 |
| Tuesday, May 16, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
|
Israel approves
West Bank villages’ transfer Bangladesh to hang 12 for
mass murder Book reveals CIA operations NRI kids caught in row Pope unwilling to retire White farmer shot
in Zimbabwe |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
139 UN peacekeepers released MONROVIA (Liberia), May 15 (AP) — As many as 139 of the 500 U.N. peacekeepers held captive by Sierra Leone’s brutal rebel movement have been released into Liberian custody, Liberia’s President Charles Taylor said. Mr Taylor said yesterday that 15 of the 139 freed captives had been flown by helicopter to Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, while the remaining 124 are waiting to be evacuated from the Liberian border town of Foya. There was no immediate U.N. confirmation of the report, although Mr Taylor briefly introduced an Associated Press reporter to two smiling but tired-looking men wearing new uniforms, who the President said were freed Kenyan and Zambian peacekeepers. West African and U.N. Officials stood by silently during the meeting in the living room of Mr Taylor’s presidential mansion. The development followed an announcement earlier yesterday by U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, that 18 U.N. peacekeepers and military observers had been allowed to return to an Indian U.N. contingent surrounded by rebels in Kailahun town, the regional capital of the district with the same name. The commander of the U.N. force, Vijay Jetley, said the captives — 11 Indian troops and seven unarmed military observers of various nationalities — were in good physical condition and had not been harmed by the rebels. Mr Taylor said the 139 captives had been held in Sierra Leone’s eastern Kailahun district, but did not specify exactly where. Mr Taylor, who had been asked by regional leaders to mediate with the rebels, lashed out at the USA, which he said had refused to offer air transport to evacuate the captives. Instead, he said the captives had been forced to trek for nearly three days through heavily forested eastern Sierra Leone following what he called a “successful mediation effort” by a team of Liberian officials. Mr Taylor also warned that continued attacks by Sierra Leone’s pro-government forces against the rebels “threaten the lives” of the remaining U.N. personnel held captive, adding he was trying to obtain their release. “The attacks on the Revolutionary United Front could not only hamper the mediation work by the Liberian team but also end the lives of the hostages,” Mr Taylor said. Comment was not immediately available from U.S. officials in the Liberian capital. Mr Taylor has long had strained relations with the west, who have withheld aid and development funding to the Liberian leader because of alleged corruption and diversion of resources to the Liberian military. The freed peacekeepers were among an estimated 500 members of a U.N. force who were disarmed and taken into custody by the Revolutionary United Front rebels when they ended a 10-month peace and reignited Sierra Leone’s civil war earlier this month. |
JERUSALEM, May 15 (AP) — Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s Cabinet today approved the transfer of two villages in suburban Jerusalem to the Palestinians, clearing a major hurdle on the road to a peace treaty in September. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, meanwhile, Palestinians observed a commercial strike to press for the release of hundreds of security prisoners in Israeli jails. In the West Bank town of Hebron, stores were closed and many people threw stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers. The troops, wearing helmets and flak jackets, did not immediately respond. A banner in Hebron’s main square read: “freedom for all prisoners in Israeli jails.” Mr Barak convened his Cabinet on short notice today to bring to a vote the transfer of three West Bank villages: Abu Dis, Izzarieh and Sawahrah a-Sharkieh. In exchange for the handover, Barak wants Palestinians to postpone negotiations on another partial West Bank troop pull-back until negotiators have reached agreement on the outlines of a final peace treaty. The pull-back, the last one before final borders are drawn in a treaty, is due in June. Hard-liners have opposed the idea of handing over the villages, arguing it will undermine Israel’s hold over all of Jerusalem. The Palestinians hope to establish their future capital in east Jerusalem, a demand Barak has rejected. However, in informal talks, a proposal to turn Abu Dis into a future Palestinian capital has been raised, and a Palestinian Parliament building is under construction in the town of 13,000 Palestinians. RAMALLAH, (West Bank) (AFP)— The Chief Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo has resigned from his post in protest over a second negotiating channel with Israel, his office said today. “Abed Rabbo announced today his resignation because of the presence of more than one negotiating channel about the final status (of the Palestinian territories),” it said in a statement. |
|
Bangladesh to hang 12 for
mass murder DHAKA, May 15 (AFP) — A Bangladeshi court has convicted 16 people for the mass murder of eight villagers in 1997, and sentenced 12 of them to death by hanging, newspapers reported here today. The other four, including a woman, received life sentences when Judge Mohammad Anwarul Huq delivered his verdict yesterday in eastern Chandpur district, the Protham Alu daily reported. All 16 have the right to appeal before a higher court. Eight family members, including several children, were murdered in 1997 over rights to a small piece of village land.
DHAKA, May 15 (PTI) — The Indian Army Chief, Gen Ved Prakash Malik, arrived here today on a three-day goodwill visit to Bangladesh. He is accompanied by his wife and a three-member delegation of the Indian armed forces.
|
Book reveals CIA operations WASHINGTON, May 15 (PTI) — US’ Central Intelligence Agency does not reveal the names of its officers killed on secret missions, to hide Washington’s “hypocrisy”, and thus burdens the family with a “arbitrary code of secrecy”, a book says. Out of the 77 stars in the CIA’s ‘wall of honour’, only 40 have names against them. The names of the rest are still secret as far as the CIA is concerned, ‘The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths of the CIA,’ says, according to the Washington Post. Citing one such case, the book by former Post investigative reporter Ted Gup, says when one CIA officer aboard its cargo plane laden with arms for Jonas Savimbi’s rebels in Angola in 1989 died as the plane crashed, the name of the officer was not revealed. The CIA’s link to the crashed plane had to be kept secret because it “threatened to expose US hypocrisy” and “put the US and the Soviet Union on an equally equivocal moral footing in the eyes of the world,” it says. The agency waited more than three weeks in 1964 to fly one of its downed pilots, John Merriman, out of Congo and back to the US for medical treatment in order to distance the agency from covert activity in the African nation. Merriman died on the way home, it says. Gup quotes his widow as saying, “They let him die.” The book says that the CIA reflexively refuses to reveal the identities of many fallen officers long after doing so would not have any detrimental effect on “intelligence sources and methods,” forcing family members to “shoulder the burden of an arbitrary code of secrecy.” The death of another CIA officer, Matt Gannon, has not been publicly listed who died aboard Pan Am flight 103, blown out of the sky by, US officials believe, Libyan operatives in retaliation for American attacks on Libya in 1986. The book says two other officials, Mike Maolney and Mike Deuel perished in October 1965 when a helicopter flown by the agency’s proprietary airline, Air America, crashed in Laos. Seven CIA officers died in the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut, the largest loss of agency personnel since the Vietnam war, the post says. However, only the name of Robert C Ames was publicly disclosed. The Washington Post says the first star on the wall is still anonymous after 50 year. It belongs to Douglas S Mackierman, a code-breaker during World War II who was sent to China to gather intelligence from Xinjiang province. Mackierman was mistakenly shot by Tibetan guards 50 yards from the Tibetan border in 1951. Gup says he began reporting “the book of honour” after a CIA contact told him that the first American killed in Somalia was “one of ours”. Gup found out that he was Lawrenc Freedman. |
|
NRI kids caught in row ORLANDO (Florida), May 15 (AP) — The children of two doctors are caught in the middle of a custody battle that has developed into an international jurisdictional tug of war between courts in India and the USA. The story began 13 years ago, when Anil and Lata Bansal married in India. Later that year, they moved to the USA, where they had a second marriage ceremony and two children, Neal and Apaar, now 12 and 7, respectfully. After more than 10 years of marriage, the couple briefly sought a divorce, then appeared to have resolved their differences, according to court documents. In December 1998, the pair went to India for what Lata says she thought was part of a reconciliation vacation. But once there, Anil decided to stay to open a heart centre. His wife opposed the idea, and filed for divorced in a New Delhi court. Anil, who is a US citizen, said a Hindu marriage could be dissolved only in New Delhi. Lata left India, but could not regain her children’s passports, and had to leave them behind. Upon returning to Florida, she filed for divorce in Orange County, where circuit Judge George Sprinkel decided the case should be heard in Orlando because the couple and the children were US residents. The judge also froze the couple’s assets worth $ 18 million. A court in New Delhi ruled that as Anil Bansal was the first partner to be served divorce papers, the Indian court should hear the case. The judge also ruled that in the meanwhile the children should stay in school in New Delhi. At the same time, in Orlando, Judge Sprinkel fined Anil 100,000 dollars for each day he did not return the children to Florida a figure which has now reached nearly 40 million dollars. Anil is currently in jail because when he returned to the US for a medical meeting in New York, police nabbed him on contempt of court charges and threw him in Nassau County jail on Long Island. Next month, in Orlando, Circuit Judge Alice Blackwell White is set to hear Anil’s plea for release, with his lawyers contending he has been denied due process and that his imprisonment has lost any coercive effect. The children, meanwhile, are in the custody of Anil’s father and brother in New Delhi. And there appears to be little Lata can do to regain her children. If she were to return to India, a judge there could jail her for contempt of court. The State Department is unlikely to get involved, and there are no international laws that mediate disputes between judges in domestic cases, according to Miami lawyer Edward Martin Joffe. According to Joffe, a past chairman of The Florida Bar’s international law section, courts jealously guard their jurisdictional powers, so the Bansals likely will have to resolve things on their own. “There’s not always a happy ending, unfortunately,” he notes. |
|
Pope unwilling to retire VATICAN CITY, May 15 (Reuters) — When Roman Catholic cardinals turn 80 they no longer can enter the conclave that elects a Pope and if they hold Vatican office they must retire. When Pope John Paul turns 80 on Thursday his thoughts will be far from retirement and his Polish comrades will be singing the traditional birthday song Sto Lat — may you live 100 years. For a Pope, living and reigning are the same thing. If a pope lives for 100 years, he may well reign until he is 100. As the Pope begins the ninth decade of his momentous life, some people will be looking back. But the Pope’s aides insist that he will be looking forward. “I understand that on one of the papal flights somebody said “Are you thinking of resigning because you are having trouble walking” and he is reported to have said “I don’t run the church with my feet”, — said Archbishop John Foley. “Obviously the Pope is quite clear in the decisions which he makes. While his pace in walking may be slowing, the pace of his mind and the commitment to an active schedule don’t seem to be slowing at all,” Archbishop Foley, Head of the Vatican’s Communications Department, said. The Pope’s busy schedule during the 2000 holy year shows his determination to lead the church into the new millennium — a landmark some people doubted he could reach a few years ago. “I think this birthday is very important for many reasons,” said Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza Di Montezemolo, the Vatican’s Ambassador to Italy. “First of all...for what he means not only for the Catholic and Christian people but for people from all over the world,” Archbishop Montezemolo said, noting the Pope’s record in defence of human rights and peace. “Physically, you can see that he is tired. He has some difficulties in movement but his mind is very clear...he is insisting on doing all he has to do,” he said. Curiously, in a document issued four years ago, the Pope reaffirmed rules excluding Cardinals over 80 from secret conclaves to elect a pontiff. In it he explained: “The reason for this provision is the desire not to add to the weight of such venerable age the further burden of responsibility for choosing the one who has to lead Christ’s flock.” |
|
White farmer shot
in Zimbabwe HARARE, May 15 (Reuters) — A White Zimbabwean farmer has died after being shot in an apparent robbery while his farm was occupied by pro-government war veterans, becoming the fourth White farmer killed during the country’s land conflict. “I can confirm that John Weeks has died,” said a spokesman yesterday for the avenues clinic in Harare where the farmer had been taken. Weeks was shot and wounded in the stomach on Thursday after a group of men forced a farm worker to call him to the door of his homestead near Beatrice, south of the capital Harare. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | In Spotlight | 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 120 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
