United Nations—Focusing
international community’s attention on human
rights violations and suppression of the people
in Indian Occupied Kashmir, Pakistan on Monday
called for a negotiated settlement of the
decades-old dispute. “A peaceful resolution of
this dispute is imperative for durable peace,
stability and progress in South Asia,” Amjad
Hussain Sial, the Pakistani acting permanent
representative to the UN, told the General
Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with
social, humanitarian and cultural questions. “We
must seize the opportunity for a negotiated
settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue with
the full involvement of the Kashmiri people in
accordance with their aspirations,” he said in a
debate on the ‘Right of Peoples to
Self-determination’.
Berlin—The German
government is considering increasing the upper
limit of its troop contingent in Afghanistan to
7,000 from the current 4,500, Deutschlandfunk
public radio reported on Thursday. The increase
would be put before parliament in December when
the mandate for the mission comes up for
renewal, the report said. All but one of the
main parties in parliament have supported the
mission until now. The report, which did not
cite the source of its information, said that
Berlin wanted the increase to give Germany
greater clout at an upcoming international
conference on the increasingly bloody
eight-year-old mission.
PRESIDENT Klaus is now expected to sign the
treaty. The Czech constitutional court has ruled
that the Lisbon Treaty is in line with the
constitution, clearing the way for President
Vaclav Klaus to sign it. The Czech Republic is
the only EU member yet to ratify the treaty, and
the decision removes the penultimate hurdle to
its passage. The Eurosceptic Mr Klaus, who was
awaiting the court’s decision, has said he will
not further oppose the treaty. The treaty was
drawn up to streamline decision-making in the
27-member body.
Srinagar—A
Kashmiri professor became the fresh victim of
the row between China and India over issuance of
separate visa to Kashmiris, as the Indian
immigration authorities stopped him at the
Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi
while he was boarding a plane to China to
receive a prestigious award in occupied Kashmir.
A YEAR before the Oslo agreement, I had a
meeting with Yasser Arafat in Tunis. He was full
of curiosity about Yitzhak Rabin, who had just
been elected prime minister. I described him as
well as I could and ended with the words: “He is
as honest as a politician can be.” Arafat broke
into laughter, and all the others present, among
them Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Abed-Rabbo, joined
in. I always liked Rabin as a human being. I
especially liked some traits of his.
