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| Tuesday, January 2, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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2001 begins with joy, hope
4 Palestinians die in crossfire Global war crimes court soon |
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| Norway moots peace plan for Sri Lanka Jupiter’s huge, old storms filmed Strike paralyses Kathmandu 5 new members join UN Council China, Taiwan sailing links
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| 2001 begins with joy, hope WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (DPA) — One by one, the countries of the world brought in the new year, saying farewell to 2000, a year of conflict in many parts of the world, but facing a 2001 with hope, even amid forecasts for an economic downturn. Pope John Paul II hoped for a more caring world and for peace and justice for all nations in 2001 while Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that many people in his country had difficult lives but said Russia was on its way to stability. China welcomed 2001 with fireworks, a mass wedding at the Great Wall and the felling of a record 3.5 million dominoes as 15 skydivers in Malaysia jumped 4,500 metres from the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Petronas Towers. The two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut aboard the International Space Station celebrated without bubbly, having discovered through the experience of past cosmonauts that sparkling wine opened in weightlessness splatters all over a spacecraft. One of the first large cities to welcome the new year was Sydney, fresh from its leading role on the world stage as the host of the summer Olympic Games. It celebrated with a monumental fireworks display lit from the Sydney Harbour Bridge as it also marked Australia’s 100th birthday. But some countries celebrated more somberly: Conservative Muslims in some countries patrolled to make sure revellers did not dance, and in Japan, the Year of the Snake dawned as the Year of the Dragon ended. Buddhists began making their traditional trips to temples after temple bells rang 108 times, signifying the 108 Buddhist sins. In Istanbul, a bomb injured 10. The authorities did not have any immediate suspects or motive. Percussionists from across the continent drummed in 2001 at Paris’ Georges Pompidou Centre, and boaters in Hamburg shot fireworks from ships as 60,000 revellers in the centre of Berlin also enjoyed cascades of colours fired over the angel atop the German capital’s Victory Column. London, however, was putting a damper on its festivities, stopping public transportation before midnight and keeping revellers out of Trafalgar Square. Although most of the world saw in the new millennium a year ago, purists insist that the old millennium ended with the year 2000 and the new one began today. Chinese President Jiang Zemin hoped for reunification with Taiwan while Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his predecessor Boris Yeltsin at the Kremlin. “We all know that far from everyone has a lavish spread on this festive evening,” Mr Putin said. Orthodox Serbs also gathered in central Belgrade, shooting off fireworks and guns and enjoying live music, but the 10,000 revellers were far fewer. A half-million people converged on New York’s Times Square after a 30-centimetre-deep snow was cleared off to make way for them. The largest snowfall recorded in Saturday’s storm was 74 centimetres in New Jersey. In parts of Britain, fireworks displays and outdoor parties were called off at the last minute, and there was a string of accidents in which the severe weather was believed to have played a part. However, up to 100,000 revellers braved freezing weather to usher in the new year at a giant Scottish Hogmanay street party in Edinburgh. |
| 4 Palestinians die in crossfire JERUSALEM, Jan 1 (PTI, Reuters) — Casting doubts over the US President Bill Clinton’s last-ditch peace efforts in West Asia, the Palestinians and Israelis exchanged fire on New Year’s Day in the West Bank and Gaza Strip leaving four Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy, dead. The firing from both sides started last night and continues amid fears of revenge attacks following the killing of an extremist Jewish leader, Binyamin Kahane, and a senior Fatah official, Thabet Thabet. Amid escalated tension, Prime Miniser Ehud Barak called on agitated settlers to maintain restraint and allow the army to hunt down the culprits who shot and killed Kahane and his wife, Talia, and wounded five of the couple’s six children yesterday. While Palestinian sources alleged that an Israeli undercover squad was responsible for Thabet’s murder, the Israeli army said the matter was being investigated. Israeli army said its troops came under Palestinian fire in a dozen locations in the West Bank and Gaza last night and Israel radio said exchanges of fire stretched up to the early hours of Monday. A 10-year-old Palestinian boy died of wounds he suffered in crossfire in the West Bank town of Hebron is a Palestinian youth died after being shot in the head when Jewish settlers fired on a crowd in the West Bank village, witnesses said. Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian policemen during a long gunbattle at the edge of the West Bank Palestinian-ruled city of Tulkarm, Palestinian security sources said today. An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed an exchange of fire and was investigating the incident. Some Palestinian security sources charged that the two men, aged 30 and 37, had been shot repeatedly and beaten and their guns were missing. They said the gunbattle, lasting through the night, took place in an Israeli-controlled area at the city’s outskirts in the northern West Bank. The two men were manning a police outpost. Palestinians in Tulkarm had vowed to avenge what they called the assassination by Israel yesterday of Thabet Thabet, a senior West Bank official in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and had called for attacks on Israeli soldiers to mark Fatah’s 36th anniversary on New Year’s Day. Meanwhile, cries of revenge echoed through Jerusalem last night as violence marked Kahane’s funeral. In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian demonstrators called for revenge attacks on Israeli soldiers and Jews living in settlements following Thabet’s death. Prominent Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti alleged that Barak’s policies were responsible for Thabet’s killing. “Barak has opened the gates of hell for himself,” he said. |
| Global war crimes court soon united nations, Jan 1 (PTI) — Paving the way for the world’s first permanent international war crimes court, the USA signed the 1998 Rome Treaty and was immediately followed by Israel which, in reversal of its previous stand, consented to join countries supporting the establishment of the court. The court, which will try war crimes, genocide and crime against humanity, is to be established at the Hague after the treaty is ratified by 60 countries. India is yet to sign the treaty. Vasantha Arora of IANS adds: President Bill Clinton stated that though the USA would sign the 1998 Rome Treaty, he would recommend that President-elect George W. Bush not submit the treaty to the Senate until “fundamental concerns are satisfied.” “In taking this action, we join more than 130 other countries that have signed by the December 31, 2000, deadline established in the treaty,” Mr Clinton said in a statement yesterday. “We do so to reaffirm our strong support for international accountability and for bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” The USA had a long history of commitment to “the principle of accountability, from our involvement in the Nuremberg tribunals that brought Nazi war criminals to justice, to our leadership in the effort to establish International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Our action today sustains that tradition of moral leadership.” “Under the Rome Treaty, the International Criminal Court will come into being with the ratification of 60 governments, and will have jurisdiction over the most heinous abuses that result from international conflict, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.” In signing, he, however, said, “we are not abandoning our concerns about significant flaws in the treaty. In particular, we are concerned that when the court comes into existence, it will not only exercise authority over personnel of states that have ratified the treaty, but also claim jurisdiction over personnel of states that have not. With the signing, however, we will be in a position to influence the evolution of the court. Without it, we will not.” “Court jurisdiction over US personnel should come only with US ratification of the treaty. The USA should have the chance to observe and assess the functioning of the court, over time, before choosing to become subject to its jurisdiction. Given these concerns, I will not, and do not recommend that my successor submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied,” the President said. washington (Reuters): Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms has vowed to reverse President Bill Clinton’s decision to sign a treaty that would create the first permanent global court to try alleged war criminals, the Washington Post reported today. “This decision will not stand,’’ Mr Helms, a North Carolina Republican whose committee would review the pact, was quoted as saying. |
| Norway moots peace plan for Sri Lanka COLOMBO, Jan 1 (UNI) — Displaying a keen interest and concern over resolving the Sri Lankan conflict, Norway has evolved a three-tier plan, which would be made available to the Kumaratunga regime for its consideration and approval. Norwegian special envoy Erik Solheim will undertake yet another visit to Colombo this week and submit the new proposals to the Lankan Government in a fresh bid to break the deadlock between the government and the LTTE, ‘The Sunday Leader’ reported quoting informed western diplomatic sources. According to sources, Norway, in its role as facilitator, has significantly modified its original draft of a ‘staggered, reciprocal, de-escalation schedule’, in an attempt to elicit preliminary consent by both parties, that would help establish mutual goodwill, confidence and trust, paving the way for direct negotiations. The three-tier revised de-escalation schedule is being seen as a sign of Norway’s appreciation of the objections expressed by the government in accepting the original de-escalation schedule. The government wanted the moratorium on violence to be declared first and also was wary of being asked to remove the ban first. Now that these constraints are tentatively removed, it is hoped that Colombo will find it possible to adhere to the peace process in a constructive and positive manner. But it remains to be seen as to whether the LTTE will accept this amended schedule, but given the extra-ordinary commitment displayed by the LTTE towards the peace process by declaring a unilateral ceasefire, the diplomatic sources are optimistic that the tigers will be accommodatively flexible. |
| Jupiter’s huge, old storms filmed pasadena, Jan 1 (Reuters) — nasa’s Cassini spacecraft has swung through its closest approach to Jupiter, capturing dramatic movies of the birth and death of the fierce storms that rage across the planet’s surface, scientists said. The new images of thunderstorms swirling across the solar system’s largest planet suggest that the massive storms, which can run for centuries, draw their energy from absorbing smaller systems, Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology said yesterday. Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot, visible with a telescope, is thought to be a 300-year-old thunderstorm packing 300-mph (480-kph) winds across an area three times as wide as earth. The new images captured by Cassini, which packs a camera with filters that allow it to peer deep into Jupiter’s cloud cover, show what appear to be smaller, white storms being created, absorbed by larger systems around the red spot and then torn apart as they stray into a shear zone created by pressure differentials, Ingersoll said. “The weather is different on Jupiter. You have a 300-year-old storm. We’d like to know why Jupiter’s weather is so stable and earth’s is so transient,” he said at a news conference at nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. New and old color photographs and movies of Jovian weather are on the Web at http://www. Jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/jupiter. “For the first time we have the opportunity to have a weather station in the solar wind,” William Kurth of the University of Iowa said. One immediate finding was that the huge bubble of charged particles known as Jupiter’s magnetosphere is changing size more rapidly than expected. |
| Strike paralyses Kathmandu KATHMANDU, Jan 1 (DPA) — The strike called by nine Leftist parties paralysed normal life today here. Business establishments, schools and colleges were closed and the streets were deserted as transportation came to a standstill. The situation, however, was described by government officials as “peaceful”. The strike was called by the Leftist parties in an effort to force the government to accept moral responsibility for the deaths of five students last week during violence that erupted over rumours of anti-Nepal remarks by film star Hrithik Roshan who later said that he had not made any such remarks. The nine parties, including the Nepal Communist Party (Marxist), a breakaway faction of the United Marxist-Leninists, had called for a two-day general strike for today and tomorrow. The group wants Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Paudel, who is also the Home Minister, to accept responsibility for the shootings last week and resign, but he has refused to do so. |
| 5 new members join UN Council UNITED NATIONS, Jan 1 (PTI) — Singapore, Mauritius, Colombia, Ireland and Norway joined the 15-member UN Security Council today to begin a two-year term as non-permanent members. They replace Malaysia, Namibia, Argentina, the Netherlands and Canada. Singapore will occupy the seat of presidium this month, taking over from Russia. The presidency rotates among the members every month based on alphabetical order. UN Security Council, the most powerful and executive organ of the world body, created to safeguard global peace and order, has five permanent members who have veto that can stall any decision from being translated into action. It has 10 non-permanent members selected on a regional basis and five of them retire every year paving way for new ones. |
| China, Taiwan sailing links KINMEN (Taiwan), Jan 1 (AP) — A Taiwanese tourist boat today set sail for China, aiming to end a five-decade ban on direct travel between the long time rivals and possibly usher in a new era of cooperation. But the vessel soon returned, with a Taiwanese official blaming bad weather. The official said Taiwan’s coast guard ordered the 20-tonne boat back because of high winds and waves in the narrow straights between the tiny islet of Kinmen and China’s southeastern port of Xiamen. “This is an extremely normal procedure,” said Mr John Deng, vice-chairman of the Taiwan-Mainland Affairs Council. |
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