• Lashkar rules out withdrawal

Progress in N. Ireland talks
LONDON, June 26 — Last-ditch talks to salvage the Northern Ireland peace process adjourned for the week last evening with British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying progress had been made.

Top US nuclear official quits

Who calls the shots in Pak?

ISLAMABAD, June 26 (UNI) — “Who calls the shots in Pakistan?’’ is the question being discussed within and outside the country in the wake of the Pak-supported intrusion into the Kargil and Dras sectors.

This week The New York Times discussed reports that the Kargil operation was an exclusive handiwork of the army and commented that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “thus faces a major challenge in demonstrating that he, not the military, runs the country.’’

Kamran Khan, who heads the “News’’ intelligence unit, has written that this operation was carried out in secrecy which was not shared fully even with corps commanders initially. Mr Sharif felt left out and upset.

It was early this week that Mr Sharif had two long meetings with services chiefs and decided that militants, who have captured strategic high peaks in Kargil, must continue to receive Pakistan’s backing — a fact that Islamabad is now desperately trying to deny outside the country.

Kamran Khan wrote that the Prime Minister was “personally concerned’’ that developments in Kargil might derail his peace initiative with India. But this initiative was being undermined by powerful elements in the Pakistani political and military system.

“Ever since his election and especially the Lahore Declaration was signed in February by Mr Sharif and his Indian counterpart, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, extremist elements in Pakistan have looked for a way to undermine the détente and the Prime Minister,’’ he quoted the Director, Institute for Strategic Studies (London), Gen D. Segal, as writing.

Lashkar rules out withdrawal

ISLAMABAD, June 26 (PTI) — A Pakistan-based militant group, which claims to have the largest number of its cadres fighting in Kargil, has ruled out the possibility of withdrawing from the area and lauded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s tough stance in the face of US pressure.

“Whether US Gen Anthony Zinni comes to Pakistan or even President Clinton, the Mujahideen will not withdraw from their posts in the Dras and Kargil areas,” the chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, said in a statement here yesterday.

Dismissing the USA as “anti-Islam”, the statement lauded the tough stance taken by the government during talks between a high-level US team that came here recently to coax Pakistan to withdraw from Indian territory and singled out Mr Sharif for special praise.

Blair sees progress in N. Ireland talks

LONDON, June 26 (DPA) — Last-ditch talks to salvage the Northern Ireland peace process adjourned for the week last evening with British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying progress had been made.

Mr Blair chaired the talks in Belfast and said at their conclusion that all participants from opposing parties had reiterated their support for the Good Friday agreement on a peace deal for Northern Ireland, signed in April, 1998.

“That is welcome progress,” Mr Blair said.

The talks are expected to resume on Monday. Mr Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern seek to come to an agreement for a new compromise formula to break the deadlock before the June 30 deadline for devolution.

Mr Blair conferred in London earlier yesterday with Prime Minister Ahern before the two leaders flew to Belfast for talks with the political parties in Northern Ireland. Neither of the two leaders spoke to the media before entering the negotiations at Stormont Castle.

In Washington later in the day, US President Bill Clinton dodged questions on the Northern Ireland peace process at a White House news conference, saying that now was a “very serious, serious period” for all parties involved and that he didn’t want “to say anything that would make it worse.”

Mr Clinton did, however, express his own support for the Good Friday agreement.

“The people of Northern Ireland voted for the Good Friday accords,” he said. “They were right when they voted for the agreement. It’s still the future of Northern Ireland.”

Mr Clinton said he was in frequent contact with Mr Blair and Prime Minister Ahern.

“We don’t have a great deal of time to resolve this complicated issue,” he said.

Writing in The Times newspaper yesterday, Mr Blair had said Northern Ireland was staring “into the abyss” and he urged both sides to pull back while they still had the chance.

India has highest number of HIV cases: Annan

LONDON, June 26 (PTI) — India has more people infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than any other country in the world and the infection rate is three times higher in villages than in cities, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.

Delivering the first Diana Princess of Wales memorial lecture on AIDS at the Bank of England here yesterday, Mr Annan, who spoke on the rapidly spreading AIDS epidemic in various parts of the world, said HIV had firmly entrenched itself in India. It had spread even to rural areas that were thought to have been spared, Mr Annan said.

Citing the example of Tamil Nadu, the UN Chief said a survey had shown almost half a million people of the state’s 25 million people were already infected.

Referring to the global situation, Mr Annan said at present more than 33 million people were infected and more than 14 million had died.

In East Asia and the Pacific, new HIV infections rose by 70 per cent between 1996 and 1998. Every day, Africa buries five and a half thousand people who have died of AIDS, he said.

Mr Annan said the epidemic was also devastating the economies of countries and destroying the very fabric of society by taking away breadwinners and those who look after the families.

Africa’s health sector ended up caring for the AIDS infected at the expense of other needs, while in some countries, AIDS-related costs would soon absorb half or more of health budgets, the UN Secretary-General said.

On the economic impact of the epidemic, Mr Annan cited a Kenyan business survey which showed that HIV infection costs firms nearly 4 per cent of their annual profits and that by 2005 Kenya’s gross domestic product will be 15 per cent smaller than what it would have been.

The micro-economic effects have been felt to some extent by companies in all developing countries and cumulatively, they have a severe macroeconomic effect, he said.

To carry out a minimally effective package of interventions, the affected countries would require at least a six-fold increase in resources.

Pointing out that the present combination of drugs used for HIV infected were beyond the reach of most, Mr Annan said experts must find cost-effective therapies that developing countries could afford.

Mr Annan said the secret weapon to fight AIDS could be an effective vaccine and UNAIDS and its co-sponsors were working on many fronts to speed up development of new vaccines.

The UNAIDS Secretariat is ensuring that pharmaceutical companies use HIV strains from developing countries as the base for their vaccines.

UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation have jointly launched Uganda’s first HIV vaccine trial, while the World Bank is exploring the market failures which lead to underinvestment in an AIDS vaccine.

Mr Annan praised several African and Asian countries that had recognised AIDS as a national problem and accorded priority to AIDS prevention measures plus business companies that were investing in AIDS prevention programmes.

At end of his talk, Mr Annan praised Princess Diana’s compassion for the neediest of this earth, saying “You won the hearts of millions by acknowledging your own human vulnerability and you were among the first in this country to fight the conspiracy of silence and prejudice against AIDS.”

New BBC boss to cut red tape
By Kamal Ahmed and Janine Gibson in London

GREG Dyke, the new Director General of the BBC, is to cut a swathe through the BBC’s red tape and consultancy culture in a definitive break with the legacy of Sir John Birt.

Mr Dyke has told friends that he wants to get away from focus groups and management talking shops and concentrate instead on programme making and the BBC’s core values.

Those within the BBC have long grumbled about the preponderance of “grey-suits” within the corporation which employs 24,000 people. Sir John, the present Director-General, has been criticised for the expenditure of up to £ 9 million ($ 14.5 million) a year on consultancy fees.

Mr Dyke said on Friday that he would be an impartial head of the BBC despite disclosing that he had donated £ 55,000 ($88,000) to the Labour Party.

Flanked by Sir John and Sir Christopher Bland, the BBC Chairman, Mr Dyke announced he had resigned from the Labour Party and would be severing all funding links.

He also said he would be seeking an early meeting with the Conservative leader, William Hague, the leading critic of his appointment. The meeting is expected to be on Monday.

“I want to tell him that I understand his concerns,” Mr Dyke said. “My job is to go to him and explain to him how much I believe in independence and the impartiality of the BBC. I have never found it difficult to separate my political views from what I do as a professional.’’

Sir John added: “Greg is a journalist through and through. Like us all, he has private and political convictions — most of us are better at keeping them to ourselves than Greg has been, but that’s Greg.’’

Sir Christopher said: “If we had not thought Greg could leave his past membership behind him and could act fairly, he would not have got the job.’’

It is expected that Mr Dyke will also resign as a non-executive director of Manchester United Football Club. He is concerned that there could be further controversy over conflicts of interest if the BBC is involved in bidding for rights to broadcast football matches.

The club said that it would be considering Mr Dyke’s role. “The board of Manchester United has not yet had a chance to consider the matter, but will do so in due course,’’ a spokesman said. Figures for the last financial year show that Mr Dyke was paid £ 11,000 ($17,600) as a non-executive director.

Mr Dyke spent most Friday undertaking a round of media interviews to assure the public and staff that he was well aware of their concerns that the BBC must be a high quality broadcaster.

In an effort to show that he is willing to work with senior BBC figures, he held a meeting with Tony Hall, the head of the BBC’s news and current affairs, who ran Mr Dyke a close second for the job. Mr Dyke said he had “great respect” for Mr Hall.

Sir Christopher scotched rumours that Mr Hall would take on an editor-in-chief’s role - Mr Dyke will retain the role.

Mr Dyke, who will join the BBC in November and will run the corporation in tandem with Sir John until the following spring, has said privately that he is well aware of problems of staff morale.

Particularly irritating for many programme makers is the BBC’s corporate centre which employs several hundred people to deal with matters such as personnel, policy, planning, legal services and the press office. This year the department will cost £ 59.7 million ($ 95.5m) , more than it costs to run the whole of Radio 1 or Radio 2. The cost of “restructuring” departments will be more than £ 30 million ($ 48m) this year.

“Greg understands that much of what John Birt did was necessary, but he wants to move on,’’ one source said. “He wants to be known as a plain speaker who is interested in the people who make the programmes, not the people who push mountains of paper around.”

Top US nuclear official quits

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) — The head of the US Energy Department’s weapons programme, Mr Victor Reis, has submitted his resignation to the White House, becoming the first official to step down in the wake of Chinese nuclear spying charges, The Washington Post said today.

Mr Reis stepped down over a disagreement with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on how to improve security and streamline management at government laboratories and other facilities that maintain the US nuclear arsenal, the paper reported, citing unnamed officials.

Mir as movie set
MOSCOW: Russia’s ageing Mir space station may have won a reprieve thanks to a film director who wants to shoot part of a movie on the 13-year-old spacecraft. Russian space officials were cautious on Friday about film director Yuri Kara’s plans to solve the space station’s financial problems after its last sponsor failed to come up with a much-needed donation. “Even if we succeed only in filming a few minutes in space it will be a grandiose, distinguishing event for Russians, who need to feel that again after Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space,” Kara was quoted as saying. — Reuters

Opera on Internet
NEW YORK: The image was tiny and the sound lo-fi when a production of Verdi’s “Aida” from Verona, Italy, made history on Friday as the first opera to be broadcast live over the Internet. The sold-out opening-night production at the 77th Verona opera festival was made available online through IBM, which estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 people clicked on to the web site, www.ibm.Com/it/aida. When watched and listened to on different computers, the sound was distant and not fine enough to judge voice quality. On a computer with supposedly better sound quality, the voices broke up or reverberated. — AP

Joint exercise
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian armed forces will conduct a series of joint exercises with the US forces under the cooperation afloat readiness and training (CARAT) programme from July 9. Defence Ministry’s public relations division said in a statement on Friday the training exercise would be named “Penyu Trident 9/99”, “Mekar 99”, “Wiraeagle 8/99”, “Eodex”, “Salvex” and “MCMX”. The six joint exercises will involve some 3,000 officers and men from both sides. — Pool-Bernama