INTERNATIONAL
SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2011
Ruling party sweeps Lanka post-war polls COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s ruling party was headed yesterday for a landslide victory in the country’s first local elections since the end of its long ethnic war two years ago, official results showed. President Mahinda Rajapakse’s United People’s Freedom Alliance secured control of 196 out of the 222 councils declared so far while the main opposition United National Party managed to win only eight. Another 12 councils were still to be declared after Thursday’s vote conducted mainly in rural parts of the country. The opposition Tamil National Alliance captured 11 local bodies in the island’s former war zones in the north and the east of the island, according to results declared by the Elections Commission. Since government troops defeated the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in 2009 after decades of warfare, Rajapakse has tightened his grip on power by securing a second presidential term and winning parliamentary polls last year. Polls in urban areas were put off until the cricket World Cup, currently being co-hosted by Sri Lanka along with Bangladesh and India, ends in April. Rajapakse has vowed to speed up post-war infrastructure development across the island, but minority Tamils accuse him of ignoring their needs.—AFP
Germany may boost Afghan role, free US for Libya BERLIN: Germany, which abstained in a UN Security Council vote that backed military action in Libya, may free US reconnaissance planes to monitor action against Muammar Gaddafi by sending more German crews to Afghanistan. Coalition sources said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition members were discussing the proposal yesterday, after Berlin broke with its NATO allies on the UN vote and said German troops would not take part in a Libyan operation. NATO is operating 24-hour surveillance of Libya with AWACS reconnaissance aircraft which are based in Germany, and about a third of the NATO AWACS crews are Germans. Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle met members of their coalition yesterday to discuss Libya and Westerwelle was due later to explain the government’s position to parliament. Increasing the number of German AWACS crews in Afghanistan would require parliament’s approval, which could be hard to get as the Afghan mission is increasingly unpopular and the last annual vote on extending it showed growing resistance. But Merkel and Westerwelle would have a tougher time still persuading parliament to approve involvement in a campaign in Libya, especially when they are struggling to defend their hold on state governments in six regional elections.— Reuters
After strike, Pakistan cancels US-Afghan talks Tensions rise between the two uneasy allies ISLAMABAD: Pakistan pulled out of talks this month with the United States on the future of Afghanistan in protest of an especially deadly American missile attack, the government said yesterday, in a sign of rising tensions between the two uneasy allies. Pakistan’s powerful army chief has already criticized Thursday’s missile attack on a house close to the Afghan border in a rare personal statement. Intelligence officials say around 36 people , most of them civilians , were killed. A US official familiar with details denied that innocent people were targeted and suggested all the dead were militants or sympathizers. The relationship was already fraught over the case of an American CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistanis but was freed on Wednesday, putting the weak government on the defensive against critics who accused it of selling out to the Americans. The missile attack added to the heat on the government, which summoned US Ambassador Cameron Munter to protest. “It is evident that the fundamentals of our relations need to be revisited,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that did not mention how many civilians were killed. “Pakistan should not be taken for granted nor treated as a client state.” The statement said Pakistan would not attend talks proposed by the United States in Brussels on March 26. Pakistan had been scheduled to send its deputy foreign minister to the meeting, which was also to include a delegation from Afghanistan, it said. The US Embassy declined to comment because it was not aware any meeting had been proposed. An earlier round of the trilateral talks was canceled by the United States in February, apparently in protest of the detention of Raymond Allen Davis, the contractor. America routinely fires
PESHAWAR: Pakistani protesters burn an effigy of an American CIA contractor Raymond Allen Davis in Peshawar, Pakistan yesterday.—AP
missiles against Al-Qaeda and Taleban targets close to the Afghan border, and US officials say privately Pakistan assists in some of the strikes. But the program is publicly opposed by Pakistan’s government and army because it believes admitting collaborating with America in attacks on its own people would be highly damaging politically. Davis shot and killed two Pakistanis on Jan 27 in the eastern city of Lahore and was arrested at the scene. Washington claimed Davis acted in self-defense and had diplomatic immunity, but Pakistan’s government did not accept this. He was released from prison as part of a court deal in which the victims’ relatives received $2.3 million in compensation. Both countries agreed on the “blood money” deal because it meant they could plausibly deny any responsibility for his release. Washington was never likely to allow a CIA contractor to stand trial in Pakistan, while Pakistan’s economy is kept afloat with
money from America and the International Monetary Fund, meaning Islamabad could not afford to sever its ties with Washington over the affair despite domestic pressure to put him on trial. There were small demonstrations yesterday against the release of Davis in several towns and cities across Pakistan. The national government in Islamabad and the opposition-led local administration in Lahore have been blasted in the media over the deal. Pakistan’s powerful army and the intelligence agencies, which are rarely publicly criticized, have also been attacked. Few believe that releasing Davis would have been possible without their permission and involvement. Responding to the criticism, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the country had agreed that the Davis case would be decided in the courts. “It is therefore inappropriate to hold any single institution responsible for the final outcome of the case,” he said.—AP
Gunmen on bikes kidnap workers in Afghanistan KABUL: Gunmen on motorcycles kidnapped six road engineers and their driver as they were traveling to a work site in northern Afghanistan, a public works official said yesterday. Three Afghan and three Pakistani construction workers and their Afghan driver were carjacked around 5:30 pm Thursday and led away at gunpoint, Abdul Qadir Mahmoud Zada said. They were targeted by at least 15 men on motorcycles in the province of Sar-e-Pul. Mohan Marouf, an engineer for the construction firm Aman Afghan, said the abducted men were employees on a United
Nations-funded road building contract. United Nations officials said they had no knowledge of the attack. No one has claimed responsibility for the abductions, Afghan police officials said. Kidnappings, mostly of Afghans, for ransom or for political reasons are common in Afghanistan, where violence has made efforts to rebuild the country costly and dangerous. In January, two Chinese engineers and four Afghans were kidnapped while traveling back to their base after working on a road construction project in Faryab province in the north.— AP
KABUL: Ruqaya, an Afghan girl plays in the compound of an abandoned Russian building in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday.—AP