Jobless prefer life behind bars
BEIJING, Oct 12 — Unemployed people in Hong Kong are choosing to go to prison rather than face the trauma of living in the community without a job, a local court has been told.

Clinton faces fresh probe in Willey episode
WASHINGTON, Oct 12 — Already faced with hearing in impeachment proceedings in the Lewinsky scandal, US President Bill Clinton is now under probe for an alleged cover-up in a sexual advance case relating to White House volunteer Kathleen E. Willey.

Rules deprived Carter of Nobel
OSLO, Oct 12 — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who seems a perennial Nobel Peace Prize also-ran, could have won the coveted honour in 1978 had it not been for strict deadline rules for nominations.

Two MQM men among 4 killed
KARACHI, Oct 12 — Four people, including two policemen, were killed in renewed violence in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the police said today.

	Informers’ list given to underworld LONDON, Oct 12 — A top-secret list of key informers for the British police has been leaked to the criminal underworld, sparking off a major scandal here, newspaper reports said yesterday.

Intense bid to defuse Kosovo crisis

BELGRADE, Oct 12 (Reuters AP) — NATO lined up warplanes for possible air strikes on Yugoslavia as US envoy Richard Holbrooke vowed to continue his attempts to pull a diplomatic solution to the Kosovo crisis out of a hat at the last minute.

Speaking to journalists Mr Holbrooke classified as ‘intense’ and ‘at times very heated’ his 11 hours of talks with Yugoslavia President Sloboden Milosevic.

He said they would meet again today before a NATO meeting expected to produce a fateful ‘activation order’ for air action. “I’m sorry, I’m to go into any details at all you’ll understand why,” Mr Holbrooke said.

“I can only say that we remain on an intense effort to final peaceful and satisfactory outcome to what can only be called an emergency while in another part of Europe, in Brussels, NATO continues to move in a very different form.”

Mr Holbrooke, Washington’s troubleshooter in Balkan hot spots had warned Mr Milosevic that US-led NATO was poised to swoop from the skies unless, he accepted a package of UN-mandated steps to defuse the Kosovo conflict.

There was no official comment from either side on the obstacles to agreement as the talks — meant to end Belgrade’s bloody subjugation of majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a province of Serbia — stretched into a fourth day.

In Washington, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told CNN that Mr Milosevic: “Is not in compliance as of this point.”

“He can come into compliance or he can face military action by NATO” at any time, Mr Berger said.

The Americans and Europeans are demanding that Mr Milosevic halt the crackdown he launched on February 28 against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.

The major obstacle appears to be Mr Holbrooke’s demand that Mr Milosevic agree to an expanded international monitoring mission to verify compliance with demands of the UN Security Council.

Those demands include an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of special troops in the province, allowing refugees to return home and talks with ethnic Albanians on Kosovo’s future.

Meanwhile the Russians have threatened to break the UN embargo and deliver arms to meet any NATO aggression to their Slavic brethren with whom they share history, religion, culture and tradition Mr Berger claimed that NATO action would not harm US relations with Russia.

Germany will close its embassy in Belgrade from Monday because of the threat of NATO military intervention in Kosovo, diplomatic sources said — an AFP report said.

The embassies of several other European countries, including Britain, were expected to do likewise, the sources said.

France was not planning to close its embassy for the time being but the families of French diplomats have already left Yugoslavia, they said.

The Ambassadors of European Union countries here met on Sunday to co-ordinate their positions and inform each other about their plans, the sources said.

Hold talks outside Cambodia: Oppn

PHNOM PENH, Oct 12 (AP) — Cambodia’s opposition parties today demanded that talks between their leaders and strongman Hun Sen aimed at forming a coalition government take place outside the country.

A spokesman for Mr Hun Sen’s party called the demand as an opposition trick, but did not rule out meeting abroad if King Norodom Sihanouk endorsed the idea.

Mr Hun Sen’s party won 64 of the 122 seats in the National Assembly or Parliament in the July 26 election, not the two-thirds majority necessary to form a government on its own.

The Opposition insists the victory was achieved through fraud and intimidation. Talks between Mr Hun Sen’s party and the Opposition over forming a government have been deadlocked.

The Opposition says it wants to negotiate outside the country because it is being threatened by Mr Hun Sen’s party.

In a joint statement, opposition party leaders, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Mr Sam Rainsy, suggested Tokyo and several other foreign capitals as neutral ground where talks could be held.

“We cannot join a meeting in Cambodia as we will not negotiate under threat, including the threat of further so-called attacks on Mr Hun Sen, which could bring consequences of the most serious magnitude,”? the opposition leaders said.

Both Mr Ranariddh and Mr Sam Rainsy have stayed outside Cambodia since Parliament was ceremonially opened on September 24.

A spokesman for Mr Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party said today that the statement was a ploy to portray the ruling party as hostile toward the Opposition.

“This is one of the tricks of Mr Sam Rainsy to show he is a victim and that there is a threat inside the country”, ruling party spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.

Laden’s men ‘posed as informants’

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (AFP) — Before the bombings of the two US embassies in August, scouts sent by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden issued a phoney bomb warning and then observed the security steps taken in reaction, Newsweek reported in its current issue.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has learned that Bin Laden’s scouts posed as US informants to enter the embassies and warn that terrorists were planning to blow up the buildings, according to the Newsweek report.

Then the scouts watched the embassies over the following days, taking notes on the security precautions taken in response to the threat, the report says.

Newsweek also reported that early last summer the CIA began to suspect that the Sudanese Government was helping Bin Laden develop and obtain chemical weapons.

The CIA dispatched one of its ‘dirt diggers’ — an elite team of spies who specialise in secretly obtaining soil samples from suspected chemical-weapons plants and bringing them back to the USA for analysis.

Traces of a precursor of the deadly VX gas were discovered in the soil samples, the report said.

Discoverers of Viagra principle get Nobel

STOCKHOLM, Oct 12 (Reuters) — Three US Scientists whose discoveries led to the use of Viagra as an anti-impotence drug won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Medicine today.

Robert Furchgott, Ferid Murad and Louis Ignarro were awarded the 7.6 million Swedish crown ( for their discoveries about the role of nitric oxide, long considered just an air pollutant, as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system.

The discovery has applications for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, shock and possibly cancer, as well as impotence, said Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, which awards the annual prize, one of the most prestigious in medicine.

Nitric oxide is a gas that transmits signals in the organism, allowing messages to be sent from one part of the body to another, and regulates blood pressure and blood flow.

"Signal transmission by a gas that is produced by one cell penetrates through membranes and regulates the function of another cell represents an entirely new principle for signalling in biological systems," the citation said.

Ignarro, 57, and now a pharmacologist at University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, participated in the quest for the unknown signal molecule posited by Furchgott, and in a brilliant series on analyses, independently and with Furchgott concluded it was nitric oxide.

"He (Ignarro) discovered the principle which led to the use of Viagra as an anti-impotence drug," Mr Sten Orrenius, professor of toxicology at Karolinska institute, told Reuters.

Viagra, the product of research into cardiovascular disease, counters impotence by dilating the blood vessels in the penis. It is produced by Pfizer.

Furchgott, 82, a pharmacologist at State University of New York in Brooklyn, established in 1980 that blood vessels dilate, or become wider, because their surface cells, the endothelium, produce an unknown signal molecule that makes their smooth muscle cells relax.

Furchgott’s "ingenious experiment" led to a quest to identify the factor, the institute said.

Murad, 62, now a pharmacologist at the university of Texas medical school in Houston, analysed how nitroglycerin and similar substances affect vessels, and discovered in 1977 that they release nitric oxide, which relaxes smooth muscle cells.

It was a sensation that nitric oxide, a simple, common air pollutant formed when nitrogen burns, for instance in car exhaust fumes, could exert important functions in the organism.

"When Furchgott and Ignarro presented their conclusions at a conference in 1986, it elicited an avalanche of research activities in many different laboratories around the world," the institute said. "This was the first discovery that a gas can act as a signal molecule in the organism."

Jobless prefer life behind bars

BEIJING, Oct 12 (PTI) — Unemployed people in Hong Kong are choosing to go to prison rather than face the trauma of living in the community without a job, a local court has been told.

Two men, in different cases in a court in Hong Kong, were granted their wish to be sentenced to jail, media reports said.

Diabetic Tsang Kei-Wai, (37), admitted stealing 72 boxes of a sugar substitute which he needed for his treatment but could not afford.

He appears to be content with a prison term.

He would have a better life in prison, Tsang’s lawyer Philip Wong told the court as the unemployment rate in Hong Kong continued to rise in the face of the Asian financial crisis.

The lawyer told the Magistrate that Tsang found it almost impossible to find a job. “He cannot make ends meet. I think this is some kind of a trend now with many unemployed people in Hong Kong”, Wong said.

Tsang, who lives on public assistance, had been unemployed for six months after losing his job as a painter.

In the second case, Lam Tung-Yuen admitted stealing 12 boxes of sauce. He told the court that he found it tough in the outside world.

Hong Kong’s leading newspaper, South China Morning Post, reports that Lam, who has 31 previous convictions, knew Tsang and both had stolen from a supermarket in Hong Kong.

After the hearing, Wong said he had noticed a trend of increasing frustration and pessimism among his clients.

Clinton faces fresh probe in Willey episode

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (PTI, UNI) — Already faced with hearing in impeachment proceedings in the Lewinsky scandal, US President Bill Clinton is now under probe for an alleged cover-up in a sexual advance case relating to White House volunteer Kathleen E. Willey.

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr is now focusing attention on the accusations of cover-up of a sexual advance on Willey, according to a lawyer familiar with the probe.

“The Independent Counsel’s office is looking to complete this investigation as soon as possible, .. but a lot of information that surfaced during the Lewinsky inquiry remains under active review. That information includes perjury and obstruction of justice charges concerning Willey”, the lawyer told The Washington Times.

According to lawyers and others close to the ongoing probe, Mr Starr believes the President lied under oath during his January 17 deposition in the Paula Jones case and before the grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky case when he denied “improperly touching Willey’s breasts and placing her hand on his groin” during a November 1993 meeting at the White House, it said.

The paper added that Mr Starr is also investigating accusations that the White House, along with Democratic Party loyalists, sought to pressurise Willey to keep quiet about the incident, asking her to deny that Mr Clinton had made an “unwanted sexual advance”.

In his marathon report to Congress, Mr Starr said — an investigation ‘‘is continuing into perjury and obstruction charges “concerning an incident involving former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey’’. As a result, Mrs Willey’s January deposition in the Jones case and her March testimony before the Lewinsky grand jury was withheld from the 8,200 pages of corroborating documents, reports and transcripts submitted to the House committee.

DPA adds: According to the latest opinion poll, most Americans continue to be satisfied with US President Bill Clinton despite approval by Congress of an impeachment inquiry against him.

The poll by Newsweek showed 58 per cent of those asked supporting Mr Clinton, with 31 per cent calling for his resignation. Only 11 per cent backed a continuation of the Congress inquiry into the Lewinsky affair.

Rules deprived Carter of Nobel

OSLO, Oct 12 (AP) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who seems a perennial Nobel Peace Prize also-ran, could have won the coveted honour in 1978 had it not been for strict deadline rules for nominations.

That prize was shared by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for signing the Camp David peace accords. However, the five-member Norwegian awards committee also wanted to honour Mr Carter for brokering the pact, only to be foiled by its own rules.

“The Nobel Committee wanted to give the prize to all three,” Mr Geir Lundestad, the current committee’s non-voting secretary, said yesterday. “But Carter had not been nominated when the deadline ran out.”

“It turned out that Mr Begin and Mr Sadat were nominated by the deadline, while Mr Carter was not. Even though it could not give him the prize, the Norwegian committee recognised in the 1978 awards citation the positive initiative taken by President Jimmy Carter.”

Two MQM men among 4 killed

KARACHI, Oct 12 (AFP) — Four people, including two policemen, were killed in renewed violence in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the police said today.

Two unidentified gunmen riding on a motorbike shot dead police officer Shaukat Ali when he went to a bakery in the city’s Orangi town area late yesterday. Officials said the slain officer was training at a police school.

The police today found the body of a retired police inspector dumped near a checkpoint in the eastern Baldia district.

Unknown assailants opened fire from a car killing an MQM activist near his home in western Orangi town while another MQM worker was killed in the same area in an overnight shooting.

Informers’ list given to underworld

LONDON, Oct 12 (AFP) — A top-secret list of key informers for the British police has been leaked to the criminal underworld, sparking off a major scandal here, newspaper reports said yesterday.

The security lapse has put at risk the lives of 33 “supergrasses” and key witnesses at trials, said The Observer, adding the fear among law enforcement agencies in Britain was that informers in future would be reluctant to come forward.

Bodies returned
TEHERAN: The last three bodies of Iranian diplomats killed by Afghan Taliban militiamen were flown back home on Sunday IRNA reported on Monday. The diplomats were killed by fighters who seized the Iranian Consulate in the Afghan city of Majar-e-Sharif on August 8, sparking tension between the neighbouring states. The bodies of seven other Iranians killed by the militia were repatriated last month. — Reuters

Transfusion mix-up
LONDON: Philip James, a pensioner, died when two nurses seemingly under a spell of spoonerism gave him blood intended for another patient named James Philip. James (73) who was recovering from an intestinal operation was given blood by two nurses to raise his blood pressure without realising the mix-up, it was published here on Sunday. Philip and Jemes had incompatible blood groups. — Pool

Fiji’s taxi policy
AUCKLAND: A government policy to grant taxi permits to only indigenous Fijians has been condemned as racist, The Fiji Times reported on Monday. National Federation Party MP Maan Singh told the newspaper that the move was against the spirit of the country’s new multi-racial constitution. “Why do Indians have to suffer if Fijians do not apply for taxi permits”, Mr Mann said. — AFP

14 die in Colombia
BOGOTA: At least 14 persons were killed in Colombia in fighting between Leftist guerrillas and Right-wing militia at numerous areas around the country, the police in Bogota said on Sunday and added that 21 persons were wounded and 15 were abducted. The direct talks began past Friday after jailed ELN leaders, Franciso Galan and Felipe Torres, were released and given a guarantee of unrestricted freedom to take part. — DPA

Malaria indicator
WASHINGTON: Soil dampness is a better tool to predict malaria outbreaks than precipitation or temperature, according to a study out on Monday in tropical medicine and international health. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found they were able to accurately follow the development of one sort of malaria carrying mosquito — Anopheles gambiae — 42 per cent of the time by studying soil dampness. That is in contrast to 8 per cent by studying rainfall. — AFP

Infertility problem
WASHINGTON: A new technique has been developed by an American scientist to solve infertility problem among old women by reinforcing their eggs with material taken from the eggs of younger women. Two American women, both in their 40s, have been treated for infertility by this technique which would create a child with two genetic mothers, it was published here on Sunday. Dr Jamie Grifo of New York University had treated two women by taking their eggs, removing the nucleus, and inserting it into the eggs of younger women from which the nucleus had been removed. — Pool