 |
| Thursday, September 21, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
|
India for convention
on terrorism China cautions India on Karmapa
4 held for attack on Chhota Rajan 2 French hostages escape
from hideout
US Senate vote |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
USA ‘botched’ aid to Russia Fujimori to stay on
for 10 more months 60,000 kids starve to death daily Serbia bribed to defeat
Milosevic? Bomb blast bid foiled
|
|
India for convention on terrorism UNITED NATION, Sept 20 (PTI) —
India today gave a clarion call to the world community to support an
Indian-sponsored convention on terrorism and reaffirmed its readiness
to take on the “responsibilities” of a permanent membership in an
expanded un security Council. “We have proposed the draft of a
comprehensive convention on international terrorism. I urge all
members of the United Nations to give their total support to this
initiative,” External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told a un
general Assembly’s ministerial debate. Taking New Delhi’s campaign for global support on the comprehensive anti-terrorism convention to the floor of the General Assembly, Mr Singh, without naming Pakistan, said terrorism is the most flagrant human rights violation and threatens international peace and security “especially when terrorists are armed, financed and backed by governments or their agencies.” “Terrorism is the global menace of our age. For some, it tends to replace ideology and policy. India has been the object of state-sponsored, cross-border terrorism, in its most inhuman manifestations, for more than a decade. Stating that “today’s Security Council is a hangover from the colonial era”, Mr Singh reaffirmed India’s readiness to take on “the responsibilities” of permanent membership in an expanded Security Council. Mr Singh urged all members to work together to strengthen the international consensus and legal regimes against terrorism. He hoped that the international community will exercise its collective authority and influence to bring Fiji back to the road of democracy and the rule of law. On Afghanistan, Mr Singh called for a comprehensive settlement of the crisis in the war-ravaged country. “It appears that, sadly, the world has forgotten that country. The fratricidal conflict in that country continues on account of the Taliban’s pursuit of the mirage of military success. “It continues because of outside support, military and financial, to the Taliban. The conflict and the Taliban’s medieval obscurantist ideologies continue to cause untold suffering to the Afghan people,” Mr Singh said. This impacts adversely on the peace and security of the entire neighbourhood, from West to Central Asia to South Asia. |
China cautions India on Karmapa BEIJING, Sept 20 (PTI) — China has cautioned India against granting asylum to the 17th Karmapa Lama under the “influence of anti-China forces” or Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Reacting to last Saturday’s meeting between Home Minister L.K. Advani and the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi expressed hope that the Indian Government would adhere to the commitments in this regard. He said India had also indicated that the Karmapa would not be allowed to engage in political activities and that New Delhi would not allow him to be used by other foreign powers against China. “We appreciate this and hope that the Indian Government will adhere to the above mentioned principles.”
|
|
4 held for attack on Chhota Rajan BANGKOK, Sept 20 (PTI) — Thai police today arrested four persons, including three Pakistani nationals in connection with last Friday’s shooting incident here in which an Indian jewellery merchant was killed while his wife and underworld don Chhota Rajan were seriously injured. Police Maj. Gen. Charkthip Kunchornna Ayuthya told reporters here that the Pakistanis and a Thai national, who had been under detention since Tuesday, have been charged with conspiracy to murder and possession of weapons illegally. He said one of the accused Mohammad Salim confessed to the police that he and nine other men of a rival gang had come from Mumbai to murder Vijay Daman, who according to Thai media was actually Chhota
Rajan, to avenge the deaths of some colleagues by a rival gang headed by Chhota
Shakeel. According to Maj-Gen Charkthip, Salim admitted he was present at the time of shooting though he did not open fire. The Indian jeweller Rohit D’Souza alias Michael was killed while his wife Sikandi Hama and the underworld don were seriously injured when a group of gunmen barged into the jeweller’s apartment and opened fire. Besides
Salim, the other Pakistanis in custody are Sher Khan and Mohammed Yusuf. The Thai suspect was identified as Chavalit
Arunkiat.
|
|
2 French hostages escape from hideout MANILA, Sept 20 (AFP) — Philippine President Joseph Estrada, buoyed by the escape of two French hostages from their Abu Sayyaf captors, today vowed to crush the Muslim rebels “and reduce them to ash.” The escape of Jean-Jacques Le Garrec and Roland Madura was a major boost to the President, who launched a high-risk military assault last Saturday to rescue the Frenchmen and 17 other hostages in the face of strong protests from France. French President Jacques Chirac expressed his thanks to Mr Estrada. Mr Estrada, who appeared at a press conference with the pair, said he had ordered the military to intensify its attack on the southern island of Jolo. “We cannot stop here, there are still 17 hostages to go,” he said. “We shall continue to pursue the Abu Sayyaf criminals and secure the safety of the remaining hostages.” The Frenchmen, seized on July 9 while trying to interview hostages, said they slipped away from their captors last night under cover of darkness. But they said the assault had forced the Abu Sayyaf to leave their hideouts and to travel at night, creating the conditions for their escape. Le Garrec thanked Estrada for taking the “very, very difficult decision” to order an assault. Only seven Abu Sayyaf members have so far been reported killed and 20 captured despite a ground and air bombardment of the tropical island and a search by some 4,000 troops. |
|
US Senate vote WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (AFP) — The US Senate voted overwhelmingly to normalise trade with China, heralding an unprecedented era of open commerce between the world’s most powerful economy and its most populous nation. Senators voted 83 for and 15 against the hotly contested bill which slashes US tariffs on
Chinese exports in return for a promise by Beijing’s communist leaders to throw open their market of more than one billion people to US firms. The vote yesterday handed President Bill Clinton a sweet victory in his final few months of office, and endorsed a key plank of his foreign policy which centres on engaging, rather than isolating China. “I believe that America has more influence in China with an outstretched hand than with a clenched fist,” Mr Clinton told reporters an hour after the vote. Businesses here hope to reap billions of dollars in new profits when the bill, which effectively ratifies a 1999 Sino-US pact easing Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, becomes law. But President Clinton also argued the move would bolster the reform movement, by strengthening “those within China who fight for higher labour standards, a cleaner environment, for human rights and the rule of law.” Even so, its passage marked a defeat for US labour unions which fear the loss of low-paying jobs to China, and activists critical of China’s human rights record, who led a long campaign against the bill. Mr Dave Smith, director of public policy for the AFL-CIO union, said : “We don’t think this is a deal that will benefit Chinese or American workers.” Human Rights Watch Asia spokesman in Washington Mike Jendrzejczyk added that the timing of the vote was “particularly unfortunate.” “Beijing is closing down all channels of political dissent — Including on the Internet — even while it’s opening up its economy,” he said. Opponents of the bill, which grants permanent normal trade relations
(PNTR) to China, are furious that the White House and big business piled pressure on wavering senators in a successful campaign to ward off amendments. |
|
USA ‘botched’ aid to Russia WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (AP) — The Clinton administration turned a blind eye to corruption in Russia and has done little that’s been effective in helping to nurture a free-market Russian economy, congressional Republicans charge in a report being released today. Made public just seven weeks before the presidential election, the 209-page report claims the White House botched the “greatest foreign policy opportunity for the United States since the end of World War II.” Democrats dismissed the report as a partisan document aimed at attacking Vice-President Al Gore, who has been the administration’s point man in dealing with the Russians. Mr Gore is co-chairman with Russia’s Prime Minister of the US-Russia Commission on Economic and Technical Cooperation. “We have worked very diligently over the last eight years to engage the Russians to try to promote democracy and to make the world a safer place,” said White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart when asked to respond to the Republican charges yesterday. He cited US efforts in getting Russia to dismantle nuclear warheads and programs aimed at fostering economic and
political reforms. “This work is all ongoing and unfinished, but there is a lot to be said for what’s been done in the last eight years,” said Mr Lockhart. The report, written by 12 Republicans on the House Speaker’s Advisory Group on Russia, was completed without input from the Democrats. “Coming so close to election time ... it raises questions about why an important foreign policy issue is being done in such a partisan manner,” complained Mr Lockhart. The report says the USA poured too much money into the Russian central government and relied too heavily on ties with individual
Russian personalities instead of establishing better relations within the nation’s legislature. Russians’ view of Americans has soured, the report says, and the nation is developing stronger relations with China and other non-Western nations. Rep. Christopher Cox, the California Republican who is chairman of the advisory group, said the administration has used “an amazingly narrow vision of what the opportunity was when we won the Cold War.” “Some of a the claims of success by the Clinton-Gore policy include that we haven’t had a nuclear holocaust, there’s not a Stalinist state in place and that they’re still building a democracy,” Mr Cox said. Mr Gore spokesman Douglas Hattaway denounced the criticism. “This is a partisan report not worth the taxpayer-provided paper it’s written on,” he said. |
|
Fujimori to stay on for 10 more months LIMA, Sept 20 (AFP) — President Alberto Fujimori made a spectacular public appearance late yesterday, dispelling talk that he had lost control of government after announcing three days earlier that he would cut his term short, call early elections, and refrain from running for office. The embattled President announced that he would remain in power until July 28, 2001, when he will hand over power to a successor chosen in elections to be held “as soon as possible.” “The announcement of early elections does not mean that I am immediately resigning,” Mr Fujimori told reporters at Government Palace. He denied that there was pressure from the armed forces to push forward the elections. “There is no power vacuum,” he assured reporters. “There is stability, tranquility, and freedom of assembly and speech in the country.” Mr Fujimori has faced a hurricane of criticism from around the world ever since he was elected to a controversial third term in office in May, in a round of balloting widely seen as tainted. The attacks peaked when a video tape aired showing Mr Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of Peru’s secret police, apparently giving a $ 15,000 bribe to an Opposition legislator to cross over to the pro-Fujimori faction. The broadcast on Thursday sparked a political firestorm that resulted in Fujimori whittling his five-year term down to 12 months, and the announcement that the National Intelligence Service, which Mr Montesinos ran, would be dismantled. |
|
60,000 kids starve to death daily MUNICH, Sept 20 (DPA) — An average of 60,000 children starve to death daily around the world, while 150 million others suffer from famine, the German section of the International society for Human Rights has said. Only one of three children attended school regularly, the organisation said in a statement yesterday to mark World Children’s Day, which is today. The organisation said 250 million children were used as child workers globally. Children were especially at risk in trouble spots and war regions since women and children accounted for 80 per cent of refugees, it added. |
|
Serbia bribed to defeat Milosevic? WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (PTI) — The Clinton administration is pouring money into the Yugoslav elections to defeat President Slobodan Milosevic. The Post said in a front page despatch: “Charges of Chinese influence-buying in the 1996 US presidential campaign caused a political storm in Washington that has yet to fully abate. By some measures, however, that episode pales in comparison to American political interference in Serbia, locus of a 77 million dollar US effort to do with ballots what NATO could not (with bullets) — get rid of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In the run-up to national elections on September 24, said The Post, US aid officials and contractors are working to strengthen Serbia’s fractured democratic opposition. They have helped train its organisers, equipped their offices with computers and fax machines and provided opposition parties with sophisticated voter surveys compiled by the same New York firm that conducts polls for President Clinton. The USA is funneling support to anti-Milosevic student groups, labour unions, independent media outlets and even Serbian heavy metal bands that stage street concerts as part of a voter registration drive called “Rock the Vote.” Mr Milosevic is running well behind in the polls, with the largest surveys giving his main opponent, Belgrade lawyer Vojislav Kostunica, a 16-point lead, said The Post. US Government officials are mulling a variety of possible outcomes, ranging from capitulation by Mr Milosevic (whom the USA wants tried as a war criminal for atrocities in Kosovo) to massive electoral fraud. Either way, said The Post, the election is shaping up as the most important test for US policy in the Balkans since the 1998-99 Kosovo
crisis. |
|
Bomb blast bid foiled PRISTINA (Yugoslavia) Sept 20 (AP) — Peacekeepers led by NATO foiled a plot to detonate a bomb in Kosovo, following a massive search in a Serb enclave outside the province’s capital. Hundreds of peacekeepers swept into Gracanica village, just outside the capital, Pristina, before dawn yesterday, uncovering plastic explosives, weapons and detonators, the peacekeepers said. |
|
Fighting escalates COLOMBO, Sept 20 (PTI) — The International Red Cross (ICRC) called off transfer of bodies of the 45 LTTE cadres near Chavakachcheri town in the northern Jaffna peninsula following the escalation of fighting, its spokesman said today. He said that only eight bodies of rebels killed in the recent fighting could be handed over to the LTTE. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 120 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
