Don't repatriate Osama's family: Pakistani panel

By IANS,

Islamabad : An official commission probing the killing of Osama bin Laden has said that the Al Qaeda leader's family members should not be repatriated without their permission.

Osama was gunned down by US commandos May 2 in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in front of his family members, who are now reportedly in the custody of Pakistani security agencies.

The panel asked the interior ministry and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) not to send back the Osama family, which includes his two wives and six children, the Dawn reported Wednesday.

The four-member commission is headed by Supreme Court's Justice Javed Iqbal

Register your religion “Muslim” as printed in Census form: Mushawarat

By TCN News,

New Delhi: All India Muslim Majlise Mushawarat has appealed to Muslims to register their religion as “Muslim” – as it is printed in the Census 2011 form – and not insist on Islam as there is the word “Muslim” under religion section, not Islam.

“If you tell them your religion is Islam, not Muslim, it is most likely the illiterate Census workers will put your name in Other Religions section, and thus the actual number of Muslims will go down,” Dr Zafrul Islam Khan, Acting President of Mushawarat said in a statement today.

Commenting on the error in the Census form he said that the officials have erred to put Muslim as religion of Muslims. The religion of Muslims is Islam, not Muslim, he said. But he cautioned that correcting the error can be done only through court while the second and last part of the Census is going to start on 9th Feb 2011 so it is better to put your religion as Muslim for the greater interest of the community.

He appealed to the spread this message through statements and ads in newspapers, announcements from mosques and distributing handbills.

Northeast issues: Forum to draw national attention

By IANS,

Aizawl : Major political parties in northeast India have decided to form a joint forum to highlight the region's problems.

Leaders of the Naga People's Front (NPF), the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma met in New Delhi last week and decided to float a regional forum to underline the common issues of northeast India comprising eight states.

"There will be another summit in the national capital Feb 20 where leaders of all regional parties and MPs from the northeastern states would give the final shape to the proposed forum," MNF leader Zoding Sanga told reporters.

He said that the Feb 20 conference would also finalised the future course of action of the regional parties.

The NPF is the dominant partner of the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government in Nagaland while the MNF is the main opposition party in the Congress ruled Mizoram.

NCP is the main opposition party in the Congress ruled Meghalaya though it is the coalition partner of the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre.

"The regional party leaders in their meeting in Delhi have planned to launch the new forum before the upcoming Assam assembly elections, which are likely to be held in April," the MNF leader said.

"If all the recognised regional parties come under one umbrella, it could have influence in the national politics and draw attention of the central government about the problems of the region," he added.

MNF president and former Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga and Nagaland Chief Minister and NPF chief Neiphu Rio were among those also attended the meeting.

AGP suffers setback as its top leader joins BJP

By IANS,

Dibrugarh (Assam) : Assam's main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) Tuesday suffered a major setback when its firebrand leader and former MP Sarbananda Sonowal quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a public rally here.

The rally was attended by a host of BJP leaders, including party president Nitin Gadkari and Varun Gandhi, who is the in-charge of the BJP's affairs in Assam.

"I was fed up with the AGP as the party leadership compromised on the core issue of Bangladeshi infiltration. I realised there is no space for me in the party that compromised on the issue of influx, and hence thought the best option was to join the BJP," Sonowal told the rally.

"During the past few months, the AGP leadership started hobnobbing with the AUDF (Asom United Democratic Front), which is opposed to our stand against infiltration. I realised the AGP leadership was simply interested in power and ready to compromise on their ideology by even teaming up with the AUDF," he said.

Sonowal has always been very vocal on the infiltration issue and was instrumental in getting the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act (IMDT) scrapped by the Supreme Court in 2006.

The apex court verdict scrapping the IMDT Act followed a petition of Sonowal. The act placed the onus of proving that a person is a foreign national on the complainant rather than the person so accused.

The act has now been replaced with the Foreigners Act, 1946, applicable across India, where the accused needs to prove his or her citizenship, if questioned.

Addressing the rally, the BJP president said the party was eyeing to capture power in Assam with assembly polls due in March-April.

"The Congress government in Assam has become a national burden with corruption being the hallmark. People in Assam are looking for a change and the BJP is here to give that change," Gadkari said.

Hillary! Take Notice: Egyptians Are Not Intimidated by the F-16s Flying on their Heads in Cairo

By Yvonne Ridley
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 31, 2011
As people across Egypt continued resisting and rising against the brutal dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak it is quite clear they will not stop until he goes.
 Quite clear to everyone, that is, apart from the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is so out of touch with what is happening on the ground you have to wonder who on earth is advising her.
 She appears to have no idea of the burning resentment and hatred held towards America among the ordinary men and women of Egypt. More than 100 have paid the blood price, so far, for standing up to the US backed tyrant Mubarak and two thousand others are injured.
 It has been lost on no one that the empty shell casings from live ammunition and gas cannisters, which litter Tahrir Square and other streets across Egypt, were provided by the United States of America.
 The “Made in the USA” empty shell casings tell their own story not just of the innocents they have killed, but of their origins and of America’s deadly legacy of unwelcome foreign interference in the region.
The Egyptian people have been fed propaganda for 30 years, their evening news on State TV is sanitized and censored and many have been afraid to speak out freely under the US backed dictatorship of Mubarak.
But do not for one minute think the Egyptian people are stupid – sadly the US has once again completely misread and underestimated an entire population.
These demonstrations are as much a protest against US meddling in their affairs as they are against the Mubarak regime.
Despite all of this Clinton showed not one ounce of compassion or humility when she made her latest blundering speech.
With the sensitivity of a bull in a china shop, she called for an orderly transition but only after heaping praise on the Mubarak government which has “made and kept peace with Israel avoiding violence, turmoil and death in the region.”
 She told ABC News: "Democracy, human rights and economic reform are in the best interests of the Egyptian people." These are the same people her own government ignored as they continued to fund and back Mubarak with billions of US tax payers dollars over the decades.
The BBC's North America editor Mark Mardell says Clinton's comments are a sign that the Obama administration is edging towards accepting, if not openly endorsing, an end to Mubarak's rule. The truth is Mark, the Egyptian people do not want any more US interference – they do not want any more American weapons being used against them. America has no interest in the people of Egypt. Its only concern is for the man-made pariah state next door – Israel.
Clinton has been so out of step since this whole turmoil began to erupt. Both she and Obama remained completely silent for four whole weeks as scores of Tunisians died in that uprising and it was only when their man, Zine El Abedine Ben Ali took flight that they condemned his brutality.
When Egypt threatened to kick off Clinton said assuredly that the country was “stable.” That was a week ago and as she is beginning to learn, a week is a long time in politics. She says she wants democracy – but what sort of democracy Hillary? The sort that sees another tyrant take power? Or are you really going to let the people decide?
And by the way, the people are beginning to rise and resist right across the Maghreb, throughout the Middle East and Asia. US Foreign Policy has turned America in to the most hated country in the world and if Washington really told their own people the truth,. I know the millions upon millions of decent US citizens would be horrified by what is being done in their name.
 But the truth is the American people are kept well away from the truth and are among the most least informed people in the world today.
Few Americans have any idea that this and the previous Bush administrations do not want democracy in the region. In fact they have collectively punished the people of Gaza for exercising their democratic right by voting for a Hamas-dominated government.
This has not been lost on the Egyptian people Hillary who, by the way, have a great love for Palestine, a place in their heart for Gaza and an even deeper hatred and mistrust for the brutal Zionist State, which really does threaten peace and stability in the region.
As I write this F16 fighter jets and attack helicopters, made in America, are flying overhead to try and intimidate the Egyptian people. Too late – there isn’t an army in the world that can beat this peoples’ army. Their fear has gone.
 Your ill-informed advisers won’t tell you this Hillary, but I hate to see an empowered female make such a prat of herself, so here’s a piece of advice. The time has come when you really must step back and take a vow of silence. Every time you open your mouth you are looking and sounding even more stupid than the female presenter on Egyptian State TV who assures us all is at peace with the world and the streets of Egypt are empty and calm.
*British journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union
 http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/January/31%20o/Hillary%20Take%20Notice%20Egyptians%20Are%20Not%20Intimidated%20by%20the%20F-16s%20Flying%20on%20their%20Heads%20in%20Cairo%20By%20Yvonne%20Ridley.htm