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| Tuesday, August 8, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Wahid apologises for failure
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 British film icon Guinness deadBritish actor Alec Guinness, whose career on stage and screen spanned more than 60 years, has died at the age of 86, a hospital spokesman said on Monday. Guinness won an Oscar for his role in the classic 1957 war movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and international fame in such blockbusters as “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Star Wars.” Musharraf’s power devolution plan fails Lanka House resumes talks amid defection Gore picks Lieberman as
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| Eight more planets found LONDON, Aug 7 — International teams of astronomers said on Monday they had discovered eight new planets outside our solar system. Five of the new planets were detected in the Southern Hemisphere by astronomers working with information from the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla observatory in Chile. The scientists are based in Geneva, Switzerland. 
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Wahid apologises for failure JAKARTA, Aug 7 (Reuters) — Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid today apologised for the failings of his stormy first year in office, and warned the country risked being torn apart. Fronting the top legislature to account for his rule, Mr Wahid asked the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) to have faith and promised better leadership over the rest of his five year term. “To all the people of Indonesia I apologise if in the past 10 months the government has not fully solved all the problems,” he said in a speech to be read out to the 700-member Assembly. “But please have a faith in us that we will keep trying and working hard and struggle to do even more.” “I will learn a lot from the shortcomings and weaknesses in the past 10 months so I can make many improvements.” Mr Wahid’s much-awaited speech was delayed by heated interjections over a range of unrelated issues, including constitutional reforms and criticism of MPR speaker Amien Rais’ running of the session. Indonesia’s first democratically-elected President listed separatist insurgencies in Aceh and Irian Java as the most pressing problems. As well as the ongoing religious war in the Spice Islands of Moluccas that has killed thousands. “Social disharmony involving religion in the Moluccas clearly brings the potential of serious national disintegration and if not halted it could spread to other parts in Indonesia,” Mr Wahid said in his speech. He added the government would take a tougher action to halt the conflicts, but gave no details. He said the problems confronting the world’s fourth most populous nation were compounded by ongoing political bickering. “A wave of disintegration which threatens the existence of the unity and solidarity of the country has been worsened by the rising conflict and power struggle among the elite and political power,” he said. He said domestic friction would continue scaring off foreign investment badly needed to help kick-start the economy. “If what they (the international community) see are protests, expressions of dissatisfaction, riots and a process of finger-point and blaming one and another then... they will judge us as being incompetent in solving domestic problems,” he said. Mr Wahid, who has travelled to dozens of countries since taking power last October, defended his trips saying it has helped gather substantial international support to combat separatism. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid today told the country’s top legislature that he would reshuffle his heavily-criticised Cabinet at the right time. “We’ll just see, because frankly speaking, until today, I have yet to think of who will be reshuffled and how (this process will take place),” Mr Wahid said in presenting his accountability report to the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR). Mr Wahid makes his long-awaited accountability report to the top legislature today, with many people hoping the erratic Muslim cleric presents a vision for dragging the country out of crisis. While analysts expect Mr Wahid to survive the annual session of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), the gathering will mark a critical 10 days of politics in Indonesia that either lays the foundation for stability or further stokes uncertainty. Security forces have thrown a ring around Jakarta, with tens of thousands of the police and troops on the streets in a bid to prevent violent protests during the session, which runs until August 18. The police has threatened to shoot rioters on sight. |
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British film icon Guinness dead British actor Alec Guinness, whose career on stage and screen spanned more than 60 years, has died at the age of 86, a hospital spokesman said on Monday. Guinness won an Oscar for his role in the classic 1957 war movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and international fame in such blockbusters as “Lawrence of
Arabia" and “Star Wars.” The actor was taken ill on Thursday at his home in Hampshire, southern England, and was rushed to hospital by ambulance. “Sir Alec Guinness passed away at the hospital on Saturday night,” a spokesman for the King Edward VII Hospital in West Sussex, southern England, told Reuters. The spokesman could not confirm the cause of death. Sir Alec had been suffering from ill-health for several years and had undergone cataract surgery to restore his vision, which was badly affected by chronic glaucoma. During a distinguished career, the veteran tackled the full range of acting roles, from Shakespeare to science fiction. Born in London in 1914, his first professional appearance was a walk-on part in “Libel”in 1933. In 1938 he played Hamlet in modern dress at London’s Old Vic Theatre. After serving with the Royal Navy during World War II, he rejoined the Old Vic in 1946. Guinness’ initial screen role was in “Great Expectations” (1946), which was adapted to the screen from the novel by Charles Dickens. Next came “Oliver Twist” (1948) and then a series of Ealing studio comedies that included the internationally popular “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (1949) and “The Lavender Hill Mob” (1951), with Guinness as a mousy clerk-turned-bank robber. Speaking of his role as the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 1977 film Star Wars, Guinness told a British magazine that he had engineered the death of his character to escape having to say “those bloody awful lines”. “I’d had enough of the mumbo jumbo,” he said explaining how he persuaded the film’s director, George Lucas, to have Kenobi killed off by Darth Vader. “ I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars to me,” he added. Guinness, who was knighted in 1960, was famous for his humility and refusal to take on the role of superstar. “You can only be your own personality and I am just happy to be an actor,” he once said. “If I tried to swan around, I wouldn’t know how to behave. If I tried to be a superstar, I’d be a laughing stock.” He was also characteristically humble about his Oscar-winning performance as the Colonel in “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, saying: I don’t look back on it as a great performance.” Sir Alec married the playwright Merula Salaman in 1938 and had one son, Matthew. —
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Musharraf’s power
devolution plan fails ISLAMABAD,
Aug 7 (PTI) — demanding a timeframe for general elections, a grand alliance of over 30 Pakistani political parties have rejected the military government’s power devolution plan, warning against any amendments in the Constitution. “The proposed power devolution plan is neither workable nor practically possible. The holding of elections on non-party basis is against fundamental rights,” the All-Parties’ Conference
(APC) said in a statement in Lahore yesterday. The APC, called to discuss restoration of political activities in the country, said restructuring of the local government system should be left to the discretion of the chosen representatives of the people of Pakistan. The
APC has been convened by a 15-party alliance led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party
(PPP). Ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) is also participating. The
APC has brought together Islamic clerics and secularists, regional nationalists and centrists along with the mainstream parties on a single platform for restoration of democracy. The meeting, the first since General Musharraf came to power, is being held ahead of the military regime’s plan to unveil what it calls a “devolution of power plan to set up elected local councils by mid-2001”. About the accountability process, the conference said it should be absolutely free, fair and transparent. “The present accountability laws are draconian,” it said. |
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Lanka House resumes
talks amid defection COLOMBO,
Aug 7 (PTI) — the Sri Lankan Parliament resumed debate on the controversial constitutional Bill today amid a surprise defection of a ruling party’s lawmaker to the opposition. As the House began discussions on the Bill which seeks to turn the country into a de facto federal state, legislator Dixon J Perera of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP) from Colombo district switched sides and sat with the opposition United National Party. He ironically sat in the same chair earlier occupied by senior unp leader, Ronnie De Mel, who had crossed over to the government side on August 3, the day the Bill was tabled in the House by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. So far, about seven unp mps have defected to the ruling Peoples Alliance (pa) since November last year. Perera’s defection caused concern among the pa leaders as they struggled to mop up the 150 votes to get the necessary two thirds majority in Parliament to pass the Bill, which proposes to change the presidential system to parliamentary democracy and grant broad autonomy to the Tamil dominated north-east region. The government and its allies have around 135 votes but still need the support of 15 more defectors from the unp to get the necessary majority. Meanwhile, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court today began hearing the objections from the unp and several other parties about the legality of the election reforms Bill forwarded to it by the cabinet for its legal opinion. The Bill broadly proposes to change the present proportional representation system to the post system and increase the number of seats of the Parliament from 225 to 298. The court was expected to convey its decision to the Speaker tomorrow before the government formally tables the Bill for consideration by the House. |
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Gore picks Lieberman as mate WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (AP) — Al Gore has selected Connecticut Senator, Joseph Lieberman, to be his running mate, rounding out the democratic ticket with the first Jewish vice presidential candidate in American history. Mr Gore planned to offer Senator Lieberman the job in a phone call later today, according to several Democratic sources familiar with the Vice-President’s thinking, all speaking on condition of anonymity. Lieberman has indicated he will accept. The sources said Mr Gore made his decision after discussions late last night and early this morning with top advisers, including former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who headed the search process, his brother-in-law Frank Hunger, wife Tipper, and campaign chairman, Bill Daley. The Vice-President and his running mate will appear together at a noontime rally tomorrow in Nashville, the sources said. Lieberman (58) beat five other contenders — Sen Evan Bayh (Indiana), Sen John Edwards (North Carolina), Sen John Kerry (Massachusetts); House Minority leader Dick Gephardt (Missouri) and New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen. The Gore campaign hoped Lieberman’s selection would be a bold stroke heading into next week’s Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. He trails rival George W. Bush in polls after last week’s Republican convention. A Democratic centrist, Mr Lieberman would amplify Mr Gore’s support of fiscal discipline and middle class tax cuts, the sources said. Mr Gore considers his pick a respected voice of independence and integrity, and the sources drew a contrast to the Republican ticket’s ties to special interests. CNN said choosing the moderate Democrat and self-styled moral crusader as his running mate signals an effort by Mr Gore to win over independent and Republican voters and distance himself from Mr Clinton’s controversies. While critics brand Sen Lieberman as a liberal who votes for abortion rights, gun control and tax hikes, Democrats say he is more conservative when it comes to issues such as defence spending and family values. National Democratic Committee Chairman Ed Rendell said on Saturday that Mr Lieberman, who does not work or campaign on Saturday in keeping with his orthodox Jewish beliefs, would “almost be a slam dunk” for Mr Gore’s Vice-President if he were episcopalian rather than Jewish. Mr Gore needs a boost from his pick and from the Democratic National Convention that meets in Los Angeles beginning August 14 to erase Republican George W. Bush’s growing lead in the polls. The Texas Governor, pumped up by a new USA Today/CNN gallup poll giving him a 17-point lead over Mr Gore, wrapped up a three-day post-convention train tour in Illinois, declaring: “You know I plan to carry the state of Illinois.” |
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Eight more planets found LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) — International teams of astronomers said on Monday they had discovered eight new planets outside our solar system. Five of the new planets were detected in the Southern Hemisphere by astronomers working with information from the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla observatory in Chile. The scientists are based in Geneva, Switzerland. None of the planets has ever been seen by humans, but scientists believe they are there because of the gravitational pull they exert on the they orbit and the subsequent detectable effect they have on the light the stars emit. One of the five planets that the Geneva astronomers detected made up part of only the second multiplanetary system ever found. The new multi-planet system consists of two Saturn-sized gaseous giant planets, HD 83443 b, which the scientists said they detected in May, and HD 83443c, which they have just discovered. HD 83443c is the lightest planet yet discovered weighing roughly half what Saturn weighs, the astronomers told a conference in the northern England city of Manchester. The planets circle HD 83443 star, 141 light years away from our solar system in the Vela constellation. Only one other extra-solar multi-planetary — three planets around the Upsilon Andromedae star — had previously been detected, the scientists said. The Geneva team also announced the discovery of a new planet in the Northern Hemisphere. The planet, which orbits the HD 190228 star 203 light years away, was found using information gathered at an observatory in Haute-Provence, France. A team of scientists based at the University of California, Berkeley, said they had found three new planets — one orbiting the HD 92788, which was also identified by the Geneva team. All three planets were gas giants similar to Jupiter. In another discovery, the Berkeley scientists found that multi-planetary systems might be more common than was previously thought. One of the Berkeley astronomers, Debra Fischer, said studies of 12 stars which already had one planet circling them had yielded evidence that might indicate that five of them have another planet orbiting them. These stars had “wobbles” which could not be explained simply by the presence of the one planet. “This is the first time anyone has noticed that such a high percentage of stars with one known planet show evidence of a second companion,” Fischer said. “We found changes in the speed of stars that indicate that there is something pulling it around. But without further analysis it is unclear what that
is.” |
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Indonesia President Abdurrahman Wahid (C) arrives for the opening session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) along with Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri (R), and Amein Rais (L), head of the legislative body in Jakarta August 7, 2000. Wahid apologised to the country's top legislature body on Monday for the failings of his stormy first year in office, and warned that the country risked being torn apart.
— REUTERS/Vitasari
