PLA accepts $ 6 b to
end business
BEIJING, Oct 9 — China’s People’s Liberation Army, accused of illegal business activities, has reportedly agreed to close down its vast business empire in turn for a pledge from the government that it would foot the bill for the Army’s modernisation, a leading Hong Kong paper reported today.

MOSCOW: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, embraces Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during their meeting in the Kremlin, Moscow, on Thursday. The two leaders discussed the prospects for a breakthrough in Middle East peace talks. AP/PTI

More money for CIA spying
WASHINGTON, Oct 9 — Stung by the CIA’s failure to detect India’s nuclear tests, the US Senate has passed a bill seeking to ensure fund infusion into intelligence analysis.

Clinton for timely inquiry WASHINGTON, Oct 9 — US President Bill Clinton appealed to the Republican-led Congress for a “timely” impeachment inquiry but otherwise said it was “not in my hands.”

A singing legend that has defied age
LOS ANGELES, Oct 9 — Lata Mangeshkar who has reigned over the Indian film industry for the past 56 years once again dazzled her audience here at the elegant Universal Amphitheatre.

Referendum in Russia proposed
MOSCOW, Oct 9 — Even as the President, Mr Boris Yeltsin, yesterday ignored demands for his stepping down and reiterated his intention to complete his full term, Speaker of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament has proposed to hold a referendum to decide Mr Yeltsin’s future.

Last-ditch bid to avert NATO air strike
Options open on Kosovo:France

PARIS, Oct 9 (Reuters) — Any military strikes on Yugoslavia would not be on a large scale, to start with, to allow further time for a negotiated settlement over Kosovo, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine was quoted as saying today.

“NATO plans exclude resorting to immediate attacks which would be incompatible with a political solution. Eventual military action would be progressive and interrupted by periods where political activity would be relaunched,” an official document quoted Mr Vedrine as telling a parliamentary commission.

Meanwhile, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke arrived in Belgrade today in a final bid to get Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his troops from Kosovo and avert threatened NATO air strikes.

Mr Vedrine, speaking to the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee yesterday, said various options over Kosovo remained open. “The decision will be taken in the next few days,” he pointed out.

The French Foreign Minister said Britain favoured military action against Yugoslavia. “even more so than the USA,” Mr Vedrine was quoted as saying.

“These strikes could equally have a military use, damaging the Serb army’s capacity to retaliate,” Mr Vedrine told the commission.

LONDON: No decision on air strikes against Serbia was taken at a contact group meeting on the Kosovo crisis here, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has said.

No decision on air strikes had been expected at yesterday’s meeting because of Russia’s opposition to the use of force against its traditional ally Belgrade.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said only the UN Security Council could authorise NATO air strikes against Serbia.

Speaking after the meeting of the six-nation contact group — Ivanov warned of “dire consequences” if NATO pressed ahead with military action.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Mr Cook denied that Russia could veto air strikes.

The meeting of the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the USA came hours after Ms Albright warned that Serbia faced the “gravest consequences” unless it ended its crackdown on secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

MOSCOW (AFP): Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Friday said he was firmly opposed to NATO strikes against Yugoslavia, saying only political negotiations could solve the Kosovo crisis, Interfax reported.

“We cannot allow a NATO strike to happen there,” the news agency quoted Mr Yeltsin as saying. “We must maintain political, peaceful negotiations without a military resolution.”

A senior Russian defence official said that Yugoslavia could effectively defend itself from a Cruise missiles attack by NATO, Itar-Tass reported.

The defence official, who wished to remain anonymous, said the Yugoslav army has both ‘passive’ and ‘active’ defence mechanisms that would either destroy or push low-flying missiles off the target.

On Wednesday London’s Times reported that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s security forces had acquired advanced surface-to-air missile equipment from Russia capable of bringing down NATO aircraft.

BUCHAREST: Some 300 Romanian volunteer groups said they were willing to join the ranks of the Yugoslav army if NATO goes ahead with military action over the Kosovo crisis.

The volunteers, united under a foundation dubbed “the orthodox fraternity”, said NATO action would constitute an aggression against the “sovereign state of Yugoslavia”.

In a letter to the Yugoslav Embassy in Bucharest, they pledged their support for “the heroic sacrifice of the Serb people in its fight to defend world orthodoxy”.

The organisation condemned the Romanian Government for “hesitating to openly support the Serb and Montenegrian people”.

WASHINGTON: Warning of a wider war in Europe, President Bill Clinton has said the USA will ask NATO to carry out air strikes against Serbia for its terror campaign in Kosovo.

Mr Clinton said he decided yesterday to authorise action by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) following three days of inconclusive talks between US envoy Richard Holbrooke and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

“Yesterday I decided that the United States would vote to give NATO authority to carry out military strikes against Serbia if President Milosevic continues to defy the international community,” Mr Clinton said at a health care event.

“In the days ahead, my counterparts in Europe will be making similar decisions,” he said.

PLA accepts $ 6 b to end business

BEIJING, Oct 9 (PTI) — China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), accused of illegal business activities including smuggling has reportedly agreed to close down its vast business empire in turn for a pledge from the government that it would foot the bill for the Army’s modernisation, a leading Hong Kong paper reported today.

Military strongman General Zhang Wannian has accepted Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji’s offer of 50 billion yuan (over six billion US dollars) as "compensation" for closing down PLA enterprises, reports South China Morning Post.

But the sum is roughly 30 billion yuan (3.6 billion US dollars) less than the generals had demanded.

Quoting a military source, the paper reports that Gen Zhang, Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s top military organ, had been criticised by fellow generals for "too readily" acceding to the demands of the Communist Party and the government leadership.

The generals also want considerable increase in next year’s military budget to help cover losses they would sustain by ending the PLA’s labyrinthine business empire from arms trade to real estate business.

Clinton for timely inquiry

WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) — US President Bill Clinton appealed to the Republican-led Congress for a “timely” impeachment inquiry but otherwise said it was “not in my hands.”

“I hope that we can now move forward in this process in a way that is fair, that is constitutional, and that is timely,” Mr Clinton told reporters yesterday after the House of Representatives vote to open a formal impeachment inquiry into his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky and attempts to hide it.

Asked about his mood, the President said, “personally, I am fine. I have surrendered this. This is beyond my control.”

White House officials tried not to show any relief at the unexpectedly low level of Democratic defections to support the Republican inquiry plan, 31 Democrats were included in the 258-176 vote in favour of the probe.

There is nothing I can do, he added.

Earlier expectations were that some 50 Democrats would vote with the Republican Party. However, this cut into President Clinton’s argument that the action against him had been motivated by partisan considerations.

The investigation, as proposed by the Republicans, could extend beyond independent counsel Ken Starr’s report on the Lewinsky matter and would have no deadline for completion.

A majority of the women members, who spoke, stood by President Clinton in opposing the demand for his impeachment.

Though the Democrats disapproved of the conduct of Mr Clinton as wrong and immoral, they felt it was not serious enough to throw him out of office.

Some democrats just wanted the sex scandal to go away, and quickly. Others said they believed President Bill Clinton should be impeached. For a variety of reasons, 31 Democrats sided with Republicans to open only the third impeachment inquiry in US history.

During the two-hour debate on the House of Representatives floor yesterday, only one Democrat spoke out against the President, and he will not be back next year to carry out any impeachment vote.

Republicans hold 228 seats, Democrats 206 and Bernard Sanders of Vermont is the lone Independent. He usually votes with Democrats.

One of the most influential Democrats to vote for the Republican’s proposal, Mr Lee Hamilton of Indiana, had another reason. While he did not believe the charges against President Clinton rose to the level of impeachable offences, Mr Hamilton said he could not vote to stop further inquiry.

Democrat Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said he voted for both proposals because he believed the House delving deeper into Starr’s investigation was the best way to get Mr Clinton’s side of the story told and conclude it quickly as voters want.

Voters get their chance to influence the impeachment inquiry when they elect a new Congress next month.

But the signal they gave may not be loud and clear.

If voters increase the Republican majority in the House and the Senate, they will give new partisan momentum to the drive to remove Mr Clinton from office.

If Democrats escape with small losses or even make unexpected gains in either of the two chambers, they may find new resolve to resist the Republican campaign to prematurely end Mr Clinton’s second term.

Most polls appear to point to minimal change in the House but a possibility of a Republican net gain of anywhere from one to eight seats in the Senate.

Republicans control the Senate. A simple House majority is needed to impeach Mr Clinton, but a two-thirds Senate vote would be needed to convict and remove him from office.

More money for CIA spying

WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Dow Jones) — Stung by the CIA’s failure to detect India’s nuclear tests, the US Senate has passed a bill seeking to ensure fund infusion into intelligence analysis.

With the White House indicating its support to this bill, which also provides for shifting money from spy satellite programmes into improvements in technology to intercept foreign communications, House and Senate staffers familiar with the legislation said.

The Senate passed the measure with a voice vote yesterday without debate. The house had passed the bill on Wednesday.

In a major initiative, but one that involves relatively modest amounts of money, the bill sharply increases spending on intelligence analysis involving sifting through reams of satellite photographs and signal intercepts to find key national security developments.

“We took a significant amount of money from overhead programmes,” said a staffer. “You spend more on one satellite than you spend on espionage operations in a year..you can fund all the analysts in the intelligence community for the cost of one satellite.”

Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees say they have been fighting a tendency at CIA and other intelligence agencies to emphasise collection of intelligence over its interpretation.

A singing legend that has defied age
from Archana Dongre

LOS ANGELES, Oct 9 — Lata Mangeshkar who has reigned over the Indian film industry for the past 56 years once again dazzled her audience here at the elegant Universal Amphitheatre.

Lata’s legendary voice, supple and melodious with the ability to reach the highest notes with ease, seems to have defied her age if one goes by her performance at this recent concert.

What followed at the show was wholesome, uplifting musical entertainment for the entire family, offered not only by the singer herself, but by her accompanying vocalists, most of whom were her own family: brother Hridaynath, sisters Usha and Meena, and the budding generation of Hridaynath’s children, Aadinath, Vaijnath and Radha.

In fact, a deep sense of family pervaded the entire show. During her comments in between numbers, the musical matriarch remarked, “In our family everyone sings, even my father and grandfather were reputed singers.”

Lata’s ample comments and anecdotes interspersed between songs, an attempt to seek rapport with the audience, was a refreshing change in this concert. Unlike her sister Asha, Lata is not known to be an extrovert. She had hardly said any words on stage in her first 1975 concert, and even in her last one, in 1995, she said very little. But now she seems to have changed, perhaps discerning the trends at such concerts.

Incidentally, Lata’s first concert tour in 1975 with the late Mukesh changed the concert business overnight. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the celebrity shows were modest and generally held in high school auditoriums. But Lata’s only condition at that time was that the shows be presented in the best auditoriums, those that the top American performers generally used.

Set amidst an orchestra of 17 instrumentalists and three chorus girls, with a large backdrop that changed its luminescent hues, and twin portraits of her parents, the late Master Deenanath and Mai Mangeshkar, sketched by daughter Usha, adorning the front of the stage, Lata started off her concert with ‘Wo Bhoole Dastan’ from the film “Sanjog,” then delving into ‘Tere Bin Zindagise Koi Shikawa To Nahin’ in which her fluid voice ascended to the high notes, and then moving on to a lyric from a recent film, ‘Mere Khwabonmein Jo Aaye’.

Compere Jalal, clad in a dainty white sari with the paloo covering both her shoulders in a style emulating Lata, introduced Sudesh Bhosle, who rendered ‘Chingari Koi Bhadake’ from the film “Amar Prem” in a voice resembling that of the late Kishore Kumar. Bhosle’s colourful personality struck a different note in the elegant concert, especially with his racy numbers like ‘Dil Mera Sona’, a song he had sung in “Major Saab” for Amitabh Bachchan.

Throughout the programme, Lata honoured the audience’s preference for songs.

“The promoters of this tour have declared to donate $ 100,000 to the cause,” Lata added, before calling on stage Radha, the youngest Mangeshkar, in a simple white, red-bordered salwar kameez.

Later, all the artistes came together to sing ‘Ai Mere Vatan ke Logon’, a patriotic number which Lata had sung decades ago for the Indian soldiers fighting to protect the northern borders during wartime. — IANS

Referendum in Russia proposed

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (PTI) — Even as the President, Mr Boris Yeltsin, yesterday ignored demands for his stepping down and reiterated his intention to complete his full term, Speaker of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament has proposed to hold a referendum to decide Mr Yeltsin’s future.

Addressing the top military brass in the Kremlin yesterday, Mr Yeltsin declared that the security forces would continue to be directly under the President and his decisions were “final and not negotiable.”

Earlier, commenting on the protests the deputy chief of presidential administration, Mr Oleg Sysuyev, stressed that President Yeltsin represented “many more million” Russians who did not take to the streets and were busy in their creative work.

Death for rape
MANILA: A Briton, Albert Ernest Wilson, was sentenced to death by a Manila court today for raping his Filipina stepdaughter. Wilson, 45, from Kent, was convicted of raping the 12-year-old daughter of his Filipina wife in September, 1996, court documents said. The rape of an underage relative is punishable by death in this country. — AFP

20 drowned
GIRONA (Spain): An excursion boat carrying 141 people has sunk in a tranquil lake in north-eastern Spain, killing at least 20 people, most believed to be French retirees. Thirteen people drowned in the water on Thursday and seven people died after being taken to local hospitals, said Ms Monica Estefania, a spokeswoman for the local emergency services. The boat sank on Thursday morning under clear skies and in calm waters as it set off to circle lake Banyoles, just north of Barcelona. — AP

USA war games
SEOUL: The US-led United Nations forces said today they would stage their annual “Foal Eagle” military exercise with South Korean units later this month, an event sure to provoke howls of protest from the North. A statement from the United Nations Command and US forces said the “rear area field training exercise” would be in late October and early November. — Reuters

‘Sex envoy’
ABIDJAN: Four people have been arrested and charged over a case of paedophilia alleged by the press to have involved Lebanon’s Ambassador in Abidjan and a former government minister, an official statement said on Friday. Press reports in Abidjan on Tuesday said Lebanese Ambassador Mohammad Daher, and a former minister of the Ivorian Government, Ezan Akele, were involved in a child sex scandal. — AFP