ISLAMABAD – Pakistan army: Senior officer detained for suspected links with banned militant group.
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.DHAKA, Bangladesh – Bangladesh will retain Islam as the state religion in amendments the government is proposing to its constitution, a government minister said Tuesday.
A former military ruler declared Islam the state religion in 1988 by amending the charter, but it barely affected Bangladesh's secular legal system mainly based on British common law.
The government says the proposed changes won't affect the legal system. Inheritance and other family laws already are based on religion.
The decision was made late Monday at a Cabinet meeting, the minister told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
A special government committee prepared proposals for the amendment, and the government will send those proposals to the parliament for passing as a law.
Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan in 1971 with help from India through a bloody nine-month war.
The original constitution was installed by independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. After Rahman's assasination in a military coup in 1975, military rulers made a series of amendments to the charter.
Some see the government's latest action as a compromise by Hasina, who during her election campaign before December 2008 polls said she would restore the 1972 constitution if voted to power.
The original charter did not recognize any faith as a state religion, promised elimination of communalism and disfavored discrimination or persecution because of a person's faith.
The new proposals want to restore those provisions of secularism but keep Islam as state religion.
Monday's Cabinet meeting chaired by Hasina also endorsed equal status and equal rights for practicing other religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, the minister said.
The Cabinet decided to keep the provision of state religion considering the national reality, the minister told AP.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has campaigned that Hasina's Awami League party is anti-Islamic. The country's main Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami and its hardline allies also brand Hasina's party as anti-Islamic.
Bangladesh has thousands of Islamic schools that advocate installation of Sharia laws, and a violent hardline group years ago bombed government buildings and courts demanding Sharia law. The government claims the group, Jumatul Mujahedin Bangladesh, was broken after its top leaders were hanged.
The government also proposed an amendment to cancel a constitutional provision that requires the government to hand over power at the end of its term to a nonpartisan administration. A former chief justice is usually chosen to head the three-month caretaker administration that conducts new elections.
The Supreme Court has ruled the provision in the 1996 constitution is undemocratic.
The next general elections is due in 2014, and opponents of Hasina say amending the consitution to remove that provision could lead to vote-rigging.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AFP) – West Indies were 119 for five, in response to India's first innings total of 246 on the first day of the first Test on Tuesday at Sabina Park.
Score summary
India 246 (S. Raina 82, H. Singh 70, R. Dravid 40; F. Edwards 4-56, R. Rampaul 3-59, D. Bishoo 3-75)
West Indies 119 for five (A. Barath 64; P. Kumar 3-24, I. Sharma 2-17)
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States and Japan acknowledged Tuesday that they would miss a 2014 deadline for a controversial shift of a US base in Okinawa, but stood firmly behind the plan in the face of opposition.
The future of the Futenma air base on the subtropical island has bedeviled ties between the Pacific allies for years and both governments have been eager to push ahead on a 2006 deal instead of restarting exhaustive talks.
In a joint statement after top-level talks, the Pacific allies said the relocation "will not meet the previous targeted date of 2014" but renewed their commitment to complete the project "at the earliest possible date."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meeting with their Japanese counterparts, also confirmed plans to move 8,000 Marines and some 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to the US territory of Guam.
Under the 2006 plan between previous governments, the United States planned to shut the flashpoint Futenma base in Okinawa which has long been a source of grievance as it lies in a crowded urban area.
The Japanese and US leaders on Tuesday endorsed building a replacement base with V-shaped runways at Henoko on an isolated stretch of beach elsewhere on the strategically located island.
A number of activists on Okinawa demanded that the base be removed entirely from the island, the often reluctant host to half of the 47,000 US troops based in Japan under a post-World War II treaty.
US senators recently moved to force the Pentagon to consider a new option, saying the current plan is too costly and politically unrealistic when Japan should be focusing on the rebuilding from its massive earthquake.
Gates, addressing one of his final news conferences as defense secretary, tried to put the effort led by Senators Jim Webb and Carl Levin -- members of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party -- in the context of the current plan.
"The letter from Senators Webb and Levin about the realignment is really a manifestation of growing congressional impatience about the lack of progress," Gates said at a four-way news conference with Clinton.
"We both reaffirmed the US government's commitment to the 2006 realignment plan, but at the same time emphasized the importance of concrete progress over the course of the next year," Gates said.
One prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, resigned last year after failing to fulfill campaign promises to renegotiate Futenma, with the Obama administration insisting the crux of the deal was not open to debate.
His successor, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, has sought to move ahead with the base plan without tying his fate to the issue as he focuses instead on the earthquake aftermath and his government's survival in parliament.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa played down criticism that the center-left Democratic Party of Japan has held up progress since taking power in 2009, saying: "This is the cost that is entailed in democracy when we have a change of government."
"The purpose of the US realignment is to maintain deterrence and to reduce the local burden, so we will be making maximum efforts with the United States to achieve both objectives."
Under an alternative plan drafted by Webb, a former Marine who represents Virginia, Futenma would be closed and its air assets largely shifted to Okinawa's existing Kadena Air Base.
Webb also proposed shifting some of the existing air assets from Kadena to elsewhere in Japan and Guam, a solution he said would ease both congestion and costs in Okinawa.
The Senate Armed Services Committee last week agreed to cut off funding for the 2014 shift until the Marine Corps comes up with a new study on Guam -- where opposition is also building -- and considers the alternative on Futenma.
Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the committee, has supported the effort, telling a forum Monday: "As new realities and cost overruns call our current plans into question, Congress must ask the hard questions."
SYDNEY (AFP) – More than 1,000 people have made allegations of sexual and other abuse against the Australian Defence Force, lawyers assessing the complaints for the government said Tuesday.
The review was ordered in the wake of a scandal at the elite Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra in which a teenage female cadet alleged that she was unwittingly broadcast having sex with another cadet to classmates.
DLA Piper, the law firm conducting the review on behalf of Defence Minister Stephen Smith, said more than 1,000 people had since come forward with allegations, including complaints made in the media and direct to the minister.
"The allegations range from relatively minor matters to very serious matters," DLA Piper said in a statement.
"Some of the allegations are made by victims or parents or partners of victims, some are made by witnesses and some are made by people who have no direct knowledge of the incident which they allege/report."
"We need to proceed with care because the issues involved are serious and sensitive. We are taking advice on our processes from an expert in dealing with victims of sexual abuse," the firm added.
DLA Piper said there was a surge in complaints after fresh allegations were broadcast by the media last week, and extra lawyers were drafted in to take calls.
The firm said it was now carefully considering how best to gather more detailed information, responding to criticism that the process was too formal or that the review was a "cover-up" exercise.
"The Minister expects the Review to provide our own honest assessment and recommendations, regardless of whether or not doing so may involve criticism of aspects of Defence's response to allegations," DLA said.
"The Review members would not be participating in the Review if we thought it was a sham."
The Australian Defence Force has been stung by a string of allegations, some decades old, of abusive and sexist behaviour in its ranks.
Cases aired in the media involve the hushing up of gang rape and the brutal bashing and bullying of military cadets.
Minister Smith has called the allegations "very concerning" and promised they would be "methodically and exhaustively" assessed.
Australia's top military brass have stressed that such practices are completely unacceptable, and that the defence force has improved and reformed over the years.
BEIJING – Heavy rains in eastern China have put more than 660 reservoirs at risk of overflowing, an official said Tuesday.
Rain-triggered floods have swept parts of eastern and southern China this month, leaving at least 175 dead and 86 missing and causing 35 billion yuan ($5 billion) in direct economic losses, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
An official at the media department of the Anhui Water Resource Department said water levels at more than 660 reservoirs in the province were above the warning level. Like most Chinese officials, she would give only her surname, Zhao.
The official Xinhua News Agency also said in a Chinese-language report that the reservoirs were in danger of overflowing. The Anhui flood control headquarters said most of the reservoirs — more than 620 — were small, and that only three were large.
Such flooding is common every year during China's rainy season, with reservoirs and rivers overflowing.
Zhao referred further queries to the provincial Communist Party Propaganda Department, but calls were not answered there.
Xinhua said the water levels of the Shuiyang and Qingyi rivers, both tributaries of the Yangtze River running through Anhui, had risen above the warning safety mark.
It said many of the reservoirs in Anhui had started discharging water on orders from the state flood-control headquarters.
In neighboring Zhejiang province, the operator of eastern China's largest reservoir opened three of its nine floodgates Tuesday because of the risk of overflowing.
It was the first time the Xin'anjiang Reservoir has been forced to discharge water since 1999, Zhejiang's flood control headquarters said.
Xinhua quoted officials as saying the release of water into the Lanjiang river wouldn't cause havoc downstream because water there had receded below the danger level.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. securities industry is studying ways to avoid lengthy trading halts of U.S.-listed Chinese securities that have been suspected of accounting problems, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) said.
SIFMA, U.S. securities regulators and exchanges all held talks, according to a separate source, to deal with halts of shares that have stretched for several months while exchanges wait for delayed regulatory filings or resolutions to audit probes.
"I can confirm for you that SIFMA is exploring this issue and studying possible solutions," said SIFMA spokeswoman Katrina Cavali said.
Numerous U.S.-listed Chinese companies, many of which first listed on U.S. exchanges through reverse takeovers, have been hit with charges of accounting fraud. When companies respond to allegations, shares are often halted for weeks.
But the trading halts created a skid row of sorts of Chinese companies languishing on exchanges without trading for several months. There are currently more than a dozen such companies.
Investors in companies that have been halted have been unable to close out positions because trade halts have stretched for months. One Chinese company, NIVS IntelliMedia Technology Group, has been halted since March 24.
A source familiar with the discussions said some of the possible solutions discussed include matching outstanding long and short positions in the halted securities.
Normally, an individual company can have shares halted for a few hours so a company can disseminate news or the exchange can resolve a trading-related issue.
It was unclear whether a final decision had been made.
Shares of Chinese companies have been hit hard, with some losing most of their value, as a result of the allegations. The Canadian-listed Chinese forestry company Sino-Forest, which is down more than 90 percent since allegations were raised by a short-selling research firm.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; editing by Gunna Dickson)
