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| Monday, November 27, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Grand alliance against
Musharraf collapses Israeli jets raid South
Lebanon Israel to sell UAVs worth
$ 300m to India Is US presidential
poll free? Thai police to probe bribe charge Lift economic embargo before talks:
LTTE |
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Ask India to pull
out troops, Harkat urges USA Bangladesh factory
blaze claims 50 lives Peru's top military
chiefs fired 24 die as quake jolts
Baku
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Grand alliance against Musharraf collapses LAHORE, Nov 26 (AP) — An alliance of Pakistani political parties demanding an end to military rule and a return to democracy collapsed today over the inclusion of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Eight parties in the 19-party Grand Democratic Alliance threatened to abandon the alliance if Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League was allowed to join. Alliance Chairman Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan said Sharif’s party would be allowed to join, but rather than try to keep the alliance together it would be disbanded and a new alliance of like-minded parties would be organised. No date was set for the establishment of the new alliance, nor is it known how many parties will participate. Leading the revolt against Sharif’s membership was a former Sharif ally, Hamid Nasir Chatta, who established a breakaway faction of the Pakistan Muslim League several years ago. Sharif’s party, which won a majority in the last federal elections allowing him to form the government, was thrown out of power on October. 12, 1999, by the military. Mr Sharif has been in jail since the coup. He is serving a life sentence on charges of hijacking and kidnapping. He was acquitted on terrorism charges. Mr Sharif and his several colleagues, former businessmen and politicians also face charges of corruption. When the Army took power it accused the Sharif government of massive corruption and threatening institutions, like the judiciary. “We will not join any alliance in which Nawaz Sharif is a part of. I won’t join hands with him for the return of democracy, because he is not a democrat and his government was not a democracy,” said Mr Chatta. Sharif’s desire to join the Grand Democratic Alliance also split apart his party. Former loyalists, led by Shujaat Hussein, Sharif’s interior minister, opposed joining the alliance because it also include another ousted Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Once Sharif’s arch enemy, Bhutto has been found guilty in absentia of corruption and sentenced to five years in jail. She now divides her time between London and the United Arab Emirates. Hussein and several other leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League have dismissed Sharif as their leader, while Sharif’s wife Kulsoom is trying to rally those still loyal to her husband. From his jail cell, Sharif has urged his party to accept his wife as a temporary leader. |
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Israeli jets raid South Lebanon KFAR SHOUBA, (Lebanon), Nov 26 (Reuters, AP) — Israeli warplanes raided south Lebanon today shortly after a roadside bomb went off near an Israeli patrol on the Lebanese-Israeli border, wounding several people, witnesses said. They said Israeli jets attacked areas near Kfar Shouba village, opposite the disputed Shebaa Farms, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Earlier, Israeli troops and Hizbollah guerrillas exchanged fire after the explosion in an area known as Har Dov near Shebaa Farms, captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel fought a war of attrition with Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, until its forces pulled from south Lebanon in May following a 22-year occupation. Lebanon’s Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday that fighting was the only way to regain the border area in which the group’s guerrillas have targeted Israeli positions twice since the withdrawal. On October 7 the group captured three Israeli soldiers in the area. JERUSALEM: Middle East diplomacy shifted to Egypt today, where President Hosni Mubarak and a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak were to explore ways of ending two months of bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli official Danny Yatom, was to meet Mubarak less than a week after Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, recalled its Ambassador to Tel Aviv and accused the Jewish state of aggression towards Palestinians. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was in Cairo yesterday to brief Mubarak on his recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Palestinians want a bigger peace role for Russia to counterbalance the USA with its perceived pro-Israeli bias. Mr Arafat told Jordanian television that he hoped the flurry of diplomatic activity would go some way towards ending the violence that has cost 274 lives, most of them Palestinians, and left the Middle East peace process in tatters. But as he spoke the death toll was mounting. The Israeli army killed four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank yesterday, hospital sources said, despite a deal between the sides to restore some security cooperation. It was also unclear whether Israel would lift its blockade of Palestinian cities today or tomorrow, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan. An Israeli government source had said closures imposed almost eight weeks ago might be lifted “on condition that violence stops from the Palestinian side”. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired grenades at Palestinian National Security offices in Gaza and at Rafah, on the Egyptian border, late last night. There were no reports of wounded. Gunfire was heard in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Hebron where witnesses said Israel had fired at the house of Hatem al-Jamal, an activist of Arafat’s Fatah movement. There were no reports of casualties. Witnesses also said Israeli gunboats fired missiles at Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli army spokeswoman said soldiers had returned fire after being shot at from the town but had no knowledge of offshore navy vessel fire. The Israeli army reported isolated cases of stone-throwing and gunfire aimed at Israeli soldiers and civilians throughout the West Bank yesterday. It said a policeman, a civilian and a soldier had been slightly hurt. BAGHDAD: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has called on the United Nations to include Palestinians in Iraq’s oil-for-food programme. The statement came in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Saddam and attended by ministers and senior ruling Baath party members, shown on the state-run television last evening. “I want all Palestinian people to be included in the food ration Iraqis receive under the oil-for-food programme”. The oil-for-food programme is an exception to broad UN sanctions imposed to punish Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and allows Iraq to sell its oil provided the proceeds are used to buy humanitarian goods for its 22 million people. |
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Israel to sell UAVs worth
$ 300m to India JERUSALEM, Nov 26 (Reuters) —State-owned Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) will sell India remote-controlled surveillance planes in a deal worth $ 250 million to $ 300 million, an Israeli defence official said today. “The IAI is selling unmanned aerial vehicles to India,” said the official, who asked not to be identified, adding that the planes were slated for delivery starting next year. The work will be done by the IAI’s subsidiaries Elta and Taman. New reports have indicated that the planes, which are equipped with cameras, will be used for intelligence gathering and be stationed in Kashmir on India’s border with Pakistan. |
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WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (PTI) — The intense “must-win” battle that has marked this year’s us presidential election has raised the question — Are American elections free? Many Americans think this year set new low standards. “Stuffing the ballot may be a tried and true method of stealing an election but the 2000 presidential race shows that the possibilities for grabbing votes doesn’t stop there,” the Washington Times said in a report yesterday. This year, American voters have been exposed to unseen charges regarding absentee military votes, trading smokes for votes and cheating by chad (pieces of paper dropped when a ballot is punched) in the presidential campaign, it said. The daily said historically, voter fraud had been an organised activity directed by the campaign through the local political machine. “With the disintegration of the machine, individuals can take it upon themselves to give their favoured candidate a little extra help,” it added quoting political historians and observers. “It is so easy to do (so) now; virtually any individual acting on their own can have an impact on an election’s outcome,” said Deborah Phillips, chairperson of the Voting Integrity Project. “Cheating in the past involved voting the dead, voting early and voting twice, but you generally could not vote after Election Day”, said a political strategist. Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, plans hearings next year on voting practices and procedures in this year’s elections. The hearings will focus on ballot integrity, poll closing times, ballot format, the timeliness and accuracy of vote counting, the state of voting equipment throughout the country and overseas military voting. More than 1500 overseas absentee ballots — most believed to be cast by military personnel and in favour of Republican George Bush — were rejected by Florida officials citing technicalities, including missing postmarks not needed under federal election law. Hand recounts in three heavily Democratic Florida counties have drawn charges of ballot tampering to dislodge chads to swing the vote in favour of Democratic candidate and Vice-President Al Gore. Republicans say chads have been found in large numbers on the floor and that some were seen being eaten by ballot counters to hide evidence. Eliminating paper ballots in favour of machines, obervers say, is one way of eliminating voter fraud. |
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Thai police to probe bribe charge BANGKOK, Nov 26 (Reuters) — The Thai police, humiliated by the escape of Chhota Rajan from a supposedly tightly guarded hospital room, said today they were investigating reports he had bribed a police general to gain his freedom. “We’ve seen the press reports this morning, but national police chief Pornsak Durongkavibulya told me he did not believe in that allegation,’’ national police spokesman Pongsapat Pongcharoen told Reuters. “However, Police General Pornsak will not sit idly to the news as he has already ordered a probe into this report.’’ Local newspapers quoted Chhota Rajan’s former lawyer as saying the fugitive told him by telephone he had paid 25 million Baht ($ 600,000) to a two-star police general for his freedom. The Thai-language newspaper ‘Kao Sod’ (Fresh News) published what it said was a transcript of a telephone conversation between Rajan and his former lawyer Sirichai Piyapichetkul. It quoted Rajan as saying, in a call to Sirichai around midnight on Friday last, that he escaped using an emergency exit. A member of the police investigation team has previously said there was evidence that Rajan used rock climbing gear to descend from a fourth floor window of the hospital on Friday without being noticed by seven policemen guarding his room. “The story exists only in Indian movies. I am a very heavy man. I used the emergency exit to escape from the hospital,’’ Rajan was quoted as saying. According to the transcript, Rajan said he was to leave Thailand by boat, heading for a country in southeast Asia which was not specified and then possibly the
idle East. The daily quoted a hospital security guard as saying that a chubby, Indian-looking man tipped him 500 Baht for hailing a cab for him. Rajan, awaiting a hearing to decide if he should be extradited to Indian on murder and other mob-related charges, suffered gunshot wounds during a Bangkok shootout in mid-September and had been in hospital for treatment since then. Thai police said at least two of seven guards face hearings over whether they turned a blind eye to the hospital escape. Thai media quoted unnamed police sources on Saturday as saying the escape had been well planned by Rajan’s friends in Bangkok and the fugitive might have reached Cambodia. Indian officials in New Delhi said they would continue to pursue Rajan with the help of the Bangkok authorities. |
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Lift economic embargo before talks: LTTE COLOMBO, Nov 26 (UNI, PTI) — Contrary to earlier assertion by Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) today said hostilities must cease before starting any talks with the Chandrika Kumaratunga Government. In an interview to a local newspaper, LTTE's political wing leader S.P. Thamilchelvan said; “It is only when hostilities cease, economic embargo removed and people too have a peace of mind can lasting peace efforts succeed.” Mr Solheim after meeting ltte chief V Prabhakaran had declared that ltte had offered unconditional dialogue for a lasting peace in the island nation. Mr Tamilchelvam was present at the talks at Wanni early this month. His comment, the first official response from the ltte after President Kumaratunga’s policy statement during the ceremonial opening of the eleventh Parliament, reiterated the LTTE's position spelt out in a statement soon after the Solheim-Prabhakaran meeting. The statement, issued from the LTTE's so-called international secretariat in London, just after the talks had made it clear that Prabhakaran wanted a “cessation of armed hostilities, removal of military aggressions and occupation, withdrawal of the economic embargo and the creation of conditions of normalcy in the Tamil homeland.’’ However, Mr Solheim told a news conference in Colombo soon after his return from Wanni that the ltte leader had not laid any pre-conditions. Meanwhile, ltte leader Velupillai Prabhakaran marked his 46th birthday today freeing 15 persons held in captivity by the rebel group amid mounting foreign pressure to resume peace talks. The clandestine Voice of Tigers Radio said Prabhakaran ordered the release of the 15 persons held for “criminal activities” in rebel-held areas of northern parts of the island and also “declared” a two-day holiday. Prabhakaran’s birthday coincides with the ltte marking their heroes’ week which ends tomorrow when Prabhakaran is expected to make a keenly awaited speech. The visiting British Junior Foreign Minister Peter Hain said here on Thursday that the Sri Lankan Government was waiting for a signal on resumption of peace talks in Prabhakaran’s speech. Hain, who held talks with leaders here, said he was asking both the Tigers and Colombo to resume the stalled negotiations following Oslo’s initiative to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. Peace efforts are expected to figure in talks between Sri Lankan leaders and us diplomat Karl Inderfurth, who will arrive here tomorrow as part of a four-nation South Asian tour, including India. Even as diplomatic pressure is mounting on both the rebels and the government to resume negotiations, the army has been placed on maximum alert against possible suicide bombings by the Tigers. |
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Ask India to pull
out troops, Harkat urges USA ISLAMABAD, Nov 26 (PTI) — Kashmiri militant group Harkat-ul Mujahideen has urged the USA to ask India to withdraw troops from Jammu and Kashmir, instead of suggesting that the outfit respect the truce offer by New Delhi. “If the USA has any sympathy for Kashmiris, then it must ask India to pull out its troops” from Kashmir, Harkat chief Moulana Farooq Kashmiri said in a statement. “The people of Kashmir had ceased firing for over 40 years, but India never responded positively to their gesture. The USA has always been safeguarding Indian interests,” he alleged. The remarks came in response to the recent appeal by US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher to Kashmiri militant outfits to respond positively to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s truce offer. The Harkat chief alleged that Mr Vajpayee’s offer was a mere announcement, claiming that there had been no let-up in Indian operations.
Japan hails offer ISLAMABAD, Nov 26 (PTI) — Japan has said it supports any initiative aimed at reducing tensions between India and Pakistan and has urged the two neighbours to resolve their outstanding issues through bilateral dialogue.
He welcomed India’s Ramzan ceasefire offer in Jammu and Kashmir. |
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Bangladesh factory
blaze claims 50 lives DHAKA, Nov 26 (PTI) — Fifty persons, mostly women, were killed and over 100 others injured in a fire at a garment factory in Bangla-desh’s Narsinghdi district, hospital sources said here today. The sources said over 100 factory workers were being treated for burn injuries after the blaze in the eastern town of Shibpur, 30 km from capital Dhaka, last night. The government said today it had constituted a five-member committee led by an additional district magistrate to probe the tragedy. The police has filed a case against the owner of the Choudhury Knitwear factory, where the blaze occurred. A fireman involved in rescue operations told PTI on the condition of anonymity that a large number of persons were killed as they were trapped inside the factory with the only exit being locked. “Hundreds of employees could not find any escape till the locals and fire-fighters forced open the gates,” he said. Over 900 workers were on duty when the fire engulfed the four-storey building. Most victims of the fire at Narsinghdi were female workers, fire brigade sources said. Newspapers quoting witnesses said the fire might have been caused by a short circuit. Over 900 workers were on duty when the fire engulfed the building. |
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Peru's top military chiefs fired LIMA, Nov 26 (Reuters)— Peru's new interim government fired the armed forces chief and 12 other top military generals in a move seen as removing officers who could have been loyal to fugitive ex-spy chief vladimiro montesinos. the defense minister, general. Walter ledesma told reporters yesterday that general. Carlos Tafur — seen as anti-montesinos and who was forced into retirement due to his opposition to the spy chief — was named to replace gen. Walter Chacon as head of the armed forces. The other generals removed included the air force chief and 11 key regional commanders. The purge was the second major overhaul of the military top brass — key power brokers in Peru — in a month the ousting of the military chiefs was the first action of the newly appointed cabinet of valentin paniagua, installed as interim president on wednesday a day after congress fired Alberto Fujimori in absentia after he fled to his ancestral homeland, Japan. Tokyo: Peru's ex-president, Alberto Fujimori, says he is innocent of allegations of corruption and may even return home to stand as a candidate in general elections in Peru in april, domestic media today quoted him as saying. "there are many allegations but they are all incorrect...,’’Mr Fujimori told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in an interview. ‘’I hope they will investigate this case because i am innocent,’’ he said in an interview in miura in kanagawa prefecture, near
Tokyo. |
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BAKU, Nov 26 (AFP) — Twentyfour persons died and 33 were injured when an earthquake registering six on the open-ended Richter scale struck Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, hospital emergency services said today. Three persons, including a child were killed by falling masonry and 21 mostly elderly persons died of heart attacks, the hospitals said. A total of 33 others were hospitalised, many of whom jumped out of buildings they feared were about to collapse. The tremor yesterday knocked out the power supply in several districts of the city and sent panic-stricken people rushing into the streets, state television and witnesses said. Most residents refused to return to their homes for fear of another quake, huddling round big fires to keep off the cold. State television said the quake’s epicentre was located around 100 km north of Baku in the Caspian Sea, where it registered seven on the Richter scale. Some 30 aftershocks were felt, an Azerbaijani seismologist said the last one this morning, measured three on the Richter scale. Shocks were also felt in Georgia, Armenia and Dagestan but no victims were reported there. An earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale hit southern Azerbaijan in 1998 causing material damage but no injuries. |
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Embrace one-China
policy, Taiwan urged TAIPEI, Nov 26 (AFP) — Top Taiwan business leaders have urged Taiwanese President Chen Shui-Bian to accept Beijing’s interpretation of the “one-China” policy, it was reported today.
The tycoons also recommended that the government lift a decades-old ban on three trade links with China — transportation, commerce and post — the United Daily News and the China Times said.
The restriction on the “three links” has been in place since Taiwan and the mainland were split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. Wang Yung-Ching, Chairman of Taiwan’s biggest manufacturing conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group and Tsai Wan-Tsai, Chairman of the Fubon Group, met with Mr Chen at his residence yesterday. |
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Thieves leave message
for more money KUALA LUMPUR Nov 26 (DPA) — Thieves who robbed a store in Malaysia and found only 1,200 ringgit ($ 315) left a message in which they mocked the owner about the paltry sum, a new report said today. “Not enough, next time keep more money,” read one scribbled note left in the ransacked office of a trading firm in Muar town, Johore Baharu state, on Saturday The Sunday Star reported. The owner, See Kian Sion, said: “What made me laugh was that, besides leaving me the notes, they also had time to cook and eat some instant noodles which I kept in the kitchen area. |
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