• No Berlin wall: Arafat

Jail reprieve for Anwar’s counsel
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 — A defence counsel of ousted Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim won a last-minute reprieve against a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court today, as hundreds of lawyers descended on the main courthouse.

LAHORE: Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (centre) and fellow Opposition leaders Tahirul Qadri (left) and Hamid Nasir Chattha discuss strategy during a meeting of the Pakistan National Alliance in Lahore on Sunday. Bhutto and other leaders formed an alliance to overthrow Premier Nawaz Sharif's government. — AP/PTI

Begin talks with ‘Tigers’: UNP
COLOMBO, Nov 30 — Sri Lanka’s main Opposition United National Party (UNP) has urged the government to respond positively to LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran’s call for unconditional peace talks through a third-party mediation.

Iran warns Taliban
TEHERAN, Nov 30 — Iran has issued new warnings to the Taliban militia to arrest and punish the killers of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan in August and start peace talks with other Afghan factions.

Laden’s base in Albania
LONDON, Nov 30 — The man accused of masterminding the US embassy bombings in Africa, operates a terrorist network out of Albania that has infiltrated other parts of Europe, the Sunday Times reported.

Iraq may buy missile parts from Romania
WASHINGTON, Nov 30 — Iraq tried to buy missile guidance systems from Romania earlier this year, a clear violation of a pledge to the United Nations to disarm, CNN has reported.

No Israeli pullout from S. Lebanon

BEIRUT, Nov 30 (DPA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon following a flurry of Hezbollah attacks against Israeli forces in the border zone.

The Jewish state’s warplanes have raided suspected pro-Iranian guerrilla bases in southern Lebanon, Lebanese police sources said.

Two Israeli jets yesterday fired two missiles on a valley between Touline and Kabrikha, at the edge of Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone, the sources said. There was no immediate word on casualties.

The valleys are usually used by Hezbollah guerrillas to sneak into the border zone to attack Israeli outposts inside the buffer zone.

A full-scale debate took place in the government’s security cabinet in Jerusalem over proposals by Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon to pull out gradually provided the guerrillas let up the attacks.

Ministers heard the unanimous view of security chiefs opposing a pullout and decided that cabinet members should visit the zone themselves to gain first-hand impressions before a decision was made, according to Israeli television reports.

Mr Netanyahu yesterday rejected the calls for a pullout, saying Israeli soldiers would remain in south Lebanon until an arrangement could be found which would guarantee the security of Israel’s northern border.

“I think we have to understand our main aim is the protection of northern Israel. We are looking for an agreement in which we can achieve this aim without being in Lebanon,” Mr Netanyahu told reporters on a tour of the northern border.

The Premier was speaking after seven Israeli soldiers were killed by pro-Iranian Hezbollah guerrillas in the border zone over the past week and a half.

“As long as we have no way of leaving Lebanon as part of an arrangement which will guarantee the security of northern Israel and we remain in south Lebanon, our main aim is to protect Israeli soldiers,” Mr Netanyahu said.

Several Israeli cabinet ministers were reported to favour Israeli attacks against Lebanon’s infrastructure as a means of forcing Beirut to curb Hezbollah.

David Sharrock of The Guardian adds from Jerusalem:

Israeli warplanes and artillery blasted suspected Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon yesterday as the Israeli Cabinet reviewed ways to respond to a mounting death toll among its soldiers inside its self-declared security zone.

The 12-member Cabinet security committee was meeting after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from visiting wounded soldiers in the north of the country.

Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon has proposed a phased withdrawal from southern Lebanon, which Israel has occupied since 1978, with the proviso that if Hezbollah attacked there would be punitive counter-raids. He has the support of at least two ministers, according to Hebrew-language newspapers yesterday but the military leadership is opposed to such a course of action. Public opinion is swinging further away from staying in southern Lebanon.

“Israel wants peace negotiations with Syria ... but we cannot link negotiations with Syria with what is happening in Lebanon,’’ said Mr Sharon.

Damascus, which wants to regain the strategic Golan Heights that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, has little interest in reducing pressure on Israeli forces in Lebanon by reining in the Hezbollah.

Facing a possible escalation of violence on the last active Israeli-Arab battlefront, the USA urged Israel and Lebanon “to show maximum restraint”, a senior US diplomatic source in Israel said.

No Berlin wall: Arafat

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (AFP) — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has vowed there will be no “Berlin wall” dividing east Jerusalem, which will be the capital of an independent Palestine, from the western part of the city under Israeli control.

Mr Arafat, addressing the Arab American Institute here yesterday, reiterated his intention to proclaim an independent Palestinian state on May 4, the end of a five-year interim period under the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The Palestinians want to locate their capital in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 West Asia war.

Meanwhile, during a session with US Commerce Secretary William Daley and some 15 US business executives, Mr Arafat said he would champion the private sector in territories under the Palestinian Authorities control.

Jail reprieve for Anwar’s counsel

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 (AFP) — A defence counsel of ousted Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim won a last-minute reprieve against a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court today, as hundreds of lawyers descended on the main courthouse.

“We want justice,” the lawyers and family members shouted as Anwar’s defence counsel, Zainur Zakaria emerged from the court building, visibly shaken but still smiling after a day of drama.

After handing down the jail sentence earlier, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Augustine Paul, ordered Zainur to surrender in court.

But court of appeal president Lamin Yunus granted an interim stay of execution against the sentence pending a hearing set for Friday afternoon, said Pawancheek Merican, another member of Anwar’s defence team.

He told reporters that bail for Zainur had been set at 10,000 ringgit ($2,600).

Zainur had been sentenced by the judge after refusing to apologise for allegations that prosecutors tried to fabricate evidence against Anwar contained in a court application he filed on Saturday on behalf of the ousted Deputy Premier.

Earlier, the judge ordered defence lawyer jailed for three months for contempt of court.

At issue was an affidavit by Anwar accusing the prosecution of trying to obtain false testimony.

Mr Justice Augustine also issued a warrant for the arrest of lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon, representing a businessman friend of Anwar’s being tried in a separate case over ammunition.

Both Zainur and Manjeet are former heads of the Malaysian Bar Council.

The judge’s shock moves pushed aside examination of the corruption and sodomy charges which Anwar faces in his trial, at the centre of Malaysia’s simmering civil unrest.

In the affidavit, filed by Zainur at the high court on Saturday, Anwar accused prosecutors of trying to get the friend, Nallakarruppan Solaimalai, to fabricate evidence of sex crimes by him.

The affidavit cited a letter from Manjeet to Attorney- General Mohtar Abdullah, dated October 12 and accusing the chief prosecutor in the Anwar trial, Abdul Gani Patail, of seeking Nallakarruppan’s testimony against Anwar in exchange for a lesser arms charge against the businessman.

Justice Augustine ordered Zainur jailed after the lawyer said he would not apologise for filing the affidavit.

Begin talks with ‘Tigers’: UNP

COLOMBO, Nov 30 (PTI) — Sri Lanka’s main Opposition United National Party (UNP) has urged the government to respond positively to LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran’s call for unconditional peace talks through a third-party mediation.

Describing Prabhakaran’s latest appeal for negotiations as a “significant and positive development”, former Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickramasinghe told reporters here last night that the government had no alternative but to talk to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end the more-than-two-decade-old ethnic crisis in the island nation.

The UNP, which holds the balance of power in Parliament and has been advocating negotiations with the Tamil rebels for some time, said the government should drop the conditions put forward by it and begin preliminary talks.

Mr Wickramasinghe said by making the unconditional peace offer, Prabhakaran had wrested the political initiative from the government.

Hun Sen coalition wins trust vote

PHNOM PENH, Nov 30 (ANI) — Cambodia’s National Assembly today passed a confidence motion by 99-13 in favour of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his new coalition government.

Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and Ranariddh’s Funcinpec together have 107 assembly members.

Assembly officials said 13 members including opposition leader Sam Rainsey voted against the motion, while three members abstained. One vote was invalid.

Shortly after the vote, Mr Hun Sen told the House that Cambodia would be seeking to regain its seat at the United Nations and secure membership in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Reading out his 19-page policy plan promising broad fiscal reform and a revamp of government’s revenue collection, Mr Hun Sen said: “I would like to appeal to all friendly countries of ASEAN that Cambodia intends to occupy its seat in order to complete the formula of 10.”

Cambodia’s membership of the nine-member ASEAN was postponed last year after Mr Hun Sen ousted his then senior co-Premier Ranariddh. Its seat at the United Nations was also left vacant.

Finance Minister Keat Chhon and Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh have retained their portfolios while CPP’s Hor Nam Hong has been appointed as Foreign Minister in the new Cabinet.

Economists and analysis believe that the new government faces many challenges. In order to give a good governance to 11 million Cambodians, the government would need to cut military spending and channelise resources into health, education and agriculture, they said.

Cambodia spends up to 50 per cent of its annual budget on security. Analysts believe that with the virtual demise of the Khmer Rouge, the new coalition would now get a golden opportunity to redirect public funds.

Iran warns Taliban

TEHERAN, Nov 30 (AFP) — Iran has issued new warnings to the Taliban militia to arrest and punish the killers of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan in August and start peace talks with other Afghan factions.

“Taliban must respond to the rest of our demands by yielding to international decisions” on Afghanistan, said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi.

“Taliban must learn to take responsibility for its violations of international regulations or face the consequences of its actions,” he told the official Iranian news agency IRNA yesterday.

Asefi said Iran’s “firm policies forced the Taliban to meet many of Iran’s demands”, including returning the bodies of nine diplomats and a journalist killed in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif by Taliban militiamen on August 8 and the release of Iranian prisoners last month.

“With this understanding, now too, they must meet our other demands and arrest and punish the killers,” he said.

The spokesman also reiterated repeated calls by Teheran for a broad-based government in Afghanistan including all ethnic groups in Afghanistan and a peaceful end to the Afghan conflict.

Laden’s base in Albania

LONDON, Nov 30 (AP) — The man accused of masterminding the US embassy bombings in Africa, operates a terrorist network out of Albania that has infiltrated other parts of Europe, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper quoted Mr Fatos Klosi, head of the Albanian Intelligence Service, as saying that a network run by the Saudi exile, Osama bin Laden, sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Mr Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. The Interpol believes more than 100,000 blank Albanian passports were stolen in riots last year.

Iraq may buy missile parts from Romania

WASHINGTON, Nov 30 (AFP) — Iraq tried to buy missile guidance systems from Romania earlier this year, a clear violation of a pledge to the United Nations to disarm, CNN has reported.

The sophisticated guidance systems could be placed on long-range Iraqi ballistic missiles and threaten nations in the region as far away as Israel, CNN reported yesterday.

In May, senior Iraqi officials in the missile programme travelled to Bucharest and tried to buy the guidance systems from former Romanian aerospace officials.

The negotiations — monitored by the Intelligence Services of the United States, Romania and Israel — fell through after a full week of talks.

Mr Scott Ridder, a former US member of UNSCOM, the UN team charged with verifying Iraq’s disarmament, was one of the main sources of the CNN story.

15 miners killed
JAKARTA: Fifteen Indonesian illegal gold miners were killed after they were buried alive when a tunnel they were digging collapsed, reports said on Monday. The tunnel dug by the miners in an unexploited gold mine owned by the state-run PT Aneka Tambang in west Java caved in on Saturday trapping 30 inside, the Kompas daily reported. The report said 14 of the illegal miners managed to save themselves after the collapse of the tunnel. — AFP

Arrow missile
JERUSALEM: The first operational Arrow anti-ballistic missile has rolled off the assembly line at Israel Aircraft Industries. Israel TV said the missile, part of a jointly funded Israel-US defence project, would be used for further testing. An Israeli test of the Arrow in September was successful. The entire project is expected to be fully operational by mid-1999. The defence establishment will not sell the Arrow until all tests are completed, Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai said at the ceremony at Israel Aircraft Industries on Sunday. — AP

Swiss reject move
ZURICH: Swiss voters have rejected by a thumping 3-1 margin a sweeping proposal to legalise narcotics that backers said would eliminate the drugs mafia but critics said would make Switzerland a drugs haven. The plan would have made Switzerland the only country in the world where anyone aged 18 or older could buy narcotics of their choice, from marijuana to heroin, from state-run outlets or pharmacies after consulting a physician. The proposal had been widely expected to fail, but the drubbing that voters administered at the polls yesterday disappointed organisers who were hoping a sizeable minority would support making the liberal Swiss drugs policy even more tolerant. — Reuters

Jagger to divorce
LONDON: Jerry Hall, the wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, will demand a divorce after reports in the British tabloid Press alleging he cheated on her with a Brazilian model, one of her lawyers told the British newspaper Sunday Mirror. “Jerry and Mick will be getting divorced and it will be pretty nasty,” American lawyer Raoul Felder told the newspaper. “Jerry would get a better deal in America, but I’m afraid the case may have to go ahead in Britain,” he said. The Sunday Mirror said Hall, who has had four children with Jagger, will ask for half his estimated 140 million pound (232 million dollar) fortune. — AFP

Lebanese PM’s refusal
BEIRUT: Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has turned down an offer by new President Emile Lahoud who asked him to form a new government, sources close to Mr Hariri have said. Just five days after taking over as President, Mr Lahoud found himself mired in difficulties with his acting Prime Minister, who delayed the formation of a new government after failing to get the strong backing he had expected from Parliament. — AFP

Safety steps lacking
SLAVUTYCH (Ukraine): Crucial safety measures are still lacking at the leaking and crumbling site of the catastrophic 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident and remedial action is urgently needed. Valentin Kupny, head of the group responsible for the concrete sarcophagus which was hastily put over Chernobyl’s fourth reactor said basic infrastructure was not at an adequate standard. This included health and safety centres, and security checks to make sure nothing dangerous was stolen from the site, he said. — Reuters

Clinics’ closure
BEIJING: Authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou have issued orders for the closure of 574 medical agencies and clinics, official media said on Monday. Recent investigations showed that hundreds of clinics had hired unqualified doctors and peddled fake medicines for a profit, the China daily said. The closures come as concern mounts about the availability of quality health care as the government struggles to reform the old, socialist-style welfare system. — AFP