 |
Thursday, June 6, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Blast
leaves 18 dead in Israel
20m can
die in N-war: Russia |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Indo-Pak
tension high: Powell I won’t
play mediator, says Rumsfeld Situation unchanged:
Pervez
Ranil
reneging on promises: LTTE Swimmers
warned of sex hungry dolphin Ailing TULF
President dead Internet
in rural India soon
|
|
Blast leaves 18 dead in Israel
Jerusalem, June 5 The radio, quoting police sources, said 16 Israelis were killed, including many soldiers. The two other bodies were not identified and might have been the attacker or attackers in the car, it added. The blast near the city of Haifa was claimed by the Islamic Jehad group, according to the television station of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in Beirut. The Islamic Jehad claimed the attack in a telephone call to the al-Manar station, of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, but gave no details. The car bomb went off behind the bus, engulfing it in flames in the fifth Palestinian attack on Israel during last month. The blast went off on a road near the town of Megiddo as people were heading to work shortly after 7 a.m., regional police chief Yaakov Borovsky said. “A car drove alongside the bus and exploded. The bus burst into flames, and it’s a tough sight, the bus is completely burnt out,” he told army radio.
Witnesses said some passengers were trapped alive in the burning bus. One couple burned to death as they hugged each other, an Israel Army Radio reporter at the scene said. Only the scorched metal skeleton remained of the bus.
AFP, AP  |
|
20m can die in N-war: Russia Moscow, June 05
Mr Ivanov, who visited China last week, said the leadership of Beijing was gravely concerned that a nuclear holocaust could break out on its southern border.
“I tend to agree with the Chinese forecast that should this conflict escalate and the two sides use nuclear weapons, 12 million people will be killed and another seven million will die afterwards,” Mr Ivanov told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“But we hope that reason will prevail in the end, especially as both India and Pakistan have vowed not to revert to nuclear weapons.”
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Jiang Zemin attempted to mediate between India and Pakistan at a regional summit held in Almaty yesterday.
Mr Ivanov was also scheduled today to meet in Moscow with Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra.
And tensions over Kashmir are again expected to top the agenda tomorrow when Mr Putin, Mr Jiang and Central Asian state leaders meet in Saint Petersburg for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
AFP |
|
Indo-Pak war can be avoided: USA Washington, June 5 Mr Ari Fleischer was answering a question whether a war can be avoided by sending Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan. “The President does believe that that can be the case, and that is exactly why the President has been so deeply involved in the ongoing diplomacy. And that is why other nations of the world have been involved in the diplomacy.” “War,” said Mr Fleischer, “would be catastrophic if it takes place between India and Pakistan, but war is not inevitable. And that is why the USA has been working so hard with the parties to convince them that war is not in their interests, let alone the region’s or the world’s.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with Mr Bush in advance his plans to talk to the Indian and Pakistani leaders, and Mr Bush told him he was grateful for Russia’s ongoing diplomacy in the area. “It is another sign of a constructive relationship with Russia, in which the issues we see similarly are increasing,” said Mr Fleischer. “That is part of the rejection of the old zero-sum game, where, if there was turmoil for one superpower, it was good for the other. “Those days are over, and President Putin’s help is noted.” Mr Fleischer said the Indo-Pak situation remains tense and delicate and US diplomacy and efforts by others are ongoing. “I think you are continuing to see a worldwide effort to use diplomacy to reduce the tension in this region, and that is going to be ongoing,” he said.
PTI |
|
Indo-Pak tension high: Powell Washington, June 5 Mr Armitage will hold talks with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad tomorrow when he is expected to impress upon them to effectively implement President Pervez Musharraf’s promises not to allow the export of terrorism from his soil into Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. He would later fly to New Delhi. Stating that US diplomats had conveyed to Indian officials assurances from the Pakistani side about reduction in cross-border terrorism, Mr Powell said but the “tension is still very high.” “I am encouraged by some statements by India that they have seen some indication of change to the extent that there is additional time to wait and see whether this is a real change,” he told the National Public Radio. However, Mr Powell said the USA would call on India to de-escalate only when cross-border terrorism has ended. “I spoke to President Musharraf over the weekend, once again encourging him to do everything to restrain all activity across the Line of Control,” he told reporters in Barbados after a meeting of the Organization of American States. “When that takes place in a way that is obvious and demonstrable to all, then we would call upon India to take the de-escalatory steps so we can start moving in the other direction,” he said.
PTI |
|
I won’t play mediator, says Rumsfeld Washington, June 5 Mr Rumsfeld’s aircraft took off from Andrews Air Force Base yesterday on a flight to London, from where he will go to Brussels for a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers. He will also visit several Gulf countries, but the centerpiece of his busy trip will be talks with leaders in India and Pakistan about growing tension between the two countries. “I’m not going out there as some sort of a mediator, if that’s the implication of your question,’’ Mr Rumsfeld told reporters earlier at the Pentagon when asked if he could persuade leaders of the two states to back away from the brink of what could escalate into a nuclear war. “I’m not being thrown into any breech,’’ he added, noting that he had previously met the leaders of both countries and that Washington had established close and growing relationships with Islamabad and New Delhi over the past year. “Our hope is that those relationships will be useful in having those two countries find their way to right decisions with respect to the tension that exists,’’ Mr Rumsfeld stressed. He noted that Deputy US Secretary of State Richard Armitage would visit India and Pakistan first and that he would likely discuss the issue with Mr Armitage before he, too, made the stops. “It partly will depend on how things play out between now and then and what comes out of the Armitage meetings,’’ Mr Rumsfeld said.
Reuters |
|
Situation unchanged: Pervez Islamabad, June 5 General Musharraf, on his return last night from Almaty, where he and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee attended a 16-nation regional security summit, said there would be no situation where resorting to the nuclear option could ever be contemplated. “I think the situation remains unchanged. Whatever tension there is remains as it was,” Musharraf told CNN. Asked about the diplomatic failure at the summit, he said: “We were hoping that it (tension) would be defused. So, the failure is not defusing it. But, I do not think it will escalate further.” About the cross-border infiltration, Musharraf said “Of course, at the moment, the whole (Indian) Army is deployed everywhere and therefore, it is easier to ensure this”.
UNI |
|
Pak drops Pearl’s wife as witness Karachi, June 5 The prosecution, trying four men in an anti-terrorism court for the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, had filed an application to send a team to London to record the statement of Mariane Pearl. “Today the prosecution has decided to drop the complainant (Mariane Pearl) as a witness,’’ chief prosecutor Raja Qureshi told Reuters. “The reasons for dropping her as a prosecution witness was that a statement was filed on her behalf...that she will not to able to travel either to Pakistan or to London indefinitely,’’ he added. Mr Qureshi said he had no choice but to drop Mariane, who only last week gave birth to a baby, after she had expressed her inability to travel. He said the prosecution could not send a legal team to France to record the statement from Pearl’s wife because “we do not have such a bilateral treaty with the government of France.’’
Reuters |
|
Ranil reneging
on promises: LTTE Colombo, June 5 In a fresh attack in a London-based newspaper against the Prime Minister, LTTE spokesman Anton Balasingham said Mr Ranil had succumbed to President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s hardline approach by linking removal of the ban with the Tigers agreeing to a firm date for talks. He had also shifted his position on the proposal to set up an interim administration for the Tamil-majority north-east by insisting on the inclusion of core political issues in the Thailand talks, Balasingham told the weekly newspaper Tamil Guardian in an interview published today. “We are disappointed to note that the government has imposed a “re-condition” linking the date for the commencement of talks with the possible de-proscription. This is a clear indication that Mr Ranil’s administration is reneging on its original position under the influence of Ms Kumaratunga”, it said. “Ms Kumaratunga seems to have successfully impressed upon Mr Ranil to consider the interim administration only after finding a permanent resolution to the contentious core issues underlying the ethnic conflict, a theme she persistently adopted and miserably failed,” Balasingham said. The government last week said it could lift the four-year ban on the deadly guerrilla group only if it agreed to a firm date for beginning what would be the first face-to-face negotiations between them in seven years. Balasingham, who is also LTTE’s principal negotiator, again expressed the organisation’s disenchantment with the government and the military for the tardy progress in implementing all terms of the ceasefire agreement signed by the two parties in February. “We are disappointed over the lack of concern and inclination on the part of the Sri Lankan government in the process of de-escalation and stabilisation of peace, which is seriously undermining the confidence of our people in the peace process,” he said. Asked what needed to be done by the government to put the peace efforts back on track, Balasingham said it had to implement every provision enshrined in the truce accord.
PTI |
|
Swimmers
warned of sex hungry dolphin London, June 5
The Times newspaper said the bottlenose dolphin, nicknamed Georges, had arrived off Weymouth, Dorset, about two months ago after following a trawler across the Channel.
“This dolphin does get very sexually aggressive. He has already attempted to mate with some divers,” US marine mammal expert Ric O’Barry told the paper.
“When dolphins get sexually excited, they try to isolate a swimmer, normally female. They do this by circling around the individual and gradually move them away from the beach, boat or crowd of the people.”
O’Barry said the dolphin, which weighs an estimated 180 kg, would get very excited and rough and try to mate with the swimmer, possibly causing them to drown.
Reuters |
|
Ailing TULF President dead Colombo, June 5 The 79-year-old President of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was ailing for a long time. He is survived by two children. Like many other Tamil legislators, Sivasithamparam was a prominent lawyer who associated himself with the Tamil cause from his youth. His current stint was his fourth as MP. He won two consecutive terms between 1960 and 1970 as a candidate of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress. He was elected on a TULF ticket in 1977. After living in India for a long time, the TULF nominated him as its lone national list member in Parliament after the last election in December 2001, despite his poor health. Sivasithamparam survived the 1989 shooting incident in Colombo, when TULF veteran A. Amirthalingam was assassinated by a suspected LTTE hit-squad.
PTI |
|
Internet
in rural India soon Paris, June 5 Buses are being fitted out with a $ 100 wireless transreceiver — based on the “wi-fi” broadband networks used by laptops — which is hooked up to an Internet Service Provider by radio. The next step is to modify software on village computers so that they automatically switch to “connected” mode whenever a passing bus is within range. The PostNet project, a joint venture between the Indian Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), initially aims to give farmers access to agricultural news and weather forecasts at least twice a day, the British weekly says.
AFP |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Washington, June 5
