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Monday,
June 2, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Chirac’s
short handshake with President Bush
George
warns of WMD falling into terrorist hands
Quit
within a year, hardliners tell Pervez |
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Blockades
in West Bank, Gaza lifted
Lanka
peace hopes dim UK
Queen’s coronation anniversary today 9-year-old
girl to take centrestage
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Chirac’s short handshake with President Bush
Evian (France), June 1 The French president gave him a short handshake and a stiff smile on arrival in Evian, the French spa on the shores of the Lake Geneva, and Mr Bush waved self-consciously at journalists and delegates assembled at the luxury hotel, summit venue. Mr Chirac had earlier given markedly warmer welcomes to other arriving G8 leaders. Both men have said the Iraq dispute, in which Mr Chirac rallied Germany and Russia against US invasion plans, was now history. But Mr Bush’s plan to leave the summit early and comments by his aides showed France’s challenge still rankled. “People aren’t going to change their positions,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters on his plane flying to the summit.
Reuters |
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George warns of WMD falling into terrorist hands
Singapore, June 1 “It is bad enough if such proliferation takes place at the level of states of one assisting another belligerent or deviant state in obtaining such weapons from scientific laboratories or the nuclear grey market”, he said. He said the bigger challenge would be if such capabilities fell into the hands of deviant states or if political parties that share fundamentalist ideology find a place in nuclear decision making. Calling for collective action against terrorism to be broad-based, he said such actions should not be unilateral or taken by “coalitions of the willing”, in an apparent reference to recent US actions in Iraq. He said though the action could be successful in the short run, yet “the problem of the longer haul after the military success remains”. “Absolute power has its own limits. If we have common objectives confronting the threat of terrorism and proliferation, it is important that our efforts are based on a common pool of experience and that they endure”, he said. Mr Fernandes told the delegates at the Second Annual Asia Security Forum here that the nature of new challenges made it imperative that response goes beyond the confines of domestic and regional police and paramilitary capability and coordination.
PTI |
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Quit within a year, hardliners tell Pervez
Islamabad, June 1 The MMA’s decision to give a one-year deadline to General Musharraf was conveyed by Deputy Secretary-General Hafeez Hussain Ahmad to the president of the ruling, pro-military, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Mr Sujat Hussain, in Lahore yesterday. MMA leaders, who were involved in intense parleys with the confidants of General Musharraf to strike a compromise deal on General Musharraf’s Legal Framework Order (LFO), which incorporated his amendments, agreed to give a one-year deadline as against a two-year period being sought by the President to give up the post of army chief. Mr Sujat Hussain along with a team of top intelligence officials negotiated with MMA leaders for a two-year term for General Musharraf as army chief, media reports said. Earlier, the alliance wanted General Musharraf to quit the post by August 14 this year, the independence day of Pakistan, but agreed to extend the deadline by a year, if General Musharraf agreed to implement its Islamisation programme, which included shutting down US bases in Pakistan and implementation of the Shariah law. Mr Ahmad said MMA leaders were ready to extend the current deadline to General Musarraf beyond August 14 if the government accepted its charter of demands regarding the LFO and Islamisation. He said the date to quit the post could be worked out with mutual consultations.
PTI |
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Phalcon deal: Pervez to talk to Bush
Islamabad June 1 The USA last month cleared the $ 1-billion deal, giving the green light to Israel to sell Phalcon planes to India. A US delegation was scheduled to go to Israel to have “technical” discussions on the deal. The sale of Israeli Phalcons would be part of the agenda when General Musharraf meets Mr Bush at Camp David on June 24, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Husain Khokhar, who is currently on US tour, told the Pakistani media in New York on Friday. General Musharraf would prevail upon Mr Bush to defer the sale of the AWACS planes to India on the ground that it would heavily tilt the military balance in favour of India on the conventional front, Mr Khokhar said. Mr Khokhar, who was scheduled to go to Washington next week to meet US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and US National Security officials at the White House, held talks with top UN officials in New York, specially on the new peace process between India and Pakistan. He briefed UN Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette on situation in South Asia and said the initiatives taken by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Mir Zafarullah Jamali had led to an improvement in the atmosphere in the region.
PTI |
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Blockades
in West Bank, Gaza lifted Jerusalem, June 1 As a step towards implementing confidence-building measures Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to undertake after his Thursday meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz lifted the closure late last night after holding a series of telephonic consultations, Isareli media reported. An army statement said the Israeli Government had approved the lifting of the blockades of the occupied territories to begin at midnight yesterday. Army sources, however, said despite the lifting of the blockades, troops would remain in Palestinian areas.
PTI |
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Lanka peace hopes dim Colombo, June 1 “The Tigers are making a serious miscalculation by not attending talks, and particularly the donors’ meeting in Tokyo,” a senior Western diplomat here said referring to the aid-pledging conference Japan is hosting on June 9-10. The diplomat said the Tigers may be underestimating the will of the USA, European nations, Japan and neighbouring India in strongly backing the Norwegian-led peace initiative to end Sri Lanka’s ethnic bloodshed.
AFP |
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UK Queen’s coronation anniversary today
London, June 1 As her family grew, marriages failed and an empire disappeared, the world’s gaze has returned again and again to the now silver-haired Queen Elizabeth II, the steady centre of a monarchy often buffeted by controversy and the fickleness of public opinion. On June 2, 1953, the country produced a coronation spectacle that celebrated not just a new young monarch but a new start after the deprivation of the World War II. Britain, still on food rationing, needed its spirits raised, a glimpse of better times ahead. A nationwide party for a 27-year-old princess with a handsome husband and two small children offered just that. Tomorrow’s modest 50th anniversary celebrations of the coronation reflect the huge social and economic changes of the queen’s reign and her acceptance of a scaled-down modern monarchy. At Buckingham Palace, where debutantes once arrived in limousines to be presented to the monarch, the coronation anniversary will be celebrated with a tea party for underprivileged children. The main event of the day will be a commemoration at Westminster Abbey, based on the service a half century ago. The royal family’s anniversary partying plans are private. The Daily Telegraph said it would be a 1953-themed dinner given by Prince Charles at Clarence House.
AP |
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9-year-old girl to take centrestage A nine-year-old girl awaiting a heart-transplant surgery will present Queen Elizabeth II with a bouquet to mark the 50th anniversary of the coronation. It was fulfilment of a dream for Louisa Harrington, who has been awaiting surgery for more than a year. She was selected by the Queen after she wrote to the Buckingham Palace asking if she could meet the monarch and “be a princess for the day”.
PTI |
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