Pakistan Information & News

Ukraine

KIEV: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told AFP late on Thursday there was “no alternative” to his country sooner or later joining Nato, but said for the first time that Russia should be included in negotiations on the issue.

Yushchenko also vowed that Ukraine would “guarantee” that all Russian natural gas shipped to Europe through Ukrainian territory would reach its intended recipients, moving to calm Western concerns over another energy dispute.

“Ukraine has no other option — no alternative exists” to Nato membership to ensure its national sovereignty, Yushchenko said in an exclusive interview in Kiev. “We must hold negotiations with all parties who are interested, or not interested, in Ukraine moving closer to Nato,” the Ukrainian president said, clearly alluding to Russia which is fiercely opposed to Ukrainian membership in the alliance.

His comments came two days after Nato backed away from placing Ukraine and another ex-Soviet republic, Georgia, on a fast track for membership in the alliance despite strong US lobbying for this in recent years.

Nato also agreed at its ministerial meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to renew its dialogue with Russia, suspended following the brief war last August in Georgia, a move welcomed by Moscow as a return to a “position of realism.”

Yushchenko, who has led the drive in recent years to disengage Ukraine from Moscow’s influence and place it firmly on course for integration into key Western institutions, repeated his view that Nato membership represented no threat to Russia.

“If third parties are needed to provide international guarantees” that would help assuage Russia’s concerns about Nato taking in Ukraine as a member “we are prepared for this,” he said. Asked to elaborate, Yushchenko referred specifically to the European Union or “a whole series of states that both sides trust” and that could play a role in confidence-building on the issue.

Aoraki

WELLINGTON: A Japanese rock climber died just hours before a helicopter came to save him and a friend attentive for six days by a ferocious storm near the peak of New Zealand’s uppermost mountain, police said.

Mountain guide Kiyoshi Ikenouchi, 49, died on the 3,754 meter (12,316 feet) high Mount Cook early Friday, while his client Hideaki Nara, 51, was rescued several hours later. 

Police Inspector Dave Gaskin said rescuers had brought Nara and the body of Ikenouchi out when weather improved enough to allow a helicopter to reach the peak of the mountain, also known as Aoraki.

Fresh from the success of “Twilight,” Kristen Stewart is set to portray Joan Jett in “The Runaways,” the rock ‘n’ roll biopic of the 1970s all-girl band.

Video director Floria Sigismondi wrote the screenplay and is directing, while John and Art Linson and River Road Entertainment’s Bill Pohlad are producing. Jett will act as an executive producer.

The Runaways were hugely influential as the first successful all-girl hard rock band; its members included guitarists Jett and Lita Ford, drummer Sandy West, singer-keyboardist Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox. The band was brought together in late 1975 by impresario Kim Fowley, who thought a novelty act of teenaged girls performing in leather and lace would be an easy sell, but the girls ended up proving to be serious and influential musicians with songs like “Cherry Bomb.” The band lasted about four years together, falling apart over management and money issues.

Jett continued her rock career into the ’80s, forming the Blackhearts and scoring with such hits as “I Love Rock N’ Roll” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” She continues to record and tour.

The film will revolve around Jett and Currie and follow them from the band’s meteoric rise as teenagers to their dissolution and disillusionment.

The movie is eyeing a 2009 start and will work around Stewart’s commitments to the two “Twilight” sequels. The first one, “New Moon,” is expected to shoot sometime in first-quarter 2009, with Stewart reprising her role as Bella, the human who falls for a vampire.

“Twilight” has made more than $120 million since opening Nov. 21.

“Runaways” reunites the Gersh-repped Stewart with Art Linson and Pohlad, with whom she worked on “Into the Wild.” She also appeared in the Linson-produced “What Just Happened.”

Greece

ATHENS: Greece is violating international law by rounding up asylum seekers from countries such as Iraq, holding them in degrading conditions and secretly expelling them across the border into Turkey, a rights group said on Wednesday.

In a report entitled “Stuck in a Revolving Door”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) described how coast guards forced out migrants trying to enter Greece’s territorial waters, sometimes puncturing their inflatable boats or disabling their vessels.

For those who succeeded in entering Greece, authorities blocked asylum procedures and turned down around 98 percent of claims, said the report by the New York-based group. In northern Greece, migrants are routinely rounded up by police, beaten and ferried back across the Evros River into Turkey under cover of night, the 121-page study said. “Greece denies protection to vulnerable people and abuses them in detention,” said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at HRW and the author of the report. “Until Greece cleans up its act, EU states shouldn’t send asylum seekers back there.”

A Greek interior ministry official declined to comment. The European Commission estimates there are up to 8 million illegal migrants in the bloc, with up to half a million arriving every year.

Under a EU rule known as the Dublin regulation, member states must send asylum seekers back to the country where they originally entered the 27-nation bloc. However, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR urged EU states in April to stop returning asylum seekers to Greece because of harsh conditions and the low approval rate of claims.

“The Dublin system traps asylum seekers in a revolving door,” said Frelick. “They can’t go home because of fear of war and persecution. They are almost never given asylum in Greece.” The report cited one 34-year-old ethnic Turkoman from Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk who said he was arrested and held for five days by police, then taken to the Evros River at night with 60 other migrants and ferried across the river back to Turkey.

“They beat us with police clubs to get us to go on the boat,” he said in the report. “I saw one man who tried to refuse to go on the boat and they beat him and threw him in the river.” Human Rights Watch also accused Turkish authorities of detaining migrants in inhumane conditions and repatriating Iraqi migrants without giving them the chance to apply for asylum.

ENGLAND

LONDON: Laws to put off forced marriages and defend those who have already fallen victim have been introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The laws mean anyone convicted of irritating to force someone into marriage could be jailed for up to two years.

A victim, friend or police can apply for a Forced Marriage Protection Order.

These court injunctions will forbid families from actions such as taking people abroad for marriage, seizing passports or intimidating victims. Penalties for breaching an order include up to two years’ imprisonment.

The legislation is the first to specifically target the problem of forced marriages.

Previously the issue had been dealt with through existing measures, such as those contained in the Children’s Act, and immigration laws.

Justice minister Bridget Prentice said, “This new law is a powerful tool that will help ensure that no-one is forced into marriage against their will and those already in such marriages will receive protection.”

A Forced Marriage Protection Order could also require family members to reveal a person’s whereabouts.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that UK’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) had handled more than 1,500 reports so far this year. And 65% of all known cases of the practice in the UK involve people of Pakistani origin. The Conservatives say the new laws do not go far enough, and if elected, they would make forced marriage illegal.

Asif Ali Zardari

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani called on President Asif Ali Zardari at the Aiwan-e-Sadr here Sunday hours of daylight all through the congregation, sanctuary state of affairs in the country, frequent drone attacks on the border areas and steps being taken by the government for the revival of economy came under discussion.

They agreed that the administration would take on policy on recurrent buzz attacks on the border areas in the brightness of recommendations of Parliamentary Committee on National Security to be briefed by the Defense Minister, Foreign Minister, Interior Advisor and DG ISI shortly.

Both agreed that no give and take on national dominion and honesty would be made at any cost.

Referring to the report of Washington Post, they also dispelled the rumour of any kind of covenant on predators.

The Prime Minister also briefed the President about the ongoing parliament proceedings.

Anil Kapoor

After the success of ‘Taare Zameen Per’, now Anil Kapoor will be seen as an autistic in his forthcoming movie ‘Yuvvraaj’.

“Anil plays elder brother to Salman and Zayed Khan. Subhash Ghai had been meaning to incorporate a physically-psychologically challenged character into his script for a long time. It was Anil who told

Subhashji the story idea for ‘Yuvvraaj’,” a source told us.

 If sources are to be believed Anil’s reference point in ‘Yuvvraaj’ is Tom Hanks in ‘Forrest Gump’.

 This isn’t the first time that Anil is playing an autistic role. In K. Vishwanath’s ‘Eeshwar’ too he was cast as a slow, saintly man who wins over a village widow. Anil has self-admittedly copied Raj Kapoor in ‘Eeshwar’.

Shah Rukh Khan too plays an isolated Muslim suffering from an autistic disorder in Karan Johar’s ‘My Name Is Khan’.