US missile defence system gets boost
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 — The US military, praising two recent successful flight tests, has said the final development phase of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Thaad anti-missile defence system can begin as early as next year.

A money-spinner for Pak
ISLAMABAD, Aug 20 — Pakistan expects to earn about $ 40 million in the next two years by issuing Pakistan Origin Cards (POCs) to 200,000 Pakistanis who are permanent residents in the USA and Europe.

‘Acknowledge India’s N-doctrine’
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 — Prominent Democratic Congress-man Frank Pallone has urged the Clinton administration to give up its opposition to India’s proposed nuclear doctrine and, instead, acknowledge New Delhi’s status as a nuclear power and help develop confidence building in South Asia.

Prosecutors rest case in Anwar trial
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 — Prosecutors in the sodomy trial of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim today rested their case after 46 days of lurid testimony that underscored the gaping divide between the jailed former Minister and the government.

Trilateral summit on N. Korean threat
SEOUL, Aug 20 — Leaders of South Korea, the USA and Japan plan to meet for an unprecedented summit next month to discuss North Korea’s missile threat, officials said here today.

Pak keeps options open on CTBT

ISLAMABAD, Aug 20 (PTI) — Citing "security threats" from India, Pakistan has said it is keeping the option open on signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a clear indication that it might not abide by the September deadline set by itself to sign the treaty.

"The question of signing the CTBT remains open," Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed told reporters here when he was reminded of the September, 1999 deadline Islamabad had set for itself for signing the treaty.

Though he conceded that Pakistan had earlier delinked its stand on signing the CTBT from that of India’s stand on it, Mr Ahmed said, "We have not delinked our security in view of the Indian threat, delinking was only in case of a non-proliferation regime."

Referring to the address of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the UN General Assembly last year, Mr Ahmed said that though the Premier had enumerated Islamabad’s stand on the CTBT, "there has been aggravation of situation since then."

"The Kargil situation, India’s war-mongering and then the shooting down of our aircraft - this atmosphere is certainly not propitious for us to take a decision at this stage with regard to the CTBT," he said.

He went on to add, "India’s nuclear doctrine is itself a development which is sure to make it absolutely unavoidable to keep the question of signing open."

Mr Ahmed also said that Islamabad had made it clear last year that it could sign the treaty only in a "non-coercive atmosphere" and so far there had been no progress vis-a-vis the removal of that atmosphere, in an obvious reference to continued sanctions on the country.

"So we will have to evaluate the implications of all these developments before we reach any final decision," he said.

Mr Sharif in his address to the General Assembly last year had declared that Pakistan would adhere to the CTBT before the conference of states parties to the treaty in September, 1999.

Arms talks with USA have failed: Russia

MOSCOW, Aug 20 (Reuters) — A Russian military official said today this week’s preparatory talks with the USA on a START-3 nuclear weapons reduction treaty had failed, and strongly criticised Washington’s stance on arms control.

"Perhaps the Foreign Ministry would put it more gently but there were no results from these talks," Mr Leonid Ivashov, who heads the Defence Ministry’s international co-operation division, told a news conference.

Mr Ivashov also reiterated Moscow’s view that USA's plans to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty would wreck past arms control agreements.

"The ABM treaty is the basis on which all subsequent arms controls agreements have been built...to destroy this basis would be to destroy the entire process of nuclear arms control,’’ said Mr Ivashov, a hawk on defence and foreign policy.

The ABM treaty banned full systems designed to shoot down the other side’s missiles. But the USA now plans to build a similar shield from missile programmes it fears are being developed by countries like Iran and North Korea.

He said Washington’s decision to press on with research into anti-missile defence systems violated the ABM treaty, adding that Russia had made clear its position to the US side during this week’s talks in Moscow. US Negotiators had described the talks as "productive".

Canada may raise immigrants’ quota to 5 lakh
from Ajit Jain

TORONTO, Aug 20 — The Canadian government is proposing to increase the annual immigration quota to 500,000 from the current level of 225,000, with a government minister admitting that immigrants made an “enormous contribution” to the nation’s economic growth.

According to a report in The Toronto Star, the plan to increase the immigration quota is the result of shortage of labour in many parts of the country, including Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan provinces.

In the past two years, the Immigration Department reportedly let in 50,000 immigrants less than the 225,000 ceiling.

Ms Elinor Kaplan, the new Citizenship Minister, is seen to have greater sensitivity towards immigrants than her predecessor, Lucienne Robillard.

She conceded she is thinking of increasing the immigration quota. Getting to a goal of 500,000 immigrants annually “is an important discussion” that the ruling Liberal Party members will hold behind closed doors in their meeting in Halifax this week, she said.

“We know that immigrants who come to Canada make an enormous contribution to our economic growth,” Ms Kaplan was quoted as saying. “We’ve had tremendous success in our immigrant communities among new Canadians and they have created not only a success for themselves but for all of Canada,” she said.

There is also a cause for alarm. The number of skilled workers leaving Canada for the USA has increased dramatically: from 17,000 in 1986 to 98,000 in 1997. Between 1995 and 1997, 69 per cent of computer graduates in this country went to the USA and 52 per cent of all engineering graduates went south of the border because of higher pay and other benefits.

Ms Kaplan reportedly said she has already asked her department to develop new strategies to increase the annual immigration quota and that it needs to streamline the process to speed up the clearance of immigration applications.

“We need to make sure that we have the people here for the jobs that are being created today and will be created in the future,” she stated, adding that all Liberal Party MPs “understand the importance of bringing people here that want to build this country.”

“They know and I know that it brings prosperity. New immigrants create jobs, new immigrants bring their talents, their expertise, their creativity and ingenuity and their knowledge of the world,” she said.

“Canada is a trading nation. Think of the human resource we have that understands all the cultures, have the linkages and speak the languages of the world. That is a fabulous resource for Canada. We want to harness that so we can continue to prosper and grow,” Kaplan argued.

Kaplan has travelled to India several times. As former Ontario Minister of Health, she even attended Diwali functions of the Indian community here wearing a saree.

— India Abroad News Service

Turkish quake toll crosses 10,000

ANKARA, Aug 20 (Reuters) — The death toll in the Turkish earthquake reached 10,059 today at 1.05p.m. (GMT) with more than 45,000 people injured, the Anatolian news agency said, citing figures from the crisis centre.

Thousands more are feared still trapped under the rubble of apartment blocks demolished when the quake, measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale, hit Turkey’s populous northwestern region.

Nearly half of the dead — 4,610 — were in the province of Kocaeli, on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. Its capital city, Izmit, and the nearby town of Golcuk were the hardest hit by a quake that killed people across eight provinces.

International and Turkish rescue teams were still probing the rubble for those who might have survived after three days in the wreckage.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit called the earthquake “one of the heaviest in human history and the heaviest in Turkish history’’.

The United Nations said the Ecevit Government had estimated that 35,000 people were still under the ruins, most of them feared dead.

Earlier, the government crisis centre put the death toll at 8,713 and another 34,076 people wounded.

In the hardest-hit town of Izmit alone, 3,264 people died and some 11,750 were injured, while in neighbouring Sakarya 2,794 died and 4,000 were hurt, the centre said in a statement carried by the Anatolia news agency.

At Yalova, on the Sea of Marmara, some 1,300 were killed and close to 4,921 sustained injuries.

In Turkey’s economic capital Istanbul, the toll reached 984 dead and more than 9,500 injured. At Bolu, Bursa, Eskisehir and Zonguldak, close to 400 were killed.

In these four provinces as well as Tekirdag in north-western Thrace, 3,855 people were hurt, the centre said.

Izmit (AFP): Fears of epidemics grew in Turkey’s earthquake-stricken northwest on Friday as the death toll rose over 7,000 and thousands more bodies lay decomposing under debris.

The government crisis centre counted 7,085 dead and 33,559 injured. But time was now running out for survivors trapped beneath the rubble more than 72 hours after the killer quake struck early on Tuesday.

According to the latest figures, there were 3,261 dead and 11,759 injured in the Izmit region alone. The region, 50 km (30 miles) from Istanbul, was at the epicentre of the quake.

Storage, identification and burial of the victims were fast becoming a major problem, as even makeshift morgues in skating rinks, fisherman’s warehouses and refrigerated trucks were filled to capacity.

The Milliyet daily published photographs of unidentified bodies of men, women and babies being dumped unceremoniously into a trench in Adapazari.

Prime Minister Bulant Ecevit said on Thursday the authorities would quickly bury any unclaimed bodies for hygienic reasons.

"We are having problems meeting the urgent health needs of the population," he admitted.

GENEVA: The Turkish authorities have informed the UN that an estimated 35,000 persons lie under the rubble left by Tuesday's devastating earthquake, a top UN disaster relief official said today.

Mr Sergio Piazzi, Head of the European Desk at the UN Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)., told a news briefing here, an estimated 35,000 persons are under the rubble".

But Mr Piazzi said that 2,000 specialists and 120 search dogs were combing affected areas and there was a "very high chance of find many people because of the type of collapsed buildings with space between the floors".

US missile defence system gets boost

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters, AFP) — The US military, praising two recent successful flight tests, has said the final development phase of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Thaad anti-missile defence system can begin as early as next year.

The announcement yesterday signalled a major step forward in the nation’s costly and so far troubled programme to develop a defence against long and short-range ballistic missiles for both US cities and American forces around the world.

The Pentagon said Lockheed had made key improvements in its theatre high-altitude area defence (THAAD) missile, hitting target rockets twice in succession over New Mexico, and formal approval of the engineering, manufacturing and development phase of THAAD could come next year.

Lockheed’s anti-missile missile had suffered six successive failures before destroying test rockets in flight in June and again this month. The Pentagon said the last two flights had prompted it to drop demands for a three successful tests in a row before proceeding to further development.

The congressional general accounting office estimated that Lockheed could be awarded more than $ 4 billion in contracts if it was authorised to proceed with what was expected to be a long manufacturing development phase.

A series of up to 40 flight tests would be part of that phase and would not start until at least 2002. But rockets and other components of the system could be manufactured on a limited basis as testing advanced.

“We have confidence in the technical design,” said Maj-General Peter Franklin, Deputy Director of the Pentagon’s Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation.

“Rather than spending millions of dollars and months on another prototype intercept we have decided to focus on the future system and the engineering development of that future system,” he said at a Pentagon news conference.

In the test at the White Sands Missilef Range in New Mexico, an interceptor missile hit and destroyed a single stage Hera missile in the upper atmosphere at an altitude higher than 50 miles.

The Pentagon’s current schedule calls for fielding a theatre missile defence system by 2007.

Besides rushing to meet a growing missile threat, the US Army was in a funding race with the navy, which was designing an as yet untested sea-based system that would be build around its ship-borne Aegis radars and Standard missiles.

A money-spinner for Pak

ISLAMABAD, Aug 20 — Pakistan expects to earn about $ 40 million in the next two years by issuing Pakistan Origin Cards (POCs) to 200,000 Pakistanis who are permanent residents in the USA and Europe.

The Ministry for Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis has finalised all arrangements for issuing computerised POCs for a fee of $200 per card, NNI news agency reported, quoting official sources.

The POCs would be given to those Pakistanis who had obtained permanent citizenship of foreign countries and want to have links with their motherland, the sources said. They said the ministry had sent a summary of the POC scheme to members of the cabinet for approval. There are 2.7 million Pakistanis living in the USA and Europe.

The POC holders would be entitled to many facilities in Pakistan. For example, they would be treated as guests of the Pakistan Government at all international airports. They would be allowed to import duty-free cars and other goods. However, the import facility would be provided to only those who send remittances to Pakistan regularly through commercial banks. They would also be exempted from reporting to the local police and other formalities which foreigners in Pakistan have to face. They would be allowed to go anywhere in Pakistan without prior permission, the sources said.

They said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would make a formal announcement on the POC scheme on August 26 in Islamabad.

— India Abroad News Service

‘Acknowledge India’s N-doctrine’

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (UNI) — Prominent Democratic Congress-man Frank Pallone has urged the Clinton administration to give up its opposition to India’s proposed nuclear doctrine and, instead, acknowledge New Delhi’s status as a nuclear power and help develop confidence building in South Asia.

“In light of India’s responsible handling of the Kargil situation, I believe India’s nuclear arms doctrine deserves to at least be received by the USA as a serious basis for promoting regional stability,” he said, in a statement released here last night.

“One of the key factors that has been overlooked in our narrow India-Pakistan focus is the role of China,” he said, adding, “I believe that China is a real threat to India, as well as to US interests and to regional security. It is in this context that India’s potential role as a partner for peace and stability should be understood.”

He said India had legitimate concerns about China’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes, as well as potential Chinese designs on India territory. “Since the USA must also view China as a potential adversary, there is a growing convergence of American and Indian objectives for responding to China,” he added.

Prosecutors rest case in Anwar trial

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 (Reuters) — Prosecutors in the sodomy trial of Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim today rested their case after 46 days of lurid testimony that underscored the gaping divide between the jailed former Minister and the government.

Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah told the capital’s high court that the prosecution would present its closing arguments on September 6.

Judge Arifin Jaka will later decide whether the defence has a case to answer and must call witnesses to try to rebut allegations that Mr Anwar and his adopted brother sodomised the Anwar family’s former driver in 1993.

The prosecution had originally lined up 21 witnesses for the trial, but the Attorney-General abruptly closed his case after questioning nine persons.

Mr Anwar was sacked in September and charged with five counts each of sodomy and corruption that he said were part of a plot led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to sideline him forever from politics.

The charismatic politician was sentenced in April to six years in jail on four corruption counts. The judgement triggered four days of violent street demonstrations in the capital.

The sodomy trial started in June and highlighted deep differences between Mr Anwar and Mr Mahathir.

The defence argued the charges were fabricated and the police in September had coerced Mr Anwar’s adopted brother, Sukma Darmawan, into falsely confessing he had had a homosexual relationship with the former Deputy Prime Minister.

Sukma was sentenced to six months in prison last September when he pleaded guilty to being sodomised by Mr Anwar. He later said the police abused him in detention, forcing him to make a false confession.

But after holding a trial-within-a-trial to determine its admissibility in the present case, judge Arifin accepted the confession, saying the police had done nothing wrong.

Trilateral summit on N. Korean threat

SEOUL, Aug 20 (AFP) — Leaders of South Korea, the USA and Japan plan to meet for an unprecedented summit next month to discuss North Korea’s missile threat, officials said here today.

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, US President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi were likely to meet on the sidelines of a forum of Asia-Pacific leaders in New Zealand, a Foreign Ministry official said.

The two-day APEC summit of 21 Asia-Pacific leaders starts in Auckland on September 12.

Plea to free American
WASHINGTON: The USA has called on China to release an American being held in China, apparently on charges of illegally investigating a controversial World Bank project in northwestern China. Daja Meston (29) of Newton, Massachusetts, and 50-year-old Australian scholar Gabriel Lafitte have been detained since Sunday after travelling on tourist visas to Qinghai province’s remote Dulan county, on which the project will be centred. S— Reuters

Death syndrome
LONDON: A man who literally dropped dead in his wife’s arms was a victm of sudden adult death syndrome (SADS), according to a London newspaper. Perry Woodman, a 41-year-old father of three and an executive at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, England, was relaxing at home when his wife Sylvia noticed something was wrong. Within an hour he had been pronounced dead, The Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday. — DPA

‘Dead’ comes alive
LYON (France): On his way to an autopsy, a French pensioner declared dead by the police groaned, woke up and then started screaming “thieves” as stunned medical staff pounced to give him heart massage. “Help! I’m being robbed. My papers, my money” the man, in his 70s, screamed at doctors, the police said on Thursday. — AP

Judicial emergency
CARACAS: A constitutional assembly has declared a judicial emergency in Venezuela, giving itself sweeping new power to dismiss judges and overhaul the court system. Under the measure, adopted on Thursday nearly half of Venezuela’s 4,700 judges could be suspended or dismissed because of pending accusations of corruption or other irregularities. — AP

No to disarmament
BELFAST: One of Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant paramilitary groups has said conditions are not right for it to begin disarmament, the BBC has reported. The Ulster Volunteer Forces statement, sent to the BBC on Thursday comes barely two weeks before the September 6 start of a formal review of the Good Friday peace agreement for the province. — AFP

Indian boy excels
LONDON: A nine-year-old Indian boy has passed ‘A’ level examination in Britain intended for boys twice his age. Nitish Upadhyaya emerged successful with his main subject Hinduism in the examination which on Thursday was cleared by more than 88 per cent of the 8,52,000 candidates who appeared in it. — PTI