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Friday,
February 8, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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USA may
‘go it alone’ against Iraq: Powell Indo-Pak
N-war possible: CIA LTTE ready
to give up demand for homeland: Norway PM |
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Entry to
UK through test Raid kills
3 Afghans
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Palestinian
kills 3 Jews
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USA may ‘go it alone’ against Iraq: Powell Washington, February 7 Mr Powell said the USA would work for a regime change in Iraq even though most of the European allies, Russia, China and most Middle East countries were opposed to such blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. Citing the alliance with the Europeans, Mr Powell said while the USA valued alliances, “it is a matter of principle that when the multilateral community does not agree with us, we do not shrink from doing what we think is right and in our interests even if some of our friends disagree with us. In Europe, there are strong points of view and we always appreciate hearing these strong points of view.” “The president is examining a full range of options,” Mr Powell said. He declined to say whether Mr Bush was considering a military assault on Iraq, or additional economic and diplomatic pressures. Chairman Henry Hyde said in fighting terrorism, the USA must, of course, take note of the views of its friends and others and actively seek their assistance “but the desire to secure this support cannot be allowed to override our primary duty of securing the safety of all Americans”. Seoul: The Commander-in-chief of US Pacific forces today said North Korea was a potential danger to the entire region but played down differences between Seoul and Washington over how to deal with the perceived threat. Last week, president George W. Bush lumped North Korea with Iraq and Iran as an ‘’an axis of evil’’ — a comment South Korean politicians have said further clouded President Kim Dae-jung’s “sunshine policy’’ of rapprochement towards Pyongyang. Admiral Dennis Blair, in a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, said: “North Korea is capable of very provocative and very dangerous behaviour. It is potentially very dangerous to the whole region.’’ In a response, North Korea said US President George W. Bush’s rhetorical assault last week on the communist state “clearly proves how crazy he has become’’. Today, the official KCNA news agency took up the theme with renewed vigour, saying Bush’s remarks were “extremely reckless’’ and warning Washington that North Korea reserved the right to self-defence. “A string of unprecedented war outcries are heard from heavyweights of the US administration and military bosses in the wake of the belligerent ‘State of the Union’ address,’’ KCNA said.
PTI, Reuters |
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Indo-Pak N-war possible: CIA Washington, February 7 “The chance of war between these two nuclear-armed states is higher than that at any point since 1971,” CIA Director George J. Tenet told a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. If India were to conducts a large-scale offensive operations into the PoK, Pakistan might retaliate with strikes of its own in the belief that its nuclear deterrent would limit the scope of an Indian counterattack, Mr Tenet said. He said although September 11 highlighted the challenges that India-Pakistan relations posed for the US policy, the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 was even more destabilising —resulting as it did in new calls for military action against Pakistan, and subsequent mobilisation on both sides. Mr Tenet said both countries were also continuing the development of long-range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, and were planning to field cruise missiles with a land-attack capability. So is the challenge to the USA in the area of space exploration, he said, “The unique space borne advantage that the USA has enjoyed over the past few decades is eroding as more countries — including China and India — field increasingly sophisticated reconnaissance satellites.’’ Regarding missiles, the CIA Chief said Chinese firms continue to be key suppliers of missile-related technologies to Pakistan, Iran and several other countries. This was in spite of Beijing’s November, 2000, missile pledge not to assist in any way countries that sought to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, he said. He warned that China’s recent acquiescence in the US anti-terror campaign did not mean it had taken its eye from its prime goal — becoming a major Asian power. “China is developing an increasingly competitive economy and building a modern military force with the ultimate objective of asserting itself as a great power in East Asia. The CIA has warned that the Al-Qaida still remains a grave threat to the USA and called for a long battle to root out the terrorist menace. Terrorist groups worldwide, said Mr Tenet, have ready access to information on chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons via the Internet, “And we know that Al-Qaida was working to acquire some of the most dangerous chemical agents and toxins.”
UNI |
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LTTE ready to give up demand for homeland: Colombo, February 7 Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told BBC that he was optimistic of bringing the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to the peace negotiating table by the middle of this year. The “only realistic approach to any lasting peace agreement would be for the Tamil Tigers to give up their claim to the creation of a separate Tamil homeland”, Mr Bondevik said, adding that “this they appeared to be willing to do.” Mr Bondevik said the Sri Lankan Government must, in return, do a “great deal of work” to achieve equal conditions for minority Tamils. The Norwegians were encouraged by the fact that a unilateral truce reciprocated by the Sri Lankan Government had been holding since Christmas Eve, he said. Mr Bondevik said he was assured that Sri Lanka’s new government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was “committed to bringing peace in Sri Lanka”. Mr Wickremesinghe, who came to power promising peace, invited Mr Bondevik to revive Norway’s peace efforts which had been on hold since June . Mr Bondevik’s remarks came as Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen arrived here today to meet Sri Lankan leaders and finalise a formal truce agreement.
AFP |
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Entry to UK through test London, February 7 The proposed rule will help foreigners forge closer bond with their new society, Home Secretary David Blunkett said. Immigrants will have to pass tests in written and spoken English, and a paper on British customs before being given a passport. They would have to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen and promise to respect and uphold British rights, freedoms, values and laws. “When people become British citizens, I want it to be something to celebrate, not just a piece of paper arriving in a brown envelope alongside the gas bill. When they apply for citizenship, we shall expect them to learn about British society and institutions,” Mr Blunkett said in the Sun tabloid. The new laws will apply to all asylum-seekers and immigrants arriving under the new Green Card scheme.
PTI |
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Raid kills 3 Afghans Washington, February 7 “It was a CIA Predator missile that was fired upon what was thought to be a senior
Al-Qaida official,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. He said the attack took place on Tuesday night. The Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency said the missile killed three Afghan civilians, whom it identified as a group of young men in the Zawar Khili area, 35 km south-west of Khost town and 15 km from the Pakistani border. “Two people were killed on the spot and one died on the way to hospital,” AIP said. Citing tribal elders, it identified the three dead men as Munir Ahmad, Jehangir Khan and Daraz Khan. “They were standing and chatting when hit by the missile,” said the elders. They also said there were no
Al-Qaida people in the area, it said. MAZAR-I-SHARIF: About 600 Afghan fighters loyal to warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum have refused to leave the northern city of
Mazar-i-Sharif, defying a UN-backed security plan, police said today. “There are about 600 men there and they have refused to obey orders to leave the city,’’ the region’s Deputy Police chief, Gen Abdullah
Aziz, told Reuters. “At the moment we have left them as they are. We plan to talk to General Dostum about it and see what he decides.’’ General
Aziz, said the men were in Nare Shahee district in the west of Afghanistan’s third largest city. The news came as a campaign backed by the United Nations and all the main ethnic groups in the area to drive armed men away from the centre of the city and surrounding areas got under way. Tension between commanders and troops loyal to different factions has boiled over into fighting in several areas around the city in recent weeks, threatening to undermine the stability of the interim government in Kabul. The six-month interim government is also trying to snuff out bloody tribal clashes in the east of the country as rival factions battle for power in the post-Taliban era.
Reuters |
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Trapped
passengers rescued
Salang Tunnel, February 7 “Everyone is safe and the tunnel has been reopened,” Sergeant Richard Gallagher, of the British 16th Air Brigade, told AFP. The UN spokesman in Kabul, Yusuf Hassan, earlier reported three people had suffocated in the tunnel while a doctor told AFP a 12-year-old boy had frozen to death. Gallagher, a representative of the International Security Assistance Force, could not confirm the deaths. He said the bulk of the rescue operation was carried out British demining group Halo Trust. Halo Trust members used four-wheel drive ambulances and other vehicles to negotiate the steep mountain pass in fierce blizzards from early today to rescue frightened passengers of cars and minibuses trapped at the tunnel.
AFP |
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Palestinian
kills 3 Jews Jerusalem, February 7 Israeli F-16s dropped three bombs on the headquarters of the Palestinian governor of Nablus, in the West Bank, correspondent said. The flurry of violence came just hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left on a high-profile visit for Washington in a bid to further isolate Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom he has branded “irrelevant” and kept in isolation in the West Bank town of Ramallah for two months. The gunman opened fired with an automatic weapon on a group of soldiers and then on a group of settlers in the greenhouse area of the settlement, where 40 families live, an Israeli military source said. Three persons — a mother, her infant son and a soldier — died of their wounds, while another three persons, including a young daughter of the slain woman were also wounded, the source said. An elite Israeli Army squad stormed the area shortly after the shooting spree and killed the gunman as he was trying to break into a house, he added. The Palestinian militant group Hamas claimed the attack, saying it was carried out by a member of its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a spokesman told the Shiite militia Hezbollah’s television station in Lebanon.
AFP, Reuters |
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Washington, February 7
