built up Jamaat-e- Islami networks across the state and organised training camps for Kashmiri militants in the Paktia province of Afghanistan. When the Kashmir uprising got into its stride, the Indian forces found themselves capturing hundreds of Chinese AK-47s, RPGs, Dragunov sniper rifles, and Pika machine guns, all diverted by the ISI from the Afghanistan pipeline created by the US and the Saudi intelligence agencies. According to Coll, by 1998, the ISI had established eight stations within Afghanistan “staffed by active ISI officers or retired officers” at the colonel level who liaised with Osama bin Laden or his representatives to coordinate access to training camps for militants headed for Kashmir.
BUT the ISI had been active in India even before Kashmir. This was to encourage the Khalistan movement. The ISI operated through overseas Sikhs to start with. Later, they used renegades like Lal Singh and Talwinder Singh Parmar, and subsequently, a number of Sikh extremists like Wadhawa Singh and Lakhbir Singh Rode. A lot of the details of these activities were revealed to the government through the arrest of Singh who is now in Ahmedabad Jail and Parmar, who was allegedly killed in an encounter in 1994. Besides the Sikhs, the ISI has encouraged and financed militant leaders in Assam and the North-east through Bangladesh. Nepal has been used as a base of operations to insert militants and forged Indian currency into India. Both Nepal and Bangladesh which have open borders with India are used to run operations in India which have in recent years focused on encouraging Indian Muslims towards terrorism. Prior to the Babri Masjid demolition, the ISI could not get Indian Muslim recruits, and so used Muslims of the Mumbai underworld like Dawood Ibrahim and Mushtaq Memon.
Subsequently, the ISI has used jihadist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba for its enterprise. Indian Muslims in the Gulf region have been recruited to create networks of jihadis across India. These were the groups who carried out the bombings of 2006-2008 in Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. But the most vicious act of the ISI was its involvement in the Mumbai attack of November 2008. While the gunmen who took the lives of 173 people and over 300 injured belonged to the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, according to what David Coleman Headley told his Indian interrogators last month, the ISI was involved in the operation from the start to the finish. As Home Secretary G.K. Pillai revealed in newspaper comments published on July 14, “It was not just a peripheral role, they (ISI) were literally controlling and coordinating it from the beginning till the end.”
In a dossier given to the Pakistan authorities this February, the Indian side listed a Major Iqbal who they said was a Pakistani intelligence officer. They found his telephone number with Headley who had confessed that it was the major who had funded his visits to India. There’s something pornographic in repeating this skullduggery and evil. But the long history of espionage and spying tells us that it doesn’t really make a difference. In the mid-1990s, the US Congress revealed that in the last years of the Cold War, the US had virtually no agents in the Soviet Union — they had all been betrayed by the traitor Aldrich Ames. But this great achievement hardly helped the KGB to keep the Soviet Union afloat. Judged within its narrow moral universe, the ISI may be an outstanding organisation, but it is doomed to failure because the system it seeks to foster is coming apart.
India’s an obsession for the ISI. The organisation’s most vicious act was its involvement in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai.
Mail Today
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Arrests at march over sharia law
Aug 1, 2010
Police have made a small number of arrests as English nationalists marched against sharia law within the UK.
Scotland Yard said the protest in Westminster, central London, passed off without any major incident.
Marchers had their faces painted in the colours of the flag of St George and had banners bearing slogans such as "March for England" during the demonstration in Parliament Square and down Whitehall.
A Yard spokesman said "a couple" of arrests were made for alleged public order offences but no more details were available.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5isUEZlBNcf-WeMDZdEXtkxVG4k9Q
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TUTORING THE TALIBAN?
Karin Brulliard
Aug 1, 2010
US CHARGE Leaked documents say that Hamid Gul, a former Pakistani general, is the man who supplied bombs to the Taliban, plotted the kidnap of UN workers and hatched the plan for a suicide mission in Afghanistan “I AM NOT AN ENEMY OF AMERICA. I AM AGAINST THEIR POLICY, MUCH AS MANY VERY PATRIOTIC AMERICANS ARE AGAINST THE POLICIES.“
From the deluge of leaked military documents published on Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief emerged as a chilling personification of his nation's alleged duplicity in the Afghan war, an erstwhile U.S. ally turned Taliban tutor. Retired Lt. Gen.
Hamid Gul seems little short of delighted. He dismissed the accusations against him as “fiction“ and described the documents' release as the start of a White House plot. It will end, he posited, with an early American pullout from Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama “is a very good chess player. ... He says, `I don't want to carry the historic blame of having orchestrated the defeat of America, their humiliation in Afghanistan,'“ said Gul, 74, adding that the plot incorporates a troop surge that Obama knows will fail. That sort of theory makes Gul an incarnation of some of the United States' greatest challenges in dealing with Pakistan. Here, prominent figures closely linked to the security establishment not only trumpet what they view as vast American scheming but also, as U.S. officials and the leaked documents allege, provide support to Afghan rebels.
Gul did that in an official capacity as head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency from 1987 to 1989, when he helped the CIA funnel Islamist fighters into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Eloquent and polished, he was viewed by his American partners as pro-Western and moderate, while his Saudi benefactors saw him as a pious, conservative Muslim.
The leaked documents depict American views of Gul as a murderous terrorist agent. According to some of the documents, he possessed dozens of bombs for Taliban fighters to detonate in Kabul, instructed militants to kidnap United Nations workers, hatched a plan for a suicide bombing in Afghanistan to avenge an insurgent and assured fighters that Pakistan would provide them haven.
The reports are unconfirmed. But they are hardly surprising to those closely following the Afghan war, or to Gul himself. On Monday, he described himself as a “whipping boy“ for the United States. “There's no doubt where his sympathies lie,“ a U.S. official said, echoing the views of many Pakistani defense analysts. “Even though Gul may not be a card-carrying member of a terrorist group, he stays in touch with militants, offering his insights and advice on their activities.“
Gul, one of several former Pakistani military officials whom the United States accuses of fuelling the Afghan insurgency, has deemed the war a “war against Muslims.“ He has acknowledged being a member of a militant organisation banned by Pakistan.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had fired Gul as ISI chief on suspicion that he wanted to overthrow her, fingered him as a threat shortly before her assassination in 2007. Gul and a senior ISI official say he cut ties with the agency upon retiring two decades ago. But he remains a major figure in Pakistan, where he regularly airs his anti-American views on talk shows. Gul said talking to the media is one of his hobbies, as are horticulture and trying to lower his golf handicap of 18.
His support for the Taliban is purely “academic,“ he said. “There is no physical input to it. I don't have the means. I don't have the will,“ Gul said, speaking in his living room in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “I am not an enemy of America. I am against their policy, much as many very patriotic Americans are against the policies.“
To that end, Gul said, he holds Taliban leader Mohammad Omar in high regard for his “resistance“ to U.S. invaders, though he said he has never met the man. He readily acknowledged that he has maintained friendships with former mujaheddin such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, a onetime CIA-backed fighter whose network is now viewed as the coalition forces' most lethal foe.
“The Americans dropped him like a hot brick,“ Gul said. “Why should I discard him just because he is doing the same thing ... that they did against the Soviet occupation? They are fighting for the liberation of their country.“
A conversation with Gul is a journey into the dense web of suspicion in this region, where Americans detect Pakistani and Iranian involvement in attacks in Afghanistan, Afghans see the ISI under every rock, and Pakistanis sense nefarious Indian designs all around them. In Gul's version, India is where the leaked documents implicating Pakistani aid to the Taliban originated. The reports, he said, were fed by Indians to Afghan intelligence agents and intelligence “contractors“ who are paid for each report they file. The reports are meant to pressure Pakistan to toe the American line, he said, a view widely shared here.
Gul said he was singled out in the reports because of American fears that he will expose U.S. “cavities“ of corruption and complicity in the opium trade in the Afghan conflict. Pakistan's cooperation with the United States, he said, has “ravaged“ its economy and social fabric. “My future generations are going to be proud when they read about their ancestors,“ Gul said. “What about the American children, when they read about this that a retired 74-yearold general brought about the defeat of America in Afghanistan? What were their generals doing?“ But Gul reserved praise for Obama, who, he said, was expertly playing this game of intrigue. The document leak was orchestrated to indict Bush-era war policy, and the troop surge to expose Pentagon follies; soon a massive antiwar movement will rise, Gul said.
“I am sitting here understanding your politics better,“ he said, almost giddily.
“Obama has been given the Nobel Peace Prize, in anticipation of what he is going to do. Somebody has read his mind.
And I have read his mind, too.“
Staff writer Peter Finn in Washington contributed to this report.
Hindustan Times
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Afghan Women Fear the Loss of Modest Gains
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Aug 1, 2010
MAHMUD-E RAQI, Afghanistan — Women’s precarious rights in Afghanistan have begun seeping away. Girls’ schools are closing; working women are threatened; advocates are attacked; and terrified families are increasingly confining their daughters to home.
For women, instability, as much as the Taliban themselves, is the enemy. Women are casualties of the fighting, not only in the already conservative and embattled Pashtun south and east, but also in districts in the north and center of the country where other armed groups have sprung up.
As Afghan and Western governments explore reconciliation with the Taliban, women fear that the peace they long for may come at the price of rights that have improved since the Taliban government was overthrown in 2001.
“Women do not want war, but none of them want the Taliban of 1996 again; no one wants to be imprisoned in the yards of their houses,” said Rahima Zarifi, the Women’s Ministry representative from the northern Baghlan Province.
Interviews around the country with at least two dozen female members of Parliament, government officials, activists, teachers and young girls suggest a nuanced reality — fighting constricts women’s freedoms nearly as much as a Taliban government, and conservative traditions already limit women’s rights in many places.
Women, however, express a range of fears about a Taliban return, from political to domestic — that they will be shut out of negotiations about any deals with the insurgents and that the Taliban’s return would drive up bride prices, making it more profitable for a family to force girls into marriage earlier.
For many women, the prospect of a resurgence of the Taliban or other conservative groups is stark. “It will ruin our life,” said Shougoufa, 40, as she sorted through sequins and gold sparkles at the bazaar in the city of Pul-i-Khumri in Afghanistan’s north.
“I am a tailor and I need to come to the bazaar to buy these things,” she said. “But if the Taliban come, I will not be able to come. Already we are hearing some girls cannot go to their work anymore.”
In teachers’ tea-break rooms, beauty shop training sessions, bazaars and the privacy of their homes, young women worry that their parents will marry them off early, so they will not be forced to marry Taliban.
In the Pashtun-dominated district of Taghob, east of Kabul, girls’ schools have been closed and any teaching is done at home, the provincial education director said.
That does not trouble some local officials.
“Look, our main priority is to feed our people, to provide rest and to protect their lives,” said Haji Farid, a local member of Parliament. “Why are people focusing on education and sending girls to school? Boys walk three, four, five kilometers to their school. How can a girl walk two, three, four kilometers? During a war you cannot send a girl beyond her door. No one can guarantee her honor. So it is hard to send your daughter to school.”
In Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul, all unstable southern provinces, there are girls’ schools open in the provincial capitals, but in outlying districts there are few, if any. In Zabul Province, there are just six schools for girls, four in the capital and two outside, but few families send their girls to school because of the fighting, said Muhammad Alam, the acting head of the provincial education department.
In Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, the situation for women has steadily worsened over the past year. Ms. Zarifi, the Women’s Ministry representative, has endured assassination attempts and demonstrations against her work. Three months ago, a female member of the provincial council was paralyzed in an attack, and a woman was stabbed to death in the daytime in the middle of the provincial capital earlier in July.
By contrast, most of Kapisa Province, which lies northeast of Kabul, is peaceful. There is a mediation program in the capital to help women and girls when they face domestic violence. In the predominantly ethnically Tajik north there are large, lively schools for girls, where families even allow those who are married to complete high school.
Women’s advocates are concerned that they are increasingly being shut out of political decisions. At an international conference in Kabul on July 20, which was meant to showcase the country’s plans for the future, President Hamid Karzai said nothing about how women’s rights might be protected in negotiations.
The very first meeting on negotiations, held by Mr. Karzai on July 22 with former leaders who had fought the Taliban, did not include a single woman, despite government pledges. When asked, government officials said that women would be included in later sessions.
Although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also pledged that she will not desert Afghan women and that any deal with the Taliban that traded peace for women’s rights was “a red line,” women remain wary.
“Right now it’s a big challenge for women to go to school and work, but at least according to our Constitution and laws they have the right to do so,” said Nargis Nehan, 31, an Afghan women’s advocate.
“If the Taliban come back, by law women will be restricted and not allowed to leave their homes,” she said, adding, “Maybe not everywhere, but in those districts where they are in power.”
There is also the real possibility that a deal with the Taliban could stoke the anger of non-Pashtuns who once fought and still fear them, raising the prospect of renewed fighting.
Afghanistan’s women have long led exceptionally constrained lives. The combination of a male-dominated tribal culture in which women have been often treated as little more than chattel, combined with a conservative practice of Islam and a nationwide lack of education, meant that long before the Taliban arrived in the mid-1990s, women had few opportunities beyond the home.
The mujahedeen leaders who forced out the Soviets in the late 1980s were as conservative as the Taliban in many places, keeping women at home in order to preserve family honor instead of educating them or integrating them into the government.
“Families want to send their daughters to school, but it is hard for them to decide to do so because of the fighting and insecurity,” said Mr. Alam, the head of provincial education in Zabul Province.
The families of women who work in offices are threatened, said Rahima Jana, who heads the province’s Department of Women’s Affairs. And the group Human Rights Watch documented instances of night letters meant to scare women into staying at home.
“Security is a big challenge, and we cannot work when there is bad security,” Ms. Jana said. “Last year was much better than this year.”
In Mahmud-e Raqi, 12 teenage girls sat around a small trunk filled with beauticians’ tools — combs, boxes of hair dye, scissors, nail polish, hair spray — and watched closely as the instructor sat one of the girls in a desk chair and demonstrated how to cut off split ends evenly.
In most places in the world this scene would hardly be a sign of women’s liberation, but in this corner of Afghanistan, it meant a great deal. The girls, ages 15 to 17, had been allowed to come from their villages to the provincial capital; they will take home a trunk of beauty goods and can earn their own money in their homes by offering beauty services to women in their village.
This chance at determining a little of their future is what they fear will be threatened if the Taliban return through a negotiated peace settlement.
“They will beat us and forbid us from this freedom, the freedom to come here, to this class; they will stop us from doing things,” said Biboli, 16, a girl with long brown hair barely covered by a thin white veil.
The greatest fear is that no one is really listening, said Habiba Shamim, one of the instructors.
“Please,” she pleaded. “Carry our words to people.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/world/asia/31women.html?hp
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At least 15 militants killed in Orakzai blitz
01 Aug, 2010
PESHAWAR: Fifteen militants were killed during military action in the Orakzai tribal region, DawnNews reported on Sunday.
Four insurgent hideouts were destroyed by a fighter jet plane during the assault on militants in upper Orakzai.
Clashes between the militants and security forces continued in the area.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/44-at-least-15-militants-killed-in-orakzai-blitz-fa-02
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From Germany to Radicalism for Young Muslims
By SOUAD MEKHENNET
Aug 1, 2010
FRANKFURT — Before Abi left her parents’ house in northern Germany last year, she asked her father, “Daddy, what can I bring you from my journey?” He looked up from his book and answered, “Some perfumed oil.” “Will do,” she said, hugging him goodbye.
He is still waiting, more than a year later, for her to return.
Abi, now 23, and her husband never made the trip they said they had planned to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca and Medina. Instead they became part of a growing number of young Muslims from Germany and other European countries who travel to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, eventually ending up in the camps of groups affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Full report at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/world/europe/31muslim.html?ref=world
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THE STRANGE CASE OF COLONEL IMAM
Manoj Joshi
Aug 1, 2010
How the Taliban revolution has started devouring its own jihadi children
IN APRIL this year, a video surfaced in Pakistan. Starring in it were two officers close to the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate — Col (Retd) Amir Sultan Tarar, widely known as Col Imam, and Squadron Leader (Retd) Khalid Khawaja. Both had gone missing in North Waziristan in March while they were accompanying a journalist to make a documentary feature on militants. In the video, both officers said they were former ISI officers and that they had been visiting the area at the instance of the former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg and former ISI director-general, Lt-Gen. Hamid Gul. Khawaja also said he had come at the direction of Col Sajjad, a serving ISI officer. The video was released by a previously unknown group calling itself Asian Tigers — later identified as the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi al- Alami, a splinter faction of the anti-Shia Punjabi extremist group — and they demanded the release of two arrested Taliban leaders, Mullah Kabir and Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, in Pakistan’s custody in exchange for the release of the two retired officers.
Full report at: Mail Today
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41 Sri Lankan workers stranded in Riyadh
By MD RASOOLDEEN
Aug 1, 2010
RIYADH: Forty-one Sri Lankan workers, all of them women, have been stranded in Riyadh since March because they were not given their assigned jobs by their local sponsor.
“The local agent in Colombo recruited the workers for a cleaning company, which is unable to deploy the workers since it has a dispute with the concerned hospital (where the workers were to be deployed),” Nimal Ranawake, the Sri Lankan Embassy’s labor counselor, told Arab News on Saturday.
The diplomat added that the sponsor has promised suitable placement as soon as the dispute between the cleaning company and the hospital is settled.
Meanwhile, five months into the women’s ordeal, six women have reportedly fallen ill and relatives of the stranded workers say they are not being adequately accommodated with hygienic conditions or food. Without access to the workers, Arab News was unable to confirm the claims.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93508.ece
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PLO official says Obama sends warning to Abbas
By KARIN LAUB
Aug 1, 2010
RAMALLAH, West Bank: A senior PLO official says President Barack Obama has warned Mahmoud Abbas in a letter that US-Palestinian relations might suffer if the Palestinian leader refuses to resume direct peace talks with Israel.
The White House has been pushing Abbas hard in recent days to move quickly to face-to-face negotiations, but had no comment Saturday.
The PLO official says Obama sent the letter July 16 — the strongest US warning to Abbas yet.
Abbas insists he will only negotiate once Israel commits to the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Israel's prime minister refuses to be pinned down ahead of talks.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter has not been made public.
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article93575.ece
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UN demands that rebels join Darfur peace talks
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Aug 1, 2010
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Friday demanded an end to escalating violence in Darfur and called on rebel groups to join peace talks to end the seven-year conflict in the western region of Sudan.
Using tough language in a resolution adopted unanimously, the council said it deplores "the fact that some rebel groups continue to refuse to join the political process." The resolution extended the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur until July 31, 2011, and said the force should give priority to protecting civilians and ensuring that humanitarian workers can safely deliver aid.
Fighting in Darfur that began with a 2003 rebellion by groups who accused the government of neglecting the vast desert region has forced 2.7 million people to flee their homes, according to UN figures. Some 300,000 people are believed to have died.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article93084.ece
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Israeli air strike kills Hamas commander in Gaza
Aug 1, 2010
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israeli warplanes fired missiles, killing a senior commander of the Hamas military wing and wounding 11 people in five targets hit across Gaza overnight, the group and the military said Saturday.
The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to a powerful rocket fired from Gaza that hit the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, causing damage but no injuries.
Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers said their slain member was Issa Batran, 42, a commander of the groups' military wing in central Gaza and a senior rocket maker.
Batran had survived several previous Israeli attempts to kill him, but his wife and five of his children were killed during Israel's three-week war in Gaza that ended in January 2009.
Later Saturday, some 3,000 Hamas loyalists marched in Batran's funeral procession, firing guns, waving the group's green banner and Palestinian flags. Batran was buried in a grave next to his wife and children.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article93245.ece
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Ex-militia chief blames US for Iraq govt delays
By SUADAD AL-SALHY & RANIA EL GAMAL
Aug 1, 2010
BAGHDAD: Washington is holding up the formation of a new Iraqi government by insisting the two main election winners form a coalition, allowing Iraq's neighbors to meddle in its affairs, a top Shiite politician told Reuters.
Hadi Al-Amiri, a parliamentarian who heads the Badr Organization, the former armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council's (ISCI), said the United States was pressuring Iraqi leaders to form a government of the two main electoral blocs led by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and former Premier Iyad Allawi.
He said Washington wanted to exclude others, including the Badr group, which won 11 seats in parliament.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article93459.ece
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Dutch troops leave Afghanistan after 4 years
Aug 1, 2010
KABUL: Dutch troops were to leave Afghanistan after 4 years on Sunday, handing over control of military operations in central Uruzgan province after a political row at home forced their draw-down.
A Netherlands embassy spokeswoman said a small ceremony would take place to handover to an American-led coalition of soldiers.
"Dutch forces have served with distinction in Uruzgan, and we honour their sacrifice and that of their Afghan counterparts during the Netherlands' tenure in the province," the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
Around 1,950 Dutch troops have been deployed in Afghanistan under ISAF, mainly in Uruzgan where opium production is high and the Taliban very active.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Dutch-troops-leave-Afghanistan-after-4-years/articleshow/6243670.cms
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Maid mafia becomes active with advent of Ramadan
By MD AL-SULAMI
Aug 1, 2010
JEDDAH: It is claimed that the rate of housemaids running away from their sponsors usually increases as the holy month of Ramadan approaches.
They escape as they are often able to command larger salaries of around SR2,500 per month, particularly because many Saudi families find it difficult to manage without a house help during the fasting month.
The pressing need for housemaids during Ramadan drives some families to employ illegal foreign maids, particularly in larger cities such as Jeddah, Riyadh and Makkah.
However, a housemaid who successfully escapes often gives her original sponsor the headache of having to recruit a replacement, which may cost as much as SR10,000 in addition to residence fees. Moreover, the maid might steal from the house before running away.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93504.ece
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IIRO-Saudi Arabia gains membership in UN body
By MUHAMMAD IBRAHIM
Aug 1, 2010
JEDDAH: The International Islamic Relief Organization-Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) made a remarkable achievement by obtaining membership in the United Nation’s Department of Public Information (DPI).
The subcommittee on non-governmental organizations of the DPI met on June 30 to consider new applications from NGOs for association with DPI and approved the application of IIROSA.
Under this membership, the IIROSA will be listed in the DPI’s directory of NGOs and will start receiving data on relevant UN materials and information about conferences, seminars, briefings and other events and activities.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93533.ece
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4 killed, 11 wounded in bombing south of Baghdad
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Aug 1, 2010
BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials say a roadside bomb has killed four Iraqis, including three soldiers, and wounded 11 people south of Baghdad.
The blast took place on Saturday near the municipal offices in Rashid district just south of the Iraqi capital, as soldiers were responding to an earlier explosion in the same area.
Police and hospital officials say the three soldiers and a bystander succumbed to their wounds in a Baghdad hospital.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Violence has dramatically dropped in Iraq since 2008, but insurgent attacks are still a daily occurrence at a time when US forces are withdrawing and leaving the country's nascent forces alone in charge of security.
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article93367.ece
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Alam & Andrabi the quiet hawks behind the Valley’s angry mobs
Aug 1, 2010
Srinagar : There is no evidence yet of a central command controlling the motley stone-pelting mobs across the Valley. But as curfew entered its 36th day today and two more protesters were killed in firing — taking the death toll of civilians to 24 since the protests began last month — there are the first signs of the emergence of a new and younger hardline leadership.
The buzz is around three individuals — one is in prison — and although none of them can claim control across the Valley, their active support to the protesters is clear, say police.
Filling the void in the absence of Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who was only released today, are Masarat Alam and Dukhtaran-e-Millat’s Aasiya Andrabi. Both have gone underground and police have raided a dozen locations to track them.
Full report at:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/alam-&-andrabi-the-quiet-hawks-behind-the-valleys-angry-mobs/654437/
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Unrest costly for Valley
Toufiq Rashid
Aug 1, 2010
n a wave of renewed ed on Friday, two youngsters were killed on Saturday when security forces used bullets and teargas to disperse stone-pelting mobs shouting anti-India, pro-freedom slogans.
The deaths take the civilian toll to six in two days and 23 since the unrest started on June 11, after a teenager was killed in alleged troop firing. An estimated 200 protesters have been injured since Friday.
According to official claims, 150 security personnel have been injured in two days.
After the death of four youth in firing on Friday, curfew and security restrictions were imposed across the Valley. But protesters defied the curfew.
A 20-year-old man was killed in Bandipora district, 17 km northeast of Srinagar, on Saturday. “A mob attacked a police camp causing injuries to a number of policemen, including the Bandipora SP,“ said a police spokesperson.
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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Targeted Killing Is New U.S. Focus in Afghanistan
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER
Aug 1, 2010
WASHINGTON — When President Obama announced his new war plan for Afghanistan last year, the centerpiece of the strategy — and a big part of the rationale for sending 30,000 additional troops — was to safeguard the Afghan people, provide them with a competent government and win their allegiance.
Eight months later, that counterinsurgency strategy has shown little success, as demonstrated by the flagging military and civilian operations in Marja and Kandahar and the spread of Taliban influence in other areas of the country.
Instead, what has turned out to work well is an approach American officials have talked much less about: counterterrorism, military-speak for the targeted killings of insurgents from Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Full report at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/world/asia/01afghan.html?_r=1&hp
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Iran says it will set Tel Aviv ablaze if attacked
Aug 1, 2010
Iran will set Tel Aviv on fire if Israel attacks the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear programme, newspapers on Sunday quoted Iran’s envoy to the United Nations as saying.
“If the Zionist regime commits the slightest aggression against the Iranian soil, we will set the entire war front and Tel Aviv on fire,” Mohammad Khazai said in the northeastern town of Kashmar, the Farhang-e Ashti daily reported.
The government-run Iran newspaper quoted him as saying that the “noise” about an Israeli attack on the Islamic republic is a “sign of the enemy’s fear.”
Israel has never ruled out taking military action to thwart Iran’s programme of uranium enrichment, accusing its arch-foe of seeking to acquire atomic weapons — a charge Tehran denies.
Full report at:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2010/August/middleeast_August5.xml§ion=middleeast
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Pak scraps spy talks with UK
Jill Lawless
Aug 1, 2010
Pakistan's ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha has cancelled a visit to Britain to protest PM David Cameron's remark that Pakistan must stop “export of terror“.A diplomatic spat with implications for international counterterrorism escalated on Saturday, when Pakistan's spy chief cancelled a visit to London after the British leader suggested that Pakistan exports terrorism.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that Lt. Gen.
Ahmed Shujaa Pasha had called off a trip planned for next week, when he had been due to discuss security cooperation with British intelligence bosses.
Prime Minister David Cameron outraged officials in Islamabad when he said during a visit to India that Pakistan must not be allowed to “promote the export of terror whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world.“
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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Six Afghan civilians die in roadside bomb blast
01 Aug, 2010
KANDAHAR: Six civilians were killed on Sunday by a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, an official said, as civilian casualties continued to mount amid an increase in violence by insurgents.
Nine civilians were wounded in the blast, which hit their vehicle on the western edge of Kandahar city, said Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
Roadside bombs are a favourite weapon for Taliban insurgents in their campaign against foreign forces and the Afghan government, but civilians often fall prey to such attacks. According to government figures at least 40 non-combatants were killed in various parts of the country last week.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/04-afghanistan-blast-six-killed-qs-04
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Syria, Saudi Arabia help ease tensions in Lebanon, for now
By Natacha Yazbeck
01 Aug, 2010
BEIRUT: A landmark visit by Syrian and Saudi leaders may have helped to ease tensions in Lebanon, but did little to address the crux of the problem in the long-run, analysts said on Saturday.
The Shia militant group Hezbollah continues to warn against its implication in the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, however, sparking fears of yet another conflict in the tiny Mediterranean country.
“This is essentially a Saudi blessing for a return to Syrian domination of Lebanon,” said Beirut-based journalist Michael Young.
“I think it will calm domestic tensions for a time,” Young told AFP. “But I also think that the Syrian objective is to build on this so that they can return to a situation that more or less existed before their withdrawal in 2005.”
Full report at:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/international/syria,-saudi-arabia-help-ease-tensions-in-lebanon,-for-now-180
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Disunity greatest enemy of Muslims: Abdullah
Aug 1, 2010
MAKKAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah on Saturday described disunity as "the greatest enemy" of Muslims and called upon Islamic scholars across the world to work for unity.
In his keynote speech at the opening of an international Islamic conference here, he commended the Muslim World League's (MWL) efforts to spread the message of Islam and confront extremism and terrorism.
"Disunity is the beginning of downfall ... rather it is the greatest enemy of people ... Muslims should beware of division and improve their relations," he said quoting a speech made by King Abdul Aziz at the first Makkah conference 86 years ago.
Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Naif opened the three-day conference, organized by the MWL to mark its 50th anniversary, on behalf of King Abdullah and read out the king's speech.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article93580.ece
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Islamic banking probe taking place in Malaysia
Aug 1, 2010
There appear to be possible conflicts between civil and Islamic law in Malaysia, in regard to the country's banks.
There have been a number of high-profile legal disputes over the finance industry in the past year, with sharia banking disputes coming to the fore.
Lawyers, bankers and sharia scholars in Malaysia have had to assess the industry where Sukuk holders rank in priority of payment when default occurs.
A dedicated committee of legal professionals is now meeting to look into the civil law provisions which have at times conflicted with the sharia rules of Islamic finance.
While Islamic products have their own conditions, land law and contract law are all conventional laws.
A near-default in December of the dollar-denominated sukuk from Dubai property developer Nakheel created fears that Islamic financing instruments may not be a safer alternative to conventional investments.
http://www.macaunews.net/story/666815
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US sleuths tried to bribe suspect to limit WikiLeaks expose: Report
Aug 1, 2010
WASHINGTON: US investigators probing leaks of defence secrets by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks tried to bribe a suspect to "infiltrate" its data and prevent further revelations, a media report said on Sunday.
Investigators interviewed Boston-area acquaintances of Bradley E. Manning, a military analyst charged with providing documents related to Afghanistan war to the website, in an effort to prevent additional leaks, The Washington Post reported citing a person questioned in the probe.
The investigators from the army and the State Department seemed to be "looking for classified documents that they thought to be in the Boston area", the acquaintance said on condition of anonymity. "I got the impression that we're still in the process of containing a leak."
The man, a computer expert who met Manning in January, said he told the investigators in mid-June that he knew of no such documents. The computer expert also said the army offered him cash to "infiltrate" WikiLeaks.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-sleuths-tried-to-bribe-suspect-to-limit-WikiLeaks-expose-Report/articleshow/6244119.cms
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Fresh violence in Kashmir, PM convenes meeting
Aug 1, 2010
SRINAGAR: One person was killed and 15 others, including 13 policemen, were injured in clashes between protestors and security forces which opened fire in Pampore area in the outskirts of the city on Sunday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security on Sunday evening to discuss the Kashmir situation.
The number of people who have lost their lives in violence since Friday has gone up to seven after one person was killed in clashes between protestors and security forces which opened fire in Pampore area in the outskirts of the city early in the day.
Curfew remained clamped in violence-hit Kashmir Valley as security forces maintained a close vigil on the situation, which continued to be tense.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fresh-violence-in-Kashmir-PM-convenes-meeting/articleshow/6243980.cms
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Iraq civilian death toll almost doubles in July
Aug 1, 2010
BAGHDAD: The number of civilians killed by violence in Iraq almost doubled in July from June, a sign that insurgents may be trying to exploit political tensions after an election that produced no outright winner.
A total of 396 civilians were killed by bomb blasts or other attacks last month, after 204 died in June and 275 in May, government figures issued late on Saturday showed.
The July toll was a far cry from the dark days of all-out sectarian war in 2006/07 but remained high.
Overall violence has fallen sharply since the height of the sectarian war that followed the US-led invasion in 2003.
But bombings and assassinations still occur on a daily basis as Sunni Islamists try to reverse the rise of the Shi'ite majority to political dominance.
Iraqi political parties are still trying to form a government after inconclusive parliamentary elections in March.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Iraq-civilian-death-toll-almost-doubles-in-July/articleshow/6243522.cms
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Afghanistan: War via the web
Aug 1, 2010
This week,via the internet,the world found itself the surprised recipient of thousands of leaked American military documents dealing with the war on terror in Afghanistan.The documents revealed American intelligence and classified findings detailing Pakistan's role in the war,figures of Afghan civilian casualties and the success of the war itself.The posting of these documents by the WikiLeaks website generated fresh controversy around the war,its data and its combatants.The American government voiced concern over the security risks posed by such Web-based information leaks while others questioned the exact dynamics of the war itself.
In a scathing article criticising the war in the wake of Wikileaks,The American Conservative commented," The war in Afghanistan is a disaster, something President Obama refuses to acknowledge and insists on continuing for no discernible reason. Afghanistan's top commander, Gen.Stanley McChrystal voiced his frustration and lost his post. His replacement, Gen. David Petraeus isn't any clearer about our prospects than his predecessor or the president. Who truly puts the nation's security more at risk? A government that continues to put soldiers in harm's way with no clear mission or strategy,as the bodies,dollars and questions continue to pile up,or a website that insists the general public should know what their government is up to?"
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Afghanistan-War-via-the-web-/articleshow/6239458.cms
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Pakistan floods: Death toll reaches 800
Aug 1, 2010
Rescue workers in northwest Pakistan struggled to reach thousands of people affected by the country's worst floods in living memory.
PESHAWAR: Rescue workers and troops in northwest Pakistan struggled Saturday to reach thousands of people affected by the country's worst floods in living memory, as the death toll rose to 800.
Hundreds of homes and vast swathes of farmland were destroyed in the northwest and Pakistani Kashmir, with the main highway to China reportedly cut and communities isolated as monsoon rains caused flash floods and landslides.
The United Nations said almost a million people had been affected by the flooding, and at least 45 bridges destroyed around Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Full report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pakistan-floods-Death-toll-reaches-800/articleshow/6241421.cms
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Pak wants relations with India on mutual basis: Gilani
Aug 1, 2010
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan wants relations with India on a mutual basis and seeks the resolutions of all outstanding issues, including the Kashmir dispute and Siachen, through dialogue and respect, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said today.
Gilani made the remarks while addressing a gathering at Sargodha in Punjab province.
"I had told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that dialogue is the only way to resolve all the issues between the two countries," he said.
He also said that Pakistan will not compromise on its nuclear programme as it is the asset of the nation and it will be protected at all costs.
He said: "We have told the US to trust in our institutions as Pakistan has made more sacrifices than the NATO forces in the war against terrorism," he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pak-wants-relations-with-India-on-mutual-basis-Gilani/articleshow/6241363.cms
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New Rafi, Madan Mohan songs out
Aug 1, 2010
Two previously Mohammad Rafi and composed by Madan Mohan have been released to mark the respective death anniversaries of the musical icons. The singer and the composer collaborated on some of Bollywood's greatest hits ever.
Rafi's 30th death anniversary fell on July 31 while July 14 was Madan Mohan's 35th death anniversary.
The two songs were recorded in their lifetime, but were never released as the films for which they were recorded never saw the light of day. The first song -Ya illahi, ek haseena ne machai hai tabahi -is a naughty number in Rafi's inimitable style, recorded sometime in the mid-60s, said a statement by Madan Mohan's family. It was discovered from the composer's master spools.
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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`Minister bribed to kill Sohrab'
Aug 1, 2010
Mohd Azam, an associate of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, has alleged that former Rajasthan minister Gulab Chand Kataria took Rs 10 crore from a marble trader to kill Sheikh.
RAJASTHAN ANGLE Ex-home minister Kataria had allegedly taken R 10 crore from marble trader
witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case has alleged that former Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria had taken R 10 crore from a marble trader to eliminate Sohrabuddin.
The statement of Mohammad Azam, who was an associate of Sohrabuddin and Tulsi Prajapati, could tighten the noose around some Rajasthan politicians who are already on the CBI radar.
Azam told the media on Saturday in Udaipur that Sudhir Joshi, former deputy superintendent of police, and inspector Bhanwar Singh Hada were involved in the Prajapati encounter case. He said he, too, could be killed anytime.
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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Case transfer insult to Gujarat judiciary: Modi
Aug 1, 2010
You see Gujarat as an enemy state? Should we lock up our courts in the state?
NARENDRA MODI, Gujarat CM Did not Modi feel insulted when SC ordered transfer of cases relating to Godhra?
In another round of tongue-lashing after the CBI appeal for the transfer of the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case out of Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi asked whether the state was considered a part of an “enemy“ country.
In the status report submitted to the Supreme Court on Friday, the CBI sought the transfer on the ground that the accused persons were highly influential and could try to manipulate and derail the trial.
The CBI named 15 persons, including close Modi aide and former junior home minister Amit Shah and police officials, as accused in the 2005 case.
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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Peace cannot be built on Pakistan's lies
Vir Sanghvi
Aug 1, 2010
There is an increasing disconnect between the Government of India's attitude to Pakistan and the view of most educated Indians. The disconnect has been most apparent in the recriminations that have followed the failure of the Indo-Pak foreign minister's summit.
And each day brings new evidence -such as the Wikileaks documents -that seems to undermine the government's approach.
To be fair, the official Indian approach sounds reasonable. The government says that India cannot hope to be one of the great powers of the 21st century if it continues to engage in pointless hostility with a small neighbour. It is, therefore, important to improve relations with Pakistan. Obviously, this will not happen overnight. But it is vital to continue with a process of engagement that results in confidence-building measures, in such symbolic gestures as the release of fishermen and in tiny incremental steps that improve the overall atmosphere. When both sides narrow what Manmohan Singh calls the `trust deficit', then perhaps some real progress will be possible.
Full report at: Hindustan Times
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Israel’s Peres heads to Egypt for talks with Mubarak
1 August 2010
Israeli President Shimon Peres left for Cairo early on Sunday where he was to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the Middle East peace process, Peres’s spokeswoman said.
“During the visit, the two will discuss the advancement of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and different levels of cooperation between Israel and Egypt,” his office said in a statement.
The meeting was initiated by the Egyptian leader, who invited Peres for talks followed by a working lunch, it said. The two men last met in November.
Israel and the Palestinians are currently locked in a round of US-brokered indirect negotiations, although the international community is trying to encourage both parties to move to direct talks.
Last week, foreign ministers from the Arab League agreed in principle to the resumption of direct peace talks, but left the timing of when they should start in the hands of the Palestinian leadership.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2010/August/middleeast_August7.xml§ion=middleeast
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US hikers being probed for anti-Iran activities
1 August 2010
TEHRAN — Iran said on Sunday that three American hikers detained in Tehran for a year are being investigated by the authorities for possible actions aimed at harming the security of the Islamic republic.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said it was “evident” that the three — Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 — had entered the country illegally.
But “their other possible actions and intentions against the security of the Islamic republic are being probed by relevant authorities,” he was quoted as saying on the website of state television.
The three Americans were arrested on July 31 last year after they reportedly strayed into Iran from across the border with Iraq.
Full report at: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2010/August/middleeast_August4.xml§ion=middleeast
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A revelation that should make a difference Samaoen Osman, Cape Town
1 August 2010
The WikiLeaks revelations clearly showed the unprovoked war crimes and unnecessary slaying of innocent Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. The WikiLeaks evidence should make war criminals of George Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama. They should all be brought to justice at The International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes against humanity!
Well Done WikiLeaks for exposing the real terrorists and war criminals. It seemed like they were playing video games with Afghan lives. So too are CIA unmanned drone strikes against innocents in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere!
Also, in February, US Special Operations forces killed innocent pregnant women and family members in Eastern Afghanistan. So who are the real terrorists and war criminals. The US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq has become a “Licence to Kill” and slaughter the innocent. Full report at: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/openspace/2010/August/openspace_August1.xml§ion=openspace
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We sacrificed more than Nato, says Gilani
01 Aug, 2010
SARGODHA, July 31: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani says Pakistan will not compromise on its nuclear programme as it is an asset of the nation and it will be protected at every cost.
Speaking to a gathering at Silawali here on Saturday, he said, “We have told the US to trust in our institutions as Pakistan has given more sacrifices than the Nato forces in the war against terrorism.”
He said Pakistan wanted its relations with India on mutual basis and wanted resolution of all issues, including Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek with its neighbour through dialogue and respect.
About the Britain prime minister’s statement in India that Pakistan is promoting terrorism, he said, “Both Pakistan and the UK have good relations for the last 60 years and Pakistan wanted to further strengthen them. Why he did not raise the issue of human rights violations in Held Kashmir by the Indian armed forces?”
Gilani said completion of projects and infrastructure development would bring about a socio-economic revolution in Mianwali, Khushab, Sargodha and Dera Ismail Khan.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/we-sacrificed-more-than-nato,-says-gilani-180
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Quake in northeast Iran injures 170 people
Aug 1, 2010
Tehran : An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 hit northeastern Iran, injuring around 170 people, state radio reported on Saturday.
The tremor hit the city of Torbat-e Heydariyeh, about 700 km (435 miles) east of Tehran, at 6:20 p.m. (1350 GMT) on Friday, and had its epicentre around 7 km outside the city.
Many people spent the night outdoors in the city's parks fearing aftershocks.
Of the 170 injured, 22 needed hospital treatment while the others were treated on site. No deaths were reported.
Earthquakes are common in Iran. In 2003, about 30,000 people were killed in a quake that devastated the southeastern city of Bam.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/quake-in-northeast-iran-injures-170-people/654225/
9:51 PM
Sultan Shahin
