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Patience with Pakistan not 'never-ending': US

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:22:01 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 07 (News Report) - The White House on Wednesday warned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that US patience is not 'never-ending,' and that it expects him to return 'soon' to the path of democracy. 'This is not a never-ending process,' said US national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. 'They need to release the people that they've arrested, they need to stop beating people in the streets, they need to restore press freedom and they need to get back on the path to democracy soon--now.'

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Bhutto playing double game: analysts and rivals

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:29:18 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 07 (News Report) - - Benazir Bhutto's call for mass unrest against President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule has not dissuaded analysts and rivals from suspicions that she is still angling for a power-sharing deal. Reports that the United States and Britain backed her earlier negotiations with Musharraf, their key ally in the 'war on terror', have fuelled suspicions that Bhutto's fiery rhetoric masks a double game. 'She means to bring pressure on Musharraf to clinch an arrangement with him which will enable her to go into the election with clean hand,' said analyst Najam Sethi, editor of the respected Daily Times newspaper. 'She has to pretend it is pressure that has forced Musharraf and she has not cut a deal with him.' Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party insisted Wednesday the talks were on ice.

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No plans for talks with Musharraf: Bhutto

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:40:21 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 06 (News Report) - Pakistan's former premier Benazir Bhutto arrived in Islamabad Tuesday for talks with political leaders on the state of emergency, but said she had no plans to meet President Pervez Musharraf. 'I am going to hold discussions with the leadership of other parties on the current situation and chalk out a joint strategy with them,' she told reporters as she left Karachi airport. Bhutto said that a meeting with Musharraf was 'not in her schedule during her stay in Islamabad.' Officials later confirmed she had landed at Islamabad airport. This will be her first visit to the capital since she returned to Pakistan on October 18 from eight years in self-exile on corruption charges, a homecoming that ended in twin bombings that killed 139 people. She is planning to address a public meeting in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjoining Islamabad, on Friday.

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US suspends defence talks with Pakistan

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:41:12 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 05 (News Report) - he United States has suspended annual defence talks with Pakistan because of the political situation there, the Pentagon's spokesman said here on Monday. Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defence for policy, was supposed to head a US delegation to the two-day talks scheduled to open Tuesday, but will not go until political conditions improve, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. "These are important bilateral meetings that require an atmosphere in which all the issues can be discussed with the full attention of all participants," Morrell said. "We hope to reschedule this meeting as soon as conditions are more conducive to achieve the important objectives at hand."

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Media curbs to stay for some time

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:46:12 -0800

Khaleej Times - By Afzal Khan - Nov. 05 (News Report) - Private TV channels would remain shut till conclusion of negotiations with their owners to reach an agreement on a 'code of conduct', Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said yesterday. The newly imposed curbs on print media would also stay but the government would also hold talks with representatives of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) to ensure implementation of the code. All private TV channels have been off air since Saturday afternoon shortly before Musharraf clamped down emergency. Durrani hoped these parleys would conclude in a couple of days. The minister was responding to questions at a news conference addressed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz yesterday evening. Aziz referred a question to the minister in which he was asked about the clamp down on TV channels and draconian Press laws imposed late on Saturday night after the promulgation of emergency.

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Dutch government freezes aid to Pakistan

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:32:44 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 05 (News Report) - AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Dutch government froze development aid to Pakistan on Monday in response to President Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose emergency rule, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The move was intended to pressure Musharraf to restore democratic and constitutional processes and to confirm Pakistan's intentions to go ahead with parliamentary elections in January, spokesman Francesco Mascini said. Musharraf's government said on Sunday that parliamentary elections could be delayed up to a year. Deputy Minister for Development Bert Koenders decided Monday to suspend the remainder of the Ð15 million (US$22 million) that had yet to be paid this year. Most of the funds already have been transferred. Mascini said the Netherlands would also freeze the Ð40 million (US$58 million) in aid it planned to give Pakistan next year mostly for educational and environmental purposes

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Pakistan to hold poll by Jan after US ups pressure

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:14:47 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 05 (News Report) - he Pakistani government said on Monday it would hold a national election by mid-January, as it came under pressure from the US for imposing emergency rule and detaining lawyers and opposition politicians. President Pervez Musharraf's decision to suspend the constitution and purge the Supreme Court has unleashed a torrent of international criticism. US President George W. Bush, who values Musharraf as an ally in his battle against Al Qaeda and the Taleban, called for a quick return to civilian rule and the release of hundreds of detainees rounded up since Saturday. It had been unclear whether parliamentary elections scheduled for January would go ahead, but Attorney General Malik Abdul Qayyum told Reuters: 'It has been decided there would be no delay in the election and by November 15, these assemblies (national and provincial) will be dissolved and elections will be held within the next 60 days.' But it was unclear when Musharraf would lift emergency rule, which he imposed on Saturday, citing a hostile judiciary and rising militancy.

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Pakistanis dazed as reconciliation becomes emergency

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:25:03 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 04 (News Report) - KARACHI - Telephone networks went down for hours, news channels went off the air -- but news that Pakistan had been plunged into emergency rule swept Karachi, the country's largest city, before communications shut down. Naeem Ahmed said thanks to the television blackout he'd never sold so many newspapers as he did on Sunday morning from his stall in the centre of Pakistan's biggest city -- but that's where his happiness ended. "Personally, I believe that emergency will further aggravate the precarious situation we are already in," Ahmed said. Yawar Abbas, a 42 year-old businessman in Pakistan's commercial capital, was in a minority backing Musharraf. "I think it's the right move," he said. "Emergency powers should help the government control rising terrorism and extremism." Amir Ahmed said he was bemused by events as he waited at the city's airport for his brother to arrive from Dubai on the same flight as opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. "This is an amazing country. In a short space of a few months we have moved from talk of reconciliation to emergency," said Ahmed, an employee of a courier company.

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Imran Khan slips from police detention

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:27:19 -0800

Khaleej Times - Nov. 04 (News Report) - LAHORE, Pakistan - Leading Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan escaped from his home in Lahore on Sunday hours after police put him under house arrest following the imposition of emergency rule by President Pervez Musharraf. "He was detained along with eight supporters at the house. The supporters are at home but he has slipped away," a close relative told Reuters. "Police are still outside the house." Khan, who captained his cricket-mad country's team to victory in the 1992 World Cup, had urged Pakistanis to take to the streets to protest against General Musharraf's action.

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Pak's fierce Pashtun tribes in terror spotlight

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:45:21 -0700

Khaleej Times - Aug. 08 (News Report) - When tribal elders gather in Kabul to thrash out a strategy to deal with a resurgent Taleban, the spotlight will fall on the equivocal role played by the fierce tribes who inhabit the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border in the global fight against terrorism. About 700 elders, Islamic clerics and other leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan are due to meet in the Afghan capital this week to take a united stand against the rising militant threat facing both nations.... Their turbans and baggy trousers betray the timelessness of the rugged mountain region, where Pashtun tribes have lived, regardless of borders and invading armies, at least since the time of Alexander the Great in the third century BC. Loyal only to their religion and tribes, they pay little heed to central government, and express their fierce independence through resentment of the US and support for the Taleban and Al Qaeda. The region, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), is home to more than three million people and geographically divided into seven "agencies" along 1,450 kilometres (900 miles) of the border. Through ethnic and religious solidarity, the Pakistani tribal zone has become a natural sanctuary for the Taleban -- who like the tribes are largely Pashtun -- and their Al Qaeda allies. US officials have repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda has re-established itself in the Pakistani tribal areas and is using the region as a base to plot terror attacks around the world. It is widely believed that Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are being sheltered by the local tribes.

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Israel, Palestinians hail Blair role, Hamas scorns

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:29:56 -0700

Khaleej Times - Jun. 28 (News Report) - JERUSALEM - While Israeli and some Palestinian leaders hailed on Wednesday the appointment of outgoing British prime minister Tony Blair as Mideast peace envoy, the Islamist Hamas group controlling the Gaza Strip condemned it. Blair will act as the special envoy of the so-called quartet, made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, which seeks to find a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The post of quartet representative has been vacant since former World Bank chairman James Wolfensohn left in frustration in May 2006. In Jerusalem the news was welcomed by Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "Tony Blair is a friend of Israel, a friend of the Palestinians and above all a friend of peace. We are delighted with the idea of working with him," he said.

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Large Israeli operation in West Bank

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:33:02 -0700

Khaleej Times - Jun. 28 (News Report) - West Bank - Israeli troops poured into the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday, sparking clashes and makeshift bomb attacks that left five soldiers wounded, security sources said. Around 80 army jeeps rolled into the Old City in the heart of historic Nablus, opening fire at random, conducting house-to-house searches and blowing open front doors, according to Palestinian witnesses.

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Horror of Kenya Airways crash hits close to home

Sun, 13 May 2007 11:47:36 -0700

Khaleej Times - May. 13 (Special Report) - More than once, I wondered why such a ghoulish mission was necessary. The argument given to obstructive soldiers was that it is important for people to see what happened. But I asked myself whether this was true. What could be gained from seeing this? The answer came in the quiet presence of Kamal Shah, a 32-year-old Kenyan whose wife, Meera, 30, was on the plane on her way home from a short business trip. With family members banned from the crash site, Shah posed as a journalist to gain access. As we busied ourselves with our work, Shah slowly and silently picked his way through the stinking mud, twisted metal, tree roots, scattered clothing, a dead snake and other debris. After several hours, he came up to me, covered in mud and sweating. Somehow, he'd recovered his wife's wallet from the mess. "It means a lot just to find this, to see her smile on her photo ID," he said, his lips and hands trembling. People do want to see, in order to understand. Still, some things are best not photographed.

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Work on Baghdad wall continues as violence kills 29

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:50:05 -0700

Khaleej Times - Apr. 23 (News Report) - The construction of a three-mile wall around a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad continued Monday, the military spokesman for the Iraqi government said, despite Premier Nuri Al Maliki's opposition to the plan. Meanwhile, four bombings across Iraq killed at least 29 people and wounded scores of others as the US military and Iraqi police continued in their attempts to quell violence. Military spokesman Qassem Atta confirmed the US military's plan to form a 3.5-metre-high concrete wall to enclose Adhamiya district, where tit-for-tat sectarian violence is threatening to spiral out of control. He repeated that it was not the only wall.

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Pakistanis march against Islamic vice squads

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:07:39 -0700

Khaleej Times - Apr. 05 (News Report) - Hundreds of Pakistani human rights activists rallied on Thursday to urge the government to act against Islamic students who have launched "anti-vice" patrols in the capital Islamabad. Around 600 protesters chanted slogans calling upon the authorities to "curb the rise of extremist forces in the country that are promoting intolerance and violence," an AFP photographer witnessed. The protest came a week after after burqa-clad girls from the Jamia Hafsa religious school in the capital abducted a local woman accused of running a brothel.

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Bush looks to historic parallels for final legacy

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:46:00 -0800

Khaleej Times - Feb. 18 (News Analysis) - As Bush marks the Presidents Day holiday and George Washington's 275th birthday on Monday, he faces a drumbeat a criticism for the event that will likely be a big part of his legacy -- the Iraq war. The president believes it will take some time to determine his place in the pantheon of presidents, despite the negative assessments some historians have already made. 'I don't think you'll really get the full history of the Bush administration until long after I'm gone. I tell people I'm reading books on George Washington and they're still analyzing his presidency,' Bush told CBS' '60 Minutes' in an interview last month. Many in the current crop of historians are already prepared to declare Bush's presidency a failure.

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Change policies or face reprisal, Zawahri tells US

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:41:36 -0800

Khaleej Times - Jan. 25 (News Report) - Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al Zawahri warned Americans of a reprisal "far worse than anything they have seen" unless Washington changed its policies towards Muslim states. Leaders of Al Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in US cities, argue that "terrorism" is justified as a way to change pro-Israel US policies and to punish Washington for its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Media as mouthpiece?

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:48:24 -0700

Khaleej Times - By Tom Plate - Jun. 20 (Opinion) - THE most open societies, by definition and accomplishment, usually have the least trouble accommodating controversial ideas. In stark contrast, systemic and neurotic insecurity mark those societies that are so uptight and dominated by control freaks at the top, they practically go to pieces over the silliest thing. Two examples serve to illustrate. One comes from China, so perhaps your astonishment will be muted. But the other example comes from the United States, which, of all places, ought to know better.

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