Women engage in combat
WASHINGTON, Dec 25 — For the first time, women in US forces have been engaged in combat.

Arab League calls emergency meeting
DUBAI, Dec 25 — The Arab League has called an emergency meeting of Foreign Ministers of member countries, including Iraq, next week to discuss Yemen’s request for a summit on the US-British strikes against Baghdad.

Russia, Belarus to form union

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (PTI) — Russia and Belarus today signed a declaration to set up a common union state next year in a move which is being described here as Moscow’s effort to firm up its base in the world scenario following the recent US missile strikes on Iraq.

The declaration signed by Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Alexander Lukoshenko of Belarus in the Kremlin provides for a referendum in their countries on the formation of a single union state by mid-1999.

Under the union, the two countries will retain their independent statehood and identity on the international scene, the agreement said.

In a simultaneous development, the state Duma ratified with a confidence vote a full-blooded partnership and friendship treaty with Ukraine, the second-most powerful state of the former Soviet Union.

The Russia-Belarus union will have a common currency and common citizenship guaranteeing equal rights to their citizens in each other’s territory.

The joint bodies of the new union elected through ballot will deal with social, economic strategy, foreign policy, defence and security of the union.

Speaking at the Kremlin, Mr Yeltsin and Mr Lukoshenko stressed that the declaration signed by them was the beginning of a new chapter in the mutual relations of the two nations.

With the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) bogged down with internal controversies and failing to launch the process of integration of the territory of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Belarus adopted a fast-track approach towards their integration.

The two countries signed a community treaty in April 1995, which was later developed into common economic space and customs union. However, due to conservative economic policies of Mr Lukoshenko, disliked by the pro-West radical liberals in power in Moscow, most of the intentions till now remained on paper.

The economic meltdown of August and the appointment of Mr Yevgeny Primakov, who declared greater state intervention in economy, as the new Russian Prime Minister, virtually put Moscow and Minsk in the same boat for their survival.

Within the first week of assuming office, Mr Primakov paid a lightning visit to the Belarus capital in September for secret talks with Mr Lukoshenko.

It is not ruled out that the presidency of the new union could go to Mr Yeltsin, who is not eligible for contesting a third term in office in 2000.

The ratification of the “grand” Russian-Ukrainian treaty signed in May last year by Mr Yeltsin and the Ukrainian head of state, Mr Leonid Kuchma, also reflects Moscow’s eagerness to forge a new alliance to counter the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Speaking at the Duma, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov warned Russian nationalists saying that in the absence of the treaty guaranteeing territorial integrity of Ukraine, including its sovereignty on the Sevastopol naval base on the Black Sea, would force Kiev to embrace NATO.

Serbs attack 6 Kosovo villages

PODUJEVO (Yugoslavia), Dec 25 (AP) — Brushing aside NATO and US warnings, Serb tanks and troops struck against a Kosovo Albanian rebel stronghold yesterday, triggering what both sides called fierce fighting and dealing a blow to US-led peace efforts.

In neighbouring Albania, the Foreign Ministry called for NATO to intervene to end the Kosovo drama’’ and bring peace to the Serbian province, where ethnic Albanians form the overwhelming majority.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana told BBC television that the Serb offensive was in clear violation of the commitments’’ undertaken in October by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end eight months of fighting and avoid NATO airstrikes.

Ethnic Albanians said at least one person was killed and several others injured in what they termed a major Serb offensive against six villages near this town, 32 km north of Pristina.

International officials trying to verify compliance with the October agreement estimated the Serbs employed more than 50 vehicles, including T-55 tanks and armoured personnel carriers, in the attack.

Serb officials said the “limited’’ operation was launched in search of killers of a Serb policeman slain in the area on Monday.

In a statement distributed last night by the government’s Tanjug news agency, Serb police said they encountered fierce fire but liquidated several terrorists in the rebel stronghold Lapastica.

In Belgrade, Serbia’s ultra-nationalist Vice-Premier, Vojislav Seselj, said our police must continue to clamp down against the terrorists, referring to the Kosovo Liberation Army.

In a statement issued in the provincial capital Pristina, the KLA stopped short of abrogating the cease-fire it unilaterally proclaimed two months ago. It said, however, the rebels would not sit idly by and would attack with all means available.

In London, a KLA political representative, Pleurat Sejdru, told BBC-TV that the cease-fire did not have any sense to be in place.’’

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians, including women and children, fled the region on foot and by vehicles on snow-covered roads and hills around Podujevo.

Bin Laden admits backing militants

WASHINGTON, Dec 25 (ANI) — Osama bin Laden, the millionaire Saudi dissident, who has been accused of being the mastermind behind the bombing of two US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, has denied that he was involved in the attacks.

In an interview with ABC News yesterday, Bin Laden, however, admitted that he supported people who were behind the bombing and said he held those involved in the attacks “in the highest esteem.”

Renewing his threat against the USA and Israel, Bin Laden said: “We are confident that the Muslims would rid Islamic countries of Americans and Jews”.

According to ABC News, it was for the first time that the Saudi dissident had publicly denied his involvement in the embassies attacks in which over 250 people were killed and more than 5,000 others injured.

The US administration has offered a reward of $ 5 million for information leading to Bin Laden’s arrest who has been charged along with 10 others in a 238-count indictment.

Talking about the US air strikes on his training camps in Afghanistan, the Saudi dissident said he was not there at the time, but added that he had already survived an assassination attempt financed by a Saudi prince.

KARACHI: Sindh Assembly opposition leader and chief of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the province, Mr Nisar Khuhro, accused Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif of signing a $ 10-billion deal with the US Government to arrest Bin Laden and for setting up a puppet government in Afghanistan.

Speaking to party workers at Shafi Goth in Majir district, Mr Khuhro warned that ethnic and sectarian riots could break out in Pakistan if the government attempted to arrest Bin Laden.

The Sindh PPP president termed the Nawaz-US deal as a dangerous conspiracy against the country’s security.

Pacific weather worries balloonists

LONDON, Dec 25 (AP) — Three balloonists streaked across the Pacific Ocean on a jetstream yesterday, hoping to elude a troublesome weather pattern that could threaten their bid to achieve the first non-stop trip around the world in a balloon.

British tycoon Richard Branson, American millionaire Steve Fossett and Per Lindstrand of Sweden were moving at 233 kph, 2,400 km East of Japan, when they soared past the halfway mark on an eastward circuit of the globe that began in Morocco on December 18.

“They are pleased with their progress, but there is still a worry about the weather in the Pacific,” said ground crew spokeswoman Jackie McQuillan in the afternoon.

Ground crew director Mike Kendrick had sounded “a note of concern” in the morning about a high pressure trough developing over the ocean. “We’re not panicking yet,” he said, explaining that if the balloon got into the trough, it could be dragged to a lower altitude and have to ditch in the ocean.

If we fall out of the jetstream into this trough over the Pacific, then there is only one way, and that is back to Hawaii and they are going to go for a swim,” he told Sky TV.

The 83-metre-high hot and helium balloon is flying at about the same altitude as a Jumbo jet and could be visible from the ground if the weather is clear.

The trip is expected to last from eight days to nearly three weeks and finish in Western Europe at the end of a 38,000 km flight.

The team secured permission from 97 countries for overflights and initially had only four refusals - Iran, Iraq, Russia and North Korea.

China had said the balloonists could cross their territory below 26 degrees north latitude. But the trio drifted further north on Monday after navigating around Mediterranean storms and closed airspace over Iraq, Iran and Russia.

With the help of British diplomats, the balloonists won Chinese permission to continue, if they got out of the country as quickly as possible.

N. Korea to launch satellite again

TOKYO, Dec 25 (ANI) — North Korea said today that it was ready to launch another “artificial satellite”, despite international criticism over the previous launch of a projectile across Japan.

“We will exercise our legitimate sovereignty no matter what others may say. We are fully ready to launch an artificial satellite again when we think it necessary,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Earlier, three bodies in military uniform were washed ashore in Japan today prompting the police to investigate the possibility they were North Korean spies from a vessel sunk by South Korean troops last week, officials said.

“The bodies of three men, clad in dark green uniform, were found on the coast of Takahama town, Fukui prefecture,” a spokesman at prefectural police said.

Women engage in combat

WASHINGTON, Dec 25 (PTI) — For the first time, women in US forces have been engaged in combat.

The Pentagon confirmed without much fanfare that some of the women combat pilots aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise participated in the recent US-led air strikes against Iraq.

Of the 12 women combat aviators aboard the Enterprise, three piloted the F/A-18, a fighter bomber. One woman piloted an F-14 Tomcat air-to-air fighter.

Asked about the historical significance of women flying bombers in war, Desert Fox Commander Gen Anthony Zinni said: “So what? If you want a sign of the times, there it is.”

Arab League calls emergency meeting

DUBAI, Dec 25 (PTI) — The Arab League has called an emergency meeting of Foreign Ministers of member countries, including Iraq, next week to discuss Yemen’s request for a summit on the US-British strikes against Baghdad.

The league Secretary-General Esmat Abdel-Meguid said in Cairo that 22 league members had been invited to attend a meeting on Wednesday and again opposed the use of force against Iraq.

The Jordanian Parliament Speaker Abdel Hadi Majali revealed in Amman that Kuwait had refused to attend a meeting of parliamentarians this Sunday to discuss Iraq but did not give any reason for it. So far, only Morocco has agreed to attend the summit.

Iraq had repeatedly expressed dismay over the silence of the Arab world except the UAE during the bombing of Baghdad.

Sentences reversed
NICOSIA: A court of appeals in Turkey has reversed the death sentences on 33 people convicted of killing 37 liberal Muslims in 1993, the official Anatolian news agency said. The court ruled that there were procedural omissions in the sentencing. Thus, all 33 convicts would have to be sentenced again for their role in the killings. The incident took place in 1993 when thousands of rioters attacked a hotel which was hosting a conference attended by Aziz Nesin, publisher of extracts of Salman Rushdie’s controversial book “The Satanic Verses”. — ANI

US space firms
WASHINGTON: Two major American companies involved in passing on dual-use technology to China have allegedly bribed the Chinese Government officials in order to secure lucrative contracts, media reports said. The New York Times quoting the US Administration officials yesterday said that a Chinese-American, Lee, who worked for Hughes Space and Communications and for Loral Space and Communications, had bribed Chinese officials to secure the contracts. — PTI

Dentures also posted
LONDON: A harassed British grandmother was in such a hurry to post her Christmas cards she did not notice that wedged between them were her new false teeth. Postal workers said the 74-year-old woman, who has not been named, appeared at a post office in Witham — North-East of London, asking if anyone had found the £ 170 dentures after she realised she had posted them. “She just came in here and she posted her teeth, so she reckons,” said astonished postman Dave Lee. — Reuters

Rupert Murdoch
ROME: Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is to acquire a stake in the Italian pay television market, Italian TV has reported. An agreement has been signed for Mr Murdoch and the French company, TF1, to jointly acquire an 80 per cent stake in the Italian pay TV company, Stream, the report said on Thursday. Stream’s current owner Telecom Italia, was to retain only a 20 per cent share. — DPA

Monica & confectionery
KIEV (Ukraine): US President Bill Clinton sent a letter of praise a few years ago to Khmelnytsky Candy Factory after tasting its products. On Thursday, the factory returned the favour, naming its newest chocolate confection after Monica Lewinsky, a newspaper reported. “The candy is dedicated to a sad story of love between Bill and Monica,” the chocolate’s designer Oksana Kaduk, told the daily, Den paper. — AP

Rights activist
BEIJING: After swiftly convicting three democracy campaigners, the Chinese authorities will put on trial on Sunday a labour rights activist who tried to set up a group to assist unemployed workers. Zhang Shanguang is accused of endangering state security by passing on intelligence to overseas groups, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement reported on Thursday. — AP