As allegations of madrasas being breeding ground for terrorism haunt the country, Delhi government is planning to set up a board to run these religious institutions and impart formal education. The move will involve teaching subjects like mathematics and science in madrasas, and is aimed at enabling the students of the madrasas to come into the mainstream education after initial Islamic studies. He said as per the proposed move, the government would also give aid to madrasas and have an audit of funds of these institutions conducted to clear apprehensions over their misuse. About 1,000 madrasas are believed to be functional in the capital and of them only Madrasa Auliya is run by Delhi Wakf Board. Good idea. Don't forget to teach them all about cause and effect, too. They seem to be a little weak in that area.
A son of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi said his charity plans to bring home more Arabs from Afghanistan after a successful repatriation of 44 Arabs who left Afghanistan through Pakistan for Libya. Seif El Islam Qadhafi, head of the Qadhafi International Association for Charitable Organisations, told reporters that the operation was facing difficulties because large numbers of Arabs had fled to Pakistan without identification cards and their stay there was considered illegal.
He said some of the Arabs who agreed to be flown back to their homes were unable to travel “because their governments did not agree on that and the government of Pakistan would not allow them to leave without their governments' approval.” Al Qaeda may have cells in Libya, but Muammar Qadhafi also is known to have cracked down on Libyan Islamic militants. The Libyan leader, once a sworn enemy of the United States, has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but maintains that he won't brand Ben Laden a terrorist until an international conference agrees on a definition of “terrorism.” There's a reason he wants to take them in, and it's probably not altruistic concern for the welfare of aging vets of the Soviet war.
MP Hussein Husseini called for granting Lebanese citizenship to non-Lebanese heads of religious sects operating in the country. In a draft law he submitted Friday, the former speaker urged the Cabinet to grant Lebanese citizenship through a decree to any leading religious personality who is living in Lebanon. He justified the proposal by referring to articles of the Constitution that call for respect to all monotheistic religions whose practices do not undermine law and order. So, if I start the Church of the Divine Elvis and get together six or seven suckersmarks adherents and move to Lebanon, I get to be a citizen? Or do I have to have an army, like Hezbollah?
Police are now looking for another suspect, Mansour Hasnain, who they believe has been holding Pearl since he went missing in Karachi. In raids on Friday night, police detained his wife and child at Toba Tek Singh in Punjab. One officer said they were "very close" to arresting Hasnain himself.
Hasnain, a militant of the Harkat-al-Mujahedin group, is one of those who hijacked an Indian Airlines jet in December 1999 and forced New Delhi to release three militants -- including Omar and Azhar.
Police believe Pearl met both Omar and Hasnain after they promised him they could arrange an interview with the head of a group linked to al Qaida cells in North America and Europe. Omar told his interrogators he shaved his beard and put on dark glasses to meet Pearl in room 114 of the Akbar International Hotel in Rawalpindi.
"It was a great meeting. We ordered cold coffee and club sandwiches and had great chit chat," one Pakistani newspaper quoted Omar as telling interrogators. "We had nothing personal against Daniel."
While Omar financed and masterminded the kidnap, it was Hasnain, using the alias Imitiaz Siddiqui, who met Pearl in Karachi. Deputy Police Chief Tariq Jamil, who was sitting in his office with Pearl, heard the reporter taking telephone calls on his cell phone from a man named Siddiqui the same day he went missing. Seems like Chief Arbuckle's investigation keeps coming back to those involved in the Kandahar hijacking, either as hijackers or as those sprung. There were five of the former, three of the latter, and so far we have fingers pointing at three of the eight.
Carrying out their deadliest attack yet, Maoist rebels killed 102 people including 93 security personnel in two separate assaults in Nepal, losing more than 100 of their cadres in a counter offensive. Heavily armed Maoists launched surprise attacks on government buildings setting some of them on fire in the town of Mangalsen and the nearby airport. According to the defence ministry, 48 soldiers of the Royal Nepalese Army, guarding the headquarters, 45 police personnel, four government officials and one civilian were killed in the attack, the worst in seven years of Maoist insurgency in the Himalayan kingdom.
In another attack, the rebels shot dead four policemen in Lalbandi area of Sarlahi district last night. The terrorists also destroyed a police post and looted some weapons and communication sets. This is turning into a pretty vicious operation. Nepal's government was a bit overconfident when it started. They'd better get pretty serious pretty quick, because the initiative still seems to be with the snuffies.
A Qassam 1 rocket for the first time hit an Israeli Army base in the Gaza Strip, causing no injuries but some damage to a military building. Hamas activists in Beit Hanon early yesterday fired two Qassam-2 rockets that landed in an unpopulated Israeli area causing no injuries. Hamas said it carried out the rocket attack inside Israel and threatened similar strikes. "Mahmud, I don't think that last violence was senseless enough. Can we make the next one a little more pointless? Oh, and can we get a few more civilians into the target area?"
Yesterday, not only was French Ambassador to the US Francois Bujon de l'Estang convoked unexpectedly to the State Department to discuss recent positions taken by Paris on US foreign policy, also - and this is where the French think that Washington went too far - the State Department dared make the convocation of Mr Bujon de l'Estang public - in the same way that it makes public its convocations of representatives of the smaller and less important countries, France's reaction to the matter being apparently at the centre of the controversy.
Never in the recent memory of French diplomats has France been treated in such a fashion. Says one diplomat familiar with the incident: "Washington's gesture is unusual, unfriendly and unexpected." So was the nattering and sharpshooting of the euroweenies. Powell presumably said to shut up and get out of the way and the cheese people took the opportunity to huff. The Bush team has caught on to the essential question: "Why is it always incumbent on us to please them?"
The really disturbing thing, of course, being that France was treated like a "smaller and less important country", instead of as the center of universe and final arbiter of morals and culture that it likes to pretend that it is.
Terming the current level of military to military cooperation between India and United States as "unprecedented," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US armed forces General Richard B Myers Saturday said a solid military partnership is important for the two nations' common goal of defeating terrorism. Myers, who began his two-day visit to India on Saturday at the invitation of Defence Minister George Fernandes, said Indo-US military ties were also central to maintaining long-term stability in Asia. Like I say, an alliance with India is a much better fit that an alliance with Pakland. India's got its own share of loons, but there's a wider range of flavors so they can cancel each other out most of the time. Interesting, that the visit comes on the heels of Musharraf's return from meeting with Bush - and his puzzling remarkswhen he got home.
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