al-Jazeera

PAKISTAN : POWER AND POLITICS

정준엽 — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 08:48:49 +0900

Timeline: Pakistan

Muhammad Ali Jinnah is considered
the founder of Pakistan [AP]

1947: Pakistan is founded after partition from India. Muhammad Ali Jinnah becomes the country's first governor-general and Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan its first prime minister.

1948: Death of Jinnah. Khawaja Nazimuddin becomes governor-general.

1951: Liaquat Ali is assassinated. Khawaja Nazimuddin becomes prime minster. Malik Ghulam Muhammad becomes governor-general.

1953: Muhammad Ali Bogra becomes prime minister.

1955: Iskandar Mirza becomes governor-general. Chaudhry Muhammad Ali becomes prime minister.

1956: Pakistan is proclaimed an Islamic republic, Iskander Mirza becomes first president

1958: Martial law is declared, Mirza is sent into exile and Field Marshal Ayub Khan declares himself president.

1962: Martial law suspended.

1965: Ayub Khan wins presidential election.

1969: General Yahya Khan takes over following Ayub Khan's resignation, martial law declared.

1971: President Yahya cedes power to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who becomes president.

1973: Martial law suspended as Bhutto becomes prime minister and Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry becomes president under new constitution.

Zia died in a mysterious plane crash [AP]

1977: General election is followed by rioting as Bhutto's Pakistan People's party is accused of vote rigging. General Zia ul-Haq becomes president and martial law declared.

1978: Zia becomes Pakistan's sixth president.

1979: Political parties banned, Bhutto is hanged.

1985: Martial law and ban on political parties lifted.

1986: Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, returns from exile.

1988: Zia dies in mysterious plane crash. Ghulam Ishaq Khan becomes president, Benazir Bhutto becomes first female prime minister of a Muslim country.

1990: Bhutto dismissed on charges of corruption. Nawaz Sharif elected prime minister.

1993: Khan and Sharif resign under pressure from the army. Election returns Bhutto as prime minister. Wasim Sajjad becomes interim president. Sardar Farooq Leghari replaces Sajjad as president.

1996: Leghari dismisses Bhutto amid allegations of corruption.

1997: Nawaz Sharif wins election to return as prime minister. Wasim Sajjad becomes interim president.

1998: Muhammad Rafiq Tarar becomes 11th president of Pakistan.

Musharraf took power in a military coup [AFP]

1999: Bhutto and her husband convicted of corruption. Bhutto stays out of the country. Sharif overthrown in coup led by General Pervez Musharraf.

2000: Sharif convicted of hijacking and terrorism and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is pardoned by military authorities and goes into exile in Saudi Arabia.

2001: Musharraf declares himself president while still head of the army.

2002: Musharraf elected as president in referendum criticised as unconstitutional. First general election since start of military rule. Mir Zafarullah Jamali elected prime minister.

2004: Musharraf announces he will continue as head of the army despite having previously said he would give up the role.

April 2007: In April Musharraf suspends Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the chief justice, following demonstrations. Chaudhry is reinstated in July.

August 2007: Pakistan's supreme court rules Sharif can return from exile, but he is sent to Saudi Arabia within hours of his return in September.

The same month Musharraf agrees to step down as head of the army after presidential elections in October.

October 2007: Musharraf wins presidential elections in Pakistan, but must await decision from the supreme court as to whether he was eligible to be a candidate.

Also in October, Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani prime minister, returns from exile to Pakistan. During a parade in the city of Karachi attended by thousands of her supporters, a suicide bomb attack kills more than 130 of her supporters.

November 4, 2007: Musharraf declares a state of emergency in Pakistan. Troops surround Islamabad's state-run television and radio stations and police surround the supreme court.

November 28, 2007: Musharraf steps down as army chief, meeting a key demand of the international community, and ending eight years of divisive military rule. Control of the army and its nuclear arsenal are handed to General Ashfaq Kiyani, a former intelligence chief. Musharraf is sworn in as a civilian president the next day.

December 15, 2007: Musharraf lifts a nationwide state of emergency amid mounting criticism that general elections scheduled for January will not be free and fair. Musharraf cancelled the six-week long emergency law a day after he made changes to Pakistan's constitution.

December 21, 2007: At least 50 people are killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan, apparently targeting Aftab Khan Sherpao, the country's former interior minister.

December 27, 2007: Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani prime minister, is killed by a suicide bomber who first fired shots at her before blowing himself up during an election rally in Rawalpindi, 14km south of Islamabad.

Taliban begins hostage handover

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:23:21 +0900

Taliban begins hostage handover

The Taliban say another group of hostages will be released onWednesday [AFP]

The Taliban has freed three of its remaining 19 South Korean hostages and has told Al Jazeera that five more will be released shortly.

Al Jazeera's Afghanistan team was instructed to head to Qalaa Qadi district near the town of Ghazni to witness the release on Wednesday of the three women, who were handed over to tribal mediators in the area.

The hostages were handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose members gave them brief medical checks in Ghazni, Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent, said.

He said the women, named as Ahn Hye-Jinm, Lee Jeung-Ran and Han Ji-Young, were then driven to the South Korean embassy in Kabul.

Cho Hee-yong, a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman, confirmed that the three had been handed over to Korean custody. They are apparently in normal health, he said.

The Taliban began freeing the Christian volunteers under an agreement reached a day earlier in face-to-face talks with the Seoul government, brokered by the Red Crescent.

Under the terms of the deal, South Korea agreed to end missionary activities by Christian groups in Afghanistan.

Fisher said: "We have been told by the Taliban that a further group of five - four women and one man - will be released by the Taliban within the hour."

Hostages' return

Relatives of the hostages, who erupted in cheers on hearing news of the agreement, are now anxiously awaiting the hostages' return.

"It is like a dead child is coming back to life," Lee Hyoen-Ja, a relative of one of the kidnapped Christian aid workers, told JoongAng Daily on Wedneday.

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"Innocent aid workers were abducted and murdered by a band of political criminals"

Adolfo Talpalar, Stockholm, Sweden

Send us your views

Seo Jeung-Bae, whose son and daughter were among the hostages, said: "I want to see them and hug them hard now.

"I had not doubted for one moment that the Taliban would return my children some day, as the Taliban are also human beings and have their own families."

At Seoul's Saemmul Church, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan, officials said the focus now would be on looking after the released hostages and their families.

"Our work for now will be to make sure the freed hostages return safely and have the time to recover, and to make sure the family members of the two who were sacrificed are comforted," Bang Yong-kyun, pastor, said.

The group of 23 volunteers from the church were seized on July 19 from a bus as they travelled through Ghazni province.

Rethink

The Taliban killed two male hostages early on in the crisis, but released two women as a gesture of goodwill during a first round of negotiations.

As news of the release spread, other South Korean churches said the kidnapping crisis had led them to rethink their evangelical activities.

Relatives reacted with joy after getting news
that an agreement had been reached [AFP]

The National Council of Churches in Korea, one of the largest groups representing the country's Protestants, said in a statement it would abide by the government's pledge to end missionary work in Afghanistan.

"Through this incident, we will look back on the Korean churches' overseas volunteer and missionary work, and make this an opportunity to bring about more effective and safer volunteer and missionary work," it said.

Another Seoul-based Christian aid group, The Frontiers, said all its short-term volunteers in Afghanistan had pulled out of the country and two long-term volunteers are about to return.

Following Tuesday's talks with South Korean officials, the Taliban said they would release the 19 hostages provided Seoul pulls out its troops and stops Korean missionary work in Afghanistan by the end of this year.

S Korea churches to end Afghan work

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:22:41 +0900

S Korea churches to end Afghan work

For friends and family of the hostages there is hope the long wait for news is at an end [Reuters]

South Korean Christian groups have said they will end missionary work in Afghanistan following news of an apparent end to a 41-day hostage crisis that has gripped the country.

The Taliban were expected to begin freeing 19 South Korean Christian volunteers on Wednesday, under an agreement reached a day earlier in face-to-face talks with the South Korean government brokered by the Red Crescent.

Under the terms of the deal, South Korea agreed to end missionary activities by Christian groups in Afghanistan.

Hostages' return

Relatives of the hostages who erupted in cheers on hearing news of the agreement are now anxiously awaiting the hostages' return.

"It is like a dead child is coming back to life," Lee Hyoen-Ja, a relative of one of the kidnapped Christian aid workers, told South Korea's JoongAng Daily on Wedneday.

Seo Jeung-Bae, whose son and daughter were among the hostages, told AFP: "I want to see them and hug them hard now.

Your Views

"Innocent aid workers were abducted and murdered by a band of political criminals"

Adolfo Talpalar, Stockholm, Sweden

Send us your views

"I had not doubted for one moment that the Taliban would return my children some day, as the Taliban are also human beings and have their own families."

At Seoul's Saemmul Church, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan, officials said the focus now would be on looking after the released hostages and their families.

The group of 23 volunteers from the church were seized on July 19 from a bus as they travelled through Afghanistan's Ghazni province.

Rethink

The kidnappers killed two male hostages early on in the crisis, but released two women as a gesture of goodwill during a first round of negotiations.

As news of the release spread, other South Korean churches said the kidnapping crisis had led them to rethink their evangelical activities.

Relatives have reacted with joy following news
an agreement had been reached [AFP]

Another Seoul-based Christian aid group, The Frontiers, said all its short-term volunteers in Afghanistan had pulled out of the country and two long-term volunteers are about to return.

Withdrawal decision

South Korea had already decided before the crisis to withdraw its contingent of about 200 military engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of 2007.

Since the hostages were seized it has banned its nationals from travelling there.

The Taliban had earlier demanded an exchange of the Koreans for jailed fellow fighters.

However, the Taliban representatives eventually accepted South Korean assurances that Seoul was powerless to influence the Kabul government, Cheon Ho-Seon, South Korean presidential spokesman, said.

He denied suggestions that any other undisclosed, or behind-the-scenes deal had been made as a condition for the hostages' release.

He said: "There have been no discussions about other things."

Gul sworn in as Turkish president

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:21:57 +0900

Gul sworn in as Turkish president

Gul has laughed off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda [AFP]

Abdullah Gul, the current foreign minister, has been formally sworn in as Turkey's president.

He is the first former Islamist to win the post in Turkey's modern history.

In contrast to past inaugurations, army chiefs, some of the secular establishment and the main opposition Republican People's party stayed away from the ceremony on Tuesday.

Gul's wife, who wears a headscarf, which is banned in the country's public institutions, also stayed away.

Political analysts said that Gul faces an important test in allaying fears that his term will raise the role of religion in public life.

Parliament began voting at 3pm (1200 GMT), and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds 341 seats in the 550-member parliament, had no trouble in installing Gul, 56, as president.

The AKP only needed an absolute majority to secure the post. In the previous two rounds in the chamber, they failed because a two-thirds majority was required.

Two other candidates also stood for president.

'Fear-mongering'

General Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's armed forces chief, said on Monday he saw "centres of evil" seeking to undermine the secular republic, a statement suggesting the army would not stand on the sidelines if it saw the separation between mosque and state threatened.

Special report

A series of reports on Turkey's political landscape

"The Turkish armed forces will not make any concessions ... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," he said in a written message.

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ankara, said: "The army sees itself as the guardian of the secular constitution [but] Gul laughs off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda."

The Milliyet newspaper said: "Gul's election will be a turning point in our political history that could draw us one step closer to democratic maturity."

Liberals dismiss concerns over the secular system - a defining feature of the Turkish republic - as "fear-mongering" undertaken by political rivals unable to match the AKP's rising popularity.

From Gul's first speech as president

"Secularism - one of the main principles of our republic - is a pre-condition for social peace as much as it is a liberating model for different lifestyles.

"As long as I am in office, I will embrace all our citizens without any bias. I will preserve my impartiality with the greatest of care."

They see Gul's presidency as symbolic of the rise of the conservative and impoverished masses who form the backbone of the AKP - people who have long been kept at the margins of politics by the army-backed secularist elite, critics argue.

Turkey's popular Vatan newspaper said: "Gul will not have an easy start. His every step ... will be under scrutiny by institutions and sections of society who are sensitive on secularism.

"Gul will neeed to be careful and make efforts to calm them."

'Secret agenda'

The headscarf debate has
beleaguered Gul [AFP]

When Gul first stood for the presidency in April, the opposition blocked his election by boycotting parliament, while the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960, warned the government that it was "ready to defend" the secular order.

The crisis forced Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, to call early general elections on July 22, from which the AKP emerged with a huge victory, hailing it as popular support to re-nominate Gul.

Opponents charge that the AKP has a secret agenda to replace Turkey's secular order with a regime more akin to an an Islamic republic.

Uncompromising secularists are also irritated by the fact that Gul's wife wears the Islamic headscarf, which they see as a symbol of defiance of the secular system.

But a survey published in Milliyet on Tuesday showed that the majority of Turks - 72.6 per cent - have no objections to a first lady with a headscarf, while 19.8 per cent said they would be annoyed if she covers up.

Iraq situation deteriorates further; US gives $30 million to aid education

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:21:30 +0900

Iraq situation deteriorates further; US gives $30 million to aid education

GENEVA, August 28 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency warned on Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate with the number of displaced Iraqis, both inside and outside the country, rising.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told reporters in Geneva that UNHCR and Iraqi Red Crescent estimates put the number of uprooted Iraqis at 4.2 million Iraqis, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to more than 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously.

"Displacement is rising as Iraqis are finding it harder to get access to social services inside Iraq and many Iraqis are choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so. Some Iraqis who stayed in the country until the end of the school year recently started leaving the country with their families," Pagonis said.



	Iraqis wait to be interviewed at a UNHCR registration centre in Damascus. The humanitarian situation is not getting any better. © UNHCR/P.Sands

She spoke as US Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey announced a US$30 million contribution to a joint UNHCR-UNICEF (UN Children's Fund) $129 million programme aimed at ensuring an education for Iraqi refugee children in host countries such as Syria and Jordan.

UNHCR Representative in Jordan Imran Riza welcomed the US gesture while urging "the international community to respond quickly and generously to the UN appeal." UNHCR and UNICEF seek US$129 million to send 155,000 Iraqi children to school in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon this academic year.

Sauerbrey handles US policy for refugees. Her announcement came at a girls school in Amman which began admitting Iraqi refugees earlier this month, when Jordan said it would allow tens of thousands of refugee children to attend public schools even if their parents did not possess resident permits.

In Geneva, UNHCR's Pagonis said more than 2 million Iraqis were displaced inside Iraq, with above 1 million displaced since the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing. While most of the security incidents happen in the centre and south of the country, the displaced are not confined to these regions.

In the north, there are more than 780,000 displaced Iraqis, over 650,000 in the centre of the country and 790,000 in the south. Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons.

Syria, which has generously kept its borders open to fleeing Iraqis, estimates that more than 1.4 million Iraqis are now in the country. Jordan estimates that some 500,000-750,000 Iraqis are in its territory. The number of Iraqi asylum seekers in Europe in the first half of this year rose to nearly 20,000.

With more than 300 staff working on the Iraq operation, UNHCR has now registered more than 170,000 refugees in the countries neighbouring Iraq, 15 percent of whom need special assistance.

Since the start of this year, we have referred more than 13,200 of the most vulnerable Iraqi cases to resettlement countries, Pagonis said, adding that so far only several hundred cases have left for life in a third country. "We urge the resettlement countries to make rapid decisions and facilitate the departure of those most in need, many of whom are urgent medical cases, single female-headed households, torture victims and others." UNHCR aims to provide up to 20,000 Iraqi resettlement cases to governments this year.

The UNHCR spokeswoman also noted efforts by the agency since June to encourage Iraqi children in Syria to register for the new academic school year, which begins in mid-September.

Inside Iraq, UNHCR and its partners are trying to do as much as possible to help the displaced, even though security conditions make this difficult. The agency is providing emergency assistance to the most needy, visiting the accessible displacement sites or makeshift camps, providing non-food items and emergency shelter.

Along the Iraq-Syria border, the situation remains desperate for more than 1,600 Palestinians stranded in two camp sites, Al Tanf and Al Waleed. "We stress again the urgent need to find a humanitarian solution for this group of refugees," Pagonis said.

UNHCR has appealed for US$223 million for the Iraq humanitarian crisis. The first appeal of US$123 million has been funded by 75 percent. But the second US$129 million joint education appeal with UNICEF seeks more donor generosity.

More . . .

UNHCR "by country" pages:

Iraq

Jordan

Syrian Arab Republic

Story date: 28 August 2007
UNHCR News Stories

Israeli final status terms leaked

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:20:32 +0900

Israeli final status terms leaked

Abbas, left, and Olmert met at the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem [AFP]

Al Jazeera has obtained a document claiming to be Israel's terms on which final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians can begin.

The Palestinian president and the Israeli leader have been discussing the issue of Palestinian statehood in two hours of talks on Tuesday, an Israeli spokesman said.

Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's Jerusalem correspondent, who has seen the Israeli document, said it "lays out some broad principles that Israel believes both sides should sign up to as a starting point for formal negotiations".

"Some of the things are fairly obvious - renouncing words and actions associated with war, recognition of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

"Also, previous peace endeavours such as the Madrid conference of 1991 and the declaration of principles signed between Yasser Arafat and the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993."

Rowland explained the document looked at the possible borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, saying Israel would withdraw from "large sections" of the West Bank and return to 1967 borders.

"In other words," said Rowland, "the borders before the 1967 war - with what the document describes as 'reciprocal modifications'."

She said that, according to the document: "The Israelis would want to hang on to some of those main settlement blocks and in exchange would give the Palestinians other bits of territory from Israel, most probably parts of the Negev desert."

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's Gaza correspondent, said that Palestinian politicians were insisting they had not seen the document.

"Fundamental issues"

Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas, held his talks with Ehud Olmert at Olmert's official Jerusalem residence.

The two last met three weeks ago in the West Bank town of Jericho.

"We hold meeting, nothing materialises. We only get promises, false promises from the Israelis"

Palestinian resident in West Bank

David Baker, the Israeli spokesman, declining to define the subjects discussed, said: "They spoke about fundamental issues which would lead to the establishment of two states for two peoples."

Baker described the two-hour, "one-on-one" as "very constructive, positive and open".

But Israeli political commentators said Olmert, weakened by the governmental failings and those of the military in last year's war on Hezbollah in Lebanon, was in no rush to take on such issues in depth and risk further splitting the cabinet.

Walid Batrawi, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the West Bank, said Palestinians also had low expectations of Tuesday's meeting.

One Ramallah resident said: "There is nothing serious building up from these meetings. I am being cynical, but not totally negative. Something might come up, but there are no indicators."

Another Palestinian man told Al Jazeera: "We hold meeting, nothing materialises. We only get promises, false promises from the Israelis."

Restrictions

Palestinians accuse Olmert of failing to deliver on what they say were promises at earlier meetings to revise travel restrictions in the territory and scrap some of the checkpoints that restrict movement between towns and villages.

Citing security concerns, Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, has balked at the removal of roadblocks.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called the Abbas-Olmert meeting another attempt to isolate it. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, saying the meeting would "end in complete failure".

"Such meetings can never achieve anything as long as the Israeli occupation continues to deny the rights of our people," he said.

The meeting comes ahead of a US-sponsored Middle East conference in November.

Gul elected as Turkish president

정준엽 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:19:29 +0900

Gul elected as Turkish president

Gul has laughed off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda [AFP]

The Turkish parliament has elected Abdullah Gul, the current foreign minister, as president after a third round of voting.

However, political analysts said that Gul faces an important test in allaying fears that his term will raise the role of religion in public life.

Voting began at 3pm (12:00 GMT), and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds 341 seats in the 550-member parliament, had no trouble in installing Gul, 56, as president.

The AKP only needed an absolute majority to secure the post. In the previous two rounds in the chamber they failed because a two-thirds majority was required.

Two other candidatesa also stood for president.

'Fear-mongering'

Special report

A series of reports on Turkey's political landscape

"The Turkish Armed Forces will not make any concessions ... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," Buyukanit said in a written message.

Barnaby Philips, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ankara, said: "The army sees itself as the guardian of the secular constitution [but] Gul laughs off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda."