Poll testing ground for ruling party
COLOMBO, Jan 15 — The ethnic problem of a separate homeland for the Tamils for which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has been waging a war with the Sri Lankan government for the past several years seems to have been pushed aside at least for the time being as the main political parties are bracing up for the provincial council elections scheduled for January 25.

Russia denies giving N-knowhow to Iran
MOSCOW, Jan 15 — Russia’s intelligence agency has disputed US claims that three Russian scientific institutions helped Iran develop weapons, accusing US secret services of sloppy investigations.

Anwar case detainee to be released
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 — A Pakistani biologist jailed for having sex with sacked Malaysian Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim will be released next week, his lawyers said today.

European Commission chastised
THE European Commission survived an unprecedented censure vote in the European Parliament on Thursday but was forced to swallow a radical programme of change that will end its culture of secrecy and transfer much power from Brussels to MEPs in Strasbourg.

Prosecutors gun for Clinton
"Piled perjury upon perjury"

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (AP, Reuters) — Before a jury of 100 silent Senators, US House of Representatives prosecutors demanded President, Bill Clinton’s removal from office, alleging that he had “piled perjury upon perjury’’ and obstructed justice.

Senate Republican leaders suggested Mr Clinton might be invited to testify at his impeachment trial.

‘I think he should be invited, or at least I don’t have a problem with him being invited,’ the Republican Whip Mr Don Nickles, told reporters yesterday at the conclusion of the historic, six-hour-trial session. Republican sources said majority leader Trent Lott had also expressed at least passing interest in the idea. Mr Lott’s office declined comment.

Inside the Senate chamber, where monumental issues of war and peace have been thrashed out for over a century, the trial unfolded in an atmosphere of uncommon gravity.

America’s 42nd President was in the White House, preparing for next Tuesday’s State of the Union address, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist rapped the gavel and announced that the Senate would convene as a ‘court of impeachment.’

Meanwhile, the White House has cast doubt on whether Mr Clinton would testify to the Senate impeachment trial, saying he had already given enough sworn testimony about Monica Lewinsky.

As a cold rain fell on the Capital, Mr Clinton engaged in a whirlwind of activity yesterday to project an image that he was doing everything but paying a lot of attention to the Senate impeachment trial, as his Republican prosecutors outlined the charges against him.

Mr Clinton left it to his aides to respond to the proceedings on Capitol Hill.

Even as conventional wisdom holds that everyone knows how the impeachment trial against Mr Clinton will wind up — short of the 67 votes needed to convict him and throw him out of office — in a year of unexpected twists and turns, the prognosticators have been dead wrong about this case more often than right.

And there is plenty of uncertainty ahead as the Senate wrestles over thorny questions such as whether to call witnesses, dismiss the case, vote on articles of impeachment or censure the President.

The only certainty is that the math of the Senate favours Mr Clinton. There are 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. If all Republicans stand united, 12 Democrats would have to desert the President to force his removal from office.

Even as Republican prosecutors opened their arguments yesterday, the spirit of Senate bipartisanship that marked the beginning of the trial began to fade, foreshadowing divisions that are certain to emerge in a historic clash of political interests.

Lift UN ceiling on Iraqi oil: USA

RIYADH, Jan 15 (AFP) — Foreign ministers of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have decided not to participate in an Arab summit if Iraq attended, a diplomat has said.

The ministers, who met in Jeddah last night, “left after adopting a joint position: not to participate in an Arab summit in which Iraq takes part,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified.

“The Gulf leaders are worried by Iraq’s threats against the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait and other Arab countries,” he said.

“If a summit is held, the Arab leaders will instead mobilise to deal with the new Iraqi escalation,” he said.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein called in a January 5 speech for the Arab masses to overthrow rulers who did not condemn last month’s attacks on Iraq by the United States and Britain.

Saudi officials said the ministers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met in Jeddah last night in preparation for a January 24 Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on an Arab summit on Iraq.

On lifting the UN sanctions against Iraq, the diplomat said, “it’s not possible to do it because the Arab countries are not in a position to ignore UN resolutions”.

WASHINGTON (AP): The USA proposed today removing a U.N. ceiling on Iraqi oil sales provided the proceeds were used to purchase food and other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people.

Calling on Iraq to take advantage of the exemption to a nine-year-old Security Council trade embargo, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said also that the process for approving food and pharmaceutical contracts would be streamlined and made virtually automatic.

The anticipated U.S. actions are designed partly to counter a campaign by Baghdad of accusing the United States of America of starving the Iraqi people through its support of economic sanctions.

Iraq is permitted to sell $ 5.2 billion worth of oil every six months provided the proceeds are used to purchase food, medications and other humanitarian supplies.

This is the ceiling that would be lifted if the U.S. proposal was accepted by the Security Council.

But it would not assure a better life for Iraqi children, pregnant women, nursing mothers and the elderly. According to U.S. officials, Iraq has kept large supplies of food and medicines in storehouses, refusing to distribute them to the needy.

The USA would support eliminating the ceiling on funds from oil exports so that those funds can be used solely for humanitarian food and medicines,’’ Mr Rubin said.

We would support reasonable measures to streamline the U.N. Contract-approval process, including automatic approval of food and medicine contracts,’’ he said.

Mr Rubin said, the government of Iraq had chosen not to order important foodstuffs and medicines for its people. Furthermore, the government of Iraq has rejected donations of humanitarian goods from other countries.’’

At the same time, Mr Rubin emphasised this was not a lifting of sanctions on Iraq.

UNITED NATIONS (AP): A month after the U.S.A. and British missiles rained down on Iraq, the Security Council is beginning its first serious discussions on how to resume monitoring Baghdad’s weapons programmes while improving the humanitarian situation for the Iraqi people.

Russia is planning to elaborate on a French proposal to lift the oil embargo on Iraq while instituting a new surveillance system to make sure Iraqi President Saddam Hussein doesn’t buy any more weapons, diplomats said.

The proposal would streamline the bulky U.N. bureaucracy, allowing contracts to bring food and medicines into Iraq to be automatically approved. Washington would also work to improve contract approval for spare parts to improve Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

And the proposal would allow Baghdad to borrow against a U.N. Escrow Fund to buy such goods, encourage humanitarian contributions to Iraq, and strengthen UNICEF and other U.N. programmes already.

Mr Benon Sevan, the head of the U.N. humanitarian programme in Iraq, wouldn’t comment specifically on the U.S.A. or the French proposal but welcomed the flexibility shown by all members in trying to help the Iraqi people.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, however, sided with the French, saying: “if it doesn’t go to lifting sanctions, it doesn’t go far enough.’’

Meanwhile, new council member Canada suggested the 15-member body receive two comprehensive reports assessing the disarmament and humanitarian situation in Iraq, council diplomats said.

Chinese ‘hindering’ talks

BEIJING, Jan 15 (PTI) — Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has said his efforts to discuss Tibetan autonomy with China have failed due to the increasingly hardline attitude of some Communist Party leaders there.

“It seems that lately, the overall (Chinese) government policy regarding dissidents — and the Democracy Movement — has hardened. Their attitude towards me and Tibetans has gone the same way. It seems the influence of hardliners is increasing,” the 1989 Nobel laureate said in an interview to Time magazine.

Asked if Chinese President Jiang Zemin himself was responsible for this policy, the Dalai Lama said there were two groups in the Chinese Communist Party Politburo on Tibet, one moderate and one more hardline.

He restated his willingness to hold unconditional talks with China on Tibet anywhere and any time.

The Dalai Lama acknowledged that Beijing had adopted a strategy to ignore him in the hope that they would be able to outlast him. However, he cautioned that without him, things could become difficult and more dangerous.

He said one of his informal channels of communication with China had ceased working.

“One of the informal channels which we used to make contact with them is now more or less closed. It’s not working,” the Tibetan religious leader said.

The Dalai Lama said his position on Tibet had not changed in spite of “the tougher Chinese attitude.”

“I am fully committed to the middle approach (of seeking autonomy for Tibet) — one which can actually help to achieve genuine stability and unity for China. It is actually an antidote to separation. The Chinese Government should appreciate this, but unfortunately there is too much suspicion,” he said.

Asked if he was optimistic about resuming dialogue with Beijing, the Tibetan leader said he was very pessimistic in the immediate future. However, in the long run, he said he was always optimistic.

The Dalai Lama said he was concerned about China’s attempts to destroy Tibet’s separate identity.

“That is my concern. Tibet’s living Buddhist culture and tradition are not only of benefit to six million Tibetans but also to the Chinese. In the past, Tibetan Buddhist traditions have helped the Chinese a lot. In future, they can give the Chinese deeper values,” the 63-year-old Buddhist leader said.

In response to the Tibetan leader’s statement, China asserted that its informal channels of communication with the Dalai Lama was not blocked and accused him of creating hurdles in resolving the Tibet issue.

“The (Chinese) central government has channels to contact the Dalai Lama and it is unblocked,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman told PTI here. He denied that China had hardened its attitude towards the Tibet issue.

Jathedar’s visa
US Sikhs’ appeal to Pope
from Aziz Haniffa

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 — A Sikh group in the USA which had urged President Bill Clinton to intervene in resolving the controversy over the withdrawal of a visa to Sikhism’s high priest has now appealed to the Pope.

The New York-based Akal Takht Sahib Support Committee (ATSSC) has in an advertisement in the op-ed page of The Washington Times urged the Pope to use his influence “in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., and the international media — to reinstate the U.S. visa for Bhai Ranjit Singh...to visit his “flock’ in the United States of America.”

Bhai Ranjit Singh is the Jathedar or head of Sikhism’s highest temporal authority, Akal Takht. He had been given permission to travel to the USA and issued a 10 year multiple entry visa on December 22 but was informed a day before he was to leave for America on a three-week visit earlier this month that his visa had been revoked.

In the letter to the Pope, the ATSSC accused the Indian government and its various intelligence agencies of convincing the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi to revoke Bhai Ranjit Singh’s visa.

It also called on the Pope to condemn the anti-Christian violence in India, which it alleged was being condoned by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. The letter to the Pope said the ATSSC “urges the world community in general and the Vatican in particular not to mince words but condemn forcefully the mounting violence against the Christian minority in India invariably organised by the apparatchiks of the ruling fundamentalist BJP.”

It said, “Although Sikh leaders of every political hue in India and abroad have already, expeditiously and publicly, condemned the persecution of Indian Christians, the Sikh masses feel that is not enough.”

“Sikhs consider it their religious duty to protect the downtrodden and the oppressed and want to convey a message of friendship, universal brotherhood, hope and protection to the terrified Christians in India,” the letter said.

The group accused Indian officials of having “somehow convinced the U.S. diplomats in Delhi about some non-existent trouble in Sikh gurdwaras (Sikh ‘churches’) in the United States.”

“As a result of this disinformation,” it alleged, “the U.S. Embassy in Delhi has rescinded the visa it had given earlier to the Jathedar.” It said the revocation of the visa “has caused great pain and anguish not only to the 18 million Sikhs living in India but has touched the soul of the prosperous three million Sikh diaspora.”

U.S. State Department officials had denied that they had been influenced by Indian government officials either in New Delhi or in the USA in rescinding the visa to Jathedar. They said the visa was probably cancelled because Bhai Ranjit Singh is a convicted murderer — he had killed the head of a rival sect in 1998 and received a presidential pardon only in 1997.
— IANS

Poll testing ground for ruling party

COLOMBO, Jan 15 (UNI) — The ethnic problem of a separate homeland for the Tamils for which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been waging a war with the Sri Lankan government for the past several years seems to have been pushed aside at least for the time being as the main political parties are bracing up for the provincial council elections scheduled for January 25.

As the election is hardly nine days away, a fierce contest is expected between the ruling Peoples’ Alliance and the opposition United National Party.

Political observers say the coming election is rather a ‘testing ground of popularity’ for Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Peoples’ Alliance (PA) and opposition United National Party (UNP). This is the first local election being held after Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga came to power in 1994.

For the PA coalition, the Wayamba (Sinhala name of northwest province) election is most crucial as any setback will give a boost to the opposition and its leader Ranil Wickeremesinghe, determined to stage a comeback with a majority. But a victory would definitely serve as a shot in the arm for the PA regime which has been portrayed by the opposition as a government losing the people’s confidence.

Although elections to five provincial councils had been announced in last September, the government got it postponed citing emergency reasons.

With active campaigning yet to pick up in a big way, it is a neck and neck fight for both the parties. Both leaders — Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickeremesinghe — have already addressed a series of public meetings at a number of places.

Russia denies giving N-knowhow to Iran

MOSCOW, Jan 15 (AP) — Russia’s intelligence agency has disputed US claims that three Russian scientific institutions helped Iran develop weapons, accusing US secret services of sloppy investigations.

The federal security service, or the FSB, the leading successor of the soviet KGB, said yesterday it checked the institutions.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and other senior Russian officials have denied that Iran received any such technology from Russia and harshly criticised the Americans for placing sanctions on the three institutions, warning that the move could damage US-Russian relations.

The Americans fired back, accusing the Kremlin of ignoring the problem. The United States of America also threatened to cut back or even eliminate American satellite launches in Russia.

Iran is building a nuclear power plant with Russian help. But says it is not seeking to build nuclear bombs or other weapons of mass destruction.

Anwar case detainee to be released

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 (AFP) — A Pakistani biologist jailed for having sex with sacked Malaysian Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim will be released next week, his lawyers said today.

Mr Balwant Singh Sidhu, defence counsel for Munawar Ahmad Anees, said his client would be freed on Monday, two months ahead of the end of his six-month jail sentence.

“He gets one-third remission from his sentence for good behaviour, so he effectively only serves four months,” Mr Balwant Singh told AFP, adding he would still pursue an appeal against his conviction.

“My client will definitely want to proceed with his appeal. He wants to clear his name,” he said, adding that Munawar would spend time with his family during a Muslim festival next week.

European Commission chastised
from Martin Walker in Strasbourg

THE European Commission survived an unprecedented censure vote in the European Parliament on Thursday but was forced to swallow a radical programme of change that will end its culture of secrecy and transfer much power from Brussels to MEPs in Strasbourg.

“This is now a commission operating under supervision, after one of the most important votes ever in Europe,’’ the Parliament’s President, Jose Maria Gil-Robles, said. “We saw power shift today.”

The commission was humbled and placed on probation by Parliament, with fewer than half the 626 MEPs voting to defend the President, Jacques Santer, and his team in a motion of censure, which they survived by a margin of 293 to 232.

The commissioners sat stunned as the weight of the vote against them sank in. All the German Social Democrat MEPs broke rank to join the Greens and Liberals and about half the Conservatives in condemning the commission.

“Parliament has shown its authority to carry out the necessary surveillance and control and we should be happy for that,’’ Mr Santer told MEPs. “Your message came through loud and clear.”

The two most controversial commissioners, France’s Edith Cresson and Spain’s Manuel Marin, comfortably survived individual votes of condemnation after French and Spanish conservatives broke rank and rallied to their rescue.

But by the time of the vote, the game had changed. The stake was no longer the individual scalps of commissioners accused of serial mismanagement but the ability of Parliament to assert its powers over a discredited commission.

“The two commissioners were just the tactical instrument in a wider strategy to assert the powers of Parliament,’’ said the Liberal group leader, Pat Cox, who devised the manoeuvre to name and shame Mr Marin and Mrs Cresson.

Commissioners are now committed to publishing a register of their interests, ending the patronage of jobs for friends and family, and accepting MEP inspection teams with the power to demand any document or dossier.

“Santer has been forced to give in to our demands,” said Labour MEP leader Alan Donelly. “Threatening to sack the commission was the only way to achieve these reforms.” Mr Marin and Ms Cresson have been granted only a stay of judgement.

A team of experts is to be empowered to investigate abuses by individual commissioners and report to Parliament within 60 days. Mr Santer has agreed to call for the dismissal of any commissioner found culpable of “fraud, mismanagement or nepotism”.

The commission was saved by a combination of the Socialist group and Germany’s Social Democrat Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, who wanted it to stay in place to push through the ambitious reform plan for the European Union’s budget and farm policy, a prerequisite to EU enlargement.
— The Guardian, London

Monks take over pub
PERTH: The local pub in the tiny west Australian hamlet of New Norcia has new owners — Benedictine monks. In what could be a world first for a religious order, the monastery bought the licence to the hotel, originally a hostel designed and built by monks in the 1920s. However, the order’s prior, Dom Christopher Power, said despite the monks’ centuries-old tradition of distilling and brewing alcohol, the brothers would not be pouring beers or serving spirits. — AP

Fox hunting
LONDON: Britain’s royal family faced angry protests from a prominent animal rights group after Princes William and Harry, second and third in line to the throne, rode out fox hunting. William (16) and Harry (14) were taken on Thursday to the Beaufort hunt, not far from their father Prince Charles’ highgrove country estate in western England, by their former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, The Sun tabloid reported. — AFP

Drinking kids
BRISBANE: Australia’s reputation as a nation of heavy drinkers was bolstered on Thursday by the release of figures which show they start young. The average Australian 12-year-old boy downs 3-1/2 alcoholic drinks a week, according to the first national report to focus on the health of Australia’s children from birth to age 15. — AP

Arab suspect held
TEL AVIV: The Israeli authorities have arrested a former Arab collaborator with the Israeli secret service for allegedly raping Miss Israel, Linor Abargil, shortly before she was crowned Miss World in November. The suspect, Shlomo Nour, raped and sodomised Abargil after she came to a travel agency he owns in Milan during a visit in September. — AFP

Rival pulls out
JERUSALEM: Israeli legislator Uzi Landau has announced he is abandoning his challenge to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as leader of Israel’s governing Likud Party, Israel Radio reported on Friday. Landau’s withdrawal means the contest for leadership of the party will now be between Mr Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens. — DPA