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August 3, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Barak suffers setbacks FM quits; Knesset for fresh poll JERUSALEM, Aug 2 — In a series of humiliations for Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy today said he was quitting the government and the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) adopted five preliminary motions calling for new elections. Zimbabwe quadruples
farm grab target More Speight men arrested
LONDON, Aug 2 — The international oil company Shell said 165 of its workers were being held hostage on its installations in Bayels, a state in southeast Nigeria, the BBC has reported. Clinton desperate, says Bush |
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says Panun WASHINGTON, Aug 2 —The Indo-American Kashmir Forum and Panun Kashmir-USA have called upon Hindu and Sikh refugees of Kashmir and Ladakhi Buddhists not to participate in the official functions of Indian missions on Independence Day in protest against the Indian government’s “disastrous policies” towards Kashmiri minorities. More peacekeepers in S.Leone needed:
Annan Taliban amnesty offer rejected Russian navy in the Mediterranean?
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Barak suffers
setbacks JERUSALEM, Aug 2 (DPA) — In a series of humiliations for Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy today said he was quitting the government and the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) adopted five preliminary motions calling for new elections. “I left a letter of resignation of the Prime Minister’s desk due to the grave situation which has been created, this step is inevitable”, Mr Levy told a televised news conference here. He said there were deep differences between himself and Mr Barak over what he saw as Israeli concessions to the Palestinians at the recent Camp David peace summit. He was especially
critical of offers Mr Barak made the Palestinians regarding sovereignty over Palestinian neighbourhoods in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. “At the summit, things were discussed which are against the aims, the basis, on which we founded our cooperation when we ran together in the elections”, he said. Saying he was “very, very anxious about the future”, Mr Levy added that “it is not possible to be in a government and explain policies to which you are opposed”. Mr Levy 62) had threatened to quit the government by Wednesday if by then Mr Barak had not made a “serious effort” to form a national unity government with the Right-wing Opposition Likud Party. “I would be very happy if a national unity government were formed, but I can’t impose it”, he said. “There are those who say that a national unity government would mean the end of the peace process. I disagree... It is a sing to divide the nation into those who want peace and those who do not want peace”, he declared. A statement issued by Mr Barak’s spokesman said the Premier was “saddened by Levy’s resignation, but not surprised”. “The Prime Minister respects the path David Levy follows, but intends to continue leading the government in order to bring about the changes needed to safeguard Israel’s future”, the statement said. Both Mr Levy and his younger brother, Maxim, also a legislator, voted with the opposition to adopt the Bills calling for the Knesset to disperse and call new elections. The main motion, sponsored by the Likud Party, passed with 61 legislators in favour, 51 opposed, and six absentions. The other four motions all passed with majorities of between 10 to 13 votes. However since the motion were all preliminary readings, more readings have to be held before they become law. Since the Knesset beings its summer recess on Wednesday, this is unlikely to happen before October. The preliminary vote had no immediate impact because the proposal must first go to committee, where it could be buried for months, and then must pass three more readings to become law. Parliament is in recess in any event from next week until late October. Mr Barak dismissed the Knesset votes as “a movie we have already seen”, saying that a previous vote on the matter had been cancelled after one month. “This time it could take maybe two months”, he told reporters, adding that “the elections are much further away then you think”. Mr Barak has said he intends widening his government, which at present commands the automatic support of only one quarter of the 120-seat Knesset, and cannot command a majority even with the support of a further 20 legislators who are not officially part of the coalition. |
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Zimbabwe quadruples
farm grab target ZIMBABWE is mobilising its army to rapidly resettle several million black peasants on white-owned farms after the government said it will now seize about two-thirds of all white land. In a move that dashed hopes of compromise, Vice-President Joseph Msika confirmed that the government would dramatically increase the number of farms targeted for confiscation without compensation from the 804 earmarked in May to more than 3,000. Robert Mugabe’s administration says it plants to resettle 500,000 black families on the land before the beginning of the rainy season just a few weeks away. The Local Government Minister, Mr Ignatius Chombo, said Zimbabwe’s 40,000 strong army would provide transport and other logistics for the operation. “It would also establish a communications centre to ensure decisions were made fast and implemented”, he told the state-run Herald newspaper. Mr Chombo said the legal procedures to seize the first 211 farms would begin by Friday. That land will be used to resettle 37,000 families. The move further antagonised the government’s opponents ahead of a nationwide general strike today backed by trade unions, the main opposition party and white farmers to protest at the handling of land redistribution and the police’s failure to respond to growing political violence. The strike is expected to shut down all of Zimbabwe’s major cities where there is growing anger at the President’s heavy-handed response to the surge in opposition support in June’s parliamentary election and disillusionment at the economic consequences of the government’s policies. Long petrol queues have reemerged since the election, agriculture and tourism are facing collapse, and power cuts loom. Earlier, this week, the Commercial Farmers Union, which represents most of Zimbabwe’s more than 4,000 white farmers, noted that soldiers had been spotted visiting farms, particularly in Mashonaland, where a high proportion of land has been earmarked for confiscation. The CFU is throwing its weight behind the strike led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions today to protest at the land confiscations and soldiers routinely beating up opposition supporters in townships. But the union appeared to lose its nerve yesterday and scaled back a planned three-day action to just 24 hours, despite the powerful backing of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. “We want to give the government time to respond. If the government does not respond, we will go on a much longer strike”, said Mr Nicholas Mudzengerere, acting Secretary-General. “We have taken this decision because we want to use the strike as a warning shot and we think one day would be adequate.” The MDC leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, urged all Zimbabweans to support the strike and accused Mr Mugabe of pursuing a political vendetta against opposition supporters. In London, the British Foreign Office said the latest reports, if confirmed and acted upon, were “very disturbing”. Foreign Office ministers were anxious not to become embroiled in another propaganda war with Mr Mugabe. — The Guardian, London |
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More Speight men arrested SUVA, Aug 2 (Reuters) — Fiji’s military charged more supporters of captive rebel leader George Speight with unlawful assembly today in the aftermath of May’s coup. Three more of Speight’s close associates, including his brother Jim, were arrested by the army last evening in a further bid to restore law and order after 10 weeks of political crisis in the racially split South Pacific nation. In capital Suva, a large crowd watched as 150 of the hundreds of Speight supporters detained by the military last week were ushered into two courts. All were granted 100 Fijian dollars (47 US dollars) bail and told to reappear in four weeks. Armed military guards patrolled the grounds as Speight’s supporters arrived. In Lautoka in the rich sugar belt in the west of the main island of Viti Levu, Fiji trade union congress leader Felix Anthony was briefly detained by members of the Taukei Nationalist Movement as union plans for a national stop-work fizzled. Anthony, an Indo-Fijian, said four men barged into his office and held him for an hour. “They warned me...that I was causing too much trouble for them, and that they had been after me for quite some time and that if I continued they would easily exterminate me,” Anthony told Reuters. The Taukei nationalists have campaigned for indigenous Fijian rights long before Speight launched his coup against the multi-racial government of deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. Some Taukei members subsequently supported Speight. Anthony said the police took him to a nearby police station for his own safety but also warned him that a national day for law and order, peace and democracy declared on Wednesday was in breach of emergency decrees still in place. Military spokesman Major Howard Politini said Anthony had been “too indiscreetly vocal”. Few observed the national day, in which workers were called on to stay home in support of Chaudhry. Shops in downtown Suva were busy, with buses and taxis running and schools open. The military has said Speight is unlikely to appear in court until all his supporters have been processed. He has been detained on the island prison of Nukulau near Suva with seven others since Saturday. |
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165 workers ‘taken hostage’ in Nigeria LONDON, Aug 2 (AFP) — The international oil company Shell said 165 of its workers were being held hostage on its installations in Bayels, a state in southeast Nigeria, the BBC has reported. It quoted a local Shell spokesman, Harriam Essa Oyofo, as saying 35 armed members of local communities arrived at two oil rigs in eight motor-boats and took the Shell employees hostage, demanding that the oil company recruit young local people. Oyofo expressed fears for the welfare of the hostages, who were said to include 14 expatriates. “We suspect they are running out of food,” he told the BBC. Questioned late yesterday by AFP, Henk Bonder, spokesman for Royal Dutch/Shell in the Hague, was unable to confirm or deny the BBC report, but he found the number of hostages given was “amazingly high”. The head of security for Shell southeastern division (Port Harcourt) also told AFP he was unaware of the hostage-taking, as did other Shell officials in Nigeria. A Shell spokeswoman in London, contacted late yesterday, was also unable to confirm the incident but said she would look into the matter. Kidnappings and hostage-takings of this type are common in the Niger Delta where, despite the oil riches, the local people are dirt poor.@ |
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Clinton desperate, says Bush HARRISBURG (PA), Aug 2 (Reuters) — Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush went head-to-head with Mr Bill Clinton, interpreting his attacks as a good omen and accusing the President of being “desperate to have his legacy intact.” Saving the best for last, the Bush campaign turned out the biggest crowd of the Texas Governor’s five-day, six-state pre-convention tour at a rally in Harrisburg, his final stop before Philadelphia where he will accept the Republican nomination tomorrow. More than 4,000 persons, crammed into a plaza outside the state Capitol, were treated to an abbreviated version of Mr Bush’s standard stump speech yesterday before being showered with confetti and streamers to the beat of John Mellencamp’s “r-o-c-k in the USA,” punctuated by the explosion of fireworks. Earlier, Mr Bush hit back at Mr Clinton for asserting that Mr Bush was, in effect, running for the White House simply because his “daddy was President” and espousing the empty rhetoric of “compassionate conservatism.” “I welcome President Clinton’s criticisms,” he said. “It’s amazing to me that the President of the USA would spend time trying to be a political pundit. He is so desperate to have his legacy intact by getting Mr Al Gore elected, he will say anything.” Mr Bush, who always ends his campaign events by raising his right hand and swearing to uphold “the honour and dignity” of the office if he is elected, pointed out that he had not even mentioned Mr Clinton’s name on the stump recently. Moments later, during a rally at the West Virginia war Memorial in Charleston, Mr Bush declared: “This nation is sick and tired of the politics of personal destruction. They want a uniter not a divider ... This nation does not want four more years of Clinton/Gore.” Later, an amused Mr Bush told reporters: “I said Clinton/Gore. I broke my pledge. You got me all riled up. So I said his name.” Mr Bush’s wife, Laura, who opened the convention on prime-time television on Monday night with a speech in which she too spoke about “honor and dignity” in the White House, interrupted to defend herself. “I wasn’t talking about President Clinton. I was talking about my husband and what it means when people come up with pictures of their children and say “don’t let us down,”’ she said. |
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Boycott I-Day,
says Panun WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (PTI) —The Indo-American Kashmir Forum and Panun Kashmir-USA have called upon Hindu and Sikh refugees of Kashmir and Ladakhi Buddhists not to participate in the official functions of Indian missions on Independence Day in protest against the Indian government’s “disastrous policies” towards Kashmiri minorities. “The disastrous policies towards the Kashmiri minorities over the years have reduced them from once thriving communities to destitute homeless refugees,” Dr Jagan Kaul, senior vice-president of the forum, alleged in a statement. Demanding a self-governing union territory for the Kashmiri Pandits in the valley and reorganisation of the state to give the status of full states to Jammu and Ladakh, he charged the government with remaining “indifferent” towards minorities and taking a wrong position “by designating victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Kashmir as migrants.” “After waiting for a decade, we have been forced to resort to this line of action. Our civic, human, political, economic and citizenship rights have not only been violated but altogether snatched”, he said. The statement accused the Indian Government of negotiating with “known enemies of India while being completely indifferent towards those uprooted for being loyal citizens.” The two organisations directed their members to organise and participate in functions of Indo-American associations on August 15 and “tell the story of ethnic cleansing and genocide” against Kashmiri minorities spearheaded by Islamic fundamentalists. |
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More peacekeepers in S.Leone needed: Annan UNITED NATIONS, Aug 2 (PTI) — Terming the situation in war-torn Sierra Leone “dangerous and volatile”, UN Secretary-General Kofi-Annan told the Security Council that the strength of the peacekeeping mission there needs to be augmented from the current 13,000. In a report to the council recommending extension of the mandate of the UN mission in Sierra Leone, which expires on August 7, by another six months, Mr Annan said the continued threat from the Revolutionary United Front rebels was a matter of “grave concern”. The rebels continue to attack the UN mission and pro-government forces and show “no credible sign” of being ready to resume the peace process, Mr Annan said in the report. Last night, the United Nations warned Liberia and Burkina Faso to either cease support to Revolutionary United Front rebels or face stiff measures. ACCRA (Reuters): United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been decorated with Ghana’s highest honour while on an official visit to his West African homeland. Annan became a companion of the Order of the Star of Ghana at a state banquet given on Tuesday night by President Jerry Rawlings, who decorated him with a colourful sash. |
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Taliban amnesty
offer rejected KABUL, Aug 2 (AFP) — Resistance forces in Afghanistan today rejected an offer of amnesty from the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban militia, saying that his words were hollow and their fight would go on. Opposition spokesman Mohammad Habeel said Taliban chief Mulla Mohammad Omar’s call on the resistance to surrender was “just hollow words and a waste of time to hear”. Mr Omar yesterday offered amnesty to his opponents and guaranteed the safety of those who joined his regime. |
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Russian navy in the Mediterranean? MOSCOW, Aug 2 (UNI) — After a decade of absence from the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Navy intends to make a comeback in a big way. A special command would be established for the purpose and the fleet in the Mediterranean would be led by aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, commander-in-chief of Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Kuryedov disclosed here. Admiral Kuryedov said the Russian fleet would be stronger than the one which patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean during the cold war. |
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SUVA: Small-holding
farmer Gyan Datt, rear, and his wife Sapaya, Indian Fijian, shed tears as their family home, built by their grandfather, smoulders in Suva, Fiji,
on Wednesday, in the wake of attacks. The homes of three ethnic Indian Fijian families in Muaniweni district, west of Suva, were attacked
on Monday. — AP/PTI
