South Asia Citizens Wire | March 11-12, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2375 - Year 9 [1] A terrorism-hit train fails to carry the South Asian peace process forward (J. Sri Raman) [2] Bangladesh: One begum down (The Economist) [3] India: Drifting Into Nuclear Blunderland - Scrap the Haripur plant! (Praful Bidwai) [4] Indo - US Nuclear Deal: The Missing Exit Clause (Anil Nauriya) [5] India Pakistan Arms Race And Militarisation Watch Compilation No 168
____ [1] South Asia Peace Wire - March 11, 2007 sacip.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2007/03/11/jsrmarch07.html TRAIN TRAGEDY FAILS TO HELP ANTI-TERROR CAUSE by J. Sri Raman (truthout.org) The hawks of India and Pakistan can heave a sigh of relief. A terrorism-hit train has failed to carry the South Asian peace process forward even fractionally, as many had fondly hoped. This should come as no surprise to watchers of the region, considering the place for terrorism in the political themes official India and Pakistan have pursued in the past, especially in the post-9/11 period. Before coming to that, a brief look at the latest twist in the tale. The bomb blasts of February 18 on the Samjhauta (Understanding) Express, taking a toll of 68 Pakistani and Indian lives (mostly the former), caused a surge of hope along with great sorrow on both sides of the border. The common tragedy was expected to make the rulers of the two countries move, even if reluctantly, towards a common approach to terrorism - to its perception as a common enemy. For a short while, this seemed to be happening. Observers noted a series of negative gains. For the first time, in the first place, an apparent terrorist strike did not lead to an abrupt break in the bilateral talks through which the peace process has proceeded thus far. The Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006, attributed officially and by the opposition in India to "cross-border terrorism," had applied a sharp, sudden brake to the process, with the scrapping of scheduled talks at the level of foreign secretaries. Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, was due to visit New Delhi on February 20. The very next day, an India-Pakistan pact on nuclear risk reduction was signed. And, the two sides went ahead with their earlier plan to hold the first meeting of an India-Pakistan Joint Counter-Terror Mechanism (JCTM) in Islamabad on March 6-7. The list of pluses ends here, and the longer one of pathetic minuses begins. Many may wonder how much of a plus the pact on nuclear risk reduction was, considering that it envisaged no more than alerting the other side in case of a "cross-border" fallout; and some may find strange the official safety promise following an accident of this scale. Let us, however, let that pass. What we cannot forget is how fast the feigned anti-terrorist solidarity disappeared at the official level. The people of Panipat, where the bombs went off, rushed to rescue the Pakistanis, and passengers from across the border vowed to travel by the same train and not to concede a victory to terrorism. Representatives of the two governments, especially in the foreign affairs and railway ministries, however, started bickering even as the Samjhauta victims lay groaning in hospital beds. While Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukhejee voiced the most virtuous sentiments, lesser officials traded charges over the charred bodies. Pakistanis were accused of impeding investigations, and Indians were accused of treating the victims as "suspects." Pakistan's Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed gave a new dimension to the ugly debate by insinuating that Kasuri was "compromising" Pakistan's position in India. We do not know whether it is an official policy to let Rashid get loudly anti-India while the rest of Pakistan's establishment, including President Pervez Musharraf, appears sober and responsible. But the Railway Minister has gone full steam ahead trying to derail the peace process. Nothing much, in these circumstances, was really expected from the JCTM meeting, and nothing much has emanated. According to Indian accounts, based on official briefings, the Indian side shared "evidence and information" with Pakistan about the Samjhauta affair, though the evidence seems to have been confined to the picture of a single suspect, handed over for further investigation. According to similarly based Pakistani accounts, this picture was not accompanied by the person's passport number or other particulars. Denying this, New Delhi insists that specific details were given. The public has no way of knowing which of the reports is right. The Pakistani side claimed to have given its counterpart "concrete evidence" of India's involvement in the Balochistan rebellion. The role of Indian consulates in neighboring Afghanistan's Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat in this regard is said to have been documented in detail. The Indian side has, of course, indignantly denied this as well, claiming that the consulates were only devoting themselves to Afghan development projects. The JCTM is scheduled to meet again in June. But, despite the Samjhauta tragedy, no serious observer expects New Delhi and Islamabad to become comrades-in-arms against terrorism. The barest possibility of such a partnership, in fact, disappeared when both of them became part of the Bush-led "alliance against global terror" in the aftermath of 9/11. Both of them, after all, entered the alliance with eagerness only in a desperate bid to turn it decisively against each other. President Musharraf has repeatedly reiterated his hope that Islamabad's anti-terrorist partnership with Washington and the West will help its cause in Kashmir. New Delhi under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for its part, while forging a "strategic partnership" with the US, pressed for recognition of its right to stage "a pre-emptive strike" against Pakistan. Anti-terrorism, obviously, does not carry the same connotations in both the capitals. It never did. B Raman, a former official of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's external intelligence service, illustrates the point in one of his recent articles. Recalling earlier efforts made in the late '80s and early '90s for a common mechanism of counterterrorism, he says that the Indian side then focused on the Khalistani separatist movement in Punjab, believed to have cross-border backing. The Pakistani side's counter was to present New Delhi with a dossier on India's involvement in the separatist struggle in the Sindh province. Punjab and Sindh, in other words, have just been replaced by Kashmir and Balochistan in the supposed counterterror confabulations of the two countries. The game can be expected to go on. We should not be surprised, however, that Richard Boucher, US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, finds the outcome of the JCTM session "positive." Such charades do help to keep appearances of an anti-terror alliance, while keeping its South Asian members divided enough for cynical manipulation. A freelance journalist and a peace activist of India, J. Sri Raman is the author of Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t. ______ [2] The Economist print edition March 8th 2007 | DHAKA ONE BEGUM DOWN The generals show who's boss TWENTY-SIX years after the assassination of her husband, General Ziaur Rahman, a former president of Bangladesh, the political career of Khaleda Zia, prime minister until last October, has come to an end. Bangladesh's army, the moving force behind a state of emergency declared in January, is finally baring its teeth. As it promised from the outset, but at first failed to prove, its anti-corruption drive will spare no one. On March 8th it arrested Tarique Rahman, Mrs Zia's son. In recent weeks there were rumours that Mrs Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and one of the "two begums" who have dominated politics, had been trying to negotiate a graceful exit for herself and her two sons. The generals, it now seems, are not open for negotiation. Reuters Goodbye, ten per cent For good measure, it searched the house of the other begum, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, also a former prime minister and leader of the other big party, the Awami League. But no arrests were made. The military-backed government also published a list of 50 top businessmen and leaders from the two big parties who it wants to arrest. Perhaps most important, the administration has announced plans to create a National Security Councilin effect an admission by the army's top brass that it has become impossible to govern the country from behind the curtain any longer. Mr Rahman, a senior BNP official, and long Mrs Zia's presumed successor, had in recent years become the symbol in the public mind of kleptocratic rule and the politics of violent retaliation. Most Bangladeshis preferred not to mention him by name, out of fear. Instead they dubbed him "Mr Ten Per Cent"a reference to his alleged cut on almost any deal done by his mother's government. But the culture of fear is waning. The BNP, the party his mother inherited from his father, is desperately fighting for its survival. Fear of a possible backlash by BNP loyalists is one reason behind the creation of a National Security Council. It suggests that the army feels that the fiction it has been maintainingthat it is merely helping a civilian administration hold electionshas become unsustainable. The council will include the chiefs of the three branches of the armed forces. To give the arrangement a more acceptable gloss, it will also bring in civilians, and will be led by the head of the interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World Bank official. The "advisers" who have made up Mr Ahmed's administration, which is now in effect defunct, have been hopelessly overstretched. Some have responsibility for no fewer than five ministries. The new council gives the army a formal mechanism for bossing the administration it installed in January. It replaced a supposedly neutral caretaker government that, under Bangladesh's fraught two-party system, normally takes over for three months at the end of a government's five-year term to oversee fair elections. This one had provoked violent protests from League supporters, who accused it of planning to rig the election due in January. The state of emergency meant the poll has been postponed indefinitely. Dhaka is now in an excited state. The military-backed administration still enjoys widespread public support from a public disillusioned with the corruption and eternal feuding of the big parties. But hopes of a Bangladeshi "velvet revolution", facilitated by the military, are beginning to fade as the realisation dawns that engineering the army's return to the barracks will be difficult. With most of the former political class now behind bars, the withdrawal of the army from politics and a lifting of the state of emergency would carry the risk of retribution. A total of about 30 former ministers, politicians, businessmen and civil servants are already in prison on charges of corruption. This week a court extended for a further month their detention without charge. The current army chief, General Moeen U. Ahmed, is likely to be safe from retribution at least until his scheduled retirement in June 2008. The summer monsoon pushes the local electionslikely to be held before parliamentary elections as a testto the final quarter of 2008 and national polls into early 2009. With the BNP decapitated, there is a political void. One candidate to fill it is Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel-prize-winning microcredit pioneer. But his attempt to build a new political force probably needs the army's backing, which Mr Yunus will want to avoid. Meanwhile, Western governments and donors are happy with emergency arrangements. Like many Bangladeshis, they say a period of 12-18 months would be acceptable. Both foreigners and Bangladeshis might have to learn a little more patience. ______ [3] South Asians Against Nukes URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/message/999 o o o The Praful Bidwai Column February 26, 2007 DRIFTING INTO NUCLEAR BLUNDERLAND Scrap the Haripur plant! by Praful Bidwai After Singur and Nandigram, the West Bengal government has opened another Pandora's Box with a proposal to build a giant nuclear power station, India's largest atomic plant, at Haripur in East Medinipur district. The project is a Central government initiative. But it enjoys considerable support from the state's Left Front government, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-CPM). The public knows very little about the Haripur project except that it's likely to consist of six reactors of 1,690 megawatts each, a size three times bigger than the largest reactor the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has ever built (540 MW). Together, they will generate 10,000 MW in a single location-contrasting sharply with India's current nuclear capacity of 3,900 MW spread over 6 sites. Yet, such is the opacity surrounding Haripur that the project hasn't even been discussed in the state Cabinet. There is no clarity about which agency will build it and with what resources. Opacity is itself a strong enough reason to question the Haripur project. But as we see below, even stronger ecological, economic, social and political arguments exist for scrapping it altogether at today's early stage. The Left Front in Bengal should seize the initiative to do so for the same reasons that Kerala's Left parties in the 1990s opposed a nuclear power plant at Peringom in Kannur district-namely, that nuclear power stations must not be built in a densely populated region. Deltaic Bengal is even more densely inhabited than Kerala. Haripur is in a cyclone-prone area. This further strengthens the argument. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has coined a new slogan, "Agriculture - our foundation; Industry - our future". This is painted all over Kolkata. This suggests that large-scale industry alone can develop Bengal, generate jobs and raise incomes across-the-board. Mr Bhattacharjee is backing Haripur on the assumption that the key to Bengal's industrialisation lies in nuclear power, an abundant, safe, environmental benign and economically competitive energy source, which is rapidly growing the world over, and emerging as a solution to the grave problem of global warming caused by fossil-fuel burning. This assumption is comprehensively wrong. It's mired in naïve, outdated but techno-romantic "Atoms for Peace" thinking of the early 1950s. Despite huge subsidies by the state, nuclear power has betrayed its early promise and turned out unaffordably expensive, difficult to manage, unacceptably unsafe, accident-prone, and environmentally unsound. Currently, the fixed capital costs of nuclear power stations in most countries are 50 to 70 percent higher than those of coal- and oil-fired electricity plants. These are translated into higher unit costs of energy. Investing in nuclear power is doubly unwise because that detracts from developing renewable energy, some of which (e.g. wind) has already become commercially competitive. The history of nuclear power is a story, according to energy consultant Amory Lovins, of the greatest failure in the world's industrial history. It's also a story of euphoric projections and repeatedly missed targets. Thus, had the nuclear industry's projections, made a quarter-century ago, materialised, the globe would have had 10 times more nuclear power than it has today. India is a prime example of this failure. We're still well under half of the target (10,000 MW) set for 1980! Nuclear power contributes 16 percent to global electricity generation-and an even more modest 6 percent to energy consumption. This contribution will shrink rapidly in the coming decades. In place of the 114 reactors (of a world total of 435) that will be retired within a decade from now on reaching the age of 40 years, only 29 new ones are under construction, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the body mandated to promote nuclear power. Even if reactors in the nebulous "planning" stage are added, the new capacity won't match the capacity being retired. Even the conservative pro-nuclear Economist magazine concedes that most reactors in the rich OECD countries, which account for two-thirds of the world total, will close down. Major countries like Germany, Britain, Italy, Sweden and Belgium are phasing out nuclear power. Even France, the world's most nuclear-powered country, with 79 percent of power drawn from the atom, has shut down 11 reactors and has plans for only one new reactor. This means there's no global nuclear reconnaissance, as romantically predicted. Only a few Asian countries, including China, South Korea, Indonesia and India, have plans for major expansion. These aren't societies that greatly value environment safety. Nuclear power bristles with safety and environmental problems. Radiation is the most ubiquitous. Each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle releases ionising radiation, an invisible, intangible, silent poison, which damages the DNA of cells and causes cancer or genetic disorders. Radiation can't be eliminated or extinguished; it can only be relocated. Radiation is harmful in all doses-in routine emissions, as well as big releases. Nuclear power is highly accident-prone. It involves complex, interlocked systems operating at relatively high temperatures and pressures. Chernobyl, which has claimed 95,000 lives since 1986, remains the world's worst accident. Yet, all reactor types can undergo a catastrophic accident with a core meltdown and large radioactivity releases. No amount of extraneous or marginal "protection", like containment domes, can remedy structural flaws in existing reactor designs. The probability of a Chernobyl is admittedly low, but its consequences so unacceptable that even an ultra-low probability isn't good enough. Radioactive wastes are nuclear power's worst legacy. All nuclear activity produces wastes; some remain dangerously active for thousands of years. Thus, plutonium-239, formed as reactors burn uranium, has a half-life of 24,400 years. And uranium-235's half-life is 710 million years! Science knows no container which can safely store such wastes for so long. Disposal isn't remotely on the agenda. No geological formations are stable for that length of time. Building nuclear plants is like constructing homes without toilets, only more dangerous. In Haripur's case, these generic problems are compounded by location-specific issues. The site's proximity to the eastern coalbelt (about 400 km) further undermines its economic viability: the DAE itself says nuclear power is only competitive beyond a distance of 800 km from a coal pithead. The Haripur coast is notoriously cyclone-prone and periodically lashed by waves that make deep incursions. Should tidal water enter the reactor building, as nearly happened at Kalpakam during the tsunami 2 years ago, it's liable to poison large swathes of land. It's patently ill-advised to site a nuclear plant at such a vulnerable location, where a 20 km-long dyke (protective wall) was built decades ago to prevent flooding. The Haripur plant will pose serious human problems. If the DAE follows its own siting regulations-a 1.5 km-radius totally uninhabited "exclusive zone" around the reactor, and a further 30 km radius with a sparse population-, it will have to evict over 10,000 families. This is a mind-boggling number. West Bengal has no land for resettling them. As I noted during a day trip to Haripur, large numbers of people who live next to the coast are fisherfolk, many of them landless. Their livelihoods will be destroyed if they are displaced. The Haripur area, just 7 km from Kanthi town (pop. 78,000), has a flourishing agrarian economy enriched by sea and inland fisheries, fruit and vegetable cultivation, reed-based handicrafts, and other occupations. The land is extraordinarily fertile. Many farmers told me they earn close to Rs 3 lakhs per acre through rice and pulse cultivation, and by growing brinjals, tomato and gourds (for which Haripur is famous), as well as cashewnuts, mangoes and chikoos. It would be utterly tragic if this thriving, throbbing economy with a potential for healthy industrialisation were laid to ruin by the mindless construction of a nuclear plant. The entire population of the area is opposed to the plant. It's overwhelmingly literate and has heard of Chernobyl, radiation and plutonium. People oppose the plant not only because it will displace and impoverish them. They say there should be "no nuclear power, anywhere, anytime". Since November 17 last, the people have blocked entry into Haripur. DAE teams were twice sent back. No government representative can enter the village in a four-wheeler. There will be serious bloodshed if the government imposes the plant on a people determined to resist it. It doesn't make sense even from the DAE's point of view to impose it. It'll get further discredited by repeating a larger version of Narora. When Narora was chosen for India's third nuclear power station for political reasons, DAE scientists, including the late A K Ganguly, opposed it on the ground that nuclear power has no place in the lush Gangetic plains. This applies a fortiori to Haripur. The Left Front will incur the public's anger if it imposes the project on it. Its own ranks are opposed to it. It must respect them-and sound economic, human and environmental logic. It must scrap the plant NOW!-end- ____________ SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia SAAN Web site: http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org or http://perso.orange.fr/sacw/saan/ SAAN Mailing List: To subscribe send a blank message to: saan_-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ______ [4] The Times of India 7 Mar, 2007 EXIT CLAUSE by Anil Nauriya The Indo-US nuclear deal has been debated at length and in great detail. It, however, gives rise to a constitutional issue that requires some attention. Certain arrangements have been made between the two countries which are a prelude to a further agreement, now under negotiation. This agreement is also to assume, in due course, certain multilateral characteristics with specific international bodies and other countries being brought into the picture. In India, the usual practice has been for the executive to exercise complete treaty-making powers. The executive may bind the country to an international treaty, agreement or convention. Unlike the US, in India, the imprimatur of the legislature is not essential for the purpose of entering into a binding international arrangement. Of course, legislation is sometimes required to implement such pacts. This is done under Article 253 of the Constitution. By and large, this system has worked. But there is one aspect of the existing system that requires reconsideration. Most treaties that a country enters into have an exit clause, permitting a country to withdraw from the treaty under certain circumstances and in a specified manner. For example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which India did not sign, had a provision permitting withdrawal from the treaty, after giving six months' notice, if a country "decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardised its supreme interests". Where such exit clauses do exist, the lack of a requirement in India of a parliamentary imprimatur on such treaties or agreements may not be of serious consequence. A different situation arises where such an exit clause does not exist and the executive enters into an agreement that may bind the country in perpetuity. Ordinarily, where a treaty itself does not contain an exit clause, such exit would be governed by the principles underlying the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Article 56 of the Vienna Convention restricts possibilities of withdrawal from a treaty if the original agreement does not have an exit clause. Obviously, withdrawal becomes still more difficult if the original agreement itself actually bars exit and speaks of a commitment in perpetuity. There is a further provision in Article 62 for the invoking of a "fundamental change of circumstances" as a ground for withdrawal from a treaty. But this is heavily circumscribed. The document titled, 'Implementation of the India-United States Joint Statement of July 18, 2005: India's Separation Plan', was tabled in Parliament on March 7, 2006. When the deal was being negotiated India sought ironclad guarantees that nuclear fuel supplies would not be disrupted, considering particularly the past Indian experience. In return, the US sought certain safeguards in perpetuity. So far as the guarantee given to India is concerned, this is couched in some ambiguity. "If despite these arrangements, a disruption of fuel supplies to India occurs, the United States and India would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries to include countries such as Russia, France and the United Kingdom to pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply to India". The expression "to pursue such measures" could mean anything. It is ambiguous inasmuch as the measures could include conditionalities imposed on India, on the fulfilment of which fuel supply would be restored. On the other hand, the Indian commitment is set out emphatically: "In light of the above understandings with the United States, an India-specific safeguards agreement will be negotiated... Taking this into account, India will place its civilian nuclear facilities under India-specific safeguards in perpetuity and negotiate an appropriate safeguards agreement to this end with the IAEA". It is worth considering whether the framers of the Indian Constitution envisaged the possibility of the executive making perpetual commitments of this nature when they provided in Article 73 that the executive power of the Union would extend to matters with respect to which Parliament has power to make laws. In any event, they took care expressly to make Article 73 "subject to the provisions of this Constitution". Thus, executive power is made coextensive with that of the legislative power of Parliament; but the executive power is subject to other provisions of the Constitution. In other words, it is arguable that no commitment, much less a perpetual commitment, can be made that Parliament may not reject. However, it is necessary to remove scope for ambiguity regarding parliamentary power at least in respect of that limited class of international treaties and arrangements where the executive enters into perpetual commitments without there being available any of the exit clauses usually found in treaties. In respect of such cases, an express positive requirement of a parliamentary imprimatur needs to be written into the Constitution. This can be done by adding a proviso to Article 73 specifying clearly that executive power, when exercised to make a commitment in perpetuity, would be subject to approval by a special majority in the two Houses of Parliament. In such cases, and such cases alone, Parliament could also be empowered to give conditional approvals and to specify certain reservations. It will be useful if an amendment of this nature could be made before finalisation of the Indo-US pact. Such an amendment should receive support across the political spectrum, as it would strengthen the hands of Indian negotiators and clarify the position for their interlocutors. The writer is a senior Supreme Court advocate. ______ [5] INDIA PAKISTAN ARMS RACE AND MILITARISATION WATCH COMPILATION NO 168 Year Seven, (February 28, 2007) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Eminent Jurists Begin Probe into Counter-Terrorism Laws in South Asia 2 India: So-called Anti-Terrorist Laws are Tools of State Terrorism 3 Pakistan: Militarisation of politics 4 War in Afghanistan and Pakistan 5 Pakistan: Sources of illegal weapons are all too well known to need investigation 6 India: Guns for pleasure, anyone? 7 Pakistan: New policy on military lands 8 Pakistan and India's mad fantasy of keeping nuclear weapons free from risk: - Nuclear accord designed to promote 'stable' environment 9 India and Pakistan's tit for tat missile race: - Pakistan military tests missile - Hatf VI missile test - Pakistan test fires long-range ballistic missile - India tests Brahmos Missile in February 2007 - India Plans 2nd ABM Test in June [2007] 10 India - Pakistan - Defence Spending: - Big rise in Indian defence budget - India hikes defence budget to Rs 96000 cr - Hike in unproductive expenditure 11 The "disappeared" in Pakistan and India: - Pakistani "disappeared" a growing problem: group - Democracy disappears with persons who 'disappear' - Kashmir Solidarity Committee and APDP Hold protest Rally in Delhi - Kashmir's big lie - India: Investigate All 'Disappearances' in Kashmir - India: Government Should Act to Stop Murders in Custody - Rogues in Khaki - Justice cannot be delivered on pick and choose basis - Indian anti-terrorism troops accused of executing civilians - Criminals in combat fatigues - FIRs expose Army's hand in civilian killings - Another body exhumed in Kashmir - Body of carpenter killed in "encounter" exhumed 12 Siachen Madness or Mountain Peace 13 Victims of War on Terror in India and Pakistan: - Trial and terror - Voices of The Internally Displaced: Jammu & Kashmir - Too many dubious convictions in Pakistan, say activists 14 Manipur and the Struggle Against AFPSA - Manipur: The Irom Sharmila saga 15 Fire Bombing of Samjhauta Express : - Peace and The Burning Train - Samjhota Explosion - Put The Joint Mechanism To Work 16 Arms Sales To The Region - Plans and The Players: - Pakistan gets eight attack helicopters - Russia Works To Remain India's Top Supplier - Aviation firms descend on India air show - Reports: India plans aerospace military command to oversee space-based assets - "Work on nuke deterrence for Navy underway" - India sets sights on cruise missile market FULL TEXT AT: www.sacw.net/peace/IPARMW168.pdf _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ SACW mailing list SACW@insaf.net http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net