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Saturday,
October 5, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Blix
favours new UN resolution Al-Qaida
still active: UN report ‘Terrorists,
freedom fighters no different’ No looting
by politicians: Pervez Indian
among 5 shot in shooting spree
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convicts man for ‘war’ on Asians London, October 4 A British court has found a white man guilty of two counts of racially aggravated criminal damage and convicted him for stalking Asians and blacks. David Tovey, a rightwing extremist angered at asylum policies was on the point of launching a one-man race war, police said. 10 Maoists
shot in encounters Deuba
sacked, King takes reins of govt
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Blix favours new
UN resolution United Nations, October 4 Just two days after the Vienna talks with Baghdad officials on practical arrangements for the resumption of UN inspections in Iraq, the executive director of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) reported to the council, itself the scene of intense talks over a new, tough US-proposed draft resolution on Iraq, says UPI. Blix said while the council could continue to work on the text of a new resolution, “it would be awkward if we were doing inspections and then a new mandate with new changed directives were to arrive... it would be better to have those early”. He added: “My impression is that there is a good deal of intensity in the talks” about the US draft. “We would abide by whatever the council adopts,” he said. Blix said the inspectors were “ready to go at the earliest practical opportunity,” but there could be a delay because “if the council puts some new suggestions or directives to us, of course, we are in their hands”. Blix said there was no question that the existing council resolutions provide authority for inspectors to return to Iraq, which they left in December 1998. Baghdad wouldn’t let them return. “We can go back there, no one denies that we have a legal basis for doing that,” Blix said. “The question was whether one should solve every practical arrangement — we solved a good deal in Vienna — but there are matters and some loose ends that need to be resolved before we go to Baghdad.” Blix was asked about the so-called presidential sites covered under a memorandum of understanding endorsed by the council in early 1998. He said the areas were “not sanctuaries in the sense that they cannot be inspected. There is a special procedure laid down for it” that could delay an inspection on any of those hundreds of acres both in and outside Baghdad. Annan, earlier in the day, said: “The council is discussing whether or not the (inspection) regime should be tightened and strengthened to ensure that we don’t repeat some of the weaknesses of the past. “I’m waiting to see how the discussions come out. I think it is legitimate that the council should be discussing these issues. But the focus is on disarmament.” Blix was accompanied to the council meeting by International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohammed El Baredei, who hosted the talks in his Vienna office. MOSCOW:
Russian President Vladimir Putin today called for the quick return of weapons inspectors to Iraq, after the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow rejected the need for any new UN Security Council resolution. “Russia and Chile agree that there is an urgent need to guarantee the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq through a full compliance with the corresponding UN Security Council resolutions,” Putin said a joint statement issued after talks with his Chilean counterpart Ricardo Lagos. The statement, issued by the Kremlin, adds that the international community “had to guarantee the return of the international mission to Iraq in the shortest order.”
IANS |
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Al-Qaida still active: UN report DESPITE international action to contain the Al-Qaida, the terrorist network with worldwide presence, is “fit and well” and poised to “strike again at its leisure.” This warning comes from a UN expert panel group which, in a report released in New York this week, says: “Members of the Al-Qaida and their associates are deployed in many countries across the world and, given the opportunity, they will have no compunction in killing as many people as they can from those nations that do not conform to their religions and ideological beliefs and which they perceive as their enemies.” The report has been produced by a monitoring group set up by the UN Security Council to track the implementation by member states of updated sanctions against Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaida, the Taliban and their associates. These measures require all countries to freeze the financial assets of individuals, groups or organisations on the sanctions committee list, and to continue a travel ban and arms embargo on the remaining elements of the Taliban, Al-Qaida network and its supporters. According to the report, one problem in stemming the activities of the Al-Qaida is lack of coordinated action. Only a few of those individuals, detained, sought and identified by the USA are included on the UN’s consolidated list of those under sanctions. Instead, nations are using their own lists “unevenly”, seriously diminishing the effectiveness of responses. The experts’ group calls for making “much greater use” of the UN list. On the financial front, the report finds that despite initial successes in freezing some $112 million in Al-Qaida assets, the network continues to have access to “considerable financial and other economic resources.” The report recommends increased intelligence and information sharing among countries to address the
problem. It also urges greater efforts to track down and close down businesses supporting the Al-Qaida and to regulate alternative banking systems. The report also points out that members of the Al-Qaida and the Taliban “continue to move undetected across international boundaries”, and urges stricter border control procedures. Last month, at a UN press briefing, the chairman of the UN monitoring group, Mr Michael Chandler, had warned that “there are growing indications of the concentration of the Al-Qaida in North Africa, the Middle East, Central, Southern and Southeast Asia. We continue to be collectively faced by an unprecedented form of terrorism without frontiers, the members of which are quite ruthless and without principle when it comes to respecting people as humanity.” The report was reviewed by the Security Council during a closed-door meeting earlier this week, and later the President of the council , Mr Stephen Tafrov of Bulgaria, said the council urged all member states to provide reports to the committee monitoring the sanctions against the Al-Qaida and other associate entities. |
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‘Terrorists, freedom fighters no different’ United Nations, October 4 Without naming Pakistan, New Delhi rejected the distinction sought to be made by Islamabad between terrorists and, what it called, “freedom fighters,” stressing that international law did not differentiate between those who committed crimes against humanity. “Contemporary international law does not permit impunity to perpetrators of crimes against humanity either. Terrorists are criminals. Alibis or rationalisations advanced by advocates of the ‘root causes’ of terrorism do not, indeed cannot, absolve terrorists from their culpability,” the Indian ambassador to UN, Mr V.K. Nambiar, said, addressing a UN General Assembly’s committee yesterday. He also called for an early adoption of the comprehensive convention against international terrorism now being debated by diplomats. He told the delegates from 190 countries that India had always taken a strong stand on the question of countering international terrorism as it itself had been “exposed” to its “depredations” for several years and had paid a high price for the fight against this scourge. Mr Nambiar charged “some countries” of flouting the Assembly’s declaration against terrorism by providing material, financial and logistic sponsorship and support as well as arms to terrorism. “It is necessary to ensure that the declaration is implemented sincerely by all states and that standards it has set are effectively operationalised,” he said, stressing that terrorism was common enemy of “all peoples, all beliefs, and religions and peace and democracy.”
PTI |
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No looting by politicians: Pervez Islamabad, October 4 He said once the poll was over, he would relax by playing his favourite sports golf, tennis and squash. Launching many projects, including laying foundation for two dams, he said in Lahore yesterday that he looked forward to relax with his favourite sports, even while continuing as President, but would not allow politicians to resort to “loot and plunder”, a reference to two former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. “I can assure you there will be no leadership of loot and plunder. I am confident that after the elections, better leadership will emerge and...new leadership will not be worse than the previous ones, rather it will be better,” Musharraf was quoted today by media as saying. Assuring that the elections would be held as scheduled, he said: “Everything is in place and there is no reason for anyone to have any illusion regarding the holding of elections.” He said he had convinced foreign observers “that democracy in our country has to be tailor-made and their kind of democracy would not work in Pakistan.” “They want our reforms and restructuring to continue because they have apprehensions about the continuation of reforms under the new set-up after the elections”, he said. The October 10 poll had already been marred by widespread allegations of pre-poll rigging by almost all political parties, which were largely endorsed by European Union’s election monitors.
PTI |
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Indian among 5 shot in shooting spree Washington, October 4 The victims were killed in Maryland suburbs over a period of 18 hours between 6 p.m. on Wednesday and 10 a.m. on Thursday, the police said. Prem Kumar Walakar was shot at a Mobil gas station at Connecticut Avenue yesterday. The other shootings took place at two shopping centres, gas stations and on the lawn outside an auto-dealership, killing four persons. While it was not clear as to how many persons were involved in the shooting, the police suspected the hand of “a skilled shooter” in the incidents. The police said race did not appear to be a motive as the victims included two white men, a white woman, an Indian and a Hispanic woman.
PTI |
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UK convicts man for ‘war’ on Asians London, October 4 David Tovey, a rightwing extremist angered at asylum policies was on the point of launching a one-man race war, police said. The 37-year-old Tovey, a body-building fanatic, had amassed a “terrifying array” of weapons and explosives at his residence to launch a “murderous campaign” on blacks and Asians, detectives told the Oxford Crown Court. Police said his potential targets were members of the Muslim community after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Police discovered his arsenal when they went to his home in Carterton, Oxon, to arrest him for daubing racist graffiti on walls. The cache, was regarded as so lethal that bomb disposal experts evacuated his street, they said.
PTI |
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10 Maoists shot
in encounters Kathmandu, October 4 Four insurgents were gunned down in Bardia district in a gunbattle with the army, while three others were killed in Pyuthan, two in Kalikot and one in Bara district, said the ministry in a statement. Some weapons, ammunitions and explosives were also seized from the rebels during the search operations, it said. Meanwhile, the government has decided to postpone the mid-term parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held from November 13, until November next year due to the deteriorating law and order situation. The rebels on the other hand had called for a three-day nationwide strike from November 12, coinciding with the mid-term poll, to press for a dialogue, which the government says could not be held until the rebels gave up violence and surrendered their weapons.
UNI |
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Deuba sacked, King takes reins of govt Kathmandu, October 4 In an address to the nation from the state-run Radio Nepal and Nepal Television, the King said the Prime Minister had been sacked because of his inefficiency and that the Cabinet had been dissolved. The King said he was assuming executive powers ‘’for the time being’’ and added it would take some time to appoint a new “clean’’ Prime Minister. He
invited suggestions from the country’s political parties over forming a new interim government until elections are held. The King, however, put off the national elections set for November 13. Meanwhile, security forces have gunned down at least 10 Maoist insurgents in the past 48 hours in separate encounters, the Defence Ministry said here today.
UNI |
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Ivory Coast rebels to sign truce Yamoussoukro, October 4 West African mediators, who flew to rebel stronghold Bouake on Thursday to meet the dissidents, were due to hold talks with Ivory Coast’s Defence and Foreign Ministers on Friday morning in the country’s commercial centre Abidjan. Togo’s Foreign Minister Koffi Panou said government officials were due to travel to the administrative capital Yamoussoukro for the signing ceremony after the meeting with mediators from six West African countries. Panou said the rebels, some of whom are Ivorian soldiers angry at being edged out of the army, had asked for an amnesty, reintegration in the country’s security forces and demanded the resignation of the country’s Defence Minister and army chief.
Reuters |
PPP TO EMERGE AS LARGEST GROUP:
POLL CONSULATE BOMBING TRIAL BEGINS AGAIN MILITANT GROUPS 'BEHIND' ATTACKS CLOCK TO BE SET BACK BY AN HOUR |
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United Nations, October 4
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