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| Thursday, September 28, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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LTTE suicide squads enter Colombo OPEC moots change in output Jordan too to break air
embargo on Iraq Zardari assets: UK to provide details Kulsoom assailed with eggs
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LTTE suicide squads enter Colombo COLOMBO, Sept 27 (PTI) — Sri Lankan politicians are paying scant regard to security during the on-going election campaign despite repeated warnings of possible strikes by
LTTE bombers, the police said. Despite intelligence reports about infiltration of 23
LTTE suicide bombers into the capital to carry out attacks during the campaign for the October 10 general elections, not many politicians have been taking security precautions, the Island newspaper quoted police officials as saying. Public meetings and functions attended by politicians will be the target of the suicide squad. “Though politicians have been warned to be on their guard, while attending public rallies, such warnings go unheeded,” a senior police official said. Chief of Police Lucky Kodithawakku has briefed ministers on precautions to be taken during the campaign as more bomb strikes are expected in Colombo with the
LTTE suffering heavy territorial and manpower losses in northern Jaffna Peninsula. “With the reports of
LTTE losses in Jaffna mounting, we expect them to push more bombers into Colombo in order to show their presence,” he said. Besides Colombo, North-Central, North-Western, Central and Eastern provinces, where active electioneering by rival parties is on, have also come under the threat of human bombers, the officials said, adding the police is carrying out extensive searches in Colombo and other parts of the island. Security concerns had forced President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who escaped an assassination bid in December last year, to skip a family memorial function held in honour of her father yesterday, secretly visiting the gravesite on September 25 to pay tribute. Ms Kumaratunga has also curtailed public engagements, confining her campaign to addressing select gatherings at her highly guarded residence in Central Colombo. Her speeches, however, are widely covered by the state media. A suicide bomber, who police said was targeting Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, had killed himself on September 15 by detonating explosives tied to his waist when he was caught by security personnel. UNI: Supporters of the ruling People’s Alliance (PA) in Sri Lanka are the alleged
perpetrators in 389 of the 742 incidents of pre-poll violence reported till Tuesday, according to the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV). Supporters of Opposition United National Party (UNP) were involved in more than 100 cases JVP and EPRLF in six each and persons of unknown affiliation in 161. As regards individual perpetrators, CMEV claims it received two or more complaints against 13 candidates and or their supporters — 12 from the PA and one from the UNP. Of the 742 incidents, 419 were major ones which include 12 murders and nine attempted murders. The 323 relatively minor incidents include mischief (89), threat 148, damage to property 48 and election offenses 13. Fire arms have been used in 152 incidents. The CMEV was formed in 1997 by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), the Free Media Movement (FMM) and the coalition against political violence as an independent and non-partisan organisation to monitor incidents of election-related violence, according to a press release here. A LTTE plan to assassinate candidates of several political parties contesting the October 10 parliamentary election in Jaffna has been foiled by the timely action of the security forces and intelligence services. The plot was revealed following the recovery of a large number of documents from a bag left by two terrorists who defied a halt order at an army checkpoint in Kokuvil, Jaffna on September 18, a government spokesman said. The two had tried to lob a grenade at the checkpoint in their attempt to get away. Army personnel, however, had opened fire killing one of them on the spot. But the other had escaped leaving the bag containing several documents and a large collection of literature. The victim has been identified as ‘Sabeshan’, alias Gulf India’ of the LTTE intelligence unit. A national identify card belonging to a Sidambarapillai, an employee of the Municipal Corporation, was also recovered. The names of several candidates contesting the coming elections were found in the documents left by him in the bag. Among the other documents found were letters prepared by a terrorist organisation ‘Sangiliyan’ calling upon candidates to withdraw from the election and letters warning Jaffna residents not to exercise their votes or cooperate with the security forces. |
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OPEC moots change in output CARACAS (VENEZUELA), Sept 27 (AP) — In a move that appeared to recognise OPEC’s difficulty in lowering the oil prices, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suggested that the cartel could accept higher prices for its oil. Heading the cartel’s first summit in 25 years yesterday, Mr Chavez said the mechanism that governed, OPEC’s output could change to reflect higher global oil prices. OPEC has had little luck in keeping prices within its designated price band of $ 22 to $ 28 per barrel. The cartel is supposed to raise or lower production if prices slip outside that range, but prices have remained stubbornly high. Mr Chavez suggested that the upper end of the band could be raised — a step that would recognise the higher prices at a time when the USA and Europe were trying to push prices down. Any such decision would be taken at an OPEC meeting in Vienna on November 12. Mr Chavez and other OPEC leaders sidestepped the growing demands that they increase, oil production and insisted that they were focusing on a summit declaration of long-term goals that would be released tomorrow. Delegates from OPEC’s 11 member nations had mixed reactions to the US decision to tap its strategic oil reserves to push down oil prices. Iran, the world’s No 2 producer after Saudi Arabia, called it a political move with no long-term impact. Venezuela originally embraced the move, Mr Chavez said yesterday that he didn’t think it was necessary. Libyan Oil Minister Abdalla Salem el-Badri said he was concerned about the talk that Washington was considering releasing more oil. OPEC would be compelled to cut production if oil dropped below $ 22 per barrel, he said. |
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Jordan too to break air embargo on Iraq AMMAN, Sept 26 (AP) — Jordan has
said it will send a plane carrying humanitarian help to Baghdad
tomorrow, becoming the third nation to push for flights to Iraq in an
escalating challenge to the UN sanctions. The Jordanian announcement followed the unauthorised flights to Baghdad in recent days by French and Russian aircraft and a French proposal in the UN that aircraft be allowed to fly to Iraq with a simple notification of the UN committee monitoring sanctions against Baghdad. In Moscow, news reports on Tuesday said Russian officials had signed an agreement in Baghdad on opening Russian cultural centres in the Iraqi capital. Russia’s state-controlled airline Aeroflot was negotiating with Iraq on resuming regular passenger flights to Baghdad. In Syria,
Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa called for the lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq to punish it for invading Kuwait in 1990. Mr Sharaa’s call was made after talks in Damascus, the Syrian capital, with visiting Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. A US official in New York said the UN Sanctions Committee had not yet approved Jordan’s Wednesday flight. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the USA on Monday night asked Jordan for more information on the intended cargo but had not yet received an answer. Two other proposed flights were being considered by the committee: One from Iceland and another from Russia to take off in the next few days. The USA had not decided whether to seek more information on those flights, the US official said. The Jordanian Government said on Tuesday that its plane would carry government officials, doctors and medical supplies, in a step it hoped would lead to a resumption of passenger flights to its neighbour. The Jordanian flight is “a symbolic declaration of solidarity with the Iraqi people,” Mr Kayed, Culture Minister, said. At least three cabinet ministers and several lawmakers will be among the 80 persons aboard the Royal Jordanian-chartered plane. WASHINGTON: Sanctions against Russia or France for breaking the un embargo against Iraq was not in the us interest, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said. Reacting to a proposal for imposing sanctions on the two countries, Ms Albright yesterday said while France did not get any aid from Washington, the aid to Russia was in the us interest as it was linked to preventing the spread of nuclear proliferation. |
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Zardari assets: UK to provide details LONDON, Sept 27 (PTI) — Britain has agreed to pass on to Pakistan’s military regime information on assets held by Asif Ali Zardari, jailed husband of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto. Home Secretary Jack Straw has decided to forward evidence in the Zardari case after taking into account the “changed circumstances in Pakistan’’ and carefully considering representations from both parties, a Home Office spokesman said. Straw will send a file to Pakistani investigators seeking to trace the overseas network of properties and bank accounts allegedly held by Zardari, a former minister currently serving a five-year jail term in Pakistan for corruption, the spokesman said. The Home Secretary’s decision comes two months after Pakistan’s military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf accused Britain of thwarting his efforts to stamp out corruption by failing to help identify and recover assets looted by corrupt political leaders and officials. A spokesman for Bhutto’s PPP said Zardari’s lawyers would decide in ‘’a few days’’ whether to appeal. The appeal has to be launched within a fortnight of the decision. According to a report in “The Times” today from Karachi, the change of heart in Britain had come after a written assurance by Pakistani authorities that Zardari would not face the death penalty and that the evidence would be used only in a drug case. The request for evidence in this case was made three years ago during the Nawaz Sharif regime. Criticising the British Government’s decision, the PPP spokesman said the case against Zardari was launched under the “discredited government’’ of Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto’s political rival, and that it was “politically motivated’’. “On one hand, the British Government is opposed to the military rule and on the other it is helping it to persecute political leaders on false charges,’’ the
PPP spokesman said. |
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Kulsoom assailed with eggs ISLAMABAD, Sept 27 (PTI) — Ms Kulsoom Nawaz, wife of deposed Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif, faced an assault of eggs and tomatoes from protesters reportedly belonging to an outfit backing military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf. Ms Kulsoom was assailed by slogan-shouting protesters of the Hymayat Tehreek outside the Karachi Press Club for her alleged criticism of people living in the Sindh province, media reports quoting a release from the outfit said. One of the protesters who were rounded up by the police also claimed to belong to the organisation. Sixteen protesters who were arrested were later released on instruction from high officials, the police said. The police said the wife of the former premier was unhurt. |
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