UN, Iraq discord on Haj plan
UNITED NATIONS, March 17 — United Nations and Iraqi officials failed for the second straight year to agree on a compensation plan to help 22,000 Iraqi Muslims attend the annual religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, diplomats said yesterday.

Nepal may use army to crush Maoists
LONDON, March 17 — The Royal Nepalese Army is playing an increasing role in combating the Maoist rebellion in the country, according to an analyst at Jane’s Defence Weekly.

150 Zimbabweans killed, say rebels
KIGALI, March 17 — Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo claimed today to have killed 150 Zimbabwean soldiers as Zambia reported a massive inflow of refugees and fleeing DRC soldiers from the south-east of the huge central African country.

Foreign ministers’ meeting off
KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — The ASEAN and European Union Foreign Ministers meeting scheduled to be held in Berlin on March 30 has been cancelled, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar has said.

Japan, S. Korea hail US-N. Korea deal
SEOUL, March 17 — South Korea and Japan today hailed North Korea’s decision to allow US inspections of a suspected nuclear site, but cautioned that Pyongyang’s missiles remain a threat.

‘No caretaker basis’ for EU officials

PARIS, March 17 (PTI) — President of the European Commission (EC) Jacques Santer has blasted the independent panel’s report, which accused the Commissioners of favouritism as "distorted and unbalanced" even as European Governments started searching for alternatives to tackle the crisis.

"The findings of the report are distorted and wholly unjustified I have no guilt or whatsoever," Mr Santer told reporters at Brussels last evening. He said he had full credibility to continue with his job.

All 20 Commissioners of the EC, the executive branch of the 15-member European Union (EU), resigned yesterday en masse after an independent panel report accused them of corruption and favouritism. The report, however, cleared Santer of favouritism.

Other Commissioners, too, expressed their dismay with the findings of the report which, they said, ignored many positive elements. "They act as if everything here went wrong. It is unfair to pretend that everything here just derailed, that’s wrong," European Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert was quoted as saying.

This is for the first time in the 42-year history of the organisation that all Commissioners have resigned.

Meanwhile, reports said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, the EU’s current Chairman, has asked the commission members to function in a caretaker capacity until the Heads of Government arrive at a final decision. Some European leaders have expressed their desire to see a new team.

France has asked the member states to decide on the issue when the leaders meet in Berlin on March 24 and 25.

President of the European Parliament, Jose Maria Gil-Robles, said all Commissioners must leave their posts immediately rather than continuing on a caretaker basis.

The independent panel’s 140-page report said some of the Commissioners had indulged in cronyism and financial irregularities at the top of the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU.

Former French Prime Minister and Research Commissioner Edith Cresson was particularly singled out by the report for showing favouritism in hiring outside consultants, giving contracts to a dentist from her home town.

LONDON: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, current President of the European Union, has offered to convene a special informal EU summit if there is no agreement on a new European Commission President at the next week’s Berlin summit.

India too ‘tried to steal US N-secrets’

WASHINGTON, March 17 (ANI) — India, Israel, Taiwan were among other countries which tried to steal US nuclear secrets through espionage, a retired US counter-intelligence official was quoted by the Washington Times as saying.

He said the Indian attempts were aimed at weapons secrets. Their modus operandi included recruitment of lab workers and visits to weapons laboratories and other sensitive sites," he added.

His detailed first-hand knowledge contradicted President Clinton’s claims that security around the nuclear labs has been tightened. But "security at the Department of Energy has not improved", the former official, who was not named, said yesterday.

The disclosure came as on the eve of an official visit to Washington by the Chinese Prime Minister, several influential senators threatened to block China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation this year.

Senators Jesse Helms and Ernest Hollings said they would move to stop any effort by the White House to help China become a WTO member while Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Shelby urged the White House to put a moratorium on visits by scientists from countries like China and Iran to US national weapons laboratories.

"Our labs are not as secure as they should be," Mr Shelby told reporters after an hour-long closed door meeting with CIA Director George Tenet. "This perhaps is just the tip of an iceberg."

The Energy Department last week fired a Taiwan-born scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory for security breaches after the FBI questioned him in connection with the suspected theft of nuclear weapons designs.

Investigators say they believe the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, gave the Chinese sensitive information on nuclear detonations during a visit there for a 1988 seminar. Lee has not been charged with any crime, but is the prime suspect in the case. China denies any theft and has called the allegations of nuclear espionage outlandish.

Mr David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the administration would work with Congress to resolve the WTO issue, but the official rejected Mr Shelby’s proposal.

The Clinton administration has, however, announced that a retired four-star admiral, David Jeremiah, will head an independent panel of experts to review the possible harm to national security resulting from suspected thefts that took place in the 1980s and discovered by nuclear arms experts at Los Alamos in 1995. Admiral Jeremiah investigated CIA failure to report Indian nuclear blast preparations last May and his report on Chinese scandal is expected by early next month.

According to details given by the counter-intelligence official to The Washington Times, more unreported security lapses included weak controls over sensitive classified documents, with numerous violations detected over the years but no penalties imposed.

He said former energy secretary Hazel O’Leary loosened controls over security in the early 1990s by pursuing a misguided "openness" policy that gave thousands of foreign nationals access to US nuclear complexes.

The Clinton administration is on the defensive against critics who say it was slow to notify Congress about the incident and took nearly two years to tighten security after an FBI probe of the leak began in 1995.

UN, Iraq discord on Haj plan

UNITED NATIONS, March 17 (AP) — United Nations and Iraqi officials failed for the second straight year to agree on a compensation plan to help 22,000 Iraqi Muslims attend the annual religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, diplomats said yesterday.

The results of weeks of negotiations came as 110 Iraqi Muslims arrived in Saudi Arabia by jet yesterday, in apparent violation of UN sanctions that bar flights into and out of Iraq.

The Dutch Chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Arnold Peter Van Walsum, yesterday declined comment on the Iraqi flight.

But he told newsmen that there would be no financial assistance from UN-sanctioned Iraqi oil sales for the vast majority of 22,000 Iraqis entitled to attend this year’s Haj.

Mr Van Walsum said Baghdad had rejected proposals to distribute $ 44 million in oil revenues to Iraqi pilgrims through a voucher system, through a neutral third party and by reimbursement in traveller’s cheques. Baghdad also failed to respond to a plan to allow Saudi Arabia to manage travel and lodging arrangements for Iraqi pilgrims, he said.

Under the proposals, each of the 22,000 Iraqis would receive $ 2,000 for travel and living expenses for the pilgrimage, which typically takes about two weeks.

Iraqi officials insist that the money be transferred to the Central Bank of Iraq, which would then distribute it to pilgrims. Mr Van Walsum said such a financial transaction was not allowed under UN sanctions.

As a result, he yesterday said that a compromise was ‘virtually out of the question.’

The Saudi Government was expected to stop issuing visas for the Haj. But an official at the Saudi embassy in Washington said that in the event of an agreement at the United Nations, his government was willing to ‘bend backwards to help the Iraqi pilgrims perform their duty.’

Nepal may use army to crush Maoists

LONDON, March 17 (ANI) — The Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) is playing an increasing role in combating the Maoist rebellion in the country, according to an analyst at Jane’s Defence Weekly.

Mr Robert Karniol, the weekly’s Asia Pacific Editor, reports from Kathmandu that organisational changes in the RNA point to its increasing use in support of the special combat police unit that is currently charged with countering the activities of the rebellious Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), which are estimated to have cost more than 600 lives since the rebellion began in 1996.

The combat police have been deployed mainly in the western districts where the insurgency began, and a major objective has been to keep the Maoists away from south east Nepal and the border with Bihar, lest they get active support from sympathetic Communist militants and Naxalite rebels there.

A Kathmandu-based analyst is quoted as saying that the police "doesn’t seem to be controlling the situation".

A problem for the police is its lack of mobility in the rough and inaccessible terrain where the Maoists operate. It is said to have chartered private helicopters to help them.

The RNA is better off with three small transport aircraft and 10 utility helicopters, but it needs more, and its priorities for new equipment include air and land transport, and communications and engineering items - all applicable to counter-insurgency work.

A campaign against the Maoists would be more complex, more lengthy and more costly, he says pointing out that Nepal’s current defence budget of $52.1 million does not give much leeway for major contingencies.

150 Zimbabweans killed, say rebels

KIGALI, March 17 (AFP) — Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) claimed today to have killed 150 Zimbabwean soldiers as Zambia reported a massive inflow of refugees and fleeing DRC soldiers from the south-east of the huge central African country.

The Rome-based Roman Catholic missionary news agency MISNA, meanwhile, claimed the rebels massacred more than 100 civilians on March 5 in the eastern province of Sud-Kivu — a charge the rebels denied point-blank.

Foreign ministers’ meeting off

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 (Pool Bernama) — The ASEAN and European Union Foreign Ministers meeting scheduled to be held in Berlin on March 30 has been cancelled, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar has said.

The cancellation was agreed upon by all nine ASEAN members, consisting of Brunei, Indonesia, Loas, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, he told newsmen here yesterday.

Japan, S. Korea hail US-N. Korea deal

SEOUL, March 17 (AFP) — South Korea and Japan today hailed North Korea’s decision to allow US inspections of a suspected nuclear site, but cautioned that Pyongyang’s missiles remain a threat.

While South Korea said the accord reached in New York boosted President Kim Dae-Jung’s calls for engagement with the isolated North, Japan hinted it was ready to consider lifting sanctions against Pyongyang.

"This agreement will contribute to the success of South Korea’s engagement policy," the South’s Foreign Minister Hong Soon-Young told journalists.

"It will also help create the environment favourable for reducing tension and increasing exchanges and understanding" between the two Koreas, he said.

Japan’s Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi also welcomed the deal in which North Korea agreed that US officials would begin inspecting in May an underground bunker at Kumchangri, about 90 km north of Pyongyang.

The USA apparently agreed to offer food aid for the starving nation, although it is keen not to portray the deal as an aid-for-inspections pact.

Mr Obuchi said Japan would consider lifting sanctions imposed after North Korea fired a missile over Japan last August "after being briefed by the USA on the contents of its inspection."

Amtrak hits truck: 13 dead

CHICAGO: At least 13 persons were killed and nearly 200 injured when a New Orleans-bound passenger train plowed into a truck at a railroad crossing south of here, authorities said. Early on Tuesday, officials said 12 persons were confirmed dead in the accident in which the Amtrak train travelling at 118 km an hour derailed after slamming into the steel-laden truck at a railroad crossing in Bourbonnais, 80 km from here.— AFP

Shipping magnate jailed

LONDON: Former Pakistani shipping magnate Mahmud Sipra has been sentenced to 22 years in jail by the British Crown Court, which convicted him on nine counts of fraud, theft and falsifying accounts. Sipra, known in India for a brief fling with Bollywood actress Salma Agha, was convicted by the court on Tuesday for siphoning off a sum of 5,90,000 pound sterling from his three shipping companies during 1983-84. — PTI

Impeachment debate

MOSCOW: The state Duma, lower house of Russian Parliament, will begin impeachment debates against President Boris Yeltsin on April 15, Duma deputies said after a meeting of the chamber’s managing council on Tuesday. Vladimir Lukin, a senior deputy in the liberal Yabloko group, told newsmen he expected the impeachment procedure to be a lengthy one. — Reuters

Driving mishap

MOSCOW: A woman drove off the ninth floor of a parking garage as her ex-husband was teaching her how to drive, leaving the couple badly injured, the Moscow Times has reported. Gleb Mulin was teaching his ex-wife, Lyudmila, how to drive in the Moscow garage on Saturday when she apparently stepped on the accelerator by mistake and the car plunged through a glass wall. — AP

Judge to quit

THE HAGUE: President of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, has said that she would step down as head of the court in November and resign as a judge. The resignation, announced by McDonald on Tuesday, from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will be effective from November 17. — AFP

Ban on hunting

DHAKA: Bangladesh has banned the hunting of wild animals for five years amid growing concern over indiscriminate killings, an official statement said here on Wednesday. The authorities also asked people to cooperate with the government in taking legal action against those involved in trading and hunting such animals. — AFP

Exposed to radiation

PARIS: A safety employee at a nuclear power plant in southern France has been accidentally exposed to radiation four times the European norm following a contamination incident, nuclear safety officials said. The head of the nuclear safety authority said it was a major incident, especially as the employee worked for the service whose task was to ensure the carrying out of instructions on protection from radioactivity. — AFP

Forbes on Internet

WASHINGTON: Millionaire magazine publisher Malcolm S. ‘Steve’ Forbes launched his second try for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination on Tuesday in an unconventional fashion — by opening an Internet campaign headquarters. — DPA