W O R L D

Window on Pakistan
Towards a two-party system?
There is a move to evolve a two-party system in Pakistan. The idea has been floated not by the ruling General but by the PML (N) and the PPP, the parties led by the two former Prime Ministers — Mr Nawaz Sharif, spending his days in Attock jail, and Ms Benazir Bhutto, living in self-imposed exile in Britain.

ASEM backs Korean unity
SEOUL, Oct 20 — Leaders from Asia and Europe today jointly backed the peace process on the Korean Peninsula at a two-day summit in Seoul that broadly aimed at enhancing Asian-European ties in political, economic and security matter.

US-Bangla pact to be expedited
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 — The USA and Bangladesh will expedite the signing of an extradition treaty to facilitate the deportation of three former senior Bangladesh military officers, wanted in the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who have taken refuge in the USA.

Israelis use truncheons on protesters at Al-Aqsa
No let-up as Barak deadline nears

JERUSALEM, Oct 20 (Reuters) — Scuffles broke out between the Israeli police and Palestinian youths in Jerusalem’s walled Old City today as the deadline neared for ending a wave of violence that has shattered West Asia peace.

Israeli police said their forces fought Palestinian youths who tried to break through a police barrier and enter two different gates of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound for Friday prayers.

Witnesses said the police used truncheons to break up the disturbances. A policeman was injured in the leg, an Israeli spokesman said.

Muslim worshippers spilled into the street outside the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City and around 500 demonstrators marched through the streets of Arab East Jerusalem.

“Allah-u-Akbar’’ (God is greatest) and “we will fight to defend Jerusalem,’’ they chanted after the prayers ended. Witnesses said a sermon delivered at the service called for Palestinians to clash with Israeli security forces.

Some of the marchers shouted for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon to attack Tel Aviv.

Sporadic skirmishes flared in the West Bank between Israelis and Palestinians, although an Israeli spokeswoman described the incidents as “nothing unusual’’ and there were no reports of heavy fighting.

In Salfit on the West Bank, a Palestinian teenager was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers today, medical sources said.

The Red Crescent emergency medical service said the boy, said to be 13 years old, was shot in the heart.

Witnesses said protesters hurled stones at soldiers, who fired rubber-coated metal bullets.

The killing raised to 109 the death toll in three weeks of violence.

An Israeli was killed in a firefight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen that has been raging for hours yesterday near the West Bank town of Nablus, an Israeli official said.

The official, who declined to be named, said one Israeli was dead and several wounded, some seriously, in the firefight which he said began when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of Israelis on a day trip to the area.

A Palestinian was killed earlier in the clash and about 15 were wounded, when the army opened fire from helicopter gunships. A Palestinian official at a nearby refugee camp said Jewish settlers started the incident by opening fire first.

Israeli army spokesman Yarden Vatikay said a group of about 30 Israeli civilians were trapped on a hilltop and were using rocks as cover as the gunbattle raged. He said that soldiers were being hampered in their efforts to evacuate the Israeli wounded by a constant barrage of fire. 

Meanwhile, Israel’s Right-wing Opposition leader Ariel Sharon said today he was still toying with the idea of joining Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government, but only if it took a tough stance on peacemaking with the Palestinians.

Sharon said he was due to meet Barak to discuss terms for setting up a national unity government despite a newspaper poll that put him ahead of Barak for the first time in a possible election race. Sharon did not say when they would meet.

The Gallup poll for the daily Maariv showed that, if elections were held at once, 41 per cent of Israelis would vote for Sharon with 31 per cent backing Barak, head of the Centre-Left one Israel faction. The rest had no opinion.

CAIRO (AP): Arab foreign ministers have said they want peace with Israel, but need to review if the current negotiations process is the best way to achieve it.

“It is obvious that peace means the return of all occupied Arab lands... what is required here is that we pass on to the Arab summit a complete suggested programme to achieve this main goal,” Amr Moussa, Egypt’s Foreign Minister said on Thursday, opening a two-day at which foreign ministers will prepare for a weekend summit of their heads of state.

There were calls for ending relations with Israel in the wake of three weeks of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting, but the emphasis seemed to be on finding a more constructive approach.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said that calls for war that preceded the convening of the summit were aimed at “marginalising” it. He accused Israel of derailing the peace process that began 10 years ago.

Window on Pakistan
Towards a two-party system?

There is a move to evolve a two-party system in Pakistan. The idea has been floated not by the ruling General but by the PML (N) and the PPP, the parties led by the two former Prime Ministers — Mr Nawaz Sharif, spending his days in Attock jail, and Ms Benazir Bhutto, living in self-imposed exile in Britain. They agree that for all practical purposes Pakistan has been having a two-party system. The two principal organisations had been forming their government one after the other for the past 10 years till Gen Pervez Musharraf disconnected the process last October.

The new idea was discussed with Ms Bhutto in Dubai last week when a senior PML (N) leader met her as an emissary of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz. Though political leaders today cannot influence the course of history effectively, anything they discuss among themselves has to be viewed with seriousness because the expected elections in 2002 may lead to a government by either of the two parties or a group headed by one of them. After the all-party meeting held some time ago this is perhaps the most serious political development that has occurred in Pakistan.

This has led to a debate. Will the PML (N) and the PPP work together to give shape to a two-party system even when one of them captures power at the end of military rule? Will General Musharraf allow either of the two women leaders to remain in politic with their parties intact? Even in a situation when the General is unable to prevent them from coming to power, political analysts express doubts about any cooperation between the two parties. And this view is supported by the leaders’ behavior in the immediate past.

When Mr Nawaz Sharif was ruling the roost he indulged in vendetta politics. He was prepared to go to any extent against the PPP leadership. It is, however, a different matter that Ms Bhutto’s husband, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, popularly known as Mr Ten Percent during his wife’s Prime Ministership, was digging his own grave, unmindful of the consequences of his questionable actions.

Ms Bhutto also did not conduct herself as a mature politician in power while dealing with the opposition. She was after the blood of Mr Sharif and his family members — not good politics by any standard. As an opposition leader, she is on record having demanded that the armed forces should snatch power from Mr Sharif “in the interest of the country”. She declared that a military regime would be better than the one led by Mr Sharif. That has happened now. Why is she not enjoying the kind of dispensation she had been praying for?

Urdu daily Jung castigated her and Mr Sharif some time ago for their political immaturity. It also lambasted them for talking of democracy while practising dictatorship in the organisations under their control. This duplicacy in their conduct must end if they were serious about the cause of democracy, the paper said.

Even today when there are consultations among the PML (N) and PPP leaders on matters like restoration of the democratic process and a two-party system, they have deep-rooted “suspicions and animosities”, as The Nation pointed out last week. The paper, in a hard-hitting editorial, said: “But how far have these parties overcome their mutual mistrust or succeeded in evolving a common programme? As things stand, they are not likely to undertake any joint action. While the PML (N) and the GDA (the Grand Democratic Alliance, which for all practical purposes means the PPP) oppose the military government, there is no unanimity among them regarding the observance of Black Day on October 12.”

The Nation is right. The two mainstream parties, despite their high-sounding ideas, could not organise a joint and impressive show of protest against the military regime to give the impression that they would together work for promoting a healthy democratic culture in Pakistan despite remaining political adversaries. That is why “the people may not be happy with the military government but they are not enthusiastic about the political parties either.”

A disgusted Pakistani, whose letter was carried by The Nation on October 13, asks: “Is it so that out of a population of nearly 140 million, we do not have a single leader who is sincere, honest and capable enough to steer this nation out of the troubled waters. Are our people destined to live a miserable life for no fault of their own? Why should the people of Pakistan suffer for the follies of its corrupt leaders of the past who bled this country white?”

The truth is that no system in Pakistan will be a success unless the quality of leadership improves. There is no such possibility in the foreseeable future, keeping in view the situation prevailing today.

— Syed Nooruzzaman

ASEM backs Korean unity

SEOUL, Oct 20 (DPA) — Leaders from Asia and Europe today jointly backed the peace process on the Korean Peninsula at a two-day summit in Seoul that broadly aimed at enhancing Asian-European ties in political, economic and security matters.

The Third Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM) being held today and tomorrow has drawn 15 leaders from the European Union, the President of the European Commission, as well as leaders from seven Southeast Asian countries, China, Japan and South Korea.

The ASEM, summit, attracting 22 heads of state, 1,816 delegates and 2,241 journalists, is the largest such international conference to be hosted by Seoul.

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung opened the Third Asia-Europe summit with a call for the two regions to strengthen their political and security dialogues and to muster their collective wisdom ‘’to enhance the universal value of democracy and human rights.’’

The South Korean President won praise from other ASEM leader for winning the Nobel Peace Prize last week in recognition of his success in starting the rapprochement process with North Korea in June, this year.

Kim presided over summit talks focusing on political issues this morning at which the “Seoul declaration’’ was quickly approved.

South Korea, which is hosting the Third ASEM, has used the occasion to muster world support for the historic rapprochement process between Seoul and Pyongyang, that began with a summit between the two countries’ leader on June 15, this year.

The support was stated in the “Seoul Declaration for Peace on the Korean Peninsula,’’ which throws both European and Asian support behind the North-South Korean peace process and “encourages both sides to continue building on the success of the (Pyongyang) summit for the sake of peace and security in the region’’.

The Seoul Declaration also calls for closer ties between the two regions and the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK), paving the way for improved diplomatic relations and access to humanitarian aid for the former pariah state.

The European Union made clear yesterday that they are poised to increase their humanitarian assistance to North Korea, and the UK announced in London that it would establish relations with Pyongyang.

Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, in his opening statement to the Third ASEM, praised Europe for having proved itself “no fair weather friend,’’ during Asia’s tough times.

But behind the scenes and outside conference halls, diplomats say European and Asian ministers and leaders have also been consulting about latest developments in Indonesia and Myanmar (Burma).

AFP: Two thousand demonstrators fought South Korean riot police on Friday here as security forces attempted to stop protesters marching on the Asia-Europe Summit.

Demonstrators armed with makeshift batons fought riot police as they tried to breach a security cordon intended to stop them getting close to a conference centre where 25 Asian and European heads of state and government started a two-day summit.

Protesters shouted slogans such as, “We oppose ASEM,” “We oppose economic restructuring.” They also called for an end to imports into South Korea to protect jobs.

BEIJING (AFP): China is making its presence felt at the Asia-Europe summit as it stakes its claim to be Asia’s main power despite a threat to its position from the Korean thaw, analysts said.

Watery grave likely for Kursk crew

MOSCOW, Oct 20 (Agencies) — The issue of abandoning the retrieval of bodies from the Kursk is waiting the presidential nod, according to General Manilov, second in command of the Russian armed forces.

‘Novosti’, quoting the General says, in the naval tradition of letting “Sailors, who perished at sea, stay in their underwater collective grave,” the bodies of the victims of the ‘submarine tragedy’ would be left where they lie at present.

The situation is being assessed in all its dimensions before the decision gets the President’s — the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces approval, the paramount being the foreign divers team’s assessment. Besides, the strong gales, of force-5 strength (force-3 being navigational), at the Barents Sea is another factor prohibiting retrieval operations.

Meanwhile, a Norwegian diving platform has arrived at the scene of the sunken Kursk submarine, and divers are preparing for a possible attempt to raise some of its 118 dead crewmen, a Russian navy spokesman said today.

“The Regalia arrived at the scene early this morning, and they are preparing the equipment and so on for the operation,” Igor Dygalo said.

“But we have to be very careful when we talk about when the divers may go down,” he added, echoing warnings from officials in the last few days that it may be too risky to extract bodies from the Kursk, ripped open in August by two unexplained blasts.

Yesterday Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, who is overseeing the operation, said he would cancel the plan if an initial analysis of the sub’s condition showed it to be too dangerous to enter.

The weather forecast for the site of the disaster was quite good for the next two or three days but with strengthening winds, Dygalo said.

However, the operation might begin only next week, he added.

US-Bangla pact to be expedited

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (UNI) — The USA and Bangladesh will expedite the signing of an extradition treaty to facilitate the deportation of three former senior Bangladesh military officers, wanted in the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who have taken refuge in the USA.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina rounded off her four-day stay in Washington with a 30-minute meeting with US President Bill Clinton at the White House yesterday where both leaders expressed satisfaction over the progress made in the negotiations to facilitate the signing of the treaty.

Ms Hasina, who had taken up the issue of extradition of the three former military officers accused in the assassination with Mr Clinton when he visited Dhaka last March, also had a meeting with Attorney-General Janet Reno where the issue was discussed threadbare.

Briefing newspersons after the high-level meeting between the US President and Ms Hasina, White House spokesperson Jake Siewart said the USA had asked the Bangladesh government to provide certain information in this regard and that had reached the US Justice Department recently. He, however, did not disclose the nature of information sought by the department.

Mr Siewart said his government expected an extradition treaty would be in place with the help of the Bangladesh Government. Though no timeframe was indicated, the spokesperson recalled that Mr Clinton had expressed his intention in favour of the treaty way back in March when he visited Dhaka.

WORLD BRIEFS

Rwandan ex-PM sentenced to life
THE HAGUE: Jean Kambanda, who as Prime Minister oversaw the 1994 bloodshed in Rwanda, on Thursday lost an appeal against his life imprisonment sentence for genocide by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. Kambanda, who headed Rwanda’s interim government during the bloodbath that claimed up to 8,00,000 lives in the tiny central African country in April 1994, is the first head of government to be sentenced for genocide. — AFP

Myanmar frees UK rights activist
LONDON: A British human rights activist, released after serving over a year of a 17-year jail sentence in Myanmar for handing out pro-democracy leaflets, is about to start his journey home, the Foreign Office said on Friday. James Mawdsley (27) was due to board a plane at Keng Fung where he has been imprisoned, and will be considered free by the British Government when he is in the hands of British diplomats in Yangon a spokesman said. — Reuters

Dalai Lama meets Sinn Fein head
BELFAST: The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, met Mr Gerry Adams, head of the IRA’s political ally Sinn Fein, at the start of a three-day visit to North Ireland, officials said. The Buddhist leader on Thursday arrived at a Roman Catholic monastery in West Belfast to meet Mr Adams, local MP shortly after arriving in the province, where a peace process is under way after 30 years of guerrilla war. 
— Reuters

Beatles’ films producer dead
LOS ANGELES: Walter Shenson, film producer whose credits included the Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help” died on Tuesday at Motion Pictures and Television Fund Hospital from complications that followed a stroke. He was 81. Born in San Francisco, Shenson studied at Standford University. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he worked in film publicity for Paramount and Columbia Studios. In the 1950s, he went to London and began producing films. — AP

Liz Hurley faces fresh criticism
LONDON: British actress Elizabeth Hurley, branded a “scab’’ by US actors for doing a perfume commercial despite a Hollywood strike against advertisers, is facing fresh criticism for “ditching” her own union. Britain’s acting union Equity said on Thursday Hurley, model for Estee Lauder and former girlfriend of star Hugh Grant, stopped, had paying her subscriptions in November, 1998. — Reuters

4 Indians survive Laos plane crash
HANOI: Four Indians survived a Laos Aviation Airplane crash in the remote northeastern mountains, in which eight persons were killed, airline officials said on Friday. The Indians were among the nine survivors from Thursday’s crash near the provincial capital of Xam Neua, but all were in a critical condition, an airline official said. — AFP