Daily Times India

Washington, April 1 (IANS) President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Jim Jones is confident the new US Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy would be successful in removing terrorist safe havens in the two countries.

“It’s extremely important that for us to be successful that we remove that safe haven of operation that insurgents have been able to navigate in, and I ‘m quite sure that with our plan right now that we’ll get there,” he said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on National Public Radio (NPR).

Asked in focusing on the situation on Afghanistan, what’s within US control to influence or change, and what’s out of its control, Jones said: “Well, what’s in our control to influence and change is our diplomacy.”

“Obviously, a sovereign nation is going to have the right of refusal, but we ‘ve already reached some accord with the Pakistani military that they would appreciate some benefit of some training,” he said.

On what was different from the approach of former President George Bush’s administration, Jones said: “The main difference in the strategic approach is that in order to deal with Afghanistan, you also have to deal with Pakistan.

“You have to deal with things as a region. The Pakistan side of the coin is the one that’s least developed because it’s the most recent,” he said.

Meanwhile, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a conference of defence chiefs from Central Asia Tuesday that Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is the US military’s top priority,

The trends in Afghanistan and Pakistan are worrisome. Violence is up in both countries, and many people in both countries identify with the Taliban. The comprehensive strategy attacks extremism where it resides, he said.

The Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan give these foreign extremists safe haven, Mullen said. “They provide them with places to train and live, and actively support them,” he said.

“It’s my view [that] if we don’t get Afghanistan right, Afghanistan becomes a safe haven again for the same group. That’s why defeating Al Qaeda is the single most important part of this strategy.”

The commander of US Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus, told the conference, counter-proliferation issues in the region cannot be ignored.

While Iran’s nuclear ambitions obviously are the greatest challenge, he said, Pakistan is a nuclear power that has proliferated weapons technology in the past.

“We should be open and honest about that,” the general said. “My view is that they are very well controlled, and there are exceptional safeguards. But we have to be concerned, because were extremists to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, it would obviously be potentially catastrophic.”

Al Qaeda operates in limited numbers in southern and eastern Afghanistan, but larger numbers of the terror group are in safe havens they have established in western Pakistan, Petraeus said.

Panaji, April 1 (IANS) Blood glistens again in the sunlight as specially-bred and reared fighter bulls take on one another openly once more, following the legalising of bullfighting in Goa. Now, without fearing the law, spectators can egg on the animals in the local form of bullfighting called dhirio, which has its parallel only in South Korea.

After the Supreme Court banned the sport in 1998, dhirios have been fly-by-night affairs often broken up by the police. But the state legislature’s recent decision to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, legalising bullfighting in Goa, may just give renewed life to a sport that was once rivalled only by football in terms of popularity.

A typical dhirio involves two specially reared fighting bulls, head-butting each other until one scampers away from the ring, which is lined by thousands of baying spectators, several of whom gamble on the outcome. Large sums of money change hands.

In Goa, a bull fights another bull rather than a matador as in Spain. The sport here is similar to one in South Korea, called Ch’ongdo, which has been held for over 1,000 years.

“Bullfights used to be held after church feasts in the 1960s,” recalls Flaviano Dias, a septuagenarian freedom fighter.

However, with the ban in place, dhirios were more or less relegated from a public spectacle to a fly-by-night event.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (South) S.N. Sawant said that on an average, 20 cases were booked annually against dhirio organisers in his subdivision when the sport was banned.

“Organisers of these fights were fined a few hundred rupees for the first offence,” Sawant told IANS.

The fines were a pittance compared to the amount of money changing hands on bets. “The reason these bullfights occurred even during the ban are the rural betting syndicates that bet lakhs (hundreds of thousands) on the bulls,” a former sarpanch and an avid bullfighting aficionado told IANS.

“An average bullfight sees betting to the tune Rs.5 lakh (Rs.500,000). Each fighting circus has at least four to six bulls, which means two or three fights,” another bullfight regular said.

“Raising the bull involves a lot of money considering their rich diet. On an average, we spend from Rs.50,000 to Rs.1 lakh (Rs.100,000) on the animal, till the time it is three to four years old and ready to step into the ring,” said a bull owner from the coastal village of Colva.

Vice chairman of Goa Tourism Development Corporation Lyndon Monteiro told IANS: “Dhirio is a traditional sport and it will definitely encourage tourism.”

Padma shree awardee advocate Norma Alvares, whose constant efforts had resulted in the ban on dhirios in the first place, said that the blood-sport was a clear violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. “It’s an offence for anyone to incite an animal to fight with another or to organise an animal fight,” she said.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan@gmail.com)

Dhaka, April 1 (IANS) Bangladesh is readying its first draft of a national defence policy, a minister has said.

“The government has already prepared a draft policy on national defence by forming a council. It will be finalised on consultation with competent people,” Air Vice Marshal (retd.) A.K. Khandaker, planning minister, told the Jatiya Sangsad (parliament) Tuesday.

Preparing a national defence policy has been discussed for a long time but none of the previous governments completed the task, The Daily Star newspaper said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party, in its election manifesto issued last December, had promised to prepare the country’s first defence policy to strengthen the defence forces.

Replying to a query of Awami League (AL) lawmaker Nasimul Alam Chowdhury, Khandaker, a former Bangladesh Air Force chief and in charge of the defence ministry for the parliamentary business, said the government has initiated steps to formulate a national defence policy in keeping with the poll pledge.

The South Asian nation that won its independence in 1971 after a liberation war with Pakistan, has a standing army estimated at 250,000, besides air force and the navy.

Its border guard, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), with a strength of 67,000 is in the process of being dismantled and raised afresh after its troopers mutinied in February over low wages and poor working conditions.

Hong Kong, April 1 (DPA) A clerk at a law firm has been sentenced to four months in jail after blackmailing a colleague over nude pictures taken during their sexual affair, a media report said Wednesday.

Shek Wing-hung, 38, was found guilty of blackmail and criminal extortion after his victim paid 200,000 Hong Kong dollars ($25,600) to prevent the pictures being made public, the Standard said.

In mitigation, Shek said that he had been emotionally overwhelmed at the time of the offence.

The court was told that Shek forced his former lover to pose for the photos and later repeatedly harassed her in phone calls and text messages demanding payment for the pictures.

Shek was arrested after the woman told her husband about the affair.

The unnamed woman said she was still traumatised by the incident.

Tokyo, April 1 (DPA) Japan’s key Tankan index of manufacturer sentiment hit a record low in March, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday.

The survey of large firms dropped to minus 58 in March, the lowest number recorded in Tankan’s 35-year history. The plummeting confidence pointed to lower spending and investment, job losses and a deepening recession.

A negative figure shows pessimists outnumber optimists.

The surveyed firms expect to pare back investment by 6.6 percent for the next 12 months.

The index has worsened especially among exporters such as automakers and steelmakers, according to Takahide Kiuchi, chief economist of Nomura Securities Co. He said the Tankan results confirmed that Japanese companies are suffering from unprecedented recession.

The reading for major non-manufacturers’ confidence showed the largest fall in 26 years, down to minus 31 from minus 9.

The central bank said it expects confidence among manufacturers to improve slightly during the next three months through June, with the index rising to minus 51, and the index among non-manufacturers to rise 1 point to minus 30.

Wellington, April 1 (DPA) A seriously injured hiker spent two days dragging himself three kilometres down a New Zealand glacier with a suspected broken ankle and wrist after falling down a cliff in the Southern Alps, news reports said Wednesday.

Matthews Briggs, 33, had lain injured for a week hoping that friends would raise the alarm and searchers would find him. But he eventually set off for a mountaineers’ hut, thinking: “If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to die here”, the Dominion Post reported.

In the isolated hut, Briggs found two hunters, who then walked for 13 hours to raise the alarm, and a rescue helicopter lifted him to hospital Tuesday.

One of the hunters, Barry Sharplin, 21, said that Briggs told them he had hobbled, crawled and slid his way to the hut, rationing the food he had and stopping at night to bathe his wounds in a mixture of salt and water.

In addition to his suspected fractures, Briggs had bone-deep cuts to his leg, back and buttocks, but Stu Drake, a paramedic on the helicopter, said: “He refused pain relief. We carry morphine, but he was just happy to get out of there. He was an extremely capable and tough sort of character.”

English-born Briggs, an experienced hiker, was reprimanded by police for breaking a cardinal rule of the mountains – not telling people exactly where he was going.

Police said they wasted hours searching for his vehicle and then him, after Briggs was reported overdue from a planned weekend away with his dog.

He reportedly was carrying a locator beacon but lost it when he fell down a five-metre cliff March 20.

New Delhi/Mumbai, April 1 (IANS) At a bookshop in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters in Delhi, the one item that sells like hot cakes is a CD on how to make a speech by the late Pramod Mahajan – a former minister, an astute strategist, funds manager and troubleshooter whom the party will sorely miss in these elections.

Pointing to the CD at the shop, a party worker quipped: “Varun (Gandhi) could have taken lessons from this.”

Many in the BJP say had Mahajan been around, he would have helped handle sticky situations better – among them Varun Gandhi’s reported hate speeches, breakups with key allies, and the spat between the party’s poll managers.

The 15th Lok Sabha polls will be the first in over 30 years without Mahajan, who was shot to death by his own brother nearly three years ago at the age of 56.

“We remember Pramodji very often, but what can we do? It is destiny,” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar, who also belongs to Maharashtra, the state Mahajan hailed from, told IANS.

Asked if the party missed him, he said: “Definitely… definitely. I am sitting with (leading industrialist) Rahul Bajaj; we were talking the same thing.”

Many party leaders say that minus Mahajan, there is no one to sweet talk friends and foes alike and help the party from impending disasters.

If the BJP headed over 20 partners in its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for over five years, Mahajan played a vital backroom role in keeping the flock together. Many of these allies have now quit the NDA.

In Maharashtra, key alliance partner Shiv Sena has been giving the party sleepless nights over ticket distribution.

“When Mahajan was around, he maintained daily personal contact with all top party office-bearers, not only of the Sena but also other constituents of the NDA,” said a Shiv Sena leader on condition of anonymity.

He would drop in unannounced and meet top leaders in their home or party office, exchange ideas over tea or meals without any specific agenda. “That’s how he could sniff out an upcoming problem even before it surfaced and take steps to resolve it.”

The Shiv Sena lamented that since Mahajan’s departure, nobody from the BJP had maintained regular contact with the Sena or other allies.

A former Mumbai BJP office-bearer, who worked closely with him during the 1990s, said Mahajan had an uncanny knack for anticipating problems.

“He could identify minor issues that could degenerate into crises and resolve them immediately to the satisfaction of all,” said the leader who is now with the Congress.

Though the NDA’s 2004 election campaign called India Shining chalked out by Mahajan flopped, people still talk of him as a master strategist.

He was not only an effective troubleshooter but could also see “opportunities that others believed were not available”, said state party general secretary Vinod Tawde.

Tawde said Mahajan, whom many in the party and outside called a street-smart operator, never suffered from attitude problems while soothing the ruffled egos of political friends or foes.

Tawde said resources were never a problem with him around. “His confidence level was so high that leaders would just say – tell Pramod, he will do the needful – and everybody’s tensions were over,” Tawde said.

A student of journalism and political science, Mahajan started as a student activist and became general secretary of Maharashtra’s BJP unit in 1986 before moving to New Delhi.

He was at home in English, Hindi and Marathi. He was rated as a good speaker, both in parliament and outside. He was among the few in the BJP who openly differ with BJP star L.K. Advani — and get away with it.

His doting daughter Poonam Rao keeps hearing about her father’s contribution.

“My party colleagues tell me how my father used to advise and train them in the art of realpolitik and building up the organisation,” Poonam, the Maharashtra BJP youth wing chief, told IANS.

Poonam has been denied the BJP ticket from Mumbai Northeast, from where her father was once elected to the Lok Sabha. There is talk of her joining the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Perhaps, as the BJP realises, no one has been able to step into Mahajan’s shoes yet.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in)

Los Angeles, April 1 (DPA) Cinemagoers around the world spent a record $28.1 billion on movie tickets in 2008, with a record 65 percent of the total coming from outside the US, the Motion Picture Association of America has said.

The figures represented a five-percent increase over the 2007 total, even as the performance of the US box office was disappointing. The number of tickets sold at movie theatres in the US and Canada in 2008 declined 2.6 percent from 2007, but because of higher prices, gross receipts were up by 1.7 percent.

Elsewhere in the world, movie receipts increase by seven percent to $18.3 billion. The number of films released in 2008 increased slightly from the previous year to 610 compared to 599 in 2007.

“Movies can still be counted on to boost people’s spirits as well as the economy,” Dan Glickman, chairman and chief executive of the movie trade group, said Tuesday, in announcing the figures at ShoWest, the US movie industry’s annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bhubaneswar, April 1 (IANS) The death toll in Tuesday’s unseasonal tornado in Orissa rose to 10 Wednesday with the recovery of two more bodies, officials said.

“Two dead bodies were found early this morning. We fear there could be more people trapped under the debris,” district sub-collector Ranjan Kumar Das told IANS.

He added that at least 20 people are suspected to have perished in the storm.

The tornado followed by a hailstorm wreaked havoc in at least 11 villages of Rajkanika block in the coastal district of Kendrapada. It struck around 4.30 p.m. Tuesday and continued for nearly one-and-a-half hours.

It took several hours for relief and rescue teams to reach the affected villages because a large number of uprooted trees blocked the way.

While officials said the number of injured admitted to hospitals is over 100, they fear the figure will rise to 300.

The twister was so strong that several vehicles were tossed around like toys. At Arasa village, a tractor crashed to the ground after being lifted into the air by the storm. The driver was killed on the spot.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, who is on a two-day trip to the state for the poll campaign, is expected to visit the affected areas Wednesday, official sources said.

London, April 1 (IANS) Acknowledging some serious differences among G20 members on how the world should tackle the worst economic crisis in decades, India hopes the urgent need to address the issue will force that elusive consensus.

Ahead of the G20 summit here Thursday, being attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Indian officials said there remained major differences, notably between Europe and the US as well as between the developed and the rich nations on some key issues.

But they said there was hope yet.

“Clearly there is a crisis,” an official said. “But the realisation that the global crisis cannot be resolved by individual countries should lead to some concrete outcomes. The political will for that will be provided Thursday.”

Some of the differences among the G20 members include the quantum of additional money to be provided to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for lending to nations that need it the most and how the global financial system can be reformed.

India, so far, has chosen not to reveal its strategy.

But approached by both the least developed as well as African nations to voice their views at G20, India has sought to send out a clear message that protectionism will not be tolerated and that flow of credit to needy countries must continue.

“When we talk about inclusive growth in our own country, how can we not but articulate the need for inclusive growth across the globe,” said an official, requesting anonymity.

Ahead of his G20 summit meeting, Manmohan Singh had articulated similar views and said emerging and developing economies needed access to adequate funds to be able to meet the challenges posed by the current global slowdown.

“It is an unfortunate reality that the effects of the slowdown have spread across the world and developing countries, particularly those in Africa, are facing its worst consequences,” he said.

“It is important and necessary for the summit to take credible decisions which will help to halt and reverse the current slowdown and to instil a sense of confidence in the global economy.”