Britain’s new ‘fairy-tale’ Princess LONDON, June 13 — In true fairy-tale fashion, English girl-next-door Sophie Rhys-Jones will become the wife of a real-life prince this week when she marries Queen Elizabeth’s youngest son, Prince Edward. Purdah divides Lanka schools COLOMBO, June 13 — The recent Supreme Court order allowing two Muslim teachers to cover their heads while teaching in Badulla Tamil Balika Vidyalaya in the outskirts of Colombo has led to the boycotting of classes by students in protest.

NEW YORK: Indian Ambassador to the USA Naresh Chandera addressing the Press on Kashmir issue in New York on Saturday. — PTI

LTTE plot to kill Sonia: report
COLOMBO, June 13 — A leading US Intelligence magazine has confirmed reports about an LTTE plot to assassinate the Congress President Ms Sonia Gandhi.

Bush’s son to run for presidency
DES MOINES (Iowa), June 13 — It was not an official announcement, but it appeared to have the force of one, when Texas Governor George W.Bush said he was running for the office of the President of USA.

Over 120 killed in Lanka fighting

COLOMBO, June 13 (PTI) —Over 120 rebels and soldiers were killed in fresh fighting in Sri Lanka’s north-west Mannar province, even as President Chandrika Kumaratunga, in an unprecedented order dissolved the National Security Council and stripped the Chief of Defence Staff of his sweeping powers.

The Army today claimed that its troops who were conducting a series of operations in the LTTE held northern Vanni to open a 70-km highway connecting north-west Mannar with northern Jaffna peninsula, killed 73 rebels in fresh skirmishes.

Though the Army has not officially updated its losses, sources here said both sides lost over 120 men.

In another development, the LTTE today admitted it had lost one of its stronghold near Mannar to the troops.

The clandestine rebel radio, the Voice of Tigers, today admitted that Viduthailai Thivu, its stronghold situated about 20 km from the army- controlled Mannar town, had been captured by the Army.

Army sources here said the capture of Vidathailai Thivu would strengthen the Army’s attempt to advance on the coastal highway linking the mainland with the beleaguered Jaffna peninsula.

Meanwhile, bowing to the pressure from the military establishment, President Chandrika has rescinded her recent order appointing retired Army Chief Gen Rohan Daluwatta as Chief of Defence Staff.

A senior Army official said troops carried out the fourth phase of operation, west of Paranthan on June 10 and 11 and the newly captured area comprises 28 villages where 20,000 people live. In the first three phases of Operation Ranagosa, troops regained approximately 960 sq km in Wanni west.

The move by the Army to open the Paranthan-Ponneryn road is a strategy to link the 30-km road to northern Jaffna. At present there is no direct land route to the peninsula.

Europeans vote for Parliament

BRUSSELS, June 13 (DPA) — Voters in 11 European Union countries went to the polls today in the final day of elections for a new European Parliament.

Greece was first to open the polling booths, followed by Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

Four countries — Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland — voted earlier in the week.

In the present European Parliament, Socialists hold 214 seats making them the largest faction, followed by Christian Democrats with 201 seats. A neck-to-neck race between the two major blocs is expected.

The 626-member Assembly brings together parliamentarians from all 15 EU countries. Since its first direct elections in 1979, the Parliament has expanded its power and influence, becoming one of the EU’s key institutions, along with the European Commission and the decision-making EU Council of Ministers.

However, most of the 297 million European voters have been unexcited about the world’s only experiment in cross-border democracy.

Opinion polls carried out in many EU nations show that many voters will not be casting a ballot for their Euro representative — and that those who do vote will do so with little enthusiasm.

In Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland, fewer than 40 per cent of the electorate bothered to go to EU elections on Thursday and Friday.

Russia vows not to send troops

PRISTINA, Serbia, June 13 (Reuters) — A stand-off between Russian and NATO troops at Pristina Airport entered a second day today but the USA said Russia promised not to send any more troops into Kosovo until a deal had been reached on Moscow’s peacekeeping role.

As hundreds of Serbian soldiers, packed in military vehicles, pulled out of Pristina, reports emerged that more Russian troops were poised to enter Kosovo.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, speaking to reporters before resuming talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Moscow, seemed to brush off the report and ruled out partition of Serbia’s southern province.

“What we have heard at a senior and responsible level is that no further Russian deployments will take place into Kosovo unless it is part of an agreement,” Talbott said, adding that “there will certainly be parts of Kosovo where Russian participation will be particularly important and manifest”.

Talks between Talbott and Ivanov on Russia’s role in a Kosovo peace force ended last evening with no breakthrough on the main sticking points - Russia’s demand for control of its own zone of territory in Kosovo and its refusal to let its troops serve under the NATO command.

So far lengthy talks have failed to break the deadlock. The dramatic dash to Pristina by 200 Russian troops stationed in Bosnia took NATO by surprise and appeared to strengthen Moscow’s negotiating position.

Russia, clearly unhappy about the role given to it by NATO in the Kosovo peacekeeping force, stunned the West on Friday when its paratroopers crossed from Bosnia and moved on to Pristina where they took control of the airport.

Talks failed yesterday to resolve the dispute at the airbase, at which NATO had planned to set up its command headquarters.

Bomb-carrying B’desh striker killed

DHAKA, June 13 (PTI) — One person was killed in a bomb explosion overnight while another 25 injured in strike-related as Bangladesh Opposition parties enforced a day-long strike today to protest the government’s new budget, the police and witnesses said.

Most vehicles disappeared from the streets schools and major markets were shut and and there was disruption to long-distance road communications, they said. Sunday is a working day in Bangladesh.

A police official said the victim, reportedly a pro-strike supporter had been moving in the area along with some others with cocktail bombs to terrorise the people. He was killed when a bomb he was carrying exploded.

Britain’s new ‘fairy-tale’ Princess

LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) — In true fairy-tale fashion, English girl-next-door Sophie Rhys-Jones will become the wife of a real-life prince this week when she marries Queen Elizabeth’s youngest son, Prince Edward.

When a tabloid newspaper recently published an old topless photograph of her frolicking with a television presenter, the public relations executive got her first real taste of what an insatiable British media have in store for her.

The embarrassing tabloid splash, coming almost on the eve of her wedding, won the royal bride-to-be much public sympathy an even an apology from the paper’s Editor.

Her bobbed blonde hair, coy smile and bashful glance bear an uncanny likeness to the late Princess Diana — something the tabloids pounced on when the 33-year-old career girl first appeared on Edward’s arm in 1993.

But a picture of her sitting on a disc jockey’s knee while he yanked up her blouse to reveal a bare breast, published in the top-selling Sun last month, harks back to the hounding of Diana, who was killed two years ago in a Paris car crash.

Unlike Diana, however, Rhys-Jones has been firmly drawn into the royal fold — with Buckingham Palace issuing an unusually vitriolic condemnation of the topless photograph, branding it “premeditated cruelty”.

Saturday’s marriage at Windsor Castle, where Rhys-Jones has said she will promise to “obey” Edward when she gives her marriage vows, will come as a much-needed boost for the royal family, accused of being uncaring after Diana’s untimely death.

Royal commentators are betting Rhys-Jones will soon be promoted to the Duchess of Cambridge — as soon, that is, as her television producer husband-to-be is made Duke.

Rhys-Jones has a colourful life behind her, a successful public relations career and an air of confidence and independence that the young, virginal Diana sorely lacked when she embarked on marriage to heir to the throne Prince Charles.

And the future royal wife plans to keep her full-time job after she and Edward Windsor, as she prefers to call him, have tied the knot. “Business as usual” was her confident prediction.

The daughter of a car tyre sales manager, Rhys-Jones was unknown in the high-society circles where Diana and her sister-in-law Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson were exposed to royals, nobles and millionaires.

Some commentators have said it was her background that first drew Edward to her when they met at a charity function at a tennis club in 1993.

But her outgoing nature has also been cause for alarm in some circles. A Royal aide once called her “too spirited” to conform with the rigorous disciplines expected of the Royal family members.

Born in Oxford, Rhys-Jones grew up in a village in an affluent area south of London with her father, mother and elder brother David.

“Let’s face it, the Royal family and the Rhys-Joneses are worlds apart,” her father Christopher said after the Queen invited them for tea early in their courtship.

At 18 she left her expensive private school with modest academic results and went to live with friends in London, working as a secretary and public relations officer for a commercial radio station.

It was a woman colleague and friend at the station who was to later sell the topless picture for around $ 100,000.

One season Rhys-Jones worked in a Swiss ski resort, organising chalet girls, fondue nights and ten-pin bowling.

She later followed her ski instructor boyfriend to Australia. But the relationship broke up after a few months and she stayed on to work for a travel firm.

She then moved back to Britain in the early 1990s, working as a fund-raising organiser for a nurses’ charity before taking a post as an executive with a major public relations company. She now runs her own company, RJH-PR.

Purdah divides Lanka schools

COLOMBO, June 13 (UNI) — The recent Supreme Court order allowing two Muslim teachers to cover their heads while teaching in Badulla Tamil Balika Vidyalaya in the outskirts of Colombo has led to the boycotting of classes by students in protest.

Badulla Tamil Balika Vidyalaya is heading for a showdown on this dispute after the Principal requested the Muslim teachers to refrain from wearing the “purdah” while in school.

The boycott was followed by students of several other schools turning the dispute into one of national proportions.

The Supreme Court has ordered that the teachers be allowed to continue wearing the head cover until the fundamental rights case filed by them is determined.

The Principal has expressed the view that the practice of “purdah” among Muslims is different from that of wearing of a “pottu” (bindi) among Tamil Hindus.

The Principal says she is not against Muslim culture but is asking for acceptable codes of dress and conduct in a multi-cultural environment.

However, the court has granted leave to proceed in this case filed by the two teachers who were requested by the principal to seek transfers if they were unable to conform to the norms of the school.

LTTE plot to kill Sonia: report

COLOMBO, June 13 (PTI) — A leading US Intelligence magazine has confirmed reports about an LTTE plot to assassinate the Congress President Ms Sonia Gandhi, Sri Lanka’s state-run newspaper reported today.

“The LTTE is in the process of activating the Khalistanis based in Canada to assassinate Ms Gandhi,” official paper ‘Daily Mail’ said quoting a special report of the American magazine ‘Executive Intelligence Review’ (EIR).

Bush’s son to run for presidency

DES MOINES (Iowa), June 13 (DPA) — It was not an official announcement, but it appeared to have the force of one, when Texas Governor George W.Bush said he was running for the office of the President of USA.

“I’m running for President of the USA. There’s no turning back,” Mr Bush, a son of former President George H.W. Bush, said in a public appearance in the state of Iowa yesterday.

Mr Bush, a 52-year-old Republican, regarded as the front runner for the nation’s top political office, said he would not make a formal announcement until autumn. The election is scheduled for November of next year.

Results of an opinion poll released yesterday by Newsweek magazine showed that Mr Bush would get 54 per cent of the votes and Vice-President Al Gore, a Democrat, 38 per cent. The survey of 756 adults was conducted on June 10-11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 8 per cent.

Maoists attack
KATHMANDU: Maoist insurgents attacked a police outpost in Nepal0’s remote north west district and “probably abducted’’ the policemen on duty at the station, a newspaper report said on Sunday. According to the report in the Nepali language daily, Kantipur, on Friday the Maoists attacked the police outpost in Pawanghat, 50 km north of the district headquarters at Kalikot. A gun battle ensued, but because of the remoteness of the outpost, police reinforcements did not reach the scene until Saturday evening. No details about casualties on either side were available. — DPA

Most expensive book
COLOGNE (Germany): A book on Australian photographer Helmut Newton will be the most expensive in the world, retailing at 1,510 euros ($ 1,585) apiece, publishers Taschen-Verlag said. Entitled “Helmut Newton’s Sumo”, it will contain 400 photographs on its 480 pages some of them hitherto unpublished. Weighing 30 kg and measuring 50 cm by 70, it has a production budget of 5.1 million euros. — AFP

200 mummies found
CAIRO: A necropolis containing 200 mummies covered with gold was discovered in Bahariya Oasis in Egypt’s western desert, antiquities officials said here. The cemetery, which dates back to the Greco-Roman era (330 BC to 400 AD) has four tombs, with 50 mummies stacked in piles in each, Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Chairman Gaballah Ali Gaballah told the Egyptian news agency Mena, on Friday. — AFP

Bachelor matchmaker
DHAKA: A Bangladeshi man says he arranged the weddings of more than 16,000 couples but has been unable to find a spouse himself. “I have spent my life finding matches for young men and women,” Manu Miah told the Janakantha newspaper. “I started my career at the age of 18... I am now 87 and still a bachelor”. Miah said others’ weddings had kept him too busy and besides, he was too poor to afford a marriage. — Reuters

Vietnam coalminers
HANOI: Laid off and redundant miners in Vietnam’s ailing coal industry have begun taking heroin in alarming numbers, the state press has said, while the nation as a whole is witnessing a substantial increase in drug-related cases. “Drug addiction in coal miners has reached alarming levels,’’ according to Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper on Saturday, which added that far more than the 321 miners officially reported to be addicted were actually using illicit drugs, mostly heroin. — DPA

16 die in fire
BEIJING: At least 16 persons, including 12 women, were killed on the spot and eight others injured seriously in a fire in an electronics factory in South China’s Shenzhen city on Saturday, an official report said Sunday. Over 100 workers were trapped in a four-storey building of the Zhimao Electronics plant, a Taiwanese-funded firm, when the fire broke out from the first floor, Xinhua news agency reported. — PTI

Golkar Party
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s ruling Golkar Party, held under former President Suharto has conceded defeat in the first post-Suharto elections, a report said on Sunday. “We have conducted our own count and we have reached the conclusion that Golkar has lost,” Golkar Vice-Chairman Marzuki Darusman was quoted by the Bisnis Indonesia daily. Golkar is trailing in third place with Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Indonesian Democracy Party-Struggle (PDIP) well ahead. — AFP

Activists detained
BEIJING: China has detained two political activists following a round-up of dissidents before the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. “We were informed by police that Liao Shihua had been formally detained (yesterday),” his wife told AFP from Changsha. In the north eastern province of Lianing, opposition party activist Wang Zechen was also detained for “harming state security,” his wife told AFP. — AFP