US NEWS SOURCES - August 16&17, 2003 (Weekend)

TOP STORIES
*	U.S. Secretary of State apologizes to Pakistan for friendly fire incident
	Aug 16, Islamabad -- The U.S. Secretary of State apologized for the recent deaths of Pakistani soldiers mistakenly shot by American troops and said that Washington attaches great importance to its relations with Pakistan, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Saturday. During a phone call Friday night to Pakistan's president, Colin Powell said that America was investigating the killing of the two Pakistani soldiers last Monday along the Afghan-Pakistan border, the ministry said in a brief news release.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_0fc1fa
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030816_000131,00.html
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/international/asia/17POWE.html
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2538-2003Aug16.html
*	India's Parliament debates no-confidence motion against Vajpayee's coalition government
	Aug 17, New Delhi -- Indian Parliament debate Monday on a largely symbolic no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's coalition government. Vajpayee's 19-party alliance holds 323 of the 545 seats in Parliament's powerful lower house and faces no real threat from the opposition-sponsored motion, according to V.K. Malhotra, a spokesman for the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. The move by Sonia Gandhi's Congress party is aimed at embarrassing the government ahead of elections to be held later this year in four key opposition-ruled states.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_8d6b00038a1e39da
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000778-search,00.html
*	Sri Lanka's Tamil rebels say peace talks could restart soon
	Aug 17, Colombo -- Sri Lanka's Tamil rebels say peace talks could resume soon after they meet with legal advisers in Paris later this week to draft their response to a government power-sharing offer, a Thai diplomat said Sunday. Thailand's ambassador to Sri Lanka, Jelm Tivayanond, said he met with S.P. Thamilselvan, the leader of the rebels' political wing, in the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi 275 kilometers (170 miles) north of capital Colombo on Saturday.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_e02b00052c61f1af
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000238-search,00.html
*	Pakistani gunmen kill two Shiite Muslims
	Aug 16, Karachi, Pakistan -- Gunmen shot and killed a doctor and a shopkeeper in separate attacks Saturday on minority Shiite Muslims in the southern city of Karachi, and the deaths sparked rowdy protests by hundreds of youths, police said. Assailants on a motorcycle killed the physician, Ibn-e-Hasan, 45, as he and his wife were driving to his clinic in Karachi's Malir neighborhood, police official Ghulam Hamid said. His wife was unhurt. No one claimed responsibility for the killing and the assailants escaped, Hamid said.

	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2848-2003Aug16.html
	http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6548195.htm
*	Police, paramilitary patrol Karachi after 2 Shiites killed
	Aug 17, Karachi, Pakistan -- Paramilitary troops and police in body armor patrolled troubled parts of Karachi Sunday, guarding against sectarian violence following the killing of two Shiite Muslims in the Pakistani port city a day earlier. A mob of about 100 youths shouting anti-American slogans threw stones and bricks at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC, outlet Sunday as funeral prayers for one of the victims was being said at a nearby mosque, according to witnesses. Police fired several rounds of tear gas shells, disbursing the crowd. The restaurant closed.

	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000216,00.html
	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_0df200073b9e0ec0
*	Pakistani mob smashes property, protests Shiites' deaths
	Aug 17, Karachi, Pakistan -- A mob of Pakistani youths threw bricks at a KFC restaurant and smashed glass windows at a Caltex gas station Sunday during protests following a funeral for a Shiite Muslim doctor gunned down the day before in Karachi. Police fired tear gas to disperse more than 2,000 demonstrators, most of them minority Shiites, who also burned a police checkpoint and broke windows at two other gas stations operated by the Pakistan State Oil Co. (C.PSU). The violence was inspired by the deaths of Dr. Ibn-e-Hasan and another Shiite, shopkeeper Syed Wajhi Haider -both killed Saturday by unidentified attackers who fled on motorcycles, police official Tariq Jamil said. No one claimed responsibility for the deaths.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_1125000f98f7cd36
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000248-search,00.html
	http://www.adn.com/24hour/world/story/971096p-6812335c.html
	http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Sectarian-Killings.html
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5789-2003Aug17.html
	http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/sns-ap-pakistan-sectarian-killings,0,1220340.story
*	Nepal, Maoist rebels to resume talks
	Aug 16, Nepalgunj -- Rebel leaders and government ministers were gearing up to resume peace talks in a bid to end seven years of civil war that has killed more than 7,000 people in this Himalayan kingdom. Negotiations were set to start Sunday in a heavily guarded hotel at Nepalgunj, a border town about 300 miles southwest of the capital, Katmandu. "The talks are going to be a milestone toward establishing peace in the country and we hope it will put an end to the conflict," said Information Minister Kamal Thapa, one of two ministers participating in the talks.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_c8350004c53d7754
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030816_000168,00.html
*	Nepal, rebels resume talks to end war
	Aug 17, Nepalgunj, Nepal -- Rebel leaders and government ministers resumed peace talks Sunday in a bid to end seven years of civil war that has killed more than 7,000 people in this Himalayan kingdom. The third round of peace talks was initially scheduled for May but was delayed after the government refused to withdraw the army from rebel-held areas. The rebels later agreed to continue the talks after the government said it would release three jailed guerrilla leaders and inform the insurgents of the status of 36 rebels reported missing. "We are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the talks but there is no way of going back. We have to restore peace in the country," Information Minister Kamal Thapa told The Associated Press before the meeting.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_83fb0004c9916017
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000220,00.html
	http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Nepal-Peace-Talks.html
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2003Aug17.html
*	Pakistan's Islamic party criticizes Pakistan for backing U.N. resolution on Iraq
	Aug 16, Islamabad -- A leader of Pakistan's largest Islamic party criticized the government on Saturday for backing a new U.N. resolution that welcomes Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council and approves a mission to help rebuild the country. Khurshid Ahmad, deputy chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, said that by backing the U.S.-sponsored resolution, Pakistan has tried to help legitimize America's ``occupation of Iraq.' Ahmad's party is part of a religious coalition that controls a provincial government in northwestern Pakistan and neighboring southwestern Baluchistan province. Both provinces share a border with Afghanistan.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_17ca00031dde9c60
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030816_000109,00.html
*	Gem dealer accused in plot may seek bail, judge rules
	Aug 15, Newark -- Denying a request from prosecutors, a federal judge ruled today that a Queens man whom the authorities have linked to a plot to sell shoulder-fired missiles could be released on $10 million bail. The ruling by the judge, Joel A. Pisano of Federal District Court here, upheld an earlier decision by another federal judge to allow the man, Yehuda Abraham, 76, of Rego Park, to seek bail under strict conditions. Besides the $10 million bail, � which must be guaranteed by 10 co-signers, Mr. Abraham must offer $5 million worth of property as a secured bond and hidden to house arrest with electronic monitoring. It could be a few days before Mr. Abraham can meet those conditions and be released, said his lawyer, Larry Krantz.

	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/nyregion/16MISS.html
*	Jury to be chosen for post-9/11 shooting
	Aug 17, Mesa -- Americans were still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when shots rang out on a street corner in this Phoenix suburb a few days later, leaving an Indian immigrant dead. Balbir Singh Sodhi was neither Muslim nor from the Middle East, as the terrorist hijackers had been. Yet authorities say the gas station owner was targeted days after the attacks because he wore a turban and beard as part of his Sikh faith. Now a jury will be asked to consider whether the alleged gunman in the Sept. 15, 2001, killing, Frank Silva Roque, committed a racially motivated hate crime, or whether a mental illness was to blame. Jury selection in the capital murder case is scheduled to begin Monday.

	http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Sikh-Shootinghtml
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7210-2003Aug17.html
*	Police in Pakistan kill al-Qaida suspect
	Aug 16, Peshawar, Pakistan -- A suspected al-Qaida operative was killed in a police shootout in an upscale residential area near Peshawar, Pakistan, it was reported Saturday. The Dawn newspaper in Pakistan said another suspected operative escaped. The incident occurred Thursday but was reported Saturday. The Dawn report said operation "Evening Star" began when police, backed up by armored personnel carriers, raided a small house in the tribal area after receiving information from Pakistan's intelligence service.

	http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm
*	General strike disrupts transport in Bangladesh
	Aug 15, Dhaka -- Bangladesh stepped up security on Saturday for a day-long general strike organized by the main opposition party, following clashes between rival political activists and a bombing that killed two people. Authorities deployed hundreds of extra police and kept paramilitary troops on standby to avert violence after two people were killed on Friday by a bomb and in the wake of street brawls among rival political groups in the capital and nearby town of Narayanganj, security officials said. The strike, called by the Awami League, disrupted transportation across Bangladesh and coincided with a five-day-old ferry strike that has already stranded thousands of people across the country.

	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1436-2003Aug15.html
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1436-2003Aug15.html
*	A better life, but not in U.S.
	Aug 16, Denver -- Yusuf Hussain, after spending seven years in Colorado, packed up his three-bedroom house in Littleton last week in search of a better life. He says he will find it in Pakistan. The 39-year-old executive came here from Pakistan just as the U.S. tech economy was taking off in 1996. Today, he is being lured back by what he can't find here: Jobs, wealth and economic activity. Many foreign nationals no longer view America as the land of opportunity. Economists, businesspeople and other experts say growing numbers of immigrants are moving back to their home countries of Pakistan, India, China, Singapore and Vietnam -- countries with job and economic growth sometimes double or triple that of the United States.

	http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2051553
*	McGreevey's man in Little India
	Aug 17 -- Jim McGreevey sat by as one of his top fund-raisers, a fast-talking ex-cabby named Rajesh "Roger'' Chugh, cut a swath of suspicion and fear in New Jersey's Asian Indian community while raising an estimated $1 million for the future governor. Key Democrats and prominent Indians say they repeatedly warned McGreevey, then the mayor of Woodbridge, that Chugh was a widely reviled manipulator with a long history of preying on his fellow South Asian immigrants - in the township and elsewhere.

	http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxOSZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5NjQxNTA4MCZ5cmlyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTI=
*	U.S. agents say detainee on no-fly list isn't a threat
	Aug 16 -- Federal agents have positively identified one of the men arrested last weekend at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as the individual who was on a terrorism no-fly list, but they have no evidence so far he was involved in any plot and don't feel he posed any threat to the country. However, a law-enforcement source said agents in the United States and Canada think the arrests may have exposed a human-smuggling ring involving Middle Eastern men who are being sneaked across the border from Canada to the United States. "That, of course, raises concerns about who else may have been brought into this country illegally who we don't know about and what their intentions are," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

	http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/_terrorfolo16.html
*	Mastering the madrassas
	Aug 17 -- Through a new $255 million reform package, the Pakistani government is trying to do something that has never been done before: wrest control of the country's 8,000 religious schools from the mullahs. The clerics, obviously, have pledged to resist. The Muslim religious schools, known as madrassas, are blamed for spreading intolerance and hatred against the West. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the war against terror, has pledged not to allow this to continue. Previous attempts to bring the madrassas under the government's control have failed, but the Musharraf government says it will succeed.

	http://washingtontimes.com/world/r.htm

BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY / DEFENSE
*	India's Jammu-Kashmir to introduce cell phone service
	Aug 17, Srinagar, India -- India's state-run phone company will launch cell phone services for the first time in parts of troubled Jammu-Kashmir state this month, an official said Sunday. Mobile phones were banned in Kashmir for years because authorities feared Islamic rebels may use them to assist their insurgency. However, with fighting in the region decreasing, and relations with India's archrival Pakistan improving, New Delhi has eased the restriction. Indian Telecommunication Corporation Limited has built the infrastructure to run the service in the region's two main cities, Jammu and Srinagar, said the company's general manager George S. Marshal.

	http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_42b500038c95e0cb
	http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030817_000265-search,00.html
	http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0308/18/technology-246433.htm
*	How India�s mother of invention built an industry
	Aug 16, Bangalore, India -- Like father, like daughter, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw thought in the 1970's, when she set out to become a brew master just as her father had been. She left India to train in Australia, then returned home to find that daughters were not welcome in India's breweries. That door closing for herd another one for India. Unemployed, she followed a love of biology and a chance referral to an Irish biotechnology company. At 25, she started their Indian operation from her garage, successfully extracting from papaya an enzyme used to tenderize meat, among other things, and from the swim bladders of tropical fish a collagen that helps clear beer.

	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/international/asia/16FPRO.html
*	Frozen food, hot market
	Aug 17 -- A decade ago, Indian immigrants Bhagwati Amin and Ranbir S. "Paul" Jaggi were owners of two mom-and-pop food operations. Bhagwati and her husband, Arvind, were packaging her homemade Dhaba-style meals (slang for the traditional spicy food sold by street vendors in India) and delivering them from a small kitchen in suburban New Jersey to grocery stores in Indian neighborhoods in the Northeast. Paul and his wife, Sangeeta, were freezing the palak paneer (spinach and cubes of cheese) and vegetable korma (a spicy mix of veggies) prepared for their Boston area Oh Calcutta restaurants and selling them as packaged dinners under the brand name Taj Gourmet at a local natural-food store.

	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1849-2003Aug16.html
*	India's back-office boom enters high-skill zone
	Aug 16, Bangalore, India -- The office of ProcessMind, around the corner from a granite temple to Hindu God Ganesha, springs to life just as most Bangaloreans head home after a hard day's work. Inside the outsourcing firm's ash-gray concrete building, women in colorful tunics pore over details that matter two continents away: Texas insurance regulations and specifications for parts needed by a Detroit carmaker. India's back-office service revolution, which started with humble call center agents with affected U.S. accents, is now hunting for people with MBAs, insurance diplomas, and even PhDs. New fields for the lucrative business include securities research, project management, underwriting and demand forecasting.

	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2424-2003Aug16.html

OTHER STORIES
*	Professor teaches change in his Indian village
	Aug 17, Mirdha, India -- Along fields so green they seemed to vibrate with color, Jagadish Shukla walked toward his childhood home. There, a room specially built for his visits waited, as did a generator rented so fans could cool him in the Indian heat � his family's modest effort to provide the comforts of his Bethesda, Md., home in this rural village. Professor Shukla, 59, has lived for 32 years in the United States and is now its citizen. He is a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a climatologist who directs the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies in Calverton, Md.
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/international/asia/17INDI.html

*	Newark to Nepal and Back
	Aug 16 -- When Sherry B. Ortner was a bookish, secretly rebellious student in high school in Newark in the 1950's, she says, "I didn't even know what anthropology was. "I thought it was about insects. But I looked at a description in the Bryn Mawr catalog as a senior, and it sounded really interesting." Advertisement From that unlikely beginning, Ms. Ortner has become, in the words of The Chronicle of Higher Education, "one of the most prominent anthropologists of her generation." For 30 years she has studied gender and social and cultural theory, helping invent the field of feminist anthropology, winning a MacArthur "genius award" and traveling to the Himalayas to produce major works on Nepal's Sherpa culture and Mount Everest.
	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/16/arts/16ORTN.html

*	A proposal I never thought I�d consider
	Aug 17 -- In spite of myself, I think I may agree to an arranged marriage. Beginning next month, my parents will contact Muslim family friends around the world with a list of criteria for a husband: a twentysomething, classically handsome, Urdu-speaking Muslim man who is 6 feet tall, with an MD and MBA, as well as a PhD in something respectable like molecular toxicology. He must have a good sense of family and a financial portfolio fat enough to take care of the next 15 generations. My parents will screen the candidates, and after I graduate from college next spring, they will introduce me to the few they deem best. Ultimately, the lucky man will have to pass my own stringent test: Does he own every Radiohead album and listen to them regularly?
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1219-2003Aug15.html

*	In a subway car, a commute turns into a community
	Aug 16, New York -- It's 4:12 p.m. on Thursday, and the crowded F train where I sit screeches to a halt. Everyone looks at each other, then goes back to reading books or newspapers. No one says a word. It's just another day in New York. Hot, crowded, the trains stop and start, are rerouted inexplicably. We know the drill. Fifteen minutes pass as we sit sweltering in the underbelly of the city between the Queensbridge station and Roosevelt Island. A woman seated to my left begins to fan herself with a newspaper and leans into me: "I have to pick up my kids! What am I supposed to do? "I'd give you my cell phone, but it doesn't work," I say.
	http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A886-2003Aug15.html

*	Cultures unite for India festival in Fremont
	Aug 16 -- Fremont's Festival of India has been marred by personality clashes among influential community leaders, criticized for its rowdy guests, and faulted by some religious minorities who feel excluded from the mostly Hindu event. But today -- the first day of the 11th annual festival's two-day run -- the atmosphere was peaceful and conflict-free. That left organizers to focus on their main goal: showcase India to the mainstream. The weekend's visitors -- who probably will number about 70,000 when the festival ends Sunday -- were predominantly Indo-American. But there were a small number of non-Indians who attended the festival, many for the first time, to learn about their South Asian neighbors who are increasingly changing the demographics of the already diverse Bay Area.
	http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/6550371.htm

*	Immigrants' son leads GOP field in Louisiana
	Aug 16, Sorrento -- Like many a Louisiana politician before him, Bobby Jindal begins his stump speech by emphasizing his ties to home. He was born and raised in Baton Rouge, a son of hardworking parents who taught him the importance of giving back to their community, he told the small crowd of Republicans sitting around Rhett Bourgeois' garage clubhouse one night last week. It's remarkable that a candidate his age -- Jindal is just 32 -- should be getting this kind of attention in a crowded governor's race. It's even more remarkable because those hardworking parents -- his father is an engineer and his mother works for the state Labor Department -- are immigrants from India.
	http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/17lapolitics.html

*	Celebrating India's independence
	Aug 16 -- Sashi Rao wore an off-white, green and red sari as she stood in the shade next to the flagpole at Richland City Hall. She wanted her dress to reflect the colors of the flag of India, which are white, green and orange. "But this was the closest I could get to it," Rao said, pointing to the red. She was one of about 50 people who attended a flag-hoisting ceremony Friday at city hall as part of a celebration of Indian Independence Day. The ceremony was sponsored by the Indian Association of Tri-Cities. The event was followed by an evening program featuring dancing and singing at Battelle Auditorium.
	http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/3684414p-3714749c.html