Month: July 2009

Govt must fight terrorism to save Islam, Pakistan

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Islamabad, July 29: Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi has said that Pakistan stands today at the most critical juncture of its history and a wave of violent acts in the form of suicide attacks, bomb blasts, sabotage activities, attacks on security personal and state installations is sweeping across the country.

He was addressing an international conference on “De-radicalization and Engagement of Youth in Pakistan “organized by Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) here today.

Congress leaders ask Omar not to take precipitate action

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New Delhi, July 29: Senior Congress leaders on Tuesday spoke to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in a bid to persuade him not to insist on his resignation in the wake of allegations levelled by a PDP leader.

Union Minister and Congress in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir Prithviraj Chavan also spoke to Mr. Omar asking him not to take any precipitate action.

Mr. Chavan said the Chief Minister was hurt because it involved personal honour and reputation. It was important for him to clear the blot on his reputation.

Ayatollah orders closure of prison housing protesters

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Tehran, July 29: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the closure of a prison in southern Tehran, state media reported amid concerns about the fate of protesters arrested in the wake of last month’s disputed presidential election.

Parliament deputy Kazem Jalali told the Mehr news agency that the leader ordered the Kahrizak detention centre shut down because it lacked the necessary standards for preserving detainees’ rights.

Kahrizak is said to be the main place where the election protesters were held and where some of them also died in mysterious ways.

After MP, Andhra Congress MLA in slapping row

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Hyderabad, July 29: Weeks after Nagarkurnool Congress MP Dr Manda Jagannath slapped a bank staffer, Dr P Shankar Rao, a Congress MLA from Secunderabad Cantonment, was caught on camera ‘slapping’ an employee of a supermarket in Bowenpally area of Secunderabad.

The footage shows Rao, who was making a surprise inspection of the superstore’s godown, raising his hand, but not actually slapping the employee. “I was inspecting the godown and this employee tried to prevent me from entering a particular area.

Farooq Abdullah extends support to Omar’s decision

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New Delhi, July 29: Extending complete support to the decision of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to resign, Union Minister Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday came down heavily on PDP saying it was a bunch of “frustrated lot without any ethics”.

“They (PDP) are a bunch of frustrated lot without any ethics. Yesterday, its President (Mehbooba) attacked the Speaker of the Assembly and today they made this frivolous allegation,” Mr. Abdullah told PTI here.

Chained and tortured for 8 days

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Hyderabad, July 29: A 17-year-old girl was chained by her stepfather to a TV stand for more than a week as her mother was fighting sickness.

Henna limped into a Hyderabd police station on Monday night, chained to a TV stand. Her stepfather Mohammed Akbar allegedly tied her with iron chains for more than a week, while her mother battled sickness.

Repeated pleas by Henna’s mother, Begum, went unheard, after which she decided to approach the city police. The girl said her stepfather beat and verbally abused her almost daily.

Joint force’s camp attacked in Lalgarh

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Midnapore, July 29: Suspected Maoists on Tuesday night attacked a school building that houses a camp of the joint forces at Lalgarh with bombs and bullets, the police said.

The attack took place at about 10 pm at Ramkrishna Vidyalaya, a short distance away from Lalgarh police station, in Midnapore West district.

The force personnel also retaliated the fire and after a brief encounter, the attackers fled, the sources said.

No casualty or injury was reported.

Father of slain terrorist moves Delhi High Court

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New Delhi, July 29: Claiming that his son was an innocent, the father of a suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorist, who was killed in a Delhi shootout last year, has written to Delhi High Court seeking criminal proceeding against the policemen involved in the gun battle.

Mohammed Sajid’s father Ansarul Hassan, of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, wrote to Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah pleading that an FIR should be filed against the police personnel.

Muslim Women’s Rights: Ijtihad in the Light of Maqasid al-Shariah

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Prejudices against women are a universal phenomenon, found in almost every human society. When such prejudices are sought to be given religious sanction, it becomes much more difficult to do away with them. Lamentably, certain views and prescriptions contained in the corpus of traditional Muslim jurisprudence or fiqh do indeed militate against women, and even go against the spirit and teachings of Islam, a religion that stresses women’s rights and equal status.

Taliban’s Constitution

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Kabul, July 29: Laying down a code of conduct for its fighters, the Afghan Taliban has issued a book restricting the use of suicide bombings and guiding fighters on how to act on hostages and win hearts and minds of the Afghan people.
“A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets,” says the book obtained by the Doha-based Aljazeera television on Monday, July 27.

The book, “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for Mujahideen”, says that Taliban fighters should avoid civilian casualties while launching attacks.

Britons question Afghan war as more bodies flown home

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London, July 29: Most Britons believe the increasingly bloody war in Afghanistan is “unwinnable” and want troops pulled out, an opinion poll said Tuesday, as more soldiers’ bodies were flown home.

The dead servicemen were honoured a day after Britain announced the end of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan and outlined a change of strategy following a sharp spike in deaths.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband signalled Monday that Britain would back talking to moderate Taliban representatives in a bid to isolate militant insurgents who have killed 191 British troops since 2001.

Nigerian troops surround militant hideout

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Maiduguri, July 29: Army troops traded fire with Islamic militants Tuesday and surrounded the suspected hideout of a radical Muslim leader accused of orchestrating three days of violence in Africa’s most populous nation.

A tense calm returned to several towns elsewhere in northern Nigeria after authorities imposed curfews and poured security forces onto the streets to quell militant attacks against police, which have killed dozens of people since Sunday.

RIL-RNRL row: Anil Ambani slams Mukesh, Oil Ministry

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New Delhi, July 29: Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) Chairman Anil Ambani has gone public with the allegation that the Petroleum Ministry is favouring his elder brother Mukesh in the battle for gas from the Krishna Godavari Basin.

At the Annual General Meeting of RNRL, Anil Ambani made scathing attack on Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani.

Iraqi army storms Iranian opposition camp

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Baquba, July 29: The Iraqi army seized control on Tuesday of the main base for Iran’s main armed opposition in exile after months of a tense standoff, military officials said.

The storming of Camp Ashraf, which was disarmed by the United States in 2003 and surrounded by American forces until recently, coincided with a visit to Iraq by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

The offensive, which one police source said left 15 people wounded, came after the People’s Mujahedeen said it was ready to return to Iran if the authorities there would guarantee its members would not be abused.

Swat landowners scared to return home

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Islamabad, July 29: Even as hundreds of thousands of people stream back to the Swat Valley after months of fighting, one important group is conspicuously
absent: the wealthy landowners who fled the Taliban in fear and are the economic pillar of the rural society.

About four dozen landlords were singled out over the past two years by the militants in a strategy intended to foment a class struggle. In some areas, the Taliban rewarded the landless peasants with profits of the crops of the landlords. Some resentful peasants even signed up as the Taliban’s shock troops.

Pakistan in Deadline for Taliban Leader

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Islamabad, July 29: Though the three-month Swat offensive has failed to kill or capture the local Taliban leader, the government has given the army until September to kill or capture Baitullah Mehsud, the top Taliban leader and the country’s most-wanted man.

“The army has been assigned with the task to either kill or arrest Baitullah Mehsud by September 1 in order to break the backbone of militancy,” a senior official told Islamonline.net on Monday, July 27, requesting anonymity.

Pakistan’s Most Wanted
Pakistan Future… where to? (Special Page)

Top House Democrats struggling on health care bill

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Washington, July 29: Top House Democrats sought to minimize the impact of a near-certain missed deadline for health care legislation on Tuesday as the leadership struggled to ease the concerns of rank-and-file critics.

“I’m disappointed of course because I really hoped that we could have gotten a bill out of here by the end of this month,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and chairman of one of the three committees at work on the measure.

Iraqi Displaced Return to Nothing

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Baghdad, July 29: For three long years, Mohammad Zoba impatiently awaited his return to his home in Fallujah city to pick up the shattered pieces of his life and start over.
“We have returned two weeks ago and have found our home totally destroyed, with only few walls standing,” he told IslamOnline.net.

“We were forced to camp inside our home, with open ceilings and no electricity,” he added.

“I found myself displaced inside my own home.”

Zoba could not get back his job to provide for his family.

U.S., China talk money, climate; no breakthroughs

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Washington, July 29: The United States and China broached two touchy topics — currencies and climate change — in talks on Tuesday that appeared to be more about establishing positions than hammering out firm commitments.

In the first round of what will be an annual “Strategic and Economic Dialogue,” the two major economic powers signed a memorandum promising greater cooperation in tackling climate change, energy and the environment, although the document was not publicly released and few specifics emerged.

Hamas dress code aims to make Gaza more Islamic

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Gaza City, July 29: Police order a lingerie shop to hide its scantily clad mannequins. A judge warns female lawyers to wear head scarves in court. Beach patrols break up groups of singles and make men wear shirts.

It’s all part of a new Hamas campaign to get Gazans to adhere to a strict Muslim lifestyle — and the first clear attempt by the Islamic militants to go beyond benign persuasion in doing so.

It suggests that having consolidated its hold on Gaza in the two years since it seized control by force, Hamas feels emboldened enough to extend its ideology into people’s private lives.

140 prisoners from Iran election crackdown freed

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Tehran, July 29: Iran on Tuesday released 140 people detained in Iran’s postelection turmoil and the supreme leader ordered the closure of a prison where human rights groups say jailed protesters were killed, in a nod by authorities to allegations of abuses in the crackdown on protests.

Dalai Lama praises Polish uprising in World War II

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Warsaw, July 28: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Tuesday visited the Warsaw Uprising museum and praised Poles’ love of freedom in their fight against the Nazi German occupation during World War II.

In a visit coming just ahead of the 65th anniversary of the start of the uprising on Aug 1, 1944, the Dalai Lama said the museum exhibition showed how bitter the fighting had been.

During the Warsaw Uprising, some 200,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the fighting between Aug 1 and early October 1944.

Police raid home of Michael Jackson’s doctor

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Los Angeles, July 28: Police raided the home of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor Tuesday, tightening their focus on the physician who reportedly gave the late superstar sedatives that may have killed him.

The raid of the Las Vegas home of Conrad Murray came a day after sources in the investigation told US news media that investigators believe Murray gave Jackson a dose of the hospital anesthetic propofol hours before Jackson died of cardiac arrest.

Jackson’s doctor gave deadly drug: report

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Los Angeles,July 28: Pop legend Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Conrad Murray administered a anesthetic drug that authorities believe killed the singer, according to a new report.
Murray, a Texas-based cardiologist who was at Jackson’s rented home in Holmby Hills when the pop star died on June 25, allegedly gave Jackson the anesthetic propofol — commonly known as Diprivan — in the 24 hours before his death, a source with knowledge of the investigation said.

However, doctor’s attorneys in a statement said they wouldn’t comment on “rumors, innuendo or unnamed sources.”