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| Wednesday,
November 8, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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India, Canada
to sign agreement Pak aiding Taliban
militarily : USA EU backs India-sponsored
move Blast in Hezbollah explosive expert’s
house |
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| Vietnam backs India’s candidature HANOI, Nov, 7 — Vietnam today strongly supported India’s candidature for permanent membership in an expanded UN Security Council even as New Delhi assured Hanoi of extending all possible assistance for economic development. Qatar’s no to snapping
ties with Israel Briton gives his heart to
museum Muslim rebels attack
jail, free leader 100 held in Pak
after bomb blast Taiwan oppn unites to impeach Chen Fiji army officers under house arrest More bogies for
Sikh pilgrims
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India, Canada
to sign agreement Canada and India have agreed to sign a Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) agreement to facilitate better cooperation and exchange of information to firm up the prosecution against the suspects in the Air India bombing. A seven member Canadian team led by Senior Sergeant John Schneider is expected to arrive in India later this month. It will visit Punjab after signing the MLA with the Union Government and discuss various aspects of their investigation with senior intelligence officials here. The team members have been hand picked from the 60-member Air India Task Force comprising the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), specially created to crack the Air India bombing case. Two members of the team are Sikhs of Indian origin. Besides briefing Indian police officials about their findings in the investigations into the Kanishka bombing, the team members will stitch up nitty-gritty of the trial proceedings. The visiting team will also study interrogation reports of some of the arrested militants for possible linkages with the Kanishka case. During the course of investigations, the RCMP was provided by the CBI an access into interrogation reports of arrested Babbar Khalsa militant to explore their possible linkages with the larger conspiracy to blow up two Air India flights in 1984. An RCMP investigation report, shared with the Indian government recently, says it was one group of conspirators that planted the two bombs on different aircrafts. It was a “case of one plan, two bombs”, concludes the report. One bomb brought down Kanishka off the coast of Ireland, while the other killed two handlers at Tokyo airport. The RCMP report graphically reconstructs the entire sequence of events leading to the blowing up of “Kanishka. The report also says “hundreds of witnesses have been examined who can trace ticket purchase and luggage flow at Vancouver airport and airline ticket office”. Since some part of the RCMP investigation is based on the interrogation reports of several arrested militants including Daya Singh Lahoria, Lal Singh and G.S Sibia. The MLA agreement will enable the RCMP to fetch up any piece of evidence in India to support the prosecution theory in the Vancouver trial. The RCMP could possibly seek extradition of some Punjab militants during the course of trial. Lal Singh was arrested in July 16,1992 from Mumbai on return from San Francisco. He told his CBI interrogators that the prime suspect in the Kanishka case, Ajaib Singh Bagri, was present in the meeting of radical Sikhs from the USA and Canada on the occasion of the formation of the World Sikh Organisation (WSO) in August, 1984. CSIS inputs in the RCMP report say some Sikh radical elements worked out plans to bomb more Air India planes at a meeting of over 20,000 radicals Sikhs from the USA and Canada, who had gathered on the occasion of the 1st anniversary of Operation Bluestar. Canadian investigators initially thought that Lal Singh carried the bomb to the Kanishka flight, as one ticket was booked in the name of L. Singh. Lal Singh claimed before the CBI that Bagri had asked him to dissuade Sikhs travelling on Air India flights. He had also said that Air India offices would also be targeted in case they failed to attack any Air India flight. The third prime accused Surjan Singh Gill, who is believed to have purchased the tickets for travel, is still evading arrest. What is intriguing is that Surjan Singh Gill was blacklisted by the Indian Consulate in Canada, but despite this he manage to get a visa to India and visit his village about six months ago. A key finding of the RCMP is that there is no direct linkage of the Babbar Khalsa in India with the conspiracy. Talwinder Singh Parmar, founder of the Babbar Khalsa who lived in Canada since 1962 was treated as a persona non-grata by the USA and Canada based Sikhs. Parmar is the number one suspect in the RCMP list of conspirators. Parmar was killed in the Jammu region in October 1992 when he had gone there to collect a consignment of Stringer missiles from arm dealers of Darrah in Afghanistan, his wife now based in Canada, later retrieved the rupees fifty lakhs paid in advance to the North Front Frontier Province dealers. |
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Pak aiding Taliban militarily : USA WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (PTI) — The USA has charged Pakistan with aiding Afghanistan’s Taliban militarily in the militia’s fight against rival factions in the country and vowed to seek international support, including that of India and Russia, in containing global terrorism. “Information about the military involvement of Pakistan with Afghanistan has come to our attention, it has come to Russian attention, we have talked to Pakistan about it. Pakistan is swift in its denial of that involvement, but we believe it continues to be true,” US Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering told the Voice of America. He said that the USA would enlist support of countries, including India and Russia to curb the menace of terrorism which, he claimed, was targeting Americans. “The battle has come against us and in that battle we are prepared to go and work with whoever it is prepared to help in the fight. Whether it is Russia or Pakistan, or India or Saudi Arabia or whoever,” he said. He expressed concern that in Pakistan’s present “weakened condition,” the Taliban is gaining influence in Pakistani madrasas (educational institutions) where poor children are turned into jehadis or holy warriors to fight in wars ranging from Kashmir to Central Asian states and Chechnya. Pickering asked Pakistan to consider whether what it was doing with the Taliban in Afghanistan and permitting the Taliban to do in Pakistan was in its national interest. “The sense that I have is that Pakistan should decide, and we have talked extensively with it, about whether it should support a regime which harbours terrorists,” Pickering said. |
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EU backs India-sponsored move PARIS, Nov 7 (PTI) — The European Union (EU) has backed a comprehensive convention on international terrorism, sponsored by New Delhi at the UN, and a proposal for a joint working group on it but failed to give any assurance on protectionist measures against Indian imports. “We received support for the convention on international terrorism and we hope that the proposed joint working group would also be effective,” Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh, who led India at the Indo-EU meeting here yesterday, told PTI. He said there was a broad agreement between the two sides on the Kashmir issue and the threat of international terrorism emerging from India’s neighbourhood. On the contentious trade issues between India and the EU, he said “we expressed the hope that protectionist tendencies would be kept under check. We related our experience with regard to anti-dumping and anti-subsidy action.” However, the Foreign Secretary conceded that EU had failed to give any guarantee on non-imposition of similar restrictions in future. “We had an assurance from the French presidency which was endorsed also by the Swedes, that these tendencies will be kept under check,” he added. The talk were a follow-up to the first-ever summit between India and the 15-member body held in Lisbon in July. The Indian delegation included Indian Ambassador to France Kanwal Sibal and Ambassador to Belgium and the EC P.K. Singh. Senior officials from the French presidency of the EU, the EC and a representative from Sweden, which will assume presidency in January, were also present at the discussions. New Delhi has voiced concern on several occasions at various fora that EU’s actions in imposing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures on Indian imports adversely affecting Indo-EU trade. “They recognised that but there are some countries within the EU which are holding them back,” Mr Mansingh said. |
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Blast in Hezbollah explosive expert’s house BAALBEK (Lebanon), Nov 7 (agencies) — An explosion yesterday damaged the home of a Hezbollah explosives expert in eastern Lebanon, causing no casualties, Lebanese security officials said. Dia’ al-mousawi was not at his home in Nabi Sheet village when the explosion occurred, the officials said on customary condition of anonymity. Neither the extent of the damage nor the cause of the blast was immediately clear, according to the security officials. Nabi Sheet, about 20 km south of the city of Baalbek is a stronghold of Hezbollah guerrillas who fought the Israeli troops during their 18-year occupation of a strip of southern Lebanon bordering Israel. Israel withdrew its troops in May. JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak easily survived four censure motions in the Parliament on Monday night, Israeli radio reported. The motions had been filed by Israeli Arab political parties to protest the deaths of 13 Israeli Arabs over the past month during demonstrations in support of the Palestinian intifada or uprising. The Ultra-Orthodox Shas party, the third largest in parliament, agreed on October 30 not to try to topple Barak for one month in light of continued violence in the Palestinian territories. Barak’s government has just 30 seats in the 120-member Parliament but without Shas and 17 votes, his opponents are unlikely to muster the necessary support for any moves to remove him. After failing in his efforts to forge a national emergency government with the hardline right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon, Barak last week won a temporary lifeline from Shas which only three months earlier had bolted the coalition. Shas led a mass walk-out of right-wing and religious parties over Barak’s peace policies ahead of the Camp David peace summit in July. WASHINGTON: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have agreed to meet US President Bill Clinton separately this week to push for a peaceful solution to the ongoing bloodletting in West Asia, the White House has confirmed. Arafat has agreed to come here on November 9 and Barak on November 12 for separate meetings with Clinton, White House Press Secretary Jake Siewert said. “There is too much violence still in the streets and that is part of the reason that we are trying to gather both parties here to try to find a way to implement the security measures that we anticipated by the agreement at Sharm el-Sheikh and to begin to restore calm and lower the level of violence,” he said. He also confirmed that Clinton will not stop in North Korea as part of the trip which will take him to Vietnam and Brunei. “He has not made the final decision on whether to travel to North Korea (at all). It would depend on further progress in the missile talks. We will make a decision about whether he goes there before the end of his term at a later date,” Siewert said. |
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Vietnam backs India’s candidature HANOI, Nov, 7 (PTI) — Vietnam today strongly supported India’s candidature for permanent membership in an expanded UN Security Council even as New Delhi assured Hanoi of extending all possible assistance for economic development. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien after talks with External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh declared Hanoi’s support to India’s claim for representation in the Security Council as also for membership to the key Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). Addressing a meeting of the Indo-Vietnam Joint Commission, Mr Nguyen said India should formulate a policy to facilitate import to correct Vietnam’s adverse balance of payment. Bilateral trade of $ 154 million in 1999-2000 was weighed heavily in favour of India with its exports accounting for $ 143 million. On his part, Mr Jaswant Singh, who was on a three-day visit to Vietnam, gave an assurance that India was ready to share its experience and provide assistance to Vietnam for its economic development. He asked Hanoi to allow Indian banks to operate in the country. The Vietnamese minister underscored the need to boost trade promotion activities, increase the exchange of business delegations and enhance cooperation in traditional goods such a rice, pepper, tea, footware and silk yarn. He urged India to consider granting tax deduction or exemption to Vietnamese handicraft. Mr Jaswant Singh said India was ready to provide its knowhow to Vietnam in information technology and other areas. “It is incumbent on us to find newer and better ways of strengthening and developing our cooperation in political and economic fields,” he said. Signalling a new warmth in Indo-Vietnam ties, he said Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would make a “landmark” visit to Vietnam early next year. The two sides would identify areas of cooperation that would find focus during Vajpayee’s visit. Efforts to strengthen ties with countries in the region had enhanced India’s standing internationally and had made it a natural claimant for a seat in an expanded Security Council, the Vietnamese minister said adding that New Delhi should also get its rightful place in the
APEC. Mr Nyugen suggested that India should facilitate the establishment of a Vietnamese trade centre in Delhi to boost trade. Hanoi urged India to expedite the disbursement of two new credit lines. New Delhi had been granting recycling credit line to Vietnam to import machinery and equipment for projects on food processing, sugarcane, transportation and metallurgy. |
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Qatar’s no to snapping ties with Israel DUBAI, Nov 7 (UNI) — Qatar, which will host the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit later this month, has ruled out snapping trade links with Israel, as demanded by several Arab and Islamic nations in the wake of ongoing wave of violence in Palestinian territories. “If this will help solve the ongoing crisis then we are ready to do it now but it is not the right time now,’’ Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani was quoted as saying after a meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza City. Qatar set up commercial links with Israel in 1996 when nobel peace prize winner Shimon Perez was the Prime Minister of the Jewish nation. Oman, the only other Gulf state, which has ties with Israel, shut its commercial representation in Tel Aviv and Israel’s trade office in Muscat last month following the Israeli-Palestinian violence. News reports said Qatar’s announcement that it had no plans to sever trade links with Israel would disappoint many Arab and Islamic states. However, Iran has announced that President Mohammed Khatami would take part in the OIC summit, to be held in Doha from November 12 to 14, setting at rest speculations that Teheran might boycott the gathering to protest against the presence of Israeli trade office in Doha. Saudi Arabia would be represented at the summit by Crown Prince Abdullah but Bahrain’s Emir would boycott the meeting because of a territorial dispute between Bahrain and Qatar. |
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Briton gives his heart to museum LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) — They’ve been broken, lost, shattered and torn apart but Briton Robert Moss is the first person literally to give his heart away. The recipient of the rather worn organ is not a long-lost lover or former girlfriend but a British museum. Moss’s 61-year-old ticker, which was replaced with a better one in August, will be prominently displayed in a new $ 72 million-wing of the Science Museum in London. “Never before has a living person donated his or her own heart to a museum,’’ a spokesman for the museum said. The heart, which is three times the size of a normal one due to a bout of rheumatic fever, is diseased and had been fitted with a mechanical valve to keep it going. It will be prominently displayed along with a transgenic pig heart, liver and kidney in an exhibit entitled “Who am I?’’ Moss, a builder and property developer who was given the heart of a 45-year-old man who died from a brain haemorrhage, is feeling fitter than he has in years. He hopes that his gift to the museum will encourage other people to join organ donor programmes. “My real reason for doing this is to try to make people more aware of donating organs,’’ he said in a telephone interview. “Because at the end of the day it might be your son, your daughter or your loved one who needs a transplant.’’ Moss was lucky, he waited only eight months for his new heart, a relatively short time because demand for transplant organs far exceeds the supply. He had suffered from heart problems for 54 years and had open heart surgery six years ago. Before his surgery there were days when he could not get out of bed. Now he is planning to take up golf again. More than 50,000 people in Europe are waiting for an organ transplant. Annual demand is growing by an estimated 15 per cent. |
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Muslim rebels attack jail, free leader ZAMBOANGA CITY (Philippines), Nov 7 (DPA) — Muslim separatist rebels today attacked a jail in a southern Philippine city and freed their leader and 64 other prisoners, killing one inmate and a guard, officials said. Police officer Alvin David said more than 50 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at the jail in the village of Apupong in General Santos City, 1,080 km south of Manila. Mr David said the rebels freed their leader, Tahir Alonto, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for murder and kidnapping for ransom. Sixtyfour other inmates escaped during the early-morning attack. “The prisoners may have joined the rebels because they did not have anywhere else to go,’’ he said. “Authorities are tracking the inmates down. Policemen and soldiers are also pursuing the rebels, who fled towards the nearby province of South Cotabato.’’ General Santos City Mayor Adelbert Antonino said some of the escapees were also MILF members who had been arrested for various crimes, including a series of bombings that rocked the metropolis earlier in the year. Mr Antonino ordered the police to step up security patrols and increase visibility in the city, especially during night time, in a bid to thwart similar attacks. He noted the raid was well-planned, saying that “they knew what to do. They brought big hammers to smash the walls where Alonto was held.’’ The MILF has been fighting for a separate Islamic state in the southern region of Mindanao since 1978. It has declared a ‘jehad’against the government after the military captured its main headquarters and other camps during a three-month offensive. |
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100 held in Pak
after bomb blast KARACHI, Nov 7 (AFP) — The Pakistani police today arrested some 100 persons over a suicide bomb attack at a newspaper office amid mounting public anger at ethnic and sectarian violence which has claimed thousands of lives here. The police said they launched a major sweep of the city within hours of the blast yesterday at the Nawa-i-Waqat media group’s building. A woman believed to be a suicide bomber was among the three dead after the huge explosion inside the advertising department of the building. An Editor of The Nation, Nawa-i-Waqat’s English-language daily, said the news group had received threats which had not been taken seriously by police authorities. He also made veiled accusations against the MQM, a political party representing Indian immigrants which has been blamed for terrorist attacks in the past. |
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Taiwan oppn unites to impeach Chen TAIPEI, Nov 7 (AFP) — Taiwan’s major opposition parties today united ahead of a bid to impeach President Chen Shui-Bian over a nuclear power project, as anti-nuclear activists protested outside parliament. The three major opposition parties — Kuomintang (KMT), People First Party (PFP) and New Party (NP) — moved to amend the law governing legislators’ responsibilities in an impeachment, KMT caucus whip Ho Chih-Hui said. The new law, which was easily passed as the three parties control 143 seats in the 219-seat parliament, would require lawmakers to disclose their names in an impeachment ballot. The opposition feels this would prevent the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from luring any opposition members into secretly backing Chen, observers said. The KMT controls 115 seats in parliament, the PFP 19, the NP nine and the DPP 67. Independents hold nine seats. The impeachment motion would not be raised this week as all the opposition leaders were scheduled to meet on Saturday to discuss the issue, said Ho. |
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Fiji army officers under house arrest SUVA, Nov 7 (AFP) — Two of Fiji’s top military officers were placed under house arrest and ordered not to leave the country today amid an investigation into a failed mutiny, the military said in a statement. Lt-Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini and Colonel Ulaiafi Vatu were under “controlled movement orders” and had to advise the military at all times of their movements during the investigation into Thursday’s violence, the statement said. Rumours have flown in Fiji that Tarakinikini and former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka were implicated in Thursday’s attempted mutiny which left eight persons dead. More bogies for
Sikh pilgrims ISLAMABAD,
Nov 7 (AFP) — The Pakistan Railways is organising extra carriages to carry thousands of Sikh pilgrims on their way from India to celebrate the birthday of the founder of their religion, an official report said today. Ten additional bogies will be dispatched with the bi-weekly Samjhauta Express to Attari, India, on Thursday so that stranded Sikh pilgrims can join the festivities at holy sites in Pakistan on November 11, it said. Pakistan has issued some 4,000 visas to pilgrims from throughout India who are planning to mark the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan
(APP) reported. Hundreds had already arrived in Pakistan on their way to Guru Nanak’s birthplace outside Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, and up to 2,000 were reportedly waiting at Attari for seats on the packed trains. |
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