W O R L D	Wednesday, July 22, 1998
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German jailed for N-arms equipment sale to Pak BONN, July 21 — A German businessman has been convicted for illegally exporting nuclear weapons’ equipment to Pakistan and sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment and fined US $ 240,000... Australia sceptical of N-test claims CANBERRA, July 21 — India and Pakistan may have deliberately overstated the number of nuclear tests they conducted in May, Australian officials said today...

USA wants India, Pak to sign CTBT WASHINGTON, July 21 —In an apparent softening of its stand, the USA has said India and Pakistan should sign in “one way or another” CTBT and other international nuclear non-proliferation pacts if it were to have a flexible approach to the sanctions imposed on them... 5,000 still missing in Papua VANIMO (Papua New Guinea), July 21 — Fears mounted today that the deadly tidal waves which struck Papua New Guinea may have claimed up to 8,000 lives...

Fake fairy photos fetch £ 22,000 A celebrated photographic fake, which once deceived the creator of Sherlock Holmes, sold at an auction in London last week for close to £ 22,000 (US $ 35,000), more than four times its forecast price... Army rule in Nigeria to go from May 29 CAIRO, July 21 — In an assurance to restore civilian rule in Nigeria, military ruler Gen Abdulsalam Abubaker has said he will hand over power to a democratically elected President on May 29 next year... Zhao allowed to visit provinces BEIJING, July 21 — The Chinese Communist Party authorities have allowed the ousted general secretary and sympathiser of pro-democracy student movement Zhao Ziyang to visit southern provinces...

German jailed for N-arms equipment sale to Pak BONN, July 21 (PTI) — A German businessman has been convicted for illegally exporting nuclear weapons’ equipment to Pakistan and sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment and fined US $ 240,000. The conviction and sentence of 68-year old Ernst Piffl was handed over by the judge in the 11th Criminal Division of the Stuttgart high court. Piffl, who was charged with the violation of the German Foreign Trade Act, faced trial to establish whether or not his illegal supplies to Pakistan between 1988 and 1993 helped that country become a “nuclear power”. Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in the end of May. Piffl has reportedly denied the charges saying he had no idea about nuclear technology. The businessman had explained that this was an approval-free third country business and that the equipment was meant only for the sugar or textile industry. The businessman supplied equipment related to aluminium semi-finished products, gyroscope systems and spindles even as the public prosecutor in the case told the court during the trial that the “credibility of German foreign policy was endangered” through the supplies of the nuclear technology related equipment. Piffl, who made it from a tool apprentice to become a millionaire had allegedly sent 31 “frequency transformers” to Rawalpindi by air in 1976 on the “orders” of the Pakistani embassy in Bonn. The “frequency transformers” costing about two million marks had been reportedly ordered by a “camouflaged” procuring organisation of the Pakistani nuclear authorities and that the transformers were part and parcel of high-speed gear of ultracentrifugal engines-components of bomb machine. Amid increasing evidence that Pakistan was pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programmes and getting illegal supplies from abroad before the May nuclear tests, the German government had warned its industry against any dealings with about 29 Pakistani companies. The federal economic ministry had noted before the May tests that Islamabad was making intensive efforts to acquire in particular special machines, chemicals and sensitive research equipment for “secret use in the nuclear programme”. There had been a spate of reports in the German media after Pakistanis nuclear tests commenting that Islamabad could not explode the bomb without the help of illegal supplies of sophisticated technology from Germany. There also have been reports of German businessmen having supplied Pakistan with tritium through which the detonation power of a explosive device can be multiplied as well as technology for special steel and high-tech plants for production of fuel rods. A German parliamentary investigation commission had also probed into what was described as the Pakistan nuclear scandal in the late eighties.

USA wants India, Pak to sign CTBT WASHINGTON, July 21 (PTI) —In an apparent softening of its stand, the USA has said India and Pakistan should sign in “one way or another” CTBT and other international nuclear non-proliferation pacts if it were to have a flexible approach to the sanctions imposed on them. In a shift from the earlier stand that they must sign CTBT unconditionally, State Department spokesman James Rubin, told reporters yesterday by getting the waiver authority the administration “Did not seek to end sanctions. All we sought was authority from Congress to have the flexibility to act if India and Pakistan were to change their positions and to join in one way or another, the CTBT and other international regimes.” It was, however, not clear whether Mr Rubin was sending a message to India and Pakistan as he said, “We have not taken the view that sanctions should be suspended, in whole or in part. On the contrary, these sanctions remain in place. They are tough sanctions. They have obviously stung in India and Pakistan. That is as it should be.” “As a result of our sanctions legislation, and as a result of implementing that legislation, (we) have sent a powerful message to the world that to test nuclear weapons is to cause the isolation of your country.” Mr Rubin said, “The question now is what can we do to work with them to try to get them out of the holes that they’ve blown up for themselves and to try to improve the climate by getting them to move in the direction that we are seeking.@“And that is what Deputy Secretary Talbott is doing” during his meetings with Indian and Pakistani leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad. “The goals are very clear — how can we and the international community work with India and Pakistan to bring them back into the international non-proliferation consensus, to reduce tensions between them and address their security concerns at the same time,” Mr Rubin said. Asked whether he agrees with the Indian position that the rift between India and Pakistan will have to be settled under the Simla agreement, Mr Rubin said: “We would like the two countries to resolve the problems peacefully; I think that is a view it would be hard to imagine anyone could disagree with.” Replying to a question if the sanctions were punitive, he said “right”. At the same time, Mr Rubin said he agreed with the view, that the sanctions pendulum had swung too far. “There is a tendency for people to think if they just impose a sanction they can solve a problem,” but “It is not that simple.” Greater care needs to be taken in using the sanctions, Mr Rubin said, but added, that “there is wide support for some sanction against India and Pakistan for what they have done. We, obviously, have gone farther than other countries. He agreed that “unilateral sanctions, while sometimes making people feel good, don’t actually do good.”

Australia sceptical of N-test claims CANBERRA, July 21 (AFP) — India and Pakistan may have deliberately overstated the number of nuclear tests they conducted in May, Australian officials said today. A Senate inquiry into the tests was told that seismologists in Australia and round the world had detected only one of the five tests claimed by India and two of the six claimed by Pakistan. The Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO), which monitors nuclear tests and earthquakes, said either the tests were too small to register, the number of tests had been overstated or most were carried out simultaneously. “They may have been either of a very small magnitude, the Indian and Pakistani governments may have overstated the number of tests they conducted, or it may have been a combination of these factors,” the AGSO said in a submission to the inquiry. Despite questioning the number of tests conducted, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Department warned that animosity between the two countries, combined with their lack of safeguard presented the greatest risk of nuclear war the world had ever known. “The enmity between them is particularly virulent” the department warned in its submission. “They each have the bomb, but the equally costly and technologically demanding business of fielding invulnerable nuclear forces and ensuring absolutely their immunity to accidental, inadvertent or unauthorised use lies ahead of them. “In the meantime, they represent perhaps the most serious risk of a nuclear exchange that we have ever known.” The department said it was particularly concerned at the missile being developed by Pakistan and India which could carry nuclear weapons. “If the two countries then move to deploy nuclear armed missiles, there will be little margin for error and a much greater chance of heightened tensions escalating out of control and precipitating a nuclear exchange,” it said.

5,000 still missing in Papua VANIMO (Papua New Guinea), July 21 (AFP) — Fears mounted today that the deadly tidal waves which struck Papua New Guinea may have claimed up to 8,000 lives. Catholic Bishop Cesare Bonivento said Australian army officers had told him only 500 survivors had been air-lifted out of the strip of coastline which was wiped away by “Tsunami” on Friday night. Some 10,000 people had lived in villages along the devastated 30-km stretch of remote northern coastline and he believed no more than 1,500 were still hiding in the jungle. “So if you work backwards possibly the number could be as 8,000 dead,” he told AFP. “I don’t want to alarm anybody, but without doubt the number of dead is higher than the number of survivors,” he pointed out. With water supplies low and bloated corpses clogging the lagoon, disease is now a major risk in a region prone to outbreaks of typhoid and cholera . Prime Minister Bill Skate confirmed that while the official death toll stood at 1,200 census data showed about 5,000 people were still unaccounted for on the island. Australian doctors leading an international relief effort also warned many of the survivors could fall victim to pneumonia caused by salt water ingested during the swim for their lives.

Fake fairy photos fetch £ 22,000 from John Ezard in London A celebrated photographic fake, which once deceived the creator of Sherlock Holmes, sold at an auction in London last week for close to £ 22,000 (US $ 35,000), more than four times its forecast price. The Cottingly Fairy pictures began as a joke in 1917 when two girls from Yorkshire, northern England, Elsie Wright (15) and her cousin Frances Griffiths’ (10) faked the creatures’ bodies and diaphanous wings using hatpins, coloured cut out drawings and superimposition. But the author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who lost a son in World War- I and was exploring spiritualism to comfort himself made them famous in magazine articles and a book published in 1922, “The Coming of the Fairies. He believed the photographs proved that “ectoplasmic thought forms” were coming from the girls’ psychic auras. Elsie said they felt too sorry for him to confess the hoax. “I felt he was trying to comfort himself through unworldly things. It would have been terrible for him to be destroyed by two little girls,” she said. The women admitted the joke in 1982, although Frances maintained that one picture was of a real fairy. The collection containing the photos was sold at Sotheby’s by her daughter, Christine Lynch. It included a first edition of Conan Doyle’s book. Mrs Lynch said: “I wish my mother had been here today to see the sale. She would have enjoyed it, she would have had great fun. She said she really saw the fairies and that is how it all came about. She was telepathic.” These relics of a faith in spiritualism, then widespread among bereaved relatives, were bought by Simon Finch, a London bookseller. He said he intended to sell them to collectors. —The Guardian, London

Army rule in Nigeria to go from May 29 CAIRO, July 21 (PTI) — In an assurance to restore civilian rule in Nigeria, military ruler Gen Abdulsalam Abubaker has said he will hand over power to a democratically elected President on May 29 next year. In a national broadcast yesterday, Gen Abubaker said five political parties and the National Electoral Commission set up under late dictator Sani Abacha would be scrapped and fresh elections held to replace those held under his rule. “We must admit that mistakes had been made, in particular. Our most recent attempt at democratisation was marred by manoeuvring and manipulation of political institutions, structures and actors (participants),” Abubaker said. “Nigerians want nothing less than true democracy in a united and peaceful country,” the soft-spoken Abubaker, who took over as the leader of the oil-rich African state following the death of Abacha two months ago, said. Gen Abubaker said fresh elections would be held in the first three months of next year, but did not say when a new interim cabinet would be appointed. Caretaker committees would be appointed to run local governments already in place as a result of the discredited elections, he added. Gen Abubaker ruled out a national unity government which followers of late Presidential claimant Moshood Abiola had demanded. “Such an arrangement is full of pitfalls and dangers which this administration cannot accept,” he said. Abiola, widely believed to be the winner of the 1993 Presidential poll, died suddenly of a heart attack on July 7 after four years of detention, sparking riots that claimed 60 lives. Oil-producing Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation with more than 104 million persons. Abacha’s five-year ruthless rule of Nigeria left the African nation isolated from international fora.

Zhao allowed to visit provinces BEIJING, July 21 (PTI) — The Chinese Communist Party authorities have allowed the ousted general secretary and sympathiser of pro-democracy student movement Zhao Ziyang to visit southern provinces, a leading Hong Kong daily reported today. “Zhao, 79, was allowed brief visits to Jiangxi and Fujian last month. He is now back in Beijing under tight surveillance,” South China Morning Post reported. The trips were mainly a result of doctors’ recommendations, the daily said, adding that the former top cadre did not see party or Army officials during the trip. Zhao has been under virtual house arrest for nine years since being toppled for sympathising with pro-democracy student movement here in June, 1989.

Global monitor Mayor’s trial ends, verdict tomorrow NICOSIA: A court in Iran has reached a judgement in the trial of Teheran’s Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who is facing charges of embezzlement and administrative mismanagement. The court, however, will announce its verdict on Thursday. The clerical establishment went against Karbaschi, a key ally of President Khatami, when he mobilised support for Mr Khatami’s presidential run last year. He acknowledged that he raised funds for Mr Khatami’s election, but denies having broken any law. Last week, a 72-page defence of the Mayor was submitted to the court. — ANI Clinton visit NEW ORLEANS: President Bill Clinton will visit Northern Ireland and Ireland in early September to underscore US support for the Irish peace process, according to the White House. The visit will come at the end of Mr Clinton’s trip to Russia, the White House said on Monday. Officials said they expected him to travel in the first week of September. — Reuters ‘Goodwill’ envoy JOHANNESBURG: South African author Nadine Gordimer joined US actor Danny Glover as a UN development programme “goodwill” Ambassador to tour developing countries and find ways of eradicating poverty. Gordimer told journalists after accepting her appointment here that it was an honour to work on a “proposition that refused to accept poverty as part of human destiny.” — AFP Russian helicopters MOSCOW: Russia has delivered three MI-35 helicopters to Sri Lanka and helped train the ground personnel to maintain them, a news agency reported on Monday. The three choppers were supplied under a contract signed in March, which also provided for the delivery of spares and personnel training, the Interfax news agency reported. — AP Oxford degrees LONDON: Oxford University, the prestigious seat of British learning, will open its college gates to Internet next year, offering degree courses to be completed on-line. From January postgraduate students will be able to engage in medicine, computing and software engineering courses over Internet, marketing manager Anthony Sanderson said on Monday. — AFP Slovak President BRATISLAVA: Slovakia’s Parliament will hold a fresh vote on a new state President on August 6, Parliament Speaker Ivan Gasparovic announced on Monday. Candidates can be nominated till July 27, the official TASR news agency reported. Parliament has held five unsuccessful rounds of voting to find a successor to former President Michal Kovac, who left office on March 2. The last vote was held on July 9. — DPA Fidel Castro HAVANA: Cuba said President Fidel Castro was in perfect health, dismissing a US newspaper report that he had been treated for a potentially fatal brain disease last year. “Our commander-in-chief is enjoying perfect health”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said in response to the Miami Herald’s front-page article on Sunday. — Reuters IMF package WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a $ 11.2 billion support package to help Russia bolster its currency, the rouble, and ease a financial crisis that was crippling the country’s floundering economy. The IMF’s 24-member executive board announced late on Monday its support for a $ 4.8 billion payment immediately and said the balance could be paid later in the year if key economic measures, including increasing tax revenues, were carried out. — AP Girl dies CAIRO: A 12- year-old Egyptian girl died during a circumcision operation she was undergoing in a private clinic in a poor suburb of Cairo due to a sharp drop in her blood pressure, the government-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Monday. The daily quoted the girl’s uncle and said investigations were underway to determine the exact reason of the death. —DPA

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