Gunfire, arson in E. Timor capital
DILI, Sept 13 —There was sporadic gunfire today in the hills near the East Timor’s capital, Dili, and several houses were torched in the city.

Anti-govt strike cripples B’desh
DHAKA, Sept 13 —Businesses and schools shut down today in the main cities of Bangladesh in a three-day general strike, a day after pitched street battles between opposition activists and police left 250 people injured.

‘Ally McBeal’ wins Emmy Award LOS ANGELES, Sept 13 — In a double coup for creator David E. Kelley, the quirky “Ally McBeal” won the Emmy for best comedy and his courtroom drama, “The Practice,” won for best drama series at the 51st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards yesterday. General executed in China for spying BEIJING, Sept 13 — China has court-martialled and executed a General and a Colonel for selling state secrets to Taiwan for at least $ 1.6 million in its biggest spying scandal in five decades, military sources today said.

LOS ANGELES: Helen Hunt waves to photographers as she holds her Emmy for best actress in a comedy series during the 51st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Sunday. Hunt won for her role in "Mad About You." AP/PTI

Heavy fighting in Lanka; 171 killed

COLOMBO, Sept 13 (PTI) — Fiftyfive Sri Lankan security force personnel and 116 LTTE cadre were among 171 killed and 92 soldiers injured overnight in fierce fighting in north-west Mannar district where the army began a new offensive to capture rebel-held areas.

Admitting that the army suffered heavy losses, army sources said here today that grounds so far confirmed 49 troops killed in the battle. Bodies of another six soldiers, including an officer, which were taken by the LTTE guerrillas were being handed over to the army through International Red Cross (ICRC).

They also affirmed that at least 411 of its soldiers sustained injuries in the heavy mortar attacks by the rebels. The condition of 92 injured soldiers was serious.

The sources, however, denied reports that army has lost 96 men in the battle. "It is certainly exaggerated figure", they said.

The fighting broke out after the army launched a two pronged attack on the rebel positions at Palampatti, about 10 km from the famous Christian shrine Madu in the north-west Vanni region. Despite heavy losses, troops captured three km of territory from the control of the LTTE.

Operation "ranagosa-v (battle cry)" called for to capture territories held by Tamil rebels came under heavy fire from the LTTE which attacked the advancing troops with mortars and rocket propelled grenades. The Sri Lankan air force, too, took part in the offensive by conducting heavy aerial bombing of the LTTE positions.

The army said 116 rebels were killed in the battle. These figures, army attributed to rebel wireless transmissions. But the clandestine LTTE radio this morning said it lost 19 cadre and recovered 20 bodies of the troops.

Army sources said the LTTE began resisting the advance very heavily as the troops has captured a lot of area under its control in the earlier offensives. "They began resisting heavily as we are closing on them," the sources said.

45 killed in Moscow blast

MOSCOW, Sept 13 (PTI) — At least 45 persons were killed here when a powerful blast destroyed an eight-storeyed apartment housing more than 100 inhabitants in an act described by Russian security officials as being the handiwork of Islamic guerrillas.

Rescuers had so far recovered 23 bodies, a spokesman of the Russian Emergency Situations and Disaster Management Ministry said.

This was the second blast in a Moscow apartment in five days.

A spokesman of Russia’s FSB intelligence wing Alexander Zdanovich told NTV that like the blast on Wednesday night in another building, the powerful explosive was tucked in the rented basement of the building.

The bomb went off at 5 a.m. when nearly 120 residents of the apartment on Kashirskoye Shosse were fast asleep. The rescuers were still looking for survivors.

The spokesman blamed Islamic militants, linked to the earlier explosion, for the blast.

"I think we can already say straight that this was a new act of terrorism," he said. "But, we have to await the examination of the epicentre of the explosion," he added.

The blasts were believed to be the work of Islamic militants from the breakaway republic of Chechnya who took over the Soviet republic of Dagestan on August 7. Russian forces have been battling the 2,000 militants since then and over 100 of its soldiers have died in the fighting.

Experts feared that today’s blast — on the day of national mourning for victims of two earlier blasts — might prompt the Kremlin to declare an emergency and put off the Duma poll.

President Boris Yeltsin ordered increased security across Russia after the blast .

"Security will be tightened around nuclear power stations, oil storage facilities, pipelines and other key installations", Mr Yeltsin said at the outset of a meeting with his security chiefs at the Kremlin.

Noting that the latest explosion was the "third terrorist act in a few days" in Moscow, Mr Yeltsin said "the Capital needs to be placed under special control".

"We must not tackle the problem on ethnic or religious grounds. We will not allow purges based on nationalities," he said.

Mr Yeltsin said unspecified forces were probably counting on a racist clampdown "to sow panic, to lead the country to a state of emergency, to destroy the government and spread anarchy."

The President appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko to oversee the investigation into the blast.

Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo was entrusted with the task of setting up an emergency control centre to oversee the battle against terrorism.

A blast on Thursday in a southeast Moscow residential building had killed 92 persons. On September 4, a building housing Russian servicemen was blown up in Dagestan, killing 64, while an August 31 blast at a Moscow shopping mall near the Kremlin had killed 1 and wounded 40.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary William Cohen today condemned the bombing of a Moscow apartment block and said USA was ready to help Russia fight terrorism.

"We condemn this bombing. This appears to be an act of terrorism directed against innocent civilians," said Mr Cohen at Spaso House, the residence of the US Ambassador here.

"This is wholly unacceptable and there can be no justification for any group taking action against innocent civilians. We intend to cooperate in whatever fashion we can to work with the Russian people," he said.

Mr Cohen said he would express his sentiments to Russian leaders during a meeting with deputies of the Duma and with Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev later in the day.

The US Defence Secretary arrived here yesterday for talks on Kosovo and missile defence.

N. Korea freezes missile tests

AUCKLAND, Sept 13 (AFP) — North Korea will freeze its long-range missile programme after Washington promised to lift economic sanctions in a “different kind of relationship” with Pyongyang, US officials said today.

“North Korea will refrain from testing any long-range missiles,” US National Security Adviser Samuel Berger told journalists here following a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.

He said the freeze, agreed to in bilateral talks in Berlin, would remain in effect during negotiations on improving relations with the USA.

In exchange, Washington will lift basic economic trade sanctions in a deal which Mr Berger said averted a “very destabilising event” for Asia with major implications for South Korea, Japan, China and the USA.

“If we are going to embark on a different course, a course which could conceivably lead to a long-term moratorium on the (North Korean) missile programme, that suggests the possibility of a different kind of relationship with North Korea,” Mr Berger said.

“It’s very much in the US strategic interest and in any negotiations, any discussions, obviously the question is ‘what is the reciprocal benefit to the North Koreans’?”

“The reciprocal benefit is there will be some easing of economic sanctions but I hasten to add that if they tested, obviously, we would be going down a different path.”

The sanctions to be lifted applied to “trade and ordinary goods and services and investment” but would not affect “sensitive items”, he said.

SEOUL: North Korea has signalled that it is ready for talks with the estranged South, Seoul’s official news agency Yonhap reported today.

One day after negotiations concluded between North Korea and the USA In Berlin, the state-run radio in Pyongyang declared that the Stalinist country was ready to commence a dialogue with its southern neighbour.

In the broadcast monitored by Yonhap, the station announced that North Korea would resume talks with the South at both governmental and private levels.

Representatives from areas including politics, economy, culture and religion should be exchanged in the mutual interest of both countries, the North Korean commentary said.

TOKYO: In the wake of progress in the key US-North Korea talks, Japan is considering lifting its sanctions against North Korea, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said on Monday.

Tokyo was “very pleased about the news that the two sides had positive talks,” Mr Komura said in an interview with Japan Broadcasting Corporation in Tokyo.

Last August the Stalinist North Korean regime launched a missile, part of which flew over Japan.

Following the launch, Tokyo froze food aid, stopped efforts to normalise relations and banned charter flights.

Gunfire, arson in E. Timor capital

DILI, Sept 13 (AP) —There was sporadic gunfire today in the hills near the East Timor’s capital, Dili, and several houses were torched in the city.

But Indonesian soldiers — condemned by the world for helping anti-independence militias turn it into a ghost town — welcomed the news that peacekeeping troops would be brought in.

Militiamen roamed the streets, but were no longer looting. There wasn’t much left to take. Instead it was refugees - mostly women and children - who combed through the ruined shops for scant remnants of food, water, or canned soft drinks.

Several houses were set ablaze in three different parts of Dili today. Soldiers fired warning shots to drive away arsonists.

The words: “If you want independence, stay in the jungle” were spray-painted on several burnt houses.

Indonesian security forces were stacking rubble into piles. Pairs of marines or soldiers were posted every 30 metres along the streets round-the-clock.

Troops who arrived after the imposition of martial law last week were spreading out to remote parts of the province, where an estimated 200,000 people who fled their homes last week are hiding in the hills, short of food and water. Another 100,000 have fled to neighbouring West Timor.

There have been repeated, but unconfirmed, reports of refugees being attacked by troops outside town. The Indonesian army vehemently denies them.

Meanwhile, the UN staff in East Timor said today that they had credible reports that the Indonesian military was continuing to round up East Timorese men from refugee camps and deport them from the territory despite the impending arrival of foreign peacekeepers.

In addition, pro-Jakarta militiamen in the East Timor capital of Dili and in the neighbouring West Timor capital Kupang were reportedly disguising themselves as UN staff and loading people onto boats bound for unknown destinations.

The reports were given to the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) by groups monitoring the Indonesian military’s radio traffic in East and West Timor.

JAKARTA: Parliamentary leaders today gave their backing to Indonesia’s plan to allow foreign peacekeepers into East Timor.

“We can understand the step that has been taken by the government,” parliamentary Speaker Harmoko said in a statement released by parliamentary faction leaders after a two-and-a-half hour meeting with President B.J. Habibie.

Mr Habibie, speaking to reporters, said he was trusting the UN Security Council and Secretary-General Kofi Annan to be positive and help solve the East Timor problem “wisely and not emotionally”.

However, Ms Aisyah Amini, Chairwoman of a Indonesian parliamentary commission on defence today urged Jakarta to prevent Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Portugal from taking part in a UN peacekeeping force.

Indonesia’s Chief Economics Minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita said in Auckland that the leadership of the planned international peacekeeping force to East Timor was subject to negotiation.

According to a London report, Britain said today that it was not up to Indonesia to decide which countries should take part in the UN peacekeeping force.

AUCKLAND: A report from Phnom Penh said Cambodia is ready to assist with any peacekeeping effort in East Timor if requested by the UN Security Council, Co-Minister of Defence, Prince Sisowath Sirirath, said on Monday.

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said on Monday in Auckland that all the members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) were ready to help in some way with an international peacekeeping force.

Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi also welcomed Indonesia’s decision to accept an international peace-keeping force in troubled East Timor and said it would “fully cooperate’’ to bring peace back to the region.

Mr Obuchi did not elaborate on how Japan intends to contribute, but Japanese officials said it was unlikely Tokyo would provide personnel for a UN-led operation.

DARWIN: The UN will send its staff back to East Timor as soon as possible following the announcement of an international peacekeeping force for the province, a spokesman said on Monday.

“We will go back in as soon as we possibly can, I can assure you,” UN mission spokesman David Wimhurst told Australian television’s Nine Network.

MOSCOW: US Defence Secretary William Cohen has said the Pentagon plans to provide military transport, intelligence and communications support to peacekeepers expected to go to East Timor from Asia-Pacific nations.

“We are not planning at this point on putting (USA) combat troops on the ground in terms of a peacekeeping force there,’’ Mr Cohen told reporters on Sunday travelling with him at the start of a visit to Russia.

“If a peacekeeping force does materialise, it will largely consist of those nations in the region,’’ the secretary said in an interview on his aircraft.

SYDNEY: The Uniting Church in Australia said on Monday that it had information that militias were hunting down and executing independence supporters in refugee camps in West Timor and also killed the head of the Protestant church in East Timor.

The Uniting Church told Reuters that it had been in contact with people in the West Timor capital Kupang who said militias were targeting refugee camps, which was housing up to 100,000 people.

Anti-govt strike cripples B’desh

DHAKA, Sept 13 (AP) —Businesses and schools shut down today in the main cities of Bangladesh in a three-day general strike, a day after pitched street battles between opposition activists and police left 250 people injured.

The strike crippled at least 60 other cities and towns, said Mr Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, an opposition spokesman.

The four-party opposition alliance, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), is demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and fresh general elections.

Hundreds of protesters in small groups marched through the streets of Dhaka, shouting: “down with Hasina’s government.”

Crude bombs — tin pots filled with explosives — went off in some areas, but no injuries were immediately reported. Nearly 5,000 security forces, many in riot gear, patrolled Dhaka’s streets.

DPA adds: The shutdown, scheduled to last until Wednesday, was called by BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia to protest against police actions in Dhaka during an overnight sit-down demonstration by thousands of opposition activists.

About 130 persons were arrested yesterday for defying a ban on rallies inside a 2 sq km area around a government complex housing key ministries.

The opposition alliance, including the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami, had called the demonstration to stop an alleged move by the Centre-Left government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to give overland transit rights to neighbouring India.

‘Ally McBeal’ wins Emmy Award

LOS ANGELES, Sept 13 (AP) — In a double coup for creator David E. Kelley, the quirky “Ally McBeal” won the Emmy for best comedy and his courtroom drama, “The Practice,” won for best drama series at the 51st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards yesterday.

The Fox comedy about a bizarre Boston law firm toppled NBC’s “Frasier” which had won the best comedy award five years in a row. Emmy host David Hyde Pierce of “Frasier: won his third Emmy as best supporting actor in a comedy.

It was the second straight Emmy for ABC’s “The Practice,” and two of its supporting actors also took home trophies at yesterday’s awards ceremonies.

Helen Hunt won her fourth straight best comedy actress Emmy for the sentimental finale of “Mad About You” and John Lithgow was honoured as top comedy actor for “3rd Rock From the Sun.” Kristen Johnston, who plays a statiesque, hot-blooded alien visitor to earth in the latter was named best supporting actress in a comedy series.

Helen’s award tied a record for consecutive wins by a performer set in 1988 by John Larroquette for “Night Court.”

Acknowledging co-star Paul Reiser and everyone involved in the show, Helen thanked “a family of people that made it the most creative, safe, loving place to work.”

Lithgow accepted his third award for the NBC comedy.

Another Emmy veteran, Dennis Franz of “NYPD Blue,” won his fourth trophy for best actor in a drama. He said he thought his co-star, Jimmy Smits, would win the award for the episode where Smits’ character died.

Edie Falco, the long-suffering Mafia wife on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” won the award for best actress in a drama series in the show’s first season. Otherwise, the much-nominated show was shut out of major awards.

Sunday’s show was expected to be seen in about 90 countries, the academy said.

General executed in China for spying

BEIJING, Sept 13 (Reuters) — China has court-martialled and executed a General and a Colonel for selling state secrets to Taiwan for at least $ 1.6 million in its biggest spying scandal in five decades, military sources today said.

They said retired Maj-Gen Liu Liankun, 58, was executed by a lethal injection in Beijing in August during renewed tension between China and Taiwan over the estranged island’s political future.

General Liu, a former department Director with the General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), had been passing on secrets to Taiwan for about five years, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

He was accused of selling secrets to Taiwan intelligence on PLA war games and missile tests in waters near Taiwan in 1996.

3 beaten to death
JAKARTA: Three Indonesian cult members were beaten to death by fellow cultists when the 9/9/99 doomsday prediction failed to materialise, the Jakarta Post said on Monday. Like many cults across the country, members were told to prepare for the end of the world at 9 a.m. On September 9. They sold their personal possessions and for nine days before the big day, locked themselves up in their homes. When nothing happened, the cult members lost control, the newspaper said. — Reuters

Garcia Marquez
LOS ANGELES: The Nobel prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been treated last week in Los Angeles for low-intensity lymphoma, the Los Angeles Times has said. Garcia Marquez was diagnosed in Colombia as having “general exhaustion syndrome” and doctors in Los Angeles confirmed that he had lymphoma, the newspaper reported on Sunday. — Reuters

Deauville festival
DEAUVILLE (France): Director Spike Jonze’s first feature film “Being John Malkovich” won top honours at the 25th Deauville American Independent Film Festival and two other debut movies were also awarded prizes. The 10-day long film festival in this Normandy Beach Resort drew an array of American film stars and bestowed special career awards to Kirk Douglas, Al Pacino, Robin Williams and composer Maurice Jarre. — Reuters