US House okays impeachment probe
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 — The House of Representatives today approved launching of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, only the third such investigation in the USA history.

Yeltsin firm on staying
MOSCOW, Oct 8 — Russian President Boris Yeltsin said today he had no plans to step down before 2000, when his second term is due to end, Ria news agency said.

Gunmen kill 3 in Karachi
KARACHI, Oct 8 — Gunmen shot dead three persons here today as workers escorted by policemen removed the wreckage of scores of vehicles burnt by rampaging mobs during a strike yesterday, the police said.

W. Asia summit in USA from Oct 15

DUBAI, Oct 8 (UNI) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will hold a three-way summit with US President Bill Clinton in Washington next week to try and end the 19-month deadlock in the West Asian peace process.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters after talks with Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat at Erez on the Israeli-Gaza Border yesterday that the summit would be held on October 15.

Reports from Washington said the meeting between Mr Arafat and Mr Netanyahu would take place at the WYE conference centre in eastern Maryland. However, it was not clear if Mr Clinton would travel there for the summit or whether he would open the talks at the White House and then leave Mr Arafat and Mr Netanyahu to continue their discussions.

Indications were that the talks could last for more than one day. Israeli newspapers said the opening of the winter session of the Knesset, originally scheduled for October 19, would be delayed by at least one day to allow Mr Netanyahu more time in the USA.

Much has been made in the media of the fact that Mr Netanyahu joined a lunch that Mr Arafat was hosting for Ms Albright yesterday.

Israeli newspapers said Mr Arafat also presented Mr Netanyahu with a box of Cuban cigars.

Ms Albright told reporters later that those present at the lunch noted that it was the first time that an Israeli Prime Minister had had a lunch in a Gaza guest-house. She said the mood at the lunch was “very good.’’

Yesterday’s interaction was the latest in a series of meetings that Ms Albright had had with Mr Arafat and Mr Netanyahu in recent days, starting with one in New York, where both leaders were attending the UN General Assembly. Later, they met in Washington for more meetings, including one with President Clinton.

Ms Albright said that “significant and substantial progress’’ had been made during the last two days.

“With this substantial progress having now been achieved and some understandings reached, I believe we are now in a far better position to finalise all the issues at the Washington summit,’’ she said.

Mr Netanyahu struck a cautious note at a press conference in Jerusalem yesterday, saying that only “modest steps” had been taken and that much hard work was left.

“Are the Palestinians ready to fulfil their commitments, to revoke the PLO charter, to fight terror, to fulfil completely their part of the agreement under the principle of reciprocity?” he asked.

“If the answer is yes, there will be an agreement, period,” he was quoted as saying by Israeli newspapers.

“I can say that we climbed the foothills, but we still have a very large mountain to scale in Washington. None of the central issues has been concluded between us and the Palestinians,” he said.

The reports said US special envoy Dennis Ross and Assistant Secretary of State would remain in the region for a few more days to work on various issues.

At present, the Palestinians have full or partial control over most of Gaza and 27 per cent of the West bank under the interim accords reached with Israel since 1993.

Washington (Reuters): President Bill Clinton has said he would be personally involved in next week’s West Asian peace talks between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Yasser Arafat.

“I will be involved constantly throughout the process,” the President told reporters yesterday at a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

“I’m prepared to invest as much time as it takes — it might take more than a day,” he said.

Views misconstrued, says Gen Karamat

ISLAMABAD, Oct 8 (PTI) — Gen Jehangir Karamat, who resigned as Pakistan’s Army Chief following a controversy over his proposal to set up a national security council, has said his views were “misinterpreted” even as former top brass apprehended an escalated tussle between armed forces and the Nawaz Sharif government on the issue.

“Whatever my intention was and what ever I said was not that which was reported in the press..... It was my individual thinking because it was said during a question-answer session, but I would say my idea was not promoted rightly”, Gen Karamat told the BBC in an interview yesterday.

“My proposal was not that strong that the national security council must be formed, there was no need to give it such an importance”, a beleaguered Karamat said adding “my statement triggered a controversy which was gearing up further so I thought it better for myself and for the country to step down now.”

Meanwhile, former Army Generals have opined that the manner in which Gen Karamat had resigned and a new chief appointed would escalate the tussle between armed forces and the government.

“The conduct of the government would escalate the crisis being faced by the Pakistan Muslim League government”, Lt-Gen (retd) Faiz Ali Chisti said.

“The recent statement of General Karamat was issued with the consensus of the three services and ignoring the feeling of the armed forces will push the country towards a new crisis”, Chisti said.

Gen Musharraf, who belongs to the so-called Mohajir (migrant) community of Karachi, was at number three in seniority after the Chief of the General Staff, Lt-Gen Ali Quli Khan and Quarter Master General Lt-Gen, Malik Khalid Nawaz.

Incidentally Lt-Gen Khan, who was the senior most officer after General Karamat, is a close relative of Gohar Ayub Khan, who till recently was Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and resigned from his post following reported differences with the Prime Minister.

Indians in US labs suspect
From Aziz Haniffa

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 — The investigative arm of the US Congress has said information gathered by Indian scientists working in American nuclear laboratories may well have contributed to the development of India’s nuclear weapons programme.

Senior officials of the Congress’ watchdog agency, the General Accounting Office (GAO), told a congressional panel that background checks and control of access to visiting foreign scientists were so lax that they could have been privy to classified information invaluable to accelerating the weapons programmes of their countries.

Keith Fultz, Assistant Comptroller-General at the GAO, told a subcommittee of the House National Security Committee on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) foreign visitor programme that “when the (nuclear) detonations occurred in India, it is our understanding that the DOE did not know if there were any visitors within the laboratories from India at that time.”

He said: “Each year, thousands of foreign nationals visit the weapons laboratories which possess not only classified information but also other sensitive information that, although unclassified, could enhance nuclear weapons capability, lead to nuclear proliferation or reveal advanced technologies such as computer systems designed for military applications.”

Fultz said: “Counterintelligence experts believe that the laboratories are targets of foreign espionage efforts and investigations have shown that security has been jeopardised.”

The GAO official claimed: “Our concerns have been heightened by recent events in India and Pakistan. It is clear that these countries have successfully developed nuclear weapons capabilities and available evidence shows that others are trying with information garnered from scientists working in US laboratories."

Fultz recalled that “even though the cold war was not yet over, thousands of foreign nationals came to the weapons laboratories each year during the mid to late 1980s.”

“As a result,” Fultz said, because of the DOE’s weaknesses in properly screening these foreign visitors, several with “questionable backgrounds — including suspected foreign agents — and individuals from foreign facilities suspected of conducting nuclear weapons activities, obtained access to the laboratories without the DOE’s knowledge.”

With the demise of the cold war, Fultz said the number of foreign visits to the laboratories increased significantly “and again you see China, India and the former Soviet Union making up much more than the number in 1988.”

He said because procedures for identifying sensitive subjects lacked clear criteria and controls, several visits occurred without the DOE’s review and approval.

“For example,” he said, “we found that a laboratory did not obtain the DOE’s approval to assign an Indian citizen from a defence-related facility in India to a long-term project involving the structure of beryllium compounds. Beryllium metal is used in nuclear weapons.”

Fultz submitted a GAO report which cited another example of “an Indian citizen who was on assignment to Los Alamos for work related to pattern recognition/anomaly detection algorithms.”

Fultz said his testimony was “not to imply that all of these visitors are there for ill. Some of them are very honest.” But he recalled that during an unannounced visit of a GAO investigative team, “we were able to walk anywhere, doors were left open, computers were left on, no one questioned us or our right to be there.”

Congressional panel chairman Duncan Hunter noted that Indians, along with Chinese, “are our biggest visitors. They just blew off nuclear tests. We had no idea, according to our intelligence community, this was going to happen.”

Congressional sources acknowledged that the Clinton Administration’s recent expulsion and revocation of visas to several Indian scientists working in the DOE facilities may have been a pre-emptive move to stave off criticism envisaged in the wake of the nuclear tests.

Gary Milhollin, a noted nuclear non-proliferation advocate, claimed: “It is a fact that India’s efforts to build fast computers are almost entirely derived from what their scientists learnt from the USA.”

He said that having its scientists expelled from the USA and denied entry in the future “is one of the costs India will have to bear as a result of its tests.” — IANS

US House okays impeachment probe

WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters, PTI) — The House of Representatives today approved launching of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, only the third such investigation in the USA history. The final vote was 258-176 with 31 Democrats joining 227 Republicans to start the impeachment inquiry.

The vote followed two hours of heated floor debate and a 236-198 rejection of a Democratic effort to limit the time and scope of the investigation. The outcome was never in doubt since Republicans control the chamber, but there was a question of whether Democrats would leave the President in great numbers for fear of voter retribution in congressional elections less than a month away. It appeared democratic defections were lower than expected.

Iraq, UN fail to reach pact

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 (Reuters) — Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz wrapped up a two-week visit to the UN without rescinding Baghdad’s August decision to ban most UN weapons inspections.

Mr Aziz told reporters after his last meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan that he needed to consult in Baghdad before any decision on the inspections was made.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said yesterday that Iraq appeared free of nuclear weapons but cautioned that its information was still incomplete.

“The Aiea has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its goal of producing nuclear weapons, or of Iraq having retained physical capability for the production of weapons-usable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material,” the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog said in a statement.

The IAEA’s conclusions were based on its six-month report to the Security Council on Iraqi disarmament and were almost identical to its previous findings.

KUWAIT (ANI): Kuwait has drafted a law to confiscate ships used to violate UN trade sanctions imposed against its former occupier, Iraq.

“This law will apply to vessels which violate U.N. resolutions and which are held in Kuwait’s territorial waters,” according to the draft law. The draft has been forwarded to Parliament for approval.

U.S. and other mainly Western navies, enforcing U.N. sanctions, often escort vessels suspected to being involved in violations to a holding area inside Kuwait’s territorial waters for inspection.

“Under the draft law any Kuwaiti vessel, or any vessel owned by a embargoed state... caught violating the sanctions will be confiscated along with its cargo”, the draft said. Confiscation orders will be referred to Kuwait’s Court of Cassation for a ruling.

Yeltsin firm on staying

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (Reuters) — Russian President Boris Yeltsin said today he had no plans to step down before 2000, when his second term is due to end, Ria news agency said.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across Russia yesterday demanding his resignation. Speaker of Parliament, Mr Gennady Seleznyov, was quoted by Interfax news agency suggesting a referendum on the issue.

Mr Seleznyov, joining a swelling crowd of politicians who would like to succeed in the Kremlin, said he would be prepared to run at the head of a Centre-Left election campaign if asked.

Gunmen kill 3 in Karachi

KARACHI, Oct 8 (AFP) — Gunmen shot dead three persons here today as workers escorted by policemen removed the wreckage of scores of vehicles burnt by rampaging mobs during a strike yesterday, the police said.

Armed men raided a clinic in eastern Bhitai colony and fled after killing the doctor, the Mohamed Rafiq, the police said, adding the motive was unknown. The police found the bullet-riddled bodies of two young men in Western Machar colony.

Meanwhile life limped back to normal after a paralysing general strike yesterday. The call for the strike was given by the influential ethnic Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MOM) to protest the killing of its activists. At least 23 persons have been killed in the city since Monday, including seven MQM activists.

China expels scribe
BEIJING: The Chinese authorities have given a correspondent for a major Japanese newspaper 72 hours to leave the country for allegedly procuring state secrets via illegal means, according to colleagues of the expelled journalist. Mr Yukihisa Nakatsu, Beijing correspondent for Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, was ordered out of the country after the police interrogated him and searched his home, confiscating documents after his return from an assignment in Tibet, the colleagues said. — DPA

‘Rumba Queen’ dead
WASHINGTON: Alicia Parla, the one-time “Queen of the Rumba”, who once gave a dance lesson to Prince Edward, has died of cancer. She was 84. Reports from Miami quoted local daily as saying Parla, who was reckoned as a danseuse during her career, had writer Ernest Hemingway and gossip columnist Walter Winchell among her friends and admirers. Born in Havana, Parla imparted Afro-Cuban dancing system to ambitious Americans and Europeans, which later swept the world as “the rumba craze”. — ANI

Diana’s ex-bodyguard
PARIS: The British bodyguard who survived the crash that killed Princess Diana last year is suing the publishers of a French magazine for $ 180,000 for allegedly running an interview with him without permission. Christian Curtil, the lawyer of Trevor Rees-Jones, said that his client had refused all interviews and had chosen to work in a sports footwear shop in his home in Central England. — AFP

AIDS deaths
WASHINGTON: Deaths from AIDS for people between the ages of 25 and 44 in the USA dropped 47 per cent last year to 5.9 per 100,000 persons, making it the 14th overall leading cause of death in the country, federal health officials have said. “These figures mean that new treatments have been very effective in extending the lives of people who already have HIV infection”, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said on Wednesday. — DPA

Female diplomat
TEHERAN: Iran for the first time is to appoint a female diplomat to serve full-time in the Islamic republic’s mission to the United Nations in New York — but only when a vacancy appears. Fatemeh Hashemi, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Women’s and Social Affairs, made the announcement on Wednesday but did not say who would get the job. — Reuters

Crash victims
ZURICH: Swissair will offer $ 137,000 to each family of the 229 victims killed in the crash of an MD 11 jet off the Canadian coast last month, a company spokesman has said. — AFP

“Ozone hole”
WASHINGTON: US scientists said this year’s “ozone hole” over the Antarctica was the largest ever observed, leaving an atmospheric depletion area greater than the size of North America over the southern land mass. US Commerce Department scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NODDA) and NASA said the current “hole” measured 26 million sq km, compared to last year’s 19 million sq km. — Reuters