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Wednesday,
May 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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KANISHKA TRIAL Move by India puts Pak on defensive Russia, India discuss peace initiative Health ministers to
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No setting up of military base in Nepal: USA
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KANISHKA TRIAL Vancouver, May 6 Jeanne Bakermans, the Canadian Airlines employee, told the B.C. Supreme Court here that she remembers checking in the man, whose ticket identified him as M Singh, because he made such a fuss about the luggage as about 30 persons waited in line at her wicket at Vancouver international airport on the morning of June 22, 1985. She said she told the passenger she had to put an orange tag on the suitcase, indicating it would be unloaded in Toronto and not transferred to Air-India flights there and in Montreal, en route to New Delhi. “The passenger asked me if I had tagged his bag to Delhi on Air-India and I said ‘no, because you’re not confirmed on that flight.” Ms Bakermans said: “He was arguing with me (and) he started to move away from my counter and he said ‘my brother knows I’m confirmed. I’ll go get my brother.’” She said the passenger, aged between 25 and 35, with sparkling black eyes, a roundish face and western attire, left the suitcase at her counter as she told him she didn’t have time to speak to his brother. When M. Singh continued arguing that he’d paid the higher business-class fare, she said she relented, placing a pink luggage tag on the man’s luggage so it would be routed through to New Delhi. But the man never boarded the plane. Vancouver businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik (56), and Kamloops millworker Ajaib Singh Bagri (53), are accused of participating in a conspiracy for downing the plane. She also checked in another man, L. Singh, who was transferring to an Air-India flight in Tokyo, where another suitcase bomb went off the same day, killing two baggage handlers at the Narita airport, that bomb was targetted for another Air-India flight, destined for Bangkok. Ms Bakermans has never positively identified M. Singh despite various attempts by the police. Two composite drawings she helped a police artist create didn’t adequately depict the passenger at her counter all those years ago.
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Move by India puts Pak on defensive New York, May 6 The move is “risky” for Mr Vajpayee himself as the country faces four important assembly elections this year and general election next year, the New York Times says in an analytical piece. Some in the BJP argue that the party would better served with hardline Pakistan, it says. The Times says the American officials have been pushing for well over a year for India to resume a dialogue with Pakistan but Mr Vajpayee’s move caught them off guard. “Rather than trying to placate American Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who will visit the region next week, Mr Vajpayee has managed to preempt him. Mr Armitage will now be in the position of trying to coax peace by looking for concrete commitments from Pakistan and its President Pervez Musharraf, notably on ending support for Islamic militancy,” the paper notes. While Mr Vajpayee has not given up India’s official position that it would not talk till Pakistan ends cross-border terrorism, the Times said his decisions to take steps to normalise ties had created first opening for improvement since severing of all links between the two countries in December 2001. American officials, the paper said, did put several Kashmiri militant groups on the watch list of terrorist organisations last week. But in general, US officials had opted to give greater economic support to Pakistan, arguing that India’s interests were best served by having a strong and stable Pakistan. Indian officials, the paper noted, had charged the Bush administration with double standards on terrorism - looking the other way while Pakistan backs terrorism in Kashmir as long as it helped in the hunt for Al-Qaida. But US pressure on Pakistan is seen as the only hope of changing its behaviour. “Whether India has now given up on American support or given in to its view on the best way to improve relations is a matter of interpretation,” the paper said. Mr Vajpayee’s move was “brilliant tactically,” vice president for studies at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace George Perkovich was quoted as saying.
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Russia, India discuss peace initiative Moscow, May 6 The meeting came ahead of next week’s visit of External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha to Moscow to hold parleys with his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov and other Russian leaders. Mr Sinha is scheduled to begin his five-day Russia visit on May 14 during which he will also hold talks on Indo-Pakistan relations with the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who would be in Moscow during the same time. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement said that “proximity of stands” was expressed at the meeting between Mr Raghunath and Mr Losyukov on the ways of strengthening regional security in South Asia. Russia has been consistently backing India’s demand to stop cross-border terrorism as a prerequisite to end Indo-Pakistan standoff. Though the Foreign Ministry did not divulge any details, the two officials are believed to have discussed Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee’s fresh peace initiative with Pakistan, which has been welcomed by Moscow.
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Health ministers to meet on SARS Bangkok, May 6 Ministers from the 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which accounts for 50 per cent of world trade, will meet on June 28, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow told reporters. “SARS has had a severe impact on economic growth in this region. “So we decided to hold a special meeting to address the problem,” he said. The health ministers’ forum will follow an APEC trade ministers’ meeting on June 2-3 in the northeastern Thai town of Khon Kaen. A summit of leaders from Southeast Asia and China to discuss the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic was held here last month. The APEC includes China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Canada — all hit hard by the SARS outbreak that has killed hundreds and infected thousands around the world. BEIJING: The USA on Tuesday offered help in combating the SARS epidemic in China. The American help was offered during a telephonic talk between Chinese vice-premier Wu Yi and US Health Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, Xinhua news agency reported. “China’s experience in combating SARS is of great significance to other countries, and the USA is willing to offer full cooperation to China by providing any support and assistance possible to find an effective way to prevent and treat the epidemic as soon as possible,” it quoted Mr Thompson as saying. Mr Wu Yi is doubling as China’s Health Minister after the government dismissed Zhang Wenkang for his failure to combat SARS. As part of the US-China cooperation on combating Sars, an American team of top epidemiologists is already in Beijing.
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SARS: Indian among suspected patients Beijing, May 6 “So far there are three suspected SARS cases among foreigners in Beijing,” Director of the Publicity Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Cai Fuchao told reporters at a special briefing on the latest situation on the SARS outbreak here. He said four foreigners, belonging to the USA, Canada, Australia and Kyrgyztan, and one patient each from Hong Kong and Taiwan had been discharged from hospitals in Beijing. KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia International Shipping Corporation Berhad, confirmed on Tuesday that 10 Indian crew members of its chemical tanker, Bunga Melawis Satu, have been found to be free of SARS.
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8 more die in China Beijing, May 6 Worried about being infected from a hospital that would be treating SARS patients in their area, villagers of Hujiayao in Henan ransacked a hospital.
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No setting up of military base in Nepal: USA Kathmandu, May 6 “We want the legal and democratic forces of Nepal, the parties, the present government, the Palace and elements of civil society to come together to be able to stand down the insurgency and bring insurgents peacefully back into the system,” US Ambassador in Kathmandu Machael E Malinowski told Nepal Television’s Dishanirdesh programme. “The USA wants to see a viable democracy in Nepal,” he said last night, adding “all the democratic forces of Nepal should come together to protect four core issues, democracy, multiparty system, human rights and constitutional monarchy”. “We do not seek to establish any US base in Nepal and the USA does not have any strategic interest in Nepal,” he said on the anti-terrorism cooperation between Kathmandu and Washington, emphasising “US military is here just to train Nepali soldiers in anti-terrorist techniques”. “I don’t think that our presence here would complicate the situation that India would not want to see. We would do nothing that should concern both the neighbours, India and China,” he said. He denied allegations that the USA wanted to disturb the peace process by putting the Maoists in the watchlist of terrorist outfits and said Washington was happy with the dialogue process and wanted it to succeed. “It is not true that the USA wanted to disturb the peace process by placing the name of the Maoists in the list of 38 ‘Other terrorists organisations’. “It is just a coincidence that the USA updates the list every year and this year their name has been included in the secondary list,” he said.
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