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Arafat fighting for life; some powers handed to
PM
Speculation mount as Bush signals change
Indo-US ties will be strengthened,
World leaders want Bush to open new era
‘Explosives looted as soldiers looked on’
Attacks on scribes angers UNESCO |
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Barroso unveils changed EU Commission team
Punjabi Society Award for industrialist
Noon
British police arrests 37 in weapons
crackdown
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Arafat fighting for life; some powers handed to
PM
Paris, November 5 A spokeswoman for Arafat denied that the 75-year-old was brain dead but admitted he was comatose and “between life and death”. “He could wake up, but he could not wake up,” Laila Shahid, one of handful of people authorised to visit Arafat, told French radio. The coma was such that Arafat, who has personified the Palestinian fight for a homeland for nearly half a century, could stay in it “a long time” or “come out of it,” she said. French medical sources had said yesterday that Arafat was “brain dead” and only breathing with the help of life-support machines at a military hospital in Clamart on the south-western outskirts of Paris. It marked a dramatic deterioration for Arafat who was airlifted a week ago out of his West Bank headquarters, where he had been kept under virtual house arrest by Israel for nearly three years. While insisting that the talk of Arafat’s permanent demise was premature, Palestinian officials are trying to make sure that his death does not leave a power vacuum or trigger an outbreak of violence in a society where the number of gunmen has mushroomed during the four-year uprising against Israel. All branches of the Palestinian security services were placed on maximum alert late last night, while senior representatives of all main Palestinian factions were to meet in Gaza City. Several hundred Palestinians staged an overnight vigil for Arafat outside his battered Muqataa headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Starved of news from the official media, foreign journalists were badgered by Palestinians for information about the state of the man who is the only leader they have ever known. Israelis were, meanwhile, trying to absorb the implications of the apparent end of the Arafat era. Some could barely contain their delight with Hatzofe, the mouthpiece of the Jewish settler movement, running the headline “Arafat Alive — Until the Current is Shut Off”. Meanwhile, a senior official said some of the Palestinian President’s powers had been transferred to his Prime Minister. CNN today quoted US officials as saying that Arafat was on a life-support machine, but no independent confirmation was available. It said French, Egyptian, Palestinian and Israeli officials were involved in possible burial arrangements. Jerusalem: Israel will permit Yasser Arafat to be buried in the Gaza Strip, but not in Jerusalem, an Israeli minister said even as the Palestinian leader lay “gravely ill” at a Paris hospital. “It is clear that he will not be buried in Jerusalem, and that he will not be buried on the Temple Mount,” Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid told Israel TV’s Channel Two. Burial in Jerusalem would be seen as strengthening Palestinian claims to the traditionally Arab sector of the city as a future capital, media reports said. Lapid did not refer to a possible ban on a West Bank burial, but said: “Now we are talking about Gaza. We have no problems with Gaza, of course.” However, Palestinians have refused to begin planning for his funeral or coordinate with Israel on the movement of attending foreign dignitaries, officials say. — AFP/Reuters/PTI |
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Speculation mount as Bush signals change in
Cabinet
Washington, November 5 The most intense debate is circled around Secretary of State Colin Powell, considered a moderate among hardliners in the administration, but he has reportedly told friends that he would like to stay if Bush asked. If Mr Powell leaves, he could be replaced by US Ambassador to the UN John C
Danforth, a former Senator and an ordained minister popular with the religious conservatives who helped raise Bush’s margin of victory. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made it known that she would not stay in the same post nor is she interested in the Secretary of State’s chair and is reportedly lobbying for the plum Defence Secretary post, according to media reports. Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, on the other hand, is trying hard to keep his job, projecting Iraq and war on terror as his achievements. “Rumsfeld wants to restore the golden-boy gloss before he leaves,” he told a presidential aide, the Post said. In his first interaction with the media, Mr Bush had said yesterday that a reshuffle is “inevitable.” “There will be changes. It happens in every administration.” —
PTI |
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Indo-US ties will be strengthened, says
envoy
Washington, November 5 “With President Bush’s re-election, we can look forward with confidence to further strengthening of the Indo-US relations, which has gained further importance because it enjoys in both countries bipartisan support reflected in the composition of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives — the largest for any country — and also the first and only, Caucus on India in the Senate.” “We look forward to the relationship gaining new
strength” and momentum in this process which has been set in motion in developing the strategic relationship between the two countries”, Mr Sen said. He confirmed that during Mr Bush’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York in September, and before that when Mr Sen met Mr Bush in the White House, Mr Bush said a visit to India by him would be among his high priorities. “A warm welcome will await him in India,” Mr Sen said. The ambassador pointed out that the thaw in the Indo-US relations began during the Reagan presidency and continued during the presidency of the current President’s father H .W Bush. “I personally know,” said Mr Sen, “how warm the relationship was between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the two Presidents Reagan and Bush.” —
PTI |
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World leaders want Bush to open new era
Paris, November 5 From Asia to Europe, foreign leaders mixed congratulations for President Bush with calls for him to soften what they regard as U S unilateralism in world affairs. But foreign governments also know that President Bush’s defeat of Democratic challenger John Kerry is likely to reinforce his belief that he got it right over Iraq and could convince him to stick to the policies that secured his re-election. “The likelihood has to be that he will continue down the same path, and that will inevitably cause quite severe conflicts with European allies,” said Mr Christopher Hill of the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University in Britain. “We continue to be in for a fairly rocky ride in international relations.” Some European nations hope President Bush’s desire for political support over Iraq, where he could face a long war and may need to send more troops, will encourage him to make allowances to Europe on other issues. Difficulties over the large U.S. budget deficit and oil prices could be reasons to take a more multilateral approach to foreign affairs. But the onus to shift course may be less likely to fall on a President who just won re-election on the strength of his tough policies. “I believe that all Europeans, regardless of their views on Iraq, can see that President Bush has been re-elected. The next four years we have to do business with President Bush and I think that pragmatic approach will influence everyone,” said Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Some leaders hoping for changes are banking on President Bush, like fellow Republican President Ronald Reagan before him, showing some concern for how he goes down in history — as a man who united the world rather than one who divided it. “If you want to be the world leader and you’re loved by 51 per cent of Americans and no one else, then it’s a problem. Based on that logic we could see a kinder and gentler George Bush over the next four years,” said Mr Andreas Falke, professor and head of the German-American Institute at Erlangen-Nuremberg University. Much will depend on who President Bush picks in his new team and how much influence he allows Iraq war supporters such as Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney. “If Rumsfeld is put back in place, if we have Rumsfeld and Cheney, I think it is reasonable to assume that that no softening is going to happen,” said Mr Stanley Crossick, founding chairman of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre. “But it is also possible that people around him say, “President Bush you are now a much stronger leader and strength does allow you to speak in conciliatory terms’.” Political analysts say areas where differences with president Bush are most likely are over the war in Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and possibly North Korea’s nuclear programme. — Reuters
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‘Explosives looted as soldiers looked on’
Washington, November 5 About 12 US troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the Los Angeles Times newspaper quoted the soldiers as saying. US Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said. The eyewitness accounts reported by the Los Angeles Times are the first provided by U.S. soldiers and bolster claims that the U.S. military had failed to safeguard the powerful explosives, the newspaper noted. Iraqi officials told the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency last month that about 380 tonnes of high-grade explosives, a type powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon, had been taken from the Al-Qaqaa facility. Soldiers who belong to two different units described how Iraqis snatched explosives from unsecured bunkers and drove off with them in pickup trucks. The soldiers said they could not confirm that looters took the particularly powerful explosives known as HMX and RDX. One soldier, however, said U.S. forces saw looters load trucks with bags marked “hexamine,” a key ingredient for HMX. — PTI
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Attacks on scribes angers UNESCO New York, November 5 Unesco is the only UN agency mandated to defend freedom of expression and press. The condemnation by Unesco Director-General Koochiro Matsuura came in the wake of the assassination on Monday of Dhia Najim, a freelance cameraman who worked for Reuters and The Associated Press, in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. On Saturday a car bomb attack on the Baghdad bureau of the Dubai-based satellite broadcaster Al-Arabiya killed five support staff and wounded 14 other bureau employees, including five journalists. Unidentified gunmen shot Iraqi Al-Charkia television channel journalist Likaa Abdel-Razak on Wednesday, October 27. She was killed along with the driver and interpreter she was with. Condemning the “wave of violence unleashed against media,” Mr Matsuura said “the number of victims in the Iraqi media’s heroic struggle to exercise their professional duty to inform the public bears testimony to the importance of their work for the future of the country.” — PTI
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Barroso unveils changed EU Commission team
Brussels, November 5 ''We are now back on track. We need to get back to work quickly,'' Mr Barroso told a press conference after presenting his lightly modified line-up to EU leaders at a summit. Mr Barroso said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini would replace ousted Rocco Buttiglione as justice and security chief, Hungarian Laszlo Kovacs would switch from energy to taxation, new Latvian nominee Andris Piebalgs would take the energy brief and Dutchwoman Neelie Kroes would keep the competition porfolio. — Reuters
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Punjabi Society Award for industrialist
Noon
London, November 5 Present on the occasion were Mr Satyabrata Pal, Deputy High Commissioner for India, Mr Piara Singh Khabra, Labour MP, Mr Dominic Grieve, Conservative MP, Shadow Attorney-General and NRI industrialist Rami Ranger. Reading out the citation, Mr Rami Ranger described Sir Gulam as not only a successful businessman but, perhaps, the biggest employer of Punjabis in the UK. “Sir Noon is a social reformer and a man of vision, a role model and inspiration to us all,” he said. “There are very few businessmen of Sir Gulam Noon’s stature who put back as much into society as he does.” The success of Sir Gulam Noon is a classic ‘rags to riches’ tale. From humble beginnings in Mumbai, Sir Gulam has become a formidable business figure in the UK. Sir Gulam’s core enterprise “Noon Products” enjoy an annual turnover of 90 million pounds. For this venture and his contribution to business and society, he was Knighted in 2002. He was the founder chairman of the Asian Business Association, which works under the umbrella of the London Chamber of Commerce. In 1998, Sir Gulam was appointed to the main board of the London Chamber of Commerce for 18 months. —
PTI |
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British police arrests 37 in weapons
crackdown
London, November 5 The seized weapons including three machine-guns, 86 handguns, 10 rifles, seven shotguns and 13 sten guns, along with silencers, laser sights and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. “This is the climax of a long-term intelligence operation where we have identified weaponry purchased over the Internet,” said Tarique Ghaffur, Assistant Commissioner of the force.
— AP |
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Paris, November 5
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