W O R L D

A makeup artist prepares Communist Party chief Gennady
Zyuganov for a television interview during a presidential
campaign tour in the Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk,
Thursday. Zyuganov, who is expected to come in second in
the March 26 elections, appealed to the youth vote during
the tour, since most of his electorate is retires. Photo PTI

Bridle temper, Taiwan tells China
TAIPEI, March 17 — Taiwan urged mainland China to "exercise restraint" today on the eve of presidential elections that could end more than five decades of Nationalist rule on the island and usher in a pro-independence government.

USA not to mediate on Kashmir issue
WASHINGTON, March 17 — The USA has said it will not "interpose" itself on the Kashmir issue as India has clearly indicated that it does not want third party intervention.

Iranian Katyushas for Hizbollah
JERUSALEM, March 17 — Iran has supplied Hizbollah with long-range Katyushas rockets which can hit suburb areas of the northern city of Haifa threatening a large number of residents in northern, Israeli reports said today.

Oscar statuettes stolen
LOS ANGELES, March 17 — Several boxes of Oscar statuettes meant to be presented at the Academy awards ceremony on March 26 are missing — apparently stolen from a loading dock of a shipping company near Los Angeles, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officials said yesterday.

Stop picking Indian brides: Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Prospective grooms from Malaysia’s Indian Muslim community have been urged by the government to marry local women, instead of choosing brides from India, news reports said yesterday.

Polk award for AP, 12 scribes
NEW YORK, March 17 — The Associated Press has won the George Polk award for international reporting for its series uncovering a massacre of South Korean civilians by US troops at the start of the Korean War.

Norway PM names youthful Cabinet
OSLO, March 17 — New Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg today named a youthful Labour Cabinet to succeed a Centrist coalition that collapsed last week after losing an environmental vote.

Cohen rejects limit on facility
TOKYO, March 17 — US Defence Secretary William Cohen today flatly rejected a proposed 15-year limit on the use of a heliport to be relocated from the US marine corp’s Futenma air station in Japan’s southernmost island of Okinawa prefecture.

‘Pinochet still under US probe’
WASHINGTON, March 17 — US prosecutors could eventually seek the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in a 1976 car bombing here that killed two, the former US prosecutor that handled the case said.

Presidential poll today
Bridle temper, Taiwan tells China

TAIPEI, March 17 (Reuters) — Taiwan urged mainland China to "exercise restraint" today on the eve of presidential elections that could end more than five decades of Nationalist rule on the island and usher in a pro-independence government.

Tensions are high amid threats from Beijing that a win by Chen Shui-Bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, which openly advocates a separate state, could bring a swift and furious reaction — possibly within hours.

China has long threatened invasion to stop Taiwan from splitting away, although there were no signs of any military activity on the mainland. Mr Chen himself has soft-pedalled the independence issue.

Three frontrunners made last-ditch appeals to undecided voters who could determine the outcome of a cliff-hanger election too close to call. Loudspeaker trucks flying party colours fanned out across this island of 23 million people.

For the first time since the Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese civil war, they are threatened with defeat at the ballot box. Their electoral support has been split by the maverick candidacy of Nationalist rebel James Soong, running as an Independent.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Wednesday signalled growing alarm as Mr Chen’s campaign gathered steam by warning Taiwan voters they would not get a second chance if they elected him.

In Washington, U.S. Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering called in Ambassador Li Zhao Xing to urge Beijing to tone down its rhetoric.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen said in Tokyo he saw no signs that China was preparing to attack Taiwan but he warned Beijing that the use of force was not an acceptable way for the two rivals to settle their differences.

Taiwan’s military said it had stepped up monitoring of China’s armed forces — the world’s largest — but remained on a standard level of alert.

"Unless there is any unusual movement on the part of the Chinese Communists we have no plans to raise the level of alertness or mobilise troops," a Defence Ministry spokesman said.

Mr Lin Chongpin, spokesman for Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said the Taiwan Government was "able to handle every possible situation and has made perfect preparation to cope with any provocative action".

"We urge the Chinese Communists to be rational and exercise self-restraint and not to do anything that will hurt feelings of people on both sides," he added.

Mr Lin has seized on Mr Zhu’s warnings to portray Chen as a dangerous radical. "Relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are fairly tense," he told reporters today.

Opinion polls in Taiwan are banned ten days before an election, so it is impossible to know how the candidates are doing.

About 15.46 million Taiwan residents are eligible to vote.

Mr Soong, a popular former Governor, has run on an anti-corruption platform aimed against the Nationalists. But he himself has been smeared by the Nationalists who allege he embezzled millions of dollars from party coffers.

Mr Soong won last-minute endorsements from former Premier Hau Pei-Tsun and the head of the small new party.

USA not to mediate on Kashmir issue

WASHINGTON, March 17 — The USA has said it will not "interpose" itself on the Kashmir issue as India has clearly indicated that it does not want third party intervention.

Asked why President Bill Clinton was not going to mediate the Kashmir dispute during his South Asia visit, National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said, "You can only mediate a dispute if both parties want to have that done. And the Indians have made it very clear that’s not the way they prefer to see this issue dealt with."

"And we’re certainly not going to interpose ourselves in a situation where one of the parties does not believe that’s the right course of action," he added.

Ahead of Clinton’s departure to South Asia, his administration has repeatedly said that he would not mediate on the Kashmir issue even though Pakistan has been pushing for its intervention.

However, Berger said, "What the President will do is to, number one, urge each party to exercise restraint, urge that steps be taken.....that create a better environment and can then enable the dialogue between India and Pakistan to continue."

Berger put the blame for the Kargil conflict squarely on Islamabad, saying "Kargil was something the Pakistanis bore responsibility for and we were pleased when Prime Minister Sharif agreed to withdraw forces from that area."

Iranian Katyushas for Hizbollah

JERUSALEM, March 17 (PTI) — Iran has supplied Hizbollah with long-range Katyushas rockets which can hit suburb areas of the northern city of Haifa threatening a large number of residents in northern, Israeli reports said today.

‘‘The long-range rockets supplied by the Iranians, which are gradually being brought to Lebanon, are able to reach 43 to 45 km, and some even have the potential of reaching 70 km’’, influential English daily Jerusalem Post quoted a senior Israeli air force officer Major-Gen Eitan Ben-Eliahu as saying. The standard Katyusha rocket has a range of 22 km.

Gen Ben-Eliahu’s remarks comes as the first public assertion that Hizbollah actually has received longer-range Katyushas from Iran. Until now defence officials and senior Israeli air force commanders had only expressed concern that Iran had supplied Hizbollah with the long-range Katyushas.

If in future residents of the possible target area were to be ordered to the bomb shelters the order would involve not just the 200,000 to 300,000 people along the Lebanon border, but much more than this number, he said during a lecture at Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University.

Hizbollah has ‘‘thousands’’ of Katyusha rockets, the paper quoted the official as saying.

Oscar statuettes stolen

LOS ANGELES, March 17 (Reuters) — Several boxes of Oscar statuettes meant to be presented at the Academy awards ceremony on March 26 are missing — apparently stolen from a loading dock of a shipping company near Los Angeles, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officials said yesterday.

In a statement, Academy officials said the Oscars were "apparently stolen" from a roadway express co loading dock in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell after being shipped by their manufacturer in Chicago.

Variety reported that about 40 statuettes were missing, but that the academy would have enough to present at the Oscars ceremony.

The statement added that a news conference would be held at the Academy headquarters on Friday morning.

Police spokesmen said they had no details about the apparent theft and that all comment on it was being made by the Academy.

An Academy spokesman was not immediately available for further comment. A spokesman for roadway express had no comment.

It was the second snafu to hit the Oscars in a month. About two weeks ago, 4,000 ballots mailed to voters in the Los Angeles area failed to be delivered and new ballots had to be mailed. The first round of ballots had been misdirected to a bulk mail office.

Stop picking Indian brides: Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (DPA): Prospective grooms from Malaysia’s Indian Muslim community have been urged by the government to marry local women, instead of choosing brides from India, news reports said yesterday.

Many Indian Muslim families, despite being Malaysians, continued to look for Indian-born brides for their sons while shunning local girls even from the same community.

"This causes great hardship for local girls who find it difficult to get husbands,’’ Deputy Home Minister Zainal Abidin Zin was quoted as saying in The Sun Daily.

A Malaysian Indian Muslim youth group recently voiced its concern over what it called a "worrying" trend among the community’s young women who had difficulty finding grooms.

Mohamed Kathir Ali, the head of the group, said the community should opt for Malaysian brides to avoid facing immigration and citizenship problems that were faced by foreign-born spouses.

Under the Malaysia’s strict immigration laws, it can take decades before foreign wives are granted citizenship, even if they have children. Their husbands have to pay a bond and sponsor their stay in the country, pending citizenship.

Foreign men who marry Malaysian women, meanwhile, are rarely given citizenship.

Zainal said the government could not simply grant citizenship to foreign wives. "Furthermore, to instil national pride in foreigners is a long process,’’ he added.

Polk award for AP, 12 scribes

NEW YORK, March 17 (AP) — The Associated Press has won the George Polk award for international reporting for its series uncovering a massacre of South Korean civilians by US troops at the start of the Korean War.

The account of US soldiers gunning down hundreds of helpless South Korean civilians at No Gun Ri had never been reported. The prize awarded yesterday is shared by AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley, reporters Martha Mendoza and Sang-hun Choe and researcher Randy Herschaft.

The Polk career award was won by author, commentator and oral historian Studs Terkel, who did radio reports in Chicago for more than 40 years and has written over 24 books.

The winners were announced by Long Island University, which administers the Polk awards, named for a CBS reporter killed while covering the Greek Civil War. The winners will be honoured at a luncheon on April 18.

Norway PM names youthful Cabinet

OSLO, March 17 (Reuters) — New Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg today named a youthful Labour Cabinet to succeed a Centrist coalition that collapsed last week after losing an environmental vote.

He told reporters after visiting King Harald that he was naming ex-Premier Thorbjoern Jagland, 49, as the Foreign Minister and Karl Eirik Schjoett-Pedersen, 40, a former Fisheries Minister, as the Finance Minister.

Almost half the ministers are women, including Ms Hanne Harlem, younger sister of ex-Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, as the Justice Minister. Many of the ministers are in their 30s and 40s.

Cohen rejects limit on facility

TOKYO, March 17 (DPA) — US Defence Secretary William Cohen today flatly rejected a proposed 15-year limit on the use of a heliport to be relocated from the US marine corp’s Futenma air station in Japan’s southernmost island of Okinawa prefecture.

Speaking at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, Mr Cohen also opposed cutbacks in Japan’s host-nation financial support for US forces, saying there would be a strong Congressional reaction if the USA had to increase spending for maintaining its military presence in Japan.

Asked about the 15-year limit demanded by the Okinawa prefectural government, Mr Cohen said" "Security needs are determined by circumstances and not by any artificial limitations."

‘Pinochet still under US probe’

WASHINGTON, March 17 (AFP) — US prosecutors could eventually seek the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for his alleged role in a 1976 car bombing here that killed two, the former US prosecutor that handled the case said.

Mr Eugene Propper, a former Federal Attorney, now in private practice, said US investigators were still trying to prove whether Pinochet ordered the Washington, DC car bombing that killed former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier on September 21, 1976.

WORLD BRIEFS

Hillary cleared in files’ case
WASHINGTON: US First Lady Hillary Clinton was on Thursday cleared over a scandal in which the White House obtained hundreds of FBI background files on former Republican party-appointed staff. Independent counsel Robert Ray also found no wrong doing by senior officials in the presidential staff. The probe was started by Mr Kenneth Starr, who later led the Monica Lewinsky investigation.

DiCaprio’s kin charged with murder bid
LOS ANGELES: The stepbrother of Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio has been charged with attempting to kill his girlfriend and is being held in lieu of $ 1 million bail, the police said. Adam Farrar (28) was arrested on Wednesday in the seaside community of Marina Del Rey.— DPA

Stolen babies’ remains found
DUBLIN: The remains of seven premature babies, believed to have been stolen from a Dublin hospital, were found hidden inside the mortuary building, the Irish police said on Wednesday. The remains of the babies, who were all born prematurely less than 20 weeks into pregnancy, were taken from where they had been stored, awaiting burial.— Reuters

Civil unions for gays okayed
MONTPELIER (VT.): Vermont’s House of Representatives has voted to recognise same-sex unions, giving lesbians and gays the same civil rights as married heterosexuals. The 76-69 vote was a key step in Vermont becoming the first state in the nation to grant lesbians and gays legal rights that are the equivalent of marriage. — Reuters

Jail terms sought for sex trap trio
NICE: A French prosecutor on Thursday called for prison terms for a former Miss topless Belgium and two friends who staged a poolside sex trap that led to the break up of Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s marriage. The Nice prosecutor recommended that stripper Muriel Houteman, who was seen frolicking with the Princess’s then husband Danies Ducruet get a one-year suspended jail sentence. — Reuters

Seven-year-old shoots girl
WASHINGTON: A 7-year-old Alabama boy used an airgun to shoot a neighbour girl two years younger than himself, news reports said. According to media reports on Thursday, the ammunition shot from the gun struck the girl over her left eye and hit her skull. — DPA