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Saturday,
April 28, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
No let-up in Sindh arrests Pak among top
10 arms buyers Pak regime begins talks with PPP |
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Hijackers free hostages, give
up LTTE suffers ‘heavy’
losses |
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| China rebuffs Taiwan’s call for
talks Beijing, April 27 China today rebuffed a call from Taiwan’s top negotiator with Beijing to resume stalled talks, saying conditions are not ready for bilateral visits. Another Indian made
Lord Lucky calf pardoned!
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No let-up in Sindh arrests Karachi, April 27 “Up till now we have made 539 arrests all over Sindh and most of the arrests were made under the MPO (Maintenance of Public Order) law and all are bailable,” said Brigadier Mukhtar Sheikh, Sindh’s Home Secretary. “They (rally organisers) were saying that even it if means violence, even if it means a clash with the government, they will go ahead with the rally,” he told a news conference here. “So prevention is better than reaction and that’s why we arrested political activists.” Under the MPO, people can be held for up to two months without charge. Political workers said raids and arrests of activists continued into a second day, and the total number of detained people could run into thousands. Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, head of the 16-party Alliance for Restoration of Democracy told newsmen he intended to challenge as unconstitutional an order barring him from Karachi for three months. “Hundreds of our workers have been arrested and detained and (the military) don’t want us to hold the public meeting on May 1,” Nasrullah Khan, who was denied entry to the city on Thursday and expelled to Punjab province, said by telephone. The ARD alliance includes the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) of self-exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto and arch rival Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Some senior politicians, including former ministers, have been detained. Others have gone into hiding in the hope they can later appear to take part in the rally. Munawar Hussain Suharwardy, the PPP’s Sindh information secretary, said the clampdown was continuing. Amnesty International said the ban on public political activities could not be justified. “To ban all forms of public political activity not only breaches international human rights standards, the experience of the last months has also shown it to be counter productive with protesters and police resorting to violence,” it said in a statement on Friday. Moazzam Ali, Karachi coordinator for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, condemned the crackdown. “It has become just like a police state, they never allow any democratic activities,” he said. “Obviously, we are very much against it... There is a real crackdown going on in the city.”
Reuters |
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Islamabad, April 27 The figure excludes the money for acquiring F-16 aircraft from the USA for which Pakistan paid more than $ 650 million to Washington. The daily Nation, quoting a US Congressional report, said Pakistan, despite its impoverished conditions, was the 10th biggest purchaser of arms, slightly behind Iran ($ 4.7 billion) and China ($ 5.9 billion). It is interesting to note that India does not figure among the top 10 arms purchases among the developing countries.
UNI |
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Pak regime begins talks with PPP Islamabad, April 27 The first round of talks were held between government officials and PPP senior vice-president Makhdoom Amin Fahim here. A few army officials called on Ms Bhutto in London earlier this month, the daily Dawn reported today. PPP sources here said that the Musharraf government has sent feelers to the party after the Supreme Court recently set aside her conviction in a corruption case. Following the judgement, PPP is also eager to reach an understanding with the regime to enable Ms Bhutto to end her self-exile and return to Pakistan to take part in active politics. Ms Bhutto was, however, hesitant to return as she feared arrest in connection with other cases, they said.
PTI |
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First space tourist to blast off
today BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, April 27 But a senior Russian space official made clear any decision could be reconsidered hours before the planned launch on Saturday if Russian and U.S. experts failed to fix the ISS computer problems which emerged on Tuesday. The Russian craft is to carry the first space tourist, American millionaire Dennis Tito, who has paid $20 million to be taken along. It will also carry cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev, who has dual Russian-Kazakh citizenship, and Yuri Baturin. There was no immediate official announcement of a Saturday Soyuz flight, but other Russian space sources in Baikonur had made clear earlier in the day that Russia would go ahead with the launch despite U.S. pressure to delay it. “Officials from Russia’s space corporation, Energiya, settled all the questions with NASA and the launch will take place as planned, on April 28, at 11.37 a.m. Moscow time (7.37 am GMT),” the Russian space source told Reuters. The U.S shuttle Endeavour, currently docked to the station, was expected to leave on Saturday hours after the planned Soyuz liftoff. U.S. space agency NASA had said it wanted to keep Endeavour docked for two more days. With NASA unable to control the orbiting outpost or talk directly to its crew due to computer problems on the ISS, Endeavour is acting as a relay for mission control to communicate with the astronauts. Shuttle flight director Phil Engelauf said Soyuz would come “uncomfortably close” to Endeavour’s tail if it tried to dock before the shuttle left. Yuri Semyonov, head of Russia’s space corporation Energiya, told a news briefing in Baikonur on Friday that NASA’s reasons for the possible delay of Russia’s launch were “not serious”. But Viktor Blagov, deputy head of the flight programme, told Itar-Tass news agency in Moscow that some problems remained and Russian and U.S. experts were trying to sort them out. “We are working to eliminate them (problems),” Blagov said. He said the technical problems aboard the ISS “were not catastrophic”, but added that “the situation would finally be clarified only on Saturday morning”. Soyuz is to dock with the space station’s Russian segment. Tito, a 61-year-old Californian financier and former NASA engineer, is paying $20 million to Russia’s space industry for his flight. He appeared in a buoyant mood when at what was expected to be the crew’s last pre-launch news conference. “The training was most difficult. It was made more difficult by political problems,” Tito said from behind a glass partition. “But I have the support of the Russian people and the Kazakh people and we came through. So I am very happy,” he added.
Reuters |
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Hijackers free hostages, give up Khartoum, April 27 Thirty three military personnel and seven crewmen disembarked the plane and the five hijackers, all military cadets including a woman, surrendered to the authorities, Sudan’s Information Minister Ghazi Salah Eddine Atabani told AFP on the scene. Six women and five children, the only civilian passengers on the plane, were freed in earlier negotiations. Atabani told CNN earlier that the agreement had been struck with the hijacker’s representative who had been negotiating with the authorities inside the airport. Atabani said: “We convinced the hijackers that the best offer they can get is (to get) fair treatment according to international law and not to be turned over to Ethiopia, that’s all we offered them.” The hijackers had been seeking political asylum, he told journalists. He said that some passengers had been showing signs of dehydration as it was very hot in the plane. State television said earlier that the hijackers were armed with grenades, pistols and knives, but this was not immediately confirmed after the release. The plane landed at Khartoum international airport yesterday. The identity of the kidnappers and their motives remained sketchy. A diplomat told AFP that the plane was hijacked while flying military personnel and their families from one base to another in Ethiopia. Sources said one of the demands of the hijackers was for more fuel so they could head to an unidentified third country. One diplomat, who requested not to be identified, said the plane had just taken off on a domestic flight from the town and key military centre of Debre-Zeit, 45 km South of Addis Ababa, when it was hijacked. Witnesses said the plane then headed for Sudan at a low altitude, apparently to evade radar detection.
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Colombo, April 27 The military situation report said one officer and 39 soldiers were killed yesterday alone amidst efforts by security forces to redraw the forward defence lines ahead of Eluthumadduval, Nagarkovil and Muhamalai areas. With this three officers and 107 soldiers have died since April 25. The report estimated that the LTTE might have lost 70 more cadres in yesterday’s conflict in which the army had claimed that it had killed 110 LTTE combatants since hostilities broke out early Wednesday. Air Force Jets engaged two buses allegedly carrying LTTE cadres near Pallai in the vicinity of Elephant Pass and killed its occupants who tried to escape, the report said. A tractor and a tank used by the LTTE were also destroyed. The air force had yesterday claimed that it destroyed busloads of LTTE reinforcement moving towards Pallai. However, the LTTE denied the incident in a statement today. The LTTE statement claimed that it had recovered the bodies of 30 Sri Lankan soldiers killed in the past two days of fierce battles in the southern part of Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka. The army said it successfully repulsed attempts by the LTTE to breach its ‘new forward defence lines’. Infantry, backed by armour, artillery and the air force, destroyed strong positions occupied by the LTTE in the vicinity of the new forward lines. The LTTE continued their artillery and mortar firing, while elsewhere in northern Sri Lanka, stray skirmishes were reported from various places. The military has so far claimed to have advanced 2 km into rebel-held territory South of Eluthumadduval and Kilaly, capturing 8 sq km of territory.
PTI |
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China rebuffs Taiwan’s call for
talks Beijing, April 27 Mr Koo Chen-fu, Chairman of Taipei’s semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, had invited counterpart Mr Wang Daohan, head of Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, to visit Taiwan. But Mr Zhang Mingqing, spokesman for the cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated China’s long-standing demand that Taiwan must recognise the “one China” principle before talks can resume. “The Taiwan authorities do not currently recognise the ‘one China’ principle, so the conditions are not ready for Wang Daohan to go to Taiwan or Koo Chen-fu to visit China,” he told a news conference. Mr Koo, who last held talks with Mr Wang in China in 1998, said he was willing to visit Shanghai and work with Mr Wang to explore opportunities to further develop two-way ties. Mr Koo extended the offer at a press conference today to mark the eighth anniversary of talks between the two in Singapore. “I think both of us must cherish this time. We are no longer young,” said Mr Koo (84). But the 86-year-old Mr Wang, in a statement on the anniversary, said Taipei’s refusal to accept the “one-China” principle was the obstacle to renewed dialogue. He said a resumption of talks depended on Taiwan embracing a 1992 verbal agreement under which “both sides of the Taiwan Strait uphold the one-China principle”. Canberra: Diplomatic tension rose between China and Australia over Taiwan today, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard rejecting a public rebuke by the Chinese Embassy of his support for the USA. China criticised Mr Howard for supporting a pledge by US President George W. Bush to help defend Taiwan, saying that the Australian leader’s comments yesterday were inappropriate and not helpful to bilateral relations. Ms Ren Xiao Ping, spokeswoman for the Chinese Embassy in Australia, said the Embassy was not happy with Mr Howard’s remarks, particularly his caution to China against aggression, and warned against possible damage to bilateral relations. “China hopes Australia will stick to the one-China policy... and avoid through its own action any possible damage to the bilateral relations over the Taiwan question,” Ren said.
Reuters, UNI |
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London, April 27 Dar-es-Salaam-born Amir Bhatia is one of the 15 new, non-party political members of the House who have been selected out of the 3,166 nominations received by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. The appointment confers prestige but little power or money. Those members of the House of Lords who attend parliamentary debates do get a taxable daily allowance. Mr Bhatia joins a select group of South Asian peers who have been appointed on earlier occasions. They include Lords Paul, Bagri, Parekh, Desai, Ahmed and Alli, as well as Ladies Flather and Uddin. The latest House of Lords appointments have come under attack from at least one Labour Party lawmaker, Mr Gordon Prentice, who has branded the list of Lords and Ladies as a “joke” because it failed to include what he called “ordinary people”. “Looking at the list, the way to get into the reformed House of Lords is to be a knight of the shires, a dame or a professor,” Mr Prentice told a local news programme. “The whole thing is ludicrous and I hope it reignites the debate about what kind of second chamber we have because we don’t need this kind of pantomime,” he said.
IANS |
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Lucky calf
pardoned! London, April 27 Prime Minister Tony Blair was believed to be behind the last-minute pardon for the 12-day-old white calf, which survived several attempts by Ministry of Agriculture veterinarians to kill it. The animal was apparently given a lethal injection a week ago along with 70 cattle on a farm in the UK, The Telegraph reported. But when contractors arrived a few days later to spray the carcasses with disinfectant, they heard mooing and found Phoenix wandering among the dead animals.
DPA |
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