Ceasefire deal in Guinea-Bissau
LISBON (Portugal), Feb 4 — The President of Guinea-Bissau and the rebel leader have agreed to a ceasefire halting the small west African nation’s renewed civil war, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry announced.

UN withdraws last Americans from Iraq
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 — The United Nations has withdrawn the last two remaining American workers from Iraq.

Pak welcomes PM’s visit by bus
ISLAMABAD, Feb 4 — Pakistan today welcomed the decision of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, to travel to the country by the Delhi-Lahore bus on its inaugural run expected later this month and said the move would "help ease tension between the two countries."

Pak crackdown on another daily

ISLAMABAD, Feb 4 (ANI) — Carrying on its assault on freedom of the press at the behest of Ehtesab Bureau chief, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) personnel took on workers of daily, Ausaf, for selling newsprint to the Jang group.

Taking the “vindictive” step, FIA officials intercepted early on Wednesday a van of Ausaf, carrying newspapers to Attock, at zero point and beat the staffers.

“The IB and FIA were in plainclothes and in the scuffle, a van of Nawai Waqt was also stopped, but later allowed to proceed. The police when asked for help said they could not interfere in the affairs of the FIA and the IB, said Ausaf editor Hamid Mir.

“We are being punished for helping Jang. We have already said that this is not an issue of Customs and income tax, but of the freedom of the press. We knew that after Jang we would be the next target,” the Editor said.

Hamid Mir said: “Jang Editor-in-Chief Shakil-ur-Rehman got in touch with me yesterday with a request for newsprint as he was unable to get it from the open market. When I contacted a dealer, he told me that before selling newsprint to any party, they have to give in writing to the FIA that the consignment will not go to the Jang group any way. This sort of directive to the newsprint dealers indicates that the only motive is to close down Jang, thus rendering thousands of workers jobless. Keeping this in view, I decided to arrange four rolls of newsprint for Jang”.

Meanwhile, the Supreme court ordered the release of 200 of the 1,094 reels of newsprint. A three-member bench of the court comprising Mr Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman, Mr Justice Ijaz Nisar and Mr Justice Mohammad Arif also ordered that these 200 reels of newsprint “may not be detained on account of non-payment of any dues, taxes and charges even if found payable in respect of any other consignment/matter”.

However, Information Minister Mushahid Hussain told the senate that his government was committed to freedom of the press.

Responding to a point of order, the minister said he had held a positive meeting with Jang’s Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman yesterday to discuss the issue.

The point of order raised by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Aitzaz Ahsan, alleged that the police had seized reels of newsprint which were being shifted from an Urdu newspaper of Islamabad to Jang offices.

The minister said he was not aware of the matter. “I think it happened at a lower level, which would be looked into”. He condemned the baton-charge on two correspondents of the Jang group of newspapers and said he had talked to the Interior Minister on the issue. Those found guilty would be punished, he said.

LAHORE: In an unprecedented show of strength and solidarity, people from all walks of life have sent a clear message to the government that they stood united against the government’s campaign to muzzle a free press.

About 4,000 journalists, political and human rights activists and lawyers staged a rally yesterday to condemn the government action against the Jang group.

The rally was held on the call of the Committee for a Free Press of the Lahore Press Club in support of the Jang group against intimidation by the government.

For many elderly journalists, it was an unprecedented show of strength. Such a massive response was witnessed here some 27 years ago when journalists demonstrated demanding independence of Progressive Publishers Limited after it was taken over by the government, they said.

Speakers, including representatives of the Pakistan People’s Party and the Jamaat-i-Islami, vowed to defend the press freedom, saying they stood united with the press against the government onslaught in the guise of tax recoveries.

The lawyers, expressing solidarity with the journalists, were prominent. Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, said all human rights groups would join journalists in their fight for the press freedom. She maintained the government should not think of enslaving the fourth pillar of the state after weakening the other three. It was a wrong impression that the war was only against the Jang group of publications. The government had targeted the independence of the press in Pakistan, she added.

Mr Kazim Khan, president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, announced his unconditional support to journalists in their fight of freedom of expression. He said the government had wrongly tried to pressurise the “men of the pen” after gaining control over all other institutions. He said a free press was inevitable for the progress of a country or a nation.

Prosecutors push for live witnesses

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (AFP) — Senators have readied for showdowns on whether to call live witnesses, including Monica Lewinsky, in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial and a proposal to condemn but not convict him.

The Republican prosecutors of the second such trial in US history stepped up their push for live testimony after wrapping up their third and final closed-door videotaped deposition, grilling White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.

Blumenthal’s questioning came after the Republican prosecutors and White House lawyers quizzed Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan on Tuesday and deposed Lewinsky on Monday.

And Republican Senators were weighing drafts of a letter inviting Clinton to testify, which they were likely to send later in the day, a spokesman for Republican Senate majority leader Trent Lott said.

Earlier, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Clinton — who faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges — would not agree to another deposition.

The impeachment trial was to reconvene today, when Senators could decide to call live witnesses or make public the existing videotapes and transcripts.

But that seemed likely to be an uphill battle, as Senators who viewed the recorded accounts were already balking at calling witnesses to the ornate Senate floor.

Meanwhile, a poll says the American public is worn out with the impeachment process and has grown critical of the Senate for its handling of the trial of President Bill Clinton.

Republicans are taking most of the blame, according to the CBS News/New York Times poll released yesterday.

The poll found concern that the continuing impeachment saga will hurt Republican prospects in the 2000 elections. Half the Conservative Republicans surveyed said the way House and Senate Republicans have handled the matter would make it harder for Republican candidates to win elections.

Fifty-six per cent disapprove of the way the Senate is handling the trial, while 37 per cent approved. Just three weeks ago, in a poll by CBS news, 46 per cent said they approved of the Senate’s handling of the trial and 41 per cent disapproved.

Among those who identified themselves as conservative Republicans, almost a third said they did’t approve of how the senate was conducting the trial.

The survey of 1,058 adults taken on Saturday through Monday had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

India, Pak potential threats: USA

WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (PTI) — Pakistan and India could, if they grow stronger, pose a threat to the USA’s operational missions some time beyond 2010, a top American defence official has said.

The two South Asian neighbours may thus join the ranks of Russia, China and “rogue” states like Iraq and Iran as potential threats to the USA, the Defence Intelligence Agency Director, Lt-Gen Patrick Hughes said.

The USA can “expect key regional powers, China and perhaps Russia at the high end, but also an unimpeded Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan and North Korea, to field conventional military forces that are large and well-equipped, even by today’s standards”, he said in a testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

Yemen to stop visas to Britons

DUBAI, Feb 4 (AFP) — Yemen has accused Britain of involvement in an alleged bomb plot by a group of British Muslims and said it would stop granting Britons entry visas on arrival.

“We believe Britain is implicated in this affair,” Yemeni Interior Minister Hussein Arab told the Emirati newspaper Al-Khaleej yesterday.

“We consider that our British friends are implicated ... And we have let that be known to British officials. Until they clarify this affair, we consider them to be implicated.

“Either Britain is implicated in the plan or there’s a powerful and influential network which evades the British security services,” Arab said.

He said the British suspects in the Bomb plot in the southern Yemeni city of Aden held “two British passports in reserve, in addition to their own passports, in case they needed to use them.”

“Only the state can provide reserve passports,” said Arab.

Meanwhile Mohamed Rajeh Najjar, director of Immigration in Sanaa, told AFP that as today Britons would no longer be automatically granted entry visas upon arrival in Yemen.

“The Yemeni authorities will stop granting entry visas to Britons arriving by air, sea or overland,” Najjar said, adding that they would be able to obtain visas from the Yemeni consulate in Britain.

UN council backs Kosovo process

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 (PTI) — The UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan, and the Security Council have backed the Kosovo peace process and urged the parties involved to participate in the talks convened by the six member contact group.

Mr Annan said he was convinced that a peaceful settlement could only be reached through direct dialogue between the parties concerned.

Supporting the initiative of the contact group comprising the USA, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, Mr Annan urged the Yugoslav authorities and the Kosovo Albanian leadership to shoulder their responsibilities and use the opportunity to settle the crisis by committing to talks without any preconditions.

In a separate statement, members of the council reiterated their support for the political process and stressed on the urgent need for a political settlement.

They urged the parties to participate actively, in good faith and without preconditions in the political process and fulfil their obligation under the council resolutions.

Ethnic Albanians, who are in a majority in Kosovo, are battling Yugoslav forces demanding independence from Belgrade.

Ceasefire deal in Guinea-Bissau

LISBON (Portugal), Feb 4 (AP) — The President of Guinea-Bissau and the rebel leader have agreed to a ceasefire halting the small west African nation’s renewed civil war, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry announced.

The Foreign and Defence Ministers of Togo yesterday brokered the truce between the President, Mr Joao Bernardo Vieira, and the Rebel Chief Brig Ansumane Mane, a Foreign Ministry statement said.

The capital, Bissau, reportedly was calm after hours of intense battles between the two sides as the rebels advanced on downtown areas of the city toward the presidential palace.

The loyalist forces mostly troops from neighbouring Senegal and the Republic of Guinea deployed to support Mr Vieira, holed up around the presidential palace on the eastern side of the capital and were heavily outnumbered.

At least 35 persons have died and 220 have been wounded since the fighting flared on Sunday, breaking a November peace deal that stopped a five-month civil war in the former Portuguese colony, aid workers said.

UN withdraws last Americans from Iraq

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 (PTI) — The United Nations has withdrawn the last two remaining American workers, including the secretary to Secretary-General’s special envoy Prakash Shah, from Iraq even as Baghdad informed the world body that it would ensure their safety.

Iraq had offered to guarantee the safety of only three Americans but the security chief, Benon Sevan, ordered all Americans and Britons out of the country, UN chief spokesman Fred Eckhard told newsmen yesterday.

Pak welcomes PM’s visit by bus

ISLAMABAD, Feb 4 (PTI) — Pakistan today welcomed the decision of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, to travel to the country by the Delhi-Lahore bus on its inaugural run expected later this month and said the move would "help ease tension between the two countries."

"If the Indian Prime Minister wishes to visit Pakistan we will welcome him. The proposed visit will help ease the tension between the two countries, besides the discussions on important issues," the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Mr Sartaj Aziz said.

He, however, said the Indian Government had not formally informed the Pakistani Foreign Office about the move.

On Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s travelling back with Mr Vajpayee by the same bus on its return journey, Mr Aziz said the Foreign Office would put the proposal before the Prime Minister for final decision.

India’s External Affairs Ministry announced yesterday that Mr Vajpayee would travel to Pakistan on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore bus service expected later this month.

A spokesman of the ministry told reporters that the path-breaking exercise "will be one more manifestation of India’s abiding desire to build peaceful, friendly and cooperative relations with Pakistan."

The decision comes in the wake of a proposal by Mr Sharif that Mr Vajpayee go to Lahore by the inaugural bus and the two of them then travel together on the return journey.

9 die in clashes
KARACHI: At least nine persons have been killed in two separate attacks on two villages near Larkana and Khairpur. In the first incident, which took place on Wednesday, 20 armed men raided Chooti Bhutto village near Khairpur and gunned down six members of a family of the Bhutto tribe. In a reprisal, the Bhutto family members shot dead three persons of the Sethar tribe in Khuda Bux Sethar village, 30 km from Larkana. About two dozen suspects had so far been taken into custody. — ANI

Pak Christians
KARACHI: Hundreds of Pakistani Christians on Wednesday burned effigies of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a demonstration here against attacks on Christians in India, witnesses said. Demonstrators chanted “down with India” and demanded the Indian government punish those responsible for the attacks. The protest was sponsored by the Pakistan Christians League. — AFP

Gays sue bishop
SAN JOSE: A national gay rights group is suing the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Jose for opposing a gay festival, court officials said. The plaintiffs — the gay and lesbian members of the Pink Triangle Group — charge that Archbishop Roman Arrieta violated a law protecting sexual minorities against discrimination. On a major religious holiday on August 2 Arrieta delivered a sermon opposing a gay and lesbian festival scheduled for later in the month. Such activities were contrary to Christian and Catholic principles, Arrieta told churchgoers. — AFP

Shariat for Chechnya
MOSCOW: Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has issued a decree that in effect strips Parliament of key powers and calls for a new constitution to be worked out based on Shariat, according to reports. The decree calls for Parliament to retain a minor regulatory role, according to Russian wire service reports. Key sectors including, the government and the armed forces will be subject to Islamic law. Observers said Mr Maskhadov issued the decree on Wednesday following months of pressure from influential opposition field commanders.— DPA

Mercury poisoning
LONDON: People living in remote villages in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil are suffering from an unusual debilitating disease caused by mercury poisoning, New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. It is the first outbreak outside Japan of Minimata disease named after the Japanese town where it was first diagnosed in the 1950s. The illness, which results from contamination of a toxic form of mercury called methyl mercury, attacks the immune system and causes deformities in children. Victims suffer from uncontrollable shaking and muscle wasting. — Reuters

Diana’s letters
LONDON: Former army officer James Hewitt has won back dozens of love letters written by Princess Diana, which he says were stolen from his home. Hewitt said the 64 letters written by the Princess between December 1990 and June 1991 were taken by a subsequent girlfriend and ended up in the possession of Lawrene Graham, the London law firm acting for the late Princess’s estate. Hewitt, 40, began legal action in December against the firm. All 64 letters written by the late Princess Diana have been returned to Mr Hewitt.” — AP