 |
| Friday,
November 10, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
|
More Sikhs
reach Pak for Gurpurb Laos backs India on UN
seat US Election 2000 Florida absentees hold the
key Electoral college an
anachronism Republicans control
Congress |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hillary won on S. Asian
votes Israel kills Fatah leader, 2
women Police brutality video shocks SA Thai monk disrobed
for phone sex
|
|
More Sikhs reach Pak for Gurpurb ISLAMABAD, Nov 9 (IANS) — More Sikh pilgrims from India arrived in Lahore this morning to attend the birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh faith. The celebrations have already begun at
Gurudwara Panja Sahib in Hasan Abdal and, according to official sources, 1,000 to 1,500 more Sikhs are expected from India. About 1,050 Sikhs from India arrived in Lahore by the Samjhauta Express on Monday. Others came by road and air. The new arrivals will miss the rituals at Hasan Abdal. They will be taken to Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, where they will join other pilgrims arriving from Hasan Abdal. The main anniversary events will be held at Nankana Sahib. Other rituals will be held at
Gurudwara Rori Sahib in Eminabad, near Gujranwala, Gurudwara Sacha Sauda at Farooqabad, near Sheikhupura, and
Gurudwara Dera Sahib in Lahore. Apart from India, a large number of Sikhs are expected from the USA, Britain, Canada, Thailand, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Officials believe their number at Nankana Sahib will reach about 10,000 once Pakistani Sikhs arrive there on Friday. An international Sikh convention will be held at Nankana Sahib on November 11 as part of this year’s celebrations. Newspaper reports have said that Pakistan President Rafiq Tarar will address the convention. Official sources said that similar conventions would also be held across the world for the first time. |
|
|
VIENTIANE (Laos), Nov 9 (PTI) — Laos today backed India’s claim for a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council even as the two countries signed agreements to give a fillip to economic and trade cooperation and to protect investment. Laos Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Somsavat Lengsaved assured visiting External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh of his country’s support to New Delhi’s claim during the third Indo-Laos Joint Commission meeting here. Officials said Laos had been supportive of India on all major issues of international concern, including Kashmir, as also its endeavour for a non-discriminatory and comprehensive nuclear disarmament. They said that Laos recognised India as a nuclear state as was evident from the speech of Mr Soubanh Srithirath, Minister in the President’s office, at the India-ASEAN lecture series delivered in India in November last year. Mr Jaswant Singh, who will attend tomorrow the opening of the Ganga-Mekong Swaranbhoomi project with his counterparts from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand, also called on Laotian President Khamtay Siphandone and discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern. At the end of the meeting, the two countries signed an agreements on trade and economic cooperation, on promotion and protection of investments in each other’s countries and a work plan for cooperation in the field of agriculture and allied sector. Addressing a joint press conference with Laotian Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh expressed India’s gratitude to Laos for supporting India’s claim for the UN Security Council seat. He announced that India would give to Laos medicines worth Rs 3.5 million for the flood-affected people in the country. Mr Jaswant Singh said India had also decided to gift 25 jeeps and 10 trucks for use by Laotian armed forces. Besides, India has agreed to enhance the number of seats from 25 to 35 to train Laotians under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme, he said. The Laotian President sought India’s assistance in information technology, human resource development, forestry, agriculture and food processing sectors which would be examined by New Delhi.
|
|
Florida absentees hold the
key A handful of civil servants, several hundred elderly Jewish retirees and up to 3,000 members of the US armed forces unexpectedly held the political future of the planet in their hands last night. The three groups stood in the crossfire of a succession of unprecedented political pressures yesterday as Florida began the recount that will determine whether Mr George W. Bush or Mr Al Gore is the next President of the USA. The civil servants were the 67 county electoral
supervisors responsible for carrying out the automatic recount required by the Florida law when a statewide election result produces a majority of less that 0.5 per cent. That law was triggered when Florida’s final count ended in the early hours of yesterday with Mr Bush on 2,909,199 and Mr Gore on 2,907,544. The results of the recount are expected today. The Jewish retirees are among several thousand voters at Florida’s Blue Rinse belt in Palm Beach county who say they were given misleading ballot forms to complete in Tuesday’s elections in which the layout meant that they had accidentally voted for rightwing candidate Pat Buchanan rather than Mr Gore. Pressure was rising last night for an inquiry into the unusual ballot forms, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson leading the cries of foul play and mounting a public protest in nearby Miami. An unopened ballot box from an African-American church was also reportedly discovered yesterday. Meanwhile 3,000 members of the military and their spouses — thought to be mainly Republicans — are registered in Florida but cast overseas postal votes. These may not be counted until next week and could yet be the most important votes in the US electoral history. The recount was ordered after the advantage in Florida tipped back and forth between Mr Bush and Mr Gore after the polls closed. “As we saw the numbers coming in and we realised that there was a surplus of about 1,50,000 absentee ballots in our favour, we realised that it was really too early to call it,” the Florida Republican Chairman, Mr Al Cardenas, said yesterday. For most of the early hours, the running count of votes in Florida seemed to confirm that the tide was running strongly towards Mr Bush. The Miami Herald even printed a 1am edition with the banner headline “Bush Wins It” which may now go down in US history as a call on a par with the Chicago Tribune’s infamous “Dewey Beats Truman” headline in 1948. But when the votes were finally tallied, the two men were a mere 1,785 votes apart in an election in which 6 million Floridians had voted. The state Attorney General, Mr Bob Butterworth, a Democrat who chairs Mr Gore’s campaign in Florida, went on television to announce the mandatory recount. Under hastily confirmed arrangements, the Florida recount was yesterday taking place in each county in the presence of local civil service observers, judicial officials, representatives of the campaigns and the media. Mr Clay Roberts, of the Florida division of elections, emerged late yesterday morning to say that the process would not be completed until the end of today when Mr Jeb Bush would sign his name at the bottom of the historic validation document that could send his big brother or his big brother’s rival to take the most important job in the world. Other demands for an investigation focused on claims that more than 3,000 persons unwittingly voted for Mr Buchanan rather than Mr Gore because of the unusual configuration of the ballot papers issued to some voters in Palm Beach county. Mr Gore’s name appeared second in a list on the ballot paper, but votes cast in the second box on the ballot were awarded to Mr Buchanan. But the final result in Florida could rest with the late and overseas postal voters. Election supervisors sent out 5,85,000 postal votes of which 4,16,000 had been returned by Monday and were counted. However, any postal vote that is postmarked on or before election day can still qualify for counting, and overseas postal votes have up to 10 days from election day to come in. Florida had about 2,300 overseas postal voters in the 1996 election, but the number this year, though thought to be larger, is not yet known. Most are thought to be military voters, attracted to register in Florida because the state has no income tax. A second important group of overseas voters consists of Jewish residents who spend part of the winter in Israel. — The Guardian, London PORTLAND (Oregon) (Reuters):
Republican George W. Bush clung to a narrow lead over Democrat Al Gore in Oregon on Wednesday. The winner will claim Oregon’s seven electoral votes, not enough to push either candidate’s total over the 270 needed to claim the presidency. In Oregon, with 85 per cent of precincts tallied, officials said Mr Bush had 48 per cent of the vote, Mr Gore 46 per cent and the Green Party candidate Mr Ralph Nader, 5 per cent. Although an ongoing vote recount in Florida will decide the race, Oregon had also been seen as critically important for Mr Gore. But the state became rated as a toss-up in the campaign’s final days because it was uncertain how much support Mr Nader would take from the Democrat. |
|
Electoral college an
anachronism IF George W. Bush does finally carry the state of Florida by a handful of votes , while Al Gore wins the popular vote by what appeared yesterday to be a margin of a quarter of a million, the stage will be set for a profound reappraisal of one of the revered constitutional quirks the USA inherited from its founding fathers. It is called the electoral college, an assembly of 538 delegates (or electors), from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, selected according to the vote in those states. It is the electoral college, not the people, which ultimately chooses the president and this form of indirect democracy is deliberate. Back in 1787, when the system was thought up, the revered founding fathers did not have total confidence in the ordinary man. The population was liable to be reckless, they thought. The college would serve as a buffer, made up of men drawn from the educated elite who, Alexander Hamilton argued, would “possess the information and discernment requisite” to the task of choosing a president. It is an interesting aspect of US politics that Americans show even more reverence for traditions than the British. The founding fathers retain a heroic, untouchable status which means that the wording of the constitution and its famous amendments are treated almost as sacred. Under the current system, the electoral college votes on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. This year that will be on December 18. Each state has a set number of votes in the college, roughly according to its size, and the affiliation of its delegates is generally decided on a first-past-the-post majority system. Thus, whoever wins Florida will win all its 25 votes. This is true for all states bar two, Maine and Nebraska, which distribute their electors more in accordance with the preponderance of the vote. The electors, party officials chosen by the majority party in each state, will convene in their home states on December 18 to sign and certify their votes which will be sent to the Senate for counting on January 6. In 1824, Andrew Jackson, the popular choice, failed to muster the necessary electoral votes and John Quincy Adams was elected instead. Coincidentally, that was also the last time the son of a former president rose to become president himself. Adams’ father, John Adams, was the nation’s second president. In 1876, Republican Rutherford Hayes beat Democrat Samuel Tilden by a single elector, 185-184, despite a popular vote which pointed the other way. The last time such a controversy arose was in 1888 when Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland but won the White House on the strength of his victory in the electoral college. That was then. This is now. There is arguably less tolerance now for the popular will to be so blithely overturned. Certainly, when pundits were predicting that Bush might well win the popular vote, but Gore would prevail in the electoral college, Republican rank and file activists around the country were telling anyone who would listen that they hoped the electors sent by the states would listen to the voice of the people and not try to defy its democratic mandate. In other words, the electors should cross party lines and vote according to the overall national election results. Now the boot is on the other foot, and certainly the Democratic Party activists could be expected to call for delegates to bend their state mandates. If there is a tie in the electoral college, the House of Representatives chooses the president with representatives from 26 states required to elect a winner. If the House tied with 25 states for each candidate, the Senate would then decide. But what happens if the vote is a 50-50 draw in the Senate? Then the vice-president is supposed to break the tie, and that man is, at the moment, none other than Al Gore. A two-thirds vote in Congress is needed to reform the winner-takes-all system and a transition to proportional representation of each state in the electoral college, according the breakdown of the party vote in that state. Either way, a crisis over the role of the electoral college in a country which generally views its system as a distillation of democracy would be, in the words of one of the potential electors this year, “a complete mess”. (The Guardian) |
|
|
WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) — Republicans retained power in the US Congress by extremely narrow margins yesterday after a bitter election, raising questions about future prospects for legislative progress following two years of acrimony and gridlock. With some races still undecided, Democrats appeared to pick up one or two of the seven seats they needed to win back control of the House of Representatives and fell one or two seats short of claiming the Senate, leaving Congress in a virtual deadlock. The reduced margins of power, particularly in the Senate where Democrats pared at least three seats off the Republican 54-46 majority, could fuel deeper partisan battles and make it more difficult for the new President to get his agenda enacted or win approval of Cabinet or even Supreme Court appointments. Democrats won key victories in the Senate, electing first Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York and the late Gov. Mel Carnahan over Republican incumbent John Ashcroft in Missouri. Carnahan’s widow, Jean, will be appointed to fill his seat for two years until a special election. Ashcroft said he would not contest the results of the Missouri race in court and discouraged others from filing a challenge. All 435 House seats and 34 of the 100 Senate seats were at stake in Tuesday’s voting, and Republicans retained power in the House and the Senate for a fourth consecutive congressional session for the first time since the 1920s. If Texas Governor George W. Bush wins the Presidency it would be the first time since 1953 to 1955 that the Republican Party would control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. A 50-50 deadlock in the Senate would mean Republicans would keep control of the chamber no matter who wins the White House, either by virtue of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s tiebreaking vote or because Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman’s Senate seat would go to a Republican. Mr Lieberman won re-election to his Senate seat in Connecticut, but if Gore was to win the Presidency the state’s Republican Governor was expected to name a Republican to fill it. A 50-50 deadlock could even raise the prospect of a mid-term switch in power in the Senate if a Republican died before the next election and was replaced by a Democrat. Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, who turns 98 next month, is from South Carolina, which is presided over by a Democratic Governor. |
|
Hillary won on S. Asian
votes NEW YORK, Nov 9 — An overwhelming majority of Indian American and other South Asian voters contributed to the electoral victory of First Lady Hillary Clinton against her Republican opponent in Tuesday’s senatorial election from New York, according to preliminary results of an exit poll. Although the results of the poll are yet to be analysed for all three of the five boroughs of New York City where the poll was conducted, preliminary results of the poll at six voting centers in Queens, which has the largest concentration of South Asian immigrants, indicated the South Asians’ preference for Hillary. “Ninety per cent of the 723 South Asian voters, who responded to the poll, said they voted for Hillary while 9 per cent voted for her opponent Rick Lazio,” Ms Margaret Fung, Executive Director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), told IANS. “Also, among those polled, 81 per cent preferred Mr Al Gore compared to 17 per cent for Mr George Bush,” she added. The results of the exit poll in other boroughs like Manhattan and Brooklyn were yet to be analysed and not expected to be officially published before Friday, Ms Fung said. “Overall among South Asians that included Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, 74 per cent were Democrats and 11 per cent were Republicans while 13 per cent were not enrolled in any of the parties,” she added. She, however, could not say if the voter turnout among the South Asians was greater this time than in the past. “We are yet to analyse the data,” she said. But in places like Jamaica in Queens as well as in Jersey City, New Jersey, home to an estimated 25,000 Indian Americans, the voter turnout was said to be heavy by the people who monitored the poll and turnout. In Jersey City, several polling booths reported more than 35 per cent voting in the first few hours, while in Flushing in Queens there was a steady stream of voters throughout the day. According to the 1997 yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), quoted by the Immigration Coalition, there were 19,985 Indian American citizens in New York. It was not known how many of them were registered voters. “I believe the voter turnout, including that of South Asians, was quite heavy this year,” said Morshed Alam, a longtime Democratic Party leader from Bangladesh who secured 42 per cent votes against veteran Republican Frank Pandavan in the 1998 New York State Senate race. Mr Alam monitored a number of voting booths in Jamaica that is said to have a large concentration of Bangladeshi and other South Asian communities. Ms Fung said according to the New York City Board of Elections, 70 per cent of the electorate voted citywide in Tuesday’s close election race. Apparently, South Asians exercised their franchise in large numbers in the belief that in close election races every vote would be decisive. In Jackson Heights, known as Little India, several polling booths reported long queues. Although not referring particularly to South Asians, Virgil Canatella, co-coordinator for Public School 69, District 34, said there was a voter perception that more was at stake in this elections and that was why more voters turned out than in previous years. The support for the Democrats, as brought out by the AALDEEF exit poll, was evident on Tuesday at several of the polling booths. Although responses of the electorate to questions about their preferences ranged from complete banal to serious, there was no gain-saying the fact that Democrats held sway among South Asians in the presidential elections, although in local races, people seemed to vote for Republicans. “He (Gore) understands India and the Indian Americans better,” said Harichand Shah, a retired teacher from Jersey City, who came to vote. Others like S. Khan had their own reasons for backing the Democrats. “How can I not vote for the Democrats? I got my US citizenship when Mr Clinton was the President,” quipped S. Siddique from Bangladesh.
— IANS AFP adds: Meanwhile, First Lady Hillary Clinton has said she will not stand for the White House in the 2004 elections, and will serve the full six years as senator from New York. “I am going to serve my six years as junior senator from New York,” Mrs Clinton told reporters on Wednesday at the first press conference since it became known she had won the Senate seat from New York. |
|
|
Israel kills Fatah leader, 2 women BEIT SAHOUR, WEST BANK, Nov 9 (Reuters) — Israel killed a local militia commander in Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and two women bystanders in a helicopter raid today. It carried out the attack only hours before the Palestinian leader was due to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton to discuss ways of ending violence and getting peace talks back on track. Fatah said the killing of Hussein Abayat, 33, in a missile strike on a van was an Israeli assassination. It vowed retaliation. Another Fatah activist, Khaled Salahat, was wounded in the attack in the West Bank. Two Palestinian women, whom witnesses said were standing in the street when Abayat’s vehicle was hit, were also killed. Both were in their 50s, doctors said. Major-General Yitzhak Eitan, chief of Israel’s central command, appeared to suggest the strike was part of a new strategy to target militia activists after a truce agreed last week with Mr Arafat reduced but failed to halt hostilities. The attack risked souring the atmosphere before Mr Clinton’s talks in the White House with Mr Arafat, intended to seek an end to six weeks of violence in which at least 190 persons have been killed. Most of the dead were Palestinians. The helicopter operation appeared to be a signal to Mr Arafat of Israel taking strong action against Fatah militia chiefs if he did not rein them in. “You have to understand that such actions are taken by high levels of the
army and by high levels of the Israeli Government, and I would say that it was the same this time and I would prefer not to add anything about it,’’ Eitan said, claiming an accurate strike despite the two women’s deaths.
|
|
|
Police brutality video shocks SA JOHANNESBURG, Nov 9 (Reuters) —South Africa has reacted with horror to a video aired on the state-owned television showing Black prisoners being savaged by police dogs and beaten by White police officers during what was described by one of them as a “training exercise” for the canine unit. Mr Karen McKenzie, head of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), a police watchdog, told reporters yesterday that canine units throughout South Africa would be investigated. She said at least one of the four dogs seen in the video was still in service and it would be checked to find out if it was trained to attack only black people. “Live bait’’ screamed the headline in The Citizen newspaper over a photograph of a police dog tearing into a young Black man as a police officer kicked him in the stomach. “Racist brutality’’ said the headline in the sowetan newspaper, the country’s largest Black daily. National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi ordered the immediate arrest of the six officers on November 7, after the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) showed officials what it planned to broadcast that night. |
|
Thai monk disrobed
for phone sex BANGKOK, Nov 9 (AFP) — A senior monk left the Buddhist clergy today after he was discovered engaging in phone sex with women, officials within the monkhood said. Phra Si Visuthyarn, deputy abbot of Bangkok’s Tritosthep temple, “delivered a certificate saying that he quit the monkhood this morning,” an official who requested anonymity told AFP. The monk quit after religious officials in the Sangha Supreme Council received a tape-recorded conversation of him having phone sex with women and requesting meetings to have physical intercourse, the official said. “We have proved that it is his voice on the tape, so the case was closed. He had to quit since phone sex is inappropriate for the monkhood,” he said. Monks are forbidden by the Buddhist scriptures from having sex. |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 120 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
