Lower USAID amount for India
WASHINGTON, March 26 — The US Agency for International Development has requested Congress for a lower amount of $ 126.8 million for India for the fiscal beginning October 1, 1999, as against the actual appropriation of $ 152.803 million in the current fiscal.

Brightest burst in universe
WASHINGTON, March 26 — The most powerful explosion ever observed — a deep space eruption detected in January — released in just seconds a burst of energy equal to billions of years of light from thousands of suns.

EU backs Arafat on statehood

Pressure against air strikes mounts

LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) — Russia and China have increased the pressure on NATO states to end the bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo as the first crack appeared in the alliance’s united front on the issue.

The air strikes, continuing for a second night, won cautious support from many Muslims, but Iraq, itself a target of western air raids, denounced them.

India called for an end to all military action against Yugoslavia and said the NATO military assault violated the United Nations charter.

Pakistan yesterday likened the Kosovo conflict to Kashmir and chastised the U.N. for “failure in addressing situations which threaten international peace and security.”

Condemnation of the raids, aimed at forcing Belgrade to halt its offensive against ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, also came from Libya and South Africa.

The Russian leadership reverted to loud rhetoric after earlier turning the volume down.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin renewed an appeal to NATO to stop the bombing.

“I call once more for an immediate halt to the air strikes and a return to the search for a political solution to the Kosovo problem through peace negotiations,” he said in a speech at the Swiss Parliament building at Berne.

The first crack in NATO’s united front against Yugoslavia appeared when Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema called for a return to diplomacy after the first allied air strikes.

D’Alema, whose country is the main land base for NATO air forces participating in the campaign, told reporters at a European Union summit in Berlin that the first wave of bombing had forced the Serbs to halt their crackdown in Kosovo.

MECCA (DPA): The Saudi-based Muslim World League called for “continuation of the international punitive actions against the Serbs until their leaders acquiesce to the legitimate demands of the Moslem people of Kosovo”.

The call came on Thursday in a statement issued “on behalf of the World’s Muslim peoples and minorities” at the organisation’s headquarters in the Saudi holy city of Mecca.

BERLIN (AFP): About 200 persons have protested against NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia as European Union (EU) leaders gathered only 300 metres away at Berlin’s Intercontinental Hotel, the police said.

Demonstrators on Thursday shouted “NATO — killers” and “leave Yugoslavia”. Banners said the NATO intervention against Serbian forces was a violation of international law.

Serbia expels Western scribes

NEW YORK, March 26 (AP) — Foreign journalists have fled or been forcibly removed from Yugoslavia after the Serbian Government ordered reporters from countries participating in NATO airstrikes expelled from the country.

A CNN reporter, Brent Sadler, narrowly made it out of the Kosovo capital of Pristina after his vehicle was set on fire by a mob, said CNN official Eason Jordan.

Three reporters from The New York Times were expelled from the country, spokeswoman Nancy Nielsen said.

In ordering the expulsions, the Serb Government said the journalists had aided the NATO campaign to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to agree to a peace deal with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Journalists “strengthened the aggressive acts of NATO forces aimed at violent destruction of... the territorial integrity of Serbia and Yugoslavia,” said a statement faxed to AP in Belgrade and signed by Serb Information Minister Alexander Vucic.

The Federal Government of Yugoslavia made up of the dominant Republic of Serbia and smaller Montenegro said journalists were welcome to stay, as long as they were objective. However, journalists were leaving in response to the statement by the Serb authorities, since both the federal capital, Belgrade, and the province of Kosovo are in Serbia.

Sadler and two CNN colleagues were held at gunpoint in a hotel before being allowed to leave, Jordan said. A gunshot was fired into the ceiling as they were being rounded up.

All CNN correspondents had left the country, Jordan said.

A CBS colleague left Kosovo yesterday. ABC said its nine employees in Belgrade and Kosovo all left. One, London-based producer Clark Benson, was escorted from the country, spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said.

BBC reporters Monica Guerin, Ben Brown and Jacky Rowland were ordered out of Pristina and went to Montenegro.

“They have not yet in Pristina expelled the entire Press corps, but as we were leaving other people were having their visas revoked. Certainly freedom of movement has been severely restricted and our ability to go find out what’s going on in the country has been reduced,” Guerin said.

Two NBC reporters remained in Belgrade. Despite the government order, they decided to stay because nobody directly asked them to leave, spokeswoman Alex Constantinople said.

In Washington, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the “harassment of journalists says an awful lot about President Milosevic and his authoritarian regime.”

Gandhi body chief indicted

WASHINGTON, March 26 (PTI) — Yogesh Gandhi, an Indian American recently investigated by the Justice Department for making a $ 325,000 donation to the US Democratic National Committee and presenting a Gandhi Foundation Award to President Bill Clinton, has been indicted in San Francisco on various charges, including tax evasion, a New York-based weekly reported.

The charges of mail and wire fraud, tax evasion, failure to file an income tax return and perjury against Yogesh have been mentioned in a “criminal information” document filed in a US district court in San Francisco with the trial set for this weekend, News India Times reported.

According to the weekly, the federal indictment accuses the 49-year-old of forging the signature of Donald Shimer, who had worked for the Gandhi Foundation from 1998 until he retired seven years ago, on two American Express credit card applications, one for himself and the other for his wife.

Yogesh, at present heading the Gandhi International Memorial Foundation in California, claims to be in relation of Mahatma Gandhi.

Serb backlash brings terror
from Jonathan Steele in Skopje

A wild and furious Serb backlash swept through Kosovo on Thursday with grenades thrown into Albanian shops and houses in the capital Pristina, the detention of human rights activists, the theft of cars, cameras and mobile phones from foreign journalists and the setting on fire of the US Embassy in neighbouring Macedonia.

All journalists from NATO countries were ordered out of Serbia and as the press waited outside the Grand Hotel in Pristina for a promised police escort to the border with Macedonia, they were attacked by marauding thugs and the police themselves.

The centre of Pristina, which has an 85 per cent Albanian population, was deserted except for tough-looking Serbs on the hunt for ways to unleash their aggression. Terrified Albanians who had spent the evening in their homes cheering the NATO bombing found themselves prisoners of the mob. Hardly any dared to go into the street.

“We’re very afraid of massacres,’’ said a young Albanian in the suburb of Dragodan, as he told us how to find two houses badly damaged by grenades.

The most sinister incident took place at the home of Bajram Kilmendi, the best-known human rights lawyer in Pristina. A man in his 60s, he was detained with his two sons by a group of five uniformed policemen who forced their way in at 1 a.m. on Thursday. Before the bombing, several leading Albanian politicians and activists said they feared executions in the aftermath of the bombing if NATO did not send ground troops to protect them. Their fears may already be coming true.

“They stormed in and ordered us all to lie on the floor,” Vjollca Kilmendi, the lawyer’s daughter-in-law, said. “They said that if we didn’t obey immediately they would throw a bomb. One policeman told my husband to kiss me and the children for the last time because he would not see us again,’’ she sobbed. “They went upstairs where my husband’s 16-year-old brother was asleep, woke him up and brought him downstairs. ‘You wanted NATO, now you’ve got NATO’, one of the policemen shouted.”

Two young men and their father were taken away. She and Mr Kilmendi’s brother went to the central police station in Pristina on Thursday morning to find out where they were. “The police refused to say anything except ‘Go and get help from NATO’,” she said. When they got home they found an unexploded grenade under a cupboard just inside the front door. “They must have put it there before we left. We rang the police and asked them to come and defuse it but they just laughed.”

We drove the 67km to the Macedonia border along empty roads. Police patrols and a convoy of troops and lorries were the only people in sight. But, in a grim reminder that the burning of villages is still going on, smoke was rising from Albanian houses near the border crossing point. It seemed like a deliberate act of defiance, as though the Serbs felt they had nothing to hide. If NATO’s bombing had caused civilian casualties, no doubt they would have been eager for the foreign Press to stay and see it. Instead, they told us to leave and organised a final display of their version of war as we crossed into Macedonia.

To our shock we discovered another crowd of angry Serbs and Macedonian supporters was in full cry in the capital Skopje. They marched to the hotels being used by members of the international monitoring team which left Kosovo last Saturday. Carrying Serb and Macedonian flags they smashed the windows of several monitors’ vehicles and attacked foreign journalists with rocks.

They entered the US Embassy compound and got into the building used by the British and German Embassies, wrecking the ground floor.
— The Guardian, London

Lower USAID amount for India

WASHINGTON, March 26 (PTI) — The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has requested Congress for a lower amount of $ 126.8 million for India for the fiscal beginning October 1, 1999, as against the actual appropriation of $ 152.803 million in the current fiscal.

While the USA continues to be India’s largest trade partner, the potential for expansion in trade and investment, though enormous, is dependent upon a second wave of Indian economic reform, USAID has pointed.

Of the $ 126.8 million recommended for India, $ 28.7 million is for development assistance, $ 16 million for child survival and disease, $ 81.65 million for PL 480 Title II (food grants) and $ 4,50,000 dollars for military education and training.

The USAID said although India’s external debt was manageable, the current account deficit as a percentage of GDP and debt service ratio were unchanged at last year’s level. Its growing population concentrated largely in urban areas contributed to the spread and communication of communicable diseases.

India continued to have the largest concentration of poor in the world, more than 300 million despite gains in food production, and half of its children are malnourished, USAID added.

Brightest burst in universe

WASHINGTON, March 26 (AP) — The most powerful explosion ever observed — a deep space eruption detected in January — released in just seconds a burst of energy equal to billions of years of light from thousands of suns.

Researchers say, in studies to be published today, that the explosion, called a gamma ray burst (GRB), occurred nine billion light years from earth. What caused the explosion is still a mystery.

“It is probably something to do with massive stars,’’ said Mr S. George Djorgovski, a California Institute of Technology astronomer. “The truth is, we don’t know.’’

The alert enabled astronomers, for the first time in history, to capture optical views of a GRB event as the detection was underway. Analysing this light helped scientists determine that the burst happened about nine billion light years away from earth. A light year is about six trillion miles.

EU backs Arafat on statehood

BERLIN, March 26 (AFP) — The European Union (EU) today adotped a statement backing Palestinian self-determination including the right to statehood, delegates to the EU summit here said.

The 15 EU heads of state and government reaffirmed “the continuing and unqualified Palestinian right to self-determination including the option of a state” and said they were looking forward “to the early fulfilment of this right”.

A date with Lewinsky
LONDON: Actor Sir Ian McKellen, who missed out on an Oscar last week for his role in Gods and Monsters,’’ arrived at the British premiere of his movie with Monica Lewinsky. The openly gay star brought the woman whose affair almost toppled US President Bill Clinton as his date for the screening on Thursday night. I was at home and didn’t have a date,’’ explained McKellen, one of Britain’s most esteemed stage and screen actors. She was coming to London and I thought we want to give her a good welcome.’’— AP

Swiss Govt assailed
BERNE: Chinese President Jiang Zemin angrily attacked his Swiss hosts for allowing a clutch of human rights protesters to mar his reception at an official ceremony here. Just hours after arriving in Switzerland on Thursday, Jiang lashed out furiously against the government for allowing the protests outside the federal palace building where he was supposed to be received with full military honours ceremony. “You have lost a friend,” a furious Jiang told Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss. — AFP

Muslim MP cleared
LONDON: Britain’s first Muslim MP has been cleared of allegations that he attempted to win his parliamentary seat by paying bribes to an opponent. Mohammed Sarwar was on Thursday acquitted of two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice at a trial at the high court in Edinburgh that lasted nearly nine weeks. Co-accused Mumtaz Hussain was also acquitted of one similar charge. — AFP

50,000 pigs killed
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian soldiers and police have killed more than 50,000 pigs in an operation meant to control a human illness in southeast Asia’s largest swine-breeding district, the National News Agency has reported. The 320,000 pigs in the area are suspected of carrying Japanese encephalitis. — AP

Everest mystery
KATHMANDU: A 13-member mountaineering team has set out from the Nepalese capital in a bid to unravel a 75-year-old mystery on the brutal slopes of Mount Everest. The team, comprising 10 climbers from the USA, two Britons and a German, left Kathmandu and is due to reach the Tibetan slope of the 29,028-foot peak, the world’s highest, by next Monday. — AFP

Jailbreak
SYDNEY: An armed woman piloting a helicopter swooped on the sports ground at Sydney’s Silverwater jail on Thursday to scoop up a man serving time for armed robbery in the most daring jailbreak ever recorded in Australia. The couple flew across Sydney before landing in a field and hijacking a car to make their getaway. — DPA

Jesse Jackson
CHICAGO: U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has announced that he will not make a third run for the White House in 2000. “After much reflection and prayer, I have decided not to seek the democratic nomination for President in the year 2000”, the black leader said.— AFP