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| Wednesday, November 15, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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No win by error or miscount, says Gore J&K issue: OIC for UN representative Snap ties with Israel: summit Four Israelis, 3 Palestinians shot |
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Nationwide anti-Estrada stir India-China border talks conclude Indian activist wins
human rights award When Badal was denied US visa
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No win by error or miscount, says Gore TALLAHASSEE (Florida), Nov 14 — Democrat Al Gore, declaring that U.S. democracy was at stake, pledged to fight for a complete vote tally in Florida, as his legal team challenged a deadline laid down by a Republican official to end vote counting in the state by this evening. The 5 p.m. EST (3.30 a.m. IST) deadline announced by Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris could result in the election of Texas Governor George W. Bush who currently leads Gore in Florida by fewer than 400 votes. The deadline is set by state law, but Democrats say it can be extended at Harris’s discretion. The election will not be finally over at least until Friday — the deadline for overseas absentee ballots to arrive. A state judge said he will rule around 10.30 a.m. EST (3.30 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday on whether to uphold or dismiss the Secretary of State’s deadline for all recount results. Bush and Gore each polled 48.9 per cent of the nearly 6 million votes cast in Florida. The state’s 25 electoral votes would give either man the 270 votes needed in the electoral college to win the presidency. Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said the Texan would abide by whatever decision emerged then. She told reporters Mr Gore was trying to subvert the law: “Today, the Vice-President essentially said we should ignore the law so that he can overturn the results of this election.’’ Ms Hughes said a hand count could not produce a fair result. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that Vice-President Gore’s campaign wants to keep counting votes until they like the results,’’ she said. Accusing Gore of trying to subvert the election by recounting the vote by hand in a few selected, Democratic counties, Ms Hughes said: “That manual recount cannot possibly be fair or accurate or consistent.’’ “While time is important, it’s even more important that every vote is counted and counted accurately,’’ Mr Gore said in a brief appearance outside the White House. “There is something very special about our process that depends totally on the American people having a chance to express their will without any intervening interference. That’s really what is at stake here,’’ the Vice-President said. The Vice-President said he was fighting to protect the integrity of U.S. democracy rather than pursuing his own presidential ambitions. “Look, I would not want to win the presidency by a few votes cast in error or misinterpreted or not counted, and I don’t think Gov. Bush wants that either,’’ he said. “So having enough patience to spend the days necessary to hear exactly what the American people have said is really the most important thing,’’ he said. A CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,720 adults conducted this week that 72 per cent were confident the situation would be resolved this week or within one month. A separate poll by ABC News/ Washington Post found 85 p.c. of Americans following the news, but few deeply worried about the election. Pollsters said most of the people polled wanted the conflict confined to Florida and kept out of court. Officials in one of the Florida counties — Broward — decided late on Monday to cut short their manual recount, saying a partial recount had turned up no significant change from an electronic count. But the Democrats immediately said they would take the county to court to force completion of the hand count. Gore’s campaign representative Warren Christopher protested against Harris’ deadline as politically motivated and said she was trying to subvert the people’s will. “Her plan, I’m afraid, has the look of an effort to produce a particular result of the election rather than the to ensure that the voice of all the citizens of the state to be heard,’’ said Mr Christopher, former Secretary of State. Democrats in Florida’s Volusia County filed a legal challenge to the deadline even as workers approached the end of the recount of 184,000 presidential ballots. All local precincts had been recounted and workers were counting about 30,000 absentee ballots, county officials said. Election officials in Palm Beach County, where thousands of votes are in dispute, said they would begin a recount by hand on Tuesday morning and expected it to go on until the weekend. According to unofficial projections, Gore held 255 electoral votes, Bush held 246 while 37 from Oregon, New Mexico and Florida were
undecided. — Reuters County pressing case
for extension: Judge County judge Michael McDermott, who heads the three-member canvassing board that must certify the vote and act on questionable ballots, said the county government was pressing ahead with a lawsuit challenging the state’s Tuesday deadline. |
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J&K issue: OIC for UN representative DOHA, Nov 14 (UNI) — The ninth summit of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) has asked the un Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative for the Jammu and Kashmir problem. The
OIC also urged India and Pakistan to immediately resume dialogue with a view to resolving all the disputes, including Kashmir, peacefully and amicably. In its Doha declaration adopted by the leaders of 56 Islamic countries, the summit also approved last night the proposal for sending a fact-finding mission to Jammu and Kashmir for assessing the political and security situation there. This is for the second time that the
OIC decided to despatch the fact-finding team to Jammu and Kashmir. A similar proposal made earlier was struck down by the Indian government. The
OIC conference, which was attended by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, un Secretary General Kofi Annan, Pakistan Chief Executive Pervez Musharraf and other leaders, urged the member states to pressurise India to end human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. The
OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir also met on the sidelines of the summit to discuss the Kashmir problem. Two senior Hurriyat leaders also attended the summit. The summit concluded after midnight yesterday. In a reference to the Kashmir issue, the declaration urged India and Pakistan to resume dialogue for the resolution of the crisis. The summit was attended by two senior Hurriyat leaders — Molvi Omer Farooq and Maulana
Abbas. |
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Snap ties with
Israel: summit DOHA, Nov 14 (UNI) — The ninth Islamic Summit has ended with a call to Muslim nations to snap ties with Israel, but hard-line demands to declare a jehad against “unlawful” Israeli control of Arab territories have been rejected. The Doha Declaration, adopted by leaders of 56 Muslim nations after a marathon session that continued till midnight, decided to mount diplomatic pressure on Israel to halt its “atrocities and aggression” against Palestinians. The summit ended almost a day ahead of schedule as the leaders concluded their discussions during their 10-hour meeting on all important issues, such as Iraq-Kuwait relations, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Somalia and Bosnia. Also, the declaration rejected terrorism in all its forms, but stressed the need to differentiate people’s struggle for liberation from terrorism. |
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Four Israelis, 3 Palestinians shot JERUSALEM, Nov 14 (AFP, Reuters) — four Israelis, including two soldiers, and three Palestinians were killed in clashes yesterday, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned the Palestinians of reprisals for intensifying violence. Mr Barak “sees the violation of agreements on the Palestinian side as grave and instructed the Israeli army to take necessary steps,” said Mr Gilead Sher, a senior policy coordinator to Mr Barak who was traveling with him in Chicago. The attacks reflect a dramatic shift in the style of conflict that has gripped the Palestinian territories over the past six weeks, with shootings becoming more commonplace across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The deaths bring to 219 the number of people killed since violence broke out September 28. Of the dead, 182 were Palestinians, 24 Israeli Jews and 13 Arabs with Israeli citizenship. In West Bank, three gunmen in a Fiat car fired on a car carrying a Jewish settler and another passenger as it was driving on a road several kms north of Ramallah, killing the settler, military sources said. A minute later, the gunmen opened fire again on another vehicle, killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring another eight, before fleeing toward Ramallah, a town under full control of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Israel will cordon off all Palestinian-ruled towns in the West Bank after gunmen killed four Israelis, an Israeli general said. Major-Gen Yitzhak Eitan said that after studying the situation following three attacks in the West Bank and Gaza on Monday, the army as a security measure had decided to prevent Palestinians from moving between Palestinian-ruled towns and villages in West Bank. The move was a return to the widespread sanctions against Palestinians that Israel lifted in mid-October after agreeing to a ceasefire accord brokered by the USA. CHICAGO: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and US President Bill Clinton discussed ways to resume stalled peace talks with the Palestinians, but Israel insisted that the violence must stop before a return to the negotiating table, a senior Israeli official has said. Mr Barak and Mr Clinton held three hours of talks on Sunday night, including a 20 minute one-on-one session in which they discussed the possibility of resuming talks, said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reporters in Chicago, where the Israeli leader is to speak to Jewish groups. |
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Nationwide anti-Estrada stir MANILA, Nov 14 (Reuters) — The Philippine opposition today launched a nationwide strike pushing for the ouster of impeached President Joseph Estrada with many Filipinos turning up for work but promising to walk out later in the day. Traffic in Manila’s Makati financial district, usually bedlam on weekday mornings, was relatively light but attendance in banks and offices was not significantly down. Officials said many workers planned to stage walkouts when protest rallies were held later in the day. Stock brokerages said dealers planned to work off their ;jobs in the middle of trading. Airport employees in Manila were also planning to walk off their jobs later in the day and schedules could be affected, a union leader said. In the central city of Cebu, many businesses were closed and attendance was low in offices that were open, television reports said. Up to 70 per cent of public transport was at a standstill in the southern cities of General Santos and Cotabato, the reports said. Davao, the second-largest city, was also hit by transport strikes. Estrada was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of corruption yesterday and there will now be a trial in the Senate, likely to start on December 1. A two-thirds vote in the 22-member legislature will be required to remove him from office. But his removal from office appears unlikely on current voting patterns. A vote on a proposal by an Estrada supporter to replace Senate President Franklin Drilon was passed 12-7 yesterday with two abstaining and one absent. Estrada has denied the charges and has said he will welcome the Senate trial to prove his innocence. But the campaign against him has been mounting. The powerful church, big businesses, opposition politicians including Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, labour unions and student activists have supported the strike call. Many schools have been ordered closed and the military is on the alert and on guard at oil depots and water and power installations, officials said. Meanwhile, most Filipinos still like impeached President Joseph Estrada but many have shunned his policies, leading pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) said today. The survey of 1,200 voters taken between October 26 and 30 the percentage of those who liked the former movie actor had fallen to 56 per cent from 68 per cent a month
earlier. |
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India-China border
talks conclude BEIJING, Nov 14 (PTI) — India and China have concluded the latest round of border talks here after both sides exchanged maps for the first time of the middle sector of the disputed border, official sources said today. The eighth round of Expert Group
(EG) talks, which ended yesterday, follows the agreement earlier this year between the two countries to accelerate the talks on the clarification of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on their disputed border. Unlike the India-Pakistan Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, which has been delineated, there is no agreement between India and China on the LAC alignment. |
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Indian
activist wins human rights award WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (PTI) — Mr Martin Macwan, “a powerful advocate against the practice of ‘untouchability’ in India”, has been selected for the 17th annual Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Mr Macwan, founder-director of Gujarat-based Navsarjan Trust, will be presented the award carrying a cash award of $ 30,000 on November 21 by Robert Kennedy’s widow and Senator Edward Kennedy. The Navsarjan Trust mobilises Dalits in 2,000 villages to fight untouchability and improve their socio-economic conditions, according to the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, which has instituted the
award.
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When Badal
was denied US visa DUBAI, Nov 14 (UNI) — Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who has been in and out of jail for some 15 years in connection with various agitations during his long political
career, had a very unique experience to narrate to his audience at a function organised by the Indian Association here last night. Mr Badal said many years back he had applied for visa to visit the USA. Since the then US Ambassador was away, his visa application went to the dealing officer. “The dealing officer refused to give me visa”, Mr Badal said and then went on to explain the reason for it. “In the application
form, there was a question: Have you ever been in prison? I wrote ‘yes’. This was followed by another question: If yes, for how many years? and I wrote ‘15’ years’”, he recalled. The dealing officer wondered how he could issue visa to a person who had been in jail for 15 years, realising little that Mr Badal went to prison not for any criminal act but during the course of his political struggle. The audience burst into laughter when Mr Badal said the Ambassador soon came back to New Delhi and promptly issued him visa to go to the USA. |
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Japan rocked TOKYO, Nov 14 (AP) — A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 shook Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido early today and was followed by two other moderate tremors further south. The police said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury from any of the quakes. The 5.9 magnitude earthquake was centred about 50 km under the seabed in waters off the port city of Kushiro, the Meteorological Agency said. |
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