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| Monday, May 22, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Cops’ team formed for
hostages’ release India, China resume military ties India, Nepal hold talks |
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Pak asks Taliban to extradite Laden Over 300
massacred in Congo Taiwan’s leader tours
anti-China defences 4 killed in Taliban
jet attack Jaswant to take
up energy issue with Iran Barak cancels US trip
Atlantis docks with
space station
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Lanka ‘endangering’ soldiers’ lives LONDON, May 21 (PTI) — A British defence company has accused the Sri Lankan Government of deliberately endangering the lives of its soldiers by leaving thousands of bullet-proof vests gathering dust in warehouses, media reports said here today. Lightweight Body Armour, the main supplier of body armour to NATO is taking the Sri Lankan Government to the court, alleging that the equipment has not been paid for because of company’s refusal to pay “bribe” to senior government officials, the Sunday Telegraph reported. Many of the 28,000 soldiers have been left fighting “barefoot and without flak jackets, and have so little ammunition that it is issued on a quota system,” they said. According to the report, the company signed a £ 750,000 contract in 1998 to supply 6,000 anti-rifle body armour plates. Half the money was paid and the equipment despatched to Colombo. But it has never been issued and the rest of the money was not paid. Company officials, according to the newspaper report, blame Anuruddha Ratwatte, the President’s uncle and Deputy Defence Minister, who is in charge of day-to-day running of the war and who has been accused by Sri Lankan newspapers of mismanaging and misappropriating much of the £ 50 million defence budget. |
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Cops’ team formed for hostages’ release JOLO (Philippines), May 21 (DPA) — A 250-member police contingent has been formed to secure formal negotiations with Muslim extremist rebels holding 21 hostages from seven nations in a southern Philippine jungle, an official said today. The talks have been delayed for weeks by clashes between the
Abu Sayyaf extremists and the military, changes in the government’s negotiating panel and rising tensions on Jolo Island, Sulu province, 1,000 km south of Manila. Sulu provincial Police Chief Superintendent Candido Casimiro said the security consultant of chief government negotiator Roberto Aventajado requested the creation of the contingent. Mr Casimiro said the team included a 50-member Special Action Force unit to guard the negotiators — Aventajado, former Libyan envoy Rajab Abdulaziz Azzarouq, Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan, Muslim peace advocate Farouk Hussein and Islamic scholar Ghazali Ibrahim. “The contingent is already on standby and ready to be deployed anytime in the area where the talks will be held,” Mr Casimiro said. “An additional 250 policemen were also placed on reserve in case they are needed.” Abu Sayyaf has demanded that the military be kept out of the venue of negotiations. Sources said the negotiators and the rebels had agreed to hold the talks in an undisclosed area in Patikul town, some 12 km away from an Abu Sayyaf jungle hideout where the hostages were being held in two bamboo huts. Yesterday, negotiators resumed preliminary discussions with the Abu Sayyaf rebels after seven days of no contact and rising tension in Jolo, where eight persons were killed and more than 30 injured in a grenade blast at the public market on Thursday. During the six-hour meeting, the Abu Sayyaf leaders told Mr Azzarouq and Mr Hussein that they would come up with written demands for the release of the hostages as soon as “serious negotiations” started, possibly as early as tomorrow. KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Muslim rebels have moved the hostages to a house belonging to a civilian, Malaysian newspapers reported on Sunday. Citing a letter hastily scribbled by Malaysian hostage Ken Fong and carried out by a Malaysian medical team that saw the hostages on Friday, newspapers said the captives had been moved to the house on Wednesday. “I am fine but I lost some weight,” Mr Fong said in the letter to his father, excerpts of which were published by The New Sunday Times. There were no further details on the hostages’ location but Fong’s descriptions of the living conditions appeared to mark a sharp improvement from around two weeks ago when television images showed the captives huddled in a forest clearing, looking helpless, exhausted and stricken with grief. |
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India, China resume military ties BEIJING, May 21 (PTI) — The arrival of a delegation from India’s National Defence College (NDC) today signals resumption of military-to-military ties between India and China which were suspended in the aftermath of the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in May 1998. The visit of the NDC delegation also comes a week before the state visit of President K.R. Narayanan to China. While the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had cancelled the visit of the NDC team to China in May 1998, the Chinese delegation from the National Defence University (NDU) did not go to India in May 1999. Thus, with the arrival of the 15-member NDC team led by Maj Gen P.R. Renjen, India and China will resume exchange of delegations from their military training institutions. China had strongly resented India’s reference to the Chinese threat to justify its decision to conduct the nuclear tests in May 1998. The Chinese military establishment was particularly vociferous in its condemnation of the Indian nuclear test, which came shortly after the Chief of Staff of the PLA, Gen Fu Quanyou visited India in April 1998. During the visit of External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh to Beijing in June last year, India and China declared that they did not pose a threat to each other. Thus, analysts say that the resumption of military contacts is part of the process to normalise bilateral military ties, which plays a major role in the overall improvement in Sino-Indian relations. PLA, which is the world’s largest standing army, has downsized its strength by 500,000 to 2.5 million. It is currently concentrating on developing the capability to “win local wars in high-tech conditions.” The NDC delegation, will interact with Chinese military think-tanks and visit the PLA’s premier training institute here, NDU. They will also call on a senior PLA officer during their stay in Beijing. The delegation is also to visit Shanghai city in East China and visit military facilities. |
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India, Nepal hold talks KATHMANDU, May 21 (UNI) — India and Nepal yesterday began another phase of dialogue aimed at ironing out differences that arise from time to time in bilateral relations. Continuing the efforts to thaw out the chill that had set in following the Christmas-eve hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu, External Affairs Secretary Lalit Mansingh flew in here late on Friday night and yesterday held wide-ranging discussions with his Nepali counterpart Narayan Shumsher Thapa on “the entire gamut of bilateral relations as well as other matters of mutual interest.” During his three-day stay here, Mr Mansingh, besides holding further discussions with Mr Thapa, will also call on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who is slated to visit India “in the near future”, Deputy P.M. Ram Chandra Poudyal, Water Resources Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka, Home Minister Gobind Raj Joshi and Foreign Affairs Minister Chakra Prasad Bastola, who visited New Delhi earlier this month on a fence-mending experience. That Mr Bastola did succeed, to some extent, in mending fences was evident from the announcement earlier this week by the Indian Airlines that it was restarting from June 1 its flights to Nepal, cancelled in the aftermath of the December 24 hijacking. It appears, that the stage was set for further bilateral consultations at the various official-level mechanisms carefully set in place by the two neighbours to further consolidate long-standing ties — these bodies had. However, lately not been meeting as regularly as envisaged mostly due to political exigencies both in Nepal and in India. The Indo-Nepal high-level task force is slated to meet here later this month to review the overall progress made on various India-funded and joint projects. Later, in July, the Home Secretaries of the two countries will also meet here for consultations on matters relating to each others’ security concerns. In the meanwhile, Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav was expected to come onboard the June 1 Indian Airlines flight from New Delhi and by early-July Water Resources Minister C.P. Thakur — in an effort to lend much-needed impetus to ongoing bilateral cooperation in the field. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh is also slated to be here next month to attend the formal inauguration of 22 bridges, in mid-western and far-western Nepal constructed by India at a cost of Rs 60 crore to provide the much-needed road-facility in these areas of the Hindu Himalayan kingdom. |
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Pak asks Taliban to extradite Laden ISLAMABAD, May 21 (PTI) — Pakistan has asked Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to handover terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden to the USA after the
Islamic militia agreed to extradite ‘‘wanted criminals’’ to Islamabad assuring that no terrorist camps will be permitted to operate from Afghan soil. Foreign Office spokesman Iftikhar Murshed said that Taliban interior Minister Mullah Razaq Akhund during his visit here earlier this week had been informed that there were 10 to 12 ‘‘wanted criminals’’ wanted by Pakistan. Mullah Akhund was told that the Laden issue was between the Taliban and the USA but handing over the Saudi dissident to Washington was in the interest of the Islamic militia, he said. Referring to the positive results of last month meeting held among various Afghan parties in Saudi Arabia under the auspices of the OIC, the spokesman noted both sides had agreed not to raise the level of fighting and engage in exchange of prisoners of war with the help of the Red Cross. Meanwhile, the United Nations has sought the Taliban’s cooperation for free and unhindered humanitarian access in war-torn Afghanistan. UN Coordinator for Afghanistan Erick de Mul, who returned to Islamabad after talks with the Taliban in Kabul, stressed the need for free and unhindered humanitarian access to needy populations in compliance with international humanitarian law, a UN statement said here yesterday. Since last summer, the UN has been involved in providing limited assistance to people in Afghanistan, who fled their homes due to fighting. |
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Over 300
massacred in Congo
ROME/NAIROBI, May 21 (DPA) — More than 300 persons, many of them women and children, have been massacred in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Rome-based Catholic news agency Misna reported today. According to Misna, victims were shot, stabbed or clubbed to death. Many of their bodies were tossed into a river in the massacre which lasted through the night until dawn, eyewitnesses say. Misna said the killings took place overnight May 14-15 at the village of Katogota, 60 km south of Bukavu. Misna quoted a survivor as saying: “The massacre started at sundown and lasted from 1930 hrs on Sunday until 0500 hrs on Monday. “Some of the bodies of the victims, which were scattered over a vast area inside and outside the village, were dragged to the river and some of them abandoned in the water,’’ the survivor said. |
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Taiwan’s leader tours anti-China defences TAIPEI, May 21 (AFP) — Taiwan’s new President Chen Shui-Bian used his first full day in office to tour frontline defences against a Chinese invasion today, signs of thawing relations with the mainland. The surprise visit was to “show the attention I give to national security,” Chen said on Kinmen, a heavily fortified Taiwan-controlled isl and a few miles from Xiamen, a coastal southeastern Chinese city. “National security is the axis” on which the 49-year-old former pro-independence dissident said his blueprint for relations with the mainland turns. It was also “the common language of the people here regardless of their gender, age and political affiliation,” he said as the military maintained a “heightened alert” for the weekend of his inauguration. “As national leader, I must safeguard security, national sovereignty and dignity, particularly security.” Mr Chen, sworn in yesterday as Taiwan’s first non-nationalist Kuomintang leader, said the visit was also “a salute” to the more than 40,000 troops stationed on Kinmen. Meanwhile, in one of his first acts since taking power, Mr Chen was reported to have set up an ad hoc “Yung An” (everlasting security) committee at the Defence Ministry to monitor the delicate situation in the Taiwan Strait. There were no signs of abnormal military movement on the mainland, a group source said. Mr Chen’s emphasis on defence came despite other government moves to inject momentum into efforts to improve icy relations with China. |
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4 killed in Taliban
jet attack
KABUL, May 21 (AFP) — Four civilians were killed and two wounded as jet fighters of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban attacked a key opposition stronghold in the north-eastern province of Takhar, Opposition officials said on Sunday. The air raids carried out on Saturday destroyed at least two houses in the provincial Capital Taloqan, said Abdullah, a spokesman for the anti-Taliban northern alliance forces led by former defence minister Ahmad Shah
Masood. |
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Jaswant to take
up energy issue with Iran
TEHRAN, May 21 (PTI) — India’s converging interests with Iran on Afghanistan and energy security considerations are expected to dominate wide-ranging discussions visiting External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh will have with Iranian leaders in the next three days. Mr Jaswant Singh, who arrived here on May 19 on a five-day official visit, is also likely to put across India’s misgivings over Pakistan-backed Taliban’s actions as part of New Delhi’s efforts to garner support from key Islamic countries against the militant grouping. The minister will meet his Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharazi and exchange views on developments in the entire region, including the evolving situation in Afghanistan. The minister will attend the 11th meeting of the Indo-Iranian Joint Commission tomorrow. |
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Barak cancels US trip JERUSALEM, May 21 (Reuters) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak today cancelled a trip to the USA and a meeting with President Bill Clinton following bloody clashes with the Palestinians and increased violence in Lebanon. “Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ehud Barak decided this evening to postpone his trip to the USA in the light of events in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and in Lebanon,’’ Mr Barak’s office said in a statement late yesterday. He had been scheduled to leave at midnight on Sunday for the USA. Ten days of the bloodiest clashes in two years to sweep the West Bank and Gaza that included gunfights between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, led Mr Barak to cancel his trip and to call an urgent meeting of his security Cabinet yesterday. More than 100 Palestinians were wounded, including two Reuters cameramen, in clashes yesterday. Mr Barak’s security Cabinet met for nearly three hours late yesterday, but did not arrive at any decisions, diplomatic sources said. They added that Mr Barak told his Cabinet he had delivered a “very strong message’’ to the Palestinian leadership demanding they act immediately to stop the clashes and its security forces from firing live ammunition at Israeli soldiers. |
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Fakes — Internet style WASHINGTON, May 21 (AP) — On sale online: fake passports, social security cards, birth certificates, driver’s licenses, college diplomas, press credentials and even ids for police officers and
FBI agents. They’re fraudulent but authentic looking enough to enable users to steal people’s identities, get loans or convince enemies they’re being arrested. You can buy them online, or you can make them yourself. A 23-year-old convicted felon told a senate panel on Friday how he created phony documents using a computer at a public library and public government records online. He used the bogus documents to get $ 59,000 in car loans. The new and growing internet phenomenon accounts for about 30 per cent of all fake id documents in this country, according to some law enforcement officials. “The availability of false identification on the internets a growing problem, to which we plan to devote additional resources and attention,” Secret Service Director Brian Stafford testified before the Senate Government Affairs Committee’s investigative sub-committee. There are three levels of fake id procurement, sub-committee investigators found a five-month undercover inquiry, first, some websites sell bogus, real-looking documents in the customer’s name. Others sell high quality computer files, called templates, that allow customers to make their own phony documents. One such site, operated by a 21-year-old college student, charged customers $ 14.95 a month for templates. He rang up some $ 8,000 in sales from mid-October to mid- December last year, the senate investigators found. |
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Atlantis docks with
space station
CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida) May 21 (AP) — Space shuttle Atlantis slid up to the international space station and docked early today, ending a two-day chase and kicking off a week of urgent repairs. The metallic cuddle occurred as the spacecraft soared some 320 km above Ukraine, each travelling at 28,100 kph. Commander James Halsell Jr guided Atlantis to the smooth linkup. The station gleamed as the shuttle made its final approach. |
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