American to sue Kerala dailies over CIA link charges *(IANS)
	An American who worked on a decentralisation campaign of the Kerala government in 1997 plans to slap charges of defamation against dailies here that branded him a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. Richard Franke of the U.S.-based Montclaire University worked on the People's Plan Campaign launched during the E.K. Nayanar government in 1997. He will file cases against two dailies and the magazine Padom that branded him a CIA agent, said Thomas Issac, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) legislator. The reports had also said Isaac made the blueprint of the People's Plan along with Franke.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030708/43/25sw9.html
	India's defense purchases concerns us: Pak *(ANI)
	Pakistan has expressed grave concern over neighboring India's defense purchases, warning that if this trend continues, Islamabad would never be in a position to roll back its defense requirements, including its nuclear capability. "We are concerned about India's defense purchases. We should not have an arms race in South Asia. Nuclear capability has become part of Pakistan's nuclear identity. The restraint of responsibility yes, but rollback no," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan was quoted as saying by Online News. In an apparent reference to the United States giving the green signal to India to purchase the Phalcon airborne early warning systems from Israel, Khan said such purchases from abroad, including from Israel should come to an end.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030708/139/25spx.html
	US downplays secret Kashmir conference *(ANI)
	The US State Department is downplaying the significance of a conference on Kashmir held last week in Washington. The half-day conference, organized by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, was notto the public or the media and sparked speculation that the US might be exploring options for getting more involved in the Kashmir dispute. A State Department official said that perception was entirely false and that there was "no political significance" to the conference whatsoever. The event involved two panels of experts from India, Pakistan, the US and Britain, who discussed the current situation surrounding the Kashmir issue and prospects for dialouge in the future. The audience was composed of US government employees and academics from the US and South Asia. Attendance was by invitation only.
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030708/139/25spt.html
	Nation misled over US aid package: Nawaz Sharif *(ANI)
	The Pakistani government is fooling its citizens by making tall claims on the three billion dollar US package, former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said. The Nation quoted Sharif as saying that half of the amount would be adjusted against outstanding dues while the rest is going to be utilised as per the wishes of the foreign masters. The former premier made this comment while talking to PML (N) leader Pir Banyamin a few days ago. He also said that Pakistan should get the most favourite nation (MFN) status from America "but the situation is totally otherwise." About Pakistan's move to extend recognition to Israel, Sharif remarked that the nation would not accept any wrong decision about Israel and "if Israel was recognised, the rulers would have to face the music."
	http://in.news.yahoo.com/030707/139/25r9f.html

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July 7, Islamabad -- Pakistan's leader insisted Monday that his country's nuclear arsenal is under tight control and will not fall into the "wrong hands," after officials said that $3 billion in U.S. aid depends in part on Pakistan exporting no nuclear technology."Pakistan will never proliferate," President Pervez Musharraf told scientists at a college near the capital, Islamabad, the state-run news agency said. "Pakistan's nuclear potential is under very strong custodial control." The Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Monday also denied that Pakistan had shared nuclear technology with North Korea.

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July 7, Quetta, Pakistan -- A city police chief and two other officers have been dismissed for security lapses that allowed four attackers to storm a mosque Friday and kill as many as 50 Shiite Muslim worshippers, a top police official said Monday. The government, meanwhile, said it was looking into whether India was behind the assault.Seventeen people have been arrested in the raids stemming from the assault but the attackers, who were killed, have not been identified and their motives remain unclear.

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July 7, Quetta, Pakistan -- India denied any involvement in an attack Friday on a mosque that left as many as 50 Shiite Muslim worshippers dead in Quetta, Pakistan. "India has no history of any such involvement anywhere," said Navtej Sarna, a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi. "We are firmly and strongly against terrorism. Any report that India is involved in this is totally baseless." Quetta's police chief and two other officers have already been dismissed for security lapses that allowed attackers to storm the mosque, a top police official said Monday.

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July 8, Peshawar, Pakistan -- Pakistani soldiers and Afghan tribesmen exchanged gunfire along their border for the second time in less than a week, an official said Tuesday. No casualties were reported in the shootout Monday. The previous outbreak of fighting occurred July 2 in the same area, where Pakistani troops have been deployed to try to prevent Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives from escaping into Pakistan. The latest clash took place at Kudo Khiel, about 100 kilometers northwest of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, which is currently ruled by a Taliban-like religious coalition.

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July 8, Kabul -- Enraged by reports of recent clashes between Pakistani and Afghan troops along the border, a mob of students broke into the Pakistan Embassy in the capital on Tuesday, hurling stones and smashing windows as diplomats took cover inside, witnesses said. Around 200 medical students shouting "Down with Pakistan !" swarmed the embassy and shattered the windows of a dozen diplomatic cars inside the compound, said Kabul resident Ahmad Fawad, who was in the area at the time.

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July 7, Kabul -- Angry demonstrators took to the streets of the Afghan capital Monday after reports of Pakistani military incursions into Afghan territory. About 150 protesters, mostly moneychangers from the central currency market in Kabul, marched through the city shouting "Down with (Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf!" Police looked on as protesters headed toward Pakistan's Embassy in east Kabul. No violence was reported. Sunday, President Hamid Karzai said he would talk soon with Musharraf about growing tensions between the two countries. He also dispatched government officials to the eastern border to investigate reports that Pakistani forces had crossed the frontier and soldiers from the two countries had exchanged fire.

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July 8, Kabul -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned a raid on the Pakistani embassy on Tuesday by demonstrators angry about an alleged Pakistani incursion, and said he would apologize to President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan lodged a formal protest with the Afghan government after the attack and accused Afghan security forces of allowing protesters to ransack the embassy. No one was hurt in the violence.

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July 7, New Delhi -- After weeks of talks of peace, India and Pakistan sparred Monday over the blame for Pakistan's newest terror attack, and New Delhi said the raging religious violence in Pakistan was the cost for promoting terrorism overseas. India's foreign ministry criticized the Pakistani prime minister for accusing New Delhi of possible involvement in an attack by gunmen on a mosque in Quetta town in which 50 Shiite Muslim worshippers were killed. Pakistan said it was investigating India's role, though it had no proof.

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July 7, Kabul -- Pakistan on Monday denied reports that its military had made incursions into Afghanistan, after angry demonstrators took to the streets of Kabul in protest. "There has been no incursion," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said. "We respect the Pakistan-Afghanistan border." On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai said he'd talk soon with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf about growing tensions between the two countries. He also dispatched government officials to the eastern border to investigate reports Pakistani forces had crossed the frontier and soldiers from the two countries had exchanged fire.

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July 7, Jammu, India -- Suspected Islamic guerrillas killed five villagers and two former guerrillas who had joined government troops in separate attacks Monday in India's portion of Kashmir, police said. The village shooting occurred in Danaka, 100 kilometers northwest of Jammu, winter capital of Jammu-Kashmir state, when a resident spotted the guerrillas in hiding and began screaming. The militants fired at him and other villagers nearby, said Deputy Inspector General of Police S.M. Sahay. He said five villagers, including two women, were killed. Another woman was wounded and in serious condition.

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July 8, Quetta, Pakistan -- Pakistan on Tuesday offered a reward of 2 million rupees ($1=PKR57.74) for information leading to the arrest of the organizers of last week's suicide bombing of a mosque that killed at least 50 Shiite Muslims. The appeal went out in a news release that also carried photographs of the three slain suicide bombers who attacked the mosque in South-Western Pakistan, shooting guns and tossing grenades at about 2,000 worshippers last Friday, the Muslim day of worship. Two of the assailants died in a shootout with guards at the mosque. A third man blew himself up inside the mosque.

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July 8, Katmandu -- After India-Pakistan tensions delayed summits and free trade pact deadlines for years, South Asian officials are meeting this week in an attempt to revive their flagging regional organization. But economists warn the success of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, still depends on whether rivals India and Pakistan resolve their differences. SAARC has "meetings here and there, but the progress is very slow," said Indian economist S. Sen. "The whole process is held back because of the India-Pakistan relations." SAARC - which includes one-fifth of the world's population - was formed in 1985 to promote regional trade.

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July 8, Kabul -- Pakistan closed its embassy in the Afghan capital after students protesting recent border clashes between the neighbors broke into the walled compound and smashed windows, the Pakistani ambassador said. Security forces dispersed the mob of students before they were able to enter the embassy itself. Several people were injured, witnesses said. Pakistani Ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand said his country would not re the embassy until the Afghan government apologizes for the attack and compensates for damages by the students.

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July 6 -- Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, got the treatment reserved for the closest of friends late last month -- a visit, with his wife, to the presidential retreat at Camp David, only one step short of a trip to the ranch in Crawford. The audience was an undisguised reward for Musharraf's cooperation in the war on terrorism, from the war in Afghanistan to the hunt for al Qaeda terrorists who are still hiding in the tribal badlands along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

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July 8 -- This is another reaction to the recent Bush-Musharraf meeting at Camp David, complementing the July 1 editorial-page commentary "Kashmir Impasse" by Pervez Hoodbhoy: In his June 29 speech before the World Affair Council of Los Angeles, President Pervez Musharraf reiterated his commitment to the fight against terrorism and to what he termed "functional democracy" in Pakistan . We, the parents of Daniel Pearl, are deeply disappointed that, speaking in Daniel's hometown, President Musharraf did not find it appropriate to explain the current standstill in the investigation, prosecution and apprehension of those responsible for Daniel's murder. Pakistan's "functional democracy" appears grossly disfunctional if it can permit repeated and unending postponements of court meetings in the case of Omar Schiek, the man convicted July 15, 2002, of masterminding Daniel's murder. On June 17, Gen. Musharraf stated to reporters in Islamabad that he considers the Daniel Pearl case "history." To us, to the international journalism community, and to the many Americans who were shocked and betrayed by this brutal murder, the case will remain anwound until two conditions are satisfied: 1. All those involved in the planning and execution of the murder are brought to justice and justice is served. 2. A monument for Daniel Pearl is erected in Karachi, reaffirming the ideals for which he stood: truth, humanity and dialogue, and denouncing the ideologies that took his life. Monuments unveil the hearts and minds of people. Is Pakistan's heart behind its president's vision?

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July 3 -- With the unseating of an Islamist lawmaker this week, a process has begun in Pakistan that could lead to the undoing of either the Islamists or the Musharraf government. The religious forces have decided to counter this move by countrywide protests and strikes starting Friday. But as the country's most popular columnist Irshad Ahmad Haqqani points out, this fight is not just about President Pervez Musharraf and the MMA, an Urdu-language acronym for a six-party alliance of religious forces.

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July 2 -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf seemed pleased to be asked about the prevalence of madrassas, or Islamic religious schools, in his country. For one, Mr. Musharraf has a plan to tout. Pakistan's strategy for dealing with the madrassas won accolades from President Bush last week. The query also gave Mr. Musharraf an opportunity to highlight the consequences of Pakistan's limited resources — Congress take note. "We are addressing the social sector very aggressively now," Mr. Musharraf told editors and reporters from The Washington Times on Thursday. The Pakistani government has put together a "complete strategy" for dealing with the schools, which teach a fundamentalist and often violent form of Islam. Many madrassa graduates can recite the Koran from memory, but are illiterate, have little or no practical skills and have taken an anti-Western jihadist message to heart.

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              --- South Asian News, July 8, 2003 ---

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