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| Wednesday, October 18, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Floods destroy Alpine areas Italy declares emergency BATTERED by relentless rainstorms, rescuers were hunting last night (Mon) for people trapped in Alpine villages hit by the mudslides and floods unleashed by days of rain across Switzerland and northern Italy. Egypt’s answer to Camp David
Rights record in Myanmar ‘bad’ Indian to share World Food Prize| |
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| Epidemic kills
43 in Uganda KAMPALA, Oct 17 — Ugandan officials yesterday threatened to use force to prevent anyone leaving three areas of the country stricken by an outbreak of the deadly ebola haemorrhagic fever, even as an international effort was mobilised to contain the epidemic. Hasina’s
long wait for Clinton Kostunica clinches
deal
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Floods destroy Alpine areas BATTERED by relentless rainstorms, rescuers were hunting last night (Mon) for people trapped in Alpine villages hit by the mudslides and floods unleashed by days of rain across Switzerland and northern Italy. Thousands were evacuated by helicopter as bridges, roads and houses were swept away in torrents that plunged some communities into medieval conditions. At least 10 people in Italy have died in recent days, with a further 10 reported missing. Fifteen people are missing, feared dead, in Switzerland. Sniffer dogs detected a woman trapped under six feet of debris in the Swiss village of Gondo, near the Italian border. ``The rescuers heard knocking sounds and, later, also cries. We hope she is still alive,” said a police spokesman, Markus Rieder. Rescuers were still trying to get her out as dusk fell. A dozen residents are believed to have died after a dam burst above Gondo two days ago, destroying a third of the village in less than 10 seconds. At the disaster scene, Swiss President Adolf Ogi said: `”Once again, we must recognise how powerful the forces of nature can be.” Ten of the confirmed dead were in Italy, which yesterday declared a state of emergency in the Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta regions. Towns were expected to stay cut off from the road, rail and telephone network for days. Economic activity in Italy’s industrial north-east ground to a halt. Turin’s airport and most of its 29 bridges were closed when the Dora Baltea river burst its banks, swamping main streets in more than two feet of water. An army of 6,500 rescue workers battled to restore power and evacuate communities threatened by swollen rivers and lakes. Helicopters helped to ferry 3,000 people from isolated villages. About 50 people were lifted from rooftops in the Valle d’Aosta region, where five died on Sunday: an 85-year-old man who drowned in his basement: a girl (7), who died when her Gypsy camp was flooded; and three sailors on a merchant ship anchored in the port of Savona who were swept overboard by a giant wave. The Italian Government set up a crisis centre in Rome, pledged £ 30 m in immediate aid and urged motorists not to travel north. — The Guardian, London |
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Egypt’s answer to Camp David THE AMERICANS swept in like a firestorm yesterday descending on the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh with all the brawn of the world’s last remaining superpower. An occasional site for West Asia conflabs, Sharm el-Sheikh is a bizarre mix of high stakes diplomacy and cheap package tourism. The two decades that have passed since Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula have brought a wholesale transformation to what was once a simple Bedouin village. Known for its pristine sands and crystal clear coves teeming with fluorescent tropical fish, the Sharm of today is popular with Italian package tourists. At the Hyatt hotel the delegation bedded down in 300 rooms, including 18 for CNN and other television crews. Italian tourists were bundled out of their rooms, with their bags half-packed. The Press Secretary of the US embassy in Tel Aviv was also evicted at 2 am on Monday. Security was tight. In the US entourage, a Clinton double rode in the black limousine. The real US President exited from a lowly jeep. There was a flurry of excitement when President Clinton, accompanied by about 20 people, took a five-minute stroll around the golf course. At 100-yard intervals between the stubby palm trees were shorter stumps: motionless security men in suits. The Israelis arrived with their own baggage, principally the posse of spin doctors on the Prime Ministerial aircraft, who distributed lurid pictures from nearly three weeks of bloodshed and factsheets on the dangerous Hamas bombers freed from Palestinian jails last week. They also handed out videos of incendiary sermons from the imam of a Gaza mosque. But as the Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, drove to the summit centre — Jolie Ville Hotel — US and Palestinian flags were visible but not the Israeli star of David. During the last few days of tension, the Egyptian official press has returned to the language of the 1970s, before there was a peace agreement with Israel, referring to their neighbour as the ``Zionist entity’’. During a three-way meeting with Mr Barak and the United Nations Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, King Abdullah of Jordan said more than a fortnight of killing in Israeli-occupied territories had badly shaken the forces of peace. ``We must build the peace camp anew among all the states including mine,’’ the Jordanian ruler said, according to Israeli officials. The isolation of the place makes it easy to forget the bombs, bullets and stones that were the official reason for calling this summit - though many Arab journalists believe the real motive was to upstage the Arab summit, due to be held in Cairo this weekend. Many believe that Mr Mubarak has ambitions to turn Sharm into West Asia’s own Camp David. Four years ago it hosted a summit attended by 29 world leaders, again in response to a wave of violence - a series of anti-Israeli suicide bombings which killed 62 people. In September last year, Israelis and Palestinians signed a West Bank land-for-security agreement and earlier this month the US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, met Mr Arafat in Sharm. Mr Barak had refused her invitation. — The Guardian, London |
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Rights record in Myanmar ‘bad’ UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 (AP) — The human rights situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate with the government suppressing all opposition political activity and engaging in “inhuman treatment” of opposition members and ethnic minorities, a UN investigator said in a report released yesterday. Mr Rajsoomer Lallah, the UN Commission on Human Rights’ independent expert on Myanmar, said he continued to receive reports of government policies and directives aimed at eliminating the opposition National League for Democracy through intimidation, threats, coercion and political charges against its members. The opposition party and its leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, have been at loggerheads with Myanmar’s junta since 1988, the year the military crushed a pro-democracy uprising. The junta refuses to honour the results of the 1990 elections, which the National League for Democracy won overwhelmingly. Mr Lallah’s report said arbitrary arrests and detention of opposition party members and sympathisers, combined with the extension of prison terms for those who have already served their sentence, “make up a general and consistent pattern of the suppression of fundamental rights” to political and democratic expression. Local military intelligence units reportedly persecute party members, and government authorities continue to organise meetings, mass rallies and petitions to force citizens to denounce party members elected to Parliament or to call for dissolution of the party, the report said. Myanmar’s UN mission had no immediate comment on the report. Myanmar didn’t allow Mr Lallah to visit the country to prepare the assessment, Despite repeated calls to the government to improve the situation for minorities, the report said no improvement had been observed in reports Mr Lallah received. Among minority groups, the Shan Karen, Karenni and Rohingya in particular continued to be the target of indiscriminate violence, whether they were civilians or insurgents, it said. “Forced relocation in the minority areas still continues, entailing violence, including killings, rape, torture and inhuman treatment of civilians in the implementation of a (government) counter-insurgency strategy,” the report said. Mr Lallah warned that if the government failed to outlaw forced labour, a practice used against ethnic minorities, “it is feared that the International Labour Organisation may take measures involving sanctions.” |
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Indian to share World Food Prize NEW YORK, Oct 17 (AP) — The World
Food Prize was awarded yesterday to scientists from India and Mexico
for their work in discovering how to dramatically boost the nutrition
level of corn by adding key amino acids. The 14th annual World Food
Prize — little known despite its $ 250,000 honorarium — will be
shared by scientists Evangelina Villegas of Mexico and Surinder K.
Vasal of India. Their internationally funded work at a research center in Mexico led to quality protein maize, a nutritionally potent strain that already is saving lives of malnourished children in Africa, Asia and Central America, said Kenneth Quinn, a former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia and President of the World Food Prize Foundation. The
food prize was conceived by Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel laureate as
father of the worldwide “Green Revolution.” Borlaug, now 86,
attended the awards luncheon. Speaking at the luncheon, US Secretary
of Agriculture Dan Glickman reminded the audience that most of the
world’s people do not eat meals like those served at New York City’s
luxurious Rainbow Room. “The $ 150 you’d pay for dinner here
would buy the chickens to feed 15 Southeast Asian families for an
entire year,” he said. |
Epidemic kills
43 in Uganda KAMPALA, Oct
17 — Ugandan officials yesterday threatened to use force to prevent
anyone leaving three areas of the country stricken by an outbreak of
the deadly ebola haemorrhagic fever, even as an international effort
was mobilised to contain the epidemic. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) put the death toll at 43, including three nurses, worrying signs emerged that the epidemic might be spreading. There is no treatment for ebola, whose victims rapidly bleed to death. As it is highly infectious, the only hope of stopping an outbreak is isolating victims and their contacts. Until the weekend, the victims had been restricted to a 32-km radius of the northern Ugandan district capital of Gulu, which is 360-km north of the state capital, Kampala. However, since October 14, new cases have been reported outside the original area of infection. Ebola
is a filovirus — the only known virus family that scientists are
profoundly ignorant about. Monkeys appear to have been the source
of the virus in each outbreak of ebola, which first appeared in Congo.
Since then, there have been outbreaks in Sudan, Zaire, Cote d’Ivoire
and the Gabon in Africa. (The Guardian)
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Hasina’s long
wait for Clinton WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (UNI) —Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may have to camp here for some more days for a meeting with US President Bill Clinton if his arrival from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm-el-Sheikh is delayed. The Bangladesh Prime Minister who arrived here on Sunday night was scheduled to meet Mr Clinton today. Later, the meeting was put off by a day. Addressing the Bangladesh community here today Ms Sheikh Hasina lashed out at the opposition in her country for demanding early general elections saying that it was ruse to save the self-confessed assassins of late Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. Foreign Minister Abdul Samad Azad indicated that the Prime Minister would put pressure on the US administration to deport some of the assassins of Mujibur Rehman who had taken refuge in the USA. Meanwhile, the Bangladesh community would organise a demonstration at Lafforit Park here on October 19 demanding the assassins be deported to Bangladesh. |
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Kostunica clinches deal BELGRADE, Oct 17 (Reuters) —
Supporters of new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica have
consolidated their hold on power with a deal securing early elections
and a role in the government in Serbia, the country’s dominant
republic. The reformers announced an accord yesterday which set
Serbian parliamentary elections for December 23 and provided for a
transitional government sharing power among Mr Kostunica’s allies
and Socialists of ousted President Slobodan Milosevic. Although a
mass uprising forced the authoritarian Milosevic to admit defeat in
last month’s presidential election, the Socialists and their backers
remained dominant in the Serbian government, the seat of real power in
Yugoslavia. However, the Socialists recognised that the defeat of
Milosevic — their absolute leader for more than a decade at the
centre of a vast network of power — on a wave of pro-democracy
sentiment meant that they could not continue to run Serbia on their
own. Under the terms of the power-sharing deal, the Socialists
retain the post of Prime Minister but the new head of government has
to take decisions by consensus with two deputy Prime Ministers, one
from each of the two main reformist forces. |
Polar bears bring USA, Russia together Communist Party
official jailed Oscar
theft: ‘hero’s’ brother turns villain Madonna wins
Internet dispute Nobel Prize winner dead Oklahoma bombing
case: DA disqualified US Communist Party
leader dead
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