The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistani opposition parties are trying to reach agreement on their stand on the restoration of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf as they finalise conditions for participation in January elections.

Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have said they will present Musharraf with a "charter of demands" to ensure a fair general election on Jan. 8 or else they would "move towards" a boycott.

A boycott by the two main opposition parties and smaller allies would rob the vote of credibility and prolong instability in the nuclear-armed country that is crucial to U.S. efforts to fight al Qaeda and bring peace to neighbouring Afghanistan.

"Most of the issues have been decided with consensus. The remaining issues will be decided today. Today is the final sitting, we're going to finalise our list," said Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for Sharif's party, involved in drafting the demands.

"We have agreed that we will rise above our petty differences and work for ensuring a free and fair election," said Iqbal, though he declined to give details.

Another participant in the talks said the two sides were trying to patch up their differences over the issue of the restoration of 37 judges dismissed by Musharraf after he imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3.

"I'm confident we will find an amicable solution to this issue," said the party official, who declined to be identified.

Bhutto has said her party would reluctantly take part in the vote, while reserving the right to withdraw or to protest against an unfair result. She has already issued a manifesto and effectively began her campaign last weekend.

Sharif, who has been visiting parts of the north of the country and meeting supporters this week, has called for a boycott unless the judges are reinstated.

Despite his doubts about the election, Sharif registered to run but his nomination was rejected on Monday because of criminal convictions after his 1999 ouster by Musharraf that Sharif says were politically motivated.

Bhutto returned from eight years of self-exile in October. Sharif, ousted by Musharraf in 1999 and sent into exile the next year, returned on Nov. 25.

Musharraf stepped down as army chief last week and was sworn in as a civilian president. He also promised that emergency rule would be lifted on Dec. 16, fulfilling two main demands of his rivals and his Western backers. But Musharraf has ruled out letting the judges back, some of whom remain under house arrest.

Musharraf has been at odds with judiciary since he tried to sack the then chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, in March.

Critics say Musharraf's main motive for imposing emergency rule was to purge the judiciary of hostile judges, including Chaudhry, amid fears they were about to rule unconstitutional his Oct. 6 re-election by legislators.

Sharif and lawyers opposed to the government planned to try to meet Chaudhry at his Islamabad home on Thursday although police put up barricades to stop them.

Bhutto says the new parliament should decide on the fate of the judges.

She has accused the government of planning to rig the election in favour of pro-Musharraf candidates and called for the reconstitution of the Election Commission.

She has also questioned the neutrality of a caretaker government, made up of mostly of Musharraf supporters and installed last month to oversee the election.

Analysts expect both of the main opposition parties will eventually take part after extracting maximum concessions.

"They are trying to exert maximum pressure on the government to get an even playing field," said Talat Masood, a former general turned analyst.

Pakistan court gives bail to opposition leader

Reuters, London

Women are still the victims of persistent gender inequality in the workplace, with very little change in their working conditions in Britain for almost two decades, according to a landmark report on Thursday.

Women are working longer hours because they are still shouldering the bulk of household duties like cleaning and childcare, the Cambridge University report found. This was leading to a vicious circle in which women worked more part-time hours, preventing them from furthering their career. The report, "Gender and working conditions in the European Union", said there was still segregation in the workplace while women were far less likely to earn high salaries than their male counterparts.

It found that despite British female workers making up just under half of the workforce, fewer than one in six had senior management roles.

AFP, Ahmedabad

Muslim victims of a pogrom that took place five years ago in the western Indian state of Gujarat say they have little hope for the future with Hindu hardliners blamed for the violence set for re-election.

Gujarat witnessed a frenzy of destruction, rape and murder in 2002, with huge mobs targetting the Muslim community after Hindu pilgrims were killed in an alleged attack on a train.

In all, at least 2,000 Muslims were massacred, and many survivors are still piecing together shattered lives-saying they remain marginalised and struggling to come to terms with the orchestrated killings.

"We had good houses, a steady income, clean drinking water, electricity and cleaner surroundings where we were staying earlier," said Khatoon Bibi, a woman in her mid-40s forced out of her neighbourhood after the bloodletting. "Now we have nothing. No source of livelihood, the (majority)

Hindu community don't want to us to work with them or for them. "Our children don't go to school any more and we live on a garbage dump," she said, pointing to huge mounds of refuse, just metres (yards) from her house in the resettlement colony on the outskirts of Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad.

Khatoon Bibi and her husband were among several thousand Muslims in Naroda Patiya neighbourhood when armed Hindu groups stormed the narrow lanes, hacking residents and torching their belongings on February 28, 2002.

The US alliance with Australia will not be damaged by the Canberra government's sharp policy differences with Washington over the Iraq war and climate change, a top US official has said.

US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns stressed late Wednesday that the relationship was unchanged and that Washington's conservative administration is looking forward to working with centre-left Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

"This alliance between Australia and the United States is exceptionally strong across the board," he said two weeks after Rudd ousted former prime minister John Howard-a close ally of US President George W. Bush-in an election landslide.

Rudd's first act in office on Monday was to reverse Australia's policy on climate change and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, something Bush refuses to contemplate, despite his administration's isolation on the issue.

In another key policy sea-change, Rudd said last week he would make good on his election pledge to pull Australia's 550 combat troops out of Iraq by the middle of next year.

But Burns, in Australia for trilateral security talks also involving Japan, insisted that Australia's position on those hot-button issues would not hurt the relationship.

AFP, Washington

The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country in the world, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, citing new US government figures.

At the end of 2006 more than 2.25 million persons were behind bars in US prisons and jails, an all-time high, the rights group said, citing figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a branch of the US Department of Justice.

HRW said the 2006 increase was the largest one-year jump in the last six years.

The number represents an incarceration rate of 751 per 100,000 US residents-"substantially higher than that of Libya (217 per 100,000), Iran (212), and China (119)," HRW said in a statement. For comparison, France's incarceration rate is 85 per 100,000, while the rate in Britain's is 148 and Canada is 107, HRW said.

"These figures confirm an unenviable record: the United States is the world's leading prison nation," said David Fathi, director of the US program at Human Rights Watch.

"The US is even ahead of governments like China that use prisons as a political tool," he said. According to the group, the US prison population "has increased approximately 500 percent in the last 30 years, and continues to grow."

The government figures also show sharp racial disparities, with black men incarcerated at a rate 6.2 times higher than white men, HRW said.

"Nearly 8 percent of all black men ages 30 to 34 in the United States were incarcerated as sentenced prisoners at the end of 2006," the group said.

Reuters, Washington

The Bush administration announced plans on Wednesday to sell advanced anti-missile systems to the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait with a potential combined value of nearly $10.4 billion.

The deals would be the biggest yet in a U.S. drive to bolster Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, as a counterweight to Iran, Syria, al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

The Pentagon told Congress the United Arab Emirates had asked about buying 288 Patriot Advanced Capability PAC-3 missiles and related gear worth up to $9 billion. The prime contractors would be Raytheon Co and Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice to lawmakers dated Tuesday.

Kuwait has asked about buying 80 PAC-3 missiles, PAC-2 upgrades and Patriot ground support equipment worth as much as $1.36 billion, a separate notice to Congress said.

The Pentagon said the proposed Patriot PAC-3 sale-worth up to $9 billion if all options are exercised-would "strengthen the effectiveness and interoperability of a potential coalition partner, reduce the dependence on U.S. forces in the region, and enhance any coalition operations the U.S. may undertake with the United Arab Emirates."