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| Friday, June 30, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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10 journalists released in Fiji SYDNEY, June 29 — Ten journalists were released today after being held briefly by Fiji rebel leader George Speight inside the parliamentary compound in capital Suva.
‘Second generation
reforms soon’ |
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| India
up four places in UN index UNITED NATIONS, June 29 — India ranks 128 (up from 132 last year) among 174 countries on the basis of Human Development Index (HDI) calculated by the United Nations which takes into account life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income. Virus which kills cancer SEOUL, June 29 — South Korea’s National Assembly today approved Mr Lee Han-Dong as Prime Minister after a close vote along party lines, a parliamentary official said. Suspect UN report flayed Mugabe rigged poll : Opposition |
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| Israel welcomes
Jaswant’s visit JERUSALEM, June 29 — Israel today welcomed External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s maiden visit to the Jewish state, saying the tour, which begins tomorrow, would boost bilateral ties in the political, economic and other fields. Speight’s warning
on hostages Fire spreads
on nuclear reservation Putin to visit
China on July 18 Jail for 2 Indians in
boat hijack case
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10 journalists released in Fiji SYDNEY, June 29 (Reuters, AP) — Ten journalists were released today after being held briefly by Fiji rebel leader George Speight inside the parliamentary compound in capital Suva. The 10 foreign journalists, including Reuters correspondent James Regan and television cameraman Harry Burton, were earlier told by Speight they would be held overnight for their own security. But after about an hour inside the sprawling complex, they were escorted out the front gate by several of Speight’s gunmen. Speight has held ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and 26 political colleagues hostage since he led a small group of gunmen into Parliament on May 19 in the name of indigenous Fijians. Fiji’s military rulers said earlier today that they were considering setting up an “exclusion zone” around the sprawling complex. The military, which declared martial law in the South Pacific nation on May 29, has maintained it does not want to use force to end the hostage crisis. Regan reported that Speight had spoken on the telephone with military spokesman Lieut-Col Filipo Tarakinikini shortly before the journalists were allowed to leave. Regan said Speight had invited the journalists to stay in the compound overnight as proof the complex was secure. No one accepted the offer. SUVA: Fiji’s military on Thursday ordered residents and rebel supporters to vacate the area around the parliamentary compound where gunmen are holding 27 leaders hostage. The decision to cordon off the area around Parliament in the Fijian capital was to protect citizens’ “security” during the prolonged hostage standoff and to make sure the rebels take no more captives, army spokesman Capt Eroni Volavola told the Associated Press. The announcement came a day after Fiji’s military rulers said they will appoint a new civilian government without any input from the hostages takers, who had demanded a role in an interim government before releasing their captives. The military said it might cut off electricity and other services to rebels. “A programme of isolation is a possibility, we will know more in the next 24 hours,” military spokesman Howard Politini said, adding that the army was looking at an “exclusion zone” around the parliament complex. Politini said under the proposed “exclusion zone” the military asking nearby residents to move out and barring anyone from visiting the 200 or so rebel supporters camped inside the building. |
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Elian restarts life in Cuba HAVANA, June 29 (Reuters) — Surrounded by his closest family and away from the public eye, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez restarted life back home in Communist-run Cuba today after returning from the USA at the end of a bitter, seven-month custody saga. The government, despite having won its battle to bring Elian Home, announced that mass rallies would continue in its wider fight to overturn the US Economic embargo on Cuba and end a US immigration policy that Havana blames for causing Elian’s tragic story. “Back in the fatherland at last’’ proclaimed a red banner headline on the front page of Granma, newspaper of the ruling Communist Party which turned the boy’s case into the biggest patriotic crusade of President Fidel Castro’s four-decade rule. A government statement inside Granma proclaimed: “Immedia-tely, and without a truce or a minute of rest, the battle will continue’’ against what Cuba calls the US “war’’ against it. Nearly a quarter of a million Cubans would rally in the eastern port of Manzanillo at the weekend, and daily televised round-tables on the Elian case — which Castro calls “the university of the people’’ — were to continue. State television repeated footage of Elian’s landing in Cuba late yesterday, while radio stations swapped the “free Elian’’ jingles played in the past seven months for new ones proclaiming “Elian is back’’ and “welcome back, little prince’’ Elian and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, flew home shortly after the US Supreme Court rejected an emergency request by the boy’s relatives in Miami seeking to keep him in the USA. The court also turned down an appeal seeking a political asylum hearing for Elian. The boy had been at the centre of an emotional tug-of-war since he survived a migrant shipwreck in November last, off the Florida coast — in which his mother drowned — and was taken in by his Miami relatives. They said they wanted him to grow up, as his mother wished, in freedom in the USA, rather than in a communist-ruled country. |
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‘Second generation reforms soon’ LISBON, June 29 (PTI) — Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has said India would put economic growth on a higher trajectory of eight per cent and launch corporatisation of state electricity boards in a time bound manner. “It would be the endeavour of the government to put economic growth on a higher trajectory of about eight per cent per annum on a sustained basis so as to be able to banish poverty,” Mr Sinha told the first ever Indo-EU summit which concluded here last night. He said the outlook for the current year also appeared to be good and overall economic growth was expected to be around seven per cent. In his interventions of Indian economic reforms at the summit, Mr Sinha said the government was set to launch the second generation reforms which would lay emphasis on removing infrastructure bottlenecks that constrain rapid economic growth. “To meet this challenge, we have followed a policy of greater private investment within a strong regulatory mechanism,” he said adding the government in close cooperation with the state governments proposed to work for a time bound corporatisation of the state electricity boards. Listing steps initiated by the government for the next phase of reforms, Mr Sinha said the archaic 1956 National Highway Act had been amended to enable the government to enter into agreement with private parties for development and maintenance of national highways. The act also allows investments to be recouped from user charges. In the power sector, the 1948 Electricity Supply Act was amended to allow for inflow of private capital for setting up power projects. On Foreign Direct Investment, Mr Sinha said automatic route had been allowed in almost all sectors barring a small negative list, he said. Even in sectors where there were limits on foreign investments, the policies were being reviewed to consider more “flexibility and automaticity,” he said. Noting that sweeping reforms had been initiated in the tax structure, Mr Sinha said the idea was to move towards a common system of Value Added Tax (VAT) from April one, 2001. |
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India up four places in UN index UNITED NATIONS, June 29 (PTI) — India ranks 128 (up from 132 last year) among 174 countries on the basis of Human Development Index (HDI) calculated by the United Nations which takes into account life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income. But Pakistan is way down at 135 and Bhutan and Nepal occupy the 142nd and 144th positions respectively. However, Sri Lanka has done much better in this respect and gets a rank of 84 above even China which is 99th. Bangladesh is ranked 146th. For the seventh successive year, Canada tops the list and Norway and the United States are again at second and third. At the bottom are Sierra Leone and Niger. While Guinea, Pakistan and Vietnam have similar levels of income per head their placing in the index varies widely. Guinea ranks 162, Pakistan 135 and Vietnam 108. These rankings show that Pakistan and Guinea might usefully follow the policies being carried out by Vietnam. Both countries should spend more on primary health care to bring their high infant mortality rates down to the Vietnam’s level of 31 per thousand live births, they said. Sweden is ranked sixth followed by Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, Britain, Finland, France, Switzerland, Germany and Britain. Russia’s ranking is way down at sixty-two just below Malaysia. Thailand’s ranking is 76 just below Brazil (74) and Saudi Arabia (75). Laying emphasis on poverty eradication, the report says poverty is as much a human rights issue as are arbitrary arrests. But it regrets that while the torture of one person causes outrage, the death of more than thirty thousand children every day mainly from preventable causes go unnoticed. The report, commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), warns that in many countries progress in civil liberties is being undermined by economic stagnation or decline. The report says almost all countries show less deprivation and higher human development in urban rather than rural areas. Most show differences between ethnic groups and almost everywhere men fare better than women. In the richest nations, the report shows, relative prosperity has failed to improve lives. Although the US has the second highest per capita income among eighteen of the richest countries, it too has the highest poverty rate among them. It is followed by Ireland and Britain. Gender equality does not depend on economic growth either with some developing countries outperforming richer states, the report notes. Costa Rica, for example, ranks 24 in the report’s measure of gender empowerment, ahead of Japan at 41. Yet Costa Rica’s Gross Domestic Product per capita is less than one-third of Japan. Twenty-two countries in Africa and Eastern Europe have experienced reversal of human development since 1990 mainly due to HIV/AIDS pandemic. The United Nations today acknowledged Indian democracy as a role model for the developing world and said New Delhi’s track record on human rights promotion and development has sweeping significance for rights-based approach to progress. The report said the country was a powerful example of the creative use of human rights instruments in social transformation. India’s approach, the report said also encouraged the capacity of people to change laws, institutional arrangements and norms to consistently fight for improvement in the quality of their lives. It praised India for significant progress in participation of women in local politics, creative use of public interest litigation, effectiveness of its vibrant civil society and mobilisation of its democratic institutions. |
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Virus which kills cancer OTTAWA, June 29 (Reuters) — Canadian researchers said they had made a potentially significant breakthrough in the fight against cancer by discovering that tumour cells could be killed by injecting them with a rare virus. Dr John Bell of the University of Ottawa said his team had found many common cancers were destroyed by vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which is not infectious in humans. “We’re excited. We think this is an important step forward,” he told Reuters in an interview. In laboratory tests the new treatment killed cells from melanomas and leukaemia as well as lung, breast and prostate cancers. Dr Bell said 15 years of research into tumours had shown that many cancer cells suffered from a genetic flaw that made them vulnerable to VSV. “Knowing what this (genetic) defect was and knowing the properties of the virus, we thought this would be a good fit. So we then tested the virus and sure enough it was very effective,” said Dr Bell. More tests will now be carried out on laboratory animals and if all goes well the first clinical trials on human beings could start in about 18 months. “Dr Bell’s findings are potentially very important. We look forward to seeing the results of the preclinical studies to evaluate the possible efficacy of this virus as a cancer therapy,” said Dr Robert Phillips, head of Canada’s National Cancer Institute. “There are other people out there in Canada, the United States and Europe who are working on viruses as well and we think probably their viruses are working the same way that ours is and they haven’t appreciated it yet,” said Dr Bell. |
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Lee Han-Dong to be South
Korea’s PM
SEOUL, June 29 (Reuters) — South Korea’s National Assembly today approved Mr Lee Han-Dong as Prime Minister after a close vote along party lines, a parliamentary official said. Of the total 272 lawmakers present, 139 voted in favour of Lee and 130 voted against. The vote came after two days of parliamentary hearings on Lee’s integrity and competence. Lee was designated as acting Prime Minister after former Prime Minister Park Tae-Jung resigned on May 19 after a local court said he might have evaded taxes. Under South Korea’s presidential system, the Prime Minister’s role is largely ceremonial. Lee belongs to the small and conservative United Liberal Democrats (ULD), which had been part of President Kim Dae-Jung’s governing coalition until earlier this year. The ULD and Independents joined the ruling Millennium Democratic Party in the confirmation vote, the local media said. The main Opposition, the Grand National Party (GNP), voted against Lee’s appointment, branding him a “political turncoat”. Lee had been a member of the GNP, but defected to the ULD before April’s general election after the GNP left him off their slate of candidates to run for
Parliament. |
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Suspect UN report flayed GENEVA, June 29 (AP) — Eighty church and grass-roots groups have accused the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund of causing poverty and criticised the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for being sucked into a “propaganda exercise” with the the financial institutions. The coalition of groups yesterday said they were “outraged” by a report on poverty that was issued jointly by the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and IMF. “This report was received with great astonishment, disappointment and even anger,” said Mr Konrad Raiser, World Council of Churches general secretary, in a letter to Mr Annan. The report was released on Monday at the start of a UN presented poverty-cutting goals, including enrollment of all children in primary school and a two-thirds cut in child mortality by 2015. The report marked the first time the four international organisations had worked together on social issues. Mr Raiser described the study as “a propaganda exercise for international finance institutions whose policies are widely held to be at the root of many of the most grave social problems facing the poor.” Anti-globalisation activists believe the operating rules of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank are rigged in favour of wealthy multinational corporations at the expense of the poor labour unions and the environment. The weeklong UN meeting, convened to issue a declaration on how to tackle poverty over the next years, is a follow-up to a 1975 UN summit in Copenhagen that failed to deliver any real help to the world’s poor. Yesterday’s sessions heard proposals for a scheme aimed at eliminating child labour and getting all children into school in five African countries. Mr Cristovam Buarque, ex-governor of the Brazilian capital, Brasilia, presented a plan to pay families what the child could earn from working provided the child goes to school instead. The scheme has already put up to 100,000 Brazilian children and 5 million Mexican children into school, he said. |
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Mugabe rigged poll: Opposition ZIMBABWE’S defeated opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MCD), is to take 10 dossiers listing alleged election rigging to the high court. At its first meeting since failing to win control of parliament in the last weekend’s elections, the MDC executive said: ``Disturbing facts have come to light.’’ The dossiers are believed to cover events in Buhera North, where MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was defeated by Zanu-PF. The MDC won 57 seats to the Zanu-PF’s 62 in the new Parliament. Even if the court challenges succeed, the change in the number of seats in favour of the opposition will not be enough to undermine Zanu-PF’s grip on power, since President Mugabe has the constitutional right to nominate 30 seats in addition to the 120 contested. Mr Tsvangirai has ruled out any chance of working formally with the Zanu-PF. ``He [Mugabe] must clear up his own mess,’’ he said. With presidential elections just two years away, the MDC wants to build on its success in emerging from nowhere in less than a year to challenge to the Zanu-PF. It is aware that compromising with the Zanu-PF might alienate its supporters and tarnish its image of freshness and honesty. `` We’ve got to guard against being seen to be retreating,’’ Mr Tsvangirai said. He acknowledged this week that Mr Mugabe might try to win some of the new MPs over to his side, with job offers or other inducements. ``It would be naive to think no individuals will be ready to be co-opted,’’ he said. At its strategy meeting on Wednesday the MDC also discussed its priorities. Although it has no hope of promoting legislation, it wants to propose motions in parliament that will keep it in the public eye. The first is to call for the withdrawal of the 11,000 troops Zimbabwe has in Congo, a deployment which is highly unpopular. The government has said it will bring the soldiers home only when the United Nations gets its peacekeepers in place. The MDC also intends to oppose President Mugabe’s plans to introduce price controls on basic foodstuffs to protect the poor. Mr Mugabe too was meeting his senior colleagues yesterday. Their agenda was topped by a post-mortem on how the party lost so many seats - particularly in the urban areas as well as in Matabeleland. The election results have reduced the Zanu-PF from a national movement to an almost entirely Shona peasant party. Apart from small segments of the new middle class which have benefited from government patronage by getting civil service jobs or help with their businesses, this is a reversion to the pattern of support found during the liberation war, and it means that the Zanu-PF has lost the other constituencies it had tried to cultivate. The government also gave notice on Wednesday that it will press ahead with its seizure of 804 white-owned farms. ``The land issue is on,’’ said the minister for information, Chen Chimutengwende. ``The process of acquisition and redistribution could start within weeks.’’ The government had no second thoughts about taking the farms, Mr Chimutengwende said. Mr Mugabe confirmed last month that the designated farms would be confiscated and resettled by poor black farmers. He said that since the British Government did not pay for the farms, taken from the Africans by Rhodesian colonialists, then his government would not pay for the land. In April Mr Mugabe pushed through a constitutional amendment stating that the government is not obliged to pay for the land and last month it published an enabling law, which gave the farm owners 30 days to appeal against the seizure of their properties, expiring on July 3. ``So far I understand no one has appealed,’’ said Mr Chimutengwende, indicating that the seizures would proceed smoothly. But Tim Henwood, chairman of the Commercial Farmers Union, said hundreds of farm owners were preparing their appeals and intended to file them on Friday. About 500 farmers are expected to seek to keep their farms, while 300 are either not contesting the confiscation or are attempting to negotiate to give up another property in place of the one designated by the government. The appeals may well be futile, since the government has already stated that there are no valid grounds for appeal. — GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE |
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Israel welcomes
Jaswant’s visit
JERUSALEM, June 29 (PTI) — Israel today welcomed External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s maiden visit to the Jewish state, saying the tour, which begins tomorrow, would boost bilateral ties in the political, economic and other fields. “This visit, the first by an Indian External Affairs Minister after India and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1992, represents yet another step which will strengthen bilateral ties,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. The External
Affairs Minister will have wide-ranging discussions with President Ezer Weizman, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his Israeli counterpart David Levi on regional, international and mutually important issues. The four-day visit comes on the heels of Home Minister L.K. Advani’s trip here earlier this month. Mr Jaswant Singh, who flew from Warsaw to Lisbon to join Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for the first India-European Union Summit, will go to the Palestinian city of Ramallah to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and then on to Jerusalem. |
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Speight’s warning
on hostages
SUVA, June 29 (AFP) — Fiji coup leader George Speight today warned the country’s military that its plans to cordon off Parliament would endanger the lives of 27 hostages being held inside. Moves to seal off the complex, which were underway today would anger his supporters, Speight told reporters. Asked if that anger could be taken out on the hostages, who include deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, he replied: “That is a very distinct possibility.” |
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Fire spreads
on nuclear reservation
SEATTLE, June 29 (Reuters) — A rapidly spreading wildfire ignited by a fatal car accident burned out of control on the Hanford nuclear reservation in southeastern Washington today, damaging buildings and forcing the evacuation of several thousand people in towns near the installation. No nuclear-related facilities at the Hanford reservation were in immediate damage from the fire, and maps of the blaze showed it remained west of anything potentially sensitive, said Don Aunspaugh, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, Hanford Joint Information Centre. The fire yesterday forced the evacuation of some 2,500 residents in the town of Benton city on the Yakima river, about 10 miles west of Richland. |
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Putin to visit
China on July 18
BEIJING, June 29 (Reuters) — Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a state visit to China from July 18 to 19, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said today. Mr Putin will meet with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other top leaders for discussions on bilateral and international issues, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told reporters. China and Russia found common cause in opposition to NATO’s war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo last year and are harsh critics of the US plans to build a missile defence system. |
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Jail for 2 Indians in
boat hijack case
MIAMI, June 29 (Reuters) — Two Indian nationals and a Pakistani have been sentenced to jail terms of up to 17 years for the hijacking of a fishing boat in Cuban waters last year, U.S. Prosecutors said. Baljeet Singh and Gurpreet Singh were sentenced to 17 years and 14 years, respectively, while Pakistani Mohammad Shevaz Chaudhry was sentenced to nine years, the U.S. Attorney’s office said yesterday in a statement. The sentencing, on three hijacking counts, took place on Tuesday. The trio had tried to use Cuba as a stepping stone to travel illegally to the USA. |
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