PM forced me out: Anwar
KUALA LUMPUR Feb 10 — Ousted Malaysian Deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim told his corruption trial today that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad gave him an “ultimatum” last year to resign or face charges for various offences.

Lankan kids smuggled into Switzerland
COLOMBO, Feb 10 — Sri Lankan children are being smuggled into Switzerland, often with the consent of their parents, in the hope of getting asylum for the minors there.

IAEA submits nuclear monitoring proposals
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 —The International Atomic Energy Agency has submitted arms monitoring proposals to the UN Security Council based on the assumption that Iraq could resume attempts to build nuclear weapons.

• Starr may be questioned
• UN calls for Israel meet

G-15 summit opens

MONTEGO BAY (Jamaica), Feb 10 (PTI) — The G-15 summit opened here today with host Jamaica making a forceful plea for urgent reforms in the global financial system to deal with economic and political turmoil brought about by the South East Asian economic crisis.

"Developing countries must have a decisive voice on reforming the system (global financial) as they are the most affected victims of the crises whose contagion effect has reached global proportions," Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said in his opening remarks.

Criticising the International Monetary Fund’s role in dealing with the crises, the Jamaican leader said that steps taken by the multilateral body had increased poverty and social tension in the affected nations.

Instead of helping the countries in warding off the financial crises, the IMF had "bailed out the creditors and left the debtors in lurch," he said, reflecting increasing concern among developing countries on the issue.

Eight heads of state and governments, including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, three vice-presidents and six senior ministers, are attending the summit which is expected to develop a common stand among member nations on restructuring the global financial system and World Trade Organisation issues.

Earlier, leaders of the several delegations were escorted to the podium ceremonially, among those who received a huge round of applause was Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee who was attired in a spotless dhoti-kurta.

Conceding that globalisation had come to stay, Patterson stressed that increasing liberalisation does not mean that developing nations are powerless to remove flaws that have crept into the international economic and financial system.

The financial crises was spreading a contagion now due to lack of adequate monitoring mechanism over short term volatile capital flows under the present system, he said calling for greater reforms in the current monitoring regime.

"This (inadequate monitoring mechanism) has resulted in raising poverty levels, putting developing nations into great economic difficulty and social inequality," he said.

Stressing upon the need to check poverty levels, he pointed out that the poverty ratio between developed and developing nations which stood at 9:1 at the beginning of the century had risen to 60:1 at the threshold of a new millenium.

"There is a necessity to have a safeguard mechanism to ensure that future shocks of such magnitude are taken care of," the Jamaican leader said.

Emphasising the G-15’s role in helping create such a mechanism, he urged all member nations to pool their resources to help find an effective solution to the present crises.

Ease sanctions, say US Cong men

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (PTI) — The USA is likely to ease all sanctions against India and Pakistan recognising that “the emergence of New Delhi and Islamabad as nuclear weapon and missile powers is a reality”, Mr Douglas Bereuter, Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, has said.

“There is a majority in the Congress, both among Republicans and Democrats, for easing all sanctions, including the Glenn Amendment and hi-tech sanctions imposed under other laws...it is certainly there... but could depend upon the kind of talks and assurances Washington obtains from New Delhi and Islamabad,” Republican Congressman Bereuter said yesterday.

He told reporters at a press conference organised by the Washington Roundtable for the Asia Pacific-Press at the Heritage Foundation in Washington that if he was an Indian, he too would feel like India that with an “aggressive neighbour” to the north like China, which also helped Pakistan become a nuclear and missile power, India needed a nuclear deterrent, though, as an American, he was not prepared to “put a gold seal” (i.e. Give wholehearted approval) on nuclear weapons.

Following these tests the USA imposed unilateral sanctions on New Delhi and Islamabad under the existing law, which gave no option. However, many of these sanctions have been subsequently waived.

“We need to specifically examine,” said Mr Bereuter, “whether to continue the President’s waiver” on various economic sanctions, which “were based on a number of conditions, including both countries signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, halting nuclear testing, and ceasing deployments and testing of missiles and nuclear weapons.”

“I think the majority on both sides will be sympathetic to ease sanctions...but how far to go, I am not sure. That remains to be seen.

“The possibility of lifting all sanctions is certainly there, and I think we have to look very carefully whether or not we can have total lifting or just stepping back in a realistic fashion on all the sanctions that are there. The kind of talks and assurances we have from India and Pakistan are very important in helping us reach a decision, one that probably could be very complimentary to your country and ours,” he added.

He said he had included proliferation issues in the agenda of the 106th congress.

When a correspondent reminded him that the Clinton Administration had repeatedly described China as America’s strategic partner, and asked whether India did not need nuclear weapons and missiles against the potential danger from China, Mr Bereuter replied, “I regard India as a strategic partner or potential strategic partner, and that attitude is welcomed on the Indian side. I understand India’s concern about the nuclear power to the north.

“I believe in the past it was the policy of administrations under both parties to deter India from developing nuclear weapons capabilities. That was particularly energetic, I suppose, at a time when India was seen as having a very close relationship with the Soviet Union,” he said.

“I think we need to admit in this country, and among other nuclear powers in the world, that the reality is that India has nuclear weapons capabilities. That, of course pushed Pakistan, with a lot of help from China, to become a nuclear weapon state, and one that has at least medium and short-range missile capabilities as the Indians have. So, now, we need to make sure, as best we can, to assist India and Pakistan that those weapons are never used against each other. I will not put myself in the category of being blindly unaware of India’s concerns about China,” Mr Bereuter said.

Rights groups rap army courts

KARACHI, Feb 10 (AP) — For two weeks 14-year-old Mohammed Salim waited to be hanged.

The charge: involvement in the murder of three policemen.

His trial had been conducted by one of Pakistan’s controversial new military courts set up to handle terrorism cases. Salim’s lawyer, who was provided by the military, didn’t call any witnesses in his client’s defence.

Human Rights groups condemned the death sentence and an appeals court quickly acquitted Salim, citing a lack of evidence.

“I have been given a second chance to live,” said Salim, who lives in a ramshackle, two-room house with his parents and eight brothers and sisters. His father, Izhar Mian, barely ekes out a living as a fisherman.

“I was innocent and falsely implicated in the murder of the policemen,” Salim said. “Every night in jail I cried and I cried because I thought I was going to die.”

The military courts have been loudly criticised by Pakistan’s Human Rights groups as well as an ethnic party that politically dominates the cities of southern Sindh province, which includes Karachi, the country’s biggest city.

Now Pakistan’s Supreme Court has stepped in. It has suspended all death sentences handed down by the military courts until it decides whether the courts are legal, after hearings this month. Ten men are on death row waiting to be hanged.

The special courts were established in November by the national government, which has been frustrated by years of relentless violence that has terrorised Karachi’s 14 million people.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted terrorism cases handled quickly, so he moved them out of the regular courts, where cases can take months to come to trial. Salim’s trial, for example, began in early December and within a week it was over, with the teenager sentenced to hang.

“The establishment of military courts is against all concepts of fair trial and justice,” said Mr I.A. Rehman, Director of the independent Human Right Commission of Pakistan. How can a country have two parallel systems of judiciary?”.

PM forced me out: Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR Feb 10 (AFP) — Ousted Malaysian Deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim told his corruption trial today that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad gave him an “ultimatum” last year to resign or face charges for various offences.

Anwar said he had “big arguments” during at least 10 meetings with Mr Mahathir from the end of June last year and that their relationship became “somewhat turbulent and continuously engaged in heated debates” from early August.

“An ultimatum was given on September 2, saying that either I resign effective from that day or that charges would be preferred against me in a number of related offences ranging from sexual misconduct to treason,” he told the court.

Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah, who has been leading the prosecution team since Anwar took the stand on Monday, objected that Anwar was raising the issue of a political plot to oust him.

But Judge Augustine Paul, who ruled yesterday that any evidence of a political conspiracy was “irrelevant”, overruled the objection.

Anwar (51) is on trial on four charges of corruption alleging he abused his position to get police to cover up sexual misconduct allegations against him. He also faces a fifth corruption charge and five counts of sodomy.

Lankan kids smuggled into Switzerland

COLOMBO, Feb 10 (UNI) — Sri Lankan children are being smuggled into Switzerland, often with the consent of their parents, in the hope of getting asylum for the minors there.

According to newspaper reports here, these children were taken to Switzerland by hired traffickers who were well-compensated. They were abandoned before reaching the immigration counters at the Swiss ports of entry, it said.

Swiss authorities, facing the problem of an increasing number of unaccompanied Sri Lankan minors seeking asylum in Switzerland, are looking for a way to deal with this sensitive issue, the reports said.

Prof Harendra de Silva, Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Children, has made representation to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking it to look into the fate of these minors, most of whom do not fulfil the criteria of the Swiss asylum law.

An official of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo said in 1997 there were 46 unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Switzerland. This placed Sri Lanka in the sixth position after countries such as Albania, Bosnia and Somalia.

Swiss Embassy officials said they had discussed the problem with the Department of Probation and Childcare and the Child Protection Authority.

Meanwhile, Professor de Silva said the newly amended laws pertaining to child abuse and exploitation need to be enforced.

Speaking at the inaugural of a three-day workshop on harnessing national human resources to alleviate child abuse, he said passing of resolutions and introduction of new bills in Parliament relating to child abuse would be futile unless they were enforced. These steps, he said, should be supported with political commitment and the state should allocate necessary resources needed to achieve this goal and follow up with systematic monitoring process.

IAEA submits nuclear monitoring proposals

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 (AFP) —The International Atomic Energy Agency has submitted arms monitoring proposals to the UN Security Council based on the assumption that Iraq could resume attempts to build nuclear weapons.

In a report released here yesterday, IAEA Director-General Mohamed Elbaradei said the proposals for an enhanced long-term monitoring scheme would cost at least $10 million per year.

He said the plan “Takes into account the prudent assumption that Iraq has retained documentation of its clandestine nuclear programme, specimens of important components and possibly amounts of non-enriched uranium.”

Starr may be questioned

WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (AFP) — The US Justice Department has informed independent counsel Kenneth Starr that it may question him on the way his associates handled their first meeting with Monica Lewinsky, media sources here said.

The weekly magazine, Newsweek said, the Justice Department intended to look into whether Starr’s associates offered former White House intern Lewinsky immunity from prosecution on condition that she should not contact her lawyer.

UN calls for Israel meet

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 (AFP) — The General Assembly has adopted by an overwhelming majority a resolution calling for a special UN conference in July to examine “persistent violations” by Israel of a Geneva assembly.

A meeting in emergency session voted the resolution with 115 delegations in favour, while the USA and Israel were the only two delegations opposed.

280 missing as Indonesian boat sinks

JAKARTA, Feb 10 (AFP) — At least 280 persons are missing after an Indonesian boat carrying more than 300 persons sank off Borneo on Saturday, a port official said today.

The official said a passing cargo ship rescued 19 persons, but at least 280 persons were still missing. It was not clear whether all were feared dead or whether some swam ashore.

The Harta Rimba, manned by a crew of seven, sank near Tambelan Island close to midnight on Saturday, said Mr Zainuddin, the port chief at Pontianak in West Kalimantan.

The 19 who were rescued were ferried to Pontianak where they arrived yesterday and were taken to hospital, he told AFP.

The boat sank between Tambelan Island and Pengiki Island, 200 northwest of Pontianak.

Mr Zainuddin could not give the precise number aboard the Harta Rimba. But the Kompas daily said it was carrying 332 persons including the crew.

A nurse at a Pontianak hospital said seven persons were still in hospital in a reasonable condition. Mr Zainuddin said the remaining survivors were now at his office.

Most passengers on the Harta Rimba were workers for a logging company. The boat had left the West Kalimatan port of Sambas on Saturday morning bound for Pekanbaru in Riau province on Sumatra Island.

Kompas quoted the 33-year-old Captain, Hermanto, as saying from his hospital bed in Pontianak that the pumps failed late in the afternoon after which the boat sank.

New Rwanda govt
KIGALI: Rwanda’s new government, formed after a major reshuffle, has been sworn in. One by one, the 20 ministers recited their vows of loyalty to the government and the country, and to obey the laws of the nation in a ceremony at the National Assembly here on Tuesday. President Pasteur Bizimungu Presided over the ceremony, attended by strongman Vice-President Paul Kagame and Prime Minister Pierre-Celestin Rwigema, as well as diplomats and heads of Rwanda’s top courts. — AFP

Most expensive cities
LONDON: Hong Kong and Beijing are the world’s two most expensive cities for foreign business employees to live in, according to a survey of prices for homes and apartments. The survey by Employment Conditions Abroad International released on Tuesday showed a four-room flat in the former British crown colony costs an average $ 8,026 per month, followed by Beijing at $ 6,560. — DPA

“The Exorcist”
LONDON: Twenty-five years after it was released on the big screen, the British authorities have permitted the release on video of “The Exorcist,” the cult movie about a girl possessed by the devil. The new director of the British Board of Film Censors, Robin Duval, on Tuesday approved the sale of the movie on video to people aged over 18. — AFP

Witchcraft ban
DETROIT: A suburban Michigan high school could be in for toil and trouble after it was sued for blocking a honour student from practising her religion — witchcraft. Lincoln Park High School, located in a blue-collar community south of Detroit, was sued on Tuesday in the US District Court in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for not allowing 17-year-old senior and witch, Crystal Siefferly, to wear a pentacle, a symbol important to her Wicca religion. — Reuters

Bin Laden
ISLAMABAD: The Taliban have said that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden was free to leave Afghanistan, but he will not be forced out, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) has reported. — AFP

Richard Holbrooke
WASHINGTON: Richard Holbrooke, nominated as US Ambassador to the United Nations, has agreed to pay a civil penalty to settle allegations that he unlawfully sought official State Department action on behalf of his investment banking company, according to the US Department of Justice. — Reuters