• Livingston’s affairs may not be only reason

Germany extradites Laden aide to USA
MUNICH, Dec 21 — Germany has extradited a suspected associate of Saudi multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden to the USA, officials said.

Brief trial or censure likely
Senators for quick action

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (AP) — With the impeachment of the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, now in their hands, Senators are vowing to move quickly.

But there is disagreement over what to do — conduct a speedy trial or issue an immediate censure.

Democrats generally favoured censure, Republicans leaned toward at least a brief trial. Both said the Upper Chamber of Congress had to restore ‘civility and political sanity’ to the process.

I don’t believe the challenge was faced adequately in the House,’’ Democratic Sen Patrick Leahy said on NBC Television yesterday.

The President, meanwhile, prepared for a defence that his chief of staff indicated could include a challenge to the legality of the House’s action, given that the impeachment articles were approved by departing members of the 105th Congress, but a Senate trial would be handled by the 106th.

“I think that our legal team will take a look at that in the days to come. As you know, some of the constitutional experts who have reviewed the matter believe that it is not consistent with the Constitution to have done this in a lame-duck Congress, especially in the partisan way that they did that,’’ White House Chief of Staff John Podesta told CNN yesterday.

Mr Clinton’s defence will be led by White House counsel Charles FC Ruff. He will also receive guidance from people such as former Democratic Senate majority leader George Mitchell.

“We have been talking to a number of different Senators, including Senator Mitchell, to get advice and counsel on how to deal with the Senate,’’ Greg Craig, coordinator of the White House impeachment defence, told Fox News.

Sen Orrin Hatch, a Republican, urged the current Senate leadership to take a quick head count and determine whether there is anything near the 67 votes required to convict Mr Clinton.

Senator Hatch told NBC that if there aren’t many more than 55 votes against Mr Clinton — the number of Republicans in the Senate — then there has to be some consideration to what do you do that is ‘the best under the circumstances to resolve this matter and in the best interests of the country.’

While that should include the start of a trial, said Senator Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, there are other options.

Sen Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, said he backed censure because a trial would ‘tie up three branches of government for the next four months.’ Mr William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the USA, would preside over a Senate trial presented by members of the House.

With the taint of impeachment hanging over him, Mr Clinton went to church yesterday for spiritual fortification and some image rebuilding before the Senate begins weighing his fate.

Attending the service was the first of several Christmas week activities designed to show the human, repentant side of a humiliated President. But even as he and daughter Chelsea were leaving the usually supportive foundry United Methodist Church, the President was confronted on the steps by an angry parishioner.

‘Damn you, for what you’ve done to the nation’, the man barked. ‘Please resign for the good of the world’.

Mr Clinton and Chelsea ignored the man, waving instead to about 100 supporters, who cheered him and clutched signs reading, ‘Complete your term’ and ‘God bless our prez.’

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton did not attend the service.

Livingston’s affairs may not be only reason

NEW YORK, Dec 21 (PTI) — A series of extra-marital affairs may not be the only reason which made Speaker-elect Robert Livingston to announce his resignation.

Two days after he stunned the House of Representatives by announcing the dramatic resignation shortly before President Bill Clinton was impeached, media reports today suggested that some newspapers might have had details about Mr Livingston’s sexual affairs and their publication would have eroded his authority in the Republican Party.

While offering his resignation, Mr Livingston had asked Mr Clinton to follow suit but that, some analysts said, was making virtue out of necessity to help his party in arguing for the President’s resignation.

No doubt he fell prey to what Mr Clinton had described as the “politics of personal destruction,” but media reports suggested that he might have been highly uncomfortable in his role as Speaker.

Besides, lure of money would have made other women to come forward which would have destroyed his personal and family life and distracted him from more important official business.

In fact, immediately after he confessed to the affairs, at least a dozen Republicans had indicated that they would vote against him which would have further fractured the already divided Republican Party and made his job extremely difficult even if he was elected.

Fresh US strikes not ruled out
UN relief staff to return to Iraq

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (AP) — The USA will make a deliberate, “sustained’’ effort to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, senior officials said a day after the air strikes ended. They acknowledged that Iraq retains some of its deadly weapons capability and may have to be attacked again to eliminate them.

US President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy team appeared prominently on TV news programmes in the USA yesterday, carrying reconnaissance photos that showed the rubble of Iraqi weapons facilities but sounding the message that the Iraqi threat remains.

“We would like to see a different regime,” US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on NBC’s meet-the-press programme. “That is what we are going to be working towards by more active support of the various Opposition groups.”

US intelligence officials and outside experts have said in recent months that Iraqi Opposition groups are in no position to challenge Saddam Hussein’s heavily armed and entrenched government and military. And while US warplanes dropped leaflets in southern Iraq suggesting they oppose Saddam, there was no evidence that any did.

Overthrowing Saddam from within will require a long-term US commitment, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said on CNN’s Late Edition.

Meanwhile, the USA has warned that it reserves the right to strike again if Baghdad tries to rebuild “degraded” facilities to make weapons of mass destruction.

“We reserve the right to use force again and I think we’ve proven our ability to deliver a strong blow,” US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in an interview to the NBC’s “meet-the-press” programme yesterday.

But Saddam, who has emerged stronger than ever before, lost no time in declaring triumphantly that Iraqis had won in the latest stand-off with UN that prompted US to pound military targets in Iraq with missiles and bombs.

“You lived up to the expectations....so God rewarded you and your hearts with crown of victory,” the Iraqi President boasted in a taped message over Qatari Television station Al-Jazeera, pouring scorn over beleaguered President Clinton, who is facing trial in the Senate after his impeachment.

DUBAI (UNI): The focus is back on diplomatic efforts after US and British forces have ended their four-day military campaign against Iraq.

The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the situation in Yew York later today and Baghdad will be clearly watching the results of the meeting very closely.

In particular, Baghdad will look for signals about whether the role of the Security Council and the principle of collective security will be restored or whether there will again be resort to unilateral action of the kind that the USA and Britain launched last week.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was being regularly briefed during the crisis by his special envoy in Baghdad Prakash Shah, was said to have been relieved by the US decision to end the bombing.

“There will have to be a focus on the diplomatic aspect of the crisis now”, Mr Shah told UNI over the telephone from Baghdad.

The 106 UN staff members with humanitarian programmes in Iraq, who had temporarily relocated to Amman in Jordan on December 18, are expected back in Baghdad by tomorrow evening.

Mr Shah said the Iraqi Government was still in the process of collecting information about casualties and damages from different parts of the country. “They have not presented any figures so far”, he said.

Reports from Baghdad had spoken of at least 68 people killed in the air strikes. But Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, Mr Nizar Hamdoon, said yesterday in New York that thousands of people were killed or wounded in the four days of bombing.

Germany extradites Laden aide to USA

MUNICH, Dec 21 (DPA, PTI) — Germany has extradited a suspected associate of Saudi multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of bomb attacks in August last on two US embassies in Africa, to the USA, officials said.

Mamdu Mahmud Salim, a 40-year-old Sudanese who was arrested in Germany three months ago, was put on a plane after being handed over to American officials at the airport here yesterday, a spokesman for the Bavarian state Justice Ministry here said.

His extradition came two days after the Bonn Government gave the go-ahead for his extradition to the USA, where Salim is wanted on charges of plotting to murder U.S. citizens and illegal possession of explosives.

LONDON: India has been listed along with the USA and Israel as a potential target by world’s most- wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden, who has reportedly rebuilt his “terrorist universities” and is about to launch a new international terror campaign, Sunday Times reported.

The paper quoted a senior Harkat commander as saying hundreds of new terrorists had already been trained. The reporters of the paper who visited bin Laden’s camp on the Pak-Afghan border said, “His men were being drilled at each base. Classroom poster depict men with AK-47s standing before burning American, Israeli and Indian flags”.

13 years’ jail for Chinese rebel

BEIJING, Dec 21 (AFP) — The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court has sentenced prominent dissident Xu Wenli to 13 years’ imprisonment for subversion, a dissident source said today.

‘Xu Wenli has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for subverting the government. His lawyer told me,’ Frank Lu, spokesman for the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democracy said on the telephone.

Xu was accused of organising the fledgling opposition China Democracy Party (CDP), appealing to workers to set up independent trade unions, accepting overseas donations and giving interviews to the foreign media in which he aired subversive views.

Xu, 55, has already spent 12 years in prison for his role in the democracy wall movement from 1978-79, and has been closely linked in past months to failed attempts to officially register the CDP.

He was arrested on November 30 as part of a general crackdown on supporters of the opposition party — the first to seriously challenge the Communist Party’s 50-year rule of China.

Politicians abet monarchy

KATHMANDU, Dec 21 (IPS) — As Nepal’s squabbling politicians battle again for the sixth time in four years, ultimate power in this poor Himalayan kingdom could slowly be shifting back to the royal palace, constitutional experts here say.

Political parties who fought against the monarchy for three decades to establish democracy and respect for human rights are to blame for the failure to strengthen democracy, they add.

Constitutional experts and political analysts here warn the growing role of the royal palace could ultimately undo the gains of the 1990 people’s movement.

“All of the King’s actions, according to the Constitution, should be based upon the Prime Minister’s advise,” points out Mr Ganesh Raj Sharma, the foremost constitutional expert in Nepal. “The King should solicit advise from no one but the Prime Minister and act accordingly. But that has not been the case in recent years. It is a worrying trend.”

The latest incident was on Thursday when the Monarch set aside the recommendation of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to dissolve the 205-seat House of Representatives, Nepal’s Lower House of Parliament, and call fresh elections.

Mr Koirala decided to call fresh elections following the sudden withdrawal of support of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist), a break-away faction of the nation’s main communist party, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist).

King Birendra chose to ignore his Prime Minister’s advise, and acceded to Opposition demands to convene a special session of parliament to consider a vote of no confidence in Mr Koirala.

Odd news of 1998
Crooning Elvis returns as crying Elvis

NEW YORK, Dec 21 (AP) — At least some of the facts have always been stranger than fiction. Just look at the past year: in some of the weirder moments of 1998, you might have seen a human birth on the Internet, been witness to a spate of piglet flinging or visited a weeping statue of Elvis Presley.

Surveys were carefully avoided in compiling this unscientific accounting of the year’s bizarre events. What follows is a mere sampling.

All shook up: Suspicious minds might have doubted it, but a bust of Elvis Presley in the south-eastern Dutch town of Deurne reportedly began weeping’’ for its fans. The white statuette, decked out in a fur-trimmed cloak and framed by two pink candles, loved his fans so tenderly that he wept for them, owner Toon Nieuwenhuisen said. Mr Nieuwenhuisen, himself an Elvis impersonator, graciously offered to “throw open” his home to pilgrims hoping to catch a glimpse of the miracle.

* * *

Best man for the job: They elected a man for the job and nothing short of radical surgery could change that. Residents of the eastern German village of Quellendorf took a vote to dismiss their mayor after he announced he was becoming a woman. Mr Norbert Lindner, 40, was elected to a seven-year term in 1996, but shocked many of his constituents when he began wearing women’s clothes and calling himself Michaela. Quellendorf residents decided to oust the mayor, despite his appeal for tolerance.

* * *

Accidental tourists: Blown out to sea by a hurricane, some 15 Iguanas braved the open seas between their home of Guadeloupe and Anguilla in the Caribbean with nothing but a broken tree branch for a life raft. They were just trying to survive, but their journey turned out to have scientific import. Researchers said the Iguanas’ cruise showed that land animals can migrate between islands through accidental voyages.

* * *

Men need not apply: A tribunal in Melbourne, Australia, granted an exception to a law that made it illegal to advertise only for women applicants to work on a phone-sex line. The owner of the line, Mr Peta King, said he was flooded with male applicants, but couldn’t hire them because there was no demand. “Why would a woman need to pay for a fantasy phone call when all she has got to do is ring up the local army base or fire station?” Mr King argued before the tribunal.

* * *

Pig protest: A politician who tossed live piglets at Taiwan Governor James Soong’s entourage later apologised on national television — to all the pigs of the world. Mr Hsu I-Sheng of the Democratic Progressive Party and his supporters had grabbed piglets and tossed them across a parking lot at some of the Governor’s staff.

* * *

Rude awakening: A 77-year-old Florida man with a habit of sleepwalking awoke one night up to his ears in alligators. Mr James Currens had somnambulated his way into the middle of an alligator-infested pond behind his home in Palm Harbour. Neighbours called the police after hearing the man’s screams as he fended off the beasts with his cane. Police said Currens suffered only minor cuts on his arms.

* * *

Virgin vote: Hoping to get them to say yes... oh, yes to their party, the youth wing of Sweden’s governing Social Democrats circulated a get-out-the-vote campaign video featuring a passionate couple in bed. The couple romps while the voices of young people talk about their “first time”. Then Mr Mona Sahlin, a top party figure, discusses first-time voting. The video was sent to about 120,000 Swedes who were eligible to vote for the first time. Reaction was mixed.

* * *

Better than sex: Fiji’s Health Minister said a traditional drink consumed in the island-nation’s Eastern Lau group was killing the local sex drive. Kava, a concoction of mild sedatives made from the powdered root of a pepper plant, suppresses the libido, causing a precipitous decline in birth rates. The plant has been used for generations in ceremonies in parts of the South Pacific, but it has become more plentiful.

Wrong heart
TEL AVIV: The family of a deceased Scottish tourist, whose heart was removed and returned separately, has claimed that the Israeli authorities returned the wrong organ. The family of Mr Alistair Sinclair is suing Israel for a million shekels ($ 2,50,000) for removing his heart and thyroid for medical tests without their permission. — AP

Nobel laureate dead
LONDON: British biologist Alan Hodgkin, who shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1963, has died at the age of 84, his family has announced. Mr Hodgkin shared the Nobel award with Mr Andrew Huxley and Mr John Eccles for research in the chemical changes associated with the propagation of a nerve impulse. — DPA

Upanishads in English
WASHINGTON: The Oxford University Press and the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Texas have jointly published the “Early Upanishads”, with both the text and translation in English. The press had earlier published the translation of the Upanishads in its series of the world’s classics.

Anwar’s brother
KUALA LUMPUR: The adopted brother of Malaysia’s sacked Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, sentenced in September to six months’ jail after pleading guilty to being sodomised by Anwar, was granted bail on Monday. — Reuters