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Tuesday,
August 21, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
Israel demolishes flats in E. Jerusalem Cairo, August 20 German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer arrived here today at the start of a West Asia peace mission on and was due to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart before heading to Israel later in the day. 36 die in Ukraine mine fire
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Clerics curb Pak women’s rights Poll date: Hasina cries foul, Khaleda happy Nepal, Bhutan to talk on refugees China expels Tibetan nuns, monks |
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Rebels swear by truce despite attacks
Human clone in ‘60 days’ US warships at Chinese port
Australians lapping up neem products ‘Treat bullying as illness’
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German bid to bring peace in West Asia Cairo, August 20 Fischer, returning to the region after playing a mediating role in June, will meet Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian officials as part of efforts to end more than 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed and return to the negotiating table. “The point (of these efforts) is to bring the two parties out of the corner they are in and put them on the same track,” Fischer told reporters travelling on his plane from Germany to Cairo. “We have to pull all creative ideas together to overcome the standstill...,” he said. Germany, like the USA and the European Union, is calling for a return to negotiations based on a truce-to-peacemaking blueprint drawn up by a panel led by former US Senator George Mitchell. In Cairo, Fischer was to hold talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher. He was also due to meet Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, as well as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat during his three-day tour. The German Foreign Minister cautioned against exaggerated expectations of his trip, but said it could be the start of increased international diplomatic efforts to overcome the crisis in the region. Fischer’s trip was originally scheduled to last eight days and include other states in the region, but was cut short due to a looming parliamentary debate at home over Germany’s participation in a Balkan peace mission. The German Foreign Ministry said Fischer’s plans to visit leaders in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had been postponed. He is due to return to Germany on Wednesday evening. Fischer was unexpectedly thrust into the heart of peace moves in June simply because he was in Israel when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and 20 others in Tel Aviv. Egypt, which became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has traditionally acted as a mediator in Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and regularly hosts talks with foreign officials trying to bridge gaps between the two parties. JERUSALEM:
Israeli bulldozers demolished an unfinished nursery school and an apartment block in Arab East Jerusalem today in a move Palestinians said was part of Israel’s escalating violence against them. Dozens of Israeli police guarded at least three bulldozers as they flattened the block of eight flats and the kindergarten, which were both under construction. “We will stay here. We will not leave our land,” Ibrahim al-Joulani, owner of the apartment block, said. The Israeli municipality had no immediate comment. It usually issues demolition orders in East Jerusalem on grounds that the buildings were erected without permission. Hatem Abdel-Qader, a leading Palestinian lawmaker, said the demolition was part of “Israel’s continued aggression”. “We build and they demolish. This is the equation of the struggle for survival in the city of Jerusalem,” he said. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, home to more than 200,000 Palestinians, as capital of a future state. Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its “united, eternal capital”. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an Israeli human rights activist who protested at the site of Monday’s demolition, condemned Israel for tearing down Palestinian houses while expanding Jewish settlements on occupied land. “It’s part of a deliberate effort to prevent Palestinians from living in Jerusalem,” he said. Ascherman said Israel had knocked down some 30 houses in East Jerusalem since the start of the uprising. The tally includes at least 14 unpopulated buildings torn down in July. BEIRUT:
An explosion on Monday damaged a car that was passing the Beirut headquarters of security forces which have carried out a crackdown on Christian dissidents. Security forces said they were questioning the driver of the car, who was unharmed. Witnesses said the blast resonated through a crowded residential and commercial district in the mainly Christian East Beirut. Security forces on Sunday said two Syrians were killed and a third hurt while tampering with a grenade in an apartment in east Beirut.
Reuters |
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36 die in Ukraine mine fire Donetsk (Ukraine), August 20 Rescue workers late yesterday called off attempts to reach the scene of the methane gas explosion which ripped through a shaft deep in the Zasyadko mine near the centre of the city here. The accident, the latest in a long line of mining tragedies in Ukraine, came as a bitter reminder of the country’s heritage of creaking Soviet infrastructure as it prepared to mark its 10th anniversary as an independent state. It was the second calamity at the Zasyadko mine in the last three years. In 1999 an explosion killed 50 miners. Mykhailo Klyagin at the Donetsk Rescue Workers Centre said temperatures between 60-80° C prevented rescue teams getting closer than within 100 metre of the site of the explosion. “We need special equipment because the fire is very deep down,” he said. “We cannot use water (to douse the flames) because we do not want to flood the mine.” He said rescue workers would attempt to get closer to the scene of the explosion via another route on Monday. Officials said 259 miners were underground when a mixture of gas and coal dust exploded in the mid-morning more than 1 km below ground. That was followed by two further explosions, one of which sparked the fire. Meanwhile, relatives of coal miners, who rushed to the mine on Sunday after the initial explosion, were left to speculate on the fate of their loved ones. The Inter commercial television station showed pictures of women crying outside the closed entrance to the mine complex. Colleagues of the miners in the shaft looked ashen-faced.
Reuters |
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Clerics
curb Pak women’s rights Islamabad The women received a setback when the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII), a constitutional body, put out a decree saying women cannot consult male doctors or have their clothes stitched by male tailors. Many women’s and human rights groups hit back, saying that the decree, which is not law, violated the personal freedoms of Pakistani women. Protests also came from the medical community and even a generally conservative public. The CII also outlawed women appearing in advertisements and as airport protocol officers. Political observers believe the decision reflected the growing influence and power of extreme-right religious parties such as the Jamiat-ul-Ulema and Jamaat-I-Islami, members of the Alliance of Religious Parties formed in 1999. There are also extreme-right religious groups outside mainstream politics who, following in the footsteps of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia, are trying to ‘Talibanise’ Pakistan. The CII is a constitutionally-approved consultative body whose decisions are not legally binding. However, governments often take its views into account in decision-making. If a CII decree is then taken to the Federal Shariat (Islamic Law) Court, the court could accept it, making it legally binding. “Women have the right to be treated by a male gynaecologist, just as men can go for treatment to female doctors. It is the expertise and competence that is important, not gender,” said a consumer rights activist. “This is the typical thinking of men who want to control women, sometimes in the name of traditions and morality and other times in the name of religion. But the only objective is to keep women subservient,” said another in disgust. “Ordinary women and girls in Pakistan have seen virtually no change in the general condition of their lives since 1970. Today, 29 per cent of females are deprived of health opportunities whereas an alarming 72 per cent — as against 47 per cent of males — are deprived of education opportunities. More than half the women in Pakistan are plagued by poverty of opportunities compared to a little over a third of men,” says the centre’s Profiles of Poverty in Pakistan report. Rights groups believe that the dismal situation was mainly brought on by legal and constitutional discriminations. Islamic laws introduced by the military dictator Ziaul Haq 20 years ago remain on the statute books. The law on rape requires a woman to produce four witnesses to register a rape case. Failure to do so can result in the woman being charged with adultery. The medical community also reacted angrily. “When a doctor sees a patient, all they care about is the suffering of the person, disregarding the caste, creed, sex or economic group,” commented Dr Ahmed Sohail, a private practitioner in Islamabad.
Gemini News |
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Poll date: Hasina cries foul, Khaleda happy Dhaka, August 20 The Bangladesh Election Commission last evening announced October 1 as the date for the next elections — the eighth in Bangladesh’s 30 years of existence. In a nationwide broadcast on television and radio, Chief Election Commissioner M.A. Sayed said the last day for filing nominations would be August 29 and the last day for withdrawal of nominations would be September 6. The election will take place under the supervision of the caretaker government headed by former chief justice Latifur Rahman. The BNP, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, welcomed the decision as it was in conformity with its demand to hold polls in October. She, however, said: “A congenial atmosphere has to be created before holding the elections, otherwise we’ll protest.” The Awami League, which had demanded that polls be held in the middle of September, has cried foul at the election date. Party chief and former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed said the Awami League “would definitely have reservations about polling in October.” The Awami League also questioned the caretaker government’s neutrality, particularly in the wake of reports of a rise in political violence across the country since it came to power in July. According to reports, more than 25 deaths have taken place in southern Bangladesh’s Feni district alone. Police say about 73 people have been killed since August 15. A special drive to arrest terrorists and seize weapons also seems to have fizzled out. Police estimate there are more than 250,000 illegal weapons in the country. Hasina had handed over power to the caretaker government after she completed her five-year term on July 15. It was decided then that elections would be held within 90 days.
IANS |
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Nepal, Bhutan to talk on refugees Kathmandu, August 20 The refugees, who Kathmandu claims are Bhutanese nationals of Nepali origin, are currently living in United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-administered camps in eastern Nepal. “In these three-day talks, we will discuss ways to further accelerate the verification and early repatriation process (of the refugees),” Mahat said. “Nepal and Bhutan will also talk about improving bilateral relations,” he added. The refugee verification process started in February this year. Bhutan claims that the refugees are illegal Nepali immigrants while Nepal maintains that they are Bhutanese forcibly evicted from their homes. Representatives of the refugees allege that Bhutan is trying to scuttle early repatriation by ensuring that the verification process proceeds at a snail’s pace. “This way it will take years to verify the entire Bhutanese population taking refuge in Nepal. Nepal must press to make the verification process time-bond in this round of talks,” a refugee leader told IANS. The refugees have said they would welcome third party involvement to speed up the verification process, but this time they have not mentioned India as the desired outside party. Nepal has been requesting India’s involvement in the refugee problem. Kathmandu has told New Delhi that it would not be proper for India to prevent the refugees’ return to their homeland through Indian territory as they had used that route to enter Nepal in the first place. The refugees are ethnic Nepalis whose families had immigrated to Bhutan to find work and fields to farm on. Mostly Hindus, they wear different clothes and speak a different language from the Drukpa Buddhist majority in Bhutan. The 10th round of ministerial-level talks to address the refugee problem had taken place in December last year after mounting international pressure on Bhutan to resolve the issue. The USA had formally urged Bhutan late last year to begin identifying the refugees in camps for repatriation by interviewing family heads to determine their nationality. But Thimphu insists on an individual headcount, a process refugee leaders allege would render thousands stateless.
IANS |
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China expels Tibetan nuns, monks Beijing, August 20 Some of those thrown out of Serthar Buddhist Institute and Nunnery in Sichuan province, just east of Tibet, were reportedly forced to sign documents denouncing the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, and promising not to return, according to the Tibet Information Network. The London-based group called the expulsions part of a systematic clearing-out of Serthar on orders from provincial authorities and the Central Government in Beijing. The reason was not immediately clear. The ethnically mixed institute, also known as Larung Gar and in Chinese as Wumin, is a Buddhist academy in Sichuan’s Ganzi prefecture. Both the Tibet Information Network and the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in India describe it as staunchly nonpolitical. The information network’s web site showed a picture of wreckage which it said was a demolished home at Serthar. It said the woman in the picture “appears to be a nun collecting belongings from the wreckage.” The police in Sida county, where the nunnery and institute is located, refused to answer questions today. But a police official in adjacent Ganzi county, who gave his name only as Gao, said he had heard of nuns and monks being forced to leave Sida. No such expulsions have taken place in Ganzi county, he said.
AP |
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Rebels swear by truce despite attacks Prsovce (Macedonia), August 20 The government accused the rebels of starting gunbattles in the Tetovo area as NATO’s top commander came to Macedonia to assess whether the truce was stable enough to install a NATO force to collect guerrilla weapons as part of a peace accord. A National Liberation Army officer who goes by the code name of Commander Matoshi said ethnic Albanian civilians huddled in basements as gunfire and mortars fired by security forces hit several front-line villages. No casualties were reported and a news team who went behind guerrilla lines north of Tetovo, the unofficial capital of Macedonia’s ethnic Albanians, saw only minor damage. “We only respond if our lives are in danger but last night’s shelling was mostly behind our positions. It’s the Macedonians who are violating the ceasefire,” said Matoshi, his smart uniform draped with submachine gun clips, grenades and a large knife. “Down in Ratae (a neighbouring government-controlled village), there are old reservists who drink all night, then carried away and start shelling without reason,” the burly, shaven-headed 31-year-old said. “In two hours, we could take Tetovo, Ratae, Zilce and the area around including the highway to Skopje. But we respect the agreement with NATO so we do not take these steps. “We are going around all our positions and explaining to our soldiers they have to respect the ceasefire. We are telling them what the agreement is and explaining to them the benefits we get from it,” Matoshi said. “But if the Macedonians want war, we are ready. Many of us have experience from Kosovo,” he said, referring to the mainly ethnic Albanian province in nearby Yugoslavia hit by a guerrilla uprising against Serbian rule in 1998-99. “We’re professionals.” The so-called National Liberation Army guerrillas hold considerable swathes of mountainous northern Macedonia after six months of intermittent conflict. The ceasefire, struck on August 12 to bolster a peace accord that will require rebels to yield weapons to NATO troops while Parliament passes laws to improve Albanian minority rights, has held by day but sporadic skirmishing has occurred at night. NATO’s envisaged lightning 30-day operation to collect weapons will depend heavily on the goodwill of guerrillas and easing distrust between Macedonians and Albanians. But there is concern that extremists on either side could saddle NATO with another long, hazardous Balkans peacekeeping mission, something it is keen to avoid given its costly, open-ended security missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Reuters |
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Human clone in ‘60 days’ Washington, august 20 “The production of human cloned embryos can go ahead within the next 60 days. The implantation will, of course, come later, after we verify that the quality of those embryos is viable enough to yield a healthy pregnancy,” Researcher Panos Zavos yesterday said on CBS' “Face The Nation.” Zavos, a Cypriot-born naturalised US citizen, and his Italian colleague Severino Antinori have announced plans to eventually impregnate up to 200 women with cloned embryos. But their critics, including Republican representative Dave Weldon, allege that such efforts are “totally unethical.” “What (Zavos) is talking about doing, in my opinion, is gross medical malpractice and negligence. It’s totally unethical,” Dr Weldon said. Scientists have been warning about a multitude of difficulties associated with cloning mammals, including miscarriage, premature delivery, genetic abnormalities and stillbirths.
AFP
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US warships at Chinese port Hong Kong, august 20 The USS Constellation and six other US Navy vessels arrived for a six-day port call here after taking part in military exercises with another aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. The arrival of the carrier and its support group comes several days after Beijing refused a request to allow a US military plane to land in Hong Kong as part of a “routine training mission.” China’s Foreign Ministry cited unspecified “related factors” in rejecting the request for a landing here by the P-3c Orion long-range reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft. “As to the applications of foreign military planes and military vessels to visit Hong Kong, we take into consideration their specific requests and other related factors before we ratify them case by case,” a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told the Xinhua news agency. The USS Constellation and USS Carl Vinson conducted a “rare” one-day exercise on Friday between two US aircraft carriers, which also involved three submarines, 150 aircraft and more than 15,000 personnel, the us 7th fleet website said. The exercise has been viewed as a show of support for Taiwan in the face of massive military exercises by China’s People’s Liberation Army off the east coast of China.
AFP |
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Australians
lapping up neem products Sydney, August 20 Agriculture scientists and those in the business of cosmetics Down Under have finally discovered neem and are using its wondrous oil, powder and the subsequent residue for answers to age-old problems. The growth in the neem cult in this country has also seen some commercial farmers jumping into the fray to grow it in the semi-tropical regions in the states of Queensland and Western Australia.
IANS |
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‘Treat
bullying as illness’ Cologne, august 20 ‘‘The lack of a diagnostic term for mobbing reflects the way we deal with this problem in our society,’’ said Martina Levartz, spokesperson for the General Medical Council of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Deutsches Aerzteblatt, a specialist journal for medics, says doctors are merely treating the symptoms rather than the cause of the illness. ‘‘Mobbing is pure violence that can affect anybody,’’ it says.
DPA |
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