Breakthrough in Kosovo crisis
BELGRADE, Oct 13 — In a major political breakthrough over the Kosovo crisis, Yugoslav President Slobodon Milosevic has agreed to meet the demands of the international community.

US economic policy flayed
WASHINGTON, Oct 13 — Sex, not the global economy, is Washington’s preoccupation, according to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor Emeritus at Harvard.

Mars shows violent winds: study
MADISON (USA), Oct 13 — Mars is a planet of natural violence far greater than is known on earth, with winds gusting to 560 kph and evidence of immense floods that swamped vast areas.

News Corp faces crazy problems, says Murdoch
ADELAIDE, Oct 13 — Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said today that his News Corp Empire faced “crazy problems” with media regulations throughout the world.

Wanted, spies
SYDNEY, Oct 13 — A contractor for Australia’s most secretive and high-tech espionage organisation has placed a newspaper advertisement seeking 40 operatives to spy on regional neighbours.

Indo-Pak talks: Aziz foresees hope

ISLAMABAD, Oct 13 (PTI) — Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz has termed the forthcoming Indo-Pak talks as the “beginning of a process” to normalise relations between the two countries, but said much depended on “Indian intentions” with regard to Kashmir.

Stating that the Foreign Secretary-level talks resuming here from October 15 may not yield an “immediate breakthrough,” Mr Aziz said that “the fact that these talks are going to start after a hiatus of more than a year is itself quite significant”.

In a marked departure from Pakistan’s earlier stand that other issues cannot be discussed between Islamabad and New Delhi without a resolution of the Kashmir issue, Mr Aziz said, “progress can be made on all the outstanding issues, but insisted there should be some progress on Kashmir”.

“There has to be a parallel progress on all issues not necessarily at the same pace,” Mr Aziz said, adding that, “you can’t say that political relations, which depends on Kashmir, can move backward, become more negative and economic relations can move forward”.

“It all depends on intentions,” Mr Aziz said, adding that, “If the Indian side shows its willingness and holds negotiations on Kashmir in a concrete and serious manner, progress on other issues can take place”.

Mr Aziz, who held a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Durban during the NAM summit, appreciated the Indian stand on the talks saying that, “this time India is approaching the dialogue with a more positive attitude which would lead to more substantive and meaningful negotiations”.

Pakistan Foreign Secretary Shamsahd Ahmed had recently state that his country would speak on behalf of the Kashmiri people, while India had said Kashmir was its integral part.

Mr Aziz said the Foreign Secretaries would also discuss the mutual nuclear restraint issue as demanded by the USA, but the issue of a moratorium on fissile material production would not come under discussion, he added.

On fissile material production he said “this is not a matter of bilateral discussion but a multilateral issue”. The stand on this issue depended on the negotiations on the subjects in Geneva and once “Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) will be signed, we will abide by it”, he added.

The Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries will be taking up the first two items on the agreed agenda — peace and security and Jammu and Kashmir — during their meeting here from October 15 to 18 and then the rest of the issues will be discussed in New Delhi.

Mr Aziz, who sounded quite positive about the forthcoming talks, also gave clear indications that Pakistan was mentally prepared for continued negotiations.

He said the second round of talks on the rest of the six issues that included Siachen, terrorism and drug trafficking, would take place in New Delhi from November 5 to 13.

Breakthrough in Kosovo crisis

BELGRADE, Oct 13 (UNI) — In a major political breakthrough over the Kosovo crisis, Yugoslav President Slobodon Milosevic has agreed to meet the demands of the international community.

US special envoy Mr Richard Holbrooke, who had days of intensive talks with Mr Milosevic, told a press conference in Belgrade today that Mr Milosevic had agreed to fully comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1199 of September 23.

Mr Holbrooke added that the Yugoslavian authorities also agreed to guarantee OSCE personnel security, free movement to all the crisis areas in Kosovo and diplomatic immunity. The OSCE mission will also oversee eventual elections in Kosovo.

Mr Holbrooke also said that Mr Milosevic also agreed to aerial surveillance by non-combat aircraft and to give autonomy to Kosovo.

The details of the autonomy deal on which US mediator Christopher Hill has been working have not been made public yet.

Mr Holbrooke said OSCE chairman Geremek would soon come to Belgrade to sign a detailed agreement on OSCE verifiers’ deployment.

Mr Holbrooke however said the emergency was not yet over as the international community wanted compliance on the ground.

The UN Security Resolution 1199 demands an immediate ceasefire by both sides, immediate end of all actions by Serbian security forces against the civilian population, withdrawal of security units, unhindered return of refugees and meaningful dialogue between government authorities and Kosovo Albanians on a political solution of the crisis in the Serbian province.

They fight India’s evils

THE HAGUE, Oct 13 (PTI) — Distance, race or language can rarely have a deterring effect on social activists keen to raise their voice for the cause of the poor and exploited people.

Demonstrating that social evils, such as child labour, can be fought even from thousands of miles away from the scene of action, two Netherlands-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) — the ICCO and India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) — are contributing towards the uplift of poor and exploited people in India.

While the ICCO funds and stimulates local community sponsored programmes in various parts of India, the ICN is engaged in ensuring that Indian products coming into the Netherlands and other European countries have been prepared following minimum International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards.

“Our effort is to stimulate local organisations in India, train and develop programmes that would help poor people to earn their livelihood,” says Monique J. Van, press officer of the ICCO.

In India, the ICCO supports more than 44 projects of various NGOs in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Karnataka.

The ICCO, the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation, is a financing group through which money is routed to finance projects in India and other developing nations.

The projects supported by the ICCO in India include socio-economic development supplementary of Badlao Foundation (Bihar), women health development (Bangalore), Rangabelia project of Tagore Society for Rural Development (Calcutta), the programme of action for food production (Delhi), the integrated development programme of Sarvodaya Ashram (Hardoi, UP) and the vocational training centre of Word and Deed India (AP).

“The exhibitions are aimed at projecting the eco-friendly products made by the poor in India to help in the export of such items here and other European countries,” says Monique.

To support her statement, she displays “sustainably produced silk” made in Bihar by poor people under the guidance of Pradhan, an NGO.

The International Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) highlights social evils, such as child labour, prevalent in India and pressurises the Netherlands Government to focus attention on these, says ICN Director Gerard Oonk.

“We want conditions in India to change and make efforts in this direction,” he says, adding that the ICN also highlights the products made in “socially and ecologically safe way”.

“Our organisation supports several programmes in India, including production of goods in socially and ecologically safe way,” he adds.

Stating that the group puts pressure on the governments of Netherlands and other European countries to focus on India’s social problems and help in alleviating these, he says at the same time, it “criticises” to discourage them from supporting programmes benefiting only the rich people in India.

Chemistry Nobel for US scientists

STOCKHOLM (Sweden) Oct 13 (AP) — Two researchers at American universities, Walter Kohn of UC-Santa Barbara and John Pople of North-western, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry today.

The two were given the prize for developing methods that can be used for theoretical studies of the properties of molecules and the chemical processes in which they are involved,’’ said the citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

US economic policy flayed

WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (PTI) — Sex, not the global economy, is Washington’s preoccupation, according to economist John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor Emeritus at Harvard.

Galbraith accused the Clinton Administration, policymakers and commentators of being indifferent to the obvious signs of disaster, just as in the time of the administrations of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover before “the great depression”.

“Economic policy and associated actions require some knowledge and thought. On sex, ordinary or illicit, everyone has an equal start. No tedious study or discussion is required. No one is concerned that, as with Coolidge, this evasion will read badly in the history books or, more immediately, prevent needed political concern and action,” he said, in a New York Times article.

The Japanese depression, he noted, has been a painful fact for several years. “We have seen, if more briefly, the effect of youthful error, extravagance and corruption in many other Asian economies,” he said.

The US economy, according to Galbraith, is also fragile.

The fragility “is the natural product of a long period of speculation in the stock market, in related financial instruments and in real estate,” he said.

“Prices of securities went up because investors, small and great, thought or were encouraged to think, they would go up. From that belief came further purchases, pushing prices higher — the classic speculative bubble,” Galbraith added.

The end, he said, over the centuries, has always been the same. There suddenly comes the painful correction.

“I do not suggest that Washington has been wholly silent,” said Galbraith.

Mars shows violent winds: study

MADISON (USA), Oct 13 (AP) — Mars is a planet of natural violence far greater than is known on earth, with winds gusting to 560 kph and evidence of immense floods that swamped vast areas.

“Mars is a small planet that does things in a very big way,’’ John Pearl of Goddard Space Flight Center said at meeting yesterday of the planetary division of the American Astronomical Society.

Researchers analysing pictures taken by the Mars Observer said the red rock and soils of Mars were imprinted with marks of high-speed wind storms that cover virtually a whole side of the planet, and of waters that race out of dammed up craters at speeds of more than 160 kph.

“The floods could have lasted for months,’’ said Michael C. Malin, a research scientist on the Mars Observer team who analysed one such flood. The water flow, he said, was 1,000 times greater than floods that have struck the US Mid-west in recent years.

The waters poured out of a high crater that towers over nearby flat plains and churned across the planet’s surface, rolling huge boulders and carving canyons in a matter of weeks. Eventually, the water slowed and spread out into a flat basin and turned into a mud flow.

Mr Malin said the water then either evaporated into the dry Martian atmosphere or seeped back into the soil.

The water may have been the result of a massive impact from an asteroid, a mountain falling from space.

Mr Malin speculated that an impact smashed far beneath the surface and created a large crater with raised sides. Subsurface water flowed into the crater, eventually creating a lake that he estimated to be 500m deep and the size of the state of Utah.

When the sides of the crater eroded away, the water was released in one massive spill and began flowing in 100-metre-deep cascades travelling at about 200 kph.

Satellite instruments monitoring a Martian storm and clocked winds that raged at 560 kph almost five times stronger than a minimum hurricane, said Mr Pearl.

He said the satellite observed one storm from start to finish. In just 36 hours, said Pearl, a small disturbance covering about 150 sq km grew to a monster covering more than 2,500 sq km.

It was like a small storm that grew up to cover all of the western USA,’’ said Mr Pearl.

It is the dust in the Mars atmosphere that may make its storms so violent, he said. The suspended particles capture sunlight and heat up rapidly, rising by about 10°C just after sunrise. The captured heat sets off a vortex of moving air that grows and grows until it dwarfs an earthly hurricane.

Other photos have captured dust devils like those frequently seen in deserts.

News Corp faces crazy problems,
says Murdoch

ADELAIDE, Oct 13 (Reuters) — Media mogul Rupert Murdoch said today that his News Corp Empire faced “crazy problems” with media regulations throughout the world.

But he said technological advances would ultimately make media policy irrelevant.

“We have crazy problems with media policy in every corner of the world,” Mr Murdoch told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting.

He said News Corp had been forced to make three of its British television channels available to competitors at regulated prices.

“Socialism is not dead yet,” Mr Murdoch joked.

Asked at a news conference later about media policy in Australia, he said: “It’s no worse here than elsewhere.”

News Corp is not considered an Australian company for media ownership purposes because Murdoch, although born in Australia, is now a US citizen.

Wanted, spies

SYDNEY, Oct 13 (AFP) — A contractor for Australia’s most secretive and high-tech espionage organisation has placed a newspaper advertisement seeking 40 operatives to spy on regional neighbours.

Weekend newspapers carried an advertisement placed by Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) contractor British Aerospace Australia for technicians with expertise in Asia/Pacific languages.

DSD monitors phone, electronic and satellite communications in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. It also listens to international phone traffic into and out of Australia.

“Suitably qualified linguists and communications operators to fill full-time, part-time and casual contracts positions,” the advertisement said.

“The DSD is an Australian Government organisation responsible for the collection, analysis and distribution of foreign signals intelligence in support of the government and defence forces,” it said.

One of Australia’s leading experts on electronic spying told The Daily Telegraph it was “completely unprecedented.”

“This is like the Australian Secret Intelligence Service running a positions vacant advertisement for an Australian spy to work in Jakarta,” he said.

UN-Taliban talks
UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary -General Kofi Annan has agreed to have his special Afghanistan envoy to discuss tension with Iran and security for UN aid workers with the Taliban on Wednesday, a UN spokesman said. The envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, was invited by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to his headquarters in Kandahar, after two days of talks with the purist Islamic group in Islamabad. The Taliban, not recognised by the United Nations or most countries, has wanted Brahimi to visit them in their country. But he had refused, citing UN bans on travel because of poor security — Reuters

Elton John
NEW YORK: Pop star Elton John will be designated United Nations Messenger of Peace to help promote the fight against the AIDS epidemic, the UN has announced. Elton John, a singer and song writer known worldwide, will join Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and US actor Michael Douglas to help the world organisation promote HIV/AIDS programmes designed to fight the dreaded disease. John will receive the title from UN Chief Kofi Annan in a ceremony to be held at UN headquarters in New York. — DPA

Help for Dhaka
DHAKA: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank would help Bangladesh ease its balance of payment problems following this year’s floods, Finance Minister Shah Kibria said. Both IMF and World Bank have assured us of giving funds to ease the current balance of payment problem.... the assurance came from the World Bank meetings in Washington. Mr Kibria said he expected $ 130 million from the IMF and $ 200 million from the World Bank. —AFP

1,250 kids fall sick
CAIRO: A total of 1,250 Egyptian school children suffered severe food poisoning after eating cookies provided by their village school as part of a nutrition programme, the police said on Monday. Four of the children were still in a critical condition, it said. The incident took place on Sunday in village schools in Derine, in the northern province of Daquahliya. The children were rushed to several hospitals in nearby Mansura, the police said, and 30 were still in intensive care wards. — AFP

Champagne row
LONDON: Champagne, for centuries regarded as the quintessence of French sophistication is in fact a British invention. This at least is the theory of Tom Stevenson, author of “A World Encyclopaedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine” which is to be published this month. A spokeswoman for the firm said the book includes a copy of a historical document “proving beyond any doubt” that Christopher Merret, a Briton, presented a paper on making sparkling wine to Britain’s Royal Society in 1662. —Reuters

Kindu captured
GOMA: Rebels in the democratic republic of Congo said they had captured the strategic eastern town of Kindu after a week of heavy fighting with government troops. “Kindu has just fallen,” senior rebel commander Bub Ngoy told reporters in Goma on Monday. We have control of the city and the airport,” Ngoy said. — Reuters

15 die near Baku
BAKU: Fifteen persons were killed and 30 injured when a bus and a cargo truck collided on Azerbaijan’s main east-west highway, the police said. The vehicles were travelling in the same direction on the highway between Baku and the country’s second city of Gyandzha on Monday when the accident occurred. The police is investigating. — Reuters