Nawaz Sharif in USA
WASHINGTON, Dec 2 — Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his 80-member entourage flew into Washington's Andrew's Air Force base this afternoon (2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning IST) for talks with US President Bill Clinton and other senior American official

UK invites Mishra for talks
LONDON, Dec 2 — The British government has invited the chairman of the newly formed Indian National Security Council and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brajesh Mishra for a “comprehensive bilateral dialogue on strategic and security issues”.

Science fiction sets agenda for all
HAVEN’T we already been to the stars, and long ago built the orbiting space station from which men went into deep space? Well, in truth we haven’t done much at all in space so far, and may never do much. But we have been there so many times in fiction that the actual mundane heaving up of the first chunk of an international space station by the Russians last Friday seems a belated thing, like starting a piece of homework assigned years ago.

USA lifts certain sanctions on India, Pak
WASHINGTON, Dec 2 — US President Bill Clinton said he had temporarily waived certain economic sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan after the south Asian countries conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May.

Pleas of Mahtre’s killers rejected
LONDON, Dec 2 — British Home Secretary Jack Straw has rejected pleas to commute the 20-year jail sentences of Riaz Malik and Qayyum Raja convicted of involvement in the assassination of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mahtre.

Pinochet leaves hospital
LONDON, Dec 2 — Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet left a North London psychiatric hospital yesterday, driven away to an undisclosed destination in an ambulance in a convoy headed by police vehicles.

‘Emergency’ in S. Africa
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 — Southern Africa is facing an “unprecedented emergency” as the number of people infected with human immune-deficiency virus climbs at “alarming” rates, the head of the UN AIDS Programme has warned.

Judge cancels arrest warrant
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — The judge in the trial of Malaysia’s ousted Deputy Premier, Anwar Ibrahim, cancelled today a warrant to arrest a lawyer working closely with the defence team after receiving an apology.

China demands fishermen’s release
BEIJING, Dec 2 — Beijing has demanded immediate release of 20 Chinese fishermen and their boats seized by the Philippine navy in the disputed south China sea.

J&K on agenda

Nawaz Sharif in USA

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (ANI) — Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his 80-member entourage flew into Washington's Andrew's Air Force base this afternoon (2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning IST) for talks with US President Bill Clinton and other senior American officials.

On arrival, Mr Sharif said he would address and resolve "the festering dispute of Jammu and Kashmir and seek greater US engagement in South Asia" during his meeting with President Clinton.

The Pakistan Prime Minister said: "Pakistan would welcome mediation by the USA or for that matter mediatory efforts by any other country or international organisation to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute."

He also welcomed Mr Clinton's decision to partially lift sanctions. which "we believe, were unjustifiably imposed on Pakistan since India's nuclear blasts had left us with no other option but to conduct our own tests."

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the USA Riaz Khokhar said that the Nawaz Sharif government had received part payment of $ 235 million against the refund of F-16s money owed to Islamabad.

Talking to mediapersons shortly before Mr Sharif’s arrival here, he said the payment had been made through cheques and he hoped the remaining amount of over half-a-billion dollars would be paid soon.

Mr Khokhar’s statement has been interpreted by experts here to mean that Pakistan may not file a court case against the USA for the recovery of $ 658 million already paid.

Mr Khokhar told mediapersons that the meeting between Mr Sharif and President Clinton would be a "crucial one for both countries."

Nuclear non-proliferation and peace and stability would be at the top of the agenda of the two-hour meeting. Four US secretaries and top Pakistani officials would be present.

Mr Sharif is expected to tell President Clinton that without the resolution of the 50-year-old Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, the security situation in the sub-continent would remain precarious.

Ambassador Khokhar again asserted that Pakistan would not sign the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) during the visit.

He said Mr Sharif would also meet heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

UK invites Mishra for talks

LONDON, Dec 2 (PTI) — The British government has invited the chairman of the newly formed Indian National Security Council and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Brajesh Mishra for a “comprehensive bilateral dialogue on strategic and security issues”.

“The dialogue is to take place soon”, the new Indian High Commissioner, Lalit Mansingh told the “Curry Club” luncheon meeting of the Indo-British parliamentarians here yesterday.

This would be the second major meeting between officials of the United Kingdom and India, after the Pokhran nuclear tests.

Mansingh told the British parliamentarians that India had opened a dialogue on the nuclear issue with it’s key interlocutors, the United States of America, Russia and France.

“As a result of our dialogue with these countries, our security concerns and security compulsions behind conducting the nuclear tests are now better understood by them,” he said.

Mr Mansingh also sought British support for removal of restrictions on project assistance to India by multilateral agencies saying this had adversely affected socio-economic development in India.

He also briefed the parliamentarians on the Kashmir issue, explaining the extent of Pakistan involvement in terrorism in the valley, particularly, the new dimension added with the pushing in of mercenaries from ISI-run international terrorism schools.

Science fiction sets agenda for all
From Martin Wollacott in London

HAVEN’T we already been to the stars, and long ago built the orbiting space station from which men went into deep space? Well, in truth we haven’t done much at all in space so far, and may never do much. But we have been there so many times in fiction that the actual mundane heaving up of the first chunk of an international space station by the Russians last Friday seems a belated thing, like starting a piece of homework assigned years ago.

The sense that we are badly behind on these projects, the odd feeling that they should already have happened, is a function of the way in which the scientific romance has pushed its way to the decision-making centre in Western societies.

Thirty years ago we saw, just as an aside in the film, American and Russian cosmonauts cooperating in Stanley Kubrick’s and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001. It was a heartening glimpse of a time after the Cold War, and it has come to pass. Of course, in the world as it has developed, the Russian partner is flagging, with Moscow’s space technology in debt and disarray. Yet the power of those early images of Americans and Soviets working together in space was surely an element in the slow working out of detente between the superpowers.

For better and for worse, science fiction has set an agenda which influences everybody from politicians and painters to cultists in Japan and militia maniacs in the American Midwest. The simple fact that the popular name for a great programme of military spending was drawn from the world of science fiction tells volumes. The Strategic Defence Initiative, or Star Wars, is still with us, if in curtailed form. It came off the pages of a certain kind of Right-wing science fiction and out of the video-game arcade as much as it did from the scientific journals.

Certainly, careful forecasting by scientists of scientific possibilities sets targets. But it is overlapped by the less than purely rational wishes and speculation of a science fiction written by authors for whom ‘’science’’ is only one source of inspiration. These wishes shape popular attitudes, and therefore influence politics, and hence contribute to the making of policy. With a politician like Newt Gingrich, the science fiction and the policy-making, or would-be policy making, are actually conjoined in one person. It can be argued that there has been an effect of this kind since Wells and Verne and even before them. But that, while true, would be to ignore the enlarged impact of science fiction in more recent years, an impact which has been less studied than it might because of the view that science fiction is “just’’ entertainment. Certainly it is entertainment, but it is bigger and bigger entertainment.

The amount of money being spent on stories of the future is not wholly out of proportion with that being spent on real projects of the future. Science fiction movies like “Independence Day” cost between $70 million and $100 million apiece. Science fiction writer Thomas M. Disch, in “The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of,” a fascinating look at the genre’s larger implications, says that by 1990 a third of Hollywood’s receipts arose from the related categories of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Assuming it reaches completion in 2003, the space station will have cost an estimated $63 billion. Who knows by that time how much money Hollywood will have spent on, and earned from, its own brand of futurology?

The technical revolution in special effects that made the new filmed science fiction possible came late. The curious result is that film audiences are now seeing the science fiction of the sixties, fifties and even forties re-enacted with nineties production values. The dreams of 30 or 40 years ago are being dreamt again, often, but not always, with tongue in cheek.

Tongue in cheek describes some attitudes to the real as well as the fictional. An ironic consciousness of less than scientific ends has been reflected in descriptions of the station programme. A Washington Post report compared it to “the building of the pyramids of Egypt or the great cathedrals of Europe’’, happily suggesting a mainly religious rather than a mainly practical function for a scheme that will cost US taxpayers huge sums.

The title of Disch’s book, in its neat reversal, outlines his theme. This goes beyond the usual observation that science fiction reflects the politics of the times in which it is written, or rehearses options for the future, to argue that it increasingly shapes American life, and by extension, that of the rest of the world. It has affected, he writes, “industrial design . . . military strategy, sexual mores, foreign policy, and practical epistemology — in other words our basic sense of what is real and what isn’t’’.— The Guardian, London

Pleas of Mahtre’s killers rejected

LONDON, Dec 2 (PTI) — British Home Secretary Jack Straw has rejected pleas to commute the 20-year jail sentences of Riaz Malik and Qayyum Raja convicted of involvement in the assassination of Indian diplomat Ravindra Mahtre.

Mr Straw sent a communication to the two prisoners on Monday night in jail informing them that a review petition filed for commuting their 20-year jail sentences had been rejected.

A trial judge had sentenced Raja to 15 years and Malik to 10 years in jail in 1985 for involvement in unlawful detainment and murder of Mahtre, a Birmingham-based Indian diplomat, in 1984.

Later in 1988, then Tory Home Secretary Douglas Hurd, had increased the sentence by another 10 years by using the state’s discretionary powers.

Labour M.P. for Bradford (West) constituency, Marsha Singh had led a campaign by pro-Pakistani organisations to seek commutation of sentences of two accused.

Mr Straw, who came under tremendous pressure, had ordered a review of the sentence.

Reacting to Mr Straw’s decision, Azmat Khan, general secretary of the JKLF (Yasin) faction said, it is “extremely disappointing to PoK residents here.’’

In a statement, Khan warned “there may be repercussions of this decision.”

Pinochet leaves hospital

LONDON, Dec 2 (AP) — Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet left a North London psychiatric hospital yesterday, driven away to an undisclosed destination in an ambulance in a convoy headed by police vehicles.

The ambulance swept through the gates of Grovelands prior a day after the hospital announced that the 83-year-old General did not need medical care, and demanded that he should leave.

The move by the hospital, where Mr Pinochet has been since October 29, dealt a blow to any plan he had to plead he is too ill to be extradited to Spain to stand trial on charges of genocide and torture.

“Demonstrators chanted we want justice,’’ as the ambulance went past. Chilean diplomatic vehicles followed with armed police at the rear.

There was no immediate word on where Mr Pinochet was headed. Supporters have been looking for a house where he can wait in comfort to learn whether the British Government will agree to extradition.

There was speculation he would head to a nine-bedroom home on a luxurious estate, in Surrey, near the Wentworth Golf Club, home of the European golf tour, about 30 km west of Central London. If Home Secretary Jack Straw, who must rule by December 11, allows extradition proceedings to begin, Pinochet will likely be in Britain for months fighting his case through the courts.

USA lifts certain sanctions on India, Pak

WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) — US President Bill Clinton said he had temporarily waived certain economic sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan after the south Asian countries conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May.

The step, which was expected, will permit US commercial banks as well as the US Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp and the Trade Development Agency to resume lending to India and Pakistan till October 21, 1999.

The move, announced on the eve of a visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the USA also paves the way for the International Monetary Fund to resume payments on a $ 1.56 billion loan to Islamabad suspended after the nuclear tests.

A US official said Clinton’s action reflected progress in US negotiations with India and Pakistan aimed at restraining their nuclear programmes, restricting their nuclear and missile exports and generally reducing tensions in south Asia.

"There has been progress and we are encouraged that both countries are taking steps to move away from an arms race in south Asia," said the US official, who asked not to be named.

Clinton’s decision yesterday took the form of a memorandum to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that was made public by the White House.

His move would also allow military officers from the two countries to receive training in the USA.

Sanctions against military sales, however, remain in place.

A senior US official said in early November that Clinton had decided to waive the sanctions under the new congressional authority because of movement by India and Pakistan on arms issues.

Washington is pressing the two to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), to agree not to deploy nuclear-capable missiles and aircraft, and to tighten their export controls on nuclear and missile technology.

In September, both countries indicated a "willingness" to sign the CTBT. Pakistan made this conditional on the waiving of the sanctions and the ending of a freeze on loans by international financial institutions.

In his letter to Albright yesterday, Clinton said that his waiver would also allow international institutions to lend money to Pakistan in connection with the IMF package.

The IMF last week said that it had reached an agreement with Pakistan to reactivate its frozen $ 1.56 billion loan, which may open the door to a larger package of aid and debt relief.

‘Emergency’ in S. Africa

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 (AFP) — Southern Africa is facing an “unprecedented emergency” as the number of people infected with human immune-deficiency virus (HIV) climbs at “alarming” rates, the head of the UN AIDS Programme has warned.

This year 1.4 million people aged between 15 and 49 were infected with HIV, the precursor to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), in the nine countries which make up southern Africa, said Peter Piot, from the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Just over half of these infections were in South Africa alone, he said at a media conference yesterday.

Piot said the four worst-affected countries in the region were Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, where between 20 and 26 per cent of people aged from 15 to 49 were living with HIV or AIDS.

Judge cancels arrest warrant

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 (AFP) — The judge in the trial of Malaysia’s ousted Deputy Premier, Anwar Ibrahim, cancelled today a warrant to arrest a lawyer working closely with the defence team after receiving an apology.

Justice Augustine Paul had issued a warrant for the arrest of Manjeet Singh Dhillion yesterday after sentencing Anwar’s defence counsel, Zainur Zakaria, to three months in jail for contempt.

Zainur, who refused to apologise for a court application which contained a statutory declaration by Manjeet, has won an interim stay until Friday.

Although Manjeet is not directly involved in Anwar’s case he has been working closely with the nine-member defence team.

“I accept his apologies and cancel the warrant of arrest,” Justice Paul told the court.

China demands fishermen’s release

BEIJING, Dec 2 (PTI) — Beijing has demanded immediate release of 20 Chinese fishermen and their boats seized by the Philippine navy in the disputed south China sea.

“We urge the Philippines to immediately release the fishermen and take effective measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Tang Guoqiang told reporters here yesterday.

The latest incident occurred soon after Beijing and Manila traded accusations over a south China sea reef located in the disputed Spratly islands.

The Philippines accused China of a military buildup on Mischief reef and have demanded that China dismantle all structures on the reef.

Turner Prize winner
LONDON: Chris Ofili, notorious for incorporating lumps of elephant dung in his paintings, has been awarded this year’s Turner Prize, the most high-profile award of the contemporary art year. Ofili (30) from Manchester, who was awarded the prize on Tuesday is the first painter to win the prize for at least 12 years. He mixes hip hop, pornographic and biblical references in his multi-layered and detailed work, which incorporates balls of elephant dung in every painting. If they are not stuck to the canvas, the lacquered, fist-sized balls support each painting’s lower edge as they are propped on the floor. The Turner Prize, open to British artists under 50 exhibiting during the previous 12 months, carries a £ 20,000 ($ 33,000) cash award. — (AP)

Pak hikes GST
ISLAMABAD: Contrary to earlier denials that it has not accepted any conditionality for the economic bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif government on Tuesday hiked the General Sales Tax (GST) to 15 per cent as part of an IMF agreement. The GST was increased from the existing 12.5 per cent to the 15 per cent through promulgation of a presidential ordinance as the government had agreed to enhance the rate of Sales Tax during the talks with the IMF to reach an agreement on financial package of $ 5.5 billion US package, the official APP news agency said. — (PTI)

Plea against Zardari
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has moved the Sindh High Court against the bail of Asif Zardari, spouse of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, allaying fears that he might escape from the country. The special public prosecutor pleaded in his application that Zardari would escape as a couple of senior police officers connected with the case were already absconding. Zardari was arrested immediately after the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto government in early November 1996 for his alleged involvement in the killing of Bhutto’s brother, Murtaza Bhutto. — (PTI)

India, Qatar pact
DUBAI: India and Qatar have signed a draft agreement on bilateral promotion and protection according the most favoured nation (MFN) status to investment from either country. The agreement was signed on Monday in Doha by Director, Ministry of Finance Rahul Bhatnagar and Director, Ministry of Finance, Economy and Commerce of Qatar Ali Hasan Al Khalaf after three days of negotiations. The agreement providing national treatment and MFN status to investment from either country is likely to encourage and create favourable conditions for investors from both countries.— (PTI)

Hindu properties
DHAKA: Bangladesh has decided to repeal a law that empowered the government to take over the property left by minority Hindus in the country after the 1947 partition of India, a newspaper said on Tuesday. “The Awami League government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is going to redeem one of its main election pledges by deciding to repeal the Enemy (vested) Property Act,” Minister of State for Land Rashed Hosharaf told the “Bhorer Kagog”. Describing the act as “black law”, the Minister, however, did not give any details regarding its implementation. Under the rules, the properties of a section of minority community (Hindus) who left the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after 1947 were declared as enemy property and were vested with the government.— (PTI)