Pak to ‘revive Press ordinance’
ISLAMABAD, July 26 — Pakistan’s independent media is under unrelenting pressure to fall in line with the Nawaz Sharif Government, human rights groups say.

Danger of Indo-Pak war not yet over: USA
WASHINGTON, July 26 — The latest conflict over Kashmir came much closer to a full-scale war between India and Pakistan than was publicly acknowledged at the time — and raised very real fears that one or both countries would resort to using variants of the nuclear devices each tested last year, says The Washington Post, quoting a senior US administration official.

Charges against Iran daily upheld
TEHERAN, July 26 — The director of an Iranian pro-reform paper whose closure sparked days of riots here has been found guilty of all major charges against him, including libel and publishing classified information.

Court accepts Anwar man’s confession
KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — The Malaysian High Court today admitted Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja’s confession as evidence that he was sodomised by jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Security lapse helped hijacker
TOKYO, July 26 — The former airport worker who hijacked a jumbo jet and stabbed its pilot to death had warned Japanese authorities of a security lapse which he later used to smuggle aboard a knife, police sources said yesterday.

Pak to ‘revive Press ordinance’

ISLAMABAD, July 26 (IPS) — Pakistan’s independent media is under unrelenting pressure to fall in line with the Nawaz Sharif Government, human rights groups say.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in its latest newsletter warned that the Sharif Government is planning to revive the repressive Press and Publications Ordinance (PPO) in its bid to tighten control of the free Press.

“Plans are afoot to reissue the infamous Press and Publications Ordinance and to adopt an inadequate law on people’s right to information,” the HRCP said.

The PPO, which was repealed in the mid-1980s, had always been considered the state’s strongest tool to control and curb the free Press. It had been used frequently to close down newspapers by successive governments.

“The very presence of such laws on the statute book is in conflict with the citizens right to information,” said Mr Zafarullah Khan, president of Green Press, a group of environmental journalists that also monitors Press freedom violations in Pakistan.

Already, the government has forced the country’s largest Jang group of publications to stop the Editor of its English-language newspaper The News, Dr Maleeha Lodhi, from writing under her name. And it continues to keep in custody the Editor of the Peshawar-based Frontier Post on charges of drug trafficking.

An alliance of Lahore-based journalist organisations and civil society groups have issued a press statement saying the government is exerting enormous pressure on the independent Press to give up dissent.

“The Press is being forced through invisible pressures to adopt an elaborate system of self-censorship,” the Committee for Free Press said in a recent statement.

Other targets include outspoken journalist Najam Sethi, Editor of The Friday Times who was released after 25 days in custody on June 3 after the government was forced to withdraw sedition charges. But Sethi is now fighting illegal tax notices.

Fifty notices to the tune of Rs 50 million (roughly $ 1.2 million) were slapped on him for non-payment of taxes, which he has denied, and the government has also asked the election commission to delete his name from the voters list.

“What is more alarming is that the newspapers are being pressured to submit to the Ministry of Information’s detailed scrutiny on a daily basis ... Not only the news stories, but also the opinion pages are being subjected to arbitrary censor in many organisations,” the New York-based Committee for Protection of Journalists has protested in a letter to Prime Minister Sharif.

The Sharif Government has sought to silence independent newspapers and non-government journals since the introduction of the Shariah Bill, which its critics have rejected as a law that would vest enormous powers in the Prime Minister.

An angry government took on the Jang group, which had taken a tough anti-legislation line. The clash took a serious turn earlier this year with the government stopping newsprint supplies to the group, forcing the editor-publisher to go public. The HRCP sees a pattern in the government’s actions to acquire unfettered powers, and says under Sharif the democratic institutions are taking a beating. “Political discourse has been polluted by polarisation around narrow interests, and authoritarian tendencies are becoming stronger in the country,” it said.

Following the debacle in Kargil this month, some members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League are demanding a “culture of openness” in the government.

They would like to be allowed to discuss and debate government policies, a right that was taken away in 1997 with the enactment of the anti-defection Bill by the Sharif Government.

Javed Jaidi, a senior Pakistani journalist, says it suits the government to keep the media under control and restrict the sharing of information from the public.

All mainstream political parties have blindly accepted the colonial principle of keeping the people in the dark though access to information would be vital for a democracy, he said.

Danger of Indo-Pak war not yet over: USA

WASHINGTON, July 26 (UNI) — The latest conflict over Kashmir came much closer to a full-scale war between India and Pakistan than was publicly acknowledged at the time — and raised very real fears that one or both countries would resort to using variants of the nuclear devices each tested last year, says The Washington Post, quoting a senior US administration official.

The official said: “This is one of the most dangerous situations on the face of the earth. It was very, very easy to imagine how this crisis could have escalated out of control, including in a way that could have brought in nuclear weapons, without either party consciously deciding that it wanted to go to nuclear war.”

The daily says that danger is far from over. The two sides continue to trade artillery and machine-gun fire across the so-called Line of Control, which divides the rugged Himalayan province between India and Pakistan. On Friday, India claimed that Pakistani forces — or their guerrilla surrogates — continued to occupy positions on the Indian side of the line, in defiance of Pakistan’s pledge to withdraw.

“This could reverse itself quickly,” it quoted a White House official having acknowledged.

Two months ago, as fighting raged between Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir, The Washington Post says, American spy satellites revealed a new and alarming development hundreds of miles to the south: in the desert state of Rajasthan, elements of the Indian Army’s main offensive “strike force” were loading tanks, artillery and other heavy equipment onto flatbed rail cars.

India, it seemed, was preparing to invade its neighbour, the daily adds.

It says that at least in the short term, US President Bill Clinton helped avert that prospect during his widely reported Independence Day (July 4) meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who agreed after hours of tense discussions to withdraw the forces that had triggered the flare-up in early May.

But the full dimensions of the crisis are only now coming to light, it adds.

Simmering discontent among Serbs

ORAHOVAC (Serbia), July 26 (Reuters) — Miki Grkovic says he has not seen the centre of his home town for about a month, even though it is only a five-minute walk away.

“I’ve forgotten what it looks like,” he says with a smile. The 15-year-old Serb schoolby hasn’t lost his sense of humour. But there is really not much to laugh about here.

Grkovic’s family and thousands of other Serbs from all over the south-western Kosovo town have formed what they themselves describe as a ghetto. Anyone who ventures out of the district just above the centre of the hillside town simply does not come back, they say.

The local Serbs put their number at around 3,000 in an area about half-a-square kilometre in size.

Many of them are unhappy with the Dutch peace-keepers in charge of the red-roofed settlement in a picturesque wine-growing area since the end of the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia and would like Russian soldiers to take over.

Trying to keep the situation in check and slowly reduce the tension is the job of Lieutenant Colonel Tony Van Loon, the Dutch commander of the troops here.

Asked why feelings should run so high, he had a simple answer: “Three thousand persons in mass graves”.

These are locals alleged to have been killed over the past two years as Serb forces tried to crush Albanian guerrillas.

Orahovac saw some of the fiercest fighting in the Kosovo Liberation Army’s campaign against the Serbs.

The Serbs see things differently. No one has ventured out of the ghetto where 2,000 Serbs. who lived there before, have been joined by relatives and friends from all over the town.

The Serbs say they feel trapped. They have an intermittent water supply, no television, a phone system which works only locally and food which comes mainly from humanitarian agencies. Hardly anyone goes to work and ways to pass the day are limited.

The Serbs see hope in the shape of Russian troops who have begun patrolling the nearby town of Malisevo. A decision is still to be made on whether they should deploy here too.

Charges against Iran daily upheld

TEHERAN, July 26 (AFP) — The director of an Iranian pro-reform paper whose closure sparked days of riots here has been found guilty of all major charges against him, including libel and publishing classified information.

Iran’s hardline Special Court for Clergy (SCC) said late Sunday that “Salam” newspaper director Mohammad Khoeinia would be sentenced “within the statutory period,” usually in two weeks or less.

In a statement cited by the official Iran News Agency, it said the jury felt the 60-year-old Khoeinia did not “deserve”a suspended sentence.

The SSC said the jury comprising eight clerics, which included the director of a hardline newspaper, unanimously found Khoeinia guilty of publishing classified information.

The SSC by a majority vote also found him guilty of misinforming the public, insulting MPs libel and defamation of character.

The stunning judgment against Khoeinia, who is close to reformist President Mohammad Khatami, almost surely means the ban against “Salam” will also be upheld.

The SCC banned “Salam” earlier this month, sparking six days of bloody clashes pitting student protesters against security forces and Islamic hardliners.

Publication of the letter, which called for similar press curbs, was an effort to defame conservative members of parliament who backed the Bill, seven MPs had charged in a court complaint.

Court accepts Anwar man’s confession

KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 (Pool-Bernama) — The Malaysian High Court today admitted Sukma Darmawan Sasmitaat Madja’s confession as evidence that he was sodomised by jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

In his ruling, Justice Arifin Jaka said he was satisfied that the prosecution had proved its case in the trial-within-a-trial beyond reasonable doubt.

He said Sukma’s denial of the confession which was made in a sworn affidavit after he was sentenced to six months’jail for allowing himself to be sodomised by Anwar was an afterthought.

Justice Ariffin said he was satisfied that the interrogation conducted by the police when Sukma was under detention at the police headquarters here was within the reasonable hour of the day.

He also allowed Attorney-General Mohtar Abdullah to recall sessions court judge Abdul Aarim Jalil who acted as magistrate when recording Sukma’s confession, to tender the document as evidence in court.

“I am not saying that this is a proof. I am just ruling that it is admissible,” he said.

Anwar’s wife Azizah told newmen that her husband described the ruling as “no surprise”.

Sukma’s counsel Gobin Singh Deo, however, said it would be “detrimental” to the defence.

“Definitely it takes the prosecution case further but there is still space and scope for us to probe further into the contents of the confession,” Gobin added.

Anwar, (51), is jointly charged with Sukma, 38, his adopted brother, engaging in sodomy with his former driver Azizan Abu Bakar. Sukma faces another charge of abetting Anwar in having sex with Azizan.

Security lapse helped hijacker

TOKYO, July 26 (Reuters) — The former airport worker who hijacked a jumbo jet and stabbed its pilot to death had warned Japanese authorities of a security lapse which he later used to smuggle aboard a knife, police sources said yesterday.

The unemployed 28-year-old man, identified as Yuji Nishizawa, was taken into custody on Friday after hijacking a Nippon Airways plane with 517 aboard and briefly taking the aircraft for a joy ride.

He said he took advantage of a security flaw enabling a transit passenger to avoid putting a bag through the airport x-ray monitors, the police sources said.

Due to the security lapse, the man retrieved the bag from storage and returned to the transit area, thus avoiding airport x-ray monitor checks, the police added. He then boarded the flight to Hokkaido that he hijacked, they added.

10 kg heroin seized
PESHAWAR: The Pakistan police has arrested a former newspaper owner on charges of possessing 10 kg of heroin, officials have said. Anwar-ul-Haq, the former owner and editor of the Urdu Language Basharal daily, was arrested while returning from a fruit market. — AFP

John F. Kennedy
WASHINGTON: Federal investigators are examining whether John F. Kennedy Jr received erroneous weather information before departing on his fatal flight to Martha's Vineyard, according to Newsweek magazine. Pilots routinely use a toll-tree number to check weather reports issued by the Federal Aviation Authority and the US Weather Bureau. The official weather briefing for July 16, night he was flying, stated that visibility off the coast of Massachusetts was over 12.8 km — adequate for a novice pilot like Kennedy flying under visual flight rules. In fact, hot, hazy skies had reduced visibility to about 6 to 8 km, said other pilots who flew at the time. — AFP

Fund-raising race
WASHINGTON: The race for fund-raising among parties for the forthcoming US presidential election is hotting up with Democrats planning to collect a massive $ 200 million to boost their chances of retaining the White House, media report has said. "New York Times" reported that Democrats who collected about $ 100 million during the 1996 presidential election, were hoping to collect nearly twice the amount. — PTI

Elephants in seas?
HAMBURG: Elephants’ early but direct ancestors were marine animals, new research by Australian zoologist Ann Gaeth and her colleagues suggests, their trunks serving as snorkels for breathing underwater. University of Melbourne Scientists, according to a report in the July issue of the German magazine “Geo”, for the first time examined very young elephant embryos and noticed indications of adaptation to an aquatic environment. — DPA

IVF kids to get right
LONDON: As the world’s first test-tube baby celebrated her 21st birthday, the British Government announced its plans to give thousands of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) children born from donated sperm or eggs the right in adulthood to trace the donors. But the announcement on Sunday dismayed the country’s largest donor organisation which said there would be a fall in donors, fearful of being traced decades later by offspring who are total strangers. — AP