W O R L D

Arafat consults Hosni Mubarak
CAIRO, Dec 28 — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat began talks in Cairo today with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak on a US peace proposal which Israel has conditionally accepted, presidential sources said.

Russia had worst fears on Mir
MOSCOW, Dec 28 — Russian engineers spent a nail-biting 24 hours when they lost contact with the Mir space station, fearing they might never regain control of the Earth’s biggest man-made satellite, a top official has said.

Rocket with six satellites crashes
MOSCOW, Dec 28 — A Cyclone-3 rocket carrying six Russian satellites disappeared and was believed to have crashed either on an island in Russia’s far east or in the sea, the Russian Space Agency said today.

Estrada’s trial may drag on beyond Jan
MANILA, Dec 28 — A Philippine prosecutor admitted today that President Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trial may drag on beyond January, 2001, which has been set as the target for the completion of the proceedings.

S. Korea gets more control over US troops
SEOUL, Dec 28 — The USA today accepted a long-standing request by its key ally South Korea to exercise greater control over US troops stationed here after five years of tough negotiations.

Arafat consults Hosni Mubarak

CAIRO, Dec 28 (Reuters) — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat began talks in Cairo today with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak on a US peace proposal which Israel has conditionally accepted, presidential sources said.

The two leaders, are discussing Palestinian concerns about key elements of US President Bill Clinton’s plan for resolving crucial issues such as Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees.

Egypt’s state media said President Clinton called on President Mubarak last evening to discuss the proposals.

The Cairo meeting took place instead of an expected summit today between Mr Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The meeting was hosted by President Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Egyptian state television said the three-way summit had been delayed because of what it called a wide difference in the Palestinian and Israeli view on President Clinton’s proposals.

Mr Barak’s office said earlier today he had cancelled talks with President Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh, but an Israeli diplomatic source said they would speak after latter met Mr Arafat to review a possible late-night meeting.

The Palestinians have said their response will depend on US clarifications, sought in a letter to Washington. Israel also said it would request clarification from Washington on several unspecified issues related to Israel’s vital interests.

After a late-night security Cabinet meeting, Mr Barak’s office said President Clinton’s ideas were “a basis for discussion provided that they remain unchanged as a basis for discussion also by the Palestinian side”.

Egyptian state-owned newspapers today expressed reservations on the US proposals made just weeks before President Clinton leaves office on January 20 and the February elections in Israel for the post of Prime Minister.

“The Palestinians have no level of certainty about the potential results of the negotiations that would make them think of calming down the intifada (uprising),” Egypt’s main daily Al-Ahram said.

A Saudi newspaper reported yesterday that the kingdom and Egypt had advised Mr Arafat against signing a peace deal before the new US Administration took office.

WASHINGTON: Dealing a blow to US President Bill Clinton’s optimistic proclamation that Palestinians and Israelis are “closer than they have ever been before”, the two sides cancelled the summit scheduled at Sharm el-Sheikh today.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had yesterday expressed his country’s readiness to accept Mr Clinton’s peace proposal mooted during the recent talks in Washington.

However, officials in Cairo today said Mr Barak had decided not to attend the summit in Egypt mediated by President Hosni Mubarak.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sent a message to the White House announcing his intention to stay away from the summit. A Palestinian official said Mr Arafat had rejected the peace deal as it did not fulfil the UN resolutions.

The Clinton proposal did not include “right to return” of Arab refugees to West Bank and handing over of territory by Israel which Palestine lost in the 1967 war, conditions steadily insisted on by Palestine and rejected by Israel.

US officials, however, said Mr Arafat’s communication was neither acceptance nor rejection but a plea for more time.

Mr Barak had faced mounting opposition at home against the compromise proposed at Washington to relinquish to Palestinians’ sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Al-aqsa mosque.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Ehud Olmert accused Mr Barak of “tearing Jerusalem into pieces — doing a horrible, horrible thing.” It was also fiercely opposed by Right-wing leader Ariel Sharon.

The offer was also rejected by Palestinians terming it “a trap.”

JERUSALEM (AFP): Earlier, the Israeli Cabinet announced early on Thursday that it accepted the compromise peace proposals by Mr Clinton as a “basis for discussions,” as long as the Palestinians agreed.

The Israeli Government considers that “President Clinton’s ideas are a basis for discussions on the condition that they are considered as such” by the Palestinians, government spokesman David Baker said reading from a communiqué after a late-night Cabinet meeting.

MOSCOW (AP): Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr Clinton on Wednesday discussed West Asia peace efforts during a telephone conversation, the Interfax news agency said.

The USA and Russia are co-sponsors of the West Asia peace process, which has been battered by a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has left some 350 persons dead since September.

Blasts rock Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM, Dec 28 (Reuters) — At least one explosion rocked a public bus in the central Israeli city of Tel Aviv today, wounding at least six persons, Israel Radio said.

A Tel Aviv police spokesman quoted witnesses as saying they heard two explosions on the bus.

The radio said the bus blew up on a main street in the city and witnesses saw smoke rising from the wrecked vehicle. A witness said he saw people lying on the street, apparently injured.

The Palestinians and Israeli security forces have been fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for three months during which two car bombs have exploded in Israel itself.

Russia had worst fears on Mir

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (Reuters) — Russian engineers spent a nail-biting 24 hours when they lost contact with the Mir space station, fearing they might never regain control of the Earth’s biggest man-made satellite, a top official has said.

Yuri Koptev, head of the space and aviation agency, yesterday said once the 130-tonne station suddenly stopped beaming data to ground control, his main concern was to make sure the ageing craft was still in one piece.

“We were very worried that we might have lost the complex altogether,” he told a news conference.

“But our colleagues from the space monitoring centre...confirmed that it was following its usual orbit and was still complete and not an array of scattered bits.”

Moscow has promised to steer the craft out of orbit early next year to dump it safely in the Pacific. Monday’s accident, when control was totally lost for more than 24 hours, sparked fears it might fall on populated areas.

Officials have said that in the absence of any information from space they ruled nothing out, even that the 14-year-old station had been destroyed by space debris.

Engineers eventually established that the black-out was due to a mysterious discharge of all of its batteries.

Koptev said that as Mir’s transmitters remained dead he informed President Vladimir Putin and the government of the situation and ordered a special crew to prepare for an emergency flight to the silent craft.

Two cosmonauts were told to prepare themselves for a possible docking with the ungovernable, spinning station and use their capsule’s engines to prevent Mir coming crashing down to earth.

Koptev said even if their mission had failed and the station kept spinning down in an uncontrolled way it would not have hit land immediately.

The crisis ended as unexpectedly as it began when computer screens at the ground control near Moscow began lighting up with bits of data from Mir on Tuesday afternoon.

Koptev said the station had resumed sending signals when the communication session with the ground control overlapped with the time its solar panels faced the Sun and could feed energy directly to transmitters.

Earlier exchanges were attempted when Mir was in the shadow of the Earth, he said. With all its batteries dead, nothing was coming through.

Koptev said Mir was now accumulating energy and would be dumped in the Pacific in late February, as planned.

Rocket with six satellites crashes

MOSCOW, Dec 28 (AFP) — A Cyclone-3 rocket carrying six Russian satellites disappeared and was believed to have crashed either on an island in Russia’s far east or in the sea, the Russian Space Agency said today.

Space officials cited by Interfax News Agency said the Ukrainian-built rocket had crashed somewhere in the vicinity of Wrangel Island in the eastern Siberian Sea, but specialists are now trying to locate exactly where it came down.

Interfax reported earlier that the rocket had disappeared from controllers’ screens two hours after it blasted off, at 10:02 pm Moscow time today from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.

If the rocket crashed on land, this could have consequences for the environment, a specialist from Plesetsk said. The third motor of the Ukrainian-designed and built Cyclone-3 had malfunctioned, causing the rocket to fall, the Defence Ministry said, quoted by Itar-Tass.

Estrada’s trial may drag on beyond Jan

MANILA, Dec 28 (DPA) — A Philippine prosecutor admitted today that President Joseph Estrada’s impeachment trial may drag on beyond January, 2001, which has been set as the target for the completion of the proceedings.

Estrada, the first Asian leader to be impeached, is on trial for charges of bribery, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust and violations of the constitution.

Since the trial started on December 7, the 11-member prosecution team has so far presented witnesses and evidence only for the first two articles of impeachment — bribery and graft and corruption.

Congressman Antonio Nachura, one of the prosecutors, said the team was estimated to take another 10 to 12 trial days to complete the presentation of evidence and witnesses for the first two articles of impeachment.

Priest shot dead in Philippines

ZAMBOANGA (Philippines), Dec 28 (Reuters) — A Roman Catholic priest was shot dead by suspected Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines today, officials said.

They said Father Benjamin Inocencio was gunned down on the island of Jolo, 960 km south of Manila, by men suspected to belong to the Abu Sayyaf rebel militia.

At least three persons were injured while one of the assailants was shot dead by the troops, who were near the spot, the officials said.

Abu Sayyaf, one of the two groups fighting for a Muslim state in the mostly Roman Catholic Philippines, burst into prominence in April with the abduction of more than a 20 persons from a resort in nearby Malaysia.

In September, the government halted negotiations with the group after more persons were kidnapped, and launched an offensive against the guerrillas.

Armed forces chief Gen Angelo Reyes told reporters in Zamboanga, headquarters of the southern military command, that operations against the Abu Sayyaf men had not stopped and they would be pursued with renewed vigour. 

S. Korea gets more control over US troops

SEOUL, Dec 28 (AFP) — The USA today accepted a long-standing request by its key ally South Korea to exercise greater control over US troops stationed here after five years of tough negotiations.

The breakthrough followed growing calls in South Korea to revise a sensitive accord governing the treatment of 37,000 US soldiers posted under a mutual defence pact to guard against invasion by the communist North.

The agreement was signed in Seoul.

WORLD BRIEFS

Cigarette smoker’s best friend: study
SYDNEY: Giving up smoking can be like killing a best friend, an Australian researcher said on Thursday. The emotional bond between smokers and their cigarettes is “more complex and more deeply personal’’ than previously realised, Sydney University social researcher Stacy Carter said. Carter told Australia’s AAP news agency her study showed that tobacco addicts regarded their pack of cigarettes as “a close friend’’ that helped them through the day. — DPA

Harrods store removes royal warrants
LONDON: Royal warrants have been removed from the front of Harrods department store in London, ending a 62-year-old tradition with the prestigious store. Warrants for supplying Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Queen Mother and Prince Charles were taken down from the outside of the Knightsbridge building and removed from Harrods vans on Wednesday. — DPA

Couple forgets baby in car
OTTAWA: A Canadian couple forgot their baby boy in the family car on a freezing Christmas night, but the child survived unharmed and the police have said his parents would face no charges. “It was purely an accident,” said Constable Paul Murphy of the Ontario Provincial Police after the five-month-old boy spent the night of December 25 in the car amid outside temperatures of -22°C. “This family is quite a large family by today’s standards. They were trying to get everyone into the house. It’s one of those things that happen.’’— Reuters

Man kills grandmother over 200 marks
ESSEN (Germany): A man convicted 17 years ago for his mother’s murder has confessed before a court in Germany that he also killed his grandmother. The 35-year-old man, on trial for the murder of his 79-year-old grandmother since March, said on Wednesday that he became enraged when she refused to lend him 200 marks. So he tied her shawl around her neck and pulled it tight. Then he made off with the contents of her cookie jar - 100 marks. — DPA

Using part of brain that others can’t
PARIS: People capable of doing complex mathematical calculations in their heads with lightning speed may be using part of their brain that lesser mortals cannot access for that task, according to French and Belgian researchers. In a report published in the January issue of the Nature Neurosciences, the researchers likened the process to using a computer hard drive as ‘virtual memory’ to create extra random access memory (RAM), allowing it to bring more power to bear on a calculation. — AFP

Experimental AIDS drug stolen
WASHINGTON: An experimental AIDS drug has been stolen from a North Carolina storage facility, leading to a warning from the US Food and Drug Administration. The federal agency on Tuesday issued a warning that the unapproved experimental drug, a goat anti-serum, was likely to be contaminated and had “the potential to be extremely dangerous,” a statement indicated. Thieves took some 80l of the drug from the storage facility of Gary Davis, who had been working on the drug for the past one year or so. — AFP

Man trapped in snow for 16 days survives
BEND (Oregon): An alleged Air Force deserter survived for 16 days trapped in a snowdrift in an Oregon forest by eating candy and snow before being saved by snowmobilers, who had to dig through snow to rescue him from his car, the police has said. Thomas Truett (29) was pulled from his vehicle two days before Christmas, suffering from frostbite, hypothermia and dehydration, Corporal Neil Mackey of the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office said on Wednesday. — Reuters

4,000 snakes seized from Bangkok airport
BANGKOK: Thailand’s Customs Department has seized 4,000 snakes in the cargo section of Bangkok international airport destined to be smuggled to Vietnam, officials have said. The snakes - cobras and common rat snakes - were found in 176 styrofoam containers with holes in them to allow the smuggled reptiles to breathe, said Customs Department Director-General Manit Vidhayatem on Wednesday. After the seizure no one came to claim the cargo. — DPA

Researchers find drug to cure hiccups
BOSTON: If you can’t cure your hiccups with a glass of water, a sudden scare or by holding your breath, an injection of the drug nefopam may help, according to a letter published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers in Rome said they were able to relieve incapacitating hiccups in three patients within a minute with a single injection of the drug, a painkiller that prevents shivering that is available outside the USA. — Reuters

Colombia gifts freedom to 41 child veterans
BOGOTA: Colombia has pardoned 41 child veterans of Latin America’s longest-running conflict, welcoming them home with Christmas gifts after they were captured or deserted from the FARC Marxist rebel group. Army officers — the ex-guerrillas’ former arch enemies — handed out toys, clothes and sweets as the children filed off planes at Bogota’s military airport after being flown from the jungle town of Bucaramanga, north of Bogota. — Reuters