Imran boycotts Jang Group, accuses it of influencing polls

 

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman, Imran Khan, on Friday accused Geo TV of being a part in rigging during the 2013 general elections and announced to boycott the Jang Group and the channel.
Talking to media persons here, Imran said that no PTI representative would appear on Geo or subscribe to the Jang Group newspapers till the time the private television apologised for its role in the rigging.

Imran demanded of the government to investigate through an independent commission the foreign funding coming to the media houses, including Geo, which had allegedly received money from the US and other foreign sources.

He justified his party’s decision to take to the streets against the “unprecedented rigging’ in the last year’s general elections and singled out the returning officers (ROs) for their role in the irregularity, saying that he would not let this go without a probe.

Imran noted that PTI candidate for NA-118 had to pay a total of Rs5.2 million for thumbprint verification of voters, the election tribunal and lawyer fee, and it was found that out of 325 bags, 170 were opened while only 69 had all the requisite documents.

He continued that out of 170,000 votes cast in the constituency, only 81,000 had either partial or complete record and more importantly, 70 bags did not belong to the Election Commission of Pakistan but were altered.

The PTI chairman pointedtribunals to going to the Supreme Court (SC) and raising the issue in the National Assembly.“This was simply because the PTI did not want to destabilise the government. Never at any time did the PTI accept the rigging that had clearly taken place in general elections 2013,” he noted.

Imran asserted that almost a year had passed and neither the tribunals nor the SC had given any decisions on their petitions. PTI’s demand for thumbprint verification in only four constituencies had still not been acceded by the ECP and the petition for the same remained undecided by the SC.

The PTI chairman said that his party had been left with no option but to come out on to the streets to protest the rigging so that future elections were made transparent and fair, or people would lose faith in the entire electoral process.

“Others will assume that the only way to win is through rigging. And the unprecedented turnout of youth and the urban professionals who came out to vote will again retreat and they won’t bother to cast their votes. This bodes ill for the future of democracy in Pakistan and the PTI will not allow this to happen,” he noted.

Imran pointed to the ‘questionable role’ of the ex-chief justice of Pakistan, the ROs and the Election Commissioners from the Punjab and Sindh in aiding and abetting rigging, along with the now infamous 35 punctures of the then Punjab acting Chief Minister Najam Sethi, who had been duly rewarded.

He drew attention to the comprehensive PTI White Paper on rigging as well as the Fafen report.The PTI chief recalled when thumbprint verifications were ordered and then Nadra chief complied in NA 118, Babar Sattar stated that the Nadra chief was threatened by Rana Sanaullah and then removed. The IHC decision on Nadra chief’s removal corroborated this statement.

It is interesting to note that for other reasons, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which was in power, had also boycotted Geo for some months but had to return to it on its own. PTI’s boycott of Jang Group was discussed during the recently held Core Committee meeting and more deliberations were held in a select group of party leaders.

Party insiders told ‘The News’ that the boycott of the leading media group, which been in the forefront in projecting the PTI, would be counterproductive, as ultimately Imran would have to end it, as had the PPP.

Prosecutor accuses Pistorius at end of questioning

Wrapping up five days of relentless cross-examination of Oscar Pistorius at his murder trial, the chief prosecutor insisted on Tuesday that he intentionally shot his girlfriend to death after they argued and in a final exchange urged the Olympic athlete to take responsibility for the Valentine’s Day killing.

“Who should we blame for the fact that you shot her?” prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked Mr. Pistorius. It came right at the end of Mr. Nel’s intense scrutiny of nearly every aspect of the double-amputee runner’s story that he killed Reeva Steenkamp last year after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder.

“I don’t know, my lady, I was scared,” Mr. Pistorius replied, his voice cracking slightly as he addressed the judge and maintained his argument that he shot through a toilet cubicle door in his home at a perceived intruder who he thought was about to attack him.

It’s a story the prosecutor dismissed as “improbable”.

Mr. Nel accused Mr. Pistorius, the one-time star of disabled sport, of tailoring evidence and concocting the version to cover up that he killed Steenkamp intentionally after a late night fight.

Mr. Pistorius steered away from a direct response to the prosecutor’s invitation to take the blame for Steenkamp’s killing, saying only that he opened fire because he believed his life was under threat. That remark drew barbed follow-up questions from Mr. Nel.

“We should blame somebody ... Should we blame Reeva?” asked Mr. Nel, who has harshly criticised Mr. Pistorius as someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his actions.

“No, my lady,” Mr. Pistorius replied, addressing Judge Thokozile Masipa in line with court custom.

“She never told you she was going to the toilet,” Mr. Nel said. Then he asked, “Should we blame the government?”

When Mr. Pistorius responded with another reference to a perceived attacker in his toilet, Mr. Nel asked, “Who should we blame for the Black Talon rounds that ripped through her body?”

Mr. Nel said the court “will” find that Mr. Pistorius, 27, is lying and intentionally killed the 29-year-old model and rising reality TV star. That drew an objection from defence lawyer Barry Roux.

In the adjournment after his cross-examination, Mr. Pistorius rubbed his eyes and briefly sank his head onto the shoulder of a man who had been sitting with his family. He took a tissue from his sister Aimee, who squeezed his arm reassuringly. Shortly afterward, he listened attentively as Mr. Roux spoke to him in a low voice.

Mr. Nel asserted that the couple fought during the night of the shooting and Steenkamp wanted to leave, and then fled to the bathroom screaming before Mr. Pistorius shot her through the door with his 9 mm pistol. Mr. Pistorius said he never heard Steenkamp scream, or say anything in the minutes before he shot her.

The prosecutor even charged that Mr. Pistorius fired the four shots from about three metres away from Steenkamp as he was talking and arguing with Steenkamp, and changed his aim with later shots to ensure that he hit her as she fell back. Mr. Nel’s unrelenting questioning and accusations provoked many denials by Mr. Pistorius and caused the athlete to break down in sobs on numerous occasions.

“Unfortunately I have to put it to you that it’s getting more and more improbable,” Mr. Nel said to Mr. Pistorius of his story.

Mr. Pistorius struggled at times to explain alleged inconsistencies during his testimony and the Paralympic champion faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.

“I was terrified. I feared for my life. I was just scared,” Mr. Pistorius said. “I was thinking about what could happen to me, to Reeva. I was just extremely fearful.”

During cross-examination, Mr. Pistorius gave a sometimes muddled account of the shooting, saying he feared for his life but also didn’t intentionally shoot at anyone, prompting Mr. Nel to query if his defence was self-defence or “involuntary action”.

Mr. Pistorius also told Mr. Roux he didn’t consciously pull the trigger on his gun and said it happened “before I could think”.

Top Nigerian Islamic body accuses military over Muslim deaths

ABUJA: A leading Nigerian Islamic group has accused the country´s military of summarily executing Muslims in the name of counter-terrorism, prompting a swift and strongly-worded denial on Tuesday from top brass.

The Jama´atu Nasril Islam (JNI) umbrella group of Muslim organisations said followers of the faith had "become endangered species, murdered and maimed indiscriminately in the guise of fighting terrorism".

"The dimension of extra-judicial killing of Muslims by the military on a mere whim of unsubstantiated suspicion leaves much to be desired," it said in a statement signed by its secretary-general, Khalid Aliyu.

The JNI´s accusation, which follows claims that troops summarily executing hundreds of suspected Islamist fighters, came after a military operation in Nigeria´s central Nasarawa state last Thursday.

The state government said "scores" of Fulani tribesmen, a mainly Muslim ethnic group primarily made up of cattle herders, were killed as troops tried to disarm locals and enforce a peace deal.

The JNI said 15 died, adding that the incident was the latest example of orchestrated state violence where "innocent Muslims were mercilessly massacred".

Tit-for-tat violence between the Fulani and farmers has been commonplace in central Nigeria, where the mainly Christian south meets the largely Muslim north. The violence, which has claimed more than 10,000 lives since 1992, according to Human Rights Watch, has been attributed to disputes over grazing rights but ethnicity and religion have also been blamed.

Rwandan president accuses France of direct role in 1994 genocide

PARIS: France has reacted with fury after the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, renewed accusations of direct French involvement in the 1994 genocide, on the eve of ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary.

The French government announced that the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, would not attend the commemorations in Kigali after Kagame, in an interview with the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, accused both France and Belgium of having a “direct role” in the genocide.A total 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the four-month killing spree triggered by the assassination of Rwanda’s Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana.

The spirited French reaction highlights France’s tormented relations with Rwanda since Kagame, the former leader of the Tutsi rebels who swept to power after the genocide, became president.

Didier Reynders, the foreign minister of Belgium, the former colonial power in Rwanda, said he still intended to travel to Kigali to pay homage to the victims and their families. “We are not going to pay homage to the current Rwandan government,” Reynders said on Sunday.

The French foreign minister at the time of the 1994 massacres, Alain Juppé, said Kagame’s comments were a “falsification of history”.Kagame notably said that France had not “done enough to save lives” by mounting Operation Turquoise in the west of the country, and had not only been complicit but “an actor” in the massacre of Tutsis.

He pointed to “the direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation of the genocide, and the participation of the latter in its actual execution”.Juppé said it was “intolerable that we are being designated as the main culprits.” He urged the French president, François Hollande, and the government to “defend without ambiguity the honour of France, and of its army and diplomats”.

France’s financial and military support of the Hutu authorities in Rwanda are at the root of Kagame’s suspicions. After two decades of mistrust, including a three-year break in diplomatic relations, there had been a tentative fence-mending in recent months. Last month France sentenced a Hutu former army captain, Pascal Simbikangwa, to 25 years in jail on genocide charges in the first such trial, and it has arrested a second suspect.

But Kagame shrugged off the verdict against Simbikangwa. “We’ll see what becomes of this sentence on appeal,” he told Jeune Afrique. —Courtesy The Guardian

Karzai accuses Pakistan of blocking Kabul’s peace deal with Taliban

KABUL: In a phone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan of being behind a recent series of attacks and of blocking his government from striking a peace deal with Taliban, the Afghan president’s office said on Sunday.

Karzai routinely makes such accusations against Islamabad, but his tone in recent days has been particularly pointed and direct. They come after three attacks in five days in the capital Kabul, the latest coming on Saturday when assailants fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the country’s electoral commission ahead of next week’s general election.

Karzai told Kerry on Saturday the attacks were complex in nature and stage-managed by “foreign intelligence agencies,” a reference to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. He also told Kerry that he did not accept US arguments that it had no influence “over countries that support terrorism,” and said the US’s refusal to go after the Pakistani intelligence agency could further hurt its relations with Afghanistan. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the recent violence in Kabul. Islamabad has a long and complicated relationship with the group, but few analysts accept Karzai’s allegations that Pakistani intelligence agencies and not the Taliban are staging attacks.

Pakistan denies that it is assisting the Taliban. “It is highly disturbing that attempts are being made to somehow implicate Pakistan in this terrorist incident,” the Pakistani foreign ministry said in a statement issued after the Afghan presidency blamed Pakistan a March 21 assault on the Serena Hotel that left nine dead. “We reject the insinuation. The tendency to immediately blame Pakistan is unhelpful and should be discarded.

“Karzai is not allowed to run for re-election in the April 5 ballot, as he is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term in office. He is seen as positioning himself for life after the presidency, depicting himself as a tough-speaking nationalist.

Karzai has also refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States which would allow for the US and Nato to leave behind a residual force of about 12,000 soldiers after the final withdrawal of international combat troops takes place at the end of this year.

Despite widespread support for the agreement, Karzai says he first wants the US to move forward with a peace pact with the Taliban, presumably by putting pressure on neighbor Pakistan.

During the telephone conversation, according to the Afghan presidency, Karzai told Kerry that the Taliban were willing to talk to his High Peace Council, an 80-member body tasked by the president to spearhead reconciliation with his armed opposition, but Pakistan was preventing them. The presidency did not provide further details.

The Taliban has denied any talks with Karzai and say it does not want to speak with the Afghan president. However several Taliban leaders have met with members of Karzai’s High Peace Council in the United Arab Emirates, according to both Taliban and high peace council members, who have previously spoken to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so as not to disrupt the delicate diplomacy.

Also on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed a Romanian service member with the international military coalition in Afghanistan in a southeastern province, said Coalition spokesman Capt. Patrick Simmons. The bomb was set off by remote control as a convoy reached the outskirts of Qalat, capital of Zabul province, said district governor Abdul Khaliq Ayubi. He said another three troops were wounded.

The Romanian defense ministry said Claudiu Constantin Vulpoiu died in the early Sunday attack. Romania has 1,029 troops serving in the Nato mission in Afghanistan and 23 have been killed. Most of Afghanistan’s security is now in the hands of the Afghan National Security Forces ahead of the withdrawal of international combat troops at the end of December. Still, international service personnel occasionally patrol troubled areas and assist Afghan troops when requested.

In Tirin Kot, the capital of southern Uruzgan province, a remotely detonated explosive devise apparently planted in a car killed one person and injured 14 others, according to Provincial Deputy Police Chief Mohammed Aslam Kochi. No one took responsibility for either incidents but the Taliban are suspected in both explosions. A stubborn insurgency still rages in Afghanistan’s south and east.

Shanti Dynamite Accuses Sunny of Copying Her

Playboy girl Shanti Dynamite, who is in India right now, alleges that adult star Sunny Leone has copied her poster for her song Baby Doll and that it is very upsetting. The Britain-based adult star of Indian-Greek origin, who does adult chat shows, is nurturing dreams of working in Hindi films.

"A lot of people contacted me and said you should see the new Sunny Leone song Baby Doll for the Ragini MMS 2 movie, she copied a concept of yours. I saw that and was shocked," Shanti told reporters on Saturday.

"I was like, 'Oh my god people do such things!' And it was very upsetting for me because for someone to use someone else's concept to gain popularity is not good," she added.

Shanti came with her poster at the venue. "That particular poster Baby Doll was a replica of something I had done previously. That picture is right there and I had done that picture some time ago. Then the same concept was done for her poster," Shanti said.

Rabiya Accuses Salman of Sheltering a Murderer

Actress Jiah Khan's mother Rabiya's lawyer claims that they have "recorded conversations of the witnesses" and the result indicates that it was not a case of "suicide". Rabiya on Saturday moved the Bombay High Court once again alleging that Jiah was murdered and had not committed suicide. She wanted a Special Investigating Team to probe the case. 

"We have recorded conversations of the witnesses and it is different from the statement recorded by the police. For the last four months, we have been doing investigation and sting operations personally. The result in the material collected by us indicates it is not a case of suicide," Dinesh Tiwari, Rabiya's lawyer, told IANS.

"The injury marks indicate it cannot be a case of suicide and nobody has any explanation on this. Now the current status is that we have filed a petition in the high court,” he added.

Jiah was found hanging in her Juhu flat late on June 3, 2013. An FIR was registered against Suraj, son of actors Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab, on charges of abetment. The high court later granted him bail.

 

"Movie stars like Salman sheltering the murderers, where is the God's fear and being human all for the front shame on him," Rabiya posted on Twitter this mornin