Columbia launch called off
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, July 20 — NASA called off the launch of the space shuttle Columbia early today after high amounts of hydrogen gas were detected in the engine compartment.

Peace eludes Afghan factions TASHKENT, July 20 — Afghanistan’s warring Taliban militia and opposition alliance failed to make a major breakthrough in peace talks in Uzbekistan today, vowing only to continue the search for an end to 20 years of bloodshed.

Taliban delegates at the peace talks in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, on Monday. — AP/PTI

Fontaine heads EP
STRASBOURG, July 20 — The European Parliament today elected French Conservative Deputy Nicole Fontaine as President or Speaker at its constituent session, five weeks after the European elections.

Pakistan to raise ‘people’s army’

ISLAMABAD, July 20 (PTI) — In the wake of the Kargil crisis, the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan has decided to raise a “people’s army” by imparting military training in schools and colleges in order to strengthen the country’s defence.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Choudhury Muhammad Ashraf, disclosed the government’s decision before the National Assembly yesterday while replying to supplementary questions.

He said the government in order to strengthen the defence of the country would “encourage and strengthen military training in schools and colleges to create a people’s army in the country”.

Retired army personnel will be hired by the government to impart military training in educational institutions, the Parliamentary Secretary said.

He also said certain changes in the syllabus of the schools and colleges were being made under which the students will be encouraged to join the armed forces.

He, however, denied reports that already some retired and serving army officers had been taken in the Education Department on deputation.

Incidentally, a number of hard-line religious outfits in the country also have their own programme of imparting arms training to the youth to prepare them for the so-called “jehad” (holy war) for protecting the interests of Muslims all over the world, but most of them have been engaged in militancy in Kashmir for the past one decade.

Taiwan seeks support for statehood

TAIPEI, July 20 (AP) — In his first public remarks since setting off an uproar in Beijing, the President Mr Lee Teng-Hui today called for public support of his bold new statehood claim, saying it was necessary to prepare Taiwan for political talks with China.

Mr Lee said he made the point that Taiwan must deal with China “on a state-to-state basis” to stress the equal political status of the two.

Meanwhile, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Beijing today said that the Taiwan President had taken a “dangerous step” towards splitting China.

“This is a very dangerous step on the road to splitting China,” Ms Zhang Qiyue told a news conference.

Taiwan’s goodwill gestures in the past had helped to improve relations with China, Mr Lee said, but Beijing still refuse to face the reality of a divided China ruled by separate governments and that had held back any chance of substantive progress between the two.

“The notion that Taiwan is a local government, a rebel province, was the reason why there couldn’t be a fundamental improvement in relations,” Mr Lee said in a televised speech to Rotary Club members.

“We will foster dialogue and negotiations with the Chinese Communists on an equal footing,” Mr Lee said. “We will also strengthen our contacts with the international community to safeguard our survival and development.”

AFP adds: Ms Zhang added China did not recognise Mr Lee as the President of Taiwan, which Beijing has considered a renegade province since the two sides split in 1949. “We don’t recognise the status of the President. So, in future, don’t be fooled by it,” she added.

Asked to confirm reports in the Chinese and the Hong Kong Press that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was conducting military exercises in south-east China, across the strait from Taiwan, Ms Zhang said the Army should take responsibility for the issue.

Meanwhile, Mr Lee said he was not seeking independence for Taiwan but insisted it was time for Beijing to recognise the island as a separate state on an equal footing.

HONG KONG (AP): China has mobilised combat troops near the Taiwan coast and put them on a state of high alert as Beijing steps up pressure on the island to back off from its new stance on statehood, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper reported today.

The troops in the southern and eastern military zones of Nanjing, Guangzhou and Jinan were seen carrying weapons and military equipment, suggesting the manoeuvres in recent days were not merely a routine “shift of duty,” Wen Wei Po reported, quoting eyewitnesses it did not identify.

Israel committed to Wye pact

JERUSALEM/Washington, July 20 (DPA) — Israel is prepared to meet Palestinian demands to implement all stages of the Wye river land-for-security agreement before beginning negotiations on a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said today.

Mr Barak has said he will prefer delaying the implementation of the final stage of the three-part Wye agreement, and has suggested it be implemented as part of a final settlement.

But his aide Danny Yatom told Israel Radio from Washington that “the Prime Minister said more than once that if Arafat rejects the suggestion...On implementing Wye, then Israel will implement Wye as written”.

The Palestinians have demanded that Israel implement the entire agreement before negotiations on a final settlement begin.

The previous Israeli Government froze the implementation of the Wye agreement shortly after carrying out the first of the three Israeli West Bank troop withdrawals called for in the agreement.

Mr Barak told a joint news conference with President Bill Clinton at the White House on Monday that Israel was committed to carrying out the agreement.

“We are committed to agreements signed by the Israeli Government. We are committed to Wye,” he said. “We will implement it. We are committed to the permanent status negotiations, and we intend to go forward and do it.”

Reuters and AP add: Mr Clinton and Mr Barak said they would welcome Syrian moves to rein in Palestinian groups opposed to peace with Israel.

At the news conference yesterday they did not confirm reports that Syria earlier this month had urged Damascus-based radical groups to abandon their armed struggle against Israel.

But both made it clear they would be pleased by such a move as Israel aimed to resume peace talks with the Palestinians as well as with Syria and Lebanon following Mr Barak’s May 17 election on a platform of making peace with Israel’s neighbours.

“We, too, would like to have more normal relations with Syria and we would like Syria to be reconciled to all its neighbours in the region,” Mr Clinton said.

Mr Clinton said he intended to contact Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad following his talks with the Israeli leader to urge the Syrian leader to seize the opportunity brought about by Mr Barak’s election.

Mr Clinton, for his part, pledged to support Israel in taking risks. US military aid will be boosted by one-third, from $ 1.9 billion currently to $ 2.4 billion a year, subject to congressional approval, and the USA will finance Israel’s development of a third battery of Arrow anti-missile missiles.

Mr Clinton also announced the first Israeli astronaut would enter space on a NASA flight in 2000. He called it “taking our partnership to new heights - literally.”

Columbia launch called off

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, July 20 (AP) — NASA called off the launch of the space shuttle Columbia early today after high amounts of hydrogen gas were detected in the engine compartment.

The shuttle was to have blasted off at 1006 IST with the first woman to lead a US space mission, Eileen Collins, and the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, “Chandra”, named after India-born physicist S. Chandrasekhar.

But the three main engines never fired. NASA said there was no indication of any fire in the shuttle, and the crew was safe.

The US women’s soccer team, as well as Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton, daughter Chelsea and Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space, had gathered to cheer Collins on.

“This really is the last barrier to be broken,” observed Ride. She had called Collins earlier to wish her good luck.

The lengthy VIP list also included Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala; 15 members of Congress, 13 of them women; and folk singer Judy Collins, who wrote a song for the occasion.

Peace eludes Afghan factions

TASHKENT, July 20 (Reuters) — Afghanistan’s warring Taliban militia and opposition alliance failed to make a major breakthrough in peace talks in Uzbekistan today, vowing only to continue the search for an end to 20 years of bloodshed.

They said they would go back to their respective sides in Afghanistan and consult before deciding to go ahead with further negotiations.

“We had the opportunity to get together with the Opposition,” Taliban Information Minister Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi told reporters after just over two hours of talks with opposition representatives in Tashkent.

“We spoke about a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners and a continuation of talks, and now it depends on the decisions of our leaderships.”

The Taliban, controlling around 90 per cent of the Afghan territory, attended the peace talks despite making preparations for a major offensive against its last remaining foe dug in just north of the capital Kabul.

The opposition spokesman Dr Abdullah told Reuters that the talks in the neighbouring Central Asian state provided another opportunity to pursue peace, adding that it only represented the beginning of the negotiating process.

“We hope that we should be able to avoid that summer offensive, because it is not constructive in any way if from one side there are calls for talks and negotiation while from the other side a major offensive is being launched,” he said.

The two sides met a day after the so-called six-plus-two Contact Group had urged them to end the conflict.

The group comprises the six countries bordering Afghanistan — China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — as well as the USA and Russia.

Kennedy’s plane went into ‘death spiral’

OTIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, (USA), July 20 (Reuters) — The plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr made a terrifying 1,100-foot (333-metre) plunge in the final seconds before it crashed into the Atlantic, according to newly released radar tracking information.

The speed of the ill-fated plane’s descent equalled 4,700 feet (1,424 metres) per minute, much faster than previous information had indicated, and could help explain what happened on board the Piper Saratoga that carried Kennedy, his wife Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, to their deaths.

Aviation experts said the rapid rate of descent could mean that Kennedy lost control of the plane he was flying to Martha’s Vineyard on Friday night, or that the aircraft stalled and spiralled into the sea.

“It is a dive by any name. This is an abnormal and excessive rate of descent. There is no normal descent procedure which can account for it,” aviation expert John Nance told ABC News yesterday. “The only way to account for it is a structural break-up in flight, a stall, a spin, a death spiral as we call it.”

But officials of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) refused to characterise the descent as “abnormal”. The Chief NTSB investigator, Mr Robert Pearce, called the descent data “only a fact we have to work with.”

Mr Pearce said Kennedy’s plane had a type of voice recording device fitted to its radio that may have captured any final transmission.

Aviation experts have said that an appropriate rate of descent would be between 400 and 500 feet (120 and 150 metres) per minute at that point in the flight. Earlier data had recorded a drop of 700 feet (212 metres) in 28 seconds, which one official had said was “within the airplane’s capabilities.”

Fontaine heads EP

STRASBOURG, July 20 (DPA) — The European Parliament today elected French Conservative Deputy Nicole Fontaine as President or Speaker at its constituent session, five weeks after the European elections.

With 306 of the 545 votes cast in the 626-seat legislature, Ms Fontaine received an absolute majority in the first round.

Ms Fontaine, a 57-year-old lawyer, is the first woman President of the European Parliament since Ms Simone Veil, also from France, who held the office from 1979 to 1982.

A member of the French rightist-liberal UDF party, Ms Fontaine has been a member of the Strasbourg-based Parliament since 1984. Married for 35 years and mother to a daughter, she has vowed to carry out reforms aimed at expanding the powers of the deputies.

Ms Fontaine held the post of Vice- President twice before.

Bar on full veil
CAIRO: A top court here has barred Egyptian schoolgirls from wearing a full-face veil, ending a five-year legal battle between Islamic fundamentalist lawyers and the Education Minister. The country’s highest administrative court, the State Council, on Sunday rejected a lower tribunal’s decision to revoke a 1994 ban on the ‘niqab’ by Education Minister Hussein Kamel Bahaa Eddine, legal sources said on Monday. — AFP

Spy charges dropped
VLADIVOSTOK: A Russian military court sentenced a journalist to three years in jail on Tuesday for disclosing classified naval material to the Japanese media, but dropped espionage charges and freed him on amnesty. Lawyers for journalist Grigory Pasko said they would appeal in the Supreme Court for a full acquittal after a dramatic day in court in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, during which Pasko’s wife fainted as the verdict was read out. Espionage charges are rarely dropped in Russia. But Pasko said he would not celebrate until Russians could be sure the security forces, whose methods he likened to the Soviet KGB, would act within the law. — Reuters

Death squad kills 16
BOGOTA: At least 16 businessmen were massacred by an ultra-right death squad in a town in the oil-rich corner of northern Colombia, the authorities have said. At least 50 members of the Right-wing paramilitary force, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), dragged their victims out of their homes and from a bar and shot them in Tibu early on Sunday, the police said on Monday. — Reuters

20 jailed for massacre
San Cristobal De Las Casas (Mexico): Twenty government supporters were given long prison sentences for massacring 45 rebel sympathisers — the first murder convictions in a case that touched off an international outcry. The killers gunned down 21 women, 15 children and nine men on December 22, 1997, in Acteal, a village in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas that was sympathetic to the Zapatista rebels. — AP

Drunken driving
FRANKFURT: A German man has been charged after being found drunk at the wheel of a lawnmower, the police has said. The police on Monday said it detained the 22 year-old man after neighbours complained that he was driving the lawnmower up and down their street in the middle of the night. — Reuters

Royals’ fake photos
STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s royal palace has said it was considering taking legal action after faces of the royal family were superimposed on to pornographic photographs on the Internet. Palace spokeswoman Cecilia Wilmhardt on Monday said lawyers had been notified but as the pictures had been distributed over the Internet from an American computer it might be difficult to take any action. — Reuters

Potato thief shot
MOSCOW: An 88-year-old man in the far eastern Russian town of Khabarovsk exacted a tough price from two would-be potato thieves on his allotment, shooting one dead and chasing off the other. Disturbed by noises in the night, the pensioner caught the two men digging up his potato crop and threatened them with a rifle. When the pair attacked him he opened fire, killing one man instantly. — DPA

‘Jump’ red lights
RIO DE JANEIRO: Rio De Janeiro officials have told drivers they can run red lights at night because of a rash of fatal carjackings and robberies at the city’s stoplights. “You won’t be fined if you go through a red light from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.,” said Rio Traffic Department spokesman Ivan Lima Alves on Monday. “This is our way of dealing with the growing number of hold-ups at stoplights.” — Reuters

Volcano erupts
SAINT-DENIS (Reunion Island): The volcanic peak that dominates the Indian Ocean island of reunion on Monday erupted but no one was hurt, officials said. The eruption of the Piton De La Fournaise (fiery peak) took place on its uninhabited eastern slope and no people or property were threatened. — Reuters

Helen Hunt weds
LOS ANGELES: Academy award-winning actress Helen Hunt and actor Hank Azaria, who played her dog-sitter for several seasons on the hit NBC series “Mad About You,” got married over the weekend, her publicist has said. — Reuters