Mouse grows elephant egg!
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 — US scientists have claimed that they have achieved an astounding feat of making a mouse grow an elephant egg.

India terms UN move coercive

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (PTI) — India today termed as coercive a draft resolution passed by a UN Disarmament Committee, which strongly deplored nuclear tests by India and Pakistan and asked the two neighbours to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Without naming India and Pakistan, the UN Disarmament and International Security Committee adopted by 98 to six votes, a draft resolution “expressing grave concern and strongly deploring the recent nuclear tests in South Asia.”

Thirty-one countries abstained from the voting, while Bhutan, Benin, Zambia and Zimbabwe along with India and Pakistan voted against the resolution which now goes to the General Assembly.

Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cuba, Ghana, Israel, Kenya, Libya, Maldives, Sudan and Tanzania were among those who abstained.

The resolution, sponsored by Australia, Canada and New Zealand, was voted on after a series of amendments moved by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe were either withdrawn or were blocked by procedural mechanism.

Terming the resolution as coercive, India’s envoy to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) Savitri Kunadi said the measure did not address the broader issues of nuclear testing but only focused on the tests conducted in May this year.

“India has done everything possible to reconcile its own security needs with the general wish of the international community to see an end to nuclear testing. The way forward should be to work together. Recriminations or attempts to isolate any country such as through this resolution do not help, “Kunadi told the delegates.

She pointed out that some of the sponsors of the resolution were themselves beneficiaries of alliances or security arrangements.

“Of these, two are members of NATO whose strategic doctrine continues to be predicated not only on possession but the first use of nuclear weapons. A third sponsor is a member of another security arrangement under which it enjoys nuclear umbrella.

Arab states tell Iraq to end standoff

BAGHDAD, Nov 13 (AP) — Fearing US Air strikes, thousands of Iraqis queued up outside gasoline stations today as Iraq’s official media ignored the evident loss of Arab support in its confrontation over UN weapons inspections.

Official newspapers published articles hailing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s decision to end all cooperation with the UN Special Commission, and claimed there was worldwide condemnation of US threats.

The world calls for dialogue and peace while USA seeks war and aggression,’’ the official Iraqi newspaper said.

There is condemnation of US threats on both Arab and international levels,’’ Al-Thawra, the mouthpiece of the ruling Baath party newspaper, said in a banner headline.

A group of Arab countries called for wisdom and reason “to end the confrontation but said Mr Saddam’s Government alone would be responsible for any consequences’’ from its stopping the work of UN weapons inspectors.

The criticism yesterday by six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council Iraq’s vulnerable neighbours along with Syria and Egypt was unusually strong for Arab countries who have repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

At a news conference yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said if the Arab countries “are sincere about resolving the crisis, they should blame the main block — the USA.’’ 

Hours later, Iraqi newspapers today claimed Iraq was capable of defeating the USA.

The USA “knows that any limited aggression will not achieve its goals,’’ Al-Thawra said. A large-scale and sustained aggression “will shake the whole region and lead to explosions of unspecified consequences.’’

Iraqi minders accompanying journalists touring the city, said it was forbidden to take pictures or talk to the people. A customer contacted later said he waited for half an hour to fill up his car. I fear the Americans will hit refineries and there will be a shortage of fuel,’’ said the driver.

Markets in Baghdad were crammed, but the crowd comprised the usual weekend shoppers. At Al-Shorja Market, Naima Aidan (40) said she was buying coconut and sugar to make sweets for her four children. “I am not worried. I don’t think anything will happen to us. Because God will keep us safe,’’ she said.

Iraq says it will cooperate with arms inspectors if the UN Security Council guarantees that it will work to lift economic sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The sanctions, which limit Iraqi oil sales and have ruined its economy, cannot be lifted until the inspectors certify that Iraq has destroyed its lethal weapons. This was required under the ceasefire resolutions that ended the 1991 Gulf war.

Mr Aziz has said that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was the best person’’ to try to ease the current crisis. But Mr Annan said yesterday he had no plans to visit Baghdad as he did the last time in February and resolved the previous crisis.

LONDON: President Clinton faces two broad options if he decides to take military action against Iraq: a symbolic air strike has the advantage of representing almost no risk to United States servicemen, but Pentagon planners believe that limited strikes have been increasingly shrugged off by Iraq’s government.

The other option is to launch a comprehensive bombing campaign to inflict maximum damage on the sinews of the regime, concentrating on special units of the Republican Guard, which serve both as an elite military force and as the guardians of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

``I think the priority this time around is not pinpricks but a very serious, very destructive dismantling of the Iraqi military machine, which has been showing signs of a renaissance,’’ a diplomat in Washington said.

With this option in mind, the USA has been rushing military hardware to the region. The Pentagon already has at its disposal the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier and a naval battle group armed with over 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and 170 aircraft.

The USS Enterprise aircraft carrier and a marine task force are due to arrive in the Gulf on November 23 and November 26 respectively. And air power is to be boosted with 12 F117 stealth fighter-bombers, armed with laser-guided bombs, 18 heavy bombers, B1s and B52s which will be deployed on the British Indian Ocean island dependency, Diego Garcia.

Ground troops are also on the way to the region but are unlikely to be used in an assault. They are intended to reinforce US allies on Iraq’s borders to deter a retaliatory attack in the event of air strikes.

When this new firepower is in place, the US force in the Gulf will be as substantial as the armada that gathered to confront President Saddam in February, but this time it will have a firmer geo-political base from which to attack.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he hoped a diplomatic solution could be found to the Iraqi crisis but that it depended on President Saddam Hussein ending his defiance of the UN.

“If we have to, we are ready to use military action to ensure he keeps his word to the international community,” Mr Blair wrote in an article in the mass circulation Mirror tabloid.

“We would much regret this but our objectives will be clear — to force him back into compliance with the UN.”

Mr Blair said Mr Saddam Hussein misjudged the determination of Britain and other countries to stand up to him when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saddam should not make the same mistake again, he added.

The Prime Minister said he still hoped for a peaceful outcome but only Saddam could secure that.

Plot to kill top Bangladesh leaders

DHAKA, Nov 13 (IANS) — Intelligence agencies in Bangladesh have reportedly uncovered a plot to carry out vengeance killings of top government leaders after the award of the death sentence to 15 persons in the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman assassination case.

The Bengali daily Janakantha was told by top Home Ministry officials that intelligence agencies had evidence that a conspiracy was being hatched by unidentified groups to launch commando-style attacks on the identified leaders, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed.

The attacks are to be carried out before those convicted in the August 15, 1975, assassination of the nation’s founder, face a firing squad, the paper reported. The daily said Home Secretary Safiur Rahman had already alerted government leaders whose names were on a hit list found by intelligence agencies.

The government was not taking any chances and was planning a crackdown on armed cadres known to be affiliated to some political parties, the paper said.

Hasina, daughter of Sheikh Mujib, accused two unnamed countries of funding those trying to destabilise Bangladesh. The government had information that anti-government groups had received 600 million taka from abroad to create conditions to prevent justice being done in the Sheikh Mujib verdict, she claimed.

She charged her arch-foe Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister, and chief of the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), with “trying to protect the killers” of Sheikh Mujib.

“There is no issue now for calling “hartals” (public strikes) one after another. Street agitation for killers are really unfortunate. The opposition leader has proved her sympathy for the killers,” the Prime Minister told Parliament. “She (Zia) wants to create a situation so that the court verdict (in the Sheikh Mujib case) is not executed.”

Top Tibetan Lama seeks US refuge

BEIJING, Nov 13 (AFP) — A top Buddhist official has fled Tibet for the USA in protest against China’s policy in the troubled Himalayan region, a pro-Tibetan pressure group said today.

Agya Rinpoche, one of the eight top Tibetan Lamas, was in the USA but it was not clear whether he was seeking asylum, the London-based Tibetan Information Network (TIN) said in a statement here.

Agya Rinpoche (48) is head of Kumbum monastery at Ginghai in northwest China. He is also vice-chairman of the Buddhist Association of China.

“We have heard that he is in the USA but we do not know if it is true,” added a spokesman for the All-China Youth Federation, of which Agya Rinpoche is also a vice-president.

The TIN said the Lama had been pressed by the Chinese government to accept the boy chosen by Beijing as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama at Kumbum monastery.

3 die as stir snowballs in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Nov 13 (AFP) — Three persons were killed when soldiers opened fire on protesters near the Indonesian Parliament, Jakarta Hospital told journalists.

Witnesses said the firing broke out as some 500 military troops and two army personnel carriers faced off against some 2,000 demonstrators near Parliament.

The demonstrators had been taunting the troops, who are guarding a special session of the people’s consultative assembly MPR during its last day at the Parliament complex.

Witnesses said troops fired volleys of shots into the air yesterday night and some into crowd of students who had broken through a barricade in central Jakarta about 1 km from Parliament.

One police officer was killed in the clashes. Hospital sources said one injured student died of head wounds today.

Clashes also erupted elsewhere in the city as more than 20,000 students took to the streets, many reached Parliament and were chased away after troops used tear gas and water canon.

China may have broken pledge, suspects USA

BEIJING, Nov 13 (PTI) — Suspecting that China may have broken its pledge and transferred sensitive missile technology to Pakistan and Iran, a top US arms control official has quizzed Beijing on its strong and clandestine links with missile development programme of Islamabad and Teheran.

America’s concern over the issue of missile proliferation and China’s alleged role on the sensitive issue was discussed at length by US Under Secretary of State John Holum with senior Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, here, diplomatic sources said today.

"Despite Beijing’s repeated assertion that it has not sold or transferred missile technology to other countries, doubts persist about China’s actual role in the escalation of tensions in South Asia, North Asia and the Persian Gulf with Pakistan, North Korea and Iran testing ballistic missiles this year," they said.

The USA suspects China may have broken its pledge and transferred sensitive missile technology to Pakistan and Iran, they said.

Mr Holum, who is Washington’s top arms control and international security affairs official, held two days of detailed discussions with Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Deguang on arms control and non-proliferation efforts, official reports said.

Mouse grows elephant egg!

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (PTI) — US scientists have claimed that they have achieved an astounding feat of making a mouse grow an elephant egg.

The technique, the scientists said, could some day be used to help save some of the world’s endangered species. Mice could be used as factories to produce eggs of other species, and the eggs could then be fertilised and used to impregnate endangered animals, a team of Purdue University researchers led by Mr John Critser, said in the October issue of “Animal Reproduction Science.”

What the team did was to transplant ovarian tissue from African elephants into specially bred laboratory mice that would not reject foreign tissues.

Several of the mice developed egg-producing follicles and one contained a mature, though misshapen, egg. Mr Critser’s team did not use it to try to impregnate an elephant, figuring that the egg was not healthy enough to produce a successful pregnancy.

The elephant egg posed no size problem for the mice because the eggs of both species were microscopic.

The scientists had previously managed to grow egg follicles in lab mice using ovarian tissue from sheep and a few other species but they did not look to see whether the mice had produced eggs.

17 die in massacre
ALGIERS: Armed men massacred 17 persons in an attack south of Algiers, authorities said. The attackers slit the throats of the victims —mainly women and children, according to hospital sources. Interior Minister Mustapha Benmansour visited the massacre site at Moussa Abderahmane, in the Ain Defla region 100 km southwest of Algiers, a brief statement by authorities said. It provided no details on Thursday’s attack, which occurred in a rugged, forested region where Islamic insurgents are thought to be hiding out. — AP

Senator denied visa
TORONTO: A Canadian Senator who was to attend a workshop in Chennai earlier this month was denied a visa by the Indian High Commission in Ottawa. High Commissioner Rajnikanta Verma conceded that a visa was refused to Senator Lois Wilson, who was scheduled to attend a workshop of the World Federalist Movement. Wilson attributed the rejection of her visa application to the Canadian government’s stand against India’s nuclear tests of May. — IANS

Thieves target police
WASHINGTON: Red-faced police in El Salvador promised to hunt down thieves who cleaned out computers and other equipment from inside the Criminal Investigation headquarters. Reports from San Salvador quoted police chief Rodrino Avila as saying, that the crime was all the more serious because those things were stolen from a police headquarter. Avila said he had given orders to his men to “dig deeper” and make the maximum effort to catch the culprits. The police has not ruled out an inside job in the theft, which took place on Monday. — ANI