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December 27, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Front-runner for Thai
PM’s post indicted Bangladesh Navy recovers
boxes from sea |
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India,
Russia to sign deal on Sukhoi Violence mars Ramzan Fighting erupts near West Bank ‘Matri’ brings Indians
together |
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Li Peng to
visit India
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309 revellers killed in fire in China beijing, dec 26 (Reuters) — A Christmas day fire killed at least 309 persons, many of them revellers at a dance hall, in the central city of Luoyang, Xinhua news agency and local sources said today. Several of the injured were in hospital, Xinhua said without giving a figure. The blaze broke out in a commercial building , trapping more than 200 Christmas party-goers packed into a fourth-floor dance hall. Construction workers renovating the second and third floors were also trapped. Witnesses said six or seven persons leapt from windows on to safety mats set out by fire fighters. The fire was finally extinguished today. The report gave no cause for the fire. A local reporter contacted by Reuters said the building had six or seven storeys that had small shops selling clothing and other products. He said the fire started in the basement. An official at the city’s Fourth People’s Hospital, where many of the injured were taken, said most of the victims had died from smoke inhalation. It was one of the deadliest fires of its kind in China over the past decade. |
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Front-runner for Thai PM’s post indicted BANGKOK, Dec 26 (Reuters) — Thailand’s anti-graft body said today it had indicted the front-runner for the general election, Mr Thaksin Shinawatra, for breaking the law by concealing his wealth while declaring his assets. If the indictment of the National Counter Corruption Commission is confirmed by the country’s Constitutional Court, the telecom tycoon will be banned from politics for five years, preventing him from leading Thailand. “Thaksin deliberately submitted his asset and debt statements with false information or concealed some information,” NCCC chairman Ophars Arunin said in a statement. Mr Ophars said Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and Deputy Prime Minister Banyat Bantadtan had both been cleared of wrongdoing by similar investigations into their declaration of assets. The decision has dealt a heavy blow to Thaksin and his populist Thai Rak Tai (Thais Love Thais) party which had been tipped by opinion polls to win Thailand’s polls by a wide margin. It is likely to take the Constitutional Court months to reach a ruling on the case, raising the possibility of 15 judges deciding to throw an elected Prime Minister out of office. Mr Thaksin (51) is accused of failing to declare share transactions and stakes in 17 companies during the mid-1990s, thereby concealing his wealth when he was a Cabinet Minister. Thaksin has protested his innocence and said any inaccuracies in his declarations were the result of oversight. Most recent opinion polls have shown Mr Thaksin and his party leading Mr Chuan and his Democrat Party by around 40 per cent to about 25 per cent respectively. But a Bangkok university poll released over the weekend said Thaksin could see his popularity vanish after the ruling. The poll, conducted last week by Assumption University, showed only 10.2 pc of Bangkok voters would pick Thaksin as Premier if he was found guilty while about 30 pc of Bangkok residents would favour Chuan to retain his job. The poll said the two-year-old Thai party was likely to win 205 seats in the 500-member lower House of Representatives in the January 6 election against 118 seats for the Democrats. Mr Thaksin, who founded the country’s largest telecoms conglomerate — Shin Corp, and made his wealth through telecom service concessions, was twice Deputy Prime Minister in the governments of Banharn Silpa-archa and Chavalit Yongchaiyudh during the 1990s. |
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Bangladesh
Navy recovers boxes from sea DHAKA, Dec 26 — The Bangladesh Navy finally located the boxes thrown from two meckanised boats on December 18 when the navy patrol boat chased them. The Navy Search Vessel Prabal located 28 boxes about 100 nautical miles south-west of Chittagong Port. The commander of the vessel in his report to the Naval Headquarters in Dhaka reported that after eight days of search using echo sound sonar , they could locate the boxes scattered and contain hard substances, Dhaka language daily Prathon Alo said in a report today. The report claimed that the navy team was almost certain that these boxes contained arms. In an earlier report, another daily The Jugantar said 220 boxes were thrown into the sea from the two mechanised boats. The report further said the delivery was received from a ship namely KATU, which was carrying 1020 boxes. The mechanised boats of Chittagong Port named Khowaj Khijir-1 and Khowaj Khijir-2 were hired by two Pakistani citizens — Arshad and another. The navy patrol team had arrested Mohammad, a Pakistani alongwith 27 Bangladeshi boatmen from the two mechanised boats. The two Pakistanis — Arshad and his accomplice who never met Mohammad left the hotel in Chittagong and are suspected to have left Bangladesh. The Immigration Department could not give any information about their departure. Meanwhile, a joint interrogation cell comprising Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (GDFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI), Detective Branch of Police was conducting the interrogation. One more was arrested from Chittagong for cooperating with the team. A smuggling syndicate was reported to be involved in it. The police was looking for the owners of the boats seized. But they were reported to be hiding. The Jugantar in its report claimed that the ship KATU was operated by Haki Ashraf, a Pakistan born smuggler and Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim based in Pakistan. It is suspected that he is involved in drug dealing for the Talibans of Afghanistan. |
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India, Russia to sign deal on Sukhoi moscow, dec 26 (PTI) — New Delhi and Moscow will sign the much-awaited multi-billion-dollar technology transfer deal for production of 150 Sukhoi ‘SU-30MKI’ multi-role jets in India under Russian license on December 28, the defence sources here said. The two countries had agreed on the deal during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s India visit in October. A high level Indian team, led by Additional Secretary of defence production Dhirendra Singh and HAL Chairman Krishna Das Nair, is currently in Russia to complete the formalities and ink the deal in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Thursday at the local aircraft plant ‘IAPO’, the sources said. Under the $ 3 b deal, India would be granted a “deep” license which provides for the indigenous production of all components of SU-30MKI over a period of 20 years, including ‘AL-31fp’ thrust-vectoring engines. Moscow had signed a similar deal with Beijing a few years ago but had refused to issue “deep” license to China, which is tightly tied to Russian engine supplies for the licensed production of older generation SU-27 bombers, top Russian defence expert Ruslan Pukhov said. The ‘Kommersant-Vlast’ weekly described the Indo-Russian project as Russia’s “most successful” defence deal specially tailored to meet buyer country’s strict requirements. Moscow cannot sell this jet to any third country without New Delhi’s “written” consent as it has been developed on Indian money and India has a share in technology rights, it said. India could use the technological spin-off of the MKI project for developing its advanced fighter and the Sukhoi Corporation has indicated its willingness to jointly develop a fifth generation fighter with India for Russian and Indian air forces if the political leadership of the two countries takes a decision on it. The Irkutsk Aviation Plant (IAPO) commenced test flights in November of the prototype of “fourth-plus” generation multi-role fighter SU-30MKI with full payload of Indian, Russian, French and Israeli avionics before starting its serial production. Under the ambitious $ 1.8 b Sukhoi deal signed in November 1996 with Russia, India will get 40 SU-30MKI multi-role fighters with mid-air refuelling capability. Another deal was signed in December 1998 for the purchase of 10 SU-30K, which would be finally upgraded to ‘MKI’ where ‘I’ stands for India. |
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Violence mars Ramzan HONG KONG, Dec 26 (AFP) — The holy month of Ramzan has been marked by an unprecedented number of peace moves — from truces in Kashmir and Sri Lanka to Indonesian President’s visit to troubled Aceh — yet it has ended in bloodshed. As the Islamic world neared the Id ul-Fitr, a time of celebration after a month of strict fasting, violence threatened to mar the holiday. Despite a unilateral ceasefire by India in Kashmir, violence continued, with at least 10 killed and 23 injured yesterday by a powerful car bomb near an army zone in the valley, the police said. In Algeria, nine persons were killed at the weekend in violence blamed on Islamic fundamentalists that has continued throughout Ramzan. Muslim fundamentalists have ordered Algerian youths to avoid the call-up, as many conscripts are sent to fight Muslim guerrillas. At least 37 persons were injured in four bomb explosions in Pakistan yesterday, the police said. A bomb ripped through a market in Lahore. Hundreds of people ran panicked after the explosion, witnesses said. And a series of Christmas eve bombings at churches across predominantly Muslim Indonesia killed at least 14 persons and injured 95. A total of 18 bombs were detonated in seven cities across the archipelago and fifteen more had been disarmed, the police said. A bloody cycle of revenge between Christians and Muslims has engulfed Indonesia’s Maluku island chain for the past two years at the cost of 5,000 lives. The Maluku violence was started by a trivial dispute between a Christian public transport driver and a Muslim on Id-ul-Fitr in Ambon, the main city in Malukus, in January 1999. “What I am very worried about is that this is only the beginning,” said Asmara Nababan, Secretary General of the National Commission on Human Rights. He said if similar explosions disrupted Id-ul-Fitr the move could be seen as revenge by Christians and spark an uncontrollable reaction from Muslims. There is religious tension elsewhere in Indonesia — in Aceh, north Sumatra. Muslim extremists are calling for an independent Islamic state. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid visited the province last week, and backed further peace talks. But observers pointed out civilians are incapable of such a coordinated bombing campaign, and the attacks were probably politically rather than religiously motivated, something President Abdurrahman Wahid himself acknowledged. |
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Fighting erupts near West Bank JERUSALEM, Dec 26 (Reuters) — A fierce gun battle between the Palestinians and Israeli troops erupted near West Bank city of Nablus early today, Palestinian witnesses said. The fighting began overnight when the Palestinians opened fire on a Jewish settlement near the Palestinian-ruled city. The Israeli troops responded by firing heavy machine gun rounds, the Israeli army said, adding that shooting was continuing since the sunrise. The fighting was some of the fiercest during the Christmas period, which had been marked by a relative lull in three months of violence in West Bank and Gaza Strip as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders mulled US proposals for reviving peace talks. At least 343 persons, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the three months. |
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‘Matri’ brings Indians together MARLBORO (New Jersey), Dec 26 (AP) — Raj and Sejal Saraiya met in a lunch line at a convention three years ago. It was not a professional or trade conference. Rather, they were mingling at a meeting organised for singles like them to possibly find their future spouses. “Someone told my mom and I wasn’t dating anybody,” says Sejal, formerly of Rolling Meadows, Illinois, who settled here with Raj. “After I graduated, it was harder to meet people at work. So I thought I would give it a try and my sister lived in New Jersey at the time,” she said. The annual Matri convention — short for matrimony — has been held in New Jersey since 1995. Organised by Indian immigrants from Gujarat, its purpose is to bring 21 to 35-year olds together for an all-day matchmaking event. “We found that we needed some kind of forum or platform for boys and girls to get together and meet and see if they could find somebody to their liking,” co-founder Kiran Desai says. Another reason was the first generation’s desire to see their children marry within the culture as a means to preserve their own traditions and heritage, Mr Desai says. “We have an old saying in India — it must be true in every culture — if four things are good, then your marriage will be more successful,” the Old Bridge resident says, “Food clothes, language and religion. If those things are in common, there will be less points to argue.” Close to 2,700 people from across the country, as well as Europe and Asia, have attended the conventions, according to Mr Desai. This year’s Matri brought close to 270 people to the Fords section of Woodbridge. Mr Desai estimates each gathering has resulted in an average of 10 to 15 marriages. He acknowledges outsiders may see Matri as a vehicle for parents to arrange marriages, a practice considered outdated. But Mr Desai says the event is whatever participants make it whether it be start of friendship to something more. “Matri”, he says, coincidentally, is a Sanskrit word for friendship. “We are not asking them to say that they found their match, and they’re ready to get married tomorrow,” he says. “They could go home, call the person, talk to them and meet somewhere and continue dialogue and try find common ground.” For Raj and Sejal the convention was something to do on Saturday afternoon, and a good excuse to see a sister. There were no expectations beyond meeting new people and having fun. Raj (29) says when he met Sejal in July 1997, it was his third time attending Matri. Scouring the data book, he had ignored women who were not from the New York-New Jersey area, so he didn’t meet Sejal during the mixer when volunteers seek out potential candidates for participants. Instead 28-year-old Sejal met Raj’s sister, who introduced them during a group lunch. Raj called Sejal next day at her home in the Chicago suburbs but didn’t connect until the following week because Sejal was still in New Jersey. They talked on phone until August when they met again. Raj proposed on Valentine’s Day 1998 and they married in November. |
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Li Peng to
visit India BEIJING, Dec 26 (PTI) — Former Chinese premier and chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), Li Peng, will visit India in January to improve ties between New Delhi and Beijing, a Foreign Ministry source said here today. Li, who is ranked second in the ruling Chinese Communist Party hierarchy after President Jiang Zemin, will make an ‘exclusive’ week-long visit to India from January 10 and discuss bilateral, regional and international issues with the Indian leadership, he told PTI. “We hope the upcoming visit will promote all-round improvement and development of the Sino-Indian relations,” he said. “Li’s upcoming visit and several other high-level exchanges in 2000 are an indication of the warming ties between the two Asian giants,” he said, adding that Beijing is now recognising New Delhi as an Asian power. |
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