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Tuesday,
April 9, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Operations in Palestine to go on: Sharon
Norwegians clinch deal on Lanka road India loans artefacts to Singapore Jatha ban leaves Pak Sikhs bitter
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Laden 'escaped' hours before raid
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Operations in Palestine to go on: Sharon Jerusalem, April 8
“Arafat has established a regime of terror in the territories under his control,” Mr Sharon said in a televised speech to the Israeli parliament that was interrupted repeatedly by Arab Israeli legislators who were then shouted down by other members of the Assembly. Mr Sharon said Israel’s military offensive in the West Bank would continue, despite demands by the USA that troops begin their withdrawal from Palestinian towns immediately. “These missions have not been completed yet, and the army will continue operating as quickly as possible until the mission has been completed, until it has dismantled Arafat’s terror infrastructure and until the murderers hiding in different places have been arrested,” Mr Sharon said. However, Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said the Israeli army could withdraw from some of the Palestinian self-rule areas it has re-occupied in the past 10 days, in response to a call by the USA to wind up its West Bank offensive. “If there is a sector where, from an operational point of view security officials say we can pull back, we will of course do so,” Mr Saar told Army Radio.
Mr Sharon, speaking after a wave of suicide bombings that prompted Israel to launch a military offensive in the West Bank, held up documents which he said linked Mr Arafat to the suicide attacks in an 18-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation. “The gangs of murderers have a leader...and the aim is to force us out of here,’’ he said. “The one who sends them is the head of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.” The US President, Mr George W. Bush, demanded over the weekend that Israel immediately withdraw from Palestinian areas. In 11 days of fighting, Israel has reoccupied six of the eight main Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Addressing the US demands, Mr Sharon said, “We promised that we will expedite our operations and remove our forces from the places where we have finished.” He said Israeli troops would then withdraw to buffer zones, presumably in the West Bank, “to keep the terrorists away from our cities.” Mr Sharon said Israel had arrested more than 1,500 wanted Palestinians and seized arms caches, disguises used by suicide bombers and large quantities of explosives in a broad military offensive in the West Bank. JERUSALEM: Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said today that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had undermined an upcoming peace mission by US Secretary Colin Powell by refusing to end an army offensive in the West Bank. Mr Erekat slammed a speech made by Mr Sharon earlier today as an attempt to justify what he called Israeli “massacres” during the 10-day-old military campaign and said Israel’s efforts to sidestep Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority would fail. “Mr Sharon has ended Mr Powell’s visit before he comes here,” he said. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council met for the fourth time in eight days to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and again demanded Israel’s immediate withdrawal from the West Bank. In Madrid, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today urged Israel to withdraw its troops immediately from Palestinian areas of the West Bank in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution. BETHLEHEM: A Palestinian fighter was killed by Israeli gunfire early today as he attempted to put out a fire which broke out in a building adjoining the besieged Church of the Nativity here, Palestinian sources said.
Reuters, AFP  |
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Norwegians clinch deal on Lanka road Colombo, April 8 Officials said the last closed stretch of A-9 highway, over which the army and the guerrillas have fought bloody battles and lost thousands of combatants, was opened this morning after 12 years. Under the supervision of the Red Cross, the two sides have removed hundreds of mines buried close to their forward defence positions over the years during the last week. Norwegian peace brokers helped the parties sort out differences last night that could have further delayed the road’s re-opening, officials said. The highway was due to be opened to civilian traffic by March 25 originally. The government had objected to this claim, as private bus operators have already been given licences to operate direct services from Colombo to Jaffna, a 400-km stretch across the island. The opening of the road to civilian traffic marks a significant confidence-building step in the ongoing peace process. The government and the LTTE have agreed to hold preliminary peace talks in Thailand in May or June and are expected to finalise the modalities for an interim administration under LTTE control in the north and east. LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran is due to meet the international and domestic media on Wednesday for his first press conference in over a decade. He may spell out his peace strategy and outline the sort of solution that he will be looking for in proposed face-to-face talks with government. He held a meeting with the truce Monitoring Mission yesterday in the presence of rebel commanders in the east to sort out issues relating to allegations that Muslims were being harassed by the guerrillas in the area. State-run media said no clearance would be required for Tamil civilians from throughout the island to enter Vanni now. However, Sinhalese people and mediapersons would have to take permission from LTTE’s Vavuniya office.
PTI |
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India loans artefacts to Singapore Singapore, April 8 The decision to loan artefacts for a 10-year period comes in the wake of signing of a MoU by Additional Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry Suryakanti Tripathi and Chairman of the Singapore National Heritage Board Lim Chee Onn in the presence of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Singaporean counterpart Goh Chok Tong. Besides the Lord Vishnu statue measuring 1.53 metres in height and 56 cm in breadth, two other 12th century Chola era statues of Sri Devi and Bhu Devi were also loaned. The other artefacts include a 19th century metal alloy place from Hyderabad, an 18th century inverted bud shaped “huqqa” base, also from Hyderabad and a 19th century silver “huqqa” in eight detachable pieces from North India. The miniature paintings loaned were three 18th century works from Rajasthan, a 17th century paper painting on a folktale of Marwar related to Ramayana and 19th century drawing of a Sikh noble.
PTI |
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Jatha ban leaves Pak Sikhs bitter Islamabad, April 8 On Baisakhi, a harvest festival that falls on April 13 this year, many Sikhs from the two countries get together for celebrations. “The Indian Government always finds a reason to stop Sikhs from visiting Pakistan,” lamented Mr Tochen Singh, Sikh leader in Pakistan. This is the first time since the 1971 India-Pakistan war that the visit of Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan on the occasion of Baisakhi has been called off. He hoped India would reconsider its decision, “as this is our holy festival.” According to reports here, a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee Friday decided it was not “safe” for Sikhs to visit gurdwaras in Pakistan at the moment. He said, “A 3,000-strong Sikh jatha (pilgrim group) was scheduled to come here but now the number may be less than 200.” The Sikh community in Pakistan, which accounts for less than 1 per cent of the population, was feeling “very bad about the Indian decision, as Baisakhi remains incomplete without the participation of our special guests from India.”
IANS |
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Bid on Afghan minister’s life: 4 die Kabul, April 8 The killed and injured were the people who had lined up along the road to welcome Mr Fahim to
Jalalabad, where the minister was to meet tribal leaders to discuss a new government campaign to eradicate heroin-producing poppies. The military commander said the convoy itself was not hit, and that Mr Fahim was taken to a safe area.
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Laden 'escaped' hours before raid Islamabad, April 8 Laden stayed for three days in Faisalabad and was able to slip out of the town barely a few hours before the FBI conducted a surprise raid, Pakistan daily ‘The Nation’ reported today. Zubaida was critically injured when he and other Al-Qaida militants tried to resist the raiding parties. American media teams that arrived late were tipped off that Laden had been present at the scene, the daily said.
PTI |
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Ritu
Beri, the Versace of Bollywood Paris, April 8 “Every woman — even if she’s shy — wants to feel sexy.” Beri has just flown in to Paris from Delhi. “You don’t have to show cleavage or be dramatically obvious about it. You just want to feel that added confidence. The woman of today holds her own, and knows her mind; she’s not shy to look beautiful.’ She speaks in a soft, lilting drawl. Her English is, of course, perfect. She could well be one of the Bollywood stars she dresses, sitting casually in the cool marble-clad interior of her hotel lobby. The designer is in Paris for her first collection for the French fashion house,
Scherrer. In February, she was appointed head of the ready-to-wear collection by fashion Svengali Mounir
Moufarrige, CEO of the fledgling luxury-goods conglomerate France Luxury Group. Moufarrige claims to have misheard Stella’s name during the interview (McCarthy, instead of McCartney) and asked her what her father did. The story goes that she replied that he was in music, before asking him if he’d heard of the Beatles. “I’ve picked a lot of designers,” he says. “I don’t look at country, nationality or sex. I look at talent.” But he admits, “When everybody else was looking at southeast Asia, I looked at India. It’s a big country of music, movies and textiles, a huge country with an enormous population. I was delighted to see how successful Ritu was in India. But there’s an opportunity to go beyond those boundaries and become popular worldwide.” Although Beri is relatively unknown outside India, she is seriously well connected. Her friends are film stars and socialites, and they all support her and wear her clothes. Just as Stella McCartney’s great selling point was her ability to make clothes that she and her friends wanted to wear, so too Beri has a close circle ready to wear her latest designs. In India, she is the first lady of fashion, with a business worth US dollars 4.5 million. When she designed a particular sleeve a few years ago — it was long and slim, ruched up around the wrists in an imitation of a particular style of traditional pyjama trouser — the rest of India wore it, too. “Today it’s one of the most popular sleeves,” she says. “I think copying is inevitable, and it’s the biggest compliment.” It’s the same with costumes she designs for the cinema. If Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit wears a certain blouse in the movies, then that look becomes really popular. “You have pictures from magazines in little tailoring shops and everyone wants to wear that blouse.” It’s a bit like teenage girls in the UK rushing out to buy Buffalo boots after seeing them on the Spice Girls. But in India there aren’t any mid-range fashionable clothes shops for women, just thousands of tailors who will make the look you want for a fraction of the price. The clothes Beri designs for the Indian market are different from the “Western” collections she makes for the rest of the world. Nicole Kidman, who commissioned Beri to make dresses for the premieres of Eyes Wide Shut and Moulin Rouge, likes a taste of India rather than a full-blown sari. “In India, I do Indian clothes,” Beri says. “The whole psyche of the Indian woman is that she will spend more money on Indian clothes than Western clothes.” Weddings are big business, not least because they last for a week. “I think the Indian wedding dress is the most expensive garment that gets sold the world over.” They spend anything from Rs 5 lakh (more than US dollars 10,000) for a normal wedding dress.
The Observer, London |
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