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| Wednesday, April 26, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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No
US export curbs on India, Pak
5
held for tourists’ kidnapping: isle sealed off Sharif
may be tried at Attock |
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| Shooting in US zoo: 6 kids hurt WASHINGTON, April 25 — One boy was declared brain-dead and six children were injured in a firing incident at the National Zoo here following a feud between two groups at the annual black family festival, the police said. 
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No US export curbs on India, Pak WASHINGTON, April 25 (PTI) — USA and its allies while imposing controls under the non-proliferation regimes against Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea left out India, Pakistan and China because of the significant markets these countries offer, a top US official has said. “While there is agreement in the Wassenaar non-proliferation regime that four countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea — require particular scrutiny, this consensus does not extend to countries like India, Pakistan and China, which are pursuing proliferation policies that are of serious concern,” US Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, William Reinsch said. Mr Reinsch in his address to the 2000 International Arms Control Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, earlier this month, said “The fact that India and China are also significant markets no doubt contributes to the lack of consensus on how to deal with them.” Mr Reinsch said the USA needs to continue its efforts to bring China into the multilateral regimes. “To do this, China will need to continue to make progress in adhering to the international norms for non-proliferation and arms sales, but all regimes would benefit if this growing industrial power was a member,” he added Wassenaar, whose objective is to prevent destabilising build-ups of conventional arms, is now a regime where there is less consensus than in the old COCOM (Anti-Communist Coordinating Committee — set up to deny critical materials and technology to Communist countries during the Cold War) on “what needs to be controlled and who needs to be controlled.” Mr Reinsch said. The widespread commercial use of microprocessor technologies around the world “profoundly limits US’ ability to deny access to them by any interested party. This suggests that export controls are less likely to prevent access to many technologies, and that the long-term effect of inappropriate export controls may be to damage our own security more than that of our targets” he said. “The USA needs to recognise that much of the debate over the export controls is out of sync with the rest of the industrialised world,” he said. In the context of Wassenaar, he said, the USA needs to focus the list of controlled items “onto those that are truly controllable and critical to advanced military capabilities”. Both Wassenaar
arrangement and our own national export controls need to
be adjusted, and this adjustment would put us in a better
position to seek coordination in our national licensing
decisions,” Mr Reinsch said. |
Zimbabwe veterans vent fury on
MDC backers SUPPORTERS of Zimbabwe’s ruling party stepped up their terror campaign against the political opposition yesterday as they switched the target of their intimidation from white farmers to black farm labourers. Gangs of Zanu-PF supporters roamed the countryside burning houses, abducting workers and beating and burning anyone suspected of supporting the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Hopes that the return of white farmers to their properties and the intervention of police over the land occupation at the weekend signalled a gradual return to normality were dashed as violence flared in rural areas, sparking an exodus of hundreds of farm workers. Most bore physical evidence of having been brutally beaten by squatters. Several were in hospital in the provincial centre of Marondera, where the first murder of a white farmer took place 10 days ago. One farmer was seen taking about 10 workers, with bruises on their hands, legs and backs, to hospital in his pickup truck. “The trouble is that we are not in a position to help our workers,” he said. Ishmael Mutengiwa, a labourer from a farm 120 km east of the capital, and his wife, Farirai, were both badly burned after a gang of self-styled war veterans burned down their home. Mutengiwa sustained severe burns on his hands while he struggled to open the front door, which was locked from the outside, and his wife’s face was burnt. “We were sleeping ... [they] put grass in the house and poured petrol and lit the fire,” he said. “They said we must die because we belong to the MDC. They said this is Mugabe’s country.” Another farm worker said he had been picked up by a gang of squatters on Sunday night and forced to join them: “They beat us and told us to follow them to the next farm. We were forced to beat our own friends.” A black foreman who was taken away in handcuffs on Sunday, was still missing. Though in some areas the police followed the squatters without intervening, at a farm, 96 km north of the capital, a manager, his girlfriend and another woman were freed after officers ordered 700 veterans to end a one-day siege of their farm. Officers also escorted 45 farmers and their families back to Macheke district near Marondera yesterday morning. “They are playing an active role. “There has been a definite change in the last 48 hours,” said Tim Henwood of the Commercial Farmers’ Union. Mike Moon, a farmer, said: “Pressure has eased and has been transferred on to labour. There is constant beating of labourers every night. We are powerless to do anything.’’ The switch in tactics pointed to the growing desperation of President Mugabe and his party in the run-up to elections, which were due to be held some time next month but are now likely to be delayed. The targeting of black farm workers, who are among the most poorly paid in the country, means there is no longer any pretence that the wave of violence across Zimbabwe has been prompted by a desire for land or racial hatred. — The
Guardian, London |
5 held for tourists’
kidnapping: isle sealed off MALAYSIA, April 25 (AFP) —Five persons have been detained in connection with the kidnapping of some 20 persons, including 10 foreign tourists, from a resort island off Malaysia’s Sabah state, police said today. Sabah police chief Mamat Talib told reporters here that the Criminal Investigation Department was interrogating the detainees whom he did not identify. “We have classified the incident as criminal involving the use of firearms and kidnapping,” he said. A police source told AFP that the five were staff or former staff of resorts on Sipadan Island east of Sabah, where the masked gunmen seized the hostages in a raid on Sunday. Mamat said there were 21 hostages, instead of 20 as reported. They included 10 foreign tourists, two Filipinos working at resorts on Sipadan and nine locals, he said. Mr Mamat said police intelligence showed that the gunmen were from another country and that they were now “within the waters of our neighbouring country.” DPA adds: The Malaysian authorities on Tuesday sealed off Sipadan Island, to the public. The Malaysian and Philippine forces continued a sea-and-air search today for the hostages, after the six gunmen forced them into two boats and sped off into Philippine waters on Sunday night. A senior police official, Sulaiman Junaidi, said the Malaysian police had yet to locate the hideout of the gunmen as of 9 a.m. Tuesday (0100 gmt today). “We’re tracking them down,’’ he was quoted as saying by state-run Bernama national news agency in Semporna, the nearest coastal town on mainland Sabah state to Sipadan. Sulaiman, who is Semporna police chief, said the tiny island would be closed indefinitely to non-authorised visitors, adding that tourists and resort workers on the island had been moved to the nearby Mabul Island. Meanwhile, the radical Abu Sayyaf group, which is based in the southern part of the Philippines, today claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. A spokesman for the group, which is fighting to create an independent Islamic state in the southern Mindanao region, vowed more “surprises’’ if Manila failed to meet its demands. Abu Sayyaf rebels in
Basilan province in the Philippines have been under heavy
attack since Saturday by more than 1,500 Philippine
troops in a massive bid to rescue 27 hostages who were
seized on April 20. |
Sharif may be tried at Attock ISLAMABAD, April 25 (Reuters) — Pakistan’s military rulers are turning an ancient fort into a court to try politicians accused of corruption, such as deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But the selection of the 16th century Attock Fort for trials and investigations has sparked protests from critics, some of whom fear the huge riverside site, home to the Army’s elite Commando Special Services Group, could be used for torture. Mr Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz has accused the military government’s anti-corruption National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of turning the fort into a “torture centre” and his Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has likened it to a Nazi concentration camp. “Nonsense, absolute nonsense,” NAB Prosecutor-General Farouk Adam Khan says about charges that NAB has used torture to get confessions. The anti-corruption trials will be the first civilian proceedings at the fort. Among those to be tried there will be Mr Sharif’s younger brother Shabaz, the ousted Punjab provincial Chief Minister Shabaz, and son Hussain Nawaz. The Prosecutor-General
said all court proceedings at Attock would be open to the
press. |
Shooting in US zoo: 6 kids hurt WASHINGTON, April 25 (PTI) — One boy was declared brain-dead and six children were injured in a firing incident at the National Zoo here following a feud between two groups at the annual black family festival, the police said. The incident occurred yesterday when the families of the children were leaving the zoo premises. Two factions started fighting and shots were fired, resulting in chaos. A boy aged about 12 shot in the head was declared brain dead at hospital, but was being kept alive to allow his family to donate his organs, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity. Three children in the 12-16 age group are said to be in a critical condition and have been rushed to the hospital. Capt Brian Lee of the Washington Fire Department told reporters two adults also were taken to the hospital for treatment, including a pregnant woman, but neither one suffered any gunshot wounds. The police are looking for suspects but it could not be confirmed immediately as to whether those who were fighting were from within the group or outsiders. Although some witnesses claimed that shots were fired by one gunman, others said that three youths were involved in the incident. The victims were
attending an annual black family festival of
African-American families — a Washington Easter
tradition at one of the most popular tourist sites in the
city. |
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