India urges Switzerland to relax visa regime
NEW DELHI, Nov 24 — India and Switzerland today held extensive bilateral discussions on wide-ranging issues, including the promotion of economic and commercial ties.

Zardari gets bail in murder case
KARACHI, Nov 24 — The jailed husband of Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in connection with a murder case was granted bail on medical grounds, court sources said.

UN council expansion needs two-thirds vote
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 — In a significant move, the United Nations General Assembly has decided that any decision on the expansion of the Security Council would require two-thirds majority.

Officers punished for abusing recruits
MOSCOW, Nov 24 — A Russian military court in the Far East has sentenced four army officers to prison terms ranging between 15 and 23 years for abusing soldiers and causing a death, the news agency Itar-Tass has reported.

Y2K may cost USA $10b
WASHINGTON, Nov 24 — Updating US Government computers to fix the year 2000 bug could cost $ 10 billion, according to a congressional expert.

20 Kurds die in Turkish drive
DIYARBAKIR, (Turkey), Nov 24 — Security Forces have killed 20 Kurdish separatist guerrillas and loot three soldiers in anti-rebel operations in Turkey’s southeast, regional officials said today.

21 NLD members quit party
BANGKOK, Nov 24 — A further 21 members of the Myanmar opposition National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, have quit the party, state newspaper reports said today.

First Palestinian airport opened

CAIRO, Nov 24 (PTI) — Palestine President Yasser Arafat today received the first aeroplane on the newly constructed airport on Palestinian-ruled soil, bringing the Palestinians a step closer to realising their long-cherished dream of statehood.

Egypt Air, carrying a 67 member delegation, had the distinction of landing its first flight at the “Arafat International Airport” located in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

“God willing, aircraft will fly from this airport carrying pilgrims to Jerusalem,” Mr Arafat told reporters at the airport after welcoming the Egyptian plane.

A Royal Air Moroc Boeing was the second to land carrying Jordan King Hussein’s son, Prince Faisal which was followed by a Spanish military transport plane with humanitarian aids.

Palestinians danced with joy to the music of band after the landing of flights at the airport, which is the first direct link between Palestine and rest of the world.

Earlier, Palestinians wishing to travel abroad had to seek permission to enter and fly out of Israel’s airports.

Mr Fayez Zeidan, director of the Palestinian Civil Aviation Authority, said the opening of the airport was an important symbol of Palestinian independence.

However, Palestinians living on the West Bank, separated from Gaza by Israel, will still have to seek permission from Israel to use Gaza airport, diplomatic sources said, adding that Israel would continue to monitor the arrival of passengers and cargo.

The new airport has one passenger terminal, a VIP lounge and a three-km runway.

Israel and Palestine signed an agreement last Friday that would allow the airport to operate as a part of their interim peace deal.

Under the agreement, Israel had the ultimate authority over which countries fly to and from Gaza airport.

The airport’s opening had been delayed for 20 months by the deadlock in peacemaking that persisted until the US-brokered Wye River agreement was signed last month in Washington.

600 rebels die in Congo bombing

KINSHASA (Congo), Nov 24 (AP) — Zimbabwean military planes bombed and sank six boats carrying Congolese rebel soldiers and equipment over the weekend, killing at least 600 rebels, Congolese state radio has reported.

The rebels had been on their way to the rebel-held town of Kalemie on the western edge of Lake Tanganyka, which borders Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia, the Voice of The People radio station said yesterday citing unnamed aviation officials. No further details were provided.

The report could not be independently confirmed and rebel officials had no immediate comment. Voice of The People serves as the mouthpiece of Congolese President Laurent Kabila’s Government which, along with Zimbabwean, Angolan, Namibian and Chadian allies, is fighting rebels in eastern Congo.

The rebels are supported by Ugandan and Rwandan forces.

A series of peace initiatives aimed at bringing the two sides together in talks have failed. Kabila has refused to talk with his opponents, who have accused him of corruption and ethnic favouritism vowed to topple him.

The government has promised an aggressive offensive, including a bombing campaign, against rebel strongholds in the east. But the warring sides are separated by long distances and poor transportation routes. Angola and Zimbabwe have provided some fighters and bombers to Kabila, whose allied forces appear strongest around the Capital of Kinshasa in the west and in his home region of Katanga in the southeast.

In an unrelated incident, Congolese rebel commander Jean-Pierre Ondekane and 126 troops escaped injury when the Boeing 727 they were aboard caught fire while taking off in the rebel-held town of Goma bordering Rwanda, rebel radio said yesterday.

Indo-Pak talks on power transfer today

ISLAMABAD, Nov 24 (PTI) — Officials of India and Pakistan will meet here tomorrow to negotiate the sale of power by Islamabad to Delhi which may also mark a major change in Pakistan’s attitude towards its neighbour.

Power Special Secretary Pradeep Baijal will lead a seven-member Indian delegation at the two-day talks on technical details of the power purchase agreement (PPA) between the two countries, official sources said here today.

Pakistan, which has a nearly 3000 MW of surplus power, has already expressed its desire to sell power to India, which it badly needs to meet the massive shortfall in North India.

The technical details like the rate of power and mode of transmission have to be worked out by the two sides as the transmission infrastructure specially on the Pakistani side is very poor.

The beginning of the negotiations on the purchase of power by India from Pakistan might well prove to be a harbinger of a change in commercial relations between the two countries and might lead to progress on other fields also, an official source said.

The discussion on power purchase from Pakistan was first initiated when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, met Mr Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Colombo SAARC summit on July 29 which was later followed up during the second prime ministerial meeting in New York on September 23.

The opinion in the Pakistani side till now is that no trade activities should be resumed with India before the settlement of the contentious Kashmir issue.

Apparently that was the reason that even bilateral talks on promoting commercial and trade relations between the two countries earlier this month in Delhi failed to achieve any major breakthrough.

India urges Switzerland to relax visa regime
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Nov 24 — India and Switzerland today held extensive bilateral discussions on wide-ranging issues, including the promotion of economic and commercial ties.

The bilateral talks were held between the visiting President of the Swiss Confederation, Mr Flavio Cotti, and the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The return of the final set of papers relating to the Bofors deal also figured in the discussions with India asking Switzerland to expedite the process. Mr Cotti promised to look into the issue, sources said.

Mr Cotti, who is on his first-ever visit to India, is being accompanied by a high-level business delegation.

During the talks, the Prime Minister took the opportunity to inform the visiting President the reasons for conducting nuclear tests in May. Switzerland had curtailed its official development cooperation programme to India after the nuclear tests.

Switzerland, which is keen on expanding commercial and economic ties, has been identifying areas like insurance and other financial services sectors to further develop the existing economic cooperation between the two countries.

One of the last official engagements of the President was a banquet hosted by the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan. Earlier, Mr Cotti called on the President and the First Lady, Mrs Usha Narayanan.

The Commerce Minister, Mr R.K. Hegde and the Industry Minister, Mr Sikander Bakht called on Mr Cotti. The Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha also called on the Swiss President.

The bilateral talks, held between the delegations led by the Prime Minister and Mr Cotti after a brief meeting between the two, were described as positive by officials.

Mr Cotti also had a 20-minute meeting with the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

In the backdrop of the growing bilateral trade which has already touched US $750 million approximately, the two countries are keen to expand trade in areas like the export of softwares to Switzerland.

India has urged Switzerland to relax its visa regime for visiting Indian businessmen. While India has been giving long-term visas of five years to Swiss businessmen, Switzerland gives only 3 months visa to the Indian businessmen.

Iraqi Oppn to back US, UK toppling bid

LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) — Iraqi opposition groups on Monday today pledged to work with Britain and the USA to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein following a call by the two major western powers to bury differences.

“We discussed ways and methods of working together as the Iraqi opposition...to bring an end to the Iraqi regime as soon as possible,” Nabil Mousawi, a senior member of the mainstream Iraqi National Council, told reporters after a meeting of opposition groups at the British Foreign Office.

“It was a very useful meeting,” Mousawi said of the talks hosted by British Junior Minister Derek Fatchett.

However, Fatchett made no specific commitments regarding military or financial support, Sarif Ali of the Constitutional Monarchist Movement, one of the 15 diverse groups of London-based dissidents who attended it, said.

WASHINGTON: The USA has reserved judgement on Iraq’s conduct in its latest dispute with United Nations weapons inspectors and made clear it had no plans for immediate military action.

Defence Secretary William Cohen said yesterday that the USA had enough military forces in place to strike Iraq at any time but that obtaining documents was only one aspect of the drive to find and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

The State Department said the technical experts at the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) were best placed to judge whether Iraq had good reason for failing to provide the material.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, asked how much time Iraq had, told reporters it was “not a matter of a deadline”.

“It’s a matter of really coming forward with what is necessary to show that they are cooperating,” she added.

But Washington’s calm response to the latest dispute drew fire from some Republican lawmakers.

“I think the ... response should have been, ‘Look, this may be serious and if this means that they aren’t cooperating as they pledged then we’re going to have to act, especially since we have a lot of forces in the region’,” Senator John McCain told CNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” programme.

One week after agreeing to cooperate with UNSCOM, Iraq says it cannot provide some of the paperwork demanded by UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler, whose agency has a mandate to destroy Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.

Iraq on Friday turned down all but two requests and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, in an 18-page letter to the UN Security Council yesterday, said the documents were either unavailable or irrelevant.

BAGHDAD: United Nations arms experts have carried out several surprise inspections, including a site not placed under permanent monitoring, an Iraqi official said.

Nine teams of inspectors yesterday made surprise visits to nine sites, including a tobacco factory not under long-term monitoring, said General Hossam Mohammad Amin, the Iraqi liaison to the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) on disarming Iraq.

NEW YORK: The United Nations chief weapons inspector Richard Butler has warned against any premature take of military strikes on Iraq for not handing over documents he requested, an ANI report from New York said.

“Talk about Iraq’s shortfall in the last few days on documents leading automatically to some kind of enforcement is a bit exaggerated”, Mr Butler said in an interview with CNN.

Mr Butler said the documents were very important to determine “what weapons does Iraq possess and where are they now.”

Bid on Saddam deputy’s life

BAGHDAD, Nov 23 (AP) — Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s deputy narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in southern Iraq, Baghdad Television has reported.

Mr Izzat Ibrahim, Mr Saddam’s deputy on the powerful Revolutionary Command Council, was attending a religious ceremony yesterday in Kerbala, a Shiite Muslim holy city, it said.

Several bodyguards and bystanders were wounded, it said.

The assailants threw two grenades at Mr Ibrahim as he got out of his car, but he was not wounded, it said.

The attack came a day before Iraqi opposition groups gathered in London to find a way to unite their ranks.

“Investigations were under way to apprehend the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” the television said.

Despite the attack, Mr Ibrahim continued his activities and attended a religious festival held to commemorate the birthday of Mr Hussein, the prophet Mohammed’s grandson and the most revered saint to Shiite Muslims, it said.

Mr Ibrahim is a powerful figure within Iraq’s ruling elite and serves as a Deputy Commander of the Iraqi armed forces.

Zardari gets bail in murder case

KARACHI, Nov 24 (AFP) — The jailed husband of Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in connection with a murder case was granted bail on medical grounds, court sources said.

District and Sessions Judge Yasmin Abbasi granted bail to 44-year-old Zardari, they said.

Zardari has been charged with complicity in the killing of Bhutto’s estranged brother Mir Murtaza, who died in a police shootout in Karachi in September 1996.

Former chief of the Intelligence Bureau Masood Sharif and 17 police officials are also on trial in the case, in which all accused face the death penalty.

Zardari is suffering from various ailments, including deafness and permanent headaches and needs proper treatment.

UN council expansion needs two-thirds vote

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 (PTI) — In a significant move, the United Nations General Assembly has decided that any decision on the expansion of the Security Council would require two-thirds majority.

The decision virtually forestalls any possible move to include one or two industrial states as permanent members in the Security Council on the basis of a simple majority in the 185-member assembly.

India is among the member states that have staked their claim to the permanent membership.

After three days of vigorous debate, the Assembly adopted without vote a brief consensus resolution proposed by its president Didier Opertti last night.

Immediately after the approval, Opertti said he would soon reconvene the open-ended working group on the Security Council reforms under the co-chairmanship of ambassadors of Sri Lanka and Sweden.

The suggestion had created fear among the developing countries that once Germany and Japan become permanent members, major powers would lose interest in expanding the 15-member Council.

Officers punished for abusing recruits

MOSCOW, Nov 24 (DPA) — A Russian military court in the Far East has sentenced four army officers to prison terms ranging between 15 and 23 years for abusing soldiers and causing a death, the news agency Itar-Tass has reported.

It was the first time that Russian officers have been punished with prison sentences for abusing soldiers, the agency reported from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski yesterday, capital of the Kamchatka peninsula.

They were convicted of exceeding their authority by using physical violence.

The incidents which led to the trial took place in Russia’s easternmost unit of border troops in Chukotka.

The court heard the soldiers were beaten for minor infractions and deprived of sleep. In temperatures under 20 degrees below zero, superiors would take away their warm clothing.

Only a single leg of chicken had been fed to the 17 men, even though the unit’s food stores were filled, the prosecution charged. Last December, a soldier had died from the abuse.

Conditions in the Russian army, especially in remote Far-Eastern regions, are reported to be extremely brutal. There have been frequent reports of younger soldiers being abused and humiliated.

This was confirmed by a report on the rights of Russian recruits by the Council of Europe earlier this autumn.

Y2K may cost USA $10b

WASHINGTON, Nov 24 (AFP) — Updating US Government computers to fix the year 2000 bug could cost $ 10 billion, according to a congressional expert.

The government estimates the cost so far to be about $ 7.2 billion “but will end up costing at least $ 10 billion,” said Mr Stephen Horn, Chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees the federal government’s efforts to keep computer systems from going haywire on January 1, 2000.

Many older computer programmes can only read the last two digits of the year and may process the year 2000 as if it were 1900.

According to Mr Horn one-third of the federal government’s computer systems are still not ready for the year 2000.

Some of the State Department’s computers, for example, will not be able to make the differentiation before 2034.

The Defence Department, with 2,851 systems the largest computer user, has only 52 per cent of them prepared to handle the new millennium, said Mr Horn.

The US Government has hired many retired computer experts who are familiar with old Cobol-type programming to help reprogramme old systems.

20 Kurds die in Turkish drive

DIYARBAKIR, (Turkey), Nov 24 (Reuters) — Security Forces have killed 20 Kurdish separatist guerrillas and loot three soldiers in anti-rebel operations in Turkey’s southeast, regional officials said today.

The military drive came amid a tense dispute between NATO allies Turkey and Italy over the extradition of guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Troops killed 19 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in the recent fighting in the southeastern province of Sirnak and one more in the province of Hakkari, the Governor of the emergency ruled region said.

An Italian court last week rejected a Turkish arrest warrant for Ocalan and ruled that he be kept in Rome.

21 NLD members quit party

BANGKOK, Nov 24 (AFP) — A further 21 members of the Myanmar opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, have quit the party, state newspaper reports said today.

The resignations, announced in the state’s new light of Myanmar daily, took place on November 15 and are the latest in dozens as the Junta steps up pressure on the opposition.

The NLD members in Pantanaw township in Aveyawady division reportedly gave up politics of their own will.

Yesterday, Aung San Suu Kyi vowed to keep campaigning for convening of a parliament of elected representatives despite intense pressure from the military government.

Chinese most affluent
LONDON: The Chinese here have overtaken Indians as the most affluent group in the UK and lead all other communities with higher earnings and better employment, according to research released on Tuesday. The Chinese top the average earnings and have the lowest unemployment rate among all ethnic groups, including Whites, the study by the Institute for Social and Economic Research in Essex University said. — PTI

$ 16.5 m tax scam
HONG KONG: Fourteen tax officials in China’s northern Hehei province have been sacked for their involvement in a $ 16.5 million tax scam, state media said on Monday. According to The People’s Daily, the taxation authorities, unearthed more than 17,500 counterfeit value-added invoices from Hehei’s Nangong county. The paper said the tax officials were punished for their role in China’s biggest tax scam. — ANI

Marilyn ‘sexiest’
CHICAGO: Marilyn Monroe topped the list of “Playboy” magazine’s 100 sexiest female stars of the 20th century followed by Jayne Mansfield, Raquel Welch, Brigittf Bardot and Cindy Crawford, the publication has announced. Rounding out top 10 selections, which will appear in a special 24-page pictorial in the magazines January issue, are Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Pamela Anderson, Bo Derek and Jean Harlow. Others making the list were porn star Linda Lovelace, ranked 34th, and one spot ahead of Madonna. — Reuters

Rare book sold
LONDON: The first book ever printed in Italy was sold by London auction house, Christie’s, for $ 700,000. The Parsons fragment of Italian prototypography dating from 1462-63 consists of a series of illustrated prayers on the theme of the passion of Christ. Eight of the original 17 pages survive. The work, which was auctioned on Monday surfaced 70 years ago when a US lawyer in New Orleans bought the book from another American. — AFP

Wine record
SYDNEY: A bottle of 91 Penfolds Grange Hermitage has sold for $ 14,800 to set a world record for Australian wine prices. The sale of the bottle of Australia’s most famous red to an Adelaide businessman on Monday eclipsed the previous record set only last month, when a buyer paid $ 12,300 for another bottle of 1951 Grange. — AFP

New giant planet
GENEVA: A Swiss telescope in Chile has spotted a huge new planet in a neighbouring solar system, Switzerland’s French-language television channel TSR reported. The planet was a giant, estimated to be five times the size of Jupiter, it said on Monday. It was too dark to be spotted visually, but was located by the recently installed telescope. — AFP