Pak proposes India to deactivate forward air bases
Islamabad, Dec 30: Pakistan today asked India to send “positive signals” by deactivating its forward air bases and relocating ground troops to peace time positions, saying it is ready to cooperate in probing Mumbai attacks and bringing perpetrators of the crime to justice.
“If the forward airbases activated by India are deactivated, it will be a very positive signal,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a brief address on state-run PTV.
Similarly, he proposed that ground forces which have been deployed to forward post should be relocated to peace time positions.
“This will be a positive signal and regional tensions will reduce,” he said, adding a “good atmosphere will be created to take things forward.” Qureshi said there had been certain developments in the past 48 hours that “Pakistan thinks augur well for the situation”.
One of these developments was External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s comment that India had not given Pakistan any ultimatum with regard to the Mumbai terror attacks, he said.
“Neighbours can’t solve problems through ultimatums. Problems can be solved only through dialogue in a peaceful atmosphere,” Qureshi said.
Another positive development was the direct contact over the weekend between the Directors General of Military Operations of the two countries as this will also help reduce tensions, he said.
Qureshi said Pakistan would cooperate fully with India once it shared evidence and information regarding the Mumbai attacks. “The government of Pakistan wants to assure (India) that when the evidence reaches us our approach from day one was constructive and desirous of peace and we will make all efforts to get to the bottom of the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Qureshi said.
He said India still had not shared any evidence on the Mumbai attacks with Pakistan. “The basic reason for this is that their investigation is yet to be completed. As soon as their investigation is completed, they will share evidence with us,” he added.
Expressing Pakistan’s desire to cooperate with India, Qureshi said: “direct contacts and diplomatic channels must be kept open” and the two sides should not ignore the importance of dialogue.
“The peace process is important for both countries. We have always wished that we could sit at the table and understand each other’s positions and take things forward,” he said.
“Pressures and coercion between neighbours don't solve problems. They worsen matters and should be avoided. They will benefit only those who carried out (the Mumbai attacks) to spark tensions and put regional peace at stake.” Qureshi also said: “Geography has made us neighbours and we must learn to live as good neighbours.”
He said Pakistan was grateful to the effort launched by China to defuse tensions with India. Beijing despatched Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei to Islamabad for talks with the top Pakistani leadership, including President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
India has blamed Pakistan-based elements, including the banned Lashker-e-Taiba terror group, for the Mumbai attacks that killed over 180 people. India has asked Pakistan to crack down on these elements but Islamabad has said it cannot push forward its own investigation till New Delhi shares evidence and information on the terrorist incident. Qureshi praised China, saying Beijing had backed Pakistan’s “approach of constructive engagement” and made it clear that conflict is not in the interest of anyone. (PTI)

Vignettes
Goldfish survives 13 hrs out of water
An Englishwoman says she was shocked when her goldfish survived at least 13 hours out of water. Barbara Woodward, 61, of Gloucester said she spotted her goldfish, which had last been seen in its tank at 11 p.m. the previous night, at 7 a.m. on the floor behind a chest in her home, The Sun reported on Monday. Woodward said she had trouble moving the chest and left the fish, named Ginger, where it was because she assumed it was dead. However, she said she was shocked when she returned home at 8 p.m. to find Ginger alive and flapping around on the floor. I can’t believe it. He looked lifeless and I had planned on burying him. It’s a real Christmas miracle, she said. A Gloucester veterinarian said goldfish usually die with minutes of leaving the water as they cannot breathe air. (Agencies)

Angry over bid to ban topless sunbathing
Sun-loving Australians reacted angrily on Tuesday to a mid-summer bid by a conservative Christian lawmaker to ban topless sunbathing on beaches in the country’s most populous state. Christian lawmaker and veteran morals campaigner Reverend Fred Nile won backing from key politicians in New South Wales state, counting Sydney and its famed ocean beaches, to tighten existing laws covering nude sunbathing. “The law should be clear. It must say exposure of women’s breasts on beaches will be prohibited,” Nile said. Centre-left state government lawmaker Paul Gibson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that families at the beach during the summer holidays did not want topless women. But scores of callers to radio talkback stations complained about the plan and Leanne Peters from the ACT Nudist Club in the capital Canberra said Australia would look like a “haven for prudes” in the unlikely event that laws passed parliament. Australians love their suntans and topless sunbathing has been common on most beaches since the 1960s. Nude beaches are also legal in every state except tropical Queensland. But the country also suffers the world's highest rate of melanoma skin cancer. A new and graphic government advertising campaign warns there is no such thing as safe tanning, building on decades of similar official warnings. NSW Assistant Health Minister Jodi McKay said banning topless sunbathing was a step too far for most lawmakers. “We don’t want to go down the slippery slope of banning activities like this. What would be next, banning breastfeeding?” she said. (Agencies)

Boy Scout earns all 121 badges
A Long Island teenager has earned all 121 merit badges offered by the Boy Scouts of America. It’s an accomplishment the local arm of the organization calls “an almost unheard-of feat.” Oceanside resident Shawn Goldsmith earned his final badge — for bugling — in time for his 18th birthday in November. He far surpassed the 21 badges required to achieve the elite rank of Eagle Scout. He said he took about five years to earn his first 62 badges and then nearly doubled that number in a matter of months. He did it with the encouragement of his grandmother, who died shortly before he reached his goal. The Binghamton University freshman was awarded his final badges on December 19. He said he hopes to become a businessman and politician. (Agencies)

What does a Hasina win mean?
DHAKA, Dec 30: An alliance under Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina won a big parliamentary majority in the country’s first polls in seven years, unofficial results showed today.
Following are answers to questions about what her apparent victory means for the South Asian nation of more than 140 million people:
Bangladesh’s past experiences with democracy have been mixed at best, with losing parties refusing to accept results and resorting at times to violent street protests and strikes.
Military figures, in and out of uniform, have sporadically stepped in, justifying their actions on the need for order.
Although main opposition figure Begum Khaleda Zia said during the campaign the time for confrontational politics had passed, on election day she suggested she would win any fair election, and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party complained about cheating once the polls closed. Those comments could set the stage for post-election turmoil, although the outgoing army-backed interim government said it was ready to crush any outbreaks of violence.
Separately, political analysts have started suggesting that Hasina reach out to her old rival and give her a share of power.
Bangladesh’s neighbours worry an increasingly violent Islami st militant minority could provide support and shelter for radicals in their own countries.
Hasina has been a consistent opponent of such groups, and said during her campaign she would act aggressively against them.
Her overwhelming victory and the fact some analysts attribute it partly to Khaleda’s alliance with an Islamist party suggest Hasina can follow through on her campaign pledges without concern for negative political consequences, and also resist pressure to make Bangladesh less tolerant and secular.
Reinforcing that view was a poor performance by Islamist candidates, according to the unofficial results.
Nearly 40 per cent of Bangladesh’s population live on less than 1 dollar a day. About a third of the country floods annually during the monsoon season, hampering economic development.
Hasina’s platform and past policies point to support for gradually liberalising the economy to boost growth.
Her huge majority may also give her the clout to develop significant coal and natural gas resources and much-needed power generating infrastructure, which might require the expertise of foreign firms. But if she cannot prevent the street protests and strikes seen in the past, many investors will stay away.
Endemic corruption that distorts Bangladesh’s economic playing field has been another turn-off for investors. The outgoing government detained Hasina for a year on graft charges, which she denied. She pledged in her campaign to fight corruption this time. A desire not to give the military an excuse to intervene or impose a government that would take her back to court could be a strong incentive for her to follow through.
What role the powerful army will assume when an elected government takes charge is a common concern.
Analysts and diplomats say the army is likely to at least hover behind the scenes for a time to see if the new government can get a grip on corruption and avoid violence.
If so, it may leave things to Hasina and her ministers. One incentive it has for doing so is that a lack of involvement at home means maximum flexibility for the military to serve in various overseas U.N. peacekeeping missions.
Those missions generate compensatory payments to the country as well as pay the participating soldiers and officers salaries far above what they could earn at home.
If the new government fails badly, few doubt the military will be tempted to return with an overt role, which could mean the loss of much needed foreign aid from democratic countries. (UNI)

Kilinochchi will not fall: Prabhakaran
Colombo, Dec 30: Ruling out the possibility of any sudden fall of its last bastions of Killinochchi and Mulaitivu, LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran has said that his group still had thousands of fighters and was also working to “rebuild” relationship with India.
Saying that the Tigers still had “many thousands” of armed cadres intact, Prabhakaran contested claims of the Sri Lankan forces that they were poised to capture the rebel strongholds.
“Recent heavy losses faced by the Sri Lankan military in Kilinochchi battles” tell the story of how the battle is going on, Prabhakaran claimed in an e-mail interview.
He said the Tigers has the backing of the entire Tamil people of the island and LTTE was fighting for their rights.
“They (Tamils) are the force behind this struggle. It is the desire of the people that Kilinochchi should be defended and they are also working hard in the background to achieve this,” Prabhakaran told Lankan newspaper The Lakbima News.
Asked whether India would back him in the light of the LTTE hand in the assasination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the LTTE supremo said the outfit was in the process of rebuilding ties with India.
“We are working to rebuild our contacts and relationship with the Indian Central Government through political and diplomatic channels.”
“The environment, in which the Indian Central Government too will support our struggle, is in the making. Most people may not know this but I believe some people are aware of this,” he said.
On whether Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had abandoned the LTTE, Prabhakaran said it was not true. “I reject this fully. The people of Tamil Nadu and its politicians support our struggle irrespective of any political differences among them. They are continuing to stage protests in support of us,” Prabhakaran said.
The Tiger leader dismissed as “blatantly false propaganda” that he was planning to seek asylum outside Sri Lanka.
“We will never leave our land. We will fight to the last for the rights of our people”, he told the paper.
On whether he had named a successor to lead the LTTE, Prabhkaran said “our people have accepted me as their national leader and the leader of our movement”.
Asked if the LTTE's Air Force constituted a threat to India, Prabhakaran said his forces were only being used against Sri Lanka. “There is no threat posed to anyone else,” he said. (PTI)