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Sunday,
May 13, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
China supports Pakistan’s
stand on Kashmir
Pak gets firm with USA on missile defence |
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Ethiopia’s Security Chief
shot 42 killed, 100 hurt
in Somali fighting Israeli choppers fire rockets, two
killed |
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5 LTTE men, 12 soldiers
killed FBI blunder emboldens US death penalty critics
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China supports Pakistan’s
stand on Kashmir Islamabad, May 12 “China will try its utmost and will spare no efforts to bring about and support a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir problem’’, he said at a joint press conference with the Pakistan Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf, here last night. Mr Rongji, who arrived here yesterday on a four-day visit, said China would continue cooperation with Pakistan in all fields, including military, but made it clear that the defence of Pakistan was an internal affair. He described the Kashmir issue as a “problem left over by history.’’ The two leaders met the Press after the first round of formal talks between them. The two sides signed seven agreements for cooperation in economic and technical fields, tourism, railways and telecommunications, mining and petroleum. General Musharraf, while replying to a question on defence cooperation between the two countries, said that while India had increased its defence allocation by 28 per cent this year, the Pakistani army was maintaining its minimum level of deterrence to defend the country. “We are proud of the Chinese help and we are grateful. But there should not be any doubt in anyone’s mind that no amount of increase in India’s defence budget can deter us from maintaining this deterrence,’’ he said. China will provide a grant of 5 crore yuan to Pakistan under one of the agreements signed between the two countries yesterday. Another agreement pertains to structural reforms in Pakistan’s tourism sector. Pakistan has given China a ten-year lease to develop a copper and gold mine at Sandak in Baluchistan under one of the agreements. Under the other agreements, China will provide 69 railway engines and 175 passenger coaches to Pakistan and help in the development of Gawadar Port on Mekran Coast. It will also help construct a road link from Gawadar to Karachi. China has also agreed to help lay a petroleum pipeline from Mehmud Kot to Karachi. The two sides also agreed to cooperate in the field of telecommunications, as part of which China will provide $ 100 million to Pakistan. Earlier, speaking at the banquet hosted in Mr Rongji’s honour, General Musharraf said the “movement” in Kashmir could not be bracketed with religious extremism, separatism or terrorism. He claimed that Kashmir “is not” and “never was a part of India”.
UNI, PTI |
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Pak gets firm with USA on missile defence Islamabad, May 12 “It would undermine international efforts aimed at arms control and disarmament,” country’s military ruler, Gen Parvez Musharraf said, announcing his regime’s stand for the first time on the US proposals to have MDS. “We share the international concern at the development and deployment of ballistic missile defence,” he told a state banquet given in honour of visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji here last night. It was for the first time that General Musharraf reacted to
MDS after India welcomed the US move to have missile defence as a step towards unilateral reduction of nuclear forces. It is also significant that
General Musharraf chose to announce this during the visit of Mr
Rongji, whose government firmly opposed the plan. The announcement also coincides with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s visit to New Delhi. The Pakistan media today carried comments by Mr Vajpayee, welcoming the new US vision of disarmament.
PTI |
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Ethiopia’s Security Chief shot
Addis Ababa, May 12 Radio Ethiopia, which based its announcement of the assassination on a statement received from the Prime Minister’s Office, said Kinfe was shot and killed by a major at about 0900 local time as he was about to enter the club. Kinfe had served as Ethiopia’s Chief of Security for the last 10 years. He was a distinguished guerilla fighter with the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF), which spearheaded regional opposition groups in an armed struggle that ousted the regime of Mengistu Hailemariam from power in May 1991. The TPLF has remained a major political force in Ethiopia. It is a partner in the four-party coalition of ruling Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s SPRDF party — the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Front.
DPA |
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42 killed, 100 hurt
in Somali fighting Mogadishu, May 12 The fighting, the most intense in the city in months, pitted soldiers of the Transitional National Government of President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan against fighters of warlord Hussein Aideed. The residents said well over 100 persons had been wounded. The 18 hours of violence, which began late on Friday afternoon, subsided shortly after dawn on Saturday with the port and its immediate vicinity under the control of Aideed’s militiamen, the residents said. Interior Minister Dahir Dayah told mediapersons that the government had ordered its troops to withdraw from the scene of the fighting to help efforts to end the confrontation. Aideed’s aides accused the government of provoking the fighting and of plotting to kill Aideed. The violence erupted a day after opposition warlords took delivery of a convoy of arms and ammunition in the city in what government officials said was an apparent attempt to destabilise their fledgling administration. The arms were delivered from Ethiopia to the headquarters of Muse Sudi Yalahow in south-west Mogadishu, one of several warlords, including Aideed who met in Addis Ababa in March to establish a rival government to Salad Hassan’s administration. Abdiqassim’s government was established after a long meeting of clan leaders in Arta, in neighbouring Djibouti, last year to become the anarchic country’s first internationally recognised administration in nearly a decade. But it still only controls pockets of territory within Somalia and is opposed by many of the country’s warlords. The extent of government control over Mogadishu port before the latest violence was not immediately clear. Observers say Ethiopia is nervous of any strong government in its neighbouring and rival country and suspicious of perceived Islamic fundamentalist influences in Abdiqassim’s government.
Reuters |
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Israeli choppers fire rockets, two killed Nablus (West Bank), May 12 Motassem al-Sabagh (25) was in a car parked close to the offices of the Palestinian Governor of the autonomous Palestinian town of Jenin when it was hit by three rockets in an attack by four Israeli helicopters, witnesses said. In the same incident, 21-year-old Palestinian policeman, who was standing close to the car targeted by one of the helicopters, also died of injuries sustained in the attack, they said. At least 15 persons were admitted to a local hospital and treated for shock and shrapnel injuries. Many of the injured were students returning home from school, hospital officials said. Witnesses said four helicopters flew overhead and fired the rockets on to the car. Emergency services arrived on the scene to extinguish the flames that engulfed the car. The attack comes a day after Israeli bulldozers flattened a police station and five homes in the deepest foray into the Palestinian territory since field commanders last week were given a free hand to carry out such retaliatory raids. GAZA CITY: Israel has warned there would be no let-up in its attacks on the Palestinian territories, as the Palestinian leadership labelled a mounting Israeli offensive as a “clear call” for a wider regional conflict. The escalating wave of violence also prompted US President George Bush to describe the situation as “abhorrent” and vow to sustain efforts to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. But Israel yesterday launched a new offensive strategy, saying that its army would respond “systematically” after each Palestinian attack. Israel’s Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer stressed at a meeting with 18 European ambassadors in Tel Aviv that Israel’s “incursions are determined by reasons of self-defence and are for a limited time.” For its part, the Palestinian leadership labelled Israel’s escalation of attacks on the Gaza Strip as a “clear call” for a wider regional conflict in the West Asia. According to a statement carried by the official WAFA agency, the Palestinian authority called on the international community to “put an end to the Israeli aggression in the autonomous territories.” Meanwhile, a Palestinian boy was shot dead and at least 26 others wounded in clashes throughout the occupied territories. Sixteen-year-old Hussan Tahfish was shot through the heart by a live round in ongoing clashes with the Israeli army at the karni crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, a doctor at Gaza city’s Al-Shifa hospital said, adding that at least seven others were injured, one seriously. An Israeli army spokesman said troops had “fired rubber bullets at the legs of demonstrators after having fired some warning shots.” Two Polish male tourists were slightly wounded yesterday afternoon when a bomb, apparently a small one, exploded at Jaffa Gate, one of the entrances to the Old City in east Jerusalem, the police said.
AFP, AP |
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5 LTTE men, 12 soldiers killed Colombo, May 12 The military said today that three rebels were killed in an attack on their bunker at Valarchinnakulam in Vanni region yesterday. It said two other militants were also killed in a clash near Kantale in Trincomalee district in the east. Meanwhile, the bodies of three Lankan soldiers, killed in a gunfight at Sanguwila in Polonnaruwa district on Thursday, were handed over to the Army through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Delayed reports from Vavuniya, quoting the rebel’s clandestine radio, claimed 12 soldiers were killed in the same incident, but said only three bodies were recovered. In the east, a home guard was killed allegedly by the LTTE, while a former reserve police sub-inspector, suspended for alleged involvement with the LTTE, was killed by an “unknown group” at Batticaloa yesterday, the army said. Meanwhile, The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), a moderate Tamil political party, has said it will not support the Opposition’s move to bring a no-confidence motion against the government at this juncture. “After years of waiting, finally we are seeing some rays of hope of peace talks. We do not want to be blamed for scuttling the peace talks by upsetting the set up,” TULF senior vice-president V. Anadansanagari said. “It seems that the government has finally realised the importance of a negotiated settlement. Though there is some confusion over the stand taken by the LTTE on the matter, we hope that the clouds will be cleared soon.” Mr Anadasanagari said he had serious doubts about the no-confidence motion coming into effect as, “it is foolish for the United National Party as a responsible opposition to bring such a motion to coincide with the peace talks.” However, he did not rule out possibilities of the TULF reconsidering the decision if things became gloomy gain. “As for now, we have no idea of supporting the motion, but if the government suddenly changes its stance and focuses only on the war again, then it is another matter,” he said.
PTI, UNI |
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FBI blunder emboldens US death penalty critics Washington, May 12 Anti-death penalty activists say they need no more evidence of all that is wrong with the system than this: the Federal Bureau of Investigation made an error and mistakenly withheld thousands of pages of documents from McVeigh’s defence team in its most important case in decades. McVeigh was scheduled to be executed in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Wednesday morning, but Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a delay until June 11. He said McVeigh’s lawyers needed the time to examine the newly discovered documents. “This is one more example of what is wrong with the death penalty process,” said Nancy Bothne, the Midwest regional director for Amnesty International. “How can we trust that a supposedly fail-proof system is just, now that it has failed on its most important case. This is further evidence that we can never remove that potential for human error from our criminial justice system,” said Bothne. McVeigh’s lawyer, Rob Nigh, said the FBI blunder calls in to question whether the government can be absolutely certain of its convictions on death penalty cases. “This shows the government is not capable of carrying out the death penalty in a fair and just manner,” Nigh said outside the Terre Haute federal facility where his client is being held in solitary confinement. On the extreme other side of the issue, President George W. Bush — an ardent advocate of the death penalty as Governor of Texas — said the very delay of McVeigh’s execution shows the system was fair and the government was going to all lengths to ensure justice was being served in the case. Bush said he fully supported the postponement because it showed “that my administration is going to take its time to make sure that justice has been administered fairly... And today is an example of the system being fair.” For millions of Americans, McVeigh had become the poster boy for the death penalty, an unrepentant criminal who committed a cruel and heinous act and deserves to die. His execution by lethal injection is supported by at least 75 per cent of the Americans, according to a recent opinion poll. This has placed anti-death penalty activists in a bind. Should they use the unprecedented media coverage of McVeigh’s death to promote their cause? Or should they lay low, to avoid being seen as apologists for McVeigh? The most ardent death penalty opponents say they have no choice but to press their cause and argue that McVeigh’s life deserves to be spared. “We have never suggested that what Timothy McVeigh did is defensible. We do not defend his actions,” ABE Bonowitz, director of the Florida group Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in an Internet post. “But this is not about McVeigh. It’s about us, and what killing him says about us and does to us ... I abhor killing, and I will not contradict myself by saying ‘killing is wrong’ and then turning around to justify killing when it suits me. Tim McVeigh may deserve to die, but I do not deserve to kill him.” McVeigh would become the first prisoner to be executed in a US federal facility in 38 years. More than 700 convicts, however, have been killed in individual states’ death chambers since capital punishment was reintroduced in 1976. Death penalty opponents say McVeigh — who is white and a decorated Gulf War veteran — is an anomaly in the US criminal justice system, which disproportionately convicts and kills members of ethnic minorities, especially African-Americans. They say the system needs to be re-examined for its high number of questionable convictions, many recently overturned with the aid of new DNA technology.
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