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| Saturday, August 19, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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India lambasts Pak
at UN meeting Sub’s crew had ‘no time to escape’ Lankan Parliament dissolved Lewinsky case: new
grand jury convened Protesters rally outside convention venue Speight case delayed |
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India lambasts Pak
at UN meeting GENEVA, Aug 18 (PTI) — India lambasted Pakistan for unleashing “inhuman and degrading” acts of terrorism as a means to nurture its political and territorial ambitions in Jammu and Kashmir. “Acts of terrorism have become a tool for this country to keep its agenda of territorial aggrandisement alive on the international scene,” an Indian diplomat said without naming Pakistan but alluding to a “neighbouring country” at the ongoing 52nd annual meeting of the
sub commission of the UN Human Rights Commission here last evening. Mr Sharad Sabharwal, Deputy Permanent Representative at India’s permanent mission here, regretted that attempts by India to resolve outstanding issues through a dialogue had been responded through “adventurist actions” by Pakistan and “exertion of pressure” on militant organisations to continue with their violent acts. “Shrill calls” for a dialogue made by Pakistan in the international fora were matched by calls to arms by its military leadership, he said during a discussion on terrorism and human rights. Mr Sabharwal attacked Pakistan for concealing its “self-serving violent agenda” behind calls for “self-determination” and “freedom struggle” saying that a sustained campaign of terrorist violence was not possible without assistance by states. He said organised terrorism was being promoted by “certain states” as an instrument of foreign policy and blamed Pakistan for waging a proxy war against India through operation of terrorist training camps, supply of weapons and explosives, and financing and infiltration of terrorists and foreign mercenaries. “The proxy war has been responsible for gross violations of human rights by terrorists and this has caused untold misery, besides posing a serious challenge to the democratic, secular and pluralistic fabric of our society,” he said. Mr Sabharwal said due to “current imbalance” in their approach, some western human rights groups had failed to address the abuses perpetrated by terrorists, while placing undue emphasis on the human rights of terrorists. “This imbalance has to be redressed,” he said, calling for urgent steps to ensure the accountability of non-state actors who were responsible for abuses of human rights. He said the member-states were required to take appropriate practical measures to ensure that their territories were not used for terrorist installations and training camps for against other states. |
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Sub’s crew had ‘no time to escape’ MOSCOW, Aug 18 (AP) — Rescue efforts today to find any survivors on a shattered submarine looked increasingly hopeless after Russian officials said the crew probably had no time to escape a “catastrophe that developed at lightning speed.” The pessimistic assessments came after a film of the crippled Kursk showed massive damage reaching from the bow to the conning tower, which was much more extensive than earlier thought. Navy officials said there was no sign of life today among the 118 men aboard the wreck of the nuclear submarine trapped 108 meters below the surface of the Barents Sea. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, the Head of a Government Commission that reviewed the rescue effort yesterday, said there was a “terrifying hole” on the starboard side of the submarine. “A rather big part of the crew was in the part of the boat that was hit by the catastrophe that developed at lightning speed,” Klebanov told reporters in Murmansk, home of the Russian Northern Fleet. “There have been no sounds for quite a long time” from within the Kursk, he added. Both Klebanov and the Navy Commander, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov have said that any survivors were expected to run out of oxygen today, but other high-ranking naval officers have given them much longer. Yesterday, Klebanov declined to say how much air could remain. Meanwhile, Oceanologist Alexander Podrazhansky, a veteran underwater craft pilot, said survivors could be poisoned by excessive carbonic acid in the air - which causes hallucinations and mental disorders - and experience a nervous breakdown after spending days in darkness, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Four Russian rescue capsules working in turns again failed today to reach the partially flooded submarine. For the past four days, strong currents stopped them latching on to the Kursk and clouds of silt reduced visibility on the bottom to near-zero. Adding to the rescue problems, Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said the Kursk was slowly sinking into the mud. He said it “does not significantly impact the rescue operation,” but the submarine is already leaning at a sharp angle, impeding rescue work. British and Norwegian rescue teams were not expected to reach the rescue site until tomorrow at the earliest, after Russia initially resisted accepting Western assistance. A British Navy team with a sophisticated rescue submarine was heading to the area on a ship. Russian Navy’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Vice-Adm. Alexander Pobozhy, was to meet today with NATO officials in Brussels to discuss technical aspects of their assistance, ITAR-Tass said. Russian officials have not determined how the Kursk got into trouble and the likely sequence of events, including one or more explosions in the front of the submarine. Klebanov said evidence suggested the submarine hit an unspecified “huge, heavy object,” about 20 meters below surface and plunged to the sea bottom in seconds. But officials could not explain how a highly sophisticated submarine, filled with advanced electronic guidance systems, could crash into a large object. Officials have offered various explanations for what happened on August 12, including a collision with a ship, an internal explosion or even contact with a World War II mine. There have been no reports of other ships being damaged and the US Navy has said its vessels in the area were not involved. US submarines monitoring Russian Navy exercises when the Kursk was lost detected two explosions at the time, US officials said, on condition of anonymity. The second explosion was much larger than the first, the officials said. A likely scenario was that a torpedo in the Kursk’s forward torpedo compartment exploded, setting off a much bigger explosion in the compartment packed with torpedoes. The Kursk can carry up to 28 torpedoes and anti-submarine missiles, each with warheads weighing up to 450 km. A blast involving even a few torpedoes would have caused catastrophic damage. |
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CIA chief in Moscow MOSCOW, Aug 18 (Reuters) — The head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA was in Moscow today, a spokesman for Russia’s FSB Domestic Security Service said. It was not clear whether Mr George Tenet’s visit was in any way connected with the crisis over a Russian nuclear submarine which sank last Saturday trapping 118 sailors. The spokesman contacted by telephone declined to give any details. Interfax news agency described it as an “official visit’’. The U.S. Embassy could not immediately be reached for comment. Officials say an explosion on the submarine Kursk or a collision could have caused the accident. Yesterday Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Navy after a telephone conversation with U.S. President Bill Clinton to accept any foreign help in the rescue operation. |
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Lankan Parliament dissolved COLOMBO, Aug 18 (PTI) — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga today dissolved Parliament, a week before its term ended, and announced general election for October 10. An official
communiqué here said the 225-member legislature had been dissolved with effect from midnight tonight, six days before it was due to end its six-year term, through a special proclamation by the President. As per the schedule announced by the government, nominations for the parliamentary elections would be accepted between August 28 and September 4 and polling would be held on October 10. Official sources said Ms Kumaratunga dissolved Parliament using her executive powers ahead of its scheduled date to advance the polling date by a week. The present Parliament was scheduled to be dissolved on August 24. As per the present electoral regulations, the poll would be held directly for 196 seats under the proportional representation system. |
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Lewinsky case: new
grand jury convened WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (AFP) — Independent prosecutor Robert Ray has convened a new grand jury to determine if President Bill Clinton should face fresh charges in the Monica Lewinsky affair, US media has reported. The grand jury, empanelled July 11, was to decide if Mr Clinton should face charges after he leaves the White House at the end of his term on January 20, the reports said. Citing legal sources outside Mr Ray’s office, the reports yesterday said the jury would probe whether Mr Clinton committed perjury or obstruction of justice by denying an affair with the White House intern Lewinsky during sworn testimony. The leak came just hours before Mr Clinton’s Vice-President Al Gore, who has sought to distance himself from the President’s scandals, was to accept the democratic party’s nomination as White House candidate for the November 7 election. The White House reacted with fury, with Deputy Press Secretary Jake Siewert saying the timing of the leak “reeks to high heaven.” “But given the past record of that office it’s hardly surprising,” he said referring to past leaks from the independent counsel’s office during the Clinton investigation. Mr Jack Quinn, a senior Gore advisor agreed, saying “the timing of this just absolutely stinks.” “Al Gore is not going to be distracted by it, most of all the American people are not going to be distracted by it,” he added in a CNN interview. A spokesman for Mr Gore’s Republican rival for the White House, George W Bush, declined to comment on the timing of the leak but said Americans were tired of White House scandals. “Americans are sick and tired of investigations and scandals in Washington,” said spokesman Ray Sullivan. “And the best way to change that is to change Presidents and change administrations. And that’s what we’re going to do.” Mr Clinton was impeached in connection with the Lewinsky affair in December, 1998, but was acquitted and escaped removal from office in February last year after a trial in the Senate. The trial followed a lengthy investigation into the president’s conduct by Ray’s predecessor Kenneth Starr. Mr Ray indicated in a television interview earlier this year that he was continuing to pursue the case against Mr Clinton. “It is now my task as a prosecutor, with a very limited and narrow focus, to determine again whether crimes have been committed and whether ... It is appropriate to bring charges” he told ABC Television. Mr Clinton was questioned in January, 1998, in the Paula Jones case about his relationship with former intern Lewinsky with whom he denied having any sexual relations. Ms Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, accused Mr Clinton of making an indecent proposition in a Little Rock Hotel room in 1991. He was Governor of Arkansas at the time. In the subsequent probe by Starr, Mr Clinton confessed to an improper relationship with Lewinsky which spurred his impeachment. |
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Protesters rally outside convention venue LOS ANGELES, Aug 18 (Reuters) — With Presidential nominee Al Gore addressing the faithful inside the Democratic convention, some 4,000 activists met outside to stage their last boisterous rally of the week, a political block party where they hoped to finally make their voices heard. To a backdrop of loud rock and hip hop music, one speaker after another exhorted the crowd to reject the two-party system in America that they said had become hijacked by special interests and corporate greed and fight against police brutality, damage to the environment and other injustices. Demonstrators of every stripe converged for the event, many nursing rubber bullet welts and other injuries from skirmishes with the Los Angeles police Department, and among the throng were some 40 members of the “Black Bloc” anarchist group that had been blamed by police brass for much of the trouble. The Gore speech represented essentially their last chance to grab the nation’s attention, but it proceeded peacefully as weary, sunburned protesters contented themselves with listening to the speakers or music. The worst of those confrontations came on Monday night when the police on horseback and in riot gear chased 9,000 persons out of a free concert in a show of force that left activists crying foul and civil libertarians threatening court action. But law enforcement officials and Mayor Richard Riordan have never wavered from their insistence that officers were doing the right thing, all of them returning again and again to the phrase “measured, strategic and appropriate” to describe the police response. Though many in the crowd outside staples centre still harboured grudges against the police, that issue was pushed to the back burner as speakers concentrated on Gore, the Democrats and a political system they say ignores them. When Gore concluded his speech to wild applause inside, the activists raised the noise level outside as well, banging on pots and pans, blowing whistles and chanting slogans such as “this is not democracy,” “destroy police oppression” and “we’re not rioting, how about you?” aimed at police officers. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said they will take the police to court over allegations that officers deliberately fired rubber bullets at reporters to muzzle their coverage of disturbances. They said six reporters came forward to complain they were singled out for baton blows, pepper spray or rubber bullets from officers during protests. |
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Speight case delayed SUVA, Aug 18 (Reuters) — Fiji nationalist rebel leader George Speight and 10 of his supporters appeared in a Suva court today to face a raft of minor charges related to his seizure of the Prime Minister and several other hostages in May. But proceedings were delayed after the Magistrate pulled out of the case because he was related to one of the group, who were charged with unlawful assembly, possession of arms, unlawful burial, and consorting with people carrying firearms in public. Another Magistrate was appointed to the case which would come back before the court on September 4. Today’s appearance was in connection with one of the two cases against Speight and his gang who stormed Parliament on May 19, taking then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry hostage in the name of indigenous Fijians. Speight and 10 others had also been charged with treason which carries the death penalty. Speight and 10 others, including his Chief Security Adviser Ilisoni Ligaira, Media adviser Joe Nata and Speight’s younger brother Jim, will be back in court on September 1 to face the treason charges. Mr Chaudhry and the other hostages were released on July 13. Speight was arrested on July 26 at the start of a military crackdown which saw the arrest of about 450 of his supporters. |
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Rebels release 3 Malaysian hostages MANILA, Aug 18 (AFP) — Chief Philippine negotiator Roberto Aventajado met European diplomats here today and said the remaining 28 hostages held by Muslim extremists on southern Jolo island would be released from midday tomorrow. “I just spoke to (Abu Sayyaf) Commander Robot,” Mr Aventajado said as he emerged from the hour-long meeting with the French, German, Finnish and South African Ambassadors. “Everything was agreed upon,” he said. “I wish I can say 1,000 per cent, but everything is in place so we will give it our best shot tomorrow.” The Abu Sayyaf, who released three Malaysian hostages today continue to hold two Finns, two Germans, five French nationals, two South Africans, a Franco-Lebanese woman and 16 Filipinos in a drama which began four months ago. Three French journalists, who the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas had initially refused to include in the negotiations, would be the last to be freed, Mr Aventajado said. Western diplomats will fly to Zamboanga tomorrow to receive their nationals, he said. Mr Aventajado said the releases would begin tomorrow “most probably, starting noontime.” In a separate radio interview however, he doubted whether the remaining 28 hostages would be released together. |
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Seismic institute
recorded blasts OSLO, Aug 18 (Reuters) — A Norwegian seismic institute recorded two explosions last Saturday where a stricken Russian submarine sank, the biggest equivalent to one to two tonnes of TNT, Norway’s NTB news agency said today. The Norsar Research Institute, which specialises in geophysics and seismology, estimated that the strongest explosion was equivalent to 3.5 on the Richter scale, the agency said. An earthquake of that relatively low magnitude on the open-ended Richter scale would probably not cause heavy damage. Norsar officials were not immediately available to comment on the report, which supported earlier reports of an explosion aboard the Kursk. The NTB said the biggest blast happened at 7.30 a.m. (GMT) on Saturday and a smaller one occurred two minutes 15 seconds earlier. The first explosion registered 1.5 on the Richter scale. |
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South Korea to
return prisoners SEOUL, Aug 18 (AFP) — South Korea will repatriate early next month 62 aged North Koreans who have spent decades in prison here on spying and sedition charges, officials said today. Separated families would be able to meet their relatives at the centre and exchange mail and gifts, officials here said. “The talks would take place on the very day when the long-term prisoners return home,” said Mr Choi Sung-Chol, a senior North Korean Red Cross official who accompanied 100 North Koreans on their trip for family reunions in South Korea. South Korea today handed over to North Korea a list of 62 North Koreans who opted to remain behind bars rather than “convert” to the South Korean cause. |
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