Lankan army repels LTTE attack
COLOMBO, Nov 13 — Sri Lankan troops have repulsed an LTTE attack on the northern Omanthai town killing 11 rebels, even as civilians started returning to the ghost town of Vavuniya after a mass exodus a few days ago, army sources said here today.

USA to meet Taiwan’s needs
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 — The USA has confirmed that Taiwan is in possession of anti-missile defence equipment and promised to continue to assist the country in meeting its legitimate defence needs.

24 aboard UN plane dead
PRISTINA, Nov 13 — The NATO-led Kfor peacekeeping force confirmed today that all 24 persons on board a United Nations plane that crashed into a Kosovo hillside had died, and said their bodies had been recovered from the site.

China-Israel arms deal worries USA
WASHINGTON, Nov 13 — The sale of a sophisticated $ 250 million airborne radar system by Israel to China has raised serious concerns at the Pentagon, with the Clinton Administration urging Tel Aviv to tone down its defence deals with Beijing, The New Yorks Times has said.

Intelligence plans stolen
TORONTO, Nov 13 — A document outlining planned intelligence operations for the next year was stolen from a car belonging to an employee of Canada’s spy agency, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), during an apparently random car break-in.

Russians advance into Chechnya
GEKHI, (Russia), Nov 13 — Russian troops made a major advance deeper into Chechnya from the west overnight and heavily shelled villages in the densely-populated heartland of the rebel province, a Reuters reporter said today.

Musharraf wants peace with India

TOKYO, Nov 13 (PTI) — Pakistan’s Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf has said he wants peace with India to ensure economic development of the region and denied that his country started the Kargil conflict.

“We hope for peace with India. There is no doubt about that,” he told Japanese newsmen in Islamabad yesterday.

“People in the region face mutual hostility and suffer from the absence of economic cooperation. We have to achieve peace and develop the economy,” General Musharraf was quoted as saying by the Asahi Shimbun daily.

The Army chief said it was wrong to suggest Pakistan was responsible for the Kargil conflict.

The newspaper reported the Army chief declined to set any time-frame for restoration of democracy in Pakistan, saying there was much work to be done before he could hand over the country to a democratic system.

A democratic system had to be devised and the electoral system reformed, he said, adding that economic rebirth of the nation was his prime concern.

Seeking more aid from Tokyo, General Musharraf urged the Japanese Government to send fact-finding missions to Pakistan to “see the misdeeds done by the civilian governments”.

Asked about reforming the feudal system in the country, he said it would be discussed in the National Security Council headed by him.

Security tightened in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD, Nov 13 (Reuters) — Security was today tightened in Islamabad as the authorities widened an investigation into who was behind the launching of six rockets at US and UN facilities in the middle of the busy Pakistani Capital.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which the USA has linked to UN sanctions set to take effect tomorrow against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement, while some Pakistani officials have blamed India, the traditional scapegoat for such incidents.

Extra police was posted at the entrances to the diplomatic enclave which houses most of the embassies, and from where two of the rockets were launched, missing the US Embassy and apparently passing over the Canadian and Iranian Embassies.

A Pakistani guard at an American Cultural Centre sustained injuries.

“It’s a barbaric way to send a message if that’s what it is”, White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said in Washington.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Pakistani authorities to bring to justice the perpetrators of the “cowardly terrorist” rocket attacks.

The attacks came two days before US inspired sanctions were to be imposed on the Taliban unless Afghanistan deports Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden to face charges he masterminded the bombing of two US Embassies in Africa last year that killed more than 200 persons.

A US intelligence official, noting that the attacks targeted UN offices, said in Washington: “It’s looking like it’s probably related somehow to the UN sanctions issue”.

The imminent UN sanctions have already caused protests in Afghanistan. The UN office in Kandahar was stoned during a demonstration by 50,000 persons on Wednesday, but a UN official said regular flights into Afghanistan would operate normally.

The sanctions would impose financial and aviation restrictions but would not stop humanitarian aid.

Quake leaves 321 dead in Turkey

ANKARA, Nov 13 (Reuters, AFP) — At least 321 persons died in a powerful earthquake that ripped through Turkey’s north-western province of Bolu yesterday, the Turkish Health Ministry said today.

A ministry official said more than 1,850 persons were injured in the quake which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale.

Some 300 buildings collapsed in the region according to preliminary examinations, said the Undersecretary of the Construction Ministry Ali Helvaci, quoted by Anatolia news agency.

The tremor came three months after a quake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale on August 17 devastated Turkey’s northwest industrial heartland and killed some 20,000 persons.

Forest destruction ‘caused’ cyclone

PARIS, Nov 13 (PTI) — Thousands of lives could have been saved in the recent cyclone that battered Orissa if mangrove forests in the coastal areas had not been destroyed for commercial reasons, expert said.

The Orissa “coastline was once covered by mangrove forests. In the past, mangroves would have dissipated the incoming wave energy,” Tom Spencer of the Cambridge Coastal research unit at Cambridge University was quoted as saying in the latest issue of The New Scientist.

The roots of the mangroves, which grow on tidal coasts, collect sediment in their roots giving the seabed a shallow slope. This absorbs the energy of waves and tidal surges thereby acting as a shield for the land behind. The trees themselves also form a barrier against the wind.

“I am quite sure the loss of the mangroves was a contributory factor in the extent of the damage,” Mr Spencer said.

Over 7500 persons were killed when the cyclone ripped through Orissa, with winds of up to 300 kph. The torrential rain coupled with tidal surge inundated vast areas. The impact was so severe that slums in Bhubaneshwar, 50 km from the coast, were washed away.

According to The New Scientist report, in the past 40 years, India has lost more than half of its mangrove forests exposing coastal region to the wind and waves of the cyclones that regularly hit the eastern India.

The mangroves are considered as ideal spots for shrimp farming. Large tracts of mangrove forests were destroyed in the past 10 years to pave the way for lucrative shrimp farming. India is among the top four exporters of prawns and Orissa is one of the leading producers of tiger prawns.

Despite the Supreme Court’s order to close down the shrimp farms within the 500 metres of the high-tide mark, the farms continued to mushroom, the report said. The court also said that the farms encouraged penetration of salt into coastal water supplies and rice fields.

Lankan army repels LTTE attack

COLOMBO, Nov 13 (PTI) — Sri Lankan troops have repulsed an LTTE attack on the northern Omanthai town killing 11 rebels, even as civilians started returning to the ghost town of Vavuniya after a mass exodus a few days ago, army sources said here today.

Troops successfully beat back attacks by two large groups of Tamil Tigers on Omanthai yesterday, the last urban centre still under army control in northern Vanni, inflicting heavy casualties on the rebels, they said.

Four LTTE guerrillas were killed at Omanthai while trying to destroy a vehicle that transported the rebels to the newly-established defence lines, while seven more died in separate encounters with security forces, they said.

The clandestine rebel radio “Voice of Tigers” in its broadcast this morning, however, claimed LTTE cadres were advancing towards Omnthai, 10 km from Vavuniya.

Reports from Vavuniya said people were returning to the town which witnessed a mass exodus of civilians a few days ago fearing a rebel attack.

According to government officials in Vavuniya, nearly 12,000 families were displaced within the district while another 20,000 families left for Colombo in the past two days.

Contrary to rebel claims, the reports said some semblance of normalcy returned to the town with hospitals, fuel stations and provision stores opening for the first time in three days.

Meanwhile, troops mobilised from various parts of the island continued to pour into Vavuniya and Omanthai. Over 12,000 soldiers have already been deployed under the new command to defend government-held areas.

USA to meet Taiwan’s needs

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (PTI) — The USA has confirmed that Taiwan is in possession of anti-missile defence equipment and promised to continue to assist the country in meeting its legitimate defence needs.

“We do not preclude the possible sale to Taiwan of any items in future. Our interest is in preserving peace and stability,” US State Department spokesman James Rubin said yesterday.

Among the items that Taiwan wanted to purchase were some pertaining to its air defence system and it had both anti-missile and anti-aircraft capabilities, he said.

With regard to theatre missile defence he said the system “is still under development and it is premature to make a decision at this time.”

Mr Rubin’s remarks come in the backdrop of a statement of the Commander-in-Chief of US Pacific Command Admiral Dennis Blair, who demanded deployment of area missile defences to meet “a growing threat of North Korean and Chinese missiles.”

He said in an interview to The Washington Times that the USA should help Taiwan build missile defences. Such cooperation was needed to counter China’s missile build-up. Such help was allowed under the Taiwan Relations Act, which was the law of the land, he added.

“We should follow the Taiwan Relations Act which says that we would be providing the wherewithal to Taiwan to mount a defence.

“As we told the Chinese, the fact that we are talking about these systems with the Taiwanese is related to the fact that they have an extensive missile-building programme going on their side of the Taiwan strait,” he said.

Admiral Blair said the anti-missile shield designed to knock out incoming missile warheads “needs to be a mixture of sea-based and land-based systems, as well as missile interceptors that can attack warheads both in space and closer to the surface.”

24 aboard UN plane dead

PRISTINA, Nov 13 (Reuters) — The NATO-led Kfor peacekeeping force confirmed today that all 24 persons on board a United Nations plane that crashed into a Kosovo hillside had died, and said their bodies had been recovered from the site.

“All 24 bodies have been found and transported to Pristina Hospital,’’ said Lieut-Col Henning Philipp, spokesman for Kfor Commander Klaus Reinhardt.

He was speaking shortly before commander Reinhardt and Bernard Kouchner, head of Kosovo’s United Nations administration, began briefing reporters near the site of the crash, 12 km northeast of the city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo.

Kfor troops found the wreckage of the twin turbo-propelled ATR-42 plane at 9.45 GMT. It had disappeared from radar screens at around midday on Friday and had been chartered by the UN’s world food programme to fly to the Kosovo capital Pristina from Rome.

China-Israel arms deal worries USA

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (PTI) — The sale of a sophisticated $ 250 million airborne radar system by Israel to China has raised serious concerns at the Pentagon, with the Clinton Administration urging Tel Aviv to tone down its defence deals with Beijing, The New Yorks Times has said.

Israel has had a close relationship with China, that arms experts say, resulted in weapon sales of billions of dollars in recent years and raised a variety of concerns in the USA, it said quoting administration and defence officials as saying on Thursday.

Senior pentagon officials fear that the advanced Israeli radar system, mounted on a Russian plane under a deal negotiated between former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russia while both countries were competing for sales to China, will enhance Beijing’s ability to extend its military might beyond its borders and threaten Taiwan, major security interest of US in the region, the daily has said.

Workers at Elta, a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries, recently mounted the radar system on a Russian — made cargo plane destined for the Chinese Air Force, completing the first part of a complex deal that had been going on since many years, the paper said.

Intelligence plans stolen

TORONTO, Nov 13 (DPA) — A document outlining planned intelligence operations for the next year was stolen from a car belonging to an employee of Canada’s spy agency, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), during an apparently random car break-in.

The newspaper, Globe And Mail, reported yesterday that the theft of the super-sensitive document possibly constituted the most serious breach of security since the CSIS’s founding in 1984.

The agency’s spokesman, Mr Phil Gibson, told the paper that the stolen contents included a copy of an annual operational planning document.

The briefcase fell into the hands of car-prowling drug addicts who were looking for money and credit cards.

The prowlers were caught a few days after their break-in which occurred in October.

However, the briefcase could not be found as the thieves threw it into a garbage container, which was emptied before investigators could search it.

Russians advance into Chechnya

GEKHI, (Russia), Nov 13 (Reuters) — Russian troops made a major advance deeper into Chechnya from the west overnight and heavily shelled villages in the densely-populated heartland of the rebel province, a Reuters reporter said today.

A Russian armoured column had advanced along the main east-west highway to a crossroads near the village of Gekhi, entering the heavily populated Urus-Martan district for the first time. Residents of nearby towns and villages huddled in cellars under possibly the heaviest shelling of the seven-week conflict.

“Residents are in a panic. In the cellars people were crying, children were crying. Rockets were whistling overhead. People said they had seen nothing like this, not even during the last war,’’ Alkha Tosuyev said, referring to the conflict of 1994-96.

Paintings returned
NEW YORK: Three of the four 17th century paintings by Dutch masters that were stolen from a San Francisco museum in 1978 have reappeared here, among them “Portriat of a Rabbi” by Rembrandt, The New York Times has reported. The Rembrandt piece was valued at a million dollars 21 years ago when it was taken out of the museum in a daring robbery. — DPA

Explorer dead
LONDON: British explorer Sir Vivian Fuchs, who made the first surface crossing of the Antarctic, has died at the age of 91, his son Peter said. The explorer, who set up the British Antarctic Survey and was its director until 1973, died peacefully at his home in Cambridge after a long illness. — Reuters

3,961 pairs of twins
TAIPEI: Nearly 4,000 sets of twins — from month-old newborns to octogenarians — came together here to break the world record for the largest such gathering. Despite cool weather and a drizzle, the 3,961 pairs of twins gathered in front of the Taipei city hall on Friday to surpass the Guinness World record of 2,900 sets of twins set last year in Ohio. — Reuters