Pakistan rules out possibility of accidental war
ISLAMABAD, Nov 29 — Pakistan today ruled out the possibility of any "accidental nuclear war" with India as Islamabad had already developed an effective command and control system.

I was raped in Oct: Miss World
LONDON, Nov 29 — The new Miss World, Israel’s Linor Abargil, says she endured a two-hour sexual assault last month while in Italy for a fashion show, British newspapers reported in today’s editions.

Julie Andrews may never sing again
JULIE Andrews will probably never sing again after failing to recover from throat surgery a year ago, her husband, film director Blake Edwards, has revealed.

LTTE offers peace, yet kills 10

COLOMBO, Nov 29 (PTI) — Even as pressure on the Sri Lankan government to accept the offer for unconditional talks of the LTTE through third party mediation is mounting, eight soldiers and 10 rebels were killed today as fresh fighting broke out in eastern part of the island nation.

Reports from the east said 10 rebels and eight soldiers were killed in two major attacks by the LTTE militants in the eastern Trincomalee district today and the fighting was continuing.

Meanwhile, the rare unconditional offer of peace talks by LTTE supremo, V. Prabhakaran, during his annual address to the Tamils on Friday, has caught the government and the UNP by surprise as the minority parties and peace groups mounted pressure on government to seize the opportunity.

Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who early this year said that she was prepared to hold conditional talks with the LTTE through a third party "facilitator" has not reacted to Prabhakaran’s latest offer so far.

The state-run "Sunday Observer" today in its lead story said the government officials responded cautiously to Prabhakaran’s offer of peace talks but not take a "definite position".

The ruling people’s alliance government initiated peace talks with the LTTE after taking power in 1994, but the dialogue broke down when the guerrillas blew up two navy gunboats in the eastern port of Trincomalee.

"The long-awaited response from Prabhakaran has now come out. It is now up to the government and opposition leaders to take the next step," Joseph Pararajasingham, of the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was quoted by the Sunday Observer as saying.

Canadian rights panel to hear ‘kirpan’ case

TORONTO, Nov 29 (IANS)— The Canada Human Rights Commission will for the first time, hear a complaint from a baptised Sikh, who has alleged discrimination on religious grounds.

Mr Balbir Singh Nijjar of Brampton, near here, claims he was prevented from taking a flight from Toronto to Vancouver in April 1996 as he was wearing his “kirpan” (short sword). The Sikh religion specifies that a male follower carry a “kirpan”.

The rights body’s decision to hold a tribunal hearing indicates that it believes, on the basis of evidence presented so far, there may be a foundation to allegation of religious discrimination, said commission spokeswomen Lise Dessaint.

The Air Transportation Association of Canada has agreed, in accordance with Transport Canada standards, that Sikh be allowed on planes with “kirpans” if the blades are not concealed and are shorter than 10 centimetres. But the smallest blade generally carried by adult baptised Sikhs is 15 centimetres long.

Meanwhile, An outspoken Sikh Canadian newspaper publisher who was slain last week was eulogised at a memorial service as a martyr for peace who died at the hands of extremists.

Tara Singh Hayer, whose Indo-Canadian Times is North America’s largest Punjabi-language paper, was a sharp critic of traditionalist factions in the Sikh religion and of the use of violence to create an independent Sikh homeland in India.

“Tara Singh Hayer was a great crusader against the forces of darkness,” Rainder Gill, a family friend, told about 2,000 mourners, many of whom had to stand outside and listen to the service on loudspeakers.

Indian Army unit joins UN force in Lebanon

DUBAI, Nov 29 (PTI) — In a prestigious assignment at one of the world’s most sensitive trouble spots, an Indian Army contingent formally replaced the Norwegian unit of the UN interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Led by Col Guru Batabyal, a 617-member contingent of Indian troops took over the key assignment at the UNIFIL which has been in place since 1978 to ensure an Israeli pullout from Lebanon’s south.

The handing-taking over ceremony was attended by the Norwegian Defence Minister Dag Jostein Fjaervoll at a UN base in the village of Ebel Al Saqi.

The UN force drawn from India, Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, Ireland, Italy, Nepal and Poland comprises 4450 soldiers but will not have Norwegian troops for the first time in 20 years.

Norway announced earlier this year that it would pull out its troops from UNIFIL apparently due to difficulties in recruiting men willing to serve in Lebanon billed as one of the most sensitive areas because of its proximity to the Israeli controlled region.

The Indian Army may be new to UNIFIL but not to UN peace keeping. The Indian troops served honourably in the UN mission to Somalia and also in the UN’s emergency force in Sinai prior to the 1967 six-day war earning a good reputation for being good peace keepers.

The Norwegian contingent was one of the founders of UNIFIL set up in 1978 to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty over the south where Israel made hit and run attacks chasing Palestinian guerrillas.

UNIFIL was set up in 1978.

Deal to send Pinochet home for trial?

LONDON, Nov 29 (AFP) — Chile today stepped up pressure on Britain to release former director Augusto Pinochet to stand trial in his own country.

Chile’s Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza said neither Britain nor Spain, which is seeking Pinochet’s extradition on charges of murder and torture, were the right places to try the 83-year-old General.

“I believe that in Spain or Britain you get only symbolic justice because you will never be able to find out or investigate what really happened in Chile,” he told BBC television.

“The only real chance, and I’m not saying it’s a sure chance, to have some kind of justice and truth is in Chile, where the events happened.”

The British Press reported today that Britain and Chile were close to a deal under which Pinochet would be sent home to stand trial.

Press reports said a senior British Minister privately believed that the Chilean proposal was the best way to bring Pinochet to justice without destabilising Chile’s fragile democracy or further harming Britain’s trade relations with Santiago.

Pinochet faces 14 private prosecution cases from victims of his 1973-1990 military dictatorship in Chile. Mr Insulza currently here to plea for the General’s release on humanitarian and political grounds, said state prosecution could follow.

SANTIAGO: Gen Humberto Gordon, a former head of Chile’s secret police, has said he was willing to testify in a case against Gen Pinochet.

“As long as it’s in Chile, I don’t have any problem testifying. I don’t give a damn for Socialist or Communist judges, Gordon told Chile’s state television yesterday.

The 83-year-old Pinochet has been detained in London on a Spanish arrest warrant charging him with genocide, torture and terrorism and could be extradited from there soon.

But Gordon called for army leaders to accept some of the responsibility for human rights abuses during the military dictatorship.

“The world is focussing all the blame and all its hate on Pinochet at the moment. But I tell you, he never gave an order and I never received an order from him to kill anybody”.

“We’re all to blame”, said Gordon, former Head of Chile’s National Centre for Intelligence.

Pakistan rules out possibility of accidental war

ISLAMABAD, Nov 29 (PTI) — Pakistan today ruled out the possibility of any "accidental nuclear war" with India as Islamabad had already developed an effective command and control system.

"I see no possibility of an accidental nuclear war between Pakistan and India", Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz told the official app news agency.

Pakistan already had an "effective command and control system" in place which would be kept under constant review to further reinforce it, the foreign minister said.

Aziz, however, also said that Pakistan was also ready to negotiate with India, "any other measure" to prevent an accidental war between the two countries in future.

He said Pakistan had already proposed to India a package of measures for "strategic stabilisation and restraint."

Incidentally, Pakistan had been urging the international community to intervene in the Indo-Pak matter to settle the Kashmir dispute, which it said had now become a nuclear flash-point following a series of nuclear tests by both countries in May this year.

I was raped in Oct: Miss World

LONDON, Nov 29 (AP) — The new Miss World, Israel’s Linor Abargil, says she endured a two-hour sexual assault last month while in Italy for a fashion show, British newspapers reported in today’s editions.

Miss Abargil, the reigning Miss Israel, who was crowned Miss World yesterday night, was attacked on October 6 after going to a travel agency to buy a plane ticket to Rome, where she planned to meet her mother before flying home, several newspapers reported.

The Egyptian owner of the travel agency has since been arrested and charged with the rape, the newspapers said.

The man, who was not named in the report, offered to drive Miss Abargil to Rome himself because he had business there and all flights were booked, the newspapers said. Shortly after starting out, he pulled off the road, tied her up and assaulted her.

After the attack, he tried to apologise as he drove her back to Milan, the reports said. In the morning, Miss Abargil caught a train to Rome and went with her mother to tell the police there what had happened, the newspapers reported.

The police in Milan released details of an assault on an Israeli model at the time, and on Friday confirmed the victim’s identity to Ansa, Italy’s government-backed national news agency, the newspapers reported.

Suspect dies in custody

KARACHI, Nov 29 (AFP) — A local travel agent suspected by the police of involvement in the murder of a former Governor of Sindh died in police custody, the police and his family said today.

Mubashir Ali, who was accused of arranging travel abroad of two suspects in the October 17 slaying of former Governor Hakim Mohammad Saeed, was picked up from his home on Saturday.

Police said Ali suffered a heart attack during interrogation when police took him to search for documents at his travel agency office in the city’s eastern district. He died later in the day. His family said Ali had no previous history of heart problems.

Ali was said to have been instrumental in the travel abroad of Rehan Kana and Masroor Iqbal, who are wanted in Hakim Saeed’s murder case.

He is the second suspect in the high-profile murder to have died in police custody-- Fasih Ahmed died during interrogation last month.

Julie Andrews may never sing again
from Martin Kettle in Washington

JULIE Andrews will probably never sing again after failing to recover from throat surgery a year ago, her husband, film director Blake Edwards, has revealed.

The five-octave - and always terribly English - soprano voice that made “The Sound of Music” into the most successful film musical of all time has not recovered fully from the operation to remove non-cancerous throat nodules, Mr Edwards told Parade magazine.

“I don’t think she’ll sing again — it’s an absolute tragedy,” Mr Edwards said.

The 63-year-old actress had surgery at the end of a successful Broadway stage run in Mr Edwards’s “Victor/Victoria” — she also starred in the movie version.

Her voice, which was the foundation of a career spanning more than 40 years of West End and Broadway appearances, has not been the same since. “She was told she’d be OK in six weeks, the voice would actually be better,” Mr Edwards said. “It’s over a year, and if you heard it, you’d weep.”

Earlier this year, Ms Andrews told an interviewer that the operation was not serious, but Mr Edwards has now confirmed that the surgery has taken an irreversible toll.

“There isn’t a day when her voice doesn’t get weak,” he told the magazine. Ms Andrews’s spokesman said an Thursday that the star was “very saddened’’ by the loss of her voice. “The doctor who did the surgery said they don’t know when it might heal,” Gene Schwam told reporters. She might have declined to have the procedure had she known it would destroy her voice.

— The Guardian, London

Hewitt’s confession
LONDON: James Hewitt, the former lover of Diana, Princess of Wales, admitted he is an alcoholic in an interview published on Saturday. The 40-year-old says he relied heavily on alcohol to ease his “distress” over several events, including the theft earlier this year of love letters sent to him by Diana. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Hewitt, who was widely condemned when he helped write a kiss-and-tell book on an extra-marital affair which the Princess admitted, said he had not considered counselling for the problem. — AFP

Suharto’s wealth
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Attorney-General Muhammad Ghalib said there was no plan to delay the investigation into the wealth of former President Suharto, the official Antara news agency reported on Sunday. “There is no intention on the part of the government to delay the probe into the Cendana family and their cronies”, Ghalib was quoted as telling reporters in Ujung Pandang, the provincial capital of south Sulawesi on Saturday. Cendana refers to the area in central Jakarta where Suharto lives. — Reuters

10 sentenced
BEIJING: Ten persons were executed in an eastern Chinese city on the same day. They were sentenced to death, a report said on Saturday. The mass execution was carried out on November 21 in the Shandong province capital of Jinan, the Qilu Wanbao daily said. The 10 had been condemned that day by the Provincial Intermediate Court for a series of rapes, robberies, burglaries and killings in the province since 1996. Amnesty International has said China handed down at least 3,152 death sentences last year and executed 1,876 of the condemned. — AFP

Conviction nullified
ROME: Italy’s highest court has overturned jail sentences against former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and former Interior Minister Claudio Martelli on corruption charges. The court of cessation on Saturday ruled that convictions of Craxi, Martelli and two other defendants in an earlier trial were null and void and ordered a new appeals trial for the four. — Reuters