Sharif cuts short deadline for reinstatement of sacked judges
LAHORE, Aug 23: The ruling coalition in Pakistan was today back in crisis with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif cutting short his deadline for restoration of sacked judges and not committing his party’s backing for PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari as President.
A day after relenting and extending the deadline for reinstating the judges deposed by former President Pervez Musharraf till Wednesday, Sharif said the restoration process should be completed by Monday.
“It takes 10 minutes to pass the resolution (for reinstating the judges). Then on Monday evening an executive order can be issued and the judges can be restored by Monday night this is our roadmap,” he told reporters here after a meeting with PPP leaders who sought his support for Zardari’s possible candidature in the September 6 presidential polls.
The former premier did not give the PPP leaders a clear commitment on supporting Zardari and instead asked them to inform him by tonight if their party would act to restore the judges by Monday through a parliamentary resolution. He said his party would announce its strategy after the PPP response.
The PPP’s Central Executive Committee yesterday nominated Zardari as the party’s candidate for the presidential polls, necessitated by the resignation of Musharraf earlier this week. Zardari has sought time from the party for making his final decision in the matter.
Though Sharif had said yesterday that he was willing to wait till Wednesday for the restoration of the deposed judges, he said this afternoon that the process should be completed by Monday in view of the announcement of the schedule for the presidential poll and the PPP’s decision to nominate Zardari.
Sharif also indicated the PPP had violated the terms of two agreements signed with the PML-N on August 5 and August 7. He said according to these agreements, the deposed judges should have been restored within 24 hours of Musharraf’s ouster. He said the agreements also made it clear that the PPP could nominate its candidate for the presidential poll only if the President’s sweeping powers to dissolve Parliament and dismiss Premier contained in the 17th constitutional amendment were scrapped.
If this was not done, the agreements stated the ruling coalition would nominate a non-partisan “national figure” who was removed for party politics, Sharif pointed out.
The agreements were “sacred documents” and the PPP and PML-N and their leadership were committed to them, he asserted.
Sharif also accused the PPP of not delivering on an agreement signed in March which said the deposed judges would be restored within 30 days of the coalition coming to power. “Those 30 days have come and gone and now almost five more months have passed and we are still part of the coalition...What is happening shouldn’t happen,” he said.
Following the PPP delegation’s talks with Sharif, senior PPP leader Raza Rabbani said the two parties had set up a five-member committee to finalise modalities for reinstating the deposed judges. He said the panel would meet tomorrow. But Sharif was non-committal about this committee too, saying: “We have asked the PPP to inform us by tonight whether the judges will be restored by Monday. Then we will decide.” Sharif said the announcement of the presidential poll’s schedule yesterday was “unexpected”. He said “the election schedule should not have been announced so quickly, it was done too soon.” He pointed out that the PML-N had never sought ministerial slots or the post of the President though it had the “right” to do so as a “major partner” in the coalition.
“If they (PPP) have the posts of Prime Minister and Speaker, the President’s post should go to a major partner. Yet we didn’t ask for it, as we want the coalition to remain intact for the good of Pakistan and its future, he said. (PTI)

Vignettes
Abandoned baby found safe with dog
A newborn baby abandoned outdoors in winter by her 14-year-old mother was found safe in a dog pen with a mother dog and her brood of puppies near the city of La Plata, Argentine media reported on Friday.
Farmer Fabio Anze found the naked baby girl on Thursday, being kept warm among his dog China’s puppies, La Nacion newspaper said. Anze called the police and the baby was taken to a hospital.
Egidio Melia, director of the Melchor Romero hospital, told television and newspaper reporters that the baby was just a few hours old when she was found, and was in good health although she had some bruises.
Nighttime temperatures are chilly but not freezing in the Southern Hemisphere winter in the rural area around La Plata, 40 miles (60 km) south of Buenos Aires.
Police said they had located the 14-year-old girl who gave birth to the baby outdoors during the night.
It was not clear whether the mother left her baby in the dog’s pen or whether the dog found the baby outdoors and carried it in to join her puppies.

Typo fixers get probation for damaging rare sign
Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.
Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty on August 11 for the damage done on March 28 at the park’s Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.
Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them “a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation.”
An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.
Authorities said a diary written by Deck reported that while visiting the watchtower, he and Herson “discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, contained a few errors.”
The fiberboard sign has yellow lettering with a black background. Deck wrote that they used a marker to cover an erroneous apostrophe, put the apostrophe in its proper place with white-out and added a comma.
The misspelled word “emense” was not fixed, Deck wrote, because “I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. ... Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight.”
Deck, of Somerville, Mass., and Herson, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalize government property.
They were sentenced to a year’s probation, during which they cannot enter any national park or modify any public signs. They were also ordered to pay $3,035 to repair the watchtower sign.
The TEAL Web site now has only this message — “Statement on the signage of our National Parks and public lands to come” — without a period.

Elderly Japanese woman slashes passers-by
A 79-year-old woman slashed two women with a fruit knife near a crowded Tokyo railway station because she wanted police help after running away from a shelter for homeless people, police said on Saturday.
The victims, in their 20s, were only slightly injured in the attack on Friday night in a crowded shopping and entertainment district of the city. The elderly woman was arrested from the scene, a spokesman at the Shibuya police station said.
“I ran away from a shelter earlier this week and I don’t have money. I thought if I caused an incident, the police would take care of me,” the spokesman quoted the woman as telling investigators. She was carrying around 6,500 yen (32 pounds).
The incident was the latest in a string of such attacks that have unnerved the relatively crime-free country.
In June, a man who said he was tired of life went on a stabbing rampage in the crowded Tokyo shopping street of Akihabara, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others.


Kansas university fires mooning debate coach
Fort Hays State University has fired its debate coach for losing his temper at a tournament, engaging in a videotaped shouting match that included pulling down his shorts to expose his underwear.
University President Edward H. Hammond also announced on Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.
The argument between Fort Hays State debate coach William Shanahan and another coach following a tournament match at Cross Examination Debate Association event at Wichita State University in March received nationwide attention after it was posted on YouTube on August 2.
Shanahan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that while his reasoning might seem convoluted, he argued with the other coach because he respected her and her opinions.
“Obviously it got out of control, but to be honest I thought I was in a safe house,” Shanahan said. “I thought I was part of a community that handled its problems internally and that recognized the dangers of exposing ourselves — no pun intended — to the rest of the country.”
Hammond said no one from the tournament staff notified university officials about the incident until it was posted on YouTube. Shanahan, an assistant professor of communication studies, taught at the university for 10 years but did not have tenure. He led the university’s debate team to a national championship in 2002.
“Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but these actions are not acceptable for someone who is representing our university,” Hammond said in a written statement.

‘Jade Goody would have died without urgent treatment’
LONDON, Aug 23: Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty’s tormentor Jade Goody would have died within three months without urgent treatment for her cervical cancer, media reported today.
27-year-old Jade, who broke down and wept uncontrollably after coming to know of the disease which is now in an advanced stage, told The Sun tabloid, last night that she would undergo a hysterectomy next week after “specialists said she would have died within three months without urgent treatment for her cervical cancer.” And although the disease has now been caught, shattered Jade, mother of two sons – Bobby, five, and Freddie, three – still faces a terrifying battle.
According to the report in the tabloid, doctors told her yesterday a large tumour in her womb may have spread to her blood stream – putting major organs such as her liver and kidneys at risk. “I’ve got no control over this disease and I’m bloody terrified. I am going to fight the damn thing every step of the way because I have two beautiful boys who are my world.” “But I have to be realistic and face the possibility that I might not live to see them grow up. I can’t face telling my boys because they are so young. They think mummy has a tummy ache.”
Jade bravely spoke yesterday for the first time since receiving the devastating news while appearing in the Indian version of Big Brother called Bigg Boss – six days ago.
Denying that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, Jade said she was wrongly given the all-clear at first after being rushed to hospital just three weeks ago. I’m sitting here desperately trying to come to terms with the fact that I might die, while people are out there accusing me of making my illness up.” (PTI)

Nepal will follow Panchsheel points with neighbours: Prachanda
KATHMANDU, Aug 23: Nepal’s Maoist leader Prachanda, who left on his first foreign trip as Prime Minister to Beijing today, promised to follow the principles of Panchsheel while dealing with his neighbours India and China.
Prachanda’s five-day official visit to Beijing is in a sharp departure from tradition where India has been the first port of call for most previous Nepalese Prime Ministers.
While addressing the people for the first time as the Prime Minister today, Prachanda urged the international community, particularly neighbouring countries China and India, to provide “moral and physical” support during the “historic transition of Nepal. “Our relations with our neighbours and friends in the international community will be based on the five principles of Panchsheel,” he stressed.
In 1954 India and China promulgated the five principles of peaceful coexistence, including mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit.
The Maoist leader had earlier expressed his desire to implement a policy of “equidistance” in relations with China and India.
Prachanda, who was sworn-in as the first Prime Minister of the post-monarchy Nepal this week, will meet China’s President Hu Jintao and attend the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony in his first step on to the international stage since taking up the top post.
Prachanda’s predecessor G.P. Koirala had made New Delhi his first port of call abroad after assuming the reins of government. The former insurgents have earlier accused India of trying to prevent the Maoists from forming the government in Nepal, and hinting that New Delhi favoured his predecessor Koirala’s Nepali Congress.