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South Asia Clips is a free daily newservice
that monitors South Asia and South Asian American news in major U.S. media
outlets. Production of the South Asia clips is
a non-profit effort and are co-hosted by Madison Government Affairs (www.madisongov.net). If you have
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that the clips are also archived at www.madisongov.net under the news
section.
SOUTH ASIA DAILY NEWS
CLIPS
July 29,
200 4
Breaking News
India-Pakistan matches to be telecast
in US (IANS/Yahoo): EchoStar Communications Corporation, a leading
provider of advanced digital television
FBI Setting Up New Systems at Pak Airports
(ANI/Yahoo): Security systems at various
airports in Pakistan are reportedly being upgraded, courtesy the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Informed sources told the Daily Times
that the FBI is helping the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) install
the personal identification, secure comparison and alleviation system
(PISCAS) at Pakistani airports to counter terrorism and human
trafficking. FIA sources also confirmed that the FBI was also
helping to install fingerprints identification systems, national
criminal database systems and anti-cyber crime systems. The FBI is
providing hardware for the four systems while the software is being
developed in Pakistan with the help of US experts. http://in.news.yahoo.com/040729/139/2f7pp.html
*************************************************************************************************************
Top Stories
Kids with AIDS Shunned by
Families and Government in India (Detroit Free
Press/AP) (Kansas City
Star/AP)
UN Requests Aid for Bangladesh
(USA
Today)
US Urges Aid Agency to Stay in
Pakistan (Washington
Times/UPI)
Pakistan Condemns Killing of its two
citizens by Iraqi insurgents (Boston
Globe/AP)
Group Hopes to boost Health Care in
Impoverished Region (Sun Herald/AP) (Arkansas News
Herald)
Business
Delta
Closes Call Centers in India (Cincinnati Post) (San Jose
Mercury News/AP) (Seattle
Times)
State Call Center Moved from India to
the United States (Miami Herald/AP) (Kansas City Star
- registration
required)
High Cost of Security (Chicago Daily
Herald)
Bangalore May Be Gaining on Silicon
Valley (San Fran.
Chronicle)
US to fund private fuel-conversion projects
abroad (Cleveland Plain Dealer/AP) (Newark Star
Ledger/AP)
Microsoft Feels Heat Over
Outsourcing (Wichita Eagle/Mercury News) (Monteray County
Herald)
Tarriffs could be
slapped on three-fourths of shrimp imports (Wilmington
Star/AP)
India's Software
Giant Goes Public
(Forbes/AP)
Mutual
Funds (Miami Herald - registration
required)
Commentaries/Editorials/Letters to the
Editors
Column:
Capital One - Political Drama (St. Petersburg
Times)
Defense
Pakistan, China To Hold Joint
Anti-Terror Exercises (Voice of
America)
Political
Doing the Work of Her Party
(Hartford Courant - registration
required)
Muslims, Arab Americans Making
Political Waves (Star Telegram - registration
required)
Global Political Leaders Get a Look at
American Politics (Boston
Globe)
Dems Hope to Make Security an
Issue (The Morning
Sun)
Other
Pakistan Approves installation of
second nuclear plant with China's help (Space Daily/AFP) (Voice
of
America)
Fans of
Bollywood Enjoying Choice (Dallas Morning
News)
India Team Arrives for Water Talks
(Washington
Times/UPI)
Religious Riots Kill Two in India
(Oakland
Tribune/AP)
Night Moves: Director Shyamalan built his own
world for "The Village" (Star
Ledger)
Doctor Accussed of New Asasults
(Washington
Post)
New Pakistani
Television Channels Pushing New Political, Social Boundaries
(SF Chronicle/AP) (Contra Costa
Times/AP)
In A
Click, Lovelorn Pakistanis defy tradition (Boston Globe/LA
Times)
Local
Muslims React to Holy Land Indictments (Star Telegram -
registration
required)
*************************************************************************************************************
Top Stories
Kids with AIDS Shunned by
Families and Government in India (Detroit Free
Press/AP) (Kansas City
Star/AP)
Sitting cross-legged on the cement floor of a
home for abandoned children, 7-year-old Rupa -- one of at least 60,000
Indian children infected with the AIDS virus -- laughed excitedly,
clicking the beads of an abacus. "I've done it. I've won," she shouted,
finishing her simple math problem ahead of a dozen other children in the
crowded room. Rupa's high-spirited nature does not reflect her harrowing
tale -- of being shunned by neighbors and turned away from the homes of
relatives when they learned she had tested positive for HIV, contracted
at birth from her mother. India and the United Nations have said 5.1
million adults are infected with HIV in India, the second-highest number
in the world after South Africa. Children with HIV are not included in
that figure, but the government's AIDS control agency said 60,000 Indian
children have the virus, while independent organizations have said the
number may be closer to 100,000.
UN Requests Aid for Bangladesh
(USA
Today)
The United Nations said Thursday that it will
seek international aid to help Bangladesh recover from monthlong floods
that have washed away rice crops, villages and livestock, and killed 452
people in this impoverished nation. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/-un-flood-aid_x.htm
US Urges Aid Agency to Stay in
Pakistan (Washington
Times/UPI)
The United States
Wednesday urged Doctors Without Borders to reconsider its decision to
pull out of Afghanistan. "We regret it.
Certainly, we're aware of their plans. We hope they'll reconsider,"
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told a briefing in Washington. The
international aid agency announced Tuesday it was pulling out of
Afghanistan because of worsening security. In June, five of the group's
workers, including three Europeans, were killed by insurgents in the
northwestern Badghis province. Before the attack, the agency had 80
international volunteers and 1,400 Afghan staff in 13 provinces. http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm
Pakistan Condemns Killing of its two
citizens by Iraqi insurgents (Boston
Globe/AP)
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan's
prime minister on Thursday condemned the apparent killing of two
Pakistanis kidnapped in Iraq, while the slain men's grieving families
pleaded with their killers to release the bodies for proper
burial. The Pakistani leaders said they had ''received with the
greatest distress and anguish the news of the reported murder of two
Pakistanis,'' according to a statement issued to the state-run news
agency in Islamabad. ''Those who have committed this crime have
caused the greatest harm both to humanity and Islam,'' said the
statement, issued on behalf of Musharraf and Prime Minister Chaudhry
Shujaat Hussain. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/211/world/Pakistan_condemns_killing_of_i:.shtml
Group Hopes to boost Health Care in
Impoverished Region (Sun Herald/AP) (Arkansas News
Herald)
Because doctors from
Nigeria and India agreed to work in Crittenden County, health care in
the region has improved, Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday. Huckabee
joined Pete Johnson, federal co-chairman of the Delta Regional
Authority, in touting a program to recruit more foreign doctors to the
Delta. They said the authority's new Physician Visa Waiver Program will
target foreign doctors in U.S. medical schools and allow them to remain
in the U.S. after graduation if they agree to work in the impoverished
Delta. Under a pilot program that began last year, Crittenden Memorial
Hospital hired two doctors from Nigeria and two doctors from India.
Business
Delta
Closes Call Centers in India (Cincinnati Post) (San Jose
Mercury News/AP) (Seattle
Times)
Financially troubled Delta Air Lines
Inc. said Wednesday it was shuttering one of its three call centers in
India. However the company declined to discuss
whether the move was related to a survey asking customers if they would
be willing to pay a fee to speak to a U.S-based agent rather than one in
India. The question about the call fee was
contained in an online survey sent earlier this summer to select
frequent fliers. Spokeswoman Peggy Estes said Wednesday
the airline has no plans to charge customers who prefer to talk to U.S.
representatives. She could not say, however, if it is
something Delta might do in the future, or discuss the survey's
results. "In today's environment, we continue to
look at all areas of our business," Estes said.
"We are looking at many things, and asking a lot of
questions."
State Call Center Moved from India to
the United States (Miami Herald/AP) (Kansas City Star
- registration
required)
A toll-free call center for Missouri welfare and food
stamp recipients has been moved from India back to the United States -
but yet not all the way to Missouri - at a cost to taxpayers of about
$1.2 million. Gov. Bob Holden's administration and contractor eFunds
Corp. confirmed Wednesday the hot line calls are now being answered in
Wisconsin and may eventually be switched to Kansas City. The move comes
just a week before next Tuesday's primary elections. And it comes after
Democratic challenger, State Auditor Claire McCaskill, criticized Holden
for allowing state-funded jobs to be shipped India. McCaskill claimed
credit for the change, which she announced Wednesday before Holden's
administration acknowledged it. "Claire McCaskill has once again
provided the leadership - provided the information that forced change,"
she said. If elected governor, "I will be a strong enough leader to make
things happen."
High Cost of Security (Chicago Daily
Herald)
Bharat Sharma has three shipping containers worth
thousands of dollars stuck in customs in New York City. For six years,
Sharma has worked in a clothing store on Devon Avenue, running a small
shipping business out of an office in the back. By the time the
containers get back on track to Chicago, he figures, it could end up
costing him $10,000. A few blocks west, five lonely bars of soap sit on
a shelf in Anis Aziz's grocery store. He has been waiting for months for
a shipment of hand cream, shampoo and soap from Pakistan. http://www.dailyherald.com/business/business_story.asp?intid=38197104
Bangalore May Be Gaining on Silicon
Valley (San Fran.
Chronicle)
Bangalore, India, may be on the verge of
overtaking Silicon Valley as home to the world's largest concentration
of technology workers, as U.S. companies expand their use of offshore
workers. The high-tech Indian city, which is
home to major tech outsourcing companies such as Infosys, Tata
Consultancy Services and Wipro Technologies, now employs 160,000 tech
workers. Information-technology work accounts for 100, 000 of these
jobs, with the rest in business outsourcing and call centers.
MS Shankaralinge Gowda, secretary of IT and
biotechnology for the state government of Karnataka, said the number of
tech workers in the region will exceed 200,000 by next year, as IT and
business outsourcing companies continue to rapidly hire workers.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/29/BUG5G7UQTO1.DTL&type=business
US to fund private fuel-conversion projects
abroad (Cleveland Plain Dealer/AP) (Newark Star
Ledger/AP)
Hoping to export U.S. technology under the banner of
fighting global warming, the Bush administration said Wednesday it will
provide seed money for private companies to help other nations use their
own methane gas emissions as a cheap fuel. The plan calls for
spending up to $53 million to spur companies to spend potentially
billions of dollars helping transfer technology to an initial group of
seven countries. ..... Methane represents 16 percent of
global greenhouse emissions; carbon dioxide is 74 percent, according to
the administration. Bush administration officials were joined by
representatives of India and Japan in announcing the plan
Wednesday. Other countries involved are Australia, Italy, Mexico,
Britain and Ukraine. Canada and Russia also sent representatives to
consider joining the group.
Microsoft Feels Heat Over
Outsourcing (Wichita Eagle/Mercury News) (Monteray County
Herald)
Two years after Microsoft
executives began urging managers to outsource software development work
to India, a Washington state technology union says the company has sent
increasingly high-level jobs overseas, including some related to
Longhorn, the next version of Windows. The Washington Alliance of
Technology Workers says it obtained internal documents from a Microsoft
worker that show dozens of Microsoft projects now being handled by
companies in India, such as Satyam, Infosys and Wipro. Through such
outside companies, Microsoft has hired 1,000 contractors for work
ranging from software design to Web development, WashTech says. A
Microsoft spokeswoman declined to confirm the numbers or the
authenticity of the documents, but said WashTech's claims were off base.
``These accusations do not reflect an understanding of the global nature
of our business,'' said Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake. ``It's part
of our business model to work with thousands of companies around the
world.'' http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/business/technology/9269796.htm
Tarriffs could be
slapped on three-fourths of shrimp imports (Wilmington
Star/AP)
Three weeks after the Bush
administration slapped tariffs on shrimp from China and Vietnam,
American seafood dealers fear duties will be placed on exports from four
other major shrimp-producing nations. On Thursday afternoon, the
U.S. Department of Commerce will announce a decision on whether tariffs
should be imposed on canned and frozen warmwater shrimp from Brazil,
Ecuador, India and Thailand. http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040729/APF/407290567&cachetime=5
India's Software
Giant Goes Public
(Forbes/AP)
India's software giant Tata Consultancy Services
planned to start selling 55.45 million shares Thursday to raise up to
$1.25 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in the
history of the country's stock market Tata Consultancy, which has been run for decades as a
family business, is finallyng up to outside investors and joining
rivals Infosys Technologies and Wipro, which already are listed on stock
exchanges in India and the United States. Shares will be priced at 775 to 900 rupees
(US$) depending on bidding. The issue closes Aug. 5, and
analysts expect foreign funds and other investors to snap up the
stock. "I believe there will be a
lot of interest from foreign investors," said Ajit Surana, managing
director of Diamensional Securities. Started in 1968, Tata Consultancy was the first to sell
Western companies on getting software development work done in India,
taking advantage of the country's large pool of skilled workers and low
wages. Its 548 clients include
AT&T, American Express, Boeing, British Telecom, Compaq, IBM, Dell,
Microsoft, General Motors and the state governments of Montana and
Pennsylvania. http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2004/07/28/ap1477869.html
Mutual
Funds (Miami Herald - registration
required)
2 men plead guilty in Geek Securities case.
Two South Florida men on Wednesday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
commit securities fraud relating to mutual fund market-timing and late
trading at Geek Securities in Boca Raton. Geek owner Kautilya Sharma,
also known as Tony Sharma, pocketed $1.3 million from the alleged
scheme, according to his plea agreement. Sharma, who also pleaded guilty
to a charge relating to the sale of unregistered securities, faces up to
10 years in federal prison, three years' probation and a fine of up to
twice the amount of his gain. Neal Wadhwa, a Geek Securities vice
president overseeing its trading desk, made about $140,000 from the
illegal activities, according to his plea agreement. He faces up to five
years imprisonment, three years' probation and a fine. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/
Commentaries/Editorials/ Letters to the
Editors
Column:
Capital One - Political Drama (St. Petersburg
Times)
Lights. Action.
Layoffs. Politics. The scene: A sunbaked sidewalk in front
of the 71-acre corporate campus of Tampa's Capital One. The plot:
A small midday political rally held to criticize federal policies that
make it too easy for the big Virginia-based credit card corporation to
can 1, 100 area workers and outsource jobs to cheaper labor overseas.
Capital One's unexpected decision last week to pull up stakes in Tampa,
apparently in favor of low-cost jobs in India, proved too
irresistible an opportunity for Florida's Democratic Party. Though it's
hard to see what they achieved with the dog and pony show. In a classic
scene of political theater, a handful of area Democrats and union
leaders gathered Wednesday along Henderson Road with a hastily assembled
backdrop of a dozen party faithful waving John Kerry signs. The speakers
condemned President Bush's pro-outsourcing rules and praised candidate
John Kerry's proposals to use business incentives to discourage jobs
moving overseas. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/29/Columns/Capital_One__The_poli.shtml
Defense
Pakistan, China To Hold Joint
Anti-Terror Exercises (Voice of
America)
China says it will hold joint
military anti-terrorism exercises next month with Pakistan in the
far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang. The
official news agency, Xinhua, says the joint maneuvers are aimed at
restraining what China has dubbed the "three forces" of separatism,
terrorism and religious extremism. Xinhua says
the exercises will also strengthen military friendship and cooperation
between the two neighbors, and will safeguard regional peace and
stability. China has backed the U.S.-led war on
terror, and has called for international support for its campaign
against ethnic Uighur separatists in the mostly-Muslim Xinjiang region
bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has also been a major
player in the war on terror and has sent tens of thousands of troops to
its tribal belt bordering Afghanistan to hunt down militants.
Politics
Doing the Work of Her Party
(Hartford Courant - registration
required)
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mona Mohib was a
government strategist first, a Muslim second. In the 1996 presidential
election, she had been tapped by the Clinton-Gore campaign to do
outreach in the African American community - even though she is not
African American. Four years later she was asked by the Democratic
National Committee to do grassroots organizing in Michigan - even though
she is not from that battleground state. This election year, the
Stamford, Conn., native has come home. As a DNC member appointed by
party Chairman Terry McAuliffe in 2001, Mohib is officially part of her
home-state delegation at this convention. Nationally, she is emerging as
a key strategist for her party on Muslim American issues - a role she
never sought, but one that she has eagerly taken up. "I feel like
I've been able to fill a lot of roles for the party - sort of an
all-purpose representative," Mohib, 33, said Wednesday. "I'm young, I'm
female, I'm Asian, I'm Muslim - take your pick. I don't want any one of
those things to define me ... [But] I also know, there's a lot of work
in the Muslim community that needs to be done." Until this week's
convention, Mohib, who worked in the Clinton White House as a liaison to
the nation's mayors, had managed to stay below the public radar,
offering input on issue papers and strategy to the DNC while earning her
living as a Washington, D.C., lobbyist. But as the presidential race
heats up, she has found herself drawn deeper into the Kerry
campaign. http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-mona0729.artjul29,1,3287204.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
Muslims, Arab Americans Making
Political Waves (Star Telegram - registration
required)
Syed Hassan of Arlington will vote in a presidential
election for the first time in November, but he's no political neophyte.
The naturalized citizen pledged allegiance to the United States in 2001
-- a week before the Sept. 11 attacks. At age 41, he cast the first
ballot of his life in an Arlington City Council election. At 43, the
Pakistan native is a delegate to this week's Democratic National
Convention in Boston. "If you can imagine, a person who came from a
Third World country -- and people chose me to represent them in a
national forum. This story, whenever I go to Pakistan, I tell this story
-- the American people who chose me," said Hassan, one of two Tarrant
County Muslims who are delegates in Boston. ... Right-wing
conservative radio hosts stoked anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment,
said Inayat Lalani of Benbrook, a Muslim who is a delegate to the
Democratic convention. "Rush (Limbaugh), Sean Hannity, Paul Harvey --
they are just beating up on us all the time," said Lalani, a naturalized
citizen originally from India. http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/9266365.htm?1c
Global Political Leaders Get a Look at
American Politics (Boston
Globe)
John F. Kerry's top foreign policy advisers
yesterday made their case to about 600 politicians and diplomats from
120 countries who are here to observe the Democratic National Convention
and to absorb what Kerry aide Richard Holbrooke called ''the
occasionally strange tribal rituals" of American democracy. ...
Fauzia Wahab, a
member of Pakistan's national assembly from the People Party, said she
was impressed with the ''discipline" of the party delegates and the
extraordinary cost of the convention. ''It feels like very exciting
theater, a big show," she said, although she viewed it from a glassed-in
box on the seventh floor and said she had a hard time hearing anything.
She said the quieter debates on the sidelines on matters of foreign
policy, at gatherings like the National Democratic Institute forum here
yesterday, were less exciting but far more substantive, and she was
surprised at how little attention they were receiving in the media
coverage. ''This is the best minds in the world debating on serious
issues in an election that matters very much to the world," Wahab aid.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/29/global_political_leaders_get_a_look_at_american_politics/
Dems Hope to Make Security an
Issue (The Morning
Sun)
Even Midwestern voters who see John Kerry as too liberal could
vote for the Democratic nominee if they learn the full extent of how
much warning President Bush had before the terrorist attacks of
September 2001. That's the hopes, at least, of
Kansas delegates to the Democratic National Convention. "Whether you're conservative or moderate, that's an issue that
would concern any voter," said Kansas Senate Minority Leader Anthony
Hensley, D-Topeka.
...
For
example, the growing number of legal immigrants becoming registered
voters who might have favored GOP economic policies are concerned over
Bush's foreign affairs, said Rehan Reza, a Topeka delegate and immigrant
from Bangladesh who chairs the Kansas Asian Caucus. They are especially
worried about how Bush's policies have alienated the United States in
the eyes of other countries, he said. "We need to
make our foreign policy really strong so we have more allies than
enemies," Reza said. http://morningsun.net/stories/072904/reg_.shtml
Other
Pakistan Approves installation of
second nuclear plant with China's help (Space Daily/AFP) (Voice
of
America)
Pakistan's top economic body has approved the installation of
a second nuclear power plant to be supplied by China, prime
minister-in-waiting Shaukat Aziz said Wednesday. The national economic
council "has approved phase two of the Chashma Nuclear Power Project
which is about 51 billion rupees (about 880 million dollars) in
expenditure," Aziz, currently finance minister, told national
television. The plant will generate 300 megawatts of electricity. http://www.spacewar.com/2004/.unnzmu2h.html
Fans of Bollywood Enjoying
Choice (Dallas Morning
News)
For years there had been one North Texas location to
watch Indian films any day of the week – Everest Theaters in south
Irving. Since FunAsiad in Richardson more than a year ago, viewers
have had two venues at which to watch the films. In large cities
across the country, it's difficult for two specialty theaters to remain
profitable, said Raj Baronia, founder of INDOlink, an ethnic web portal
catering to the Indian community living in the West. "There is
plenty of room and appetite for one, but there is not that big of a
market out there for or a popularity that can support two or more
full-time theaters," he said. Everest Theaters owner Jaipal Reddy
thinks the Dallas area is no different. "No market in the United
States is capable of handling more than one theater," he said. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/irving/stories/072904dnirveverest.187f2.html
India Team Arrives for Water Talks
(Washington
Times/UPI)
An Indian team arrived in
Pakistan Wednesday for talks on a water dispute. Under an agreement
signed in 1962, India and Pakistan share the waters of the five rivers
flowing into the subcontinent from the Himalayan mountains. But
recently, India started building a dam on a river which flows into
Pakistan. India says the dam is for producing electricity only and it
does not intend to draw water from the river which is meant for Pakistan
under the 1962 agreement. http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm
Religious Riots Kill Two in India
(Oakland
Tribune/AP)
Muslims and Hindus burned buildings and clashed with
police Wednesday in a third day of sectarian riots in this western
Indian town, throwing acid at officers who shot at the crowd. The unrest
has left two dead and more than a dozen wounded. Thousands of
police patrolled the streets, fearing the religious violence could
escalate. More than 1,000 people were killed in three months of
Hindu-Muslim rioting two years ago in Gujarat state, where the coastal
town of Veraval is located. Police said the recent fighting began
Monday when young Muslim males heckled a passing Hindu girl, sparking
riots and clashes. Two small mosques and about 25 shops were
burned. A curfew was lifted Wednesday but reimposed within hours
after fighting broke out again, police officer T.S. Bist said. http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~2301817,00.html
Night Moves: Director Shyamalan built his own
world for "The Village" (Star
Ledger)
LAST YEAR, at a Girl Scout camp in South Jersey,
several Oscar-caliber actors were taking a crash course in rustic
living. Sigourney Weaver plowed fields. William Hurt built a fire.
Joaquin Phoenix assisted prepping dinner. Adrien Brody participated in a
Native American ritual.
No, there weren't any reality TV cameras rolling. The
cast members of M. Night Shyamalan's latest chiller, "The Village," were
taking part in training exercises to acquaint them with the daily rigors
of their 19th century farmland characters. They spent three weeks
roughing it before production commenced. "The more real it becomes
for us, the more real it becomes for the audience," said Hurt, who plays
a town elder. "You drop the pretensions of your (acting) style and move
into the world of these people."
Shyamalan (pronounced SHA-ma-lon) is known for spinning paranormal tales
grounded in emotional truth. With minimal effects and relatively modest
budgets, he's crafted a ghost story ("The Sixth Sense"), an alien
invasion saga ("Signs") and a comic book fable ("Unbreakable"). http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/.xml
Doctor Accussed of New Asasults
(Washington
Post)
A La Plata internist
charged with sexually assaulting two female patients is facing new
charges that he fondled two other women in his office, authorities said
Tuesday. Charles County Sheriff's Office officials said
Waheed U. Akthar, 54, assaulted the two women in November and early this
year the same way he is alleged to have assaulted the first two -- by
fondling their breasts under the guise of performing a medical
exam. Since Akthar's original charges were publicized last
month, 20 women have reported similar incidents, but the 12-month
statute of limitations has expired on all but the two newest cases, said
Kristen Adkins, spokeswoman for the sheriff's office.
Akthar, who was seeing patients Tuesday at his office at the White
Plains Medical Center at 10583 Theodore Green Blvd., did not return
calls seeking comment. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul27.html
New Pakistani Television Channels Pushing New
Political, Social Boundaries (SF Chronicle/AP) (Contra Costa
Times/AP)
The scars around her eyes were visible even before
the young Pakistani woman lifted her veil, showing TV viewers the burns
suffered when her husband doused her with kerosene and set her on fire.
Such a spectacle until recently would have been too shocking for
Pakistani television. B ut two private cable-TV
channels -- one beamed into Pakistan from the nearby United Arab
Emirates, the other broadcasting in Pakistan -- have been pushing the
boundaries of television programming since they started airing in
2002. Violence against
women, government corruption and the flash-point issue of Kashmir have
been debated morey, while entertainment shows have begun to poke
more fun at politicians and the ruling elite. Such fare would never have been
seen on state-run Pakistan Television (PTV), said Muhammad Hafeez, a
sociology professor at Punjab University. "Minds are being broadened,"
he
said.
In A
Click, Lovelorn Pakistanis defy tradition (Boston Globe/LA
Times)
Local
Muslims React to Holy Land Indictments (Star Telegram -
registration
required)
Local Muslims say they don't know whether the Holy
Land Foundation funneled charity money to terrorists, but they worry
that Islamic organizations are being targeted by the U.S.
government. Moazam Syed, a Pakistani American who lives in Fort
Worth, said many Muslims have been following the case and are waiting to
see whether the defendants are lawbreakers or whether they are being
used as scapegoats. "If they are causing terrorism or breaking the law
-- and it's proven solidly -- then the law should prevail," he said. But
it would be unfair for the government to target someone who is helping
innocent people caught up in the Middle East crisis, he said, adding
that the defendants are known in the Muslim community as "very caring
people." http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/
****************************************************************************************
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informational purposes only and no representation is made for the
accuracy of information posted on other websites. Kapil Sharma manages,
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kap if you have any questions. For information on Madison Government
Affairs, please visit www.madisongov.net.
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