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Tuesday,
March 12, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Sharon lifts ban on Arafat’s movement
Mugabe govt agrees to poll extension End reliance on terror, USA tells Tigers |
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Screen Actors Guild awards for Crowe, Berry
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Sharon lifts ban on Arafat’s movement
Jerusalem, March 11 Sharon’s comments, which stunned his right-wing coalition partners, came a day after twin Palestinian terror attacks left 16 persons dead, 13 Israelies and three attackers, at the end of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday prompting Israel to destroy Arafat’s empty headquarters in Gaza and hit other targets in and around the area. Sharon’s latest announcement is the second move towards moderating his earlier tough position against Palestinians which follows his earlier statement dropping the seven days of quiet demand before engaging the Palestinians in cease-fire negotiations. Sharon said Arafat had met with the main condition for Israel, Arafat had met Tel Aviv’s demands to arrest the suspected conspirators of the killing of Israeli Cabinet Minister Rehavam Zeevi last year. “People have been arrested. I demanded their arrest and their imprisonment....I have said after they are arrested we shall let him out of there. I see this as a great achievement for the government,” Sharon told a gathering of disabled persons, broadcast on Israeli television. The statement by Israel’s hardline Prime Minister at the security Cabinet meeting last night sent the right-wing coalition partners, the National Union/Yisrael Beitenu Bloc, scrambling to announce it was quitting the government. Other right-wing ministers, like Natan Sharansky of Yisrael B’Aliyah, said they were disturbed by Sharon’s decision. Sharon’s decision regarding Arafat’s release, which observers said appeared to be coordinated with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, assumes significance as US Vice-President Richard Cheney departed for a 10-day swing to West-Asia to discuss the next stage of the war against terrorism. Significantly, in Washington, Powell told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the USA believed Israel should lift its siege on Arafat. “I think that Prime Minister Sharon should give this serious consideration, as we get closer to the time of the summit.” GAZA CITY: The Israeli army made an incursion into the central Gaza Strip on Monday, wounding at least three Palestinians with machine-gun fire, medical and security sources here said. Tanks, bulldozers and jeeps advanced 1 km into the Palestinian autonomous territory, east of the Bureij refugee camp, a security official said.
PTI, AFP |
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Mugabe govt agrees to poll extension
Harare, March 11 Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa made the announcement on state radio, saying that extending the vote across the country, as ordered yesterday by the High Court, would not be feasible. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had appealed for the extension after a weekend of chaotic voting here that saw queues of thousands of people because of a massive turnout and a cutback in the number of polling stations. The Zimbabwe police has arrested a senior member of the MDC near the border with Botswana, opposition officials said. MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube was driving on a road southwest of Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo when he was arrested at a police roadblock, MDC legal secretary David Coltart said. Ncube and two other MDC officials, including party leader Morgan Tsvangirai, are accused by the government of treason over an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. They have denied the allegation. Voting outlets were increased for rural voters, the main support base of President Robert Mugabe, who is struggling to retain his 22-year grip on power. The MDC, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai is tipped to win a free and fair election, accused the government of creating the logjam here in a deliberate attempt to reduce the vote in his urban strongholds. Voters in the lines said they were concerned that the people would be unaware that they could still vote today, since state television had said yesterday in its main evening bulletin that the election was over. Zimbabwean police detained four American diplomats on Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said. The diplomats were stopped at a roadblock and arrested in Chinhoyi, northwest of Harare, at about 10 a.m. “This is a clear violation of basic diplomatic conventions,” the spokesman said. “All four are U.S. diplomats accredited to the U.S. embassy in Harare. Two of them were accredited as electoral observers and were on normal diplomatic business.” The U.S. government has been in the forefront of international protests against Mugabe’s rule and has threatened to tighten sanctions against the governing elite if the election result is blatantly rigged. Reacting to the arrest, party chief Morgan Tsvangirai told supporters that if anything happened to him they should carry on the struggle against President Robert Mugabe. Last night a High Court judge ordered voting to be extended for a third day because huge queues at polling stations in opposition strongholds had prevented people from voting.
AFP, Reuters |
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End reliance on terror, USA tells Tigers Colombo, March 11 The US embassy said in a statement it had “credible reports” that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were taking advantage of the current truce by rearming themselves with fresh supplies. “In the current international context... in which terrorism is being condemned in more and more countries, the LTTE should be especially vigilant about observing the terms of the ceasefire accord,” the embassy said. It said the LTTE, which has been fighting for an independent homeland for Tamils in the north and east of the island, had stepped up its conscription of child soldiers and had extorted money from civilians since the indefinite ceasefire began. “There also have been credible reports of LTTE re-supply operations since the ceasefire. Continued smuggling of weapons by the LTTE could undermine the trust needed to move from a cessation of hostilities to a lasting peace,” the embassy said. In the strongest warning since Sri Lanka’s new government revived the stagnant peace process after being voted to power in in December, the USA said the Tigers should give up their demand for a separate state or “eelam”. The USA said both parties to the conflict had responsibilities in line with the truce accord, but placed greater emphasis on the LTTE in view of the war against terrorism. “If it does not (fall into line), it will increase its international isolation and do harm to the group it claims to represent, the Tamils, who earnestly want an end to the war,” the statement said. The US designated the LTTE a foreign terrorist organisation in October 1997.
AFP |
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Sushma unhappy with ban on Indian TV Islamabad, March 11 In her interviews to the local media, before leaving for home yesterday after attending the SAARC Information Ministers Conference, she said barring Gujarat, PTV transmissions were available to Indian viewers throughout the country. “Of course, after the riots in Gujarat, the state government did ban these transmissions for the time being but the ban is confined only to Gujarat,” she told the local daily Dawn.
PTI |
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UN drive against human cloning A United Nations ad hoc committee is currently engaged in the challenging task of negotiating an international convention to ban reproductive cloning of human beings. A week-long session of the committee held recently at the UN headquarters in New York adopted a report noting that there was general agreement that the reproductive cloning of human beings was a “troubling and unethical” development in biotechnology that should be prohibited. Central to the review of the report was the preference of some members for a “focussed approach and a negotiating mandate” on a universal ban the wish of others that included a ban on cloning for “therapeutic, experimental and research purposes for reasons of precaution and efficacy to address the read issues present in our society.” According to the chairman of the ad hoc committee, Mr Peter Tomka from Slovakia, the session was a “learning process” for many. Attention had been focussed on a number of issues involving important and fundamental policy, ethical and technical questions. No particular conclusion had been reached, but “basic trends of views” had emerged. The committee was set up by the UN General Assembly in December last year in response to a joint German and French initiative calling for a global ban on human cloning. A resolution of the assembly had described cloning as “an attack on the human dignity of the individual” and expressed its determination to prevent it. According to media reports, recently in Britain six couples applied for permission to create “designer babies”. In the USA, several bills have been sponsored in the Congress to provide for a comprehensive ban on human cloning, both therapeutic and human. President George W. Bush is said to be in favour of the ban. Advocates of an international convention argue that only very few states have adopted legislation prohibiting human cloning and a global convention would accelerate that national process and lend it moral weight. |
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Screen Actors Guild awards for Crowe, Berry Los Angeles, March 11 Halle Berry won for best actress as the widow of an executed death row inmate who becomes involved with one of her husband’ guards in “Monster’s Ball”. Crowe won the lead-actor Oscar last year for “Gladiator.” If he wins for “A Beautiful Mind,” Crowe would be the first actor to win two straight Oscars since Tom Hanks won bestactor for “Philadelphia” and “Forest Gump” in 1993 and 1994. The guild awards provide a good glimpse at how the Oscars might shake out on March 24. In SAG’s seven previous awards shows, 11 of 14 lead-acting recipients went on to win Oscars, including last year’s best-actress winner, Julia Roberts for “Erin Brockovich.” “Gosford Park,” Robert Altman’s combination murder mystery and class-war satire, won for best ensemble film cast. Former guild president Edward Asner, star of the television series “Lou Grant” and a co-star on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” was honoured with a life-achievement award. The acting honours closed the final big weekend of Hollywood awards before the Oscars. Chosen by the Screen Actors Guild’s 98,000 members, the awards are given in five film and eight television categories.
AP |
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