Body found of boy who made first call from Korea ferry: report

SEOUL: The body of a high school student who made the first distress call from a sinking South Korean ferry was recovered from the submerged vessel on Thursday, news reports said.

The student, identified by his surname Choi, had called the emergency 119 number at 8:52am on Wednesday last week, three minutes before the crew of the 6,825 tonne Sewol sent their first distress signal.

The timing of his terrified message -- "Save us. The ship is sinking" -- has fuelled anger over the slow response of the Sewol´s captain and crew as the disaster unfolded.

The confirmed death toll stood at 162 on Thursday, with 140 still unaccounted for -- their bodies believed trapped in the ship that capsized in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.

Yonhap news agency said divers had retrieved the boy´s body from inside the ferry on Thursday morning and it had been identified by his parents.

A DNA test was being carried out to formally confirm his identity, Yonhap said.

The boy was one of 325 students from the same high school who were on the ferry, bound for the southern resort island of Jeju, when it capsized.

During his 119 call, Choi was bombarded with questions about the ferry´s coordinates and the number of people on board.

A coastguard official later told reporters that emergency services had mistaken him for a crew member.

The captain and 11 crew members have either been arrested or taken into police custody awaiting charges.

Osama commission’s call for intelligence reforms ignored

 

ISLAMABAD: The debate on bringing the intelligence agencies under legal oversight has not popped up suddenly after the attack on Hamid Mir, as even the Abbottabad Commission represented by an army general had also made strong calls for intelligence reforms.
However, like all other reports, the government and intelligence agencies did not pay any heed to the recommendations of the commission and, as a result, the gulf between the ordinary people and intelligence agencies is widening.

The Abbottabad Commission, constituted by the Supreme Court after the killing of Osama bin Laden in a covert CIA operation, had called for comprehensive reforms to improve the working of intelligence community, both in terms of effectiveness and respecting human rights and the rule of law.

Former Supreme Court judge Justice Javaid Iqbal headed the commission while its members included Lieutenant-General (retired) Nadeem Ahmad, former Pakistani envoy Ashraf Kazi, civil servant Nargis Sethi and former Inspector-General of KP Police Abbas Khan.

While criticising the intelligence agencies for failing to detect OBL in the country for nine years, the commission said: “There is an urgent need for the scrutiny of the power and mandate of security agencies, the laws under which they are supposed to work, the nature of oversight and accountability mechanism.”

The commission also stressed that intelligence agencies must not overstep their mandate. “Unless this happens, relations between the intelligence community and the people will remain adversarial and counter-productive. Instead of Pakistan making the transition from a dysfunctional security state to a functioning development state it will run the risk of becoming further degraded to an intelligence and police state.”

The report pointed out that in the absence of proper accountability procedures, the intelligence agencies, including ISI, have lost competence. “The problem was apparent: none among the intelligence community, including the premier intelligence organisation, which is ISI, has ever been subjected to proper accountability procedures. It is a law of nature that under such circumstances, institutions degenerate and progressively lose competence. This has happened in Pakistan.”

Urging the political leadership to reform intelligence agencies through proper accountability, the commission endorsed the views of a Pakistan human rights activist who said: “Unless there is political initiative in this regard no technical, administrative procedure or other reforms of the military/intelligence system can happen.

“There are a number of reports that have been written, including Air Marshal (Retd) Zulfikar Ali Khan’s report and recommendations to redesign our intelligence system and make it more effective. The commission therefore recommends that these reports be studied,” the report said.

The attack on Hamid Mir and the allegations on the ISI by his family have once again brought the issue of intelligence reforms under public spotlight but the chances of any outcome in this regard are still very slim.

According to a report on international legislation on intelligence oversight, Pakistan is one of the few democracies in the world with no mechanism of parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies.

The report titled “Making Intelligence Accountable: Legal Standards and Best Practices for Oversight of Intelligence Agencies,” states that even countries which were previously governed by military rule under authoritarian regimes have carried out intelligence reforms, a study of legislation indicates.

MH370 co-pilot made mid-flight phone call: repor

KUALA LUMPUR: The co-pilot of missing Malaysian airliner MH370 attempted to make a mid-flight call from his mobile phone just before the plane vanished from radar screens, a report said Saturday citing unnamed investigators.

The call ended abruptly possibly "because the aircraft was fast moving away from the (telecommunications) tower", The New Straits Times quoted a source as saying.

But the Malaysian daily also quoted another source saying that while Fariq Abdul Hamid´s "line was reattached", there was no certainty that a call was made from the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8.The report -- titled a "desperate call for help" -- did not say who he was trying to contact.

Fariq and Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have come under intense scrutiny after the plane mysteriously vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Investigators last month indicated that the flight was deliberately diverted and its communication systems manually switched off as it was leaving Malaysian airspace, triggering a criminal investigation by police that has revealed little so far.

The fate of flight MH370 has been shrouded in mystery, with a number of theories put forward including a hijacking or terrorist attack and a pilot gone rogue.

There have been unconfirmed previous reports in the Malaysian media of calls by the captain before or during the flight but no details have been released.

The NST report said that Flight 370 flew low enough near Penang island on Malaysia´s west coast -- after turning off course -- for a telecommunications tower to pick up the co-pilot´s phone signal.

The phone line was "reattached" between the time the plane veered off course and blipped off the radar, the government-controlled paper quoted the second source as saying.

"A ‘reattachment’ does not necessarily mean that a call was made. It can also be the result of the phone being switched on again."

Malaysia´s transport ministry told that it was examining the NST report and will issue a response.

The Malaysian government and media have repeatedly contradicted each other and themselves over details of the search and criminal investigation.

Arab summit rejects call to consider Israel as 'Jewish state'

KUWAIT CITY: Arab leaders fully back a Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, an Israeli demand that threatens to derail peace talks, a joint statement said on Wednesday.

"We express our total rejection of the call to consider Israel as a Jewish state," said the final declaration of the two-day Arab summit in Kuwait.oh-

 

Track-II experts call India, Pakistan to move swiftly on key issues

NEW DELHI: An India-Pakistan Track II diplomacy initiative onFriday sent out a message to Islamabad and New Delhi, pressing on the new Indian government which emerges in April elections, to continue the positive initiatives taken under previous governments.

“Islamabad and New Delhi must move forward on a menu of outstanding items in order to move the region out from the shadows of instability, human insecurity and lost opportunities in trade, energy, information connectivity,” said a joint resolution issued after the 4th Delhi Dialogue arranged by the Jinnah Institute and Centre for Dialogue and Reconstruction, which concluded in New Delhi on Friday.

The dialogue brought together journalists, policy experts, academics, advocates, former military officials and diplomats from India and Pakistan for two days of intense deliberations to discuss a wide range of outstanding issues between both countries.

The session on Afghanistan saw support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process in Afghanistan and recognised that a peaceful Afghanistan is essential for regional stability.

It recommended that serious efforts be made towards exploring the possibility of Pakistan granting India overland transit rights for trade with Afghanistan and India granting overland transit rights to Pakistan for other South Asian countries.

Urging both countries not to let competing interests in Afghanistan negatively impact bilateral relations, it also urged the regional countries to initiate a dialogue on adopting a non-interventionist policy.

“We urge both countries to engage with each other to clarify each other’s apprehensions on a post-2014 Afghanistan. We recommend that opportunities for mutual cooperation in the development and reconstruction of Afghanistan be explored, especially under the aegis of Saarc,” said the resolution.

On Kashmir, the resolution agreed that the bilateral dialogue should be irreversible and uninterruptable and urged both India and

Pakistan to fully implement all agreed CBM’s cooperate on outstanding issues and address each other’s concern on key issues like “Kashmir as well as terrorism with the aim of resuming the stalled bilateral dialogue.”

Both governments were urged to urgently take up discussions on Jammu and Kashmir so that a solution that is acceptable to India,Pakistan and the people of Kashmir on both sides of the Line of Control can be found.

Of importance was a recommendation that Non-Discriminatory Market Access be granted by Pakistan to India at the earliest, urging India to remove all non-tariff barriers to facilitate trade between both countries.

A statement issued later by the Jinnah Institute said: “As South Asia and the wider region grapples with the menace of transnational conflict, a renewed vigor is required towards resuming the stalled bilateral dialogue between Pakistan and India participants agreed at the recently concluded Delhi Dialogue on Friday.”

Against the backdrop of the upcoming Indian elections, participants agreed that expected victory of a Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could have a transformative effect on bilateral relations between both the countries.

Despite skepticism, participants unanimously hoped that the new government in New Delhi will build upon earlier initiatives taken under previous governments and expeditiously pursue the revival of the stalled dialogue process with Pakistan.

The Pakistani delegation impressed upon its Indian counterparts that unlike India, a cross-party consensus existed in Pakistan on improving relations with India and resolving all outstanding issues. They said that recent overtures of the Pakistan government presented an opportunity which must be reciprocated by India.

The participants also analyzed last year’s ceasefire violations and called on both Indian and Pakistani military establishments to regularise high level staff and field commander meetings to resolve any future untoward incidents on the LoC.

Noting that people-to-people contacts were essential in improving relations between the two nuclear armed neighbours, the dialogue participants recommended the extension of the one year multiple entry visa policy towards all category of travelers, particularly media-persons, artists, students and academics.

They urged both governments to ensure that the Wagah-Attari border is opened for 24 hour operations and both governments should explore opportunities for opening all economically feasible land routes between India and Pakistan for trade and travel, particularly Ganda Singhwala-Ferozpur, Muktasar-Fazilka and Khokhrapar-Munabao.

The Pakistan delegation comprised former ambassador Sherry Rehman, parliamentarian Shafqat Mahmood, former ambassador Aziz Ahmad Khan, former DG ISPR Lt Gen Athar Abbas, Syed Babar Ali, Arshad Zuberi, senior journalists Zahid Hussain, Mariana Baabar, Amir Mateen and Ammara Durrani.

The India delegation comprised former foreign secretary Salman Haider, former Ambassadors Jayant Prasad and Sharat Sabharwal, Dr Rajmohan Gandhi, Siddharth Vardarajan, Prem Shankar Jha, former Lt General Syed Ata Hasnain, Jyoti Malhotra, Suhasini Haidar, Gul Muhammad Wani, Sunil Sethi, and Syeda Hammeda.