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| Wednesday, October 11, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Annan hopeful of ending violence Indians won’t
rule Fiji again: PM
15 Abu Sayyaf rebels surrender |
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More Milosevic men quit 4 suspects in Omagh
blast identified Suu Kyi refuses to
meet UN envoy Wahid not to appear
before MPs’ panel Gore’s lead melts
away in poll
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Annan hopeful of ending violence GAZA, Oct 10 (Reuters, AFP) — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said after meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the second time that he was hopeful about bringing an end to a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Asked about prospects for a settlement, he told reporters: “If you were talking about my frame of mind, it is positive, it is hopeful. I think we can rein in the situation. I think we have a window of opportunity to do it. “It is not going to remain open forever. So I am optimistic. It can be done. We should be able to do it,” Mr Annan said after presenting what officials said were unspecified proposals to Arafat for ending the unrest. Mr Annan was due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak later to try to broker an end to the 13 days of violence in which at least 90 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. The Palestinian leader was due to host Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov later before being joined for a three-way discussion by Mr Annan later, Palestinian officials said. “Time is short and the stakes are high and the price of failure is more than any of us wants to pay,” Mr Annan told a news conference after meeting Mr Arafat in Gaza late yesterday. JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak today extended the deadline and said he was willing to give international mediators more time to try to end the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence and revive West Asia peace-making process. After a five-hour Cabinet meeting that ended before dawn, Mr Barak said he was prepared to attend a summit with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat provided it would ensure an end to nearly two weeks of bloodshed. “If we find ourselves in a long, painful, difficult confrontation of many long months, there’ll be no importance to our having held on for another 72 or 96 hours,” Mr Barak told Israel’s army radio, extending a previous 48-hour deadline. His office said in a statement that appeals by world leaders had prompted the government to allow more time to end the violence “with the feeling that this is, indeed, the last chance.” US President Bill Clinton has been trying to arrange a summit between Mr Barak and Mr Arafat. Mr Barak said any summit must also set in motion a US-led inquiry into clashes, and schedule a swift resumption of peace negotiations. “If there won’t be a halt to violence, it will mean the Palestinian authority and Mr Arafat in fact chose to cease the negotiations and we will know how to act in this situation,’’ Mr Barak said. The Palestinians say it is up to Israel, deemed by the UN Security Council to have used excessive force, to end the violence. At least 90 persons have been killed in the clashes, mostly Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. WASHINGTON: Just hours after the USA delayed plans for an emergency summit, Israel eased the pressure today by extending its deadline for an end to the Palestinian violence. The Israeli decision came after Mr Clinton had put on hold his plans for a meeting with Barak and Arafat and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak by telephone in an attempt to broker the summit as a 48-hour ultimatum by Israel approached. But the White House had put the plans for a meeting on hold because it could not set the right conditions. Israel said it had extended its deadline so as not to be blamed for a failure of the peace process. Prominent Washington Times columnist Lally Weymouth, who has been meeting West Asia leaders, however, suggested that Mr Arafat apparently has no plans to de-escalate the violence and that his idea was to continue the violence until November 15 when he will declare an independent Palestine unilaterally. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger advised both Israeli and Palestinians to de-escalate tension. Some analysts say that Mr Barak’s concessions, which the Palestinians reject as inadequate, are indeed the most far-reaching any Israeli leader has offered. They would give control of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem to the Palestinians though not sovereignty. They would also give the Palestinians 91 per cent of the areas which Israel seized in 1967. Mr Arafat has said he will only consider a resumption of peace talks once Israel agrees to the formation of an international commission of inquiry into the 12 days of violence that has killed 88 persons, mostly Palestinians. In towns across Israel, Jews and Arabs attacked each other in perhaps the worst civil strife in years. Jews burned tyres and smashed the windows of Arab cars. In Jerusalem, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli motorists on a main road, making it impassable. |
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Indians won’t
rule Fiji again: PM suva, oct 10 (Reuters) — Fiji’s interim Prime Minister has delivered a blunt message that ethnic Indians will never again rule the nation. Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said in a speech at the University of the South Pacific in capital Suva that they will not allow a leadership that was seen by many Fijians to be blatantly discriminatory against them to return. “The general feeling among Fijians is that there must be better and stronger guarantees for indigenous Fijians to be in control of their political destiny,’’he said. Mr Qarase’s interim government was installed by the military in July at the height of a coup crisis that began in May when gunmen stormed Parliament in the name of indigenous rights and held ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his Cabinet colleagues hostage for 56 days. Mr Qarase, who has been given the task of reviewing Fiji’s Constitution and organising elections within two years, had previously said the country’s multi-ethnic Constitution would not be reinstated. Fiji marked its 30th anniversary of independence today, a day when those opposed to the coup had called for people to wear blue as part of a nationwide “Blue Day’’ protest. Businesses and trade unions which are dominated by ethnic Indians had called for the protest. However, it failed to materialise. George Speight who led the coup attempt is due to appear in court tomorrow on charges of treason with a full trial possibly slated to begin in the next few weeks. Fiji has been suspended by the 54-nation Commonwealth whose 11-member Ministerial Action Group said last month that Qarase’s administration was “the product of an unconstitutional overthrow of an elected government’’. |
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15 Abu Sayyaf rebels surrender ZAMBOANGA CITY (The Philippines), Oct 10 (DPA) — As many as 15 members of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group holding five hostages captive in southern Philippines surrendered to the military today amid an unrelenting campaign against the rebels. Col Ernesto de Guzman, Chief of Staff of the armed forces’ Southern Command, said the rebels who surrendered on Jolo island, Sulu province, 1,000 km south of Manila, included an aide of Abu Sayyaf leader Mujib Susukan. The faction of Susukan and Galib Andang, known as Robot, is holding captive three Malaysians seized from Pandanan island off Borneo in September. An American and a Filipino are being held captive by two other units. Colonel Guzman said the rebels yielded to the army in Lumapid village in Talipao town and handed over their weapons. He said many other Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were sending surrender feelers to the police and the military. “The Abu Sayyaf rebels cannot withstand the pressure of the military operation and they are on the run. Others have been cornered,’’ he said. According to the military, a total of 20 Abu Sayyaf rebels have surrendered to the authorities since the military launched an assault against the extremist group on September 16. Yesterday, government troops clashed with Abu Sayyaf gunmen in the hinterlands of Talipao, but there were no reports of casualties. However, in the process of negotiations for the release of the Sipadan hostages, however, the rebels took in more hostages, including two French television crewmen who escaped a few days after the military began attacking Abu Sayyaf lairs. Twelve Filipino Christian evangelists who bribed their way into the rebel camp for a prayer and a fasting mission were rescued last week. The military said eight soldiers and paramilitary troops were killed in the 24-day blitz, while 17 soldiers, policemen and militiamen were wounded. The rebel death toll was placed at 129, with 60 bodies recovered. |
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More Milosevic men quit BELGRADE, Oct 10 (AFP) — Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Milovan Bojic, who is also a senior figure in the neo-Communist Yugoslav Left Party allied to ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s leftwing coalition, resigned, the Tanjug news agency reported. His resignation follows those of Yugoslav Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic and Serbian Interior Minister, both of whom were also close allies of Milosevic. The Yugoslav left is headed by Milosevic’s wife, Mira Markovic. HONG KONG (ANI): Marko Milosevik, son of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevik, who arrived in Beijing on Monday from Moscow was turned back. Contrary to speculation that Beijing, a staunch supporter of Slobodan Milosevic, might be ready to offer Marko and his family sanctuary, stunned some foreign diplomats. Russia’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on whether Marko Milosevic would be allowed to enter Russia or whether he had entered the country at the weekend. Western diplomats in Beijing had mostly discounted the possibility of Beijing offering a safe haven for the Milosevic clan. To do so would fly in the face of Beijing’s long-standing principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. China congratulated new President Vojislav Kostunica on Saturday and has strongly denied it would take in Yugoslav gold. Leading Serbian economist Mladjan Dinkic said on Friday that an overnight plane bound for Beijing might be stashed with gold worth an estimated $ 150 million. It was not clear why Marko, a macho playboy with an extensive business empire in his father’s hometown of Pozarevac, came to Beijing. |
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4 suspects in Omagh
blast identified BELFAST, Oct 10 (AP) — A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) investigation into a Northern Ireland’s terrorist attack has identified key suspects in the car bombing of Omagh in which 29 persons were killed. The BBC’s flagship Panorama programme yesterday named four men allegedly involved in the August 15, 1998, attack on the religiously mixed town which was designed to undermine Northern Ireland’s peace accord of the same year. The broadcast went ahead after a Belfast court rejected a last-minute appeal by the husband of one victim who argued it might prejudice prosecutions of those named. “I might never get justice for my wife Libbi now. Trial by media is dangerous,” said Mr Laurence Rush, whose wife died in her Omagh furniture shop when the 200-kg bomb went off on the town’s main shopping street. But Mr Michael Gallagher, whose only son Adrian also perished in the blast, said he thought the broadcast was courageous and might resuscitate the official hunt for the bombers. |
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Suu Kyi refuses to
meet UN envoy yangon, oct 10 (Reuters)— Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has refused to meet the visiting UN special envoy unless the military government lifts restrictions on her movements, diplomats said today. Mrs Suu Kyi was refusing to meet special envoy razali Ismail in protest against the restrictions. She has been confined to her house with her telephone cut and diplomatic access barred since September 21. There was no word from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (nld). Senior nld members are also subjected to similar restrictions. |
Wahid not to appear
before MPs’ panel JAKARTA, Oct 10 (Reuters) — Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said today he would not appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions regarding two financial scandals, raising the prospect of a fresh conflict with MPs. Earlier, today a 50-member cross-parliamentary team said it would summon Mr Wahid and other senior officials in connection with a probe into the scandals linked to the embattled Muslim cleric. |
Gore’s lead melts
away in poll WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (AFP) — Vice-President Al Gore’s lead over Mr George W.Bush in a tight race for the White House has disintegrated with just four weeks to go until the election day, according to the latest USA today/Gallop poll released yesterday. Mr Gore trailed the Republican Governor of Texas 41-49 per cent in the poll in which 769 likely voters participated, following a spate of adverse publicity concerning the Democratic Vice-President’s alleged tendency to embellish facts. Warrants against
Mark Tully ISLAMABAD, Oct 10
(PTI) — A Pakistani court has issued non-bailable warrant of arrest against former
BBC South Asia correspondent Mark Tully and declared him a proclaimed offender after he failed to appear before it in a case for
allegedly feeding a “concocted” report on the hanging of deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto two decades ago. |
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