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| Wednesday, September 6, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Tidal
flood leaves 50,000 homeless 50-member MPs’ team to probe Wahid’s deals Lankan clashes toll 431 Suu Kyi may get
access to diplomats Israeli PM to offer
partial peace pact
Bush gaffe exposes
anti-Press stance |
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Suu Kyi may get
access to diplomats YANGON, Sept 5 (Reuters) — Myanmar’s ruling military hit out at its Western critics today accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs as it kept Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi locked up inside her home and cut off from the world. Myanmar told Britain it may allow diplomatic access to the Nobel Peace Prize winner within two weeks. Suu Kyi and other senior members of the Opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) have been locked inside their residences for four days after the military forcibly ended a nine-day roadside protest in the early hours of Saturday. Diplomats who tried to visit them were turned away. In a clear reference to the USA and Britain, State-run newspapers today quoted Myanmar’s powerful head of military intelligence, Lieut-Gen Khin Nyunt, as saying “two big Western countries” were meddling in Myanmar’s affairs. “Two big Western countries are applying various means to interfere in and dominate the internal affairs of Myanmar and destroy her relations with the international community,” the papers quoted General Nyunt. “They are trying to drag the Myanmar people into poverty and hardships and to cause unrest in the nation,” he said. Mr John Battle, a junior British Foreign Office Minister, summoned Myanmar’s London ambassador Kyaw Win yesterday to protest at the crackdown and demand information about Suu Kyi. Mr Battle told BBC radio it was the first time the Yangon authorities had admitted Myanmar was in crisis, an admission he attributed to the effect of international diplomatic pressure. Myanmar’s government has reserved its strongest criticism for Britain, releasing a statement on Tuesday denying reports that British ambassador John Jenkins was manhandled at the weekend as he tried to visit leading NLD members. “It is difficult to understand why a foreign ambassador was so adamant on intruding into the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign nation,” it said. “Obviously, the British diplomat has overstepped the universal diplomatic norms.” Meanwhile, Amnesty International has expressed “grave concern” for the safety of Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders, saying the military government should reveal where they are. “If they are being confined to their homes, we strongly urge the Myanmar government to allow them freedom of movement,” it said in a statement sent today. |
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50-member MPs’ team to probe Wahid’s deals JAKARTA, Sept 5 (Reuters, AP) — Indonesia’s Parliament created a 50-member team today to probe two financial “scandals” linked to President Abdurrahman Wahid, an exercise expected to trigger more political tension in the embattled country. The parliamentary probes are the first in Indonesia to involve a President and set the feisty Muslim cleric on another collision course with the House. The first scandal linked to the palace involves the theft of $ 4.1 million from the national food agency Bulog by people claiming to be acting on Wahid’s behalf, including the President’s masseur. The other is Wahid’s acceptance outside government channels of a $ 2 million personal donation from the Sultan of Brunei for humanitarian aid in restive Aceh province. Local media have dubbed the scandals “Buloggate” and “Bruneigate” and the lengthy investigations are expected to keep pressure on the country’s jittery financial markets. “The team will ask for explanations and information from people who are said to be involved in Buloggate and Bruneigate,” said Speaker Akbar Tandjung. “(They also) will ask others who have knowledge of the two cases.” One MP said the investigation could last two to three months. Legislators have the authority to quiz Wahid or the police. The results might be handed over to the police and to the top legislature, People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), which has the power to sack the President. Parliament could also formally censure Wahid over the conclusions. The police has already questioned Wahid over the Bulog scandal, but has taken no further action against him. It has said most of the money has since been returned. The team includes key Wahid critics, such as Ade Komaruddin from the former ruling Golkar party and Alvin Lie of the national mandate party of Amien Rais, an opponent of the president and who heads the
MPR. MPs have already criticised Wahid over his new Cabinet, accusing the Muslim cleric of intentionally marginalising the two biggest groups in the House, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), led by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Golkar, led by Mr Tandjung. Legislators are also still upset over Wahid’s refusal in July to explain why he sacked two ministers one from the PDI-P and the other from Golkar, earlier this year. Mr Wahid accused the two of graft. Both men, PDI-P’s Laksamana Sukardi and Golkar’s Yusuf Kalla, have denied any wrongdoing. Lawmaker Bachtiar Chamsyah, who is expected to head the committee, said the investigative team would be made up of legislators from various political parties and would have the power to subpoena Wahid and police officers linked to the deals. While most parliamentarians have said the probe was not meant to attack the President, both scandals pose threats to his ten-month-old administration. Meanwhile, the bodies of five men have been found in a ravine near the northwest Indonesian city of Medan, fuelling speculation that one of the victims was a US human rights activist who went missing there last month, official said today. The decomposing bodies, all of them men, were found on Sunday around 60 km outside the city in the village of Tanah Karo, and transported Medan’s Pirngadi Hospital for autopsies, said Ginting, a local police official. The discovery of the bodies fuelled speculation that one of the victims was Jaffar Sidiq, who worked for the US-based international forum on aceh. |
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Lankan clashes toll 431 COLOMBO, Sept 5 (Reuters, PTI) — Sporadic fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels continued today as both sides prepared to exchange bodies of the dead from the fiercest fighting in months on the northern Jaffna peninsula. “We are consolidating our positions and there is a lot of firing going on, but there is no major offensive by either side at the moment,” military spokesman Brig Sanath Karunaratne told Reuters. Brigadier Karunaratne said the army would handover the bodies of 37 dead rebels to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which had been found after the guerrillas launched ferocious abortive counter attacks on the outskirts of Jaffna city yesterday. The clandestine radio of the LTTE said today that the rebels were planning to handover 50 bodies of soldiers to the ICRC. However, according to official media the latest Sri Lankan army offensive to push back LTTE guerrillas from the outskirts of northern Jaffna town has claimed 431 lives on both sides. State-run newspaper the Daily News reported that while the death toll for the army had gone up from 114 to 132, a total 299 rebels perished in the latest fighting. The army said yesterday that 43 more soldiers were killed in fresh counter attacks by the rebels in addition to 71 men who died while attempting to push the well-entrenched LTTE defences at Colombuthurai. Over 800 troops were injured in the battle.
Brig Karunaratne said army has taken back vast areas of Colombothurai held by the
LTTE. |
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Isles’ issue blocks peace treaty TOKYO, Sept 5 (Reuters) — Russia and Japan today agreed they would keep talking to resolve a territorial row blocking a peace treaty between them formally ending World War II, but chances of meeting a year-end deadline looked dimmer than ever. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Russian President Vladimir Putin told a news conference that they had agreed to keep discussing the issue after failing to resolve the dispute during their last formal talks today before Mr Putin ends a three-day visit. “We agreed to keep discussing (the matter) in order to sign a peace treaty upon solving the issue of the ownership of the four islands,” Mr Mori said, adding it was not time to talk about setting a new deadline. The dispute over four tiny Russian-held islands that Japan wants back is the sole obstacle to a treaty. Soviet troops seized the islands, located off Japan’s main northern islands of Hokkaido, at the end of the war in 1945. Experts have said chances of meeting the deadline to clinch the elusive peace pact by the end of 2000 were slim. Mr Putin, who invited Mr Mori to visit Moscow soon, said the two leaders had not solved all problems in the islands’ row but added that they would keep trying. “My view is that is what is important is not a deadline, but for both sides to have the goodwill to resolve this difficult problem,” Mr Putin said, speaking through a Japanese interpreter. Mr Putin has been trying to shift the debate away from the islands’ row towards economic issues and bilateral trade. The two leaders signed a parcel of documents pledging closer economic cooperation in a variety of areas, and Mr Putin was meeting Japanese business leaders later to try to persuade them that Russia under his leadership is a safer place to invest. Mr Putin and Mr Mori also signed a document pledging close cooperation in the international arena, where they have similar views on issues such as North Korea, nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism and the role of the United Nations. Mr Mori said Russia had agreed to back Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Mr Putin was set to meet senior Japanese lawmakers, including ex-Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, later today and to visit a judo gymnasium before flying to New York. |
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Tidal flood leaves 50,000 homeless SANDWIP, (Bangladesh), Sept 5 (Reuters) — At least 50,000 persons are homeless after a tidal surge flooded Bangladesh’s Sandwip island with up to eight feet (2.5 metres) of water last week, officials said today. Relief officials earlier reported the tidal flood killed at least six persons, including five children, when it inundated islands about 96 km off the Bangladeshi mainland in the bay of Bengal six days ago. Nearly 100 persons were injured. “No less than 50,000 persons are homeless and they have no hope of resuming a normal life immediately,” one official told a group of journalists who were taken to the island to view the devastation. Islanders also faced an acute shortage of fresh food and drinking water because the tide had flooded their wells. Relief supplies had not yet arrived and officials said they feared an outbreak of violence if they did not arrive soon. Flood waters also swamped areas of the mainland coastal district of cox’s Bazar and it is believed a combined total of 200,000 persons had been badly affected. Officials have so far found the bodies of seven fishermen in the bay. More than 140 others, missing for a week, are believed to have drowned. |
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Israeli PM to offer
partial peace pact JERUSALEM, Sept 5 (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak intends to present US President Bill Clinton with a proposal for a peace deal with the Palestinians without settling the Jerusalem issue, the most intractable issue at the heart of their conflict, an Israeli newspaper reported today. Israel would be willing to sign a final status arrangement agreement, putting aside the question of Jerusalem, if a settlement is not found on the issue of sovereignty over Temple Mount,” the Yediot Aharanot said, citing sources with Mr Barak’s entourage in New York. Temple Mount, built over the site of the Jewish Second Temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., also houses the third holiest sites in Islam, the Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock. Washington: A breakthrough in deadlock over the West Asia peace process seems unlikely when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meet US President Bill Clinton on the sidelines of the UN Millennium Summit in New York, media reports said. “Hopes are fading that the two leaders will meet... there is little chance of a breakthrough....,” Mr Barak’s spokesman was quoted as saying by The Washington Times newspaper
yesterday. |
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Bush gaffe
exposes anti-Press stance NAPERVILLE (Illinois), Sept 5 (AFP) — Republican White House hopeful George W. Bush spoke louder than he thought when he whispered an insult about a journalist to his running mate just prior to a campaign speech. Mr Bush had just mounted the podium at a high school in this Chicago suburb when he pointed out a nearby reporter from a distinguished US daily to his running mate, Dick Cheney. Mr Bush seemed to be unaware that a microphone was picking up what were intended to be private words, spoken in a murmur. “There is Adam Clymer — major league asshole from the New York Times over there,” Mr Bush said. “Yeah, he is big time,” Cheney replied. Bush aides rushed to downplay the comment. “It was a whispered aside to his running mate,” his communications director Karen Hughes told reporters. “It was not intended for public consumption”. “It was in reference to a series of articles which the Governor has felt have been unfair”, she added. Gore’s campaign wasted little time in responding to the gaffe. “In the context of sliding poll numbers, the Governor’s behaviour is both unfortunate and curious,” said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane. “The pressure is getting to him”. “It’s the second time in less than a week that the Governor has broken his promise to ‘change the tone’ of the campaign. First, he used an ad to attack the Vice-President in a very nasty and personal way, now he’s used an expletive to attack a member of the working press”, added
Lehane. |
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Top warlord leaves Chechnya MOSCOW, Sept 5 (DPA) — One of the most wanted leaders of Islamic militant forces fighting the Russian army in Chechnya, the Jordan-born warlord,
Khattab, has quit the war and has involved himself in other conflicts in Central Asia, the Russian FSB Intelligence Service said
today. Khattab, wanted internationally for terrorism, left the Chechan republic in the Russian Caucasus and travelled to Tajikistan. Together with Chechen Field Commander Shamil
Basayev, Khattab coordinated much of the armed resistance to Russian forces in the north Caucasus in the past year. Russian military units in southeast Chechnya killed 13 militants in fresh clashes with separatist forces in the republic, news reports said on Tuesday. Six more rebels were taken prisoner near
Kurchaloi, 40 km east of the regional capital Grozny. |
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South Korea offers talks SEOUL, Sept 5 (Reuters) — South Korea today proposed working-level talks with North Korea on relinking a railroad and highway across the heavily armed demilitarized zone (DMZ) that has divided the two for almost 50 years. Scheduled for completion by next September, the project faces hurdles as the Koreas remain technically at war and involves terrain laced with landmines, some dating from the 1950-53 Korean war. |
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