W O R L D

Summit calls for western aid
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, April 22 — South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique rallied behind President Robert Mugabe and demanded international funding for land redistribution to end Zimbabwe’s crisis over the ownership of farms.

Elian reunited with father

WASHINGTON, April 22 — Six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his father at an airforce base near here today after federal agents seized him from the house of his relatives in Miami, ending his five-month-long ordeal.Elian and his father Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez would be staying at the Andrews air base for a few days, CNN quoted officials as saying.

2 Koreas end first round of talks
PANMUNJOM, Korea, April 22 — Officials of North and South Korea today ended their first round of talks aimed at preparing for a landmark inter-Korean summit in June.

Clinton, Gore quizzed in fund misuse probe
WASHINGTON, April 22 — FBI agents and a US Justice Department official interviewed the President, Mr Bill Clinton, under oath for four hours as part of a probe of alleged campaign finance abuses, the White House said.

Iran court summons maverick Editor
TEHERAN, April 22 — Iran’s hard-line Press court today summoned a newspaper Editor for interrogation after he alleged top intelligence officials were behind the murders of secular dissidents.

Sharat Chandra dead
KANSAS CITY (Missouri), April 22 — Indian-born writer G.S. Sharat Chandra, who was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in poetry in 1993, has died. He was 64.

German envoy cautions Pak
NEW DELHI, April 22 — The German Ambassador in Islamabad has told Pakistan that it runs the risk of being named as a terrorism-supporting country and even getting disintegrated, if it does not change its Afghan policy.

Summit calls for western aid

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, April 22 (Reuters) — South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique rallied behind President Robert Mugabe and demanded international funding for land redistribution to end Zimbabwe’s crisis over the ownership of farms.

President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique yesterday told newsmen after talks with Mr Mugabe that western governments should make good on their promise at a 1998 donor conference to fund the redistribution of farm lands mainly owned by whites.

“We think the donors, including Great Britain, have to deliver. They have to fulfil their commitments,’’ he said after talks that included South African President Thabo Mbeki and President Sam Nujoma of Namibia.

“President Mugabe was able to cool down the spirits of the whole people.... We are happy that President Mugabe is dealing with both the farmers and the veterans.’’

Mr Mugabe met the presidents of three neighbour states at Victoria falls, Zimbabwe’s top tourist resort, where many hotel bookings have been cancelled because of the violent crisis over the ownership of farmland.

Mr Mbeki said Mr Mugabe and the squatters and war veterans who have occupied hundreds of white-owned farms wanted to end the occupation, but that this could not happen before a formal land redistribution programme was in place.

LONDON: Britain is ready to help fund land redistribution in Zimbabwe, but only once the ‘murder and mayhem’ perpetrated against the country’s white farmers has stopped, the foreign office said on Saturday.

“A genuine land reform programme...is what we have always been prepared to help fund, provided it is within the rule of law,’’ Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain said in a statement.

HARARE (Reuters): The police today moved onto occupied farms in Zimbabwe to free two abducted white farmers, in the first sign of a possible turnaround in the country’s escalating land and political crisis.

Farmers in the Bindura area, 100 km north-east of Harare, told Reuters by telephone that two farmers, whom they named as Ian Miller and Chris McGraw, had been abducted by self-styled liberation war veterans early today.

But shortly afterwards, they said the police had moved in to release them in what was seen as the first successful police action since the state-sanctioned land-grab began nine weeks ago.

Elian reunited with father

WASHINGTON, April 22 (PTI) — Six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his father at an airforce base near here today after federal agents seized him from the house of his relatives in Miami, ending his five-month-long ordeal.Elian and his father Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez would be staying at the Andrews air base for a few days, CNN quoted officials as saying.

Earlier, federal agents seized Elian from the home of his Miami relatives before dawn today firing tear gas shells at an angry mob in what can be described as a scene taken straight from a Hollywood thriller.

Over 20 agents arrived at the house after 5 a.m. (2.30 p.m. IST) in vans and burst into the house. They took the frightened child out of the arms of one of the fishermen who rescued him on November 25 last year.

A woman and man brought Elian out of the home and put him in one of the vans which sped off with the Cuban boy screaming “help me, help me, don’t take me away,” in Spanish.

Elian was later bundled into a government plane which took him to the air base, an official said, adding the boy was unhurt in the dramatic operation.

He was explained what was happening to him and was calm on the plane, the official said. A psychiatrist and a flight surgeon were also on the plane.

Attorney-General Janet Reno told a news conference that she had no choice but to send the federal agents because the relatives would not give him up peacefully.

US President Bill Clinton today said that he supported Attorney-General Janet Reno’s decision to order a federal raid to seize Elian from the home of his Miami relatives.

2 Koreas end first round of talks

PANMUNJOM, Korea, April 22 (AFP) — Officials of North and South Korea today ended their first round of talks aimed at preparing for a landmark inter-Korean summit in June.

The two sides agreed to meet again at this border village on Thursday next week to continue with efforts to hammer out the agenda and details for the summit.

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung is scheduled to travel to Pyongyang for talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-Il on June 12-14.

Today’s talks ended at 11:20 a.m. (0220 GMT) and lasted an hour and 20 minutes, 40 minutes less than had been scheduled.

The North’s chief delegate Kim Ryung-Sung, a deputy ministerial-level official on the standing committee of the North’s Supreme People’s Assembly, demanded the two sides first discuss “basic issues” at the summit.

“There are a slew of pending issues between the two sides. In order to resolve these issues, the two sides must settle basic issues first,” the North’s chief delegate said in his opening statement.

His South Korean counterpart Yang said the two Koreas should discuss ways of achieving prosperity through economic cooperation and mutual assistance at the June summit.

Clinton, Gore quizzed in fund misuse probe

WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) — FBI agents and a US Justice Department official interviewed the President, Mr Bill Clinton, under oath for four hours as part of a probe of alleged campaign finance abuses, the White House said.

The White House issued a terse statement saying Mr Clinton and the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, who was interviewed on Tuesday, had cooperated fully with the Justice Department, investigation which stems from allegations of political fund-raising irregularities in their successful 1996 re-election campaign.

“The President and the Vice-President cooperated fully with the task force and voluntarily agreed to be interviewed this week,’’ the White House said in its statement.

“Neither the President nor the Vice-President is a target of the investigation,’’ added a White House official, who asked not to be named. Neither was asked by the Justice Department campaign finance task force to appear for further interviews.

White House officials declined all comment on the subject of the interviews as did Mr Gore, who spoke briefly to newsmen as he returned to Washington after a campaign trip to Detroit.

“I volunteered to cooperate fully as I have from the beginning of the investigation,’’ Mr Gore told reporters on his air force two aircraft.

According to court documents released last month, the task force has begun investigating whether the White House failed to hand over electronic mail sought by campaign finance investigators and used intimidation to keep the e-mail secret.

Iran court summons maverick Editor

TEHERAN, April 22 (Reuters) — Iran’s hard-line Press court today summoned a newspaper Editor for interrogation after he alleged top intelligence officials were behind the murders of secular dissidents.

“There is the possibility of (my) arrest,’’ Akbar Ganji told mediapersons as he entered the courthouse for the closed-door questioning. “This is the price we pay for exposures in connection with the serial murders.’’

A former ideological official in the elite revolutionary guards, Ganji has outraged the establishment with his detailed allegations in the Press of high-level complicity in the murders of dissident figures dating back many years.

Editor of the reformist Sobh-e Emrouz, Ganji is the latest in a string of journalists to go before the court, which has closed several dailies and imprisoned newspaper executives.

Earlier this month, the same court sent Mashallah Shamosolvezin, the Dean of Iran’s independent press, to prison for 30 months for insulting Islamic values.

Another journalist, Emadeddin Baqi, preceded Ganji into the courthouse to answer similar allegations.

The conservative majority in the out-going Parliament has also taken aim at the Press, which it holds responsible for its defeat in parliamentary polls last February. It passed a series of amendments subjecting editors and journalist to new restrictions and greater legal liability.

But Ganji, who also writes for a number of publications, said any set-backs for the reform platform of President Mohammad Khatami, which has emphasised Press freedom, were only temporary.

“I may go to jail instead of the masterminds (of the murders), but I am not concerned. There are fundamental changes taking place in our country.

“There’s no choice but to meet the people’s legitimate demands. We are not going to get anywhere by closing newspapers and arresting people,’’ Ganji said.

Sharat Chandra dead

KANSAS CITY (Missouri), April 22 (AP) — Indian-born writer G.S. Sharat Chandra, who was nominated for a Pulitzer prize in poetry in 1993, has died. He was 64.

Chandra suffered a brain haemorrhage on Tuesday evening, and never regained consciousness, said his daughter, Shalini. He died Thursday morning.

Chandra, who was a Professor in English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was nominated for Pulitzer for his 1993 book, “Family of Mirrors.”

Chandra was born on May 3, 1935, in Mysore, and came to the USA when he was 27. He was first educated as a lawyer, holding degrees earned in India and Canada.

Shalini said he was unhappy as a lawyer. “He wanted to be a poet, of all things. I just find that really romantic. He just loved English, loved the classics.”

Chandra is survived by his wife, Jane, one son and two daughters.

German envoy cautions Pak

NEW DELHI, April 22 (UNI) — The German Ambassador in Islamabad has told Pakistan that it runs the risk of being named as a terrorism-supporting country and even getting disintegrated, if it does not change its Afghan policy.

Sada-e-Islami Jamhoori Iran, the Urdu service of Radio Tehran, has reported that the Ambassador told a seminar in Islamabad on Thursday that Pakistan must change its policy towards Taliban in Afghanistan if its wanted to save itself from being branded as a country supporting trans-border terrorism.

He criticised the Taliban, which he said, had failed to govern Afghanistan. “If Pakistan maintains its relations with them, it can contribute to Pakistan’s disintegration’’, he added.

WORLD BRIEFS

Sewing machines going online
TOKYO: Sewing machines are going online. A Japanese company has said it is developing a sewing machine that can be connected to the Internet to download and automatically stitch patterns displayed on the company’s website. The Jaguar International Corporation, Japan’s biggest sewing machine company, hopes to start selling the machine in Japan next year, said company spokesman Yoshiharu Nishi. — AP

Playboy CEO apologises
BUCHAREST: The head of Playboy magazine has apologised to Romanian female readers for an article advocating violence against women. The article, entitled “How to Beat Your Wife Without Leaving Traces,” described a step-by-step procedure for abuse and implied that good beatings could lead to great sex. — AP

Dinosaurs were “warm-blooded”
WASHINGTON: The discovery of a four-chambered dinosaur heart suggests the legendary creatures were warm blooded and had relatively high metabolisms more like human beings than lizards, according to a report in Science magazine’s latest edition. “It’s truly amazing that this animal seems to have had such a highly-evolved heart,” says Dale Russell of the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, who co-authored the report. — AFP

Paper to stop ads on Muslim women
LOS ANGELES: The Los Angeles Times newspaper has agreed to stop using promotional ads that angered the city’s Islamic community by juxtaposing images of Muslim women in long chadors with pictures of bikini-clad beach goers. The ads were part of a new promotional campaign that attempted to contrast images of southern California with world events that the newspaper covers. — AP

Obsessed boy kills parents
NANTERRE (France): A teenage boy obsessed by the new horror film, “Scream 3”, put on a cloak and mask and stabbed his parents with a kitchen knife, the police said. The 16-year-old boy waited for his father and stepmother on Thursday evening at their home outside Paris, wearing the white mask based on the painting, “The Scream”. — AFP

Couple arrested for smuggling
MEDELLIN: A husband and wife were arrested at a Colombian airport on Good Friday as they tried to smuggle almost 3 kg of cocaine hidden in the pages of a Bible on to a flight bound for Mexico, the police said. The couple, in their late 50s, were arrested at Rionegro airport on the outskirts of the northwest city of Medellin, the former power base of the infamous cocaine mob run by Pablo Escobar. — Reuters

New home for Peanut’s Snoopy
HONG KONG: A snoopy museum, playground, Laser and dance shows and a boat ride through scenes from the “Peanuts” comic strip will all be part of the “Snoopy’s World” theme park to open here later this year. A spokeswoman for the local developer, Sun Hung Kai Properties, declined to say how much the 40,000-square-foot would cost to build, but local newspapers put the figure at $ 3.8 million. — AP

Final batch of protesters freed
WASHINGTON: More than 150 persons arrested during protests here earlier this week against the World Bank and the IMF were released, a spokesman for the protesters’ umbrella group said. — AFP

Pilot is killer of 8 prostitutes
SPOKANE (Washington): Genetic tests established that a father of five who is a helicopter pilot with the National Guard is the serial killer of eight prostitutes, reports said. Tests on other evidence like material from the clothes of the man, who hails from Spokane, Washington, indicated that he killed at least four more women, the reports said on Friday. — DPA

Rwandan President sworn in
KIGALI: Major General Paul Kagame was officially sworn in as the sixth President of the tiny central African nation of Rwanda on Saturday. – DPA