W O R L D

Russian monitors watch a woman voting in the Yugoslav elections in Belgrade on Sunday. Polling stations opened across Yugoslavia for crucial elections which present the biggest challenge yet to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's 13-year rule. — Reuters photo

UK to give evidence against Zardari
ISLAMABAD, Sept 24 — Britain has agreed to hand over to Pakistan material allegedly connecting Asif Zardari, the husband of former Premier Benazir Bhutto, to drug trafficking, the couple’s Pakistan People’s Party said today.

Japan may give food aid to N Korea
TOKYO, Sept 24 — South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has again urged Japan to send more food aid to North Korea as it was “hard hit” by recent droughts and typhoons, and could face serious food shortages next year. Kim is on an official visit to Japan, the first after the historic Korean summit in June when he met another Kim, of North Korea.

British MP for J&K on UN agenda
ISLAMABAD, Sept 24 — Pakistan-born British parliamentarian Nazir Ahmad has said an international committee on Kashmir was being formed to press for bringing the Kashmir issue on the agenda of the UN Security Council.

‘Lift sanctions against Iraq’
DUBAI, Sept 24 — India has called for immediate lifting of the UN sanctions against Iraq, saying that they had proved to be counter-productive and affected the common man.

Plan to arrest UNP leader shelved
COLOMBO, Sept 24 — The government is understood to have shelved its plan to arrest opposition and United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremsinghe on the basis of allegations contained in an affidavit filed by a former police officer.

Koreas to allow exchange of letters
SEOUL, Sept 24 — Families from North and South Korea, separated for half a century by a heavily fortified border with little contact, will be allowed to exchange letters from November as part of a new deal reached late last night.

Diana was manipulative, says ex-aide
LONDON, Sept 24 — Published excerpts of a new book by the late Princess Diana’s most senior adviser depict her as manipulative, deceitful, occasionally cruel and desperately in need of attention.

Mayor bans death!
There are worse places to be taken ill than Le Lavandou, a refined Riviera resort famous for its scented pines, breathtaking views and sparkling blue sea. But do try not to die there, because it is illegal.

Chhota Rajan wants to come back
BANGKOK, Sept 24 — Mumbai mafia don Chhota Rajan who was wounded in a shootout earlier this month wants to fly back to India immediately, the Bangkok Post newspaper today said.

Violations mar Yugoslav poll
‘No secrecy’ of ballots

BELGRADE, Sept 24 (AFP, Reuters) — Yugoslavs voted today in crucial presidential and legislative elections which could see President Slobodan Milosevic ousted after a decade of war and crippling international sanctions.

The watershed elections came amid fears that Milosevic, branded a pariah by the West, could try to hold on to power even if his opponent, the moderate nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, wins today.

The voting and its fallout in coming weeks could prove the toughest test for Milosevic — indicted by the un war crimes tribunal for atrocities in Kosovo — after overseeing 10 years of disintegration and bloodshed in Yugoslavia.

The West this week dangled the carrot of an end to years of devastating sanctions if Yugoslav voters ousted Milosevic, but the offer was roundly condemned as outside interference by both the regime and the Opposition.

A local electoral monitoring organisation reported numerous irregularities in the voting process for today’s presidential and parliamentary polls in Yugoslavia and local elections in Serbia.

Marko Blagojevic from the non-governmental Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID) said the polls, according to reports from activists around the country, were a ‘’complete mess’’.

Listing more than a dozen incidents which he said just gave a taste of the violations, he said Opposition representatives on electoral commissions had been banned from several polling stations or barred from watching preparations for the vote. In one, when they complained, the police was called, he said.

Mr Blagojevic said the most serious violation was that in many places, including where he himself was voting, officials could note which candidate was chosen, either as people voted or through the folded ballot paper as it was put in to the box.

The Yugoslav authorities last week denied CESID accreditation monitoring the polls, accusing it of being a Western propaganda outfit.

In the Montenegran capital Podgorica, Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic reaffirmed his view that President Milosevic was obliged to remain in power until 2001, regardless of the outcome the presidential poll.

Meanwhile, United Nations officials in Kosovo were hastily putting together a team of election ``witnesses’’ yesterday to count the voters who turn out for the crucial presidential and parliamentary elections.

The UN has denounced the elections as neither free nor fair, and said previously that it would do no more than provide security for Serbs in Kosovo who want to vote, assuming that Albanian Kosovars will boycott the poll.

As it became clear that, in the absence of supervision, Mr Milosevic could use the Kosovar votes to jack up his total, the UN decided to appoint monitors.

Officials say they are operating on opinion poll predictions that Mr Milosevic needs 500,000 extra votes to secure the 50 per cent required for a first-round win. (The Guardian)

Will Pak break up again?
from a Special Correspondent

KARACHI: Will Pakistan break up again? Has the two-nation theory of Mohammed Ali Jinnah failed even in the Western wing of Pakistan? These and other startling questions which touch the very basis of Pakistan are being raised by those living in three of the four provinces of Pakistan. And also by the Mohajirs who worked most for partition of India and migrated to Pakistan in 1947.

Along with a sharp deterioration in the economy, which has raised apprehensions of financial viability of Pakistan, what is now coming to the fore is the accentuation of the ethnic contradictions which have plagued the country ever since the break-up of the two wings — Western and Eastern — in 1971. The Mohajirs, who have been fighting for equal rights, have along with Sindhis, Baluchis and Pakhtoons, been fighting against what they describe as “Punjabi domination”. They contend that the Punjabis have been, from the beginning, dominant in every walk of life, be it business, services, the armed forces and the rest.

Another ugly phenomenon which is once again rearing its head is the persecution of the Shias, a dominant sect among the Muslims. What is worse, the Shias feel that the state itself is instigating violence against them.

The self-exiled Mohajir leader, Altaf Hussain, who has been living in London for about a decade, has lately been carrying on a sustained campaign against the rulers of Islamabad. He has now been joined by leaders of the three provinces in denouncing the two-nation theory and “Punjabi domination”. At a meeting in London, Altaf Hussain said the “division of the Indian subcontinent was the biggest blunder in the history of mankind. The Titanic of the Islamic Ummah (community) is now sinking. It is time for everyone to play their role....?

The Mohajir leader said that “we did not want to hear the truth in 1971 (when Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan) and Pakistan broke. Now if you want to treat us like slaves, a time will come when we will get independence and you will be without slaves...?

Altaf Hussain also said “none of us wants to dismember Pakistan. We want to strengthen it and make it prosperous. But there cannot be a Pakistan where Punjabis are considered faithful and Sindhis, Baluchis and Pakhtoons are considered traitors...”?

Hussain’s statement was supported by Sardar Attaullah Mengal, convener of the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement and president of the Baluchistan National Party, Mahmood Khan Achakazai, chairman of the Pakhtoon Khwa Milli Awami Party, and Syed Imdad Mohammed Shah of Sindh.

A day later, the World Sindhi Congress, in a resolution demanded the right to self-determination for Sindh within Pakistan and said Sindh had been denied the status of an autonomous, sovereign state as envisaged in the Pakistan resolution of 1940.

It opposed the military takeover in Islamabad and said the Sindhis were suffering from a process of neo-colonialism.

In an article in the Indian magazine, Eurasia Times of Bhopal, Altaf Hussain recently wrote:”... If we analyse the history of the Pakistan movement then it emanates that virtually all the Muslim majority provinces of the present-day Pakistan had opposed its creation. Only the province of Sindh with the majority of one vote supported the creation of Pakistan. The late GM Syed most actively participated to support Pakistan. The people of Muslim majority province of East Bengal, which had supported the two-nation theory, created their own independent state in 1971. By carving an independent country, the people of East Bengal redeemed themselves of the blunder they committed in pursuing the two-nation theory.

All those who supported the concept of the two-nation theory and Pakistan have been labelled as traitors. Fazlul Huq, the Lion of Bengal, who presented the Pakistan resolution, the Sindhis, the Baluchis and now the Mohajirs have all been labelled traitors...”

“The plight of the stranded Pakistanis in the 66 Red Cross camps in Bangladesh for the past 29 years is sufficient proof to render the two-nation theory wrong. I would like to pose a question to the champions of the two-nation theory, who were not pacified with the arguments. Why did the Pakistan army attack fellow Muslim Bengalis in 1970 in the former East Pakistan? Why the Pakistan army marched against their fellow Muslims Baluch... and against Sindhis and the same army is now targeting Mohajirs for the past eight years? The preachers of the two-nation theory today advise the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh to opt for Bangladeshi citizenship or settle elsewhere in a Muslim country instead of inviting them back to Pakistan...”, he writes.

— IPA

UK to give evidence against Zardari

ISLAMABAD, Sept 24 (DPA) — Britain has agreed to hand over to Pakistan material allegedly connecting Asif Zardari, the husband of former Premier Benazir Bhutto, to drug trafficking, the couple’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said today.

A party spokesman said in Islamabad that the material was sought in 1997 and the British Home Office acceded to the request after the present military regime, which seized power in 1999, assured it that Zardari will not be given death penalty if convicted.

Zardari has 14 days to appeal against the Home Office’s decision, the spokesman said in a statement.

Zardari has been in prison since his wife’s government was removed in November 1996 on charges of corruption and misrule. Nawaz Sharif, who won the subsequent elections, pressed criminal charges against the couple, which led to Benazir Bhutto going into self-exile with her children in 1999.

Japan may give food aid to N Korea

TOKYO, Sept 24 (ANI) — South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has again urged Japan to send more food aid to North Korea as it was “hard hit” by recent droughts and typhoons, and could face serious food shortages next year. Kim is on an official visit to Japan, the first after the historic Korean summit in June when he met another Kim, of North Korea.

Mr Kim was quoted as telling Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori: “North Korea suffered damage caused by the worst droughts in 100 years as well as typhoons this year. The food situation in North Korea could worsen further next year and become a major problem”.

According to official figures, typhoons and rain this month destroyed 29,000 houses, damaged some 1,00,000 more and killed many people. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called recent damage “beyond belief.”

Japan gave 10,000 tonnes of rice to famine-hit North Korea this spring and its Foreign Ministry is believed to favour extending food aid, possibly 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes of rice. But, the idea of expanded food aid met with strong opposition from some lawmakers in the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who argue that North Korea must first settle the alleged abduction of ten Japanese nationals by its agents.

Tokyo has reopened talks with Pyongyang on establishing diplomatic ties with its historic foe and Mr Mori is open to a summit with the North Korean leader, but Japan’s push for improved ties with Phongyang remains hampered by politics.

British MP for J&K on UN agenda

ISLAMABAD, Sept 24 (PTI) — Pakistan-born British parliamentarian Nazir Ahmad has said an international committee on Kashmir was being formed to press for bringing the Kashmir issue on the agenda of the UN Security Council.

Mr Ahmad said the committee, to be headed jointly by himself and US Congressman David Bonier, would meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and impress upon him to bring the Kashmir issue on the agenda of the Security Council.

“Time has come to bring the (Kashmir) issue on the agenda of the Security Council,” Mr Ahmad, the first Pakistani British member of the House of Lords, told a press conference here yesterday.

He said either the permanent members of the Security Council or the Secretary-General of the UN should have the power to bring any issue on the agenda. “It is for this purpose the international committee will be meeting the UN Secretary-General to ask him to bring the (Kashmir) issue on the agenda,” he said.

“At least three seats should be given to the Muslim countries — one to Pakistan for being a nuclear power, one to Saudi Arabia as a Muslim state with strong economy and religious reasons and one for a member of the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

‘Lift sanctions against Iraq’

DUBAI, Sept 24 (UNI) — India has called for immediate lifting of the UN sanctions against Iraq, saying that they had proved to be counter-productive and affected the common man.

“India has been and is against any type of sanctions and we tried on our own to convince bilaterally and multilaterally, even at the UN Forums, that sanctions against Iraq must be lifted,’’ Minister of State for External Affairs Ajit Kumar Panja told Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yasin Ramadhan at a meeting in Baghdad last evening.

Describing his 35-minute meeting with the Iraqi leader as “very cordial,’’ Mr Panja told UNI on the telephone from Baghdad that “we have also expressed our concern to the Iraqi Vice-President over the humanitarian situation in Iraq, particularly the high mortality rate among women and children.’’

Plan to arrest UNP leader shelved

COLOMBO, Sept 24 (UNI, PTI) — The government is understood to have shelved its plan to arrest opposition and United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremsinghe on the basis of allegations contained in an affidavit filed by a former police officer.

The CID has informed the Sri Lankan Government that it is not in a position to arrest the UNP leader as the material in the affidavit provided by former officer Douglas Peiris is insufficient, local media reported today.

The case against Peiris was that he had been instrumental in killing a lawyer and torturing a few JVP activists in the Battlanda torture chamber at the instruction of Mr Wickremsinghe.

Koreas to allow exchange of letters

SEOUL, Sept 24 (Reuters) — Families from North and South Korea, separated for half a century by a heavily fortified border with little contact, will be allowed to exchange letters from November as part of a new deal reached late last night.

Red Cross negotiators from the two Koreas agreed to locate relatives of selected candidates — initially 300 from each country —and allow them to start exchanging letters in November.

“Chief negotiators from the two sides met late last night again and settled differences over pending issues like the exchange of letters,” pool reports from the meeting said.

The two Koreas will exchange lists of 100 candidates each in September and October to allow reunions of families separated after the peninsula was divided into the Communist North and Capitalist South in 1948.

Diana was manipulative, says ex-aide

LONDON, Sept 24 (AP) — Published excerpts of a new book by the late Princess Diana’s most senior adviser depict her as manipulative, deceitful, occasionally cruel and desperately in need of attention.

Despite Buckingham Palace’s vehement objections to the book, The Sunday Times printed the first instalment of its serialisation of “Shadows of a Princess,” by Patrick Jephson, who was employed by Diana between 1987 and 1996 and was her private secretary through the events leading to her 1992 separation from Prince Charles.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles issued a rare joint statement on September 15, saying they “deeply deplored” the publication of the book and that they feared it would only create more speculation about Princess Diana and upset her sons.

He also says he believes the royal family could have prevented Diana’s calamitous rebellion with some support and encouragement. “A small handful of sugar lumps would have been enough to lead her to safety”, he wrote.

Jephson writes that Diana dropped longtime lover James Hewitt. When he became “too besotted, she was embarrassed and realised he was a liability in the battle against her husband for public sympathy.”

Jephson says Diana regarded the Duchess of York as a rival and when there was a newspaper report of the Duchess doing good works, Diana would order him to arrange a “spontaneous caring counter-strike.”

She spoke scornfully of the royals, he writes, and regarded her royal jewellery as a reward for “years of purgatory” with the family.

Judging by The Sunday Times article, future instalments also will say more positive things about the princess, particularly about her relationship with her sons.

But he also describes an “increasingly unstable, self-indulgent and unpredictable” Diana after the separation. “It became jus part of my life that I saw this reality while the world saw the saint it naturally preferred.”

Jephson resigned in the months following the famous 1995 television interview in which the princess suggested Prince Charles was unfit to be the king, and acknowledged her adultery with Hewitt — a broadcast widely thought to have set her and Charles on course to divorce the following year.

Mayor bans death!
from Jon Henley in Paris

There are worse places to be taken ill than Le Lavandou, a refined Riviera resort famous for its scented pines, breathtaking views and sparkling blue sea.

But do try not to die there, because it is illegal.

“It is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die within the town limits,’’ reads a surprising bylaw proclaimed this week by Mayor Gil Bernardi to draw attention to a grave new problem: Le Lavandou has run out of cemetery space.

With the old town cemetery full, Mr Bernardi was outraged this summer by the ruling of a court in Nice that his plan for a new one on an attractive seaside site planted with olive trees contravened planning regulations.

Nearly a third of Le Lavandou’s 5,500 residents are over 65, he pointed out, and 80 persons die in the town each year. At present 19 bodies are awaiting permanent resting places, housed temporarily in friends’ burial vaults.

The Mayor rejected out of hand the alternative site for a cemetery proposed by the environmentalists: a disused quarry just outside town.

“We can’t bury bodies in a dump. This is an important issue concerning religious faith and respect of the dead,’’ he said.

— The Guardian, London

Chhota Rajan wants to come back

BANGKOK, Sept 24 (DPA) — Mumbai mafia don Chhota Rajan who was wounded in a shootout earlier this month wants to fly back to India immediately, the Bangkok Post newspaper today said.

Chhota Rajan, alias Vijay Daman, told the police that he wanted to return to India tomorrow , the newspaper reported.

He was wounded in the stomach and arms in a gangster-style shootout on September 15 at the apartment of his associate Rohit Verman, alias, Michael D’Souza.

Rohit Verman died in the assault, carried out by seven or eight pistol-wielding assassins, and his wife, Sikandi Hama, was wounded.

Bombay Interpol has reportedly requested Rajan’s extradition, but the Indian Government has not officially made the request.

Thailand and India have not signed an extradition treaty.

Police Major Gen Chaktip Kunchorn Na Ayutthaya, Assistant Bangkok Police Chief, told the reporters that his officers were looking for legal grounds to detain Rajan, who was currently undergoing medical treatment at an undisclosed hospital. He has not committed any crimes in Thailand that the police there know of.

Rajan told Mr Ayutthaya that he wished to return to Bombay.

But in an exclusive interview with a daily, The Nation, he was not definite about his travel plans.

In response to whether he wished to return to India, he reportedly said, “Of course, but I cannot say when.’’

He is believed to be a former member of the Dawood Ibrahim’s gang in Bombay but split with the group in 1993 after a series of bomb blasts in Hindu temples.

“Until 1993, I was associated with him (Dawood),’’ he told the newspaper in a telephonic interview. “But after he got associated with the (ISI), I left him and started my own business. I am a Hindu, a true Indian. I was wrong to associate with him, and I have made it my life’s motto to fight him. I am first and foremost a patriot.’’

He said his gang had carried out the assassination of Mira Dilshad Beg, a Nepalese Minister allegedly linked to the Dawood gang. “My men have killed more Dawood members than the police,’’ he claimed. “I have always helped the Indian Government.’’

WORLD BRIEFS

13 die in attacks near Algiers
ALGIERS: Thirteen persons have been killed and three injured in attacks around Algiers blamed on armed Islamists, according to sources in the region. Seven were killed and two injured by a group of armed men in the village of Bouqara, south of the capital, in an attack overnight Friday, the sources said. — AFP

Peru chief’s asylum plea rejected
PANAMA CITY: Panama has rejected a request by Peru to grant asylum to embattled Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. The rejection on Saturday followed an emergency meeting of the Panamanian Cabinet, which convened here to consider the asylum request, which Peruvian Prime Minister Federico Salas made in a telephone conversation with Panamanian Foreign Minister Jose Aleman, according to a government spokesman. — AFP

Chechen rebels kill 11 policemen
MOSCOW: Chechen rebels killed 11 Russian policemen on Saturday in the fiercest fighting Chechnya has seen for two months, the presidency of the breakaway Russian republic announced. The policemen were killed in an attack on a military command post amid renewed heavy fighting in Argun, around 10 km east of Grozny, according to separatist Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov’s press service, contacted by phone from neighbouring Ingushetia. — AFP

US journalist Carl Rowan dead
WASHINGTON: Carl Thomas Rowan, a well-known commentator once called America’s “most visible black journalist” for his eloquent columns exploring race relations and championing civil rights, died on Saturday at 75. Rowan died at the Washington Hospital Centre, hospital spokesman Leroy Tillman said. His death was due to natural causes, said his son, Carl Rowan Jr. — AP

Gallagher, Kensit granted divorce
LONDON: Oasis star Liam Gallagher and actress Patsy Kensit have ended their three-year marriage with a “quickie” divorce, Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper reported. Kensit, (32), was granted an undefended “decree nisi” in the London divorce court on Friday after the judge ruled that the pop star’s behaviour had been so bad that she could not be expected to remain living with him, the paper said. — Reuters

Woman chained to hospital bed
BEIJING: A young woman in Northwest China spent more than a week chained to a bed in a crowded hospital ward, after the police failed to rescue her from a patient’s relatives who took her hostage, state media has reported. Fang Xiuming was seized on September 12 at Mian County Hospital in the Shaanxi province by the family of a 60-year-old woman injured in a traffic accident by Fang’s boyfriend, the official Beijing Morning Post said on Saturday. — DPA

Fergie’s ex-aide charged
LONDON: A former aide and confidante of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has been charged with murdering her boyfriend, the police said here on Saturday. Jane Andrews (33) was arrested on Wednesday after 40-year-old Thomas Cressman was found stabbed to death at the couple’s home in London on Monday. — AFP

US steps to curb illegal gun sales
WASHINGTON: President Bill Clinton, acting to curb illegal gun sales, says the US government is turning to the Internet to make it harder to acquire weapons via computer or mail by using fake firearms licences. “Unfortunately, the Internet, despite all its benefits, is making it easier for guns to fall into the wrong hands. There are now 4,000 firearm sales-related sites on the Internet and there are 80 sites where you can actually buy a gun at an auction”, Mr Clinton said in his weekly radio address broadcast. — AP

3 Sukhoi jets destroyed
MOSCOW: Three Sukhoi SU-24 assault planes were destroyed in a blaze which completely gutted the hanger of the Russian naval repair factory at Pushkin near St. Petersburg on Sunday, the NTV channel reported. — PTI