W O R L D

US travel advisory against Pak
WASHINGTON, Aug 12 — The US Government has warned Americans in Pakistan and its citizens travelling through that country of possible threat to their security from Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, who commands public sympathy and support in Pakistan, besides activities of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which is on the US terrorists list.

‘Invite’ Dalai Lama to peace summit
WASHINGTON, Aug 12 — The USA has criticised the organisers of the millennium world peace summit, to be held in New York next month, for not inviting the Dalai Lama as a full participant saying as a voice of moderation and conciliation, the Tibetan spiritual leader deserves to be heard.

WORLD BRIEFS

FUZHOU: Two little green peacocks make their debut to the public on the back of their mother at the Forest Park in Fuzhou, capital of South China's Fujian province, on Friday. — AP/PTI

Chandrika to go ahead with plan
COLOMBO, Aug 12 — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said she plans to convert the next Parliament, to be constituted after the general elections, into a Constituent Assembly and get it ratified, if the Opposition United National Party (UNP) persists with its attempts to block the new Constitution Bill in Parliament.

US author jailed
SEATTLE, Aug 12 — A prominent US author who championed “moderate drinking” over abstinence as a way to handle alcoholism was sentenced to four years and six months in jail for a deadly car crash she caused while driving drunk.

Convicts’ DNA to prove innocence
SAN DIEGO, Aug 12 — There is hope in sight for prisoners in southern California who have been behind bars for years for crimes they say they did not commit. The public prosecutor’s office in San Diego intends to be the first in the USA to offer free DNA testing to prisoners sentenced before the introduction of forensic genetic testing methods.

Don’t blame Gore for my mistakes: Clinton

British aid for Assam flood-hit
LONDON, Aug 12 — Britain announced today that it was giving £ 250,000 to help flood victims in Assam. “Of all floods in south-east Asia, India is suffering the most and particularly Assam...We are keen on doing everything we can to help,’’ said International Development Minister George Foulkes.

India, Pak acquiring deadly weapons: CIA

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (PTI) — The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) continues to view nine countries, including India and Pakistan, as acquirers of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Russia and China as key suppliers.

Besides India and Pakistan, other countries being observed by the CIA are Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Egypt.

The CIA in its report to the Congress says countries like Pakistan and Iran, which possess WMD are further developing technology and may become not only seekers but proliferants of such weapons.

The report says Russia’s commitment to curb proliferation-related transfers remains uncertain. Russian businesses continue to be major suppliers of WMD equipment to Iran.

Similarly, North Korea continues to export significant ballistic missile components and technical expertise to Pakistan, the Middle East and North Africa.

Exports of ballistic missiles and related technology are one of the North Korea’s major sources of hard currency, which fuel continued missile development and production.

Iran remains one of the most active countries seeking to acquire WMD and advanced conventional weapons (ACW) technology from abroad.

Evidence also indicates increased Iranian efforts to acquire WMD and ACW-related equipment, materials and technology primarily from entities in Russia, China, North Korea and western Europe.

US travel advisory against Pak

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (PTI) — The US Government has warned Americans in Pakistan and its citizens travelling through that country of possible threat to their security from Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, who commands public sympathy and support in Pakistan, besides activities of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which is on the US terrorists list.

The warning issued by the State Department asked US citizens to evaluate carefully the implication for their safety and security before deciding to travel to Pakistan.

It said the Clinton administration continues to receive, a growing body of information that suggests strongly that extremists passed in Afghanistan are preparing to attack US interests in Pakistan in the near future.

On August 6 the US Embassy in Islamabad had decided to defer all official travel to the tribal areas of the country’s northwest frontier province, areas which lie outside the normal jurisdiction of the government of Pakistan. At the same time, the US Embassy urged that private Americans defer planned travel through or to the tribal areas.

‘Invite’ Dalai Lama to peace summit

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (PTI) — The USA has criticised the organisers of the millennium world peace summit, to be held in New York next month, for not inviting the Dalai Lama as a full participant saying as a voice of moderation and conciliation, the Tibetan spiritual leader deserves to be heard.

“We are deeply disappointed that the summit organisers took the decision not to invite the Dalai Lama to the millennium world peace summit of religious and spiritual leaders as a full participant,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday, in a belated response to the controversy.

The Dalai Lama, Mr Boucher, said, “is one of the most revered religious and spiritual leaders. As a voice of moderation and conciliation, he deserves to be heard. The conference would benefit from his participation.”

The organisers had decided against inviting the Dalai Lama at the conference’s venue at the United Nations building for fear of offending China, which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and considers him as a separatist.

But when their action drew wide condemnation, including from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the organisers decided to hold the concluding session at the Waldorf Astoria and invited the Dalai Lama there.

However, the Dalai Lama graciously declined the invitation but said he would send representatives to the conference.

The Dalai Lama’s office said last week that the way the organisers handled the invitation “appears to be the result of pressure from the Chinese Government.” It deeply concerns peace workers worldwide, the office noted.

The organisers are a consortium of non-governmental groups but the UN is sponsoring the conference.

Ex-Starr aides "guilty of contempt"

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) — Kenneth Starr’s spokesman during the Monica Lewinsky investigation should be found guilty of criminal contempt of court for lying about his role in news leaks during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, the U.S. Justice Department has said. It said Charles Bakaly, the ex-spokesman to former independent counsel Starr, lied in a sworn court declaration when he denied leaking secret information from Mr Starr’s office to the New York Times.

The January 31, 1999, article cited unnamed “associates” of Starr as saying the independent counsel had decided President Clinton could be indicted while in office for perjury and obstruction of justice for trying to hide his affair with the former White House intern Lewinsky.

The story appeared as the senate considered impeachment charges that arose from Mr Starr’s investigation into the Lewinsky matter. The Senate later acquitted Mr Clinton of the perjury and obstruction charges.

In proposed findings of facts and conclusions of law, the Justice Department said the judge should find the “evidence demonstrates a pattern of deception by Mr Bakaly in all his dealings concerning this article.”

It said Bakaly’s motives to lie were “obvious,” as he had betrayed the trust that Mr Starr had placed in him and contributed to an article highly damaging to Mr Starr’s office.

“Mr Bakaly had every incentive to minimise and conceal the extent of his role as a source for the article. And that he did so time and again, lying to his employer, his colleagues, his attorneys, the FBI and finally, this court,” the Justice Department said in the 27-page filing.

Bakaly’s lawyers have maintained he told the truth in his sworn court declaration about what he said to the reporter. They said the prosecutors presented no evidence Bakaly discussed “non-public” information with the reporter.

The Justice Department said Bakaly knowledge of his guilt was confirmed by his comments to FBI agents in February 1999 that he believed he might be disbarred and prosecuted for his conduct.

Chandrika to go ahead with plan

COLOMBO, Aug 12 (PTI) — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said she plans to convert the next Parliament, to be constituted after the general elections, into a Constituent Assembly and get it ratified, if the Opposition United National Party (UNP) persists with its attempts to block the new Constitution Bill in Parliament.

Admitting that attempts by the Buddhist monks and the UNP to scuttle the Bill from getting a two-thirds majority in Parliament were a setback, Mrs Chandrika told state television in an interview last night that she was confident of the Bill ratified within two months after the general election, which was proposed to be held later this year.

The present Parliament was scheduled to be dissolved on August 4.

She said from now on she proposed to use the mandate given to her by people during the past nine national and regional elections since 1994 and get the Bill approved with a simple majority by next Parliament and later convert it into a Constituent Assembly to ratify the same.

She said she had obtained strong national and international legal opinion in favour of her proposals to convert Parliament into a Constituent Assembly, which would reduce her dependence on the reluctant UNP.

The Bill proposed to scrap the executive presidency and replace it with parliamentary democracy. It also sought to grant broad autonomy to the Tamil-dominated north-eastern province.

Without directly referring to the monks, she said the Sinhala extremist groups and chauvinist elements who opposed the Bill should mobilise 20,000 to join the army to fight against the LTTE, if they wanted to continue with the war.

“They should also stop receiving salaries and agree to stop all developmental work,” he said.

For their part, the monks too appeared undeterred. The top priest of an influential Buddhist sect appealed to all parties and groups to forge a united stand to defeat the Bill in Parliament.

Monk Vipassi Thera of Malwatte chapter of Buddhism, based in southern Kandy town, has been quoted in the local media today saying the Bill should be defeated at all costs as its ratification could result in the division of the country.

The monks have been propagating that the Bill granted too much autonomy to the Tamil provinces, while the moderate Tamil parties and the LTTE rejected it saying that it offered little to satisfy their aspirations.

Meanwhile, Mrs Chandrika’s newly appointed Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake met the top monks at Kandy yesterday.

Mr Wickramanayake, who has replaced octogenarian leader, Sirimavo Bandaranayake on August 10, enjoys the reputation of a Sinhala hardliner having close links with the top hierarchy of the monks.

US author jailed

SEATTLE, Aug 12 (DPA) — A prominent US author who championed “moderate drinking” over abstinence as a way to handle alcoholism was sentenced to four years and six months in jail for a deadly car crash she caused while driving drunk.

During the trial in Ellensburg, Washington, Audrey Kishline, 43, had pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in April and crashing her small truck head-on into a car whose two occupants were killed.

Kishline had three times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood and was driving east in the Westbound lanes of a crowded inter-state highway. The victims were a man and his 12-year-old daughter.

Six years ago, Kishline founded her controversial national “moderation management” (MM) movement after finding abstinence-based programmes, such as the ones offered by alcoholics anonymous (AA), “demoralising”.

Instead of accepting the AA rule that alcoholism is a lifelong affliction that can only be handled with constant sobriety, Kishline developed a theory of responsible drinking.

She outlined her ideas in the 1995 book “Moderate Drinking: the moderation management guide for people who want to reduce their drinking’’.

MM members are asked to follow a nine-step programme that includes 30 days of abstinence, followed by the establishment of personal “drinking limits”.

In her book, Kishline agreed with controversial theories that describe excessive drinking as “learned behaviour” that can be altered by the drinker.

The MM guidelines also specify a “zero tolerance” for drinking and driving.

Even Kishline pointed out, though, that those most severely dependant on alcohol must abstain to see improvements in their lives. She primarily focused on “problem drinkers”, whose lives have not yet been destroyed by alcoholism.

Convicts’ DNA to prove innocence

SAN DIEGO, Aug 12 (DPA) — There is hope in sight for prisoners in southern California who have been behind bars for years for crimes they say they did not commit. The public prosecutor’s office in San Diego intends to be the first in the USA to offer free DNA testing to prisoners sentenced before the introduction of forensic genetic testing methods.

The tests could start within six months. They would involve taking a genetic sample from the prisoner and comparing it with stored evidence related to the crime, whether of blood or sperm or other tissue.

If the tests cast serious doubt on the convictions, there will be a retrial.

“We very much hope that we have not locked up someone who does not deserve it. We have the responsibility of ensuring that this is not the case,” Ms Denise Vedder, the spokeswoman for the state prosecutor, told the German press agency DPA.

Several prisoners had already phoned the office to express their interest in a DNA test, she said. The costs, amounting to around $ 5,000 would be born by the state, she said.

To date the prosecutor’s office has often blocked prisoners’ applications for DNA tests with the argument that there was no provision in law for introducing new evidence years after the event.

“We would, however, rather go onto the offensive before the prisoners come down on us,” Ms Vedder says. Prosecutors in other states are interested in the plan, and there are reported to be similar initiatives underway in Illinois and Texas.

The debate on prisoners who have been convicted but are in fact innocent is at its sharpest when it comes to death sentences.

Since 1992 DNA tests have created doubt in at least 70 cases across the USA, according to the Innocence Project based in new York. Among them were eight in which the death sentence was imposed.

At the beginning of June, Texas Governor George W. Bush, the presidential candidate, delayed an execution because the condemned man, Ricky McGinn, requested a DNA test. In fact the test provided serious evidence against the man, who had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his 12-year-old step-daughter.

The San Diego authorities do not expect the scheme to lead to retrials on a large scale.

Of 36 cases looked into thus far a DNA test would be useful in only one case, according to Ms Vedder, as in the remaining 35, the convicted men or women had either admitted guilt in court, or there was no genetic material left at the scene — such as in drive-by shootings.

Don’t blame Gore for my mistakes: Clinton

WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (PTI) — Remorseful over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, US President Bill Clinton has asked Americans not to hold Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore for the former’s sins.

“Surely, no fairminded person would blame him for any mistakes that I made,” President Clinton said yesterday before a gathering of evangelical ministers.

President Clinton said Vice-President Gore “does not get enough credit for a lot of the things that I have done that he was the main executor on.”

On elections, he said an election is like a horse race.

A horse may be behind in the early part of the race but gather speed and win in the last part. Citing an example, he said “in recent polls, one day Governor George Bush was ahead of Gore by 19 points.

Then Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his running mate and Gore came two points ahead of Bush.”

British aid for Assam flood-hit

LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) — Britain announced today that it was giving £ 250,000 to help flood victims in Assam. “Of all floods in south-east Asia, India is suffering the most and particularly Assam...We are keen on doing everything we can to help,’’ said International Development Minister George Foulkes.

“The Red Cross has made an appeal for just over £ 2 million. The UK has agreed to give a quarter of a million towards this and I hope that other governments will follow suit,’’ he told BBC Radio.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says that at least 4.5 million persons have been made homeless by heavy flooding in India and has warned that worse could be on its way.

There has been widespread monsoon flooding in the north and north-east of India as well as Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, where about 300 persons are feared dead and millions left homeless.

Mr Foulkes said the British aid money to Assam would be spent on medicines, shelter, clean water and food.

WORLD BRIEFS

Hotel mulled ban on co-pilot for lewdness
WASHINGTON: A New York hotel mulled banning the co-pilot at the controls of doomed Egyptair Flight 990 because of an alleged pattern of sexual misconduct towards the staff and guests and discussed its concerns with his employer, FBI documents made public have showed. A room maid, for instance, claimed the co-pilot, Gamil Al-Batouti, had propositioned her in vain as many as 20 times, most recently the night before the October 31, 1999, crash. — Reuters

Madonna gives birth to second child
LOS ANGELES: Pop icon Madonna (41) has given birth to her second child, a boy, three weeks early by Caesarean section, the British daily, the Sun, has reported in its online edition. He boyfriend Guy Ritchie had rushed her to Los Angeles hospital on Wednesday, entering through a staff entrance, the report said. The previous day the one-time material girl said she expected a boy by September, but did not want to give birth in Britain because she valued “efficiency” in hospitals. — DPA

1.75 million being trained for ‘jehad’
WASHINGTON: About 1.75 million Pakistani boys are being trained in nearly 7,000 madrassas (religious schools) across Pakistan to be sent to Kashmir and various other parts of the world to fight “jehad” against “infidels”, a US media report said on Friday. Over 2,000 such “students” of one particular madrassa are on their way to Kashmir, The Washington Times said in a front page report. The report, quoting a fundamentalist leader who runs one such school, said around 13,000 boys had passed out of his school after being trained as fighters of “jehad”. — PTI

Security Council for ban on child soldiers
UNITED NATIONS: The Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution calling on all 189 member states of the United Nations to sign an agreement banning the use of child soldiers. The resolution is the latest in a series of council decisions aimed at improving the protection of children in armed conflict. It also emphasised the responsibility of all states to exclude from amnesty arrangements anyone responsible for grave crimes against children. — AFP

Italians like cinema, dislike reading
ROME: Italians are increasingly attracted by moving pictures and dislike reading, according to a survey on free time published by the National Bureau ISTAT. The percentage of Italians who declared the cinema as their favourite cultural pastime rose to 47.3 per cent in 1998 compared to 41.9 per cent in 1996, ISTAT said on Friday. Newspaper readership fell from 61.1 per cent in 1997 to 57.8 per cent in 1998. — DPA

Disney owes $ 240 m for stealing ideas
ORLANDO: The Walt Disney Co stole ideas for a sports complex from two businessman and should pay $ 240 million in damages, a jury has ruled. Nicholas Stracick, Edward Russell and their company, All Pro Sports Canps Inc, accused Disney of fraud, theft if trade secrets, breaking of an implied contract and breaching a confidential relationship. The six-member jury on Friday accepted all claims except fraud. — AP

Crashed World War-II bomber found
MOSCOW: The US Navy bomber, Ventura, lifted off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands into a snowstorm on March 25, 1944, heading for a sortie over northern Japan, and disappeared. The American military announced on Friday it found the plane, which crashed into a mountain in Russia’s Far-East, and might be able to identify and return to their families the remains of the seven crew members. A team positively identified wreckage on the slope of a volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula as belonging to the Ventura, said US Army Gen Roland Lajoie, chairman of the US Russian Joint Commission on Soldiers Missing in Action. — AP

Teacher is running mate of Buchanan
LONG BEACH: Conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan, who controls one of the two rival reform party conventions meeting next door to each other, has picked a little-known black woman educator, Ezola Foster, as his running mate. Taking a break from four days of loud bickering with an alternative reform party convention determined to put physicist John Hagelin on the ballot, Buchanan on Friday introduced the 62-year-old foster to reporters before the two boarded a boat called “fantasea one” for a tour of long beach harbour. Buchanan introduced Foster, who spent 33 years as a high school teacher in Los Angeles, as the first black woman ever to stand for vice-president, ignoring the 1980 run by black radical activist Angela Davis on the Communist Party ticket. — Reuters

Polish court clears Walesa
WARSAW: Poland’s former President Lech Walesa was cleared on Saturday of accusations he collaborated with the Communist-era secret police, allowing him to stand as a candidate in presidential elections in October. The decision by the special court clears the cloud of accusations of collaboration with the secret police, the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (SB), that have dogged Walesa since 1992, when political opponents named the then President as an SB agent. “The court has concluded that Lech Walesa’s declaration corresponds to the truth,” Chief Judge Pawel Rysinski said. — AFP