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| Thursday, May 18, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Hillary gets New York nomination ALBANY (U.S.), May 17 — First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has been officially nominated as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from New York state. Cherie Blair for parental leave
$ 2 million ‘ransom’
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17 die in Muslim,
Christian clashes Eritrean jet shot down
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Hillary gets New York nomination ALBANY (U.S.), May 17 (DPA) — First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has been officially nominated as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate seat from New York state. Mrs Clinton was joined last night by her husband, President Bill Clinton, on the podium at the statewide nominating convention before hundreds of delegates in the state capital. Mrs Clinton is the first wife of a sitting U.S. President to seek an elected office in Congress. She has been unofficially campaigning for several months for the seat, being vacated by retiring veteran Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. “I am deeply honoured and humbled to accept the nomination to the senate from New York state,” said Ms Clinton, who also used her speech to praise her husband’s policies and work of presidential candidate Vice President Al Gore. Mrs Clinton was expected to face New York city Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in November’s election, but the high-profile Mayor has been rocked by news of prostate cancer and a split with his wife in recent weeks. The official Republican Party nomination will be held on May 30. The presumptive race between Mrs Clinton, a target for conservative activists, and Mr Giuliani has gained nearly as much national media attention as the Presidential contest between Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush. New York state, the nation’s third most populated, is a politically important platform due to the concentration of media and financial interests located there. Mrs Clinton, a Chicago native who lived in Arkansas for many years with her husband, moved to a town north of New York city last year in order to gain the residency requirement necessary to run for statewide political office. |
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Cherie Blair for parental leave LONDON, May 17 (AFP) —Her mind was on matters of unutterable dullness to the untrained observer, the minutae of European employment legislation. But as she rose to speak in the ornate wood-panelled surroundings of Court Four, most other minds were on Cherie Booth’s prominent bump. She may be one of Britain’s most senior barristers, an acknowledged expert on employment law, but Cherie Booth cannot escape her “other” life. She just happens to be the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Aged 45, she is expecting their fourth child any day now. And in a case of exquisite timing, the cause she was pleading was for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) against her husband’s government over the matter of parental leave. “To become a parent is not just a one-off event,” she told the High Court. “Parental leave rights are for a period of five years. “It is not a substitute for maternity leave which is fixed by the birth of the child.” Increasingly, the burning questions in the British press are, will it be a boy or girl? What will it be called? Will Tony change the nappies? “I’ll take more time off,” he told the New York Times this week. “I’ll try to cut down on official things.” But he added: “You’ve got to have some common sense about it. You want to spend more time with your baby, but you don’t give up the job.” So perhaps it was inevitable that Booth, the maiden name by which his wife is known professionally, did not pull her punches. Sipping regularly out of a bottle of Volvic mineral water, she accused the government of breaching EU law by excluding 2.7 million working parents from new parental leave rights. Of course, the Prime Minister already knows her feelings. In March, she dropped a broad hint in a well-received speech in which she recalled the example set when Finland’s Prime Minister took leave from office in 1998. “I, for one, am promoting the widespread adoption of his fine example.” |
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Tamils caught between law & war COLOMBO, May 17 (Reuters) — Trapped between a brutal guerrilla group, tough anti-terrorism laws and a threat of communal violence, minority Tamils in Sri Lanka are battling apprehension. “Tension, anxiety, fear ... would best characterise the mood in the Tamil community at the moment,” Mr Pakiasothy Saravanmuttu, himself a Tamil and head of the city-based think-tank Centre for Policy Alternatives, told Reuters. “The general attitude appears to be stay quiet and tread carefully,” he said. That certainly seemed to be the mood on the streets of Wellawatte, Colombo’s predominantly Tamil district, dubbed “Little Jaffna” after the northern Peninsula where separatist Tamil Tiger rebels are battling government troops. Dozens of passers-by and shopkeepers declined to comment on the latest flare-up in the fighting in Jaffna. Many professionals and white-collar workers also declined interviews, and those who did speak chose their words carefully. “Tamils don’t want war. We want peace,” said Mr A.T. Lingam, an aid worker. Like most of Colombo’s Tamils, Mr Lingam is from one of the war-torn areas of the country’s north and east where Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) rebels are fighting for a separate Tamil homeland. The Tamils’ apprehensions stem partly from tough new public security laws which drastically curtail freedom of expression. Under the laws, which were introduced earlier this month after the LTTE launched a fresh offensive to recapture Jaffna, nobody can criticise the President or hold protest marches, trade union actions are banned and the government has the power to seize property and vehicles. Tamils in Colombo have always been anxious about police raids conducted under the 22-year-old Prevention of Terrorism Act. The government says the tough new laws are intended to protect Tamils living outside the north and east from any backlash that might occur if things go wrong for the mainly majority Sinhalese Army on the battlefront. “They (the public security laws) are also intended to prevent attempts...(to) fish in troubled waters and incite the people and inflame the country,” President Chandrika Kumaratunga told the nation in a recent television address. Mr S. Muthukumaraswamy, a retired Jaffna public servant, agreed. “The government is our only protector,” he said, adding that he fears a repeat of the 1983 ethnic riots whenever tension builds up in the country because of the fighting. In July 1983 majority Sinhalese mobs went on the rampage here and in other parts of the country after the rebels killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers in Jaffna. The government of the day just watched. Hundreds of Tamils were killed and thousands more displaced in the riots that plunged the country into its current full-scale ethnic war, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Though successive governments have managed to prevent more riots, Sri Lanka’s Tamils are still haunted by the memory. “1983 is part of the collective memory of the Tamils and their greatest concern,” said Mr Saravanamuttu. But many of Colombo’s Tamils also live in fear of the LTTE, which is notorious for its ruthless suppression of dissent. The rebels often carry out reprisal killings of Tamil politicians and civilians they consider “traitors”. “We dare not speak out,” said a Jaffna landowner who fled the Peninsula in 1986. “If I say anything the Tigers don’t like the day I return to Jaffna I’m finished.” Mr Lingam summed up his people’s dilemma perfectly. “We are trapped by this war” he said. “When we live in LTTE-controlled areas we do what the LTTE wants. And when we come to government-controlled areas we do what the government wants.” |
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Pak nuclear
plant unsafe, say experts ISLAMABAD, May 17 (IPS) — Pakistan’s new Chinese-built atomic power plant has worried environmentalists and nuclear experts, who have urged the country’s military rulers to hold a safety review of the facility. Although the atomic energy establishment has allayed such fears, some nuclear safety experts claim that the Chashma reactor has a faulty design. They have also questioned the quality of the equipment provided by the Chinese. In an open letter to the country’s Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf, a coalition of nine leading green groups has urged him not to allow commissioning of the 300-megawatt plant until a detailed environmental safety investigation is carried out. Chashma is the country’s second nuclear power plant. Located in the central Punjab province, the reactor went critical on May 3 and will begin feeding the national grid later this year. Nuclear fuel was loaded in the reactor in November 1999. The groups say their fears are based on independent investigations by concerned Pakistani scientists. “Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) have reviewed the plant design and the construction work, and endorsed these to be of international standards,” says a PAEC statement issued when the plant went critical. |
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$ 2 million ‘ransom’
for German hostage
BEIJING, May 17 (Reuters) — Muslim rebels holding foreign hostages in the Philippines demanded US $ 2 million to free an ailing German woman, but authorities rebuffed the demand and insisted on a “package deal”, Philippine Foreign Minister Domingo Siazon said today. “The initial price was $ 1 million, then it became $ 2 million,” Mr Siazon, accompanying President Joseph Estrada on a visit to Beijing, told reporters. “We said, let’s consolidate their requests — want a package deal,” Mr Siazon said. In Manila, chief government negotiator Roberto Aventajado denied rebels had made such a demand. “That’s not true, that’s not true,” Aventajado told Reuters by telephone. “I am the man on the ground. I should know.” Mr Siazon said that by asking for a “package deal” negotiators trying to free the 21 mostly foreign hostages held on the southern Philippine island of Jolo were not necessarily trying to secure a cash-for-hostages solution. |
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17 die in Muslim,
Christian clashes
JAKARTA, May 17 (Reuters) — Fresh religious violence erupted in Indonesia’s strife-torn Spice Islands today, killing at least 17 persons, the police and military said. Clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians in Ambon, provincial capital of the Moluccas, after rumours that new arms shipments had been smuggled into the devastated city. A police car was pelted with stones and crashed, injuring several policemen. Unrest then flared when the police tried to clear rival gangs from the streets. Witnesses said mobs had burned several houses and also places of worship, which often become shelters for fleeing residents when violence breaks out in the city. |
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Eritrean jet shot down MEREB FRONT (Eritrea), May 17, (Reuters) — Ethiopia said today it had shot down an Eritrean fighter jet and that the battle for a strategically important town deep inside Eritrea was intensifying. It said Ethiopian fighter jets shot down the Mig-29 on Tuesday after it launched a bombing sortie inside Ethiopia. “It penetrated our air space but our air force spotted it and used air-to-air missiles to shoot it down,” spokesman Haile Kiros said from inside Eritrea. Eritrea has not commented on the Ethiopian claims but said yesterday it had turned the western front into a massacre site for Ethiopian soldiers. Ethiopia says it has penetrated deep inside Eritrea since the latest round of fighting began with a heavy land and air offensive last Friday and is now battling for the strategically important town of Barentu. “The battle for Barentu is very intense and our forces are very close to the town, they are advancing from the south, trying to cut roads in order to encircle the town,” Kiros said. He said Ethiopia had sent reinforcements to the area and was using ground infantry, heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets in the assault. “Our victory is in dismantling the enemy force,’’ he said. “everyday, every bullet is gaining victory.” Kiros said the jet which was shot down had earlier dropped a bomb on an Ethiopian army camp hosting a party of journalists reporting on the war. The journalists were also taken to Shelalo, an Eritrean town taken by Ethiopian forces at the weekend. The town is now serving as a military base and treatment centre for Ethiopian wounded. In New York diplomats said the United Nations Security Council was close to imposing an arms embargo on the two countries, perhaps as early as later today. The council has condemned the renewed fighting between the two horn of Africa neighbours, both battling famine which threatens more than 90 lakh of their people. |
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