Clinton’s impeachment: Panel may narrow probe
WASHINGTON Oct 14 — US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde has said he may narrow the impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.

Implement CTBT: Annan
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 14 — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the international community to work for global nuclear disarmament and ensure that the CTBT enters into force as soon as possible.

PoK groups contest Pak claim
LONDON, Oct 14 — Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir groups based here are coming out in the open, rejecting Pakistani claims to represent them in bilateral talks with India.

Hitler survived World War II?
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 14 — An Argentine newspaper has added yet another titbit to the series of never-ending claims that German dictator Adolf Hitler survived World War-II and lived in South America.

Judicial remand for Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 (Reuters) — The sacked Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, was today transferred to a prison outside the capital where he will be held on remand rather than under the internal security laws, the police said.

Anwar (51), arrested on September 20 under the Internal Security Act (ISA), was moved from the Bukit Aman federal police headquarters here to Sungai Buloh prison, 25 km to the north.

The ISA, enacted under the British colonial rule to combat communist insurgency that has since dissipated, allows indefinite detention without trial.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court recently denied bail to Anwar. His lawyers yesterday filed an appeal against the court decision. It was not known when the appeal would be heard.

Sungai Buloh, is often described as “high-tech” due to security features which include closed-circuit cameras, electrical fencing and computer-controlled doors.

The decision to drop the use of the ISA to keep him in detention could appease rights groups and foreign governments, which have accused the Malaysian authorities of using the sweeping law to muzzle opponents led by the former Cabinet Minister.

But the daily said he would continue to be held in police custody under 10 criminal charges of sodomy and corruption.

A good augury for talks
From Shubhabrata Bhattacharya
Tribune News Service

OBSERVERS here view the change of guard in Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the cloak-and-dagger outfit suspected to be behind most acts of terrorism and sabotage on this side of the border, as a good augury on the eve of the Foreign Secretary-level talks beginning in Islamabad on Friday.

With Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointing Lieut-Gen Ziauddin as ISI’s new Director-General, replacing Lieut-Gen Naseem Rana, a signal has gone out that the ISI is now under the control of the Prime Minister’s Office in Islamabad.

Coming close on the heels of the unceremonious sacking of General Jehangir Karamat from the top job of Pakistan’s all-powerful Army and the appointment of General Pervaiz Musharraf in his place, superceding two Lieutenant-Generals, the shake-up in the ISI sends out a signal that Mr Nawaz Sharif is now in the driver’s seat in Pakistan.

In the past, the political leadership of Pakistan used to take the plea that the activities of the Pakistan Army, especially the ISI, are being conducted covertly without the knowledge of the civilian executive. Now the Indian negotiators can point out to the recent changes in the military establishment and demand to know of the Pakistan negotiators if they are behind the border incidents or the recurring incidents of trans-border terrorism.

With the changes at the top of the Army and the ISI, Mr Sharif can be perceived to have emerged as a powerful Prime Minister of Pakistan in view of the fact that during his tenure he has taken head-on collusion paths with all important functionaries of state who could have checkmated him as the Prime Minister.

It may be recalled that earlier Mr Sharif had managed to ease out the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Mr Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. Though the way he got rid of this high judicial functionary raised many an eyebrow, it set in motion a process of his attempt to consolidate his grip over the Pakistan establishment where in the past Prime Ministers had been checkmated by the military and even the judiciary and the Presidency.

After the Chief Justice, it was the turn of President Farooq Ahmed Leghari. Mr Sharif masterminded the move which led to stripping former President Leghari of all the extraordinary powers vested in him through the eighth amendment. President Mohammed Rafiq Tarar has the precedent of Farooq Leghari to hark back on before he embarks on any course of action against Mr Nawaz Sharif.

Last week’s move by Mr Nawaz Sharif to impose Shariat Law through the 15th Constitutional Amendment Bill which was passed by a two-thirds majority in the Lower House of Pakistan’s Parliament is also viewed as yet another move towards consolidation of his powers by Mr Nawaz Sharif.

In Colombo, when Mr Sharif met India’s Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, the one-on-one talks had gone off well. However, the hawks seemed to have taken over soon thereafter and an atmosphere of belligerence was created by the time Mr Sharif faced the media.

Mr Gohar Ayub Khan, the hawkish Foreign Minister of Pakistan who has links with the military establishment being the son of late Field Marshal Ayub Khan and also reputed to be a hardliner, was soon eased out of the Foreign Office.

Now that Mr Nawaz Sharif has given signals indicating that he is fully in command in Islamabad, Indian negotiators will be in a position to call a spade a spade during the coming weekend’s talks. Hopefully, Pakistan, being the host country, would like to see success of the talks.

Kenya to curb Indians’ influx

NAIROBI, Oct 14 — The Kenyan Government is tightening immigration procedures to stem the flow of workers, particularly from Pakistan and India.

“The process of issuing work permits has been abused in the past,” informed sources said.

A special committee has been set up within the President’s Office to pay close attention “to certain categories of applicants for permits which have hitherto been handled by the much-maligned Immigration Department,” Minister of State Marsden Madoka said.

“There have been far too many people in this country who have been given entry and work permits which have neither been genuine nor deserving,” Mr Madoka said while referring particularly to some Pakistanis and Indians.

“We are now revising the procedures to make sure that work permits are issued to special cases only,” he added. “We are no longer going to issue permits for jobs which Kenyans are qualified to handle,” he said.

Mr Madoka lashed out at “cheats” who, he claimed, were contributing to the unemployment problem in the country.

Sources said the government had hardened its attitude in the wake of the August 7 terrorist bomb blast in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, the Tanzanian capital.

The minister obliquely admitted there was “even greater need to thoroughly scrutinise the applicants for the permits to ensure that such potential terrorists do not sneak in disguised as job-seekers and also as tourists.”

Also of major concern to the government is the high incidence of drug trafficking from South Asia in recent years. Recently, six Pakistanis were arrested and are facing charges of trafficking in narcotics. Soon after, one more Pakistani was arrested on similar charges. All seven are currently in remand and their passports have been ordered confiscated.

In late July, Mr Madoka had issued a stinging statement about the influx of “cheap immigrant” workers into Kenya from Pakistan and India. He accused the Immigration Department of being corrupt and issuing work permits to unqualified and under-qualified individuals.

Despite the minister’s scathing remarks, no work permit has been cancelled in the past several weeks. — IANS

Clinton’s impeachment
Panel may narrow probe

WASHINGTON Oct 14 (Reuters) — The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde has said he may narrow the impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton, the Washington Post reported today.

Mr Hyde told the paper in an interview that he was considering consolidating or even dropping some of the 15 potential charges against Mr Clinton announced last week by the committee’s chief investigator.

The Illinois Republican said his committee might not be able to meet his deadline of completing the impeachment inquiry by the end of the year unless its scope was limited to the strongest allegations against the president arising from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

David P. Schippers, the judiciary chief investigative counsel, recommended on last Monday that the committee investigate 15 specific counts of alleged lying under oath, obstructing justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr reported 11 possibly impeachable offences by Mr Clinton to the House.

But the post quoted informed sources as saying that Hyde may consider streamlining those into as few as two counts: one charging that Mr Clinton repeatedly lied under oath, the other alleging that he tried to obstruct justice.

Mr Hyde, however, emphasised that he had made no decisions to drop any charges against Mr Clinton and said his self-imposed deadline could change if the White House or other Democrats fail to cooperate, or if independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr refers any more possible impeachable offences to the House.

“There is a limited amount of time, and we can’t spend all the time we would like on all of the charges,” Mr Hyde told the paper. “There may be some consolidation of these counts to accommodate the time constraints. But we aren’t there yet.”

Jim Jordan, spokesman for the committee’s Democrats, said Mr Hyde’s suggestion that he could limit the inquiry was a “stunning repudiation by chairman Hyde of both Starr and Schippers, and a commendably honest admission of the insubstantiality of the evidence”.

Meanwhile, US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch has said that President Bill Clinton, facing impeachment threat, could save his job by settling his sexual misconduct case in the Paula Jones affair.

Mr Clinton should settle his sexual misconduct case in the Paula Jones affair which could clear the way for a deal that would punish the President without removing him from office, Mr Hatch, Republican Senator, told NBC’s “meet the press” programme on Sunday.

“I would tell the President: get rid of that doggone Paula Jones case. Yes, people will conclude that she was right and you were wrong, but you can conclude it on the basis of not admitting liability,” the Chairman said.

The development comes amidst reports that lawyers for the President and Jones are negotiating the terms of a settlement in the case pertaining to Jones’ allegations that Mr Clinton, when he was Arkansas Governor, made a crude pass at her.

Jones’ lawyers want a million dollars while the President’s lawyers have reportedly offered $ 700,000.

Implement CTBT: Annan

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 14 (PTI) — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the international community to work for global nuclear disarmament and ensure that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enters into force as soon as possible.

Welcoming the declarations by India and Pakistan of their intention to adhere to the CTBT, Mr Annan told a UN committee that the world community should work to finish the job of promoting universal adherence to all key treaties on weapons of mass destruction.

“We must bear in mind that the long-term sustainability of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) depends on all parties working seriously to implement all its articles,” he said addressing the disarmament and international security committee here yesterday.

Mr Annan cautioned against the slackening of efforts to contain proliferation of larger weapons, and especially of weapons of mass destruction, including biological, chemical and nuclear.

Calling for ban on weapons of mass destruction, he reminded the committee that chemical weapons had been used against Iran and also in northern Iraq and some states had developed biological weapons.

PoK groups contest Pak claim

LONDON, Oct 14 (PTI) — More and more Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) groups based here are coming out in the open, rejecting Pakistani claims to represent them in bilateral talks with India, exposing the hollowness of Islamabad’s claims to speak on behalf of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Two prominent PoK groups here, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (Yasin), a constituent of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, and the Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKNLF), have outrightly rejected Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed’s claims of speaking on their behalf.

In a statement here, general secretary of the JKLF (Yasin) faction, Mr Azmat Khan, dismissed Shamshad Ahmed’s claim as “sheer stupidity and arrogance” saying that, “it was in line with Pakistan’s policy of mess up over Kashmir”.

Mr Khan said India and Pakistan should work towards a “formula to seek Kashmiri representation at the talks from all parts of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir state.”

He said Pakistan Foreign Secretary’s claim was in direct conflict with his Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz who had recently said before the UN that Pakistan had no objection to Kashmiri representative participation in the Indo-Pak dialogue.

At a meeting held in Watford, north of London, activists of JKLF castigated Mr Shamshad Ahmed for making such remarks.

They announced three-day rallies in Islamabad to coincide with the talks to protest against his remarks.

The JKNLF leader, Chaudhry Mushtaq Hussain, while welcoming the dialogue to defuse the situation in the region, said the two countries should allow leaders from both parts of the divided state to meet to chalk out a joint strategy and draft a framework for settling the Kashmir issue.

Hitler survived World War II?

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 14 (AFP) — An Argentine newspaper has added yet another titbit to the series of never-ending claims that German dictator Adolf Hitler survived World War-II and lived in South America.

La Manana Del Sur newspaper yesterday published a letter written by a former German officer in 1956 that indicated the Nazi leader lived in Argentina in the 1950s.

The letter, penned by Walter Von Seydlitz, a General who apparently fought on the Russian front, was sent to former Nazi pilot Albrecht Boehme, who was then living in the Argentinean province of Rio Negro.

In the letter, Von Seydlitz claimed that he had been with General Aschenbrenner who “told me he was travelling to Buenos Aires for a meeting with our beloved comrade Hitler”.

The letter, which is now in the hands of a private Argentine collector, Alberto Aragon, was sent from Germany on June 20, 1956 to a post office box rented by Boehme in the province of Rio Negro where he lived until his death in 1986.

Held for spying
WASHINGTON: A former US Army Signal Corps officer has been arrested for passing top secret documents to the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991, the US Justice Department has said. David Sheldon Boone, who worked for the national security agency, is accused of giving the documents to KGB agents in return for $ 60,000. The Justice Department complaint says Boone — now retired — passed “extremely sensitive documents and materials which could potentially cause grave harm to the national security of the USA”. — AFP

$ 252 m drug haul
SYDNEY: The Australian police today seized more than 400 kg heroin worth around $ 252 million in the country’s biggest ever drugs haul. Justice Minister Amanda Vanstone said the police had arrested 18 persons in a raid on a small Pacific coast beach and an operation involving the police from Hong Kong was continuing. — Reuters

10 die in blast
MEXICO CITY: A massive blast at a small fireworks factory on the outskirts of Mexico City left at least 10 persons dead and many injured or missing, the authorities said. Other sources said 16 persons died in the blast at Tultepec, which prides itself on being the pyrotechnic capital of Mexico because of large number of home industries involved in the manufacture of fireworks — some illegally. The authorities said 23 persons were injured in the powerful explosion, while an undetermined number were missing. — AFP

Bangladesh coup verdict
DHAKA: A court here on Tuesday set November 3 as the date for a verdict in the trial of those allegedly involved in killing members of Bangladesh founding father Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman’s government and family in a 1975 coup. The decision came at the end of a 17-month trial. Sheikh Mujibur, the father of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, was killed along with most of his family members in the 1975 coup, which toppled his post-independence Awami League government. Sheikh Hasina was abroad at that time. — AFP

Triple murderer
SEATTLE: A triple murderer who acted as his own attorney to ensure he got the death penalty died early on Tuesday in Washington state’s first execution by lethal injection. Jeremy Sagastegui, who admitted killing a three-year-old boy and two women, died in the state penitentiary in Walla Walla after the Supreme Court threw out an appeal filed by his mother that raised questions about his mental competency. Sagastegui was declared dead at 1313 hrs IST, nine minutes after a cocktail of lethal chemicals began flowing through his veins. — Reuters

Soldiers defect
SEOUL: Two North Korean soldiers, including a female, on Wednesday crossed the heavily fortified demilitarised zone and defected to South Korea, the Defence Ministry here said. It was the third defection by serving North Korean soldiers this year. “After crossing the military demarcation line into the South, they shouted and waved lights toward our soldiers”, a ministry spokesman said, adding the two asked for asylum here. — AFP

N. Korean threat
SEOUL: North Korea has issued a fresh threat to revive its frozen nuclear programme should Washington yield to pressure from conservatives and cut fuel and food aid to the Stalinist country. “If the US policy is to break the framework agreement, the DPRK (North Korea) has no intention to keep the USA from doing so”, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday. — AFP

Charles’ painting
LONDON: Prince Charles has donated one of his paintings to a hospital in Omagh town of Northern Ireland to help buy medical equipment. The watercolour painting of Windsor Castle is due to be auctioned in Dublin on Wednesday along with other works by distinguished Irish artists. John Vere White, art auctioneer, described the Prince’s work as a “rare, signed and dated artist’s proof” from a series of lithographs. — ANI