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| Sunday, December 3, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Mexico enters new era Vicente Fox becomes President MEXICO CITY, Dec 2 — A towering businessman in custom cowboy boots strode into Mexico’s presidency yesterday, ending a seven-decade political dynasty and thrusting his nation into a new, democratic era. Israeli soldiers shoot 3 Palestinians India, Russia to sign deal on
jet production Pak to buy 60 F-7 MGs 100 feared dead as shopping
mall collapses |
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| LTTE violates polio truce COLOMBO, Dec 2 — Suspected LTTE cadres attacked an army picket killing a soldier in violation of a two-day polio truce organised by UNICEF in northern Sri Lanka, the Defence Ministry said today. Death row inmate writes
books for kids Taliban success inspired ultras 8 die in Indonesian clashes
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Mexico enters new era MEXICO CITY, Dec 2 (AP, Reuters) — A towering businessman in custom cowboy boots strode into Mexico’s presidency yesterday, ending a seven-decade political dynasty and thrusting his nation into a new, democratic era. Raising his right hand and swearing to uphold the Constitution “for the poor and marginalised people of this country,” Vicente Fox brought to a close a political system that dates to the Mexican Revolution. “What is at stake over the next six years is not just the change of a party in power,” Mr Fox said. “What is at stake is much more significant and profound: the hopes of millions of Mexicans,” he added. Thousands of those Mexicans lined the streets of the capital, wanting somehow to be a part of what Mr Fox calls simply “the change.” Even the earth shook and a volcano erupted as the new President began his term. “I’ve never lived under any other system. Neither has my mother or my grandmother,” said Mirel Orozco, a 27-year-old college student who went into the streets with her mother to catch a glimpse of Mr Fox passing. “Imagine someone blindfolded you for 70 years. Today, he suddenly took off the blindfold and said, ‘Look, there’s the sea. There’s the sun,”’ she said. “Now let’s see if the sea is blue like they say it is.” Mr Fox took the oath of office before a joint session of Congress, breaking a 71-year string of Presidents from the Institutional Revolution Party. Mr Fox, a member of the National Action Party, won the election on July 2. The inauguration was the first event in a three-day series of celebrations in four Mexican cities during which Mr Fox planned to meet with peasants, Indians, artists and intellectuals. Yesterday, he showered the nation with populist promises and pledged “to demolish all vestiges of authoritarianism.” He appealed for national dialogue — something he will need as he works with the most divided Congress in a century — and vowed government of tolerance for all viewpoints. After naming a Cabinet heavy with conservative businessmen, Mr Fox’s speech seemed intended to assure Mexicans he would attack poverty and social injustice and that the fight against crime, drug-smuggling and corruption would go beyond muscle. In a swearing-in gesture aimed at securing lasting peace in the troubled southern state of Chiapas, Mexican President Vicente Fox yesterday ordered troops to withdraw from some positions encircling the Zapatista rebels, a senior aide said. |
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Israeli soldiers shoot 3 Palestinians GAZA, Dec 2 (Reuters) — Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians in separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian hospital officials said. A fourth Palestinian died of wounds sustained in clashes on Thursday at the Karni crossing in Gaza Strip, raising to at least 291 the number of persons killed in nine weeks of bloodshed, mostly Palestinians. Palestinian hospital officials said soldiers shot dead 12-year-old Mohammed al-Arja during clashes near the Gaza-Egypt border, a flashpoint of violence in the Palestinian uprising. An Israeli spokeswoman said there were no clashes or gunfights in the area. Israeli troops killed Hamzeh Nadi al-Hassis, 27, in clashes in the West Bank village of Al-Samua, near the divided city of Hebron, Palestinian hospital officials said. Israeli soldiers shot Yassin Mohammed Shehadeh, 23, from Qalandia refugee camp, in the abdomen during clashes in the camp, a hospital official said. The official said at least 15 other Palestinians were wounded during unrest in various parts of the West Bank. Witnesses in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh said four explosions, probably from Israeli tank shells, rocked the Palestinian town yesterday, damaging a main road and at least one building. The witnesses said the tanks retaliated to firing by Palestinian gunmen on the nearby Jewish settlement of Psagot. An army spokeswoman said Israeli soldiers had only used light automatic weapons in the firefight. |
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India, Russia to
sign deal on jet production MOSCOW, Dec 2 (AFP) — Moscow and New Delhi will belatedly sign in December a contract for the licensed production in India of Russian fighter jets, the Itar-Tass news agency has said. The contract, which was initially scheduled to be signed in November, was delayed due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to form a new arms sales company,
Rosoboronexport, from two export firms, the news agency reported yesterday. The contract will be based on a bilateral accord for the production of about 140 Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter planes by India’s largest aerospace company, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The bilateral accord was one of the sweeping multi-million-dollar arms deals signed during Mr Putin’s state trip to India in October. India will itself take the delivery of the Sukhoi aircraft as specified in a four-year-old bilateral contract, under which India is already committed to buying 40 Su-30MKI jets and has an option for more jets. The first 10 Su-30MKI jets are due to be delivered by the end of 2001, and 32 more will be supplied to India by the end of 2003, Indian military officials quoted by the news agency said. |
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Pak to buy 60 F-7 MGs ISLAMABAD, Dec 2 (PTI) — Pakistan’s Air Chief will soon visit China to sign a deal for the procurement of three squadrons of F-7 MG intercept fighters for their immediate induction into the force as the second line of defence, media reports said today. Earlier Pakistan planned to buy 40 F-7 MGs but due to the phasing out of the aging fleet of F6s, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has decided to acquire 60 aircraft. The jets have been lying ready with the Chinese manufacturer for the past three years and the authorities in Pakistan could not take a final decision about various systems to be placed on these interceptors which have increasingly become Pakistan’s only option to enhance its air power, reports Pakistan Observer newspaper. The last flying trials of these aircraft were done by Pakistani pilots in 1997 and the British radars were the consistent problem in the otherwise top of the line fighter. |
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100 feared dead
as shopping mall collapses BEIJING, Dec 2 (Reuters) — More than 100 persons were feared dead today after a shopping mall in southern China collapsed into a heap of rubble while construction workers were adding extra storeys to it illegally. Officials in
Dongguan, a city in Guangdong province, gave up hope this morning of finding anyone alive in the heap of bricks where the mall had stood less than 24 hours earlier. “The rescue work is over. Workers are doing the cleaning up,” an official told Reuters by telephone. The state television, however, put the official toll at eight dead and 32 injured in the latest accident in a construction industry plagued by shoddy work. Premier Zhu Rongji has fumed in the past at what he has called “bean curd construction.” State news agency Xinhua said that before the collapse, a crack had appeared in a wall of the mall, which was a popular shopping destination an hour’s drive from Hong Kong. Survivor Wang Jingjing said from her hospital bed that people at the mall had been worried about the crack. |
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LTTE violates polio truce COLOMBO, Dec 2 (PTI) — Suspected LTTE cadres attacked an army picket killing a soldier in violation of a two-day polio truce organised by UNICEF in northern Sri Lanka, the Defence Ministry said today. One soldier was killed and another injured when Tamil Tigers lobbed grenades at the army picket in Urumpirai in the Jaffna peninsula, Lankan Ministry spokesperson Sanath Karunaratne said, adding that it was a clear violation of the truce arranged by UNICEF to carry out a polio immunisation programme. “We lost one soldier during this ‘days of tranquility’ organised by UNICEF,” Mr Karunaratne said. He said the tigers had also fired mortar bombs at army defence lines at Nagarkovil in the Jaffna peninsula yesterday, the first day of the temporary truce to allow a nationwide polio immunisation programme. UNICEF had earlier announced that both sides had agreed to observe two days of ‘tranquility’ on December 1 and 2 for the second phase of an immunisation campaign. “Despite some incidents reported, these programmes were successfully implemented throughout the country during the first round on October 27 and 28”, UNICEF said in a statement. Polio truce is an annual feature and unrelated to moves by Norway to bring the LTTE and the government to the negotiating table. About 600,000 children under the age of five are being targeted under the programme, UNICEF said. |
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Death row
inmate writes books for kids SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 2 (DPA) — Four-time murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams, cell on death row in California’s San Quentin prison is just 1.2 metres wide and barely 3 metres long. The only piece of furniture in the space he’s inhabited since 1981 is a twin bed, which is covered with a thin mattress that he ties into a ball each morning to give him something to sit on. He uses the bed’s steel frame as a desk, and it holds his only luxury — an old typewriter. The once-feared leader of the
Crips — a notorious Los Angeles street gang — taught himself to read and write in jail and has made himself a name as an author of children’s books. Since 1996, Williams has written and published eight books. They’re about South Central LA, where he grew up and where, at the age of 17, he founded his gang. In his books, Williams warns kids about drugs, guns and gangs, and implores them to learn from his mistakes. He describes everyday life in his “cage”, his loneliness and his guilt over how the crimes he and his gang committed hurt the lives of other people. “Tookie has become a changed man on death row,” said Barbara Becnel, who co-authored his books. “He’s saved many children from joining gangs and ruining their lives.” |
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Taliban success inspired ultras PESHAWAR, Dec 2 (Reuters) — The black-bearded mullah complained that exhorting Pakistanis to reject cable television and its contaminating western programmes had failed, so the time was near for Muslim militants to take matters into their own hands. ‘‘We have been telling people to stop watching for six months but we don’t seem to have had much effect,’’ said Ahsan-ul-Haq, head of the hardline Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam party in Peshawar on the Pakistani frontier. The next step is to use force. ‘‘One way is to run electricity into the cable, which will destroy all the equipment attached to it,’’ he said, listing his alternatives. ‘‘We have been able so far to restrain our Taliban (students) but they could ransack the cable offices one night.’’ While the threat to distributors of foreign television signals and to private organisations promoting social change is clear, there is no agreement in or outside Pakistan on the extent of the danger to Pakistan’s largely secular government. Those close to the state play down ‘‘Talibanisation’’ while human rights activists echo foreign warnings about a drift to intolerance. What is not in dispute is that militant Muslims, reinforced by an expanding system of religious schools and inspired by the easy victory of their colleagues in the Taliban movement in neighbouring Afghanistan, are increasingly outspoken. ‘‘It’s Afghanistan, it’s the collapse of a state system,’’ was the gloomy prognosis of Afrasiab Khattak, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. ‘‘We have a very grave crisis in our country, a crisis of governance. The state here is almost totally alienated from the society. ‘‘There are new fascist forces who want to impose their values with the gun. They are against all forms of modernity, especially in women’s rights.’’ The ideology of the militant Islamists parallels that in neighbouring Afghanistan. There the Taliban has imposed a radical version of Islam that has halted the education of women, banned television and aims to root out anything seen as western. Militants have gone through villages confiscating television sets and fining those who won’t cooperate. Ul-Haq said he expected to receive a fatwa, a religious ruling, from other religious leaders in the country after the current holy month of Ramzan to justify attacks on cable television. The groups have also threatened private groups advocating social reform, furious at them for giving shelter to women involved in love affairs that would normally have meant quick death for violating their families’ honour. ‘‘This is unacceptable,’’ Ul-Haq said, describing the protection of a girl who had run off with an army officer. The mullah was incensed by what he considered an attack on tradition rather than by her subsequent murder. But the larger goal is overall power. Ul-Haq says his group, one of the more radical, is holding talks with others to unite in a campaign for a new Islamic Pakistan. The vehemently anti-western mullah, noting that the Taliban were welcomed by an Afghan population weary of war and chaos, is encouraged by the political disarray in his own country. |
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8 die in Indonesian clashes JAKARTA, Dec 2 (Reuters) — At least eight persons were killed and several injured in violent clashes between the Indonesian police and pro-independence supporters today in the turbulent province of Irian Jaya, a local doctor and other witnesses said. The police opened fire in the remote town of Merauke, near the border with Papua New Guinea, when Irianese ripped apart Indonesian flags and attacked with bows and arrows after the “Morning Star” flag, the symbol of the independence movement, was pulled down. “Fifteen persons were taken to a hospital. Eight were dead. Seven were Irianese with bullet wounds. The other died because of an arrow wounds,” head of Merauke’s Health Department Yosef Rinto told Reuters on the phone. The violence follows largely peaceful rallies yesterday marking the unilateral declaration of independence in the resource-rich eastern province, where an anti-Jakarta rebel movement has been simmering for decades. |
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