WASHINGTON : House Constitution subcommittee Chairman Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla. (right) talks to Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. on Capitol Hill on Monday, prior to the committee's hearing on impeachment proceedings — AP/PTI

Cloning in dining hall
TSUKUBA, Nov 10 — It is just after feeding time, and two calves are contentedly drinking water from a trough in their nondescript pen, a few stray pieces of hay stuck to their wet, brown noses.

Tibetans 'victims of rights violations'
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 — The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans living in their homeland are victims of human rights violations, because Chinese officials imprison monks and nuns who seek more freedom.

Top French award for Constant
PARIS, Nov 10 — The Goncourt Prize, France’s most prestigious literary award, went to a novel set entirely in the Kansas home of a university professor who attends a feminist colloquium on witches.

Clinton weighs the risks
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 — With President Bill Clinton seriously weighing air strikes on Iraq, US analysts question whether an attack could achieve US strategic aims. The answer, they say, depends on just what the US aim is.

Japan to lift sanctions against Pak
TOKYO, Nov 10 — Japan has decided to lift most of its economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan in protest against its nuclear tests, a report said today.

Pak’s offer on N-deployment
ISLAMABAD, Nov 10 — Pakistan today said that it was willing not to deploy nuclear weapons if India did the same. The issue of the deployment of nuclear weapons was a "reciprocal matter" with India and should be settled bilaterally, Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said in a programme on PTV.

USA rejects Taliban deadline
WASHINGTON, Nov 10 — The USA dismissed the Taliban movement’s deadline for providing evidence that exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden has bombed US Embassies and other targets.

• UAE visa cards for expatriates
• Palestinians warn Israel

House panel presses ahead with charges

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (PTI) — The spotlight turned on President Bill Clinton as the US House Republicans pressed ahead with impeachment proceedings, ignoring his party’s major electoral gains in the November 3 mid-term poll.

The Republicans-dominated House Judiciary Committee heard arguments from scholars and historians on precedents and mechanics of impeachment as its Chairman Henry Hyde vowed to accelerate the pace of the panel’s work so that the process could be wrapped up before the year-end.

“I really believe in the notion no man is above the law,” Hyde said, adding despite all rationalisations and arguments, “it’s perjury.”

After the day-long hearing yesterday, Hyde said the panel was considering calling White House lawyer Bruce Lindsey as a witness. The Supreme Court yesterday rejected White House arguments that attorney-client privilege prevented Lindsey from testifying in the Monika Lewinsky probe.

“We’re thinking about it,” Hyde, an Illinois Republican, said when asked if Lindsey might be called.

The full committee is weighing charges that Clinton committed perjury, obstructed justice and abused his power in trying to conceal an affair with Lewinsky.

While the White House was mulling the pros and cons of Republicans’ decision to go ahead with impeachment proceedings, a federal judge began probe into 24 instances in which independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s office leaked information to the press.

Starr — whose report led to the House’s October 8 vote to open an impeachment inquiry — will testify before the committee on November 19 and 20.

In another development, a federal court in Arkansas yesterday released the last several hundred pages of documents from the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, which show the judge believed the case was doomed.

In a January 12 hearing — kept secret till now — Judge Susan Webber Wright urged the two sides to reach a financial settlement.

Jones’ case was dismissed three months later.

Jones is running into trouble again in her appeal against Wright’s decision. Her legal team has announced they planned to quit the case, the New York Times said. The reason, the newspaper said, was Jones’ “unrealistic” demands.

Indian defence team in Moscow

Moscow, Nov 10 (IANS) — A high-powered Indian team led by Defence Secretary Ajit Kumar has arrived here to give final touches to the proposed Indo-Russian military cooperation treaty which is to be signed during President Boris Yeltsin’s visit to India due next month.

“The Indian delegation will hold the final round of talks with the Russian authorities on the proposed defence agreement between the countries,” Russian Defence Ministry sources said.

Besides taking part in the Indo-Russian joint working group on Defence Cooperation, which is to give final shape to the proposed agreement, the Indian team is also expected to meet Russian Defence Minister, Marshal Igor Sergeyev.

The proposed treaty, meant to give a fresh boost to bilateral defence cooperation, is planned to be signed during Mr Yeltsin’s visit to India scheduled for December 6. The proposed 10 year agreement would replace the 1994 Indo-Russian defence agreement which is due to expire in 2000. It assumes significance in view of India’s goal of meeting up to 70 per cent of the country’s military hardware from domestic production by the turn of the century.

“As of today, almost 70 per cent of India’s Army, Navy and Air Force is equipped with Russian Arms, and since the Government of India has now declared that emphasis henceforth would be given to technology transfer, the new programme would imply beginning of a new stage in Indo-Russian defence cooperation,” said a defence analyst here.

According to information available here, India and Russia under the new agreement will jointly develop six S-300v anti-tactical ballistic missile (ABM) systems with a price tag of $ 1 billion and the multi-role SU-30 Russian fighter, eight of which India has already procured from Russia.

The agreement also reportedly includes joint upgradation of 125 MIG-21 fighters of the Indian Air Force, two of which were successfully tested after the renovation recently in the Russian city of Nizhni-Novgorod, and an undisclosed number of T-72 tanks.

It is also reported here that under the programme, India, following the inability of its Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to deliver on a self-propelled artillery gun turret, is keen to procure 152 mm 2s19 MSTA system from Russia that can be mounted on T-72 tanks.

“Russia, India’s largest arms supplier, has definitely begun to understand the need for joint research and development as well as weapons development projects,” said Dr Valery Titov of the Russian Parliament’s Analytical Centre.

Cloning in dining hall

TSUKUBA (Japan), Nov 10 (AP) — It is just after feeding time, and two calves are contentedly drinking water from a trough in their nondescript pen, a few stray pieces of hay stuck to their wet, brown noses.

The two four-month-olds ES1 and ES2 are the prototypes of a brave new world of cloning that Japanese researchers, farmers and entrepreneurs are rapidly taking out of the laboratory and putting on to the dinner table.

Cloned potatoes, tomatoes and asparagus are already commonplace in Japanese grocery stores. Cloned orchids are sold by florists, and cloned goldfish are available at pet shops. Cloned flounder and salmon are in the works.

But with the domestic cattle industry being squeezed by cheaper imported beef, Japanese scientists and agricultural officials see the real goal of cloning to be the widespread genetic copying of mammals.

“Our primary interest is to revive Japan’s cattle industry,” said Dr Makoto Tabata, who is in charge of cloning research for the Ministry of Agriculture.

Cloning, it is hoped, will spawn a breed of supercattle and reliable source of high-quality beef that can be produced at lower cost.

Japan’s strides in cloning have generally been heralded in the media and welcomed by the public, with little of the angst and debate over ethics and safety that has been seen in the USA and elsewhere.

Dr Tabata said Japan was probably the only country in the world where state-of-the-art cloning techniques were already being performed widely rural breeding centres.

Dr Robert Foote, Professor of Animal Science at Cornell University, cautioned that the government’s claims of being ahead were sometimes more perceived than real. He said the overall level of research was similar in Japan and the USA.

But Professor Foote agreed that one difference in Japan was the government’s involvement in allocating funds, compared with a stronger tendency for private financing in the USA.

Along with dozens of self-funded projects, more than 30 public and private livestock centres received a total of 300 million yen ($ 2.2 million) from the Ministry for Cattle Cloning Research this year. A significant increase in government grants is expected next year.

Cloning techniques vary from simple plant cuttings a method that has been used by farmers and gardeners for centuries to the extremely delicate and still unreliable replication of adult mammals from their genetic material.

Even so, nearly 400 cows cloned from fertilised eggs have hit the market as beef or breeders. Since early July, 15 calves have been born using the same technique used for Dolly, the Scottish sheep that made history as the world’s first adult-animal clone. Nine have survived.

ES1 and ES2 are the products of a more primitive technique in which an embryo’s cell is inserted into an egg whose nucleus has been removed. After the two are fused by an electric shock, the egg is put into the womb of a surrogate cow and carried to term.

ES stands for embryonic stem cell, the kind of cell from which the calves were cloned.

“What we are trying to do here is to help cattle farmers increase the number of superior cows,” said Yoshito Aoyagi, chief scientist at the government’s Cloning Research Institute in Tsukuba, just north of Tokyo.

Breakthrough in cell isolation

WASHINGTON Nov 10 (UNI) — Scientists have achieved one of the most sought after goals in biological sciences by isolating primordial human cells that can grow into all kinds of tissues like muscle, bone and brain, reports “Science.”

The prestigious international scientific journal “Science,” in its latest issue said human embroynic cells, the primordial cells that gave rise to all specialised tissues in a developing embryo, were isolated and cultured, offering possibilities for growing fresh tissues for people with various diseases.

The discovery, seen as a parallel to the pioneering scientific achievement in somatic cells cloning done some months ago, also threatens to reopen the debate over human cloning since it offers an easy way of growing replacement cells which can be transplanted to humans.

The embryonic stem cells (ES), as they are called, could help scientists grow tissue like bone marrow cells for cancer patients, neurones for patients afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and pancreatic cells for diabetics.

The replacement of such cells could offer lifelong treatment to the patients. The discovery, viewed as a potential biotechnology goldmine, was reported by a team of scientists led by James A Thomson at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Centre, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

The scientists said “The ES cells should offer insights into developmental events that cannot be studied directly in the intact human embryo but that have important consequences in clinical areas, including birth defect, infertility and pregnancy loss.’’

Experiments based on ES cells could also help identify gene targets for new drugs.

The Washington Post also reported that another group of scientists working on the subject were successful and would publish their results in the issue of the ‘proceedings of the national academy of sciences.”

It said both teams had worked independently of each other. Already researchers have used the ES cells to grow human heart muscle cells that beat in unison in a laboratory dish as well as blood cells, blood vessel cells, bone, cartilage, neurones and skeletal muscle.

Scientists said the ES cells might make it easier to engineer babies because a single “specially endowed stem cell injected into a developing embryo will divide and spread its endowment throughout the developing foetus.’’

The ES cells are controversial because they offer embryologists a comparatively simpler way of creating designer babies bearing specific traits which could be passed on to next generations.

The paper also reported that the new work had “reignited a smouldering debate” over a four-year-old congressional ban on the use of federal funds for human embryo research. With the therapeutic potential of embryonic cells suddenly very real, advocates were calling for the re-examination of that ban, saying the development of life-saving applications will be affected if government funding remains off-limits.

Both teams worked in privately-funded laboratories.

Tibetans 'victims of rights violations'

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (ANI) — The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans living in their homeland are victims of human rights violations, because Chinese officials imprison monks and nuns who seek more freedom.

Speaking at an awards ceremony for four Colombian human rights activists, Tibet's spiritual leader said human rights advocates must never give up their fight against abuse.

In praising the work of the Colombian activists, the Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, noted that Tibetans had been struggling for nearly 50 years under the Chinese rule amid human rights violations that had occurred inside Tibet.

"In a way, I can say that we are fellow victims of human rights violations. Not just you alone, there are other people", he said.

The Dalai Lama, who is scheduled to visit the White House on Tuesday, delivered the keynote address at the 15th annual Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award ceremony at Georgetown University.

He will meet U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and President Bill Clinton is expected to drop by as he has done in previous visits. He will also be received by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when he calls on her at the State Department.

During his Washington stay, the Dalai Lama is expected to make some conciliatory remarks to satisfy an overture by China's President Jiang Zemin in hopes of reopening autonomy talks for Tibet with Beijing.

BEIJING (AFP): China today warned the Dalai Lama to keep quite on the troubled region's future during his visit to the USA.

"Contacts and talks between the Chinese Government and the Dalai Lama are China's internal affairs and we have always opposed any interference in Beijing's internal affairs", the People's Daily said in an editorial.

"The fact that the Dalai Lama is making propaganda internationally and has created public opinion on the issue can only show that he is not sincere about talks with the central government", it added.

Clinton weighs the risks

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) — With President Bill Clinton seriously weighing air strikes on Iraq, US analysts question whether an attack could achieve US strategic aims. The answer, they say, depends on just what the US aim is.

Is it to force President Saddam Hussein to reverse his decision to halt the UN inspection and monitoring of his weapons of mass destruction?

Is it to maintain undiluted UN sanctions on Saddam which restrict his ability to build up militarily and threaten regional peace and Western oil supplies?

Is it to eventually topple Saddam, who has been compared by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with Adolf Hitler?

Is it to remind the world of US power, to send a message that defiance of Washington and the international community can incur a cost?

All are relevant, but depending on which goal is paramount, analysts consider a military strike anything from counterproductive to essential. Few believe that if it comes it will be anything short of severely damaging.

Mr Clinton has other conditions to weigh — including the effect of a strike on the fragile West Asia peace process and whether a really devastating attack might so undermine Iraq that it disintegrates, causing regional chaos.

US tactics have changed radically since February, when Washington issued a barrage of warnings that ultimately persuaded Saddam to reverse his expulsion of UN monitors in a deal with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In the last eight months the focus has shifted to sanctions and containment. The bellicose tone has been dropped.

The goal is to secure a unified UN Security Council, where Russia and France had leaned toward compromise with Baghdad that threatened to erode sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf war.

This shift was not publicised, but was acknowledged by Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee in Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs in September.

“Unless we are prepared unilaterally to send tens of thousands of American ground troops into Iraq to remove Saddam and destroy Iraq’s military infrastructure, we are not going to eliminate by force Iraq’s ability to conceal and possibly reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction.

“If we are not prepared to take such action, we will have to rely on the help of others through sanctions, support for inspections and acceptance of the need to use military strikes for limited objectives if necessary,” he said.

He said: “Our strategy is to deny Saddam the opportunity and to keep the world spotlight not on what we do, but what Iraq is failing to do, which is to comply with its obligations under Security Council resolutions.”

Administration officials have rejected media suggestions that the USA was abandoning its commitment to intrusive inspections by Unscom, however, saying this was still the best way to control Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

Japan to lift sanctions against Pak

TOKYO, Nov 10 (AFP) — Japan has decided to lift most of its economic sanctions imposed on Pakistan in protest against its nuclear tests, a report said today.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura will announce the unlocking of economic aid at a meeting here with his Pakistani counterpart Sartaz Aziz on November 18, government sources were quoted as telling Jiji press news agency.

Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, imposed sanctions on India and Pakistan after the two countries carried out nuclear tests in May.

Islamabad was slapped with a series of sanctions by Japan, its biggest aid donor.

Grant aid for all new projects was frozen, excluding emergency and humanitarian aid, and assistance for grassroots projects as yen loans was also halted.

Japan had since decided to lift almost all of the sanctions on Pakistan, while maintaining them on India due to a “different level of difficulty”, Jiji quoted foreign officials as saying.

The decision followed a speech to the UN General Assembly in September by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif dropping demands that India sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before his country.

“Given the speech by Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif, there is a possibility that Tokyo will unlock economic assistance to Pakistan,” a Foreign Ministry official said but added that “nothing has been decided yet”.

Pak’s offer on N-deployment

ISLAMABAD, Nov 10 (PTI) — Pakistan today said that it was willing not to deploy nuclear weapons if India did the same.

The issue of the deployment of nuclear weapons was a "reciprocal matter" with India and should be settled bilaterally, Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz said in a programme on PTV.

Pakistan had made some proposal to India on "strategic restraint" during the recent Foreign Secretary-level talks and "we are willing not to deploy nuclear weapons if India does the same," he said and added "we hope New Delhi will respond to that".

Mr Aziz said the progress was being made on different items on the nuclear agenda but "each has its own time-table and its own pre-requisite which I hope we will move along as we go."

Regarding the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty (FMCT) Mr Aziz said "in this also there is a "symmetry with India... and we can’t do anything unilaterally unless there is a framework."

Top French award for Constant

PARIS, Nov 10 (AP) — The Goncourt Prize, France’s most prestigious literary award, went to a novel set entirely in the Kansas home of a university professor who attends a feminist colloquium on witches.

Paule Constant’s “Confidence Pour Confidence,” published by Gallimard, is a psychological drama about a character named Gloria Potter, a scholar of women’s studies.

Author Constant is regarded as one of France’s top contemporary literary figures.

The Goncourt carries a purse of only 50 francs (about $ 10) but guarantees instant fame to the winner, and healthy profits to both writer and publisher.

Constant, (53), lives in Aix-en-Provence, where she teaches French literature to foreign students. “Confidence Pour Confidence” is her eighth book.

Also yesterday, the Renaudot Prize awarded for a first novel went to Dominique Bona for “Le Manuscrit De Port-ebene,” a novel set in the Dominican Republic, published by Grasset.

The Renaudot winner gets a free lunch next year at Drouant, the posh Parisian restaurant where the laureates are announced.

USA rejects Taliban deadline

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) — The USA dismissed the Taliban movement’s deadline for providing evidence that exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden has bombed US Embassies and other targets.

The Taliban, who rule most of Afghanistan, said yesterday that the USA must hand over the evidence by November 20 and that Bin Laden, who was living in Afghanistan, would be cleared if the evidence did not arrive on time.

“If there is no proof submitted against Bin Laden, then he is innocent. We cannot wait forever for this drama,” Taliban Chief Justice Noor Mohammad Saqid told reporters.

State Department spokesman James Rubin replied: “we believe that Osama bin Laden should be brought to justice swiftly for his crimes and there is no expiration date on terrorist acts of this kind.”

Mr Rubin said the USA would keep talking to the Taliban, who said they were treating Bin Laden as a guest, but suggested that it could not make a formal extradition request because it does not recognise the Taliban as a government.

UAE visa cards for expatriates

DUBAI, Nov 10 (PTI) — The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has about 1 million Indians living here, will issue separate residence visa cards for expatriates from next year, ending the practice of stamping them on passports.

The move has been taken to make it easy for authorities to check residence visa permits as part of a drive to end illegal immigration, preventing fraud and simplifying transactions, Brig Hader Khalaf al Muhairi, Director-General of the Naturalisation and Immigration Department, said in Abu Dhabi.

Palestinians warn Israel

JERUSALEM, Nov 10 (AFP) — The Palestinian Authority today warned that it would halt implementation of its latest land-for-peace agreement with Israel if the Israeli Government continued delaying ratification of the deal.

“The Palestinian Authority warns that it will stop implementing the Wye river agreement if (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not start to implement the accord from his side,” said Mr Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator.

Rebels kill 96
FREETOWN: Rebels in eastern Sierra Leone have killed 96 civilians and fighting was raging in the region several hours later, reporters there said. The killings took place in the town of Sumaya, in the eastern part of the diamond-rich area of Tongo fields on Monday. Sierra Leone has been wracked by civil war since 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front took up arms against what it was as the corruption of the Freetown government. — AFP

Painter dead
EAST HAMPTON (New York): Francisco Sainz, an abstract expressionist painter whose work often included figures dressed in the garb of his native Spain, has died. He was 75. Sainz, who was known as Paco, died in East Hampton on October 20 following a heart attack, his family said. He often painted isolated figures in Spanish dress against colourful landscapes. His work sometimes recalled 19th century photography and folk painting. — AP

Poll on Queen
LONDON: Most Britons do not think Queen Elizabeth II should abdicate the thrown to allow her oldest son, Prince Charles, to become king, according to two polls. A Mori poll commissioned for “The Daily Mail” and GMTV channel found that 67 per cent believed the Queen should remain the monarch for the rest of her life, the paper said on Monday. — AP

Charles’ website
LONDON: There’s further proof that Britain’s monarchy is modernising: Prince Charles has launched his own Internet website. Spread across 354 pages, it contains biographical information about the heir to the throne, who turns 50 on Saturday, and will be updated regularly with news and pictures, his office announced on Tuesday. The site is divided into sections covering Charles’ life, his work and an online forum page which will highlight issues of particular interest. — AP

French actor dead
PARIS: Jean Marais, the French actor who began his career in art films as the protege of surrealist artist Jean Cocteau and became a pillar of the French cinema, has died at 84, city officials have said. Marais had been in declining health for the past year. — AP