More MQM men quit
Sindh coalition
Break with Sharif’s party imminent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 — Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League has been left isolated in national politics after the MQM virtually broke its alliance with the ruling party following large scale violence and arson in Karachi in which eight persons were killed.

Bomb blast may wreck peace treaty
OMAGH (Northern Ireland), Aug 16 — The toll in Northern Ireland’s worst guerrilla attack rose to 28 today and some 200 were injured by the huge bomb that devastated a busy shopping street and threatened the peace process.

Nairobi blasts suspect arrested
ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 — A Saudi national, believed to be a key suspect in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has been arrested by Pakistani authorities and handed over to investigating agencies in Nairobi.
Pak ‘will not yield to coercive tactics’ on CTBT
ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 — Pakistan has said it can’t be coerced into signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty even as it readies for a decisive round of talks with the USA later this month on the twin issues of nuclear non-proliferation and economic sanctions. Meanwhile, its former spymaster, Gen Hamid Gul, has revealed that his country had acquired capability to detonate nuclear devices as early as 1984.
Clinton may deny perjury
WASHINGTON, Aug 16 — US President Bill Clinton’s lawyers believe he has decided to change his story about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky and will testify tomorrow that he and the former White House intern engaged in sexual activity, but he will not admit to perjury, reports The Washington Post.
Keep off CIS, Taliban warned
MOSCOW, Aug 16 — Though wary of a military intervention in battle-scarred Afghanistan, Russia has reiterated its commitment to defend the territorial integrity of Commonwealth of Independent States with all its might and would retaliate if the Taliban forces breach the CIS borders.

More MQM men quit Sindh coalition
Break with Sharif’s party imminent

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (PTI) — Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has been left isolated in national politics after the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) virtually broke its alliance with the ruling party following large scale violence and arson in Karachi in which eight persons were killed.

The Speaker of Sindh Assembly, Nawab Mirza, and state Transport Minister, Mr Bashir Ahmed Farooq, both belonging to the MQM, resigned yesterday citing personal reasons, thus signalling a break in the alliance between the MQM and PML, media reports said.

The resignation came following the announcement made by the MQM Deputy Convener, Senator Aftab Sheikh, on Thursday that the party had decided in principle to part ways with the government at the federal and provincial level as killings of its workers had not stopped in Karachi.

Only two days ago MQM’s Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Minister for Production and Industries in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Cabinet, had submitted his resignation.

Though the MQM is yet to make a formal announcement of break-up of its alliance with the PML, observers believe that if the party, led by self-exiled Mohajir supremo, Altaf Hussain, withdraws support to the PML-led Sindh Government, there is every likelihood of imposition of Governor’s Rule as the government would not be able to survive without the MQM’s support.

The sudden escalation of violence in Karachi following the killing of more than 10 MQM activists last week led to the party giving a call for observing yesterday as a day of mourning.

The city wore a deserted look during the day as agitators forced shopkeepers to down shutters and torched shops and vehicles resulting in the arrest of more than 150 MQM activists.

That strained relations between the PML and MQM had almost reached a stage of no return was apparent from Mr Aftab Sheikh’s allegations today that “instead of arresting culprits and criminals the law-enforcers have arrested innocent MQM activists”.

With the virtual parting of ways between PML and MQM, Sharif’s 19-month-old government has been completely isolated as all its alliance partners have now broken their alliance with the ruling party.

The Awami National Party (ANP) in North-West Frontier Province had broken its alliance with the ruling party early this year following differences over renaming of the province.

Though the PML still enjoys a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly with 142 members and some other supporters but the number of Opposition members has risen from 18 to 50 over a period of 19 months, which is considered alarming by the political observers.

ANI adds: In the meantime, expressing concern at MQM’s decision to quit the federal government, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has decided to visit Karachi tomorrow to iron out differences with the MQM leadership.

Sources close to Mr Sharif said the Prime Minister had directed a ministerial committee to immediately contact the MQM leadership and bring it back into the federal government.

The sources said that a three-member committee, headed by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan comprising Interior Minister Shujaat Hussain and Minister for Kashmir Affairs Majid Malik, would contact the MQM leadership to remove their grievances.

The MQM has told the federal authorities that unless it assures them that those people patronising the other party faction (Haqqiqi) stop their activities, there cannot be any reconciliation with Mr Sharif’s PML.

Meanwhile, it has been reliably learnt that the PPP and the Awami National Party have decided to formally contact the MQM leadership and invite the party to join a grand alliance against the government. Sources said that efforts were being made to arrange a meeting between the PPP-ANP combine and the MQM leaders both in Karachi and London.

They also said Mrs Benazir Bhutto and ANP president Ajmal Khattak had received signals from the MQM that it would join the Opposition alliance as it had lost confidence in the government’s ability to redress its grievances.

The MQM leadership has not reacted favourably to the Prime Minister’s planned visit to Karachi, saying that it is sceptical about its grievances being resolved by the Prime Minister.

Bomb blast may wreck peace treaty

OMAGH (Northern Ireland), Aug 16 (Reuters) — The toll in Northern Ireland’s worst guerrilla attack rose to 28 today and some 200 were injured by the huge bomb that devastated a busy shopping street and threatened the peace process.

The police said the bombers ensured the big toll in Omagh, a small town some 80 km west of Belfast, by giving a false warning which deliberately pointed the victims towards the device.

The bomb, which some witnesses said, was hidden in a car, caused massive damage as it ripped through crowded ranks of shoppers last afternoon.

The youngest victim was just 18 months old and a pregnant woman also died. The police said some of the wounded were children who had to have limbs amputated.

British radio and television said the toll this morning stood at 28 with more than 200 injured. “Those who planted this device were intent on taking life....This was bloody murder,” Northern Ireland police chief Ronnie Flanagan told reporters amid the blood-stained rubble.

Amateur video footage shot just after the blast showed hundreds of people, many of them streaming with blood, staggering through the wrecked street where the bomb went off. Screams could be heard from the wounded.

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair cut short a trip to France today to travel to Northern Ireland where a car bomb blast killed many people, seriously jeopardising a recently signed peace treaty.

The local authorities feared the toll might go up as many of those injured were in a critical condition.

Premier Blair dashed to Belfast for talks with “politicians from all sides”, in a bid to salvage the recent treaty, that had brought a short-lived period of calm to the troubled region.

“This is an act of savagery aimed at wrecking the peace process,” Mr Blair said in France and vowed to bring the those responsible for the act to book.

The dead in the worst-ever incident in three decades, included both Catholics and Protestants, whose animosity towards each other has kept the picturesque region trapped in an endless cycle of violence.

The local authorities said the blast is believed to be the work of the “real” IRA, a splinter group of the IRA, fighting for an independent Northern Ireland.

The IRA, has refused to hand over arms despite a ceasefire and opposed the treaty that has brought the opposing Ulster Union and Sinn Fein together to govern the troubled province.

Foreigners flee Kinshasa

HARARE, Aug 16 (ANI) — Hordes of foreign nationals are leaving the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a rebel outfit has threatened to attack the city.

Reports from Kinshasa said about 180 Belgians left the city by plane yesterday and a large number of foreign nationals crossed the Congo river by ferry. This was the first part of a French-organised shuttle to Brazzaville, it added. Another further flight organised by Belgium was planned for today.

French diplomats said about 700 foreign nationals had registered to leave as part of their operation.

Meanwhile, President Laurent Kabila was in the southern city of Lumumbashi with many officials as he was locked in a fight against a Tutsi-led revolt.

Mr Kabila’s political chief of staff Abdoulaye Yerodia told state television in an interview that he was perplexed looking at the exodus of foreign nationals. He compared it to “rats leaving a sinking ship”.

The US State Department said it had suspended its operations at its Kinshasa embassy and its staff were leaving. On Friday, Washington flew out 130 foreign nationals which included 50 Americans. The hasty departure was linked to the aftermath of this month’s bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Mr Kabila’s Information Minister Didier Mumengi rejected rebel claims that they were poised to march on the capital, adding that they were not fighting against an organised army.

The latest revolt started on August 2 after Mr Kabila asked all remaining Rwandan soldiers to leave. The revolt is led by soldiers from Congo’s ethnic Tutsi minority. The President accuses Rwanda and Uganda of helping the rebels after they had policy differences on restoring stability in the region.

Nairobi blasts suspect arrested

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (PTI) — A Saudi national, believed to be a key suspect in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has been arrested by Pakistani authorities and handed over to investigating agencies in Nairobi, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said today.

“We confirm the arrest’’ of Sadiq Howaida, a Saudi national, the foreign office said in a statement, adding the 32-year old suspect was taken into custody at Karachi airport shortly after arrival from Nairobi on August 7 enroute to Afghanistan.

The suspect has been sent back to Nairobi and handed over to Kenyan authorities for appropriate action under their laws after agencies concerned interrogated him and were satisfied about his involvement in the bombings, the statement said.

NEW YORK: US law enforcement officials have obtained information tentatively linking an associate of wealthy Saudi- born businessman Osama Bin Laden with the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, media reports said on Sunday.

The officials did not give the exact nature of evidence but reports have quoted a witness in Kenya identifying an associate of Bin Laden as having been in the truck carrying the bomb that heavily damaged the embassy.

Another organisation under investigation, according to The Times, is the Islamic Jihad based in Cairo but financed by Bin Laden. US officials, according to The Times, believe that Bin Laden’s network is one that has the financial resources and organisational skills for such coordinated and sophisticated attacks as witnessed in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam.

Pak ‘will not yield to coercive tactics’ on CTBT

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (PTI) — Pakistan has said it can’t be coerced into signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) even as it readies for a decisive round of talks with the USA later this month on the twin issues of nuclear non-proliferation and economic sanctions.

Announcing that the talks would be held in London on August 25, Minister of State for External Affairs, Muhammad Siddique Kanju said: "Pakistan is very clear on the issue of signing CTBT and any coercive measure cannot detract it from its principled stand."

The talks were earlier scheduled to be held in Washington.

Mr Kanju, who was speaking to newsmen in Lahore yesterday, dismissed reports that Pakistan would be coerced into signing the treaty. "Rest assured that Pakistan is a sovereign and independent state and has every right to guarantee its security."

However, reports from Washington said the USA had made it clear that it will not lift crippling economic sanctions slapped in wake of Pakistan’s tests, unless it signs the CTBT.

A White House spokesman said yesterday that the USA will not be responsible for Islamabad’s economic collapse should the latter not sign the CTBT.

The spokesman expressed the hope that the talks would prove decisive and "after this (round of talks), we will be in a position to say that we have made some real accomplishments."

The talks between Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott will be the fourth round of US-Pak dialogue in the post-blast phase.

Significantly, the London talks will be held two days after Mr Talbott’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Special Emissary Jaswant Singh in Washington.

US expressed serious concerns after the May tests by both South Asian neighbours and has been exerting pressure on both ever since to sign and ratify the CTBT and the NPT.

As part of its efforts to get the two countries to sign global non-proliferation treaties, the USA has held several round of talks with both countries.

Pak ‘could have exploded’ N-bomb in ’84

ISLAMABAD, Aug 16 (UNI) — Pakistan’s former spymaster, Gen Hamid Gul, has revealed that his country had acquired capability to detonate nuclear devices as early as 1984 and the work on digging tunnels for the tests was already in progress in the Chaghai area of Baluchistan taking advantage of the Afghan war.

Gen Hamid Gul, who was removed from the post of ISI chief in 1989 by then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for his unauthorised and miserably failed attempt to topple the Kabul administration that year, admits in a long interview to Urdu daily Jang that Pakistan got its nuclear capability from the blueprintings that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan obtained from Holland.

He said Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto encouraged the nuclear programme and was punished for it. But in 1984 the developments in Afghanistan provided Pakistan an ideal cover to continue this programme and by early 1984 “we had acquired the full nuclear capability and the work on digging the tunnels was already in progress in Chaghai”. Thus the tunnels were ready during Gen Zia-Ul-Haq’s time, he said.

Clinton may deny perjury
Likely to admit sexual activity

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (UNI) — US President Bill Clinton’s lawyers believe he has decided to change his story about his relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky and will testify tomorrow that he and the former White House intern engaged in sexual activity, but he will not admit to perjury, reports The Washington Post.

The daily’s source for the report is a "person who has spoken with the President and his legal team."

As he prepares for tomorrow’s questioning by independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, this person said, the President must confront a painful obstacle: how to explain his behaviour to his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea.

"He has not prepared the family," this person said on Friday, anticipating an agonising weekend for the Clintons. "He has got a lot of work to do with the family."

The First Lady, whose steadfast defence of her husband in January set the tone for his political revival at a moment of peril, is aware that there is significant problem with Clinton’s January testimony in the Paula Jones case and his public denials of a sexual relationship, but she is not fully aware of the details. "She knows but she doesn’t know," the daily quotes the person having said.

It says presidential advisers cautioned that Clinton could change his mind before tomorrow’s testimony, that he is a man given to taking advice right up until the final moment and then altering strategy. But even if he goes ahead with the decision to admit to some kind of sexual activity with Ms Lewinsky, his testimony remains perilous, both legally and politically.

The President and his lawyers hope that Mr Starr would accept a presidential recantation magnanimously, according to this person, but Mr Clinton understands he cannot appear evasive in his closed-circuit television appearance before the grand jury tomorrow.

If Mr Clinton can find the right words and the right tone in his grand jury testimony, the President’s lawyers hope Mr Starr and his deputies will not attempt to humiliate the President with an extended series of intimate questions about his personal behaviour.

"Starr wins," the daily quoted another source with first-hand knowledge of the situation having said of Clinton’s apparent willingness to give ground on the issue of sexual activity. "And we hope he (Starr) wouldn’t feel it necessary to drag the body around the arena."

But Mr Starr’s investigation of perjury involves more than the issue of whether Mr Clinton lied under oath by denying that he and Ms Lewinsky engaged in sexual activity, however defined, in the since-dismissed Jones case. If Mr Clinton acknowledges some kind of sexual relationship with Ms Lewinsky, he would also have to explain many other questionable statements in the deposition, the daily says.

The daily says the independent counsel’s inquiry also focuses on obstruction of justice and suborning perjury by the President and others — areas that always have been considered more serious by the Americans than the issue of the President’s private behaviour.

It is considered unlikely that Mr Starr’s team would be willing to limit the interrogation on those critical issues simply by a Clinton acknowledgement of sexual activity with Ms Lewinsky.

After seven months of shrill, partisan rhetoric designed to discredit Mr Starr’s investigation and a series of White House legal challenges fought all the way to the US Supreme Court, the Clinton intimate clearly intended to extend an olive branch to the independent counsel when he said, "I don’t know that Mr Starr is a bad man. He is a righteous man."

He then spoke respectfully of Mr Starr’s religious convictions and justifiable moral outrage about allegations that the President had behaved improperly with a young subordinate.

Despite publicly charging Mr Starr with illegally leaking grand jury information and just a week ago saying such conduct is "highly unprofessional and utterly indefensible," Mr David E. Kendall, the President’s personal lawyer, also has softened his criticism of Mr Starr in recent private comments to associates, according to knowledgeable sources.

Declaring that Mr Starr is neither a fanatic nor a true believer, Mr Kendall has said thar Mr Starr’s aggressive investigation was perhaps forced on him by the strictures of the Independent Counsel Act. But in making an attempt to reach out to Mr Starr.

Keep off CIS, Taliban warned

MOSCOW, Aug 16 (UNI) — Though wary of a military intervention in battle-scarred Afghanistan, Russia has reiterated its commitment to defend the territorial integrity of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with all its might and would retaliate if the Taliban forces breach the CIS borders.

According to Kremlin sources, President Boris Yeltsin, who is on a vacation in Russian city of Novogorod, had made it clear that Russia would honour its commitment to safeguard the borders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan under the defence treaty existing between some of the former-states of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Russia will retaliate with all might it has, if Taliban forces cross the CIS border, President’s Envoy to CIS Ivan Rybkin was quoted as saying by the Ekho Moskvy radio.

Even while reaffirming its will to retaliate, maximum restraint is the watchword for Russia, which still believes in direct talks between warring factions as the only way out of the Afghan tangle, a Foreign Ministry source said. Moreover, due to its economic problems and painful memories of an earlier foray there, experts and many leaders were against going for another military intervention.

ISLAMABAD: France has showed readiness to work with Pakistan for an early and peaceful settlement in the war-shattered Afghanistan even as Taliban claimed sweeping gains in the north where it was locked in a fierce battle with the forces of northern alliance.

As Islamabad denied allegations that it backed Taliban militia in its recent spectacular advances in the opposition-held areas, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Pakistan was trying to secure the release of Iranian diplomats allegedly held by the purist Islamic movement.

Special French envoy, Pierre Lafrance, arrived here yesterday to discuss with Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz the Afghan situation and handed over a letter from the French Foreign Ministry expressing its desire to work closely with Pakistan in ending bitter conflict in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s Taliban movement yesterday said its fores were consolidating sweeping gains in the north and claimed the overnight capture of a third town in Baghalan province.

The town of Doshi situated close to the crucial Salang tunnel that links the Afghan capital Kabul with the north of the country, was taken yesterday, Taliban officials told the Afghan Islamic Press.

Opposition forces fled the town after brief fighting, the Pakistan-based Information Service quoted Taliban officials as saying.

Revolt against Rabbani
ISLABABAD: Muslim clerics in six districts of Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province revolted against former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and set up a pro-Taliban administration, Taliban officials said. The officials quoted by the private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said on Saturday the revolt was staged by local ulemas (religious scholars) in northern parts of Rabbani’s home province, bordering Tahar province. The ulemas seizing the administration in Ragh, Darwaz Shaghnan, Shahre Buzorg Yuftul-i-Suflae and Baharak districts have declared their allegiance to the Taliban. AIP quoted Islamic militia as saying. — AFP

Sophia in hospital
ROME: Italian movie star Sophia Loren has been ordered a month’s complete rest after being admitted to hospital in New York with a heart condition, her husband producer Carlo Ponti has said. The 63-year-old movie queen of five decades had suffered slight cardio-vascular pain. Ponti told the newspaper Corriere Della Sera. He said on Saturday Loren would have to cancel a date at the Venice film festival on September 3, where she had been scheduled to collect a Golden Lion commemorating her life’s achievements. But she would be “going home as soon as possible.” 84-year Ponti added. — AFP

300 arrested
MOSCOW: The police arrested 300 opposition protesters during a rally in Baku, the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, Russian news agencies reported. They also arrested 10 independent journalists, said national front leader Abulfaz Elcibey, a former President of Azerbaijan, according to ITAR-Tass. A radio liberty reporter was arrested in the city of Gadzha, Itar-Tass said. Interfax said Azerbaijani police blocked Elcibey’s home for more than an hour, trying to prevent him and other opposition activists from attending the protests. — AP

Amputated for graft
BAGHDAD: Six Iraqi soldiers from one of President Saddam Hussein’s elite military units have each had a hand amputated for robbery and corruption, the local paper Babel has said. The punishments were ordered by Mr Saddam’s eldest son, Oday, who is in charge of this elite unit and he is also the director of the newspaper. The paper said that the six men set up a checkpoint in the southern town of Basra and forced passers-by to hand over their belongings and money. — DPA

25 lakh AIDS cases
ADDIS ABABA: AIDS may kill most of Ethiopia’s men under 50 over the next decade unless preventive action is taken. The National HIV/AIDS Control Programme said on Saturday in a statement that almost 25 lakh of the nation’s 5.8 crore people had either developed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or carried HIV, the virus that causes the killer disease. — Reuters

No to bottled drinks
KATHMANDU: Nepal has decided to ban bottled drinks in the Mount Everest region from Monday to keep the area near the world’s highest peak clean and pollution free, an official said. “There are more than 50,000 empty beer and soft drink bottles scattered between Nache Bazaar (in the Everest region) and Everest base camp and inside the Everest National Park”, said Umesh Kumar Singh of the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. “It has become a big headache for the local people and the government to get rid of these empty bottles due to lack of recycling facilities in the Everest region,” he said. — AFP