Pak Opposition alliance chief quits
ISLAMABAD, March 1 — The chief of the 16-party opposition alliance in Pakistan quit abruptly following serious differences with former Premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party over the group’s future agenda.

India must sign CTBT : China
BEIJING, March 1 — China today reacted positively to the first official-level talks with India in seven months, but made it clear that the dialogue had not changed Beijing’s firm opposition to the South Asian nuclear tests last May.

• Chinese PM signs 16 pacts with Russia
• 10 executed in China

Albright to take up human rights
BEIJING, March 1 — US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opened talks in China today with a broadside against its human rights record as Beijing warned Washington to stay out of its internal affairs.

Death penalty for Ocalan demanded
ANKARA, March 1 — Some 2,000 relatives of slain soldiers rallied near the prison island yesterday holding Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, demanding the death penalty for the man they say is responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.

US air strike cuts pipeline
BAGHDAD, March 1 — A U.S. air strike has cut the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, halting the flow of crude oil, an Iraqi Oil Ministry official said yesterday, but the USA denied the allegation.

Obasanjo returns to power
ABUJA, March 1 — Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was today declared the new civilian President of Nigeria, 20 years after he held power as a military ruler.

New finding on kids of working moms
WASHINGTON, March 1 — Children of women who work outside the home suffer no permanent harm because of their mother’s absence, a US study that evaluated the development and health of more than 6,000 youngsters suggests.

Netanyahu meets Jordan’s King
AMMAN, March 1 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday met Jordan’s new king, Mr Abdullah, hoping to patch up a row over remarks in which he appeared to question Jordan’s commitment to peace with the Jewish state.

Pak for Indian visa office in Lahore
ISLAMABAD, March 1 — Pakistan has proposed to the Government of India to open an office in Lahore for issuing visas to those travelling by the soon-to-be-launched New Delhi-Lahore bus service, a media report said here today.

Indian fishermen detained

Israel ready for more attacks

KIRYAT SHMONA (Israel), March 1 (Reuters) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today Israel was ready to strike at more Hizbullah targets in Lebanon in retaliation for the killing of an army general, two soldiers and a journalist.

But security sources said the army would not step up attacks if the guerrillas refrained from firing rockets into Israel.

"Israel will continue the battle against Hizbullah because they continue the battle against us," Mr Netanyahu told reporters in the West Bank settlement of Ofra where he paid a condolence call to the family of an officer killed in Lebanon last week.

"I’m not going to get into operational steps but we have our planes well laid out and our targets well chosen," he said.

Mr Netanyahu’s security Cabinet met for more than three hours to discuss response to the deadly roadside bomb attack in south Lebanon yesterday.

Israel responded yesterday and today by raiding Hizbullah targets. Tens of thousands of Israel’s northern residents remained in bomb shelters fearing Hizbullah rocket attacks in retaliation for the air strikes.

One security source said Israel was waiting to see how Hizbullah would respond before deciding on fresh attacks. Witnesses reported seeing roughly 10 tanks and armoured personnel carriers crossing Kiryat Shmona towards Lebanon.

The USA said it was concerned about the tensions after Israel vowed to strike at Hizbullah guerrillas "on the ground, from the air and the sea" in response to Sunday’s roadside bombing in Israel’s south Lebanon occupation zone.

But no unusual military activity was apparent beyond the air raids, which ceased early today.

"All residents are asked to remain in their shelters," soldiers announced over loudspeakers attached to military jeep patrolling Kiryat Shmona and other towns.

The army said planes struck "infrastructure targets" of the Iranian-backed guerrilla group and bombed weapons depots. Northern residents were bracing for rocket attacks by Hizbullah in response to the raids.

The air raids and threatened offensive were the sharpest escalation in Israel’s simmering Lebanon conflict since a 1996 Israeli assault in which more than 200 Lebanese, most of the civilians, were killed and thousands driven from their homes.

"We are concerned at happening and are urging all sides to exercise restraint," U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters during a visit to Beijing.

Hizbullah, which is fighting a guerrilla war to oust Israel from the zone vowed to continue fighting until Israel withdrew its troops.

Pak SC indicts 6 PML legislators

ISLAMABAD, March 1 (PTI) — In a severe blow to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s Supreme Court today charged seven persons, including six ruling party legislators, with contempt for storming the court complex on November 28, 1997, during contempt proceedings against Mr Sharif.

A three-member Bench of the court chargesheeted two members of the National Assembly (Lower House), and four members of the the Punjab Provincial Assembly, including former President of the Pakistan Hockey Federation Akhtar Rasool, on contempt charges.

The court, however, accepted the unconditional apology of 10 senior police and district officials, who were named along with 16 others in the case, but issued them a stern warning for failing to prevent the mob attack.

Supporters of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League stormed the court complex forcing the adjournment of contempt proceedings against Mr Sharif being heard by the then Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who was later unceremoniously ousted.

A show-cause notice issued to Prime Minister Sharif’s political secretary Mushtaq Tahir Kheill was, however, withdrawn.

The Bench kept pending contempt proceedings against eight other workers of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League who are facing criminal charges in a lower court.

National Assembly members Tariq Aziz and Mian Muhammad Munir and Provincial Assembly members Choudhury Tanvir, Akhtar Mahmood and Sardar Naseem were among those indicted by the court.

The accused will have a chance to respond to the charges in a hearing later.
Mr Justice Aslam Zahid, Mr Justice Munnawar Ahmed Mirze and Mr Justice Abdur Rehman Khan went through all evidence available regarding the attack, including video recordings by journalists, before delivering their judgement.

Analysts said the judgement, which comes close on the heels of another nullifying military courts, shows that the court is trying to reassert itself after the damage to its reputation following Mr Justice Shah’s ouster.

The court had earlier pulled up the Deputy Attorney General for pleading that all respondents in the case be pardoned following their apology.

Fresh killing heightens tension in Kosovo

PRISTINA, March 1 (AP) — The weekend fire fights between Serb forces and Kosovo Albanian rebels on the first anniversary of the war, heightened doubt about prospects for a peace agreement at the next round of talks.

International monitors braced for possible retribution today after ethnic Albanian guerrillas killed a Serb police commander in an attack on a police convoy near the Macedonian border.

Four other officers were wounded in the reported ambush south of Kacanik, which has emerged as a flashpoint since Friday with clashes between the rebels and beefed-up Yugoslav Army and Serb police forces.

The build-up near the border comes with NATO stepping up its activities on the other side in Macedonia. Alliance troops, tanks and equipment have begun streaming into that neighbouring country for a possible peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

They will be sent into the turbulent Serbian province if peace talks scheduled to resume in France on March 15 result in an agreement between the warring Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

A partial accord reached last Tuesday at Rambouillet. France, gave the ethnic Albanians two weeks to consider an international deal for expanded autonomy but not independence and to sell it to the residents of the ethnic Albanian majority province.

But with violence escalating, Western officials fear a return to wide-scale fighting that could wreck that deal and erase any progress achieved at the negotiating table.

Yesterday’s clashes came exactly a year after the war erupted on February 28, 1998, when Serb police killed 24 ethnic Albanians in the Drenica region in retribution for the rebel slaying of two policemen.

At a memorial gathering in the tiny village of Likosane, some 4,000 civilians and rebels spoke only of more war. Rebels raised their red flag, played patriotic anthems over loudspeakers and listened to commanders tell of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s growing strength and determination to fight on for independence.

“We started to fight to show the world that we are not terrorists, to show the world that we will die for our ancient lands”, said commander Gani Koci, “On this day, the KLA was born and we will continue to fight the Serbs until we get independence.”

In the south, Yugoslav Government media said the rebels opened fire yesterday with mortars, rocket launchers, machine-guns and automatic guns, killing the police station commander in an attack that triggered outrage among Kacanik residents.

At least one rebel also was killed in clashes in the area.

Serb police told AP television news that the victims were ambushed while responding to an anonymous telephone call that some Serbs had been kidnapped in the area.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians have left their homes to escape the fighting and more than 10,000 persons mostly ethnic Albanians, have been displaced by the violence of the past week.

Other gunbattles were reported in Kosovo’s west and north.

In Pristina, a drive-by shooting killed one man in his car and wounded two others believed to be ethnic Albanians.

In another trouble spot, about 150 Yugoslav army troops arrived on Sunday in the southwestern town of Orahovac following the disappearance of two Serb civilians believed abducted by the KLA last Saturday.

The European Union Special Envoy for Kosovo, Austria’s Wolfgang Petritsch, warned the two sides to avoid provocation over the next two weeks to give the second round of talks a chance.

“The alternative”, Mr Petritsch warned in a television talk show on Sunday in Vienna, “is called war.

Pak Opposition alliance chief quits

ISLAMABAD, March 1 (PTI) — The chief of the 16-party opposition alliance in Pakistan quit abruptly following serious differences with former Premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) over the group’s future agenda.

Mr Allama Tahirul Qadri resigned yesterday as the head of the Pakistan Awami Ittehad (PAI) blaming Ms Benazir’s party of not accepting even half of PAI’s 14-point programme, making way for Mr Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan as the next chief.

A serious difference of opinion had cropped up between the PAI and PPP, Mr Qadri told newspersons, shortly after resigning, over a host of issues, including Islamisation, Indo-Pak ties, Kashmir, the nuclear issue and corruption.

In an obvious reference to Ms Benazir, Mr Qadri said he would never accept the leadership of a woman, and urged the PIA, set up last year to oust Premier Nawaz Sharif, to defer its anti-Sharif campaign till a national agenda was finalised.

While the PAI wanted to establish an Islamic social order in the country, “some people were only interested in ousting Mr Sharif,” Mr Qadri said in an oblique attack on Ms Benazir.

India must sign CTBT : China

BEIJING, March 1 (PTI) — China today reacted positively to the first official-level talks with India in seven months, but made it clear that the dialogue had not changed Beijing’s firm opposition to the South Asian nuclear tests last May.

In its first reaction to the two-day Foreign Ministry-level consultations here last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “The two sides focussed their discussion on bilateral issues and affirmed that the five principles of peaceful coexistence as the basic norms guiding bilateral relations.”

“The two sides also agreed to work for the restoration and improvement of bilateral relations,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue told newsmen here.

She said India and China discussed the nuclear issue in South Asia and its impact on Sino-Indian relations.

“The two sides expounded their respective positions on the issue,” Mr Zhang said indicating no change in Beijing’s firm stand that India must implement the UN Security Council resolution concerning the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan.

China has also demanded that India must unconditionally sign the comprehensive test ban treaty and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

However, during the talks, New Delhi stoutly defended its position on the Indian nuclear test and pointed out its security concerns to Beijing.

“We pointed out to them India’s rejection of the UN Security Council resolution No 1172 and our stand on the CTBT and NPT,” an Indian Embassy official said.

Reacting to today’s Chinese Foreign Ministry’s response to the Sino-Indian consultations, the official described it as a “fairly modest” assessment of the meeting, which was convened at the request of the Indian side.

“The Chinese statement also reflects the sincere views of both sides to deepen bilateral relations,” the official said.

“During the consultations, the approach of both sides was positive and forward looking. The two sides agreed that the talks enhanced mutual understanding,” the embassy official said.

He also stressed the need for both sides to look to the future and try and forget the past as early normalisation of Sino-Indian ties was in the interest of both countries.

Indian Embassy officials indicated that official Chinese delegations in the trade sector would visit India shortly, indicating normalisation of official-level meetings.

Indian officials also expressed optimism over the decision of the two sides during last week’s meeting on the continuation of the dialogue at “various levels” and hoped that these would narrow down the differences of India and China on various issues.

The India-China official-level consultations were held at the level of the Joint Secretary (East Asia) on the Indian side and the Director-General, Asia Department on the Chinese side here on February 25 and 26.

Chinese PM signs 16 pacts with Russia

BEIJING, March 1 (PTI) — Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji has signed 16 accords covering bilateral cooperation in economy and trade and conventional and nuclear energy to further enrich Sino-Russian strategic partnership during his just-concluded visit to Moscow.

Chinese official media today termed as “fruitful” Mr Zhu’s trip to Russia saying his visit had revitalised bilateral trade ties.

“We congratulate the fruitfulness of the visit,” Peoples Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party of China, said in an editorial on Mr Zhu’s maiden visit to Russia since he assumed premiership in March last.

The visit had further enriched the significance of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, it commented.

Mr Zhu returned to Beijing yesterday after a four-day visit to Moscow during which he had extensive meetings with the Russian leadership, including President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

These extensive discussions proved to be constructive, the editorial commented while noting that the two sides signed agreements covering bilateral cooperation in economy and trade, conventional and nuclear energy, science and technology and transportation.

Mr Zhu’s visit was aimed at substantiating the consensus reached by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin at their earlier meetings.

10 executed in China

BEIJING, March 1 (AFP) — China has executed 10 people for involvement in separatist unrest in the northwest Muslim region of Xinjiang, a court official said today.

“The authorities between January 27 and 29 executed 10 people and two were given suspended death sentences,” an official at the Nilka district court in Yili prefecture said.

He said the 10 executed were from Yili prefecture, including Yining city and county, Huocheng and Nikla districts.

“All these people were connected with the counter revolutionary rebellion of February 5, 1997,” the official said. Two others were given suspended death sentences and many sentenced to between one and 15 years imprisonment.

Albright to take up human rights

BEIJING, March 1 (AFP) — US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opened talks in China today with a broadside against its human rights record as Beijing warned Washington to stay out of its internal affairs.

“The issue of human rights is going to be one of the major subjects that I take up ... we have deplored the actions that have taken place recently and I will raise these issues,” Ms Albright said before talks with Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan at the Diaoyutai state guest house.

“I think we are both prepared for frank discussions ... and will deal with issues that we agree on and that we disagree on,” she added.

Despite attempts on both sides to put a brave face on Sino-US relations, tensions have been rising. The US Senate has passed a resolution denouncing Beijing’s worsening human rights record and pressing President Bill Clinton to push for stern UN condemnation.

In its annual human rights report, the State Department said on Friday that China’s rights’ record worsened sharply in 1998 and cited “widespread and well-documented” abuses.

Using sharper language than it has in recent years, it said Beijing had abruptly ended an easing of curbs on freedom of expression and association.

In addition to human rights, the USA blocked on last Tuesday the sale of a $450 million communications satellite to a company linked with China’s People’s Liberation Army, drawing strong criticism from Beijing.

But China’s main issue with the USA remains to be Taiwan — which threatened to derail back in 1995 when Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui procured a US visa and provoked Beijing’s anger.

In recent months the USA has floated plans to include Taiwan in a Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) system for North Asia. China sees this as an attempt to prevent Beijing and Taipei from an eventual reunification.

Death penalty for Ocalan demanded

ANKARA, March 1 (AP) — Some 2,000 relatives of slain soldiers rallied near the prison island yesterday holding Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, demanding the death penalty for the man they say is responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.

Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has been charged with treason for leading a guerrilla war in southeastern Turkey. Although he could be sentenced to death, Turkey has not carried out any executions for more than a decade.

“I want Apo’s execution,’’ said Recep Vardar, father of a slain soldier. “Apo” is short for Abdullah. He should suffer in the same way he made us suffer,’’ Turkey’s Anatolia news agency quoted Vardar as saying.

Vardar is one of the 2,000 relatives who rallied in Mudanya, the nearest port to Imrali Island, where Ocalan is the only prisoner. The island is some 30 km from Mudanya.

Smallpox as terror weapon
from Tim Radford in London

SMALLPOX, the ancient scourge of mankind eradicated 20 years ago, could return as a weapon of terrorism, one of the world’s leading experts has warned.

Donald Henderson, of the Johns Hopkins medical institutions in the USA, was one of the architects of the extinction of the smallpox virus everywhere during the 1970s. The virus once threatened 60 per cent of the planet, killed many of its victims, and scarred or blinded others. There was no cure but there was a vaccine. In the first attempt to eliminate the disease, World Health Organisation chiefs recorded the last case, in Somalia in 1977.

But in a writing in the US journal Science, Dr Henderson warns that despite evidence of a huge bioweapons industry in the former USSR, alarming research in Iraq and biological warfare research in 10 other countries, nations like the USA were ill prepared. Thousands of biological agents could be used as weapons, but only a few are thought to pose serious problems, and the most dangerous would be anthrax and smallpox.

“They can be grown easily and in large quantities and are sturdy organisms that are resistant to destruction. They are especially suited to aerosol dissemination to reach large areas and numbers of people.”

Virtually everyone on the planet was now susceptible to smallpox. Vaccination over the world stopped more than 20 years ago, and immunity wanes with time.

“The release would be silent and almost certainly undetected. The cloud of infection would be invisible, odourless, and tasteless. It would behave much like a gas in penetrating buildings. No one would know until days or weeks later that anyone had been infected,” he warns.

The smallpox virus, sprayed as an aerosol, could survive for 24 hours in the open air, and was highly infectious even at low doses. The first wave of cases would throw a huge strain on hospital systems because the patients would require rooms equipped with filters to stop the virus becoming airborne inside the hospital. One in three patients would die.

Vaccines would be needed immediately for health workers and those in contact with patients. Mass vaccination would be the only practical approach, but there were no longer any manufacturers of smallpox vaccine: it would take 36 months before new supplies became available.

— The Guardian, London

US air strike cuts pipeline

BAGHDAD, March 1 (AP) — A U.S. air strike has cut the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, halting the flow of crude oil, an Iraqi Oil Ministry official said yesterday, but the USA denied the allegation.

The line, which runs from the northern Iraqi field of Kirkuk to the south Turkish port of Ceyhan, was the only functioning pipeline in Iraq and one of two outlets for Iraqi oil exports.

The ministry’s planning Director, Faleh Al-Khaiat, said U.S. planes hit a pumping station in northern Iraq, killing one Iraqi and seriously injuring two others.

A criminal attack by the enemy caused extensive damage to the station which controls the flow of oil through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline, stopping the flow, Al-Khaiat said.

In Turkey, oil terminal officials and pipeline operators confirmed that the pipeline’s flow had stopped.

A terminal official said an air strike had hit energy transmission lines of a communications centre “which operates the pipeline. But an official for Botas, the state-run operators of the pipeline, said a malfunction’’ at a power-feeding station caused the interruption, Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

Obasanjo returns to power

ABUJA, March 1 (AFP) — Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was today declared the new civilian President of Nigeria, 20 years after he held power as a military ruler.

General Obasanjo won a crushing victory in Saturday's election, taking 18.73 million votes against 11.11 million for his opponent, former Finance Minister Olu Falae, announced Mr Justice Ephraim Akpata, head of the National Electoral Commission.

General Obasanjo took 18,738,154 votes, or 62.78 per cent of the valid ballots cast, Mr Justice Akpata said. Mr Falae won 11,110,287 votes, or 37.22 per cent, he added.

"It is, therefore, evident that the presidential candidate of the People's Democratic Party, (PDP), Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, has emerged the winner," he said.

"Olusegun Obasanjo ... is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected," he added.

Mr Justice Akpata appealed to Mr Falae to accept the results and set the stage for a smooth transition of power on May 29 from the military government to the government to be formed by Obasanjo.

"It is the commission's fervent wish and determination that with the formal announcement of the presidential result, the stage has been set for the return of genuine democracy in Nigeria," he said.

Mr Falae was expected to announce whether or not he would mount a legal challenge to the election, after telling reporters they were "a farce and a charade".

New finding on kids of working moms

WASHINGTON, March 1 (AP) — Children of women who work outside the home suffer no permanent harm because of their mother’s absence, a US study that evaluated the development and health of more than 6,000 youngsters suggests.

“I found there was no difference between children whose mothers were employed versus children whose mothers were not employed during the first three years,’’ said Elizabeth Harvey, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, “being employed is not going to harm the children.’’

Her study, published in the March issue of the journal Developmental Psychology, came to a different conclusion than some earlier studies of the same group of children. The New Work examined the children at a later age, 12 years old.

This suggested, said David Eggebeen of Pennsylvania State University, who co-authored an earlier study, that problems detected in children of working mothers at age three and four might have gone away by the time the children were 12.

Harvey’s study suggested that the number of hours spent away from home was not as important as the quality of parenting, said Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, an associate professor of human development at the University of Chicago. She called the Harvey study “an important contribution’’ but not the final answer on issues relating to children and working mothers.

Netanyahu meets Jordan’s King

AMMAN, March 1 (Reuters) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday met Jordan’s new king, Mr Abdullah, hoping to patch up a row over remarks in which he appeared to question Jordan’s commitment to peace with the Jewish state.

Mr Netanyahu, who arrived with his Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, was sped from his helicopter straight to private talks with the monarch.

It was their first meeting since a brief encounter at the state funeral of King Hussein, who ruled Jordan for 47 years and was seen as the Arab leader closest to Israel.

Pak for Indian visa office in Lahore

ISLAMABAD, March 1 (PTI) — Pakistan has proposed to the Government of India to open an office in Lahore for issuing visas to those travelling by the soon-to-be-launched New Delhi-Lahore bus service, a media report said here today.

The proposal was made by the Pakistani Foreign Office when the two sides signed a protocol to launch the bus service earlier last month, English daily Dawn quoted official sources as saying.

The proposed Indian visa office would initially consider visa applications of those travelling by the bus, but later the facility could be extended to applicants desiring to travel by air or by train, the report said.

Incidentally, the Indian Government’s proposal to reopen the Consulate in Karachi for facilitating visa services has been pending with the Pakistani authorities for years.

Pakistan has linked the reopening of the Karachi Consulate with Jinnah House in Mumbai which it demands from the Indian Government for opening the Pakistani Consulate there.

More than 80 per cent of the Pakistani visa seekers who plan to travel to India hail from Karachi, where a large number of Muslim migrants from India are settled.

Indian fishermen detained

KARACHI, March 1 (AFP) — Pakistani coastal authorities have detained 53 Indian fishermen, including four children, for illegally fishing in the country’s exclusive economic zone, officials said today.

The Maritime Security Agency (MSA) detained the fishermen along with their eight boats yesterday when they strayed into Pakistani territorial waters, an MSA official told AFP.

Nepal poll
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Election Commission (EC) has ruled upcoming general election must be held in two phases, a move strongly condemned by opposition political parties, state radio reported on Monday. The EC said the move was necessary for logistical and security reasons. “The second phase of the poll will be held within two weeks after the first phase on May 3”, it said. — AFP

If Lewinsky could kill
LONDON: Monica Lewinsky so hates Linda Tripp, the woman who revealed Lewinsky’s affair with President Bill Clinton, that she could “gladly kill” her, Andrew Morton, the biographer of the former White House intern, said on Monday in Mirror tabloid. “She couldn’t find the words to express her hatred for Linda Tripp, the woman who betrayed her. She could gladly kill her”, Morton said in an interview with the tabloid. — AFP

Minister to be quizzed
JAKARTA: The Indonesian Police will question Food Minister A.M. Saefuddin who called a political rival a Hindu, which offended the politician and the large Hindu community in Bali, a newspaper said on Monday. Mr Saefuddin said last year that he was ready to be the next President and said Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, a popular presidential contender, stood a slim chance because she was a Hindu. Ms Megawati describes herself as a Muslim. — Reuters

Viagra sale
JOHANNESBURG: The wonder drug Viagra will be on sale in South Africa this week under stringent conditions after a one-year delay, despite “heavy demands”, triggered by widespread fears of its side-effects following 75 confirmed deaths after the use of the drug in USA last year. “The Medicines Control Council has announced that a decision has been taken to allow the sale of Viagra in the country under stringent conditions”, official sources said. — PTI

Charges framed
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday charged five ruling Pakistan Muslim League party legislators with inciting the 1997 mob attack on the court while it was hearing a case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But the court accepted the apology tendered by Mr Mushtaq Tahirkheli, the Prime Minister’s political secretary. — DPA

Capstone for pyramid
CAIRO: The Great Egyptian Pyramid, which has awed millions through centuries, has been for ages without its apex, the pointed stone on top that completes its triangular shape. But in 300 days, the pharonic monument built in the third millennium BC, will become complete again, if only for a day, when Egypt affixes a gold-encased capstone on top of the giant pyramid on December 31, 1999. — PTI

Collision averted
LONDON: A Boeing 737 passenger jet missed colliding with a private jet over England by a mere 100 feet last week, in what is believed to be the closest shave ever recorded in Britain, it was reported on Monday. — AFP