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Russia threatens strikes on terrorist bases
Pope condemns violence against children Talbott for LoC as international border Prosecutors show jury Laden video Floods claim 177 lives in China |
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Palestinian PM quits Sharon talks tough on Iran Anwar wins new
court battle
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Russia threatens strikes on terrorist bases
Moscow, September 8 The announcements came hours after a chilling video from inside the school seized by the masked gunmen last week was broadcast on television, providing first hand glimpse of horror with hundreds of people huddled in the gymnasium. “We will take any action to eliminate terrorist bases in any region of the world. But this does not mean we will carry out nuclear strikes,” Russia’s Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluyeveski was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. He said Russia’s action would be determined by the concrete situation wherever it may be in the world. “Military action is the last resort in the fight against terrorism.” Pointing out the involvement of Basayev and Maskhadov in the bloodiest terror attack in the country that claimed over 330 lives, Russian security service FSB offered a $ 10 million (300 million roubles) reward to those providing “reliable information” about the two Chechen warlords “leading to the neutralisation of these people.” “Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov have committed inhuman terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation resulting in irreplenishable losses,” an FSB release said. The FSB will pay the reward “for reliable information” on the whereabouts of the two Chechen warlords “leading to the neutralisation of these people.” In the dramatic video shown last night on Russia’s NTV, at least one woman dressed in black from head to toe and armed with a pistol stood guard at a doorway. The video lasting a little over a minute appeared to have been shot by terrorists. It showed harrowing pictures of hundreds of petrified hostages, both children and adults, sitting on the floor of the school gymnasium, many with hands above their heads, as heavily-armed masked gunmen stood over them. What appeared to be explosives strung on wires from the basketball hoops and wires trailed across the gymnasium. There is also footage of blood on the floor and a fire in another building on the school premises. One hostage-taker was shown standing next to a young boy, with his boot on what NTV said was a book rigged with detonator. State television also broadcast footage of Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov briefing President Vladimir Putin on the investigation into the school siege. Ustinov also told Putin that the leader of the militants who attacked the Beslan school had personally gunned down three persons of his gang who objected to captivating the children, Itar-Tass reported. He said some of the militants, who were captured by security forces, testified that there were some people in their gang who objected to the leader’s order to
seize the school. Three of those who objected were shot dead by him. Twelve of the hostage-takers have been identified, Deputy State prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said. Some of those identified were also known to have taken part in attacks in North Ossetia and Ingushetia. In a reference to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov’s emissaries Ilyas Akhmadov and Akhmad Zakayev, who have been granted political asylum in the US and UK, respectively, a Foreign Ministry statement insisted that from the very beginning of the probe into Beslan school carnage fugitive Chechen leaders’ involvement has come into light.
— PTI |
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Pope condemns violence against children
Vatican City, September 8 Speaking on the day, the Roman Catholics commemorate the birth of the Madonna, the Pope said it was outrageous that children had found hate and death within the walls of a school. ‘’Looking at the infant Mary, how can we not think of all little innocents at Beslan, in Ossetia, victims of the barbarous kidnapping who were tragically cut down,’’ he said, having some difficulty pronouncing his words. “They were in a school, a place where one learns values that give meaning to history, to culture and the civilization, mutual respect, solidarity, justice and peace,’’ he said in halting Italian. “Within those walls they instead found outrageous things, hate and death, evil consequences of a cruel fanaticism and an insane contempt for the human,’’ he said. At least 326 persons, many of them children, were killed in last week’s school hostage siege, blamed on Chechen separatists. The Pope said he wanted to broaden his appeal for the respect for all innocent children around the world, who were victims of violence, inflicted by adults. |
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Talbott for LoC as international border
Washington, September 8 The solution to the Kashmir issue has to be the LoC becoming the international frontier with perhaps very marginal adjustments, he said. Mr Talbott was asked during a press briefing for Indian correspondents on his book ‘Engaging India — Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb’ on whether the
Clinton-Nawaz Sharif statement during the Kargil conflict on the “sanctity of the
LoC” in effect meant that the solution to the Kashmir issue could only be on the basis of its becoming the international frontier between the two countries. “As long as I have been a student of the Kashmir issue, which goes back to my days as a journalist, I have believed that was in fact the answer”, he said. When he got into this issue as a diplomat, Mr Talbott claimed he found there was quite a bit of support for that view among Indians though “of course, in the next breath, they would say ‘We don’t want Americas mediating here or poking their nose here or internationalising the issue.” “But the substance of the matter is that the solution has to be the LoC becoming the international frontier with perhaps very marginal adjustments”, he said. Mr
Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank, had engaged in several rounds of meetings with the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh after India’s nuclear tests in 1998. On the Pakistani side, there is an “Alice in Wonderland” reaction. They say it is absolutely essential to have binding arbitration. Then they say, “You tell us what to do and we will do it but let it not be the Line of Control”, Mr Talbott said.
— PTI |
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Prosecutors
show jury Laden video
New York, September 8 The video, from a September 2000 Al-Jazeera network programme, showed bin Laden sitting with his chief aide and two other leaders of Islamic groups in Afghanistan. Its courtroom airing to a jury in the case against lawyer Lynne Stewart, Arabic interpreter Mohamed Yousry and US postal worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar had been opposed by the defence as inflammatory. “We all recognised it to be just a smear tactic,” Stewart said outside court yesterday. “Certainly to choose this week to put it on is just incredible timing.” US District Judge John G Koeltl ruled that the video’s value outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice. The video is being used by prosecutors to try to boost their case against Sattar, who faces the most serious charge - conspiring to kidnap and kill people in a foreign country, which carries a potential life prison sentence. The jury was warned that the video was not to be used against Stewart or Yousry.
— AP |
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Floods claim 177 lives in China
Beijing, September 8 The Sichuan provincial disaster relief office confirmed 97 people died and 39 missing till last evening, while in neighbouring Chongqing municipality, the toll rose to 75 with 25 others missing. Some 550 others were also injured. Most of the deaths were caused by landslides, mud-and-rock flow and flash floods sweeping through mountain valleys, which destroyed communication facilities in the mountainous areas, the local flood control offices said. Nearly 2,500 people were reported to be injured or sick, the officials said, adding the toll is likely to rise. The five-day violent downpour have also affected 11.3 million local residents, flooded over 10 lakh acres of crop. The direct economic losses are estimated to exceed 3.9 billion yuan (USD 470 million).
— PTI |
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Palestinian
PM quits
Jerusalem, September 8 The latest crisis is said to have emerged over a planned meeting of the donor countries in New York. The PA has threatened to boycott the conference because its agenda does not include the “road map” plan for peace in the Middle East.
— PTI |
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Sharon talks tough on Iran
Jerusalem, September 8 Sharon said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, “There is no doubt that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and they are doing it by deception and subterfuge.” Global efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear advancement, including inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog and threats by the USA to seek international sanctions, were not enough, Sharon said. Israel felt especially threatened because Iran had already successfully tested a long-range missile that could reach Israel, Sharon said, adding, even moderates in Iran had called for the destruction of Israel.
— AP/AFP |
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Anwar wins new court battle
Putrajaya, September 8 The decision came just hours after Anwar underwent spinal surgery in Germany for an injury he said was caused by a police beating after his arrest in 1998. The operation was a success and Anwar, who had been increasingly confined to a wheelchair, was able to walk shortly afterwards, an aide said. He will remain at the Munich clinic for several days and then begin rehabilitation treatment. In Malaysia, meanwhile, Anwar’s lawyers won an initial victory in the Federal Court in a bid to clear his name completely, after the same court last Thursday overturned his sodomy conviction and set him free from nearly six years in jail.
— AFP |
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Moscow, September 8
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