Spanish judge indicts Pinochet
LONDON, Dec 11 — A Spanish Judge charged former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet with crimes against humanity and sought to freeze his assets worldwide.

Suharto’s son suspect in land scam
JAKARTA, Dec 11 — The youngest son of former Indonesian President Suharto, Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, has been officially declared a suspect in an inquiry into a multi-million dollar land scam, reports said today.

Republicans firm on impeachment
WASHINGTON, Dec 11 — The Republicans’ top impeachment investigator has told lawmakers it was his “sorrowful duty” to accuse President Bill Clinton of charges that could warrant his ouster.

Astronauts enter space station
HOUSTON, Dec 11 — A US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut made history as the first people to enter the international space station.

B’desh faces yet another strike

Chandrika Govt suffers setback
Motion defeated in Parliament

COLOMBO, Dec 11 (PTI) — The Sri Lankan Government suffered a major setback in Parliament today when the Opposition defeated an official motion taking advantage of the absence of the majority of the ruling People’s Alliance members.

The motion carrying budgetary allocations of Rs 609 million grants for the Ministry of Livestock Development and Estate Infrastructure fell through by 34 to 17 votes.

The sudden turn of events took place when the Opposition United National Party (UNP), realising the thin presence of the members of the ruling alliance pressed for division and defeated the official motion.

Dazed ruling party MPs who were present during the voting blamed the defeat on the failure of the floor management of the alliance partners.

The UNP, which has not asked for division on similar motions of other ministries, suddenly insisted on a vote after the Livestock Development and Estate Infrastructure Minister Mr S. Thondaman, rejected an amendment proposed by UNP member Susil Moonasinghe.

Angered by the Minister’s refusal, Mr Moonasinghe asked for division and defeated the government’s motion.

Parliament officials said the defeat of the official motion was quite unusual but did not call for the resignation of the government.

Meanwhile, the Indian Government has denied the allegations of any “perceivable shift” in its stand against the LTTE as alleged by some Indian opposition leaders and informally assured the Sri Lankan Government that there would be no let-up in the crackdown against the LTTE, officials of the Foreign Office said here today.

The Indian Government conveyed this assurance last week through informal channels on the eve of the visits of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, they said.

Ms Kumaratunga is scheduled to visit New Delhi towards the end of this month while Ms Kadirgamar would be in the Indian Capital next week to attend the Indo-Lanka Joint Commission meeting.

The Indian Government has given the assurance to assuage Sri Lankan concerns over the reported allegations made by Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy that the BJP government has ordered the Indian Coast Guard to “go slow and easy” on the LTTE cadres’ movements between the Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu coasts.

In an interview published in a Sri Lankan English weekly recently, Dr Swamy claimed he had learnt from Indian defence personnel that orders had been passed not to seriously pursue the LTTE cadre in Palk Straits and charged two ministers in the Vajpayee Cabinet with aiding and abetting the LTTE.

Also the much published reports of the presence of top LTTE leaders and sympathisers, including Thiruvenkatam Velupillai, the father of LTTE leader Prabhakaran, at the recent wedding of the daughter of MDMK leader, V. Gopalaswamy in Chennai has caused considerable concern among the Sri Lankan Government and opposition circles.

The presence at the wedding of Union Home Minister L.K. Advani and Defence Minister George Fernandes, who was perceived here as a committed LTTE sympathiser, made matters worse for the government as President Kumaratunga and Mr Kadirgamar were finalising their visits to Delhi to clinch the free trade agreement between the two countries.

Spanish judge indicts Pinochet

LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) — A Spanish Judge charged former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet with crimes against humanity and sought to freeze his assets worldwide.

Baltasar Garzon, who first requested Pinochet’s arrest in London in mid-October, accused him an in a 285 page indictment yesterday of responsibility for the deaths or disappearance of more than 3,000 people during his iron-fisted rule from 1973 to 1990. The charges were for genocide, torture and terrorism.

Garzon’s move followed a controversial ruling on Wednesday by British Home Secretary Jack Straw that Britain’s courts should proceed with his extradition request for Pinochet, who turned 83 two weeks ago.

In an unprecedented action in London, Pinochet’s lawyers asked Britain’s highest court, the law Lords from the Upper House of Parliament, to set aside its decision on Pinochet’s birthday that the General was not immune from prosecution as a former Head of State.

That decision had infuriated the Chilean Government but it cleared the way for lower British courts to proceed with consideration of his extradition to Spain.

Straw’s ruling this week prompted anti-British protests in Chile, where opinions are divided over whether Pinochet should be allowed to come home.

In Santiago, the Chilean Government was studying the new action to prevent the former dictator’s extradition to Spain. At the same time, it was distancing itself from perceptions that it wanted to sweep the past under the carpet.

Suharto’s son suspect in land scam

JAKARTA, Dec 11 (AFP) — The youngest son of former Indonesian President Suharto, Hutomo “Tommy” Mandala Putra, has been officially declared a suspect in an inquiry into a multi-million dollar land scam, reports said today.

“Ricardo and Tommy have officially become suspects in the Bulog-Goro case”, Deputy Attorney-General for special criminal cases Anton Sujata was quoted as saying by the Kompas daily.

Both Ricardo and Tommy were questioned as witnesses last month by the Attorney-General’s office for their involvement in the Bulog-Goro case.

A controversial deal was made last year between Goro and the national logistics agency (Bulog), which allowed the two establishments to swap real estate. The deal allowed Goro to build a retail centre on a large tract of land in an affluent residential area in North Jakarta.

It however, failed to keep its side of the bargain and gave some 63 hectares (155 acres) of land to Bulog, which resulted in an estimated loss of 52.5 billion rupiah ($7 million).

A travel ban has already been slapped on both men, and the former head of Bulog, Beddu Amang, is due to be questioned later Ricardo and Tommy had owned 40 per cent of shares in Goro while the rest belong to cooperatives.

Anwar trial
Focus shifts from sex to graft

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 11 (Reuters) — Prosecutors in the trial of Malaysia’s sacked Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim shifted tack today away from lurid sex accusations to their argument he illegally covered up an investigation into alleged crimes.

The focus of the trial, rocked previously by descriptions of alleged sex acts by Anwar and his adopted brother involving his former driver, moved to alleged corruption by the former Cabinet Minister.

A police officer told the capital’s high court that Anwar had suggested at a meeting in 1997 the police should stop probing his alleged sex crimes. Police officer Musa Hassan said Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah was present at the meeting.

It was the second surprise revelation in as many days after Anwar’s former driver Azizan Abu Bakar yesterday prompted gasps in the courtroom when he testified that Anwar and his adopted brother had taken turns sodomising him in 1992.

Anwar’s lawyers had earlier asked Judge Augustine Paul to throw out testimony by Azizan, saying that he had contradicted himself. But the judge rejected the demand.

Women still left to wash & iron
From Alan Travis in London

THE British are among the most liberal in Europe when it comes to sexual equality but it is still the woman who does the washing and ironing, according to a survey published recently.

But while the widespread existence of the New Man, at least on the home front, is just a myth, it is no longer safe to assume that when a girl reaches adulthood she will be, first and foremost, a wife and mother.

For the British and European Social Attitudes Survey confirms that only one in four people in Britain still cleave to the traditional view that it is “a man’s job to earn money and a woman’s job to look after the home and family”.

It also shows that there is widespread support for the idea that a working mother can have just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work. Indeed, 50 per cent of people in Britain believe that family life does not suffer when the woman has a full time job.

The poll shows that bringing up children is highly valued in Britain, with 75 per cent saying it is one of life’s greatest joys and they do not believe it interferes too much with the freedom of parents. At the same time only about one in 20 agree that people who have never had children lead ``empty lives’’.

The survey shows that public acceptance of couples living together outside marriage is now almost universal in some European countries — well over 80 per cent in Sweden and the Netherlands. Opinion towards cohabiting couples is a little more resistant in Britain, with a 64 per cent rate, and in Ireland, only 50 per cent.

The meaning attached to marriage has also changed over the past 10 years with 70 per cent of the British believing in 1988 that people who wanted children should get married first. Now, only 57 per cent take that view — a fall of 13 per cent.

But while more women are going out to work and attitudes to some aspects of family life are on the move, what happens in the home has been much slower to change.

In the great majority of households across the European Union most domestic chores, such as the washing and ironing, and caring for the sick, are still very much women’s work. Men do small repairs around the house.

This is the case in nearly eight out of 10 British homes, and in nearly nine out of 10 German and Dutch households. This is so consistent across Europe that some might assume there was a “whiter than white” female gene, the authors say.

The only variation to this pattern came in households where the women are earning more than their male partners. But even in 63 per cent of these households in Britain women usually do the laundry compared with 83 per cent where the man is the main breadwinner.

They say one explanation for this is the generation gap in Britain which is much wider than in other European countries. The older generation in Britain holds the most traditional views in Europe on women and the family while the younger generation is amongst the most egalitarian. “It is clear age matters on many of these attitudes.”

— The Guardian, London

Republicans firm on impeachment

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (AFP) — The Republicans’ top impeachment investigator has told lawmakers it was his “sorrowful duty” to accuse President Bill Clinton of charges that could warrant his ouster.

“This is not about sex, it is about multiple obstructions of justice, perjury, false and misleading statements, witness tamperings and abuses of power,” lawyer David Schippers told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday.

Mr Schippers’ summation followed a last defensive stand by Mr Abbe Lowell, the Democrats’ chief investigator, as the committee geared up to vote on four articles of impeachment by weekend.

The White House, meanwhile, made a last-minute appeal yesterday to lawmakers to be guided by their “conscience” and “judgement”.

The panel’s Republican majority earlier released tentative formal charges, including two counts of perjury and one each of abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

Democrats offered up a tough censure, or a formal rebuke. Alternative, hoping to siphon support from impeachment. Outgoing House Speaker Newt Gingrich said the full House could vote on impeachment as early as next Thursday.

Lowell entreated the committee to spare Clinton from impeachment.

Astronauts enter space station

HOUSTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) — A US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut made history as the first people to enter the international space station.

With a wave of his arm, space shuttle Endeavour mission commander Robert Cabana urged Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov to join him inside the first two components of the planned $ 60 billion orbiting science outpost yesterday.

“It’s just an absolutely super place,” Cabana said after passing through the hatch...between Endeavour and the US made space station module, Unity, 240 miles above the Indian Ocean. “Look at the volume Sergei is floating around in.” The Unity module has a diameter of 18 feet.

B’desh faces yet another strike

DHAKA, Dec 11 (Reuters) — Bangladesh opposition parties have called for a countrywide general strike on Sunday in protest against the alleged rigging of a parliamentary by-election.

In yesterday’s poll, A.K. Khandaker, a retired Air Force chief and candidate of the ruling Awami League, defeated A.K.M. Selim Reza Habib of the main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), by a margin of 20,000 votes, election officials said.

Contemplating asylum
ISLAMABAD: Noted Pakistani social worker Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi is contemplating seeking asylum in Great Britain or the USA in the wake of growing incidents of terrorism and killings of noted personalities in the southern port city of Karachi, media reports here said. Edhi, who runs a chain of welfare homes across Pakistan, has been weighing this option of seeking asylum after the murder of Hakim Muhammad Saeed, another social worker and chief of Hamdard University in Karachi in mid-October, the reports quoting sources at the Edhi International Foundation in London said. — PTI

Towering dilemma
TOKYO: Tokyo best-known landmark — Tokyo Tower — may soon be headed for suburbia. The Saitama Tower Co, the consortium seeking to replace the tower with a bigger, better one on Tokyo’s northwestern fringe, is making a strong bid to take over the tower’s primary function as a relay station for radio and television signals. The expected switch in the near-future to a digital-based television broadcasting system will require larger antenna capacity than Tokyo Tower can now offer. — AP

UN rights award
UNITED NATIONS: Sri Lankan rights activist Sunila Abeyesekera, former US President Jimmy Carter and three other eminent activists have been named recipients of this year’s United Nations Human Rights Award. Besides Abeyesekera, the executive director of Inform, a key human rights group in Sri Lanka, Jose Gregori of Brazil, Anna Sabatova of Czech Republic and Angelina Acheng Atyam of Uganda also bagged the award, it was announced on Thursday, the Human Rights Day. — PTI