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Georgian army ready to check
Jamali denies change in Pak’s Kashmir policy
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UK firm foils plot to acquire toxic chemical Sharon appoints
minister for talks FBI monitors
anti-war protests Malaysian tourism shows signs of recovery Candlelight vigils
held to support Michael Jackson US remembers Kennedy
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Georgian army ready to check ‘chaos’: minister Tbilisi, November 23 Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who flew into Tbilisi overnight, met opposition leaders and later Shevardnadze to try to broker a solution after protesters stormed parliament yesterday and drove the veteran leader to his residence. Shevardnadze’s opponents, who turned discontent over alleged fraud in a November 2 parliamentary poll into a mass movement demanding his removal, said talks with Ivanov were “good” and they had told him the people would not back down. “It is very important to tell the minister and the world that the Georgian people will not step back,” Mikhail Saakashvili, the opposition’s driving force, told reporters. “There must be a peaceful change of power.” Defence Minister David Tevzadze, speaking for the first time since the storming of parliament, implied that the army was still under Shevardnadze’s control. “The army has not received orders from the commander general to use force,” he told reporters at his headquarters. “The army is paying a lot of attention to the events and is ready to stop the escalation of chaos and to fulfil its responsibility.” Earlier, Shevardnadze said if parliament did not back his state of emergency decree, as the constitution requires, the army would take control of the Black Sea state. Local television suggested Shevardnadze might try to summon enough deputies loyal to him at his residence. Saakashvili said that would be tantamount to “an attempt at counter-revolution”. Russia, the main power in the region, and other ex-Soviet states said seizure of power by illegal means was unacceptable. “It is critically important for us that everything proceeds according to the constitution and the law,” said Ivanov. Ivanov was cheered by opposition supporters outside parliament despite Georgians’ traditional opposition to interference from Moscow, their former Soviet ruler. The United States, Britain and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have urged all parties to exercise restraint. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Annan had spoken by telephone with Shevardnadze yesterday stressing that any action should be within the bounds of the constitution.
— Reuters |
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Jamali denies change in Pak’s Kashmir policy Islamabad, November 23 “Kashmir is the core problem and it has to be solved. The Foreign Office is not the last word as far as we are concerned. If somebody has given his opinion, that is something different,” Jamali said in an interview on the completion of one year of his government. There was “no change” in Pakistan’s policy on Kashmir, he said when asked whether recent assertions by Foreign Office spokesman that Islamabad was ready to hold talks with New Delhi on the basis of Simla and Lahore agreements represented a policy change. Under the Simla accord, Kashmir figured last in contrast to Pakistan’s insistence that it has to be the “core issue” and must be solved first.
— PTI |
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UK firm foils plot to acquire toxic chemical
London, November 23 The plot came to light when staff at Amersham Plc, a medical diagnostics and bio sciences company based in Buckinghamshire, became suspicious about the quantity of its products being ordered through an obscure London Post Office box address. The terrorist group attempted to buy saponin, usually used as a biological agent in laboratories to enhance the transmission of molecules through cell membranes. But it can be used to enable poisonous chemicals to penetrate human skin, according to The Sunday Telegraph. Saponin, commonly obtained from foxgloves, can be mixed with toxins such as ricin and smeared on surfaces in public places to cause widespread poisoning. The terrorist group, which has not been named, made the approach in October last year pretending to be a limited company based in London. Amersham’s employees became suspicious because the order was 1,000 times the size of a normal request from a university laboratory. When asked what the saponin was going to be used for, the terrorists said that it was intended as a “fire retardant on rice intended for human consumption”, an incredible explanation by biologists. Amersham officials examined the company making the order, and discovered that it was being funded by an obscure Islamic group. Meanwhile, a suspected Al-Qaida terrorist of foreign nationality was detained last month after detailed intelligence reports that he posed a “significant” threat. The man is the 16th person to be held under emergency anti-terrorism laws without trial under the legislation over the past two years. Anti-terrorist officers were also assessing serious threats from Nigeria, where the Queen and Tony Blair are due to visit in less than two weeks for a Commonwealth summit.
— PTI |
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Sharon appoints
minister for talks Jerusalem, November 23 Industry and Trade Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Justice Minister Yosef Lapid will conduct negotiations on the US-backed ‘road map’ which calls on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territory and on
Palestinians to rein in militants ahead of the establishment of a Palestinian
state by 2005. The talks will also include providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, transferring cities and towns to Palestinian security control and possibly taking unilateral steps as confidence-building measures, Army Radio reported. Mr Sharon met with these ministers prior to the weekly Cabinet meeting today and discussed his planned meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia. He is expected to meet Qureia soon, following a meeting between his chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and senior Palestinian officials.
— UNI |
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FBI monitors
anti-war protests New York, November 23 The memorandum, which the FBI sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of anti-war demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used “training camps” to rehearse, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas, the New York Times said. The memorandum analysed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site, the paper said. FBI officials told the Times that the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and “extremist elements” plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speeches of law-abiding protesters. The bureau has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests.
— PTI |
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Malaysian tourism shows signs of recovery Kuala Lumpur, November 23 Malaysian Tourism sector, which earned 25.8 billion Malaysian ringetts (approx $ 6.9 billion) in 2002, started facing a negative trend from 2001 when the international war was launched against terrorism. Bali bomb blasts, SARS outbreak and then the US-led war against Iraq discouraged tourists all over the world but the Malaysian policy planners, undeterred, stuck to their strategy of concentrating on new markets and new regions. India and China were identified and the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) in close consultation with the Malaysian Airlines, developed a long-term strategy to woo tourists away from neighbouring Singapore. While the MTPB earmarked a special fund for bringing print and television journalists and film makers along with tour operators from India, Malaysian Airlines decided to employ Indian cabin crew to make its Indian passengers comfortable. Seventeen young Indian boys and girls, completed their four-month training at Malaysian Airline Academy on November 19 and have become part and parcel of an airline which ferried 16 million passengers to Malaysia in 2002. Already negotiations are going on with Air India to increase the number of flights and new destinations in India, Senior General Manager Sales, Distribution and Marketing Fuaad Dahlan said adding that Kolkata was soon going to be on Malaysian Airlines operational plan. As economic ties grow between India and Malaysia, passenger profile is also changing from low-colour workers to professionals and business managers which is bound to bring in more revenues. |
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Candlelight vigils
held to support Michael Jackson
Los Angeles, November 23 Faisal Malik, 29, a Los Angeles fan who helped organise a gathering near Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, said he believed the performer was innocent. “No other entertainer ever has opened his house so much to people,” Malik said in a telephone interview. “True charity comes from the heart.” Rallies were scheduled through the weekend in more than a dozen cities, including New York, Budapest and Rome. Others were planned over the next week in China and Australia. In Paris, about 60 fans gathered on the Champs Elysees and marched through crowds of shoppers to the Arc de Triomphe. They held candles and banners with slogans of support and sang “We are the world,” the 1985 African famine relief anthem written by Jackson and Lionel Richie. Supporters in Rome gathered at the foot of the Spanish Steps just after darkness fell. They held candles and a sign in Italian that read: “Michael: Accused but not guilty!” “There is an interest to see him fall as a man and as an artiste,” said Fabrizio Basili, a 30-year-old man from Rome who wore a black shirt bearing the image of Jackson’s face.
— AP |
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US remembers Kennedy Washington, November 23 Pensioners, families and schoolchildren crowded around Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, where an eternal flame has burned for 40 years. Some had waited since dawn to lay flowers. In Dallas, Texas, onlookers gathered at the site of the shooting, Dealey Plaza, under skies as blue and splendid as on that day four decades ago, at exactly 12:30 pm. Besides the somber and spontaneous commemorations, publishers, broadcasters and artists have contributed their own remembrances. The Kennedy family had requested there be no official commemoration acts. “We obviously have tried to give the focus and attention on the President’s birthday in the Spring,” JFK’s brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, told CNN television. “John F. Kennedy has been gone nearly as long as he lived, yet the memory of him still brings pride to our nation, and a feeling of loss that defies the passing of years,” President George W. Bush the US President said in a statement late Friday.
— AFP |
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US Senate stalls energy bill Washington, November 23 Democrats and environmentalists said the bill was rife with corporate giveaways and would bar lawsuits against makers of a gasoline additive that has tainted US groundwater.
— AFP |
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Lankan soldier injured Colombo, November 23 Tamil sources claimed that the truck crashed into the structure. However, the army said they believed the gun of a colleague had gone off accidentally.
— PTI |
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Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze resigned today, after weeks of protests forced the man who helped end the cold war to step down, Georgia’s television has reported. “President Shevardnadze has resigned”, an opposition leader told
In a sharp contrast to the Foreign Office statement that Pakistan was willing to hold talks with India on the basis of Simla and Lahore accords, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has said there was no change in the country’s policy of insisting on a solution of the “core” issue of Kashmir first in any dialogue with New Delhi.
Washington, November 23
