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Tuesday,
February 19, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Speight
gets death penalty; commuted to life term
EU likely
to slap sanctions on Harare
Mittal
lobbied ‘against UK’ |
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Send me on
suicide mission: Omar’s link 5 killed in northern
Afghan clashes ‘Mahabharata’
comes to America in big way
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Speight gets death penalty; commuted to life term Sydney, February 18 Pronouncing the death sentence, Justice Michael Scott of the High Court in the Fijian capital Suva said, “George Speight, the sentence of the court upon you is that you be taken from the place to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution and that you there suffer death by hanging and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul”. Justice Scott said he had no option but to sentence Speight to death as it was mandatory under the 1997 Constitution. But shortly afterwards, Mr Iloilo signed a decree reducing the death sentence to life term, which entails minimum 10 years in prison. According to sources in Fiji, the High Court decision seems to be part of a “deal”. During the trial, Speight pleaded guilty to all 13 “overt acts of the charge of treason, including the armed takeover of Parliament in May 2000 and taking the Prime Minister, his cabinet and other lawmakers hostage”. Only a week ago, the cabinet led by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had introduced a bill, yet to be passed by Parliament, reducing the maximum punishment for treason charges to life imprisonment from death penalty. Mr Qarase, who will not have the majority to form government but for the support of five members from the Speight’s party, had made the move in his own interest, the sources said. Moreover, minutes after the High Court passed the judgment, the three-member Commission on the prerogative of mercy headed by Attorney General Qoriniasi Bale, who is seen as a pro-Speight man, convened a meeting. Speight’s Australian lawyer Ron Cannon said his client wanted to plead guilty to help close the country’s ethnic wounds. Speight and 12 others were detained on the Nukulau island for more than a year. Under the 1997 Constitution, the President can grant a pardon or a conditional pardon or substitute a less severe punishment imposed by the courts. Ten other accused in the coup have pleaded guilty on a lesser charge of keeping in confinement Mr Choudhry and his cabinet colleagues for 56 days in the Parliament building. Mr Miles Johnson, former President of Fijian Law Society, said the proceedings in the court were a “total charade” to get Speight out of the conventional claws of the law. “They will never lay a finger on him. He will be back on the streets stirring trouble within six months”, he said.
PTI |
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EU likely to slap sanctions on Harare
Brussels, February 18 EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he expected the bloc’s 15 Foreign Ministers to approve sanctions at their day-long talks in Brussels. Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said Europe would lose credibility if it failed to act. Speaking to reporters as he arrived for the monthly meeting, Solana said: “I think it is very likely that sanctions will be adopted after the latest news we had.” The head of the EU team sent to observe Zimbabwe’s March 9-10 presidential election, Swedish diplomat Pierre Schori, was due to report to the ministers on the situation in Zimbabwe, which expelled him on Saturday accusing him of “political arrogance”. His team of more than 30 observers did receive accreditation from the Zimbabwean authorities and has not been expelled. Solana said he did not know what sanctions the ministers would agree, but added: “We will probably take a decision today.” The EU has threatened to impose targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his closest associates, including a visa ban and a freeze on their overseas assets, if Zimbabwe hampers the work of its election observer mission. The ministers have also threatened to take action if Zimbabwe denies international media free access to cover the election, which is proving the biggest challenge to Mugabe’s 22-year rule amid deepening economic crisis. Meanwhile, hundreds of government supporters hurled stones at the headquarters of Zimbabwe’s opposition party in Harare on Monday, smashing windows and forcing pedestrians to flee, witnesses said. Riot police arrested dozens of demonstrators outside the main office of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The street was strewn with rocks and shops bolted their doors, the witnesses said. The attack on the MDC headquarters came after thousands of supporters of President Robert Mugabe had marched on the British Embassy in Harare, accusing the country’s former colonial ruler of meddling in presidential election.
Reuters |
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Mittal lobbied ‘against UK’ London, February 18 The disclosure blows a hole in the Prime Minister’s claim that his letter supporting Mr Mittal’s business interests in eastern Europe would be good for the UK and has provoked fury in the British steel industry. The Observer has learnt that Mr Mittal, who has fewer than 100 British employees, has paid $ 6,00,000 to a campaign group, Stand Up for Steel, that is pushing President George W. Bush to slap tariffs of 40 per cent on all steel imports to the USA. Mr Mittal’s Chicago-based company, Ispat Inland, which is America’s sixth largest steel producer, has also made nearly $ 100,000 in political contributions to both the Republican and Democratic Parties to push its case in Washington, as well as spending tens of thousands of dollars more hiring powerful US lobbyists. Last month Ispat Inland’s US boss Peter Southwick, along with other steel company leaders, wrote to Mr Bush urging him to impose import tariffs of at least 40 per cent to prop up the US market. If, as expected, Mr Bush introduces the tariff early next month the British steel industry could see its $ 350-m export market to the USA dry up with the potential loss of thousands of jobs. Corus, the former British Steel, wrote to the Prime Minister last autumn warning of the dangers of the US tariff issue. The letter arrived at Number 10 just a few months after Mr Blair had written to the Romanian Prime Minister, Mr Adrian Nastase, praising a deal by Mittal’s LNM company to buy Sidex, the country’s previously state-owned steel industry. In the letter, which led to a storm of protest last week, Mr Blair said that the LNM was a ‘British business’ despite being registered in the Dutch Antilles and Rotterdam. Critics claimed that Mr Mittal was getting preferential treatment from the UK Government because of a $ 177,000 donation he made to the Labour Party before the last general elections. Downing Street has dismissed the claims, saying this weekend that the Prime Minister would act in exactly the same way if he were asked to support the LNM over a similar issue and that he had ‘no regrets’ about writing the letter. Mr Mittal’s efforts in the USA are in direct opposition to the British Government policy. The UK Department of Trade and Industry has lobbied hard in Washington to prevent Mr Bush from imposing these tariffs.
The Observer, London |
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Nepal oppn demands govt’s resignation
Kathmandu, February 18 The melee by the opposition lawmakers broke out after a member of the governing Nepali Congress Party, representing the remote area where yesterday’s attack took place, said the government had not responded to warnings of a pending assault. The rebels attacked a district headquarters and a nearby airport in north-western Nepal yesterday, killing more than 130 persons in the biggest guerrilla assault in six years of war. As the bodies of the dead were being flown back to Kathmandu for cremation, the army sent hundreds of reinforcements by helicopter to the stricken district, Mangalsen, 600 km to the north-west. No one was injured in the brief scuffle in Parliament, which had gathered to consider a proposal by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to extend the three-month national emergency. Extension of the emergency, which expires this month, requires the support of two-thirds of Parliament, but the shouting opposition members prevented Mr Deuba from speaking.
AP |
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Nepal emergency
Kathmandu, February 18 |
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Send me on suicide mission: Omar’s link
Islamabad, February 18 Sheikh Adil, a Jaish-e-Mohammad activist who provided strong leads in tracking down Sheikh Omar Saeed, key suspect in the abduction of Daniel Pearl, repeatedly pleaded with police officials to let him go on a suicide mission anywhere in India instead of sentencing him to death in the kidnapping case, a local daily reported today. “He is damn serious about his task”, a police official was quoted as saying by The News. Adil, who worked in the intelligence wing of the Sindh police, was on leave for the past two years to take part in jehad in Afghanistan, the daily said. His associate Salman Saqib, also a Jaish activist and detained in the kidnapping of the WSJ reporter, made a
similar request and proudly demonstrated the bullet wounds on his body, claiming to have acquired them during gun battles with Indian forces in Kashmir, the report said. “Why do you want to penalise me when I am prepared to give my life. Instead of killing me in Karachi let me be killed doing something great in Kashmir,” Salman said. Like other suspects in the Pearl case, the daily said, Gilani was also “driven by the zeal to liberate Kashmir.”
PTI |
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5 killed in northern
Afghan clashes Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan,
February 18 Gen Gholam Sakhi, from an ethnic Hazara party, said he mediated to end fighting in and around Khulm, about 50 km east from here. But the fighting, in which about 30 persons were wounded, cast fresh doubt on the ability of the new Afghan government to hold together its loose coalition of old enemies and ensure security in the country. Three dead fighters came from a faction led by northern warlord and Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rashid Dostum, General Sakhi said. An Afghan aid agency official said one of his Afghan workers and a commander from the other faction, which is loyal to Defence Minister Mohammad Fahim, had also been killed.
Reuters |
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‘Mahabharata’ comes to America in big way Colorado (USA) Deciding which play to do, Dorian came across an old 1987 video of a two-man adaptation of the “Mahabharata” that was at once innovative and powerful. “It held my attention from beginning to end. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. It was totally mesmerising and very absorbing.”, Dorian says. “I had seen many versions”, he says, “including Peter Brooks’ 10- hour film, but it was too long and American audiences found it boring and difficult to understand.” Having seen the play on video which originally had only two male actors playing eight roles and running under two hours, Dorian took a trip to meet one of the original adapters, Andy Fraenkel and the rest is history. “He gave me his blessings and could not get involved as he had a heart attack several years previous,” Dorian states. He also said the other adapter passed away untimely and so Dorian felt that the play should get wide exposure rather than be hidden from the public. What I needed was a way to bring this adaptation to the general audience, especially here in America. Right now there is a cultural revolution and these types of Vedic dramas have a wide audience appeal, if done professionally. With this in mind, Dorian decided what he needed was a much stronger light and sound design as well as a simple, yet effective set design. Two years in the planning, the play is now getting ready for it’s world premiere in Denver, Colorado, and Kansas City, Missouri, with only three actors playing a variety of roles. Dorian brings 30 years of stage and film experience to the project. He has worked for the CBS Television network and edited films in Hollywood for 15 years. “I started out as an actor and then turned to writing and directing because I liked the technical end.” Although film is his first love he says that theatre is now becoming the new renaissance in America. “As long as costs can be kept down and made affordable then the public will come,” he says adding, “They are waiting for something new.” Dorian also says: “We hope that with the success of this play we can go on to do more elaborate productions, even go to Broadway in New York City. Why not?” But for that venture Dorian says it will cost much more money than the current production of “Mahanbharata” which comes in at around $15,000. He says he cut some corners but it’s all there. In fact, Dorian is currently seeking entrepreneurs and investors willing to take risks for this and other future projects. And he adds, “The potential is very great now for investors to get back their money and make a profit. No matter how bad the economy, people need entertainment, something new.” In closing, Dorian says: “There is no doubt in my mind that the time is right for this type of Vedic entertainment. It cuts across all social and political boundaries and it’s something the people can enjoy in an emotional manner. It is also spiritual in theme and also glorifies India. My ‘Mahabharata’ is easily understood and moves swiftly with plenty of action. |
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