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| Wednesday, August 30, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Chances of W. Asia peace summit recede CAIRO, Aug 29 — US President Bill Clinton and his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, discussed new ideas today for resolving outstanding issues in Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. Abu Sayyaf takes American hostage Religious summit opens
at UN |
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Burundi peace deal signed despite boycott ARUSHA (Tanzania), Aug 29 — Most of Burundi’s political factions signed a power-sharing deal aimed at ending a seven-year-old civil war on Monday but six hardline ethnic Tutsi parties boycotted the agreement.
Russia’s ‘Red pride’ wounded Chechens behind TV tower fire? |
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| Pak asked to send
Mujib’s killers back DHAKA, Aug 29 — Bangladesh has asked Pakistan to repatriate the killers of the country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who have taken shelter in that country, Foreign Secretary C.M. Shafi Sami said today. Nixon ‘took drug’ in White House Put up or shut up, Gore tells Bush How dolphins keep in touch French Interior
Minister quits
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Chances of W. Asia peace summit recede CAIRO, Aug 29 (DPA) — US President Bill Clinton and his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, discussed new ideas today for resolving outstanding issues in Palestinian-Israeli peace
talks. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa and US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross indicated afterwards that the ideas discussed were not enough to clear the way for a second Israeli-Palestinian summit. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat are due in New York next week for the annual UN General Assembly meeting. Mr Ross told reporters that Mr Clinton would meet separately with Arafat and Barak — putting a damper on speculation of another summit following the Camp David meeting in July. After landing in Cairo earlier in the day, President Clinton spent an hour aboard his plane with Mr Ross, who briefed him on his contacts with Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian officials over the past two weeks. An hour later, Mr Mubarak arrived and the two held talks with their advisers for 90 minutes, while Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, was taken on a private tour to one of Cairo’s old mosques. ‘‘We are making some consultations so that we can help the parties reach a framework (agreement). It’s very important, we hope to finish it by
September,’’ Mr Mubarak told reporters. Mr Clinton admitted in a statement that ‘‘the time is short for resolving this... so, we’re going to work together and see if we find a way to help the parties get over this next big hump.’’ ‘‘Our focus is much more on reaching the agreement than a particular date... that’s where the real effort and energy is right now, more than anything else’’, Mr Ross added. Following the failure of Camp David in July, US officials were quoted as saying Egypt did not do enough to convince Arafat to accept a settlement, or at least to defer agreement over Jerusalem. Egyptians reacted angrily — and Clinton’s visit was partly seen as an attempt to overcome the misunderstanding. ‘‘I think all parties understand that without the involvement and leadership and support of Egypt, they won’t be able to do it,’’ Mr Clinton said to a smiling Mubarak. ‘‘President Mubarak has been critical to this process for nearly 20 years, now — certainly in all the time that I’ve been here,’’ Mr Clinton added. JERUSALEM:
Israel today demolished three Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, claiming they were built without the necessary permits. However, Palestinians said the homes were demolished in order to clear land for the expansion of nearby Pisgat Ze’ev Israeli settlement. A large Israeli police force comprising over 1,500 offices besieged since the early hours of the morning. Bulldozers started immediately to demolish the homes while the police kept the Palestinian residents at bay, in order to prevent
friction. |
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Abu Sayyaf takes American hostage ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Aug 29 (AFP) — Muslim extremist guerrillas claimed today that they have kidnapped an American man to add to the group of six Europeans they are holding hostage on the southern Philippine island of Jolo. US officials, hostage negotiators and the local police said they are checking the claim made by the Abu Sayyaf. The gunmen’s spokesman Abu Sabaya told DXRZ radio in the southern city of Zamboanga that they are holding an American man named Jeffrey Craig Schilling, who they claim is a spy for the US Central Intelligence Agency. “We have heard of this report and obviously we are checking it. But we can’t confirm it yet,” US Embassy spokesman Tom Skipper told AFP. Sabaya said his group abducted the American in Zamboanga yesterday and had taken him by boat to Jolo, about 150 km southwest of the city. He offered to swap the supposed new victim for convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Youssef and a number of suspected Islamic terrorists held in US jails. “We interrogated him about the CIA and the different revolutionary movements in the world and he was quick to answer, until we learned that he is a member of the CIA,” Sabaya told the station in an
interview. |
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Religious
summit opens at UN UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29 — The millennium world peace summit of religious and spiritual leaders drawn from more than 50 countries began at the United Nations General Assembly Hall last afternoon. The soundbeat of Taiko drums by Japanese players heralded the inauguration of the four-day event. The cloudburst in Manhattan around noon had threatened to disrupt the solemn procession of the delegates at the entrance of the UN headquarters, but the rain god relented, as the religious leaders arrived to a traditional Hindu welcome by Indian women clad in colourful sari and salwar kameezes. About 1,000 representatives of different religions and faiths are attending the summit aimed at finding an advisory role for the world’s religious leaders in the UN efforts at conflict resolution. The Dalai Lama was conspicuous by his absence, and the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, once again denied that he was responsible for the exclusion, saying that the summit was being organised by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that was using UN facilities. Mr Annan told reporters that he had indicated that it would have been preferable if everybody was there, but he thought that the participation by three representatives of the Dalai Lama with another 1,000 religious leaders to talk about peace and to talk about the role of religion in the search for peace was progress. He hoped that it would help peace processes around the world, “through their prayer, through their work and what they do when they go back to their own communities.” The opening ceremony was marked by invocations from different faiths and blowing of conch shells. The audience presented a riot of colour with delegates dressed in saffron and white robes and in scar-let. The summit’s Secretary-General, Bawa Jain from India, opened the event with a call to political and religious leaders around the world to join in securing global peace and security. He told fellow-delegates: “Crises in the world cannot be resolved without your leadership, your wisdom, guidance and blessing.” Bawa Jain exhorted the religious leaders to work out a realistic programme that could help the United Nations in achieving its goals for the good of humankind. The summit is financed largely by a foundation sponsored by media baron Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network (CNN), and is organised in conjunction with the UN. On Sunday night, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of the USA held a reception and dinner at Waldorf Astoria in honour of the Indian delegation to the summit. |
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Burundi peace deal signed despite boycott ARUSHA (Tanzania), Aug 29 (Reuters) — Most of Burundi’s political factions signed a power-sharing deal aimed at ending a seven-year-old civil war on Monday but six hardline ethnic Tutsi parties boycotted the agreement. Thirteen of the 19 delegations who have laboured through peace talks for over two years agreed to the terms of a document drafted by mediator Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s former President. They included the government of President Pierre Buyoya, the National Assembly and the main opposition parties representing Burundi’s majority ethnic Hutus. A coalition of 10 Tutsi parties had earlier said they would not sign the power-sharing deal but Mr Mandela and Mr Clinton persuaded four of them to change their minds just minutes before the signing ceremony. Mr Mandela’s team at first thought 14 delegations had signed the agreement but later realised that only 13 were backing it. US President Bill Clinton, on the second African tour of his presidency, was on hand in this north Tanzanian town to give his seal of approval to the deal. It calls for a three-year transition period during which democratic elections will be organised and Hutus will be given equal representation in the Army, which is currently dominated by Tutsis. Tutsis make up less than 20 percent of Burundi’s seven million population but have controlled its government, economy and military since independence from Belgium in 1962. The Tutsi hardliners said they were not willing to sign a power-sharing deal with leaders of the majority Hutu population without Hutu rebel groups first agreeing to a ceasefire. Mr Mandela lambasted their attitude and accused them of not caring for the plight of their countrymen. “The smallest parties are those who are sabotaging this agreement,” Mr Mandela told delegates to the peace talks. “Burundi’s three main armed rebel groups are not represented at the talks. They say they support its aims but have no intention of declaring an immediate ceasefire. Mr Clinton called on all sides to take advantage of Mandela’s active role as mediator and the international goodwill that would meet an agreement. Many Tutsis fear that giving power to Hutus could expose them to the threat of ethnic slaughter along the lines of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, where Hutu extremists murdered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just 100 days. Burundi’s post-independence history is also scarred by a series of ethnic massacres carried out by both Hutus and Tutsis. |
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Russia’s ‘Red pride’ wounded TWO days into the towering inferno that blanked out Moscow television screens and deprived 10 m Muscovites of their daily soap opera fix, the pinnacle of Europe’s tallest structure was wobbling last night — a cruel symbol of how Russia’s once soaring ambitions are tumbling into hubris and humiliation. The Ostankino television tower, rising 540 metres to dominate the capital’s skyline, was until Sunday a monument to Russian power and prestige and hi-tech can-do, just as — until two weeks ago — the Kursk nuclear submarine was seen as a measure of Russia’s military prowess. Gutted by fire and in danger of collapsing into a mangled heap of steel, cable and ferro-concrete, the TV tower yesterday (Monday) made yet another eloquent mockery of President Vladimir Putin’s pledges to make Russia great again. In contrast to his aloof, delayed reaction to the submarine disaster, however, Mr Putin was quick yesterday to label the TV tower blaze a metaphor for the state of the nation. “This emergency highlights the condition of our vital facilities as well as of the entire nation,” he declared. “Only economic development will enable us to prevent such calamities in future.” The wobbling spire of the secular cathedral was not a problem, argued Anvar Hamuzafarov, chief of the National Construction Committee, as 300 firefighters finally extinguished the blaze last night. “All deviations are within the norm,” he said. But a Moscow city surveyor said the tip of the tower was tilting 6 ft off the centre. The main fear was that the 149 steel cables holding up the slender 33-year-old concrete structure could buckle and send at least parts of it crashing. “The cables are weakened, but not broken,” said Vyacheslav Mulishkin, deputy head of the Russian fire department. There are few prouder symbols in Moscow of once-hailed Soviet supremacy and Russian prowess than the Ostankino tower. Erected in 1967 at the height of the arms and space race with the US and to mark the 50th anniversary of the Russian revolution, the north Moscow monument, with its revolving Seventh Heaven restaurant commanding a panoramic view of the city, instantly overtook New York’s Empire State Building as the world’s tallest structure. That was then. Ten years of post-Soviet meltdown, retreat from empire, mass impoverishment and colossal corruption have turned Russia into a vast accident waiting to happen. For professional catastrophists employed by the Ministry of Emergencies come the predictions that endemic bungling, combined with lack of money, will lead to radiation and toxic alerts in the years ahead, as well as air crashes, pipeline ruptures and building collapses. President Putin’s appeal to Russians is that he represents to them the best option for fashioning order from this chaos, stability from mayhem. But while he promises a restoration of greatness, he also told the grieving relatives of the Kursk crewmen last week that Russia had to learn to live within its means. All the evidence yesterday suggested that the conflagration had been sparked by negligence and refusals to heed the warnings of experts. The fire department said that even when first built, the Ostankino tower had failed to satisfy the safety regulations. An inspection in May resulted in it being denied the required safety paperwork since its power supply system was 30 per cent overloaded, making the kind of short circuit that occurred on Sunday afternoon virtually inevitable. — The Guardian, London |
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Chechens behind TV tower fire? MOSCOW, Aug 29 (Reuters) — A Chechen rebel website said yesterday that field commander Shamil Basayev was behind a fire here which damaged the world’s second tallest television tower and killed at least two persons. The site quoted a statement by his command that rebels had paid money to an employee of the Ostankino tower to carry out the terrorist act. Russian investigators have not yet reached any conclusion about the causes but they said they did not believe it could be the result of a terrorist act. |
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Pak asked to send
Mujib’s killers back DHAKA, Aug 29 (PTI) — Bangladesh has asked Pakistan to repatriate the killers of the country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who have taken shelter in that country, Foreign Secretary C.M. Shafi Sami said today. The government has information that Major (retd) Shariful Huq Dalim, the self-confessed killer of Mujibur Rahman, is now staying in Pakistan while a dismissed colonel, one of the prime accused in the assassination, made frequent trips there, Mr Sami said. |
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Nixon ‘took drug’ in White House NEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters) — A new biography of President Richard Nixon says he medicated himself with a mood-altering drug in the White House and also beat his wife, according to Sunday’s New York Times which quotes the book. The book says President Nixon was depressed by hostile public reaction to the bombing of Cambodia in 1970 and had consulted a New York psychotherapist who considered him ‘’neurotic.’’ The book, “The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon’’ by
Anthony summers, an Irish journalist, was released by Viking on Monday. The paper also quotes the biography as saying that Defence Secretary James Schlesinger was concerned about Mr Nixon and ordered all military units not to react to orders from the White House unless it was cleared with him or the secretary of state. The Times says that Mr Schlesinger confirmed the account in an interview with the paper and says that the quotes attributed to him in the book ‘’was how he felt.’’ According to the book, President Nixon was given the prescription drug Dilantin in 1968 by Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund who was also an enthusiastic promoter and user of the drug. In an interview with The Times this week, Dreyfus confirmed the account, the paper says. Dreyfus told the times he gave Nixon a bottle of 1,000, 100-milligram capsules “when his mood wasn’t too good,’’ and later gave the president another 1,000 capsules. The Times quoted a doctor at Cornell Medical School as saying the drug potentially had very serious side effect risks, like a change of mental status, confusion, memory loss and could affect cognitive function. Another charge made in the book is that Mr Nixon beat his wife, Pat. The Times observes that the author relies on second-hand accounts and writes of various journalists being told of beatings. The Nixon family called the accusation of wife-beating false. |
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Put up or shut up, Gore tells Bush ABOARD AIR FORCE TWO, (USA), Aug 29 (Reuters) — Vice-President Al-Gore threw the gauntlet in the 2000 presidential race, telling Republican George W. Bush that it was “time to put up or shut up” and offer specifics to ensure a campaign worthy of “the greatest nation on earth.” Ahead in polls and in recent days, dictating the campaign’s tone, the Democratic nominee wants to make sure the election is driven by issues, rather than a contest of personalities. Many pundits believe the popular Texas Governor would win the election. |
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How dolphins
keep in touch WASHINGTON: Dolphins greet one another by “name,” using signature whistles to keep track of one another in murky waters and across distances, a researcher said. While he hesitated to say that the dolphins were actually using language, he said the study showed that dolphins had a clear and consistent vocabulary and were able to identify one another as individuals. “Each dolphin develops a very specific signature signal,” biologist Vincent Janik of the University of St Andrews in Scotland said. “They always use the same call. Some people call it a name.” But because the dolphins seemed to develop their own signature whistles, Mr Janik said the calls were more like Internet screen names or handles. |
French Interior
Minister quits PARIS, Aug 29 (Reuters) — Daniel Vaillant, France’s
current Minister for Relations with Parliament and government
spokesman, will replace Jean-Pierre Chevenement as Interior Minister,
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s Office said today. A loyal Jospin supporter, Mr Vaillant was his campaign manager in the 1997 election in which the Prime Minister scored a surprise victory. Mr
Chevenement resigned from the government earlier in the day over the
government’s plans to give limited autonomy to the Mediterranean
island of Corsica. |
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