• 2 panels to probe US Embassy bombings
• 10 killed in Taliban
  air raids

Starr may be asked to testify
WASHINGTON, Oct 10 — Democrats taking part in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings will not shy away from calling independent counsel Kenneth Starr to testify, a congressional source has hinted.

Forgive Taslima, pleads mother
DHAKA, Oct 10 — The mother of author Taslima Nasreen has sought forgiveness for her troubled daughter facing death threat from Islamic extremists and an arrest warrant issued by a local court in a revived case of blasphemy.

New experiment close to cloning
WASHINGTON, Oct 10 — Doctors in New York have, for the first time, used a technique, similar to the one that Scottish scientists used to clone a sheep dolly, which could allow infertile women to have genetically related-babies, the Washington Post has said.

Pak dubs Laden terrorist

ISLAMABAD, Oct 10 (PTI) — The Pakistani authorities have put up photographs of Saudi dissident, Osama bin Laden, at all the police stations in the country following the US declaring him a “proclaimed offender” for his alleged involvement in the recent bombings of the US embassies in East Africa.

The photographs of Laden with a notice were put up in all the police stations declaring him as a “terrorist” and wanted in connection with the bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August, media reports here said.

The move by the Pakistani authorities came following a tip off given by the Interpol that Laden and his group may be planning terrorist attacks on Saudi or American citizens based in Islamabad, the papers claimed.

Earlier, the notice issued by the Pakistani Government on October 1, simply said that the 41-year-old Laden is wanted by the Interpol, the reports said.

Laden had been staying near the Jalalabad town of Afghanistan for the past few years after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

The US suspects Laden’s involvement in the August bombings in which more than 250 persons were killed.

The USA had launched a missile attack on the alleged terrorist training camps run by Laden inside Afghanistan on August 20 but he apparently survived the attack.

The Taliban in Kabul, however, had refused to hand over Laden to the USA and declared they will try him themselves if his involvement was found in the bombings.

The bombings, however, evoked strong reaction in Pakistan as the religious parties here dubbed Laden as their hero and launched a scathing attack on the Nawaz Sharif Government for helping the USA for launching the missile attack.

A few days ago a British daily claimed that Laden has now turned his attention towards Kashmir and declared to launch jehad (holy war) against the Indian troops in Kashmir.

However, the Taliban have strongly denied the report. But during the missile attack, a large number of Pakistani nationals had also been killed who were apparently getting training at the alleged camps run by Laden for going to Kashmir and fight the Indian troops.

The issue had put Pakistan in a difficult position as they found it hard to deny to Pakistan’s involvement in the terrorist activities in Kashmir.

Washington (AFP): Osama bin Laden receives millions from the Saudi Arabian royalty to subsidise his anti-western campaign of terrorist attacks, according to US intelligence officials. The officials said, that Bin Laden — who had sworn to overthrow King Fahd and his pro-US regime — probably received the money from resentful members of the extended Saudi royal family.

2 panels to probe US Embassy bombings

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (AP, AFP) — The US State Department has named two panels to investigate the August 7 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The two review boards chaired by Admiral William Crowe, the US Ambassador to Britain and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will submit a report on the bombings in two months.

The Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright will then make recommendations to Congress on the findings, which could point to a security breach.

10 killed in Taliban air raids

DUBAI, Oct 10 (PTI) — Fierce fighting raged in northern Afghanistan today with Taliban jets dropping cluster bombs in civilian areas killing ten people and opposition forces loyal to Ahmed Shah Masood claiming they had captured some areas in the north.

Forces loyal to Masood were fighting with the Taliban militia after capturing an airport and adjoining villages in Takhar province bordering Tajikistan, opposition sources said adding the opposition forces have warded off two offensives launched by the Taliban.

Taliban jets first attacked Ghorband on Masood’s north west flank to put pressure on the strategic town of Jaubul Saraj, about 77 km north of Kabul.
Three raids were targeted at civilian areas in Charikhar, the provincial capital of Parwan province, where Masood and his forces are based, the sources said. Ten members of a family were killed in the attack, they said.

The Taliban rejected the opposition claim and said it had not lost any territory in the north to Masood’s forces.

The Taliban also said two Afghan civilians were killed and five wounded in an Iranian attack along the border in Khorasan in the west of Afghanistan on Thursday.

Iran on Thursday said that it had retaliated after being attacked by the Taliban along the border where Teheran’s over 2 lakh troops are facing an estimated 10,000 Taliban militia.

The Taliban yesterday set free five detained Iranians who charged that they were intensely tortured during their 15 months in custody, according to Teheran Radio.

Islamisation Bill may get stuck

ISLAMABAD, Oct 10 (PTI) — With the Islamisation Bill coming under fresh attack from the Opposition, its fate hangs in balance in the Senate where the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ruling party does not have the required majority.

Dubbing the 15th constitutional amendment as “shahenshahiat (king of kings) Bill,” the main Opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said it will block the Bill in the 87-member Upper House where the ruling party has only 26 members of its own.

“We will not let such a Bill passed in the Upper House”, Aitzaz Ahsan, who heads the PPP in the Senate, declared immediately after the National Assembly approved the Bill by the required two-thirds majority yesterday.

Contrary to the fact that Mr Sharif managed to secure 151 votes in the 217-member Lower House with the support of some Independents and members represent tribes, the Senate is going to be a different ball game in the wake of strained relations between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) with the ruling party, analysts said.

The MQM had abstained from the National Assembly during the voting on the Bill.

However, analysts said if the government manages to get the support of the smaller parties, members representing tribes and Independents, leading Opposition parties — PPP (19), the Awami National Party (eight) and the Jamhoori Watan Party (five) — have the required strength to block the Bill.

Mr Ahsan further said apart from concentrating power in the hands of the Prime Minister the freedom of the judiciary will also be usurped as the Bill has placed the chief executive above the judiciary and the Constitution.

“It is very sad day that members of the ruling party have blindly endorsed dictatorship in the country”, Mr Ahsan, who himself is an eminent lawyer, said.

The Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Senate, Mr Raza Rabbani, said the Bill if passed will change the essence and structure of the constitution and apart from usurping the power of the judiciary, will also damage the rights of women and minorities.

The minority members of Parliament also expressed their strong opposition to the Bill as one member told media that Mr Sharif met them before the passage of the Bill, but failed to remove their apprehensions about the Bill. The minorities abstained from the National Assembly during the passage of the Bill yesterday.

Christians, the largest minority in Pakistan, are already campaigning against the blasphemy law in the country which they claim, has been repeatedly misused against them.

The Awami National Party of Khan Abdul Wali Khan, which was one of the allies of the PML in the February 1997 elections parted ways from the government early this year following serious differences over the renaming of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). It has also come out strongly against the Bill.

Remarks on Kashmir
US Administration defends Ambassador

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (UNI) — The Clinton Administration has defended the US Ambassador to India Richard F. Celeste’s statement on Kashmir, which has reportedly provoked some controversy in the Indian press, saying it was consistent with the US policy.

In reply to a question, State Department spokesman James Foley yesterday said he was not sure precisely what the criticism was in the local press, the Ambassador was responding to a question about Kashmir.

“Let me first state what our policy is — our view of Kashmir, and this is not new, this is long-standing”, he said adding that “the USA has long held the position that all pre-independent state of Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory. The USA believes that an ultimate resolution must be achieved through negotiations between India and Pakistan, taking into account the interests and desires of the people of Kashmir”.

Then Mr Foley quoted what the Ambassador Celeste said “because I think it’s fully consistent with US policy. He indicated that we press both governments to undertake direct talks to address very severe differences between the two countries about Kashmir. He repeated what I said is our long-standing position, that those differences can only be resolved through bilateral discussions at the highest level between the two countries”.

Mr Foley said the Ambassador was then asked whether the USA believed it (Kashmir) was an internal issue and not an external issue. He (Celeste) said that the Government of India had indicated it had issue with respect to Kashmir that it must take up with Pakistan. “In that context, one can’t view it as a purely internal matter and again, our position is that it’s a disputed territory that has to be addressed and resolved peacefully between the two countries”, he added.

Forgive Taslima, pleads mother

DHAKA, Oct 10 (PTI) — The mother of author Taslima Nasreen has sought forgiveness for her troubled daughter facing death threat from Islamic extremists and an arrest warrant issued by a local court in a revived case of blasphemy.

“I appeal to all to forgive my daughter for offending the religious sentiments of the Muslims,” Taslima’s 60-year-old mother Eid-ul-Ara Begum was today quoted by a leading English daily “Bangladesh Observer” as saying.

Taslima’s home coming on September 14 has triggered a new wave of street protests by the extremist groups calling for her execution for allegedly blaspheming Islam.

The Muslim radicals have announced a cash reward of $ 5,000 to anyone who kills the 36-year-old writer who is still hiding since her return here.

“My daughter has promised me that she will no more write anything that will hurt the sentiments of Muslims,” she said.

Eid-ul-Ara Begum, who underwent treatment in New York for colon cancer said that her daughter returned to her country ending four-year self-imposed exile in Europe and America to remain “beside me in my last”. “I’m a dying woman and I pray to almighty Allah for my daughter’s safety”.

A Magistrate’s court in Dhaka on September 26 revived a blasphemy case filed by a Dhaka resident and issued a fresh arrest warrant against her besides ordering police to confiscate her property.

Asked whether Taslima would apply for bail before a higher Bangladeshi court to avoid arrest, Dr Hossain said “such a step would be taken if need arises”.

The higher courts are due to reopen on October 18 after autumn vacation.

Meanwhile, quoting Taslima’s family sources, the Bangladesh Observer today said that she (Taslima) had consulted with her lawyers to obtain bail in the revived blasphemy case before a Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate court.

Her lawyers reportedly told her that she had to surrender before the Magistrate’s court to get bail. “Taslima is willing to go to court but she is deeply worried about appearing in public,” a member of Taslima’s family said.

The initial warrant against Taslima, issued when she had already left the country in 1994, followed a petition by a Dhaka resident that she had hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims through her remarks in her book Nirbachita columns.

Though Taslima was freed on bail in the state-sponsored criminal case filed in 1994 and left the country secretly for Sweden on August 9, 1994, she now needs a bail in the second case.

Reinforcing the government views that legal process has to be fully followed in her case and making abundantly clear that battle has to be fought by Taslima in the legal arena, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad said “law will take its own course” with regard to the case against her.

The Foreign Minister said that Taslima should refrain from trying to build up a campaign in international arena and she should stop writing and sending messages to various international media in a bid to focus her problem and build up a case internationally in her favour.

Starr may be asked to testify

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (AFP) — Democrats taking part in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings will not shy away from calling independent counsel Kenneth Starr to testify, a congressional source has hinted.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee “obviously have an interest in hearing from the major players”, including Starr, since his report led to Thursday’s vote to hold hearings, the source told AFP yesterday.

The 15 impeachable acts that Mr Clinton is accused of committing turned up during Starr’s eight-month-old probe into whether the President broke the law in concealing an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Stressing that no such decision on whether to call Starr had yet been made, the official said Democrats might also call Lewinsky and her confidant-turned-betrayer Linda Tripp.

The official’s comments came as Republicans who control the House of Representatives panel met to plan their strategy.

The House voted 258 to 176 on Thursday to open the hearings. No US President has ever been impeached and them removed from office by the Senate.

Meanwhile, Mr Clinton’s advisers were preparing for talks next week with lawmakers on how the impeachment hearings will be conducted.

Republican Henry Hyde, the panel’s chairperson, has said the President whose lawyers can attend all committee hearings would be “welcome” to testify, but he would not call Mr Clinton to do so.

New experiment close to cloning

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (PTI) — Doctors in New York have, for the first time, used a technique, similar to the one that Scottish scientists used to clone a sheep dolly, which could allow infertile women to have genetically related-babies, the Washington Post has said.

The new approach does not constitute cloning since any resulting child would have genes from a father as well as a mother. But it is similar enough to cloning, quoting Jamie Grifo, the New York University doctor, who was leading the experiments, The Post said yesterday.

The Post, elaborating the new technique, said doctors transferred the genes from an infertile woman’s egg into another egg, fertilised it with sperm and placed the resulting embryo into the womb in the hope of growing a baby.

The work, said The Post, broke new ethical ground by being the first to mix significant amounts of DNA from two women’s eggs into a single egg. That meant that any resulting child would have two genetic mothers — although one woman contributed vastly more than the other and so would clearly be the dominant biological mother.

Grifo described the novel approach on Thursday to an electrified audience in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Mahatma’s statue in USA
WASHINGTON: The US Congress has approved legislation, allowing the Government of India to install a statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Federal land opposite the Indian Embassy here. The legislation, which was passed by the House of Representatives on September 15, was passed with “unanimous consensus” by the Senate on Thursday. It now awaits the formality of presidential approval. — UNI

‘Sex-dollar’ bills
CHARLOTTE: A substitute teacher was fired for handing out bogus “sex-dollar” bills parodying US President Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, school officials have said. The Bills were distributed by the teacher as “prizes” to students at John Chavis Middle School in Gaston county, North Carolina, school spokeswoman Bonnie Reidy said on Friday. — Reuters

Bill on religious freedom
WASHINGTON: The US Senate has approved a Bill that would slap sanctions on countries found practising systematic persecution of peaceful religious groups. The Bill, which sailed through the Senate in a 98-0 vote, establishes a range of diplomatic and economic sanctions. It also provides for nomination of an ambassador for international religious freedom in the State Department and creation of a committee of lawmakers and White House representatives responsible for recommending sanctions to the President. — AFP

Churchill’s letters
LONDON: A selection of letters spanning the 56-year marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill has gone on display offering a window on a relationship that bolstered the late British leader during the burden and stresses of war. Fifteen of the thousands of letters the couple wrote to each other from their marriage in 1908 until the former British Prime Minister’s death in 1965 will be on display at the Cabinet War Rooms here until February. — AP

Nobel exhibition
STOCKHOLM: A Nobel exhibition, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the prize, will open in Stockholm in 2001 and then go on tour around the world, Swedish news agency TT has reported. Work on the exhibition is already in full swing. Last year, Culture Minister Marita Ulvskog proposed the creation of a centre honouring Sweden’s perhaps most famous scientist and scholar, Nobel prize creator Alfred Nobel. — AFP

Record drug haul
BANGKOK: The police said on Saturday it had made its biggest amphetamine bust on record, seizing 1.6 million tablets during a raid on a downtown Bangkok apartment block. Officers arrested two hill tribesmen on Friday. The drugs had a street value of about $ 3.9 million. — AFP