Swissair crash: lawsuits likely
GLATTBRUGG, (Switzerland), Sept 19 — Swissair expects dozens of lawsuits as a result of the crash of flight 111, which killed all 229 persons on board, airline officials have said.

Invitation to PoK ‘PM’ opposed

LONDON, Sept 19 (PTI) — London-based Indian and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) organisations have protested against plans of some Labour MPs to invite propped PoK Prime Minister Sultan Mehmood to the annual Labour Party conference scheduled for the end of the month.

“Such invitations to propped leaders of the region where Islamic terror groups like the Harkat-ul-Ansar and the Lashkar-e-Toiba were based, would discredit the Labour Party worldover,” the President of the Indian Overseas, Congress Mr Balwant Kapoor, said in a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair.

He said the Harkat-ul-Ansar was responsible for the kidnapping and reported killing of five innocent foreign hostages in Srinagar and the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s heavily armed supporters paraded in Peshawar recently vowing to hit American and Western targets anywhere.

Labour MP Tom Cox has claimed the presence of Mehmood at the conference would help raise the Kashmir issue at the highest platform.

“At this juncture when President Clinton and you (Blair) have taken a worldwide initiative to end terrorism, it would be a negation of these, if some sections of your party hobnobbed with these ultra fundamentalist elements,” Mr Kapoor said.

In a separate letter, the President of the Jammu and Kashmir Peace Committee, Anwar Khan, from PoK drew Mr Blair’s attention to Mehmood’s presence at a rally of Markaz Dawat Al Irshad, the umbrella organisation of Harkat and Lashkar, where the Amir and chief commander, Muhammad Khan, read out a fatwa declaring “our jehad is to exterminate the Hindus and the Jews”.

Other PoK leaders told Mr Blair that Mehmood was not recognised by the majority of PoK settlers in Britain and added “he (Mehmood) has won stage-managed elections, where the parties which refused to sign the oath of allegiance to Pakistan were barred from contesting”.

“I have been repeatedly warning the present British and American administrations that these two solid world democracies were creating alarm among secular and democratic forces in the Indian subcontinent by supporting sectarian fanatic Islamic elements in the region,” Mr Khan told Mr Blair.

Bangladesh groups back Taslima Nasreen

DHAKA, Sept 19 (PTI) — As some Muslim fundamentalist groups mounted their protests against controversial feminist writer Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh, a leading pro-1971 liberation organisation has demanded stern action against those who are threatening to kill her.

In a joint statement “Kattuerer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee” (committee for elimination of killers and collaborators of 1971) and another pro-liberation organisation “Muktijuddhor Smriti Sangrakkhan Kendra” (centre for preservation of memorials of Bangladesh liberation war) today expressed strong resentment over statements by different fundamentalist groups against Nasreen, who has been accused of blaspheming Islam in her novel “Lajja” (shame).

Shariar Kabir, secretary of the Nirmul Committee and national Professor Kabir Chowdhury, the president of the kendra said that Nasreen, who reportedly returned here on Wednesday, had to leave the country four years ago in the face of continuous threats by the fundamentalist forces supported by the then government.

Monica affair: Jews to decide on action

NEW YORK, Sept 19 (DPA) — A group of conservative Jewish rabbis were holding court to decide whether or not to declare Monica Lewinsky an outcast for bringing “dishonour” to the Jews, a spokesman for the organisation said.

Rabbi Isaac Levy, spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the USA and Canada, said yesterday that the proceeding was being held in New York city and the process could take several days.

If declared an outcast for her sexual behaviour with Presidnet Bill Cilnton, no one within the organisation’s community could have dealings with her.

The impact of any shunning order, however, would probably be minimal at best as it may not be recognised by other orthodox and reform Jewish groups.

The union stirred up a controversy among other Jewish circles last year when it declared that those not following orthodox practices were not Jewish.

Meanwhile, the publishing industry is not particularly excited by the idea of a Monica Lewinsky tell-all book, in part because Kenneth Starr has already told all.

“I think we Americans already have all we want to read about this,” said Gene Taft of Public Affairs, which published a paperback version of the independent counsel’s report. “I don’t think we’d be interested”.

“Besides,” he said yesterday “I hear she wants a lot of money”.

Ms Lewinsky’s agent, Judy Smith, has contacted several publishers in recent days and news reports said she was seeking between $ 2 million and 10 million for Ms Lewinsky’s account of her affair with the President.

“We already know more about her than we want to,” said David Rosenthal, publisher of the Adult Trade Division at Simon and Schuster. We are not interested in a book by her. I don’t think any major publisher will sign her.”

Whites have it better in the USA: report

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (IPS) — US President Bill Clinton’s advisory board on race has called on U.S. citizens to learn the history of racial oppression and fight racial stereotypes in their country.

The USA was largely built on a “history of white privilege” that was only been partially overcome in recent decades, the board, which attracted only sporadic media attention during its 15 months work, concluded in a report submitted to Mr Clinton yesterday.

Moreover, whites remained largely ignorant of the nature of discrimination, persistent more than 130 years after the US Constitution was amended to guarantee equal rights for all citizens regardless of race.

“Evidence presented to the board makes it clear that many whites, in general, are unaware of how colour is a disadvantage to most members of other groups,” said the 121-page report

“To understand fully the legacy of race and colour with which we are grappling, we as a nation need to understand that whites tend to benefit, either unknowingly or consciously, from this country’s history of white privilege”, it stated.

Receiving the report, Mr Clinton, currently beset by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, agreed with the importance of using a historical perspective to understand racial problems.

Released with the report was a 74-page study by Mr Clinton’s council of economic advisers, on recent economic and social trends affecting minority groups. It concluded that “race and ethnicity continue to be salient predictors of well-being in American society.”

“On average”, the council study said, “non-Hispanic whites and Asians experience advantages in health, education, and economic status relative to Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians.”

The study found that during the second half of the 20th century, black citizens — historically the most disadvantaged group in the USA, next to American Indians — have made “substantial progress” relative to whites in many areas.

However, “this progress generally slowed, or even reversed, between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s,” according to the report.

Moreover, the relative economic status of Hispanics — soon to displace blacks as the country’s largest ethnic minority — generally declined over the past 25 years.

The Hispanic population more than doubled in size over the past 18 years, due largely to an influx of immigrants whose lack of education and skills apparently contributed to the overall economic decline.

Asian and Pacific Islanders, on the other hand, were nearly as well-off as non-Hispanic whites, according to most economic and social indicators.

Yet, there were wide differences between specific communities in each general classification. For example, Cuban Americans had a much higher median family income than Dominican Americans, while median family income for Japanese Americans was more than twice that of Cambodian and Laotian Americans.

The study also found that the western part of the USA was by far the country’s most diverse region. Some 36 per cent of its inhabitants were members of minority groups, of whom more than half were Hispanic.

The least diverse region — only about 15 per cent of whose inhabitants were minorities — was the farm belt of the mid-west.

The reports, which marked the culmination of Mr Clinton’s “initiative on race,” were likely to be mostly overlooked in the current political climate, in which the Lewinsky scandal continued to monopolise the news.

The initiative, which featured town hall meetings in communities around the country, had been criticised as poorly organised, unfocussed, and biassed against more conservative viewpoints.

Nonetheless, the tone of the documents remained generally hopeful and conciliatory, stressing that racial attitudes had improved since the civil rights movement was launched in the 1950s.

Swissair crash: lawsuits likely

GLATTBRUGG, (Switzerland), Sept 19 (AP) — Swissair expects dozens of lawsuits as a result of the crash of flight 111, which killed all 229 persons on board, airline officials have said.

Mr Philippe, Bruggisser, Chief Executive of the SAIR group parent company, said yesterday it would be weeks if not months before there were reliable clues about the cause of the September 2 accident off the coast of Canada.

Speculation has focused on defective wiring in the cockpit after the pilot reported smoke in the cabin. Both flight data and cockpit voice recorders stopped six minutes before the plane plunged into the ocean.

American giggler
SAN JOSE: A seven-year-old California girl whose laughter tickled the fancy of judges has won the title of “America’s best giggler” in a nationwide contest. Jessica Adona won 50,000 dollars in the 10-contestant final of the Pillsbury company’s “giggle-off” designed to promote the firm’s well-known logo, the bashful doughboy and celebrate laughter. — AFP

Happy menopause
WASHINGTON: Women at menopause are happier than at their youth, a survey commissioned by the North American Menopause Society has indicated. More than half of the menopausal women surveyed said they felt happier and most fulfilled now, as compared to their younger years. Pointing towards the contradiction, Wolf Utian, executive director of the group, said, “we often hear about the negative impacts of growing older or reaching menopause. Yet, we hear that they view menopause as the beginning of many positive changes in their lives and health.” — ANI

Bosnia’s no to mines
SARAJEVO: Bosnia has ratified the international landmine treaty banning anti-personnel mines, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Carol Bellamy has said. The Balkan state, littered with an estimated one million landmines laid during the 1992-95 war, joins 40 other countries which have ratified the treaty since it was signed in Ottawa last December.— AFP

Iran cool to USA
WASHINGTON: Iran’s Muslim fundamentalist government has failed to respond to overtures from the Clinton administration for improving relations. But US interest in a dialogue was reaffirmed by the US. State Department. And while the USA is looking for changes in Iran’s policies, we have never made a change in their behaviour a prerequisite for a meeting, and we’re not changing that view,” spokesman James P. Rubin said on Friday. — AP

30 die in blast
ALGIERS: A bomb blast that ripped through a western Algerian market place killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 60, the Quotidien d’Oran newspaper reported. Official security services on Friday had put the death toll at 22 and the injured at 60 — seven of them in a critical condition — with eye witness accounts and other press reports counting more than 100 injured. — AFP