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| Wednesday, September 13, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Fuel protests spread across
Europe Typhoon lashes Japan; 5
dead EU sanctions against Austria to
go Lanka questions CEC’s
integrity Sindh youth being
forced into ‘jehad’ Astronauts open
space station Suharto men
attack protesters |
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Iran indicts 18 for rebels’
murder Iraq blocking
probe: UN chief
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Fuel protests spread across Europe BRUSSELS, Sept 12 — Belgian truckers blocked main roads in the heart of Brussels for a second day yesterday, as protests at the price of fuel rippled across continental Europe. Similar action was seen for the first time in the Netherlands while the Irish Prime Minister, Mr Bertie Ahern, agreed to meet drivers tomorrow. But echoing tough talk by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London, German Transport Minister, Reinhard Klimmt said his government would not follow the example of France which, after six days of unrest, agreed last week to subsidise soaring fuel prices. Sporadic protests continued in French cities, despite the controversial concessions. Inspired by the success last week of French hauliers, Belgian truckers snarled up traffic in downtown Brussels, Dutch carriers blocked main highways and Bavarian rig drivers held a protest rally on an autobahn against soaring fuel prices. In Britain’s biggest industrial conflict for a decade, 3,000 of the country’s 8,000 petrol stations were reported to have run dry or were close to doing so after oil storage depots were picketed by the new alliance of the disgruntled. The British Government prepared to invoke emergency powers obtained overnight to keep essential services going. The police obliged demonstrators outside a heating-oil depot at Wymondham, Norfolk, to stand back, but truck drivers still refused to pass the picketers. In Brussels — where the European Commission is worrying about the inflationary effects of the rising oil price but simultaneously opposing any further cuts in fuel taxes — traffic ground to a halt on the Rue de La Loi, in the heart of the EU quarter of the city. Belgian Transport Minister, Isabelle Durant, refused to meet the protesters until they opened the road outside her office. The riot police stood by but without intervening. When talks did get under way no agreement was reached. However, one drivers’ union vowed to bring the entire country to a standstill if the government did not give into its demand. Sunday’s decision by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to raise production by 800,000 barrels a day had no immediate impact on the protests. Outside Brussels, lorry drivers blocked off Belgium’s largest oil refinery at Feluy, near Charleroi, run by TotalFinaElf. In the Netherlands there were truck blockades at Rotterdam and Breda. ``Lots of smaller companies are on the verge of bankruptcy because of the high prices,’’ said Mr Ruben Hubbers, spokesman of the Resistance Party, which organised yesterday’s action. In Dublin, President of the Irish Road Haulage Association Gerry McMahon, said he was pleased about the planned meeting with Mr Ahern, but warned that protests by drivers would go on if the government failed to cut the petrol tax right away. Meanwhile, thousands of British petrol stations were drying up today as protests over high fuel prices combined with panic buying to cause major shortages throughout the country. Newspapers reported today that a quarter of Britain’s petrol stations, mostly in north and central England and Wales, had run out of petrol yesterday, on the fourth consecutive day of protests over prices. Picketing of oil depots and refineries by angry truckers, farmers and fishermen has disrupted supplies to petrol stations and motorists, fearful of running out of fuel, have rushed to stations, adding to the chaos. The Total FinaElf oil company, which controls 1,400 petrol stations nationwide, said at least 50 per cent of its stations would have run dry by midnight yesterday. The Texaco oil company said more than a third of its 957 stations were dry yesterday night while its Pembroke refinery remained blocked by protesters. Shell said yesterday evening 330 out of its 1,100 stations were about to run out of fuel. Its terminals at Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, Stanlow and ellesmere port remained closed throughout yesterday. (The Guardian and agencies) |
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Typhoon lashes Japan; 5 dead TOKYO, Sept 12 (DPA) — At least five persons died and two were missing as a powerful typhoon lashed central Japan, where authorities ordered the evacuation of 190,000 families in Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures today. A total of three persons were buried in landslides in Aichi’s prefectural capital of Nagoya and the city of Komaki, local authorities said, and a firefighter drowned in an irrigation canal in Nagoya. A nine-year-old girl in Shizuoka prefecture in central Japan was also drowned yesterday. A man in Mie prefecture fell down in an irrigation canal early today and has been missing. An 85-year-old man in Gifu prefecture also was missing. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed his cabinet to take “every possible step’’ to contain damage from heavy rains. “The downpours may still move to the east of the country, so all ministers and agencies should take every possible step,’’ to prevent further damage, the top government spokesman Hidenao Nakagawa quoted Mori as saying at a Cabinet meeting. A record 551 millimetres of rain fell in the city of Tokai in Aichi prefecture in a 24-hour period to 4 a.m., while Nagoya received 532 millimetres. Both figures were the highest since the Nagoya observatory began keeping records in 1891, the meteorological agency said. A total of 190,000 families in Aichi, Gifu, Mie prefectures have been ordered or advised to evacuate, local officials said. Power outages caused by flooding of power substations in the three prefectures affected some 32,200 households, Chubu electric power company in Aichi said. According to the police, about 8,400 houses and other buildings in Aichi, Mie and Gifu prefectures were flooded to varying degrees. Typhoon Saomai, the 14th of the season, was moving slowly west-northwest over the sea near Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost main Island on early Tuesday. |
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EU sanctions against Austria to
go EUROPEAN Union sanctions against Austria may be lifted as soon as today (Tuesday). Mr Pierre Moscovici, French minister for European affairs, said yesterday that the unprecedented but largely symbolic quarantine would end as soon as consultations with other member-countries were completed. Britain said it was ready to lift the sanctions at once. The three “wise-men” reported on Friday that Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel’s conservative-led coalition met accepted European norms on the observation of human rights. Diplomats said the 14 other EU governments were likely to create a mechanism to monitor the future behaviour of the far-Right Freedom party, whose part in the Austrian coalition provoked the EU’s action in February. Another course might be to enhance the Article of the Amsterdam treaty which requires member states to respect “common European values”. Denmark, facing a crucial referendum on the Euro on September 28, is pressing for a speedy resolution of the Austrian issue in the hope of easing the feeling of some of its citizens that the 14 have bullied Austria on an internal matter. President Jacques Chirac of France, a strong supporter of the sanctions, is expected to distance himself from the decision to lift them by suggesting that it should be discussed by EU foreign ministers at the UN summit in New York. France is the current holder of the EU presidency. The Freedom party’s former but still de facto leader Jorg Haider greeted the imminent lifting of sanctions by making another controversial statement on immigration. He warned the EU against allowing cheap labour from eastern Europe to flood Austria. Speaking at the Zagreb autumn fair, he lived up to his reputation as a firebrand by expressing his concern that eastward expansion of the EU would cause immigrants to swamp Western Europe. But as Austrian President Thomas Klestil appealed to Mr Chirac yesterday to allow an improvement in relations, Austrian opposition politicians urged the world to keep an eye on Mr Haider. Mr Haider told journalists: “We agreed on a common basis to vote on the (EU) enlargement, but we have some conditions which have to be fulfilled.” “If we open our borders, we have concerns about our labour. Lots of cheap labour will enter the borders of Austria and this can endanger our labour force,” said. Mr Haider who resigned as party leader in April in the hope that sanctions would be lifted. Meanwhile there were rumours in some quarters of Vienna yesterday that Mr Haider would interpret the lifting of sanctions as a green light to make a deal with the People’s Party which would give him a place in government, possibly as Vice-Chancellor. The “wise men” — former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former Spanish Foreign Minister Marcelino Oreja, and international lawyer Jochen Frowein of Germany — were asked in June to report on the situation in Austria, after months of impasse which came to divide the EU. It was their job to get governments off the hook when it became clear that cold-shouldering Vienna while EU business, in fact, continued as usual was having little positive effect. — The Guardian, London |
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Lanka questions CEC’s integrity COLOMBO, Sept 12 (PTI) — The Sri Lankan government has cast serious aspersions on the integrity of country’s Chief Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake for his attempts to eliminate fraud at next month’s parliamentary polls and reported the matter to the Human Rights Commission. The ruling People’s Alliance has filed a petition before the commission arguing that the human rights of voters had been violated by Mr Dissanayake’s plan to minimise ballot stuffing. The Lankan state media had launched a tirade against Mr Dissanayake, who had secretly ordered a private press to print 14 million stickers, to be attached to ballot cards as an added precaution against election fraud. Senior ministers and leaders of the party took strong exception to Mr Dissanyakae’s decision to print “anti fraud poll card strickers” in private press and not in the government press. Lankan Sports Minister S.B. Dissanayake lambasted the action of the poll chief but stopped short of demanding his resignation. “He must make a personal decision about himself,” the minister said over national television yesterday. The decision to print the stickers was taken to keep any unscrupulous elements from attempting to sabotage the poll process by stuffing the ballets. Mr Dissanayake said adding that such measures were resorted after the opposition United National Party (UNP) delegation produced duplicate poll cards which were already under circulation. Mr Dissanayake, in his defence, said he was prepared to face all legal consequences arising out of his action, which was hailed by the UNP and other political parties as correct step to thwart any plans of rigging in the polls. Under the Sri Lankan Constitution, the Election Commissioner enjoys a limited autonomy and can be removed by the President only after a parliamentary approval. |
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Sindh youth being
forced into ‘jehad’ ISLAMABAD, Sept 12 (UNI) — Innocent youth in Sindh province of Pakistan are being kidnapped by activists of the Jaish-E-Muhammed militant outfit of Maulana Azhar Masood to force them to join guerrilla training camps near Maneshra, the daily ‘News’ reported today. The Pakistani authorities impounded a bus, carrying mostly youth recruited for ‘jehad’ (crusade war), following the jumping of a passenger from it, who claimed having been kidnapped by Maulana Iqbal Ahmed, an activist of the Jaish-E-Muhammed. Giving details of the incident, the paper said that a young passenger-Kamaluddin, jumped from the moving bus, when it reached the Marakhpoor police check post in Dadu district and cried for police help. The police immediately reached the spot and shifted injured Kamaluddin to the civil hospital for treatment, while detaining other passengers for questioning. The youth told the Press that he had been kidnapped by Maulana Iqbal and was being taken to Maneshra for guerrilla training against his will. He claimed his another colleague Imran, (23) also jumped from the bus near Sehwan and escaped despite chase by the bus driver. Kamaluddin said his elder brother had also gone for guerrilla training, but never returned. However, Maulana Iqbal refuted the charges, stating that Kamlauddin had himself paid the registration fee for the training. He denied anybody was being given arms training. The Jaish-E-Muhammed was formed by Maulana Azhar Masood soon after he was released in exchange for hostages of the Indian Airlines aircraft that was hijacked from its flight from Kathmandu to Delhi. |
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Astronauts open
space station CAPE CANAVERAL, Sept 12 (Reuters) — Astronauts and cosmonauts from the space shuttle Atlantis today opened the doors, turned on the lights, sniffed the air, then went to work making the 13-storeyed international space station into something resembling a home. Atlantis is on a mission to outfit the fledgling space station with life support and control systems before the first long-duration crew arrives in November and the station becomes permanently occupied. Opening the station was laborious, as Atlantis Commander Terrence Wilcutt and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Melenchenko worked their way through a dozen hatches. As they entered each successive compartment in the three existing space-station modules, the team paused to equalise air pressure between compartments and take air quality readings. The payoff was opening the Zvezda service module, which made a remote-control docking with two earlier station modules in July. Zvezda will be headquarters for a succession of three-member expeditionary crews that will inhabit the station during its construction phase, due to last through 2006 at least. |
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Suharto men
attack protesters JAKARTA, Sept 12 (Reuters) — More than 200 supporters of disgraced former Indonesian President Suharto attacked peaceful anti-Suharto protesters near the ousted autocrat’s Central Jakarta home today. At least one anti-Suharto protester was badly injured. The injured student was taken away by the police but it was not clear if he was being arrested. The pro-Suharto group attacked 24 anti-Suharto protesters suddenly at about mid-afternoon. Another 500 people protested near Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok port, demanding the Suharto and former military leaders be charged over the massacre of Muslim protesters by troops there in 1984. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Defence Minister today said the Cabinet would refuse to meet a planned U.N. Security Council delegation over last week’s murder of three U.N. international aid workers in West Timor. |
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Iran indicts 18 for rebels’ murder TEHRAN, Sept 12 (Reuters) — Iran's judiciary has indicted 18 persons, including senior intelligence officials, on charges of murdering dissidents, newspapers reported today. The accused are to stand trial in a military court for the murder of four dissident intellectuals in 1998, the daily Hayat-e-No quoted a senior judiciary official as saying. Other newspapers carried similar reports. A key suspect, former Deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami, died while in custody last year, reportedly a suicide. Pro-democracy activists say a wave of politically-motivated murders masterminded by ''rogue'' agents in the security services left more than 80 persons dead over the past decade. Akbar Ganji and Emadeddin Baqi, two reformist journalists who were investigating the murders have been imprisoned. |
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Iraq blocking
probe: UN chief UNITED NATIONS, Sept 12 (AFP) — Iraq is blocking an independent inquiry into the humanitarian crisis which it blames on UN sanctions, un secretary-General Kofi Annan has said in a report. He said yesterday Iraq had also refused to allow experts into the country to examine ways of improving the oil-for-food programme, designed to soften the impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi people. On June 8, when the Security Council extended the programme for six months, it asked Mr Annan to order an independent and comprehensive assessment of the humanitarian situation in Iraq and to report back by November 26. In his three-monthly update on the programme, Mr Annan said he had selected a group of experts to carry out the assessment, but added: “In discussions with the UN, the Government of Iraq has indicated that it does not intend to cooperate with or issue visas to such experts.” The oil-for-food programme enables Iraq to sell oil under UN supervision and to import food, medicines and other necessities including spare parts for its oil industry. The council also asked Mr Annan to look into the possibility of using the Iraqi oil revenue to buy locally produced goods, which would be available more quickly than imported material. |
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