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October 14, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Fresh clashes erupt in Jerusalem 7 US sailors die in ship blast Window on Pakistan Sunshine policy fetched him Nobel 22 indicted for killing Nazrul Serbian poll on Dec 24
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Fresh clashes erupt in Jerusalem JERUSALEM, Oct 13 (Reuters) — Clashes erupted between rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli police after prayers in the old city of Jerusalem today, witnesses said. A photographer said Palestinians threw stones and bottles at police in riot-gear in a brief confrontation outside Damascus Gate. Israeli police kept hundreds of young Palestinians away from Al-Aqsa mosque in Arab East Jerusalem, citing security concerns. Many of them prayed at the entrances to the walled old city instead. In the meantime, thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of West Bank towns today in “marches of rage” at Israeli helicopter attacks a day earlier, some calling for bombing of Tel Aviv. In Gaza city, an Islamist crowd turned against the Palestinian police and set fire to a hotel and shops they said sold alcohol, witnesses said. The buildings were damaged but not destroyed. Clashes erupted during demonstrations in Ramallah, where witnesses said Palestinians and Israeli soldiers exchanged live gunfire, as well as in the divided city of Hebron and in Jenin and Bethlehem. Five Palestinians were wounded in Hebron, witnesses said. UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council expressed concern about the violence in West Asia but put off a Palestinian request for an emergency meeting and possible resolution, which the USA promised to veto. Council President Martin Andjaba of Namibia told reporters after closed-door discussions yesterday that the 15-nation body expressed “grave concern” at the situation and will continue to monitor it closely. “But for the time being, there will be no immediate action by the council,” he said. WASHINGTON: President Bill Clinton has “now more or less given up” his West Asia peace efforts giving yet another body blow to hopes of reviving the peace process in the violence-torn region, media reported today. Mr Clinton yesterday “rejected” a summit meeting which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak belatedly agreed to hold to bring the US President, President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Barak together, The New York Times quoted US officials as saying. “....The talks Clinton held with Barak and Arafat were dominated by each side’s effort to blame the other for the bloodshed. And they acknowledged that reviving the peace effort would be a near impossibility in the (Clinton) administration’s remaining time,” the officials said. Mr Clinton said bluntly that he would attend no more summits until Palestinian and Israeli leaders publicly commit themselves to end the violence, a senior administration leader told the media. RABAT: Morocco has recalled its diplomatic envoy from Israel to show support to Palestinians facing what local media termed Israel’s ‘’war’’ on the Palestinian people, the official MAP agency said today. “Following the latest events in the Palestinian territories, Morocco has recalled its diplomatic representative in Tel Aviv, Talal Ghoufrani, for consultations, pending an assessment of the dangerous situation in the region,” MAP said. CAIRO: Israel unilaterally closed its main border crossing with Egypt yesterday, Egyptian officials said. One official said Israel was prohibiting Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and all other nationalities from crossing into Israel from Egypt through the Rafah border, which leads to the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. Only sick or elderly people were being allowed to cross into Egypt through Rafah, the official said. It was not immediately clear how long the border closure would last. DUBAI: Oman has decided to close down its commercial bureau in Tel Aviv and the Israeli Commercial Mission in the Sultanate to express solidarity with the Palestinians in the two-week-old Israeli-Palestinian clashes. |
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7 US sailors die in ship blast WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (UNI, PTI) — Following yesterday’s terrorist attack on a US destroyer at Aden Port in which 17 personnel, including six sailors, were feared killed and 36 injured, President Bill Clinton has ordered US ships to be pulled out of ports in West Asia. The bodies of five sailors have been recovered. Meanwhile the official death toll from the attack on a US naval destroyer in Aden rose to seven and the navy said ten more sailors were still missing and presumed dead. Navy spokeswoman Lt Jensin Sommer told newsmen about 35 people were injured, some of them seriously, from the attack. After holding a series of meetings with his national security advisers, the President also asked US land forces in the region to be on heightened alert. The country’s military forces and embassies in the region have been on alert for some time now. In a statement at the White House, Mr Clinton described the blast as a despicable and cowardly act of terrorism, and said the USA was determined to bring the accused to book. ‘‘If their intention was to deter us from our mission of bringing about peace and security in the Middle East, they will fail, utterly,’’ he added. He has also directed the Defence Department, FBI and State Department to rush officials to Aden to begin investigations. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has
already spoken to the Yemenese President Ali Abdullah Saleh and sought his cooperation in nabbing the suspects. However, there were conflicting versions about the explosions, with Mr Saleh asserting that an internal problem in the ship had caused the explosion, not terrorists. The USA suspects the hand of suicide bombers, who it says, came in a small boat and rammed the ship from behind. According to US officials, a small boat carrying suspected terrorists on a suicide mission caused the blast that blew a huge hole in the USS Cole. The bombing, they said, was apparently planned with meticulous care as the destroyer was to be in Aden Harbour only for few hours for refuelling. As the ship could not have been attacked in the open seas the use of a small boat misled the crew into thinking that it was just another harbour boat. Aden: An explosion rocked the British Embassy in Yemen today but there were no immediate reports of casualties, a Yemeni official said. The official said the blast occurred in the courtyard of the embassy in the capital Sanaa. He had no further details. |
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Window on Pakistan PAKISTAN’S military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, is happy as he has completed one year as Chief Executive of that hapless country where successive attempts to root in democracy have been scuttled by ambitious military dictators. Since 1988 four elected governments have been dismissed. Ten governments have come and gone and yet domestic stability is elusive. Yesterday’s ruler, an elected one, Mr Nawaz Sharif, is in jail and faces death sentence, like earlier Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His wife Kulsoom, trying to organise token demonstrations, was arrested yesterday. Mr Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani writer, in his latest well researched book, “Taliban: Islam, Oil and New Great Game in Central Asia”, has summed up the situation thus: “The Taliban, which provided sanctuary to Sunni extremist activists from Pakistan, also deprived Pakistan of valuable revenue by allowing smuggling in the name of the Afghan Transit Trade ( ATT) agreement....” “What is euphemistically called the ATT has become the biggest smuggling racket in the world and has enmeshed the Taliban with Pakistani smugglers, transporters, drug barons, bureaucrats, politicians, police and Army officers.... The border post between Chaman in Baluchistan province and Spin Baldak in Afghanistan is a prime location to watch the racket at work. On a good day, some 300 trucks pass through.... The consignments range from Japanese camcorders to English underwear and Earl Grey tea, Chinese silk to American computer parts, Afghan heroin to Pakistani wheat and sugar, East European Kalashnikovs to Iranian petroleum— and nobody pays customs duties or sales tax.” Pakistan, he argues, is the worst victim of this trade. The Pakistani Central Board of Revenue estimated that in 1992-93, the country lost $ 80 million on account of ATT— a figure which rose to a whopping $ 600 million in 1997-98 — a staggering increase that reflected the Taliban’s expansion. Mr Rashid also writes: “The ATT fuelled the already powerful black economy in Pakistan. According to an academic study (conducted by the Pakistani Institute of Development Economics), the underground economy in Pakistan has snowballed from Rs 15 billion in 1996, with its share in the GDP increasing from 20 per cent to 51 per cent. During the same period, tax evasion — including customs duty evasion— has escalated from Rs 1.5 billion to Rs 152 billion, accelerating at the rate of Rs 55 billion a year.” “The smuggling trade contributed some Rs 100 billion to the underground economy in 1993, which had escalated to over Rs 300 billion in 1998. This is equivalent to 30 per cent of the country’s total imports of $ 10 billion or equal to the entire revenue collection target for 1998-99 (Rs 300 billion). In addition , the Afghanistan-Pakistan drug trade was estimated to be worth an annual Rs 50 billion,” Mr Rashid adds. Thus with a heavy debt on the one side and a non-tax paying elite and the business community on the other, the ruling general is more and more depending upon keeping the country’s two major political parties divided. It is not a difficult job at the moment. Ms Benazir Bhutto is in London, cooling her heels and hoping that the situation will worsen to the extent that she may be called upon by the people to take the command of the country. Mr Nawaz Sharif is fighting a losing battle and his Pakistan Muslim League is a shambles. A Pakistani columnist, Mr Aziz-ud-Din Ahmed, aptly said,”.... The last-ditch effort on the part of Mian Shahbaz Sharif to keep the PML united has failed. The deposed Prime Minister’s letter read at a meeting of the party’s Central Coordination Committee is bound to hasten the long expected break-up. The ongoing struggle between the two sides in the PML, the one recommending a dialogue with the government and the other insisting that confrontation alone could release the current government pressure on the leadership and help restore the Assemblies, is going to sharpen now. The letter, which is a bluntly worded chargesheet against the military government, leaves pretty little for the PML negotiators to discuss with the Chief Executive. If it is to serve as a guideline, it leaves only the option of an agitation before the party. One may have reasons to accuse the military government of brutality, tyranny, despotism, corruption and misuse of authority, but in case one prefers to do so publicly, chances of negotiations are ruled out. Mr Shahbaz Sharif, had given the former Prime Minister altogether different advice. He had asked him to offer a tactful explanation of the October 12 dismissal of the Army Chief, which lead to the military coup. He advised him to take the ambivalent stand that the decision had been taken on the basis of available information (which might have been fed by some interested party). An explanation of this sort would have supposedly provided a larger room for manoeuvre to the party negotiators. Mr Nawaz Sharif has, however, given an altogether different interpretation of the events, which leaves no room for negotiations. |
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Sunshine policy fetched him Nobel SEOUL, Oct 13 (Reuters) — South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s patient persistence with his ‘’sunshine policy’’ with North Korea and lifelong commitment to democracy and human rights earned him the Nobel Peace Prize today. But Kim, who is sometimes described as “Asia’s Mandela”, has paid a high price for his political principles. Under Korea’s military rulers in the 70s and 80s he was twice sentenced to death, repeatedly tortured, the victim of two assassination attempts, exiled twice and held under house arrest 55 times. But the first act of the “perennial dissident” after he was elected President in
December 1997 was to pardon the former rulers who sentenced him to death when he was Opposition leader. “Only the truly magnanimous and strong are capable of forgiving and loving,’’ he wrote in a letter to his son from the death row in November, 1980. That optimism and strength has sustained his policy of engagement with North Korea, despite scorn from the political opposition and scepticism from a public that has seen long been witness to North Korean provocations. The world watched in almost shocked disbelief as President Kim embraced the reclusive and mysterious North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during their landmark summit in Pyongyang in June. The two Koreas - technically still at war because the Korean conflict half a century ago ended in an armed truce that has never been replaced by a peace agreement - have since taken unprecedented steps towards rapprochement. They have staged emotional reunions of families separated during the Korean war and agreed to reconnect rail and road links severed during that conflict, requiring the opposing armies to cooperate in clearing landmines on the heavily fortified border. A populist politician with a gift for oratory, Kim, as an Opposition leader, had drawn wide support among workers, students and farmers attracted by his mildly social-democratic principles. Shortly before his victory, South Korea accepted with humiliation a bail-out package of nearly $ 60 billion arranged by the International Monetary Fund. He first ran for President in 1971, winning an astonishing 45 percent of the vote against military strongman Park Chung-hee despite efforts by the government’s propaganda machine to destroy him. During the campaign, a truck hit his car in what he claims was an assassination attempt. The accident left him with a permanent limp and Chronic Neuralgia. |
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22 indicted for killing Nazrul DHAKA, Oct 13 (DPA) — A criminal court in Bangladesh indicted 22 persons, including four Opposition politicians, for the murder of four national leaders inside a prison 25 years ago, court officials said today. Eight accused persons were present in the heavily guarded court room in the capital Dhaka when judge Ahmed Jamil Mostafa read out the indictments late last evening, the officials said. Fourteen other accused, all former army officers, had fled the country in 1996 as the authorities planned to put them on trial for the cold blooded massacre on November 3, 1975. The four killed in the Dhaka Central Jail were former acting President Syed Nazrul Islam, former Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad and former Cabinet Ministers Mansur Ali and Ahm Kamaruzzaman. The hearing in the court is scheduled to start on November 20 nearly two years after the police had revived the case. |
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Serbian poll on Dec 24 BELGRADE, Oct 13 (Reuters) — Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s party agreed with pro-democracy leaders today to hold Serbian parliamentary elections on December 24, a Belgrade radio station said. Vladan Batic, a leader of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, which backs new President Vojislav Kostunica, told Independent B92 Radio that the parties had resumed official negotiations after a two-day break. The parties had also agreed to form a transitional Serbian government. WASHINGTON: The USA will take immediate steps to lift economic sanctions against Yugoslavia to support the new democratically elected government President Bill Clinton announced yesterday. |
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