Monday, December 28, 1998
today's calendar
....... |
W O R L D | Monday, December 28, 1998 |
|
| weather n
spotlight today's calendar |
....... |
||
|
Iraqi threat to fire at US
planes Khmer
rebel leaders face trial |
|
|
Another
Chinese rebel sentenced Restraint
marks Mao’s anniversary Octuplets’
father faces trial Arafat
meets Mubarak 121
prisoners escape |
|||||||
  |
||||||||
Iraqi threat to fire at US planes BAGHDAD, Dec 27 (AP) — Iraq will fire on US and British warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones that the USA and its allies imposed after the Gulf War, Iraq’s Vice-President has said. Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan told Qatar’s Al-Jazeera Television yesterday that Iraq would not allow the flights of US and British aircraft in the zones over northern and southern Iraq. “We say frankly now that any violation of Iraqi airspace will be met by Iraqi fire,” Mr Ramadan said. The USA, Britain and France set up the no-fly zones in 1991-92 to halt air attacks against Kurdish rebels in the north and Shiite Muslim rebels in the south. French aircraft no longer take part in enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, but still help to maintain the southern zone. Mr Ramadan, however, seemed unclear about French participation. “It appears, but we cannot confirm it, that France has for sometime not been participating in these sorties,” he said. AMMAN (AFP): Members of Parliament from 16 Arab countries met here today to discuss the situation in Iraq following the air strikes by the USA and Britain. Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan Ibn Talal, in the opening speech to the extraordinary meeting of the Arab Parliamentary Union, expressed “solidarity with the Iraqi people.” Prince Hassan, who is serving as regent as King Hussein is undergoing cancer treatment in the USA, also called for the meeting to be a “success for Iraq rather than serve to provoke others against it and against us.” The prince reiterated Jordan’s opposition to “any call or plan to divide or partition Iraq on geographical or ethnic grounds.” “We do not approve of the balkanisation of the region,” he said. As the prince finished his speech, an Iraqi delegate criticised his appeal to respect human rights in Iraq. “We do not need human rights in Iraq: we need voices condemning the US, aggression against Iraq,” the Iraqi declared from the floor. The meeting opened with a reading from the Koran and a brief speech by the President of the APU, Mr Ahmed Fathi Srour of Egypt. Mr Srour denounced the US-British air strikes on Iraq for its reported refusal to cooperate with UN arms inspectors and noted that they took place “without the green light of the United Nations.” DUBAI (AFP): The US navy is maintaining military operations over Iraq and in the Gulf, the Fifth Fleet spokesman said today after Baghdad warned it would shoot down planes entering its airspace. “USS Carl Vinson continues its operations in the Gulf and to ensure compliance with U.N resolutions,” Commander Gordon Hume said from the fleet headquarters in Bahrain. U.S aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is at the centre of Operation “Southern Watch” enforcing a no-fly zone in southern Iraq. Operations were proceeding smoothly, he said, adding there had been “no incident that I am aware of today.” Washington: US National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said the threat would not compel the USA to change its policy in the region. “We will continue to enforce the no-fly zones in the north and the south,” Mr Crowley said. “Iraq knows that it should not interfere with those flights and our pilots can act in self-defence if they feel threatened at any time.” Mr Crowley said US aircraft had flown over Iraq but reported no incidents of fire directed against them, “Although one aircraft reported anti-aircraft fire well off in the distance.” Defence Department
spokesman Major Paul Phillips said there would be no
change in the pilots’ mission in southern Iraq. |
Another Chinese rebel sentenced BEIJING, Dec 27 (PTI) — A Chinese court today sentenced a fourth dissident to 10 years in prison for letting out state secrets to Radio Free Asia (RFA), media reports said. Zhang Shanguang was sentenced by a court in south China’s Hunan Province for giving interviews to the US government-funded RFA, CNN reported. Zhang, who earlier had spent seven years in prison for campaigning for labour rights, is the fourth dissident given a harsh punishment by a Chinese court in just over a week. The foreign news networks said the court ruled that by disclosing to RFA about farmers’ protests, Zhang violated China’s criminal laws that forbade people to give intelligence to foreigners. The court, however, did not sentence Zhang to death, the maximum penalty prescribed by the crime. Zhang was reportedly
arrested in July this year as he was trying to set up an
organisation to protect laid-off workers’ rights. |
Khmer rebel leaders face trial PHNOM Penh, Dec 27 (ANI) — Cambodia’s two defecting Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, today said that they would not move out of the western town of Pailin till they received guarantee that they would not face an international trial for the genocide masterminded by the Khmer Rouge during its 1975-79 rule over the country. A report from Pailin quoted a senior military commander as saying that both Samphan and Chea were seeking such a guarantee from Prime Minister Hun Sen. The senior army commander was also quoted as saying that officials taking part in the talks in Phnom Penh with Hun Sen,included Pailin Governor Fi Chien and Ieng Vuth, the son of Ieng Sary. Ieng Sary is another former Khmer Rouge leader who defected to the government in 1996 and is the senior figure in Pailin. Meanwhile, Heng Samrin, the Vice-President of the Cambodian National Assembly and a prominent leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), said today that Hun Sen has yet to decide on whether to put Samphan and Chea on trial or to grant them amnesty. “If they want to rejoin society, it’s ok. The government doesn’t forbid that.But it’s up to the courts to decide about their activities,” Samrin was quoted as telling a well-known news agency. He also said that he did not know whether the two might face trial in an international court for crimes against humanity, adding that he would prefer the two rebel leaders being tried in a national court. On the question of
granting amnesty to Samphan and Chea, Samrin said the
government could recommend it, but it would be up to King
Norodom Sihanouk to grant it. |
Restraint marks Mao’s anniversary BEIJING, Dec 27 (PTI) — The 105th birth anniversary of Chairman Mao Zedong passed off as a low key affair with no major official functions or speeches held to laud the contributions made by the revolutionary leader. The low key activities came in the wake of increased criticism of Mao’s policies during the disastrous cultural revolution from 1966 to 1976. The latest criticism on Mao, supreme leader of three decades, has come from none other than Mr Li Peng, number two in the Communist Party hierarchy and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Parliament, National People’s Congress (NPC). “Comrade Mao Zedong has a major responsibility for the serious mistakes of the cultural revolution, which had an impact on the whole country,” Mr Li said recently. The former premier, however, was quick to point out that “taking his (Mao’s) life as a whole, his contributions to China’s revolution far exceeded his errors, and his contribution is the most important.” To mark the birth
anniversary, the state-run media reported only one
official function yesterday in the capital where a CD-ROM
celebrating the life of the late leader was released by
Mr Wei Jianxing, a member of the standing committee of
the Communist Party’s Politburo, China Daily
reported stating that Maoist thought was a “valuable
ideological asset” for the Communist Party of
China”, Mr Li ruled out allowing setting up of more
political parties in China. |
Nirad Chaudhuri’s pen still defies age OXFORD, Dec 27 (AP) — Age is supposed to mellow. But in this, as in everything else, Nirad C. Chaudhuri defies convention. At 101, the historian looks back on his contemporaries in India with disdain, and looks ahead with dismay at the approaching end of the world as we know it. “In 200 to 400 years, earlier rather than later, all civilisation will disappear from the face of this Earth that we categorically know. Completely disappear,’’ he says. Mr Chaudhuri speaks from the perspective of a century of observing what he calls the decay of civilisation. His first book, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian,’’ published at age 54, was hailed as a classic of English letters, even though he had never been outside India. The second volume of autobiography, a 1,000-page tome called Thy Hand, Great Anarch,’’ was completed at age 90. Yet another book, Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse,’’ was written when he was 99. Mr Chaudhuri never enjoyed the acclaim in India that he won in England. He was suspiciously Anglophile. Sometimes called the last British imperialist, he admired Western culture equally with his own. Unlike most Indians of his time, he found much to praise in the 300 years of British colonial rule. He has no kind words for any Indian leader, Even the icons of its history, Mohandas Gandhi was “the world’s most successful humbug,’’ he says, quoting and agreeing with a former colonial ruler. “Mahatma Gandhi did nothing for Indian independence. It was Hitler who broke the back of the British,’’ he says. Today, Mr Chaudhuri’s slurred speech is less distinct than his thoughts, which tumble out in a clutter like the bits and pieces of information scattered in disarray around his small house on a sidestreet of Oxford, where he has lived for three decades. He was controversial from the very first words he published, the dedication of Unknown Indian’’: to the memory of the British empire in India which conferred subjecthood on us but withheld citizenship all that was good and living within us was made, shaped, and quickened by the same British rule.’’ Still angry nearly 50 years later, Mr Chaudhuri says the dedication was misunderstood by these wretched, idiotic, uneducated Indians.’’ It was, in fact, a tongue-in-cheek condemnation of British insensibility. He is no more charitable to his fellow Bengali, Amartya Sen, who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics and who was last year made a master at Trinity College at Cambridge University. It was utterly wrong. Being a Master of Trinity is not merely being a good scholar. One seeks certain other things consistent with an English life. Amartya Sen doesn’t have that.’’ “Unknown Indian’’ begins with a fond description of Kishorganj, a town dominated by its river, where the turning of the seasons was marked by the depth of mud on the road in the monsoons and the height of the dust kicked up by children’s feet in summer. It ends with a penetrating
“Essay on the course of Indian history.’’
written just three years after Independence. He concludes
with the unpopular prediction that India would again fall
under western domination or face national extinction. |
Octuplets’ father faces trial WASHINGTON, Dec 27 (ANI) — Ikye Louis Udobi, father of the world’s only surviving octuplets, would face trial on February 8 on charges of hitting his mother-in-law during a domestic quarrel. Assistant District Attorney Danney Dexter said Udobi could be fined up to $ 4,000 and sentenced to one year in jail, if convicted. The police said Udobi, a respiratory therapist at a Houston hospital, was arrested on September 21 after it was discovered that he assaulted his mother-in-law during a quarrel with his wife. HOUSTON (AFP): Gorom, the youngest of the world’s only living octuplets, underwent abdominal surgery on Saturday to correct an intestinal perforation, Texas Children’s hospital said. Four of the octuplets continue to breathe without mechanical assistance. But Ebuka, the first born of the octuplets and a girl, was placed back on breathing apparatus on Saturday And Odera, the smallest of the octuplets, was in very critical condition, on medication to fight infection and control blood pressure. Ikem, formerly known as
baby, was holding his own after experiencing what the
hospital described as a “serious respiratory
setback” late on Friday. |
Arafat meets Mubarak CAIRO, Dec 27 (DPA) — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held talks with Palestinian authority President Yasser Arafat yesterday on the stalled peace process following Israeli Parliament’s decision to hold early elections next year. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa, who took part in the talks, said that the Israeli Government’s decision to suspend the Wye River Accord until new Israeli elections takes place was “illegal and represent a violation of what was signed” in Washington in November. The Egyptian minister said
that he did not believe that the Israeli right-wing
government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was
planning to implement the Wye Accord anyway. |
121 prisoners escape RIO DE JANEIRO (Brazil), Dec 27 (AP) — Taking advantage of lax holiday vigilance, as many as 121 prisoners escaped from three Sao Paulo police lock-ups Brazilian media has reported. At a police holding cell in the northern part of the city, 89 inmates escaped at dawn through a hole they had pounded through a wall before climbing onto the jail roof and leaping to freedom. At the time not even a single guard was on duty, reported Globo TV news. At the Santa Isabel jail,
22 escaped while 10 more escaped at another police
station, police said. |
| H |
|
||
| UN plane crashes in Angola UNITED NATIONS: A UN aircraft with 14 people on board has reportedly crashed in Angola in an area where the government’s army has been fighting UNITA rebels, a UN spokesman said. There was no word on whether any of the four crew members and ten passengers had survived. There was also no immediate information on the cause of the crash. The Portuguese news agency Lusa said the aircraft burst into flames shortly after take-off on Saturday at noon (1630 IST) from Huambo, some 500 km southeast of the capital Luanda, and crashed 40 km away in Vila Nova. — AP Space shuttle Aum revival Yeltsin on TV Pigeon’s
ransom |
 |
 |
| Nation
| Punjab | Haryana | Himachal Pradesh | Jammu & Kashmir | | Chandigarh | Editorial | Business | Sport | | Mailbag | Spotlight | 50 years of Independence | Weather | | Search | Subscribe | Archive | Suggestion | Home | E-mail | |
