|
| 03 February 2005 | Thursday | 23 Zilhaj 1425 |
Welcome to DAWN, Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper.
Updated round-the-clock, with a major update before 10:00 PST (05:00 GMT).
|
Low Graphics Site
|
Welcome to DAWN, Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper. Updated round-the-clock, with a major update before 10:00 PST (05:00 GMT).
|
|||||||||
 
 
   
 
|
 
Six blasts rock Baluchistan, soldier hurt: QUETTA, Feb 03: Baluchistan was rocked by six bomb and landmine blasts targeting key transport, communications and power facilities, causing widespread damage and blowing off a soldier's foot. Five of the explosions were in Baluchistan, which is in the throes of an intensifying rebellion by tribesmen demanding a bigger share of the region's natural resources. Two railway lines were ripped up in the attacks, including the main line between Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, and Zahidan in neighbouring Iran. The track was blown up at Mustung, a small town some 56 kilometers (34 miles) southeast of Quetta, a railway control room official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Officials were inspecting the damage, he added. Hours earlier a powerful bomb ripped through the wall of a police station in the same town without causing any injuries, local police chief Salim Lehri said. In the other rail blast a passenger train escaped a possible accident when a pilot engine found part of the track missing at Dera Ghazi Khan. A four-feet stretch had been blown up by a bomb leaving a two-feet deep crater and halting the Chiltan express travelling from Quetta to the northern city of Rawalpindi, railway police said. In Kohlu, ilitants blew up two microwave telephone masts, officials said. As security personnel escorted telephone officials to repair the damage they were hit by a landmine blast, leaving a low-ranking soldier seriously injured, an official of the paramilitary Frontier Corps official in Quetta confirmed. Security sources said the injured man lost his foot in the blast. Meanwhile, multiple blasts destroyed an electricity transmission line tower in Naushki area, Gibreel Khan, the spokesman of Quetta Electric Supply Company told AFP. He said that the repair work on the transmission line between Naushki and Chaghi would be started soon. No one claimed responsibility for any of today's attacks, but suspicion immediately fell on nationalist tribesmen who are waging an increasingly bloody campaign in Baluchistan. A shadowy group called the Baluchistan Liberation Army has said it carried out a number of the previous attacks in the province, including rocket strikes on Pakistan's largest gas field at Sui that left eight people dead. (AFP) (Updated @ 23:25 PST) 
OIC needed to be reinvent, reengineer and reposition: Shaukat Aziz - ISLAMABAD, Feb 03: Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) called on the Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz here today and discussed matters relating to the OIC. The Prime Minister stressed to the Secretary General that the OIC needed to reinvent, reengineer and reposition itself to meet the profound challenges of the new globalized world as an effective spokesperson of the Muslim countries and peoples. (PPI) (Posted @ 16:25 PST)
Taliban leafleter arrested in Afghanistan: KHOST, Feb 03: Afghan police said today they have arrested a man carrying 500 leaflets signed by a Taliban commander and urging his countrymen to fight against US forces in the country. "The letters signed by Mullah Sayful Rahman call for a jihad (holy war) against the government and coalition forces," the commander said. Mullah Sayful Rahman, who is wanted by the Afghan government and the US-led military, is one of the key Taliban commanders in region, according to Ayoob. (AFP) (Posted @ 13:50 PST)
Afghan police dig up 16 people killed by criminal gang: KABUL, Feb 03: Afghan security forces have unearthed the bodies of 16 men thought to have been killed by a criminal gang at a house in Jalalabad, officials said today. A police official told AFP that the gang was running a brothel and the dead men were clients whom they had robbed and murdered. Three people have been detained, said provincial intelligence director Faizullah Agha. (AFP) (Posted @ 13:50 PST)
Iran Tests Atomic Parts Despite Freeze-Diplomats: VIENNA, Feb 03: Iran has been testing parts for machines that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, despite a promise to temporarily refrain from all such activities, Western diplomats said today. A Western diplomat who follows the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told Reuters on condition of anonymity Iran was performing quality control checks of "non-essential items" for centrifuges, machines that purify uranium to make fuel for nuclear power plants or weapons. "If they would act in good faith, there would be a complete standstill of every activity that relates to centrifuges," the diplomat said. This may be a breach of Iran's pledge to freeze all activities related to uranium enrichment, he added. The U.S. mission to the United Nations in Vienna declined to comment on Iran's centrifuge component testing. Iranian officials in Tehran and Vienna were not immediately available for comment. (Reuters) (Posted @ 23:45 PST)
Israel Approves W. Bank Pullback, Prisoner Release: JERUSALEM, Feb 03: Israel today approved a troop pullback from West Bank cities and the release of 900 Palestinian prisoners, measures crucial to the success of a summit with the Palestinians in Egypt next week. Both sides said they hoped to declare a formal halt to violence at the talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh next Tuesday, which will mark a dramatic return to peacemaking after more than four years of bloodshed. As part of a confidence-building package to be presented at the summit, Israel will carry out a phased military pullback from positions around five Palestinian cities in the West Bank and free 900 prisoners, cabinet officials said. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and top cabinet ministers approved the steps at a 4-1/2-hour meeting in Tel Aviv. Palestinians jailed for causing the deaths of Israelis will not be included in the release, the officials said. A first batch of 500 prisoners will be freed next week, after the summit, with 400 more to follow over three months. Abbas he hoped the first group would include prisoners who had served long sentences. The release of some 8,000 prisoners held by Israel is key to attempts by the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to consolidate power, end bloodshed and revive a U.S.-backed peace "road map" after the death of Yasser Arafat . Troops will pull back from the West Bank city of Jericho after the summit then withdraw, over two-week intervals, from areas around Tulkarm, Bethlehem, Qalqilya and Ramallah. In addition, an Israeli-Palestinian committee will be formed to agree a list of militants who will be struck off Israel's most-wanted list in return for a halt to attacks on Israelis. Israel will also open all the Gaza Strip border crossings it has closed in response to strikes by militants. (Reuters) (Updated @ 23:10 PST)
Militants Ambush 50-Strong Iraqi Police Convoy: BAGHDAD, Feb 03: Iraqi insurgents staged a major ambush on a road south of Baghdad today, killing two policemen, wounding 14 and leaving at least 36 missing on the worst day of violence since last Sunday's election. Police said militants attacked a police convoy as it traveled between Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, and the capital. U.S. forces sealed off the site of the ambush, near the Abu Ghraib area on Baghdad's western fringes. Police said some of the wounded were treated in hospital in Diwaniya. At least a dozen civilians were also killed in today's bloodshed, the worst this week. (Reuters) (Posted @ 23:30 PST)
Ukrainian parliament set to vote in firebrand Timoshenko as PM: KIEV, Feb 03: The Ukrainian parliament is expected today to confirm firebrand Yulia Timoshenko, a pivotal figure in the "orange revolution" that swept President Viktor Yushchenko to power, as the country's prime minister. (AFP) (Posted @ 10:35 PST)
Georgia PM Found Dead; President Assumes Functions: TBILISI, Feb 03: The prime minister of ex-Soviet Georgia was found dead today in a bizarre gas poisoning that robs the inexperienced president, Mikhail Saakashvili, of a steadying hand to help run his turbulent country. Saakashvili said he was taking over the functions of Zurab Zhvania, one of the few heavyweights in his reformist leadership who will be hard to replace. It was not clear if this was a temporary move or not. Zhvania's bodyguards found the 41-year-old slumped in an armchair near a gas heater at a friend's apartment, said Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. "This is a tragic accident ... It was a gas poisoning," he said. Zhvania was the senior figure in a trio of leaders who spearheaded a "Rose Revolution" of street protests that toppled veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze in November 2003 and then installed the West-leaning Saakashvili in power. The president's decision to name himself as a caretaker prime minister underscored the scarcity of suitable candidates to succeed Zhvania in the country of 5 million people. "As president I am taking over leadership of executive power. I am ordering the government to return to work," he told a crowd outside Tbilisi's Holy Trinity cathedral where Zhvania's funeral is to be held. "(Zhvania's death) is a huge blow for our country and personally for me as a president and as a person," a red-eyed Saakashvili earlier told ministers at an emergency meeting, many of them dressed in black, his own voice breaking with emotion. "I have lost my closest friend, my most loyal adviser, my biggest ally." (Reuters) (Updated @ 23:55 PST)
Cargo plane crashes in Sudan, seven crew killed: KHARTOUM, Feb 03: A Sudanese cargo plane crashed outside the capital Khartoum today, killing one Sudanese and six people from former Soviet states in eastern Europe, Civil Aviation Minister Ali Tamim Fartak said. (Reuters) (Updated @ 13:50 PST)
Fifty-three dead as Indian passenger train collides with tractor: NEW DELHI, Feb 03: Fifty-three people were killed in central India when a train collided with a tractor pulling a trailer that was crammed with people returning from a wedding, police said. "Fifty-three people have died. We fear the death toll could go up," said a police official from near the site of the accident at Kanan village, 688 kilometres (430 miles) east of Bombay . About 20 were injured and many of them were in a critical condition, said the official, who did not want to be identified. The tractor's trailer was carrying more than 70 people who had attended a marriage ceremony. They were hit by the train at an unmanned level crossing, the official said. The dead were 30 women, 18 children, including a three-year-old boy, and five men. "The people travelling in the train coaches are largely unhurt," said Indian Railways spokesman Santosh Kumar. The injured were taken to hospital in Kanan. Senior railway officials and police brass rushed to the site as workers cleared the tracks. (AFP) (Posted @ 23:35 PST)
Fifteen hurt as Bangladesh hit by another nationwide strike: DHAKA, Feb 03: At least 15 people were injured, one seriously, when petrol bombs were thrown at two buses on the eve of a nationwide shutdown called by Bangladesh's opposition party today, police said. (AFP) (Posted @ 12:45 PST)
Karachi Stocks up 65.28 points: KARACHI, Feb 03: At close of trading the KSE-100 index was at 7015.16, up 65.28 points from Wednesday's close. The Pakistani Rupee was traded at Rs 59.55 to the US Dollar in the open market. (Bureau Report) (Updated @ 16:30 PST)   Editor: Tahir Mirza The DAWN Group of Newspapers Haroon House, Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Road, Karachi 74200, Pakistan. Phone:+92 (21) 111-444-777 Fax: +92 (21) 568-3188 webmaster@dawn.com Make sure to reload these pages so you're viewing the current version. |
|
|
|||
|
Privacy Policy © DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2005 |
