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| Wednesday, January 10, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Bush plans enlarged NMD system CAMP ZEIST, (Netherlands) Jan 9 — In a make-or-break bid for conviction in the Lockerbie trial, prosecutors asked a special court on Tuesday to drop lesser charges and find the two Libyans accused guilty of murder. Mass rally blow to US peace efforts ‘US allies warned of uranium risk’ |
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| China dubs Tiananmen papers fake BEIJING, Jan 9 — China today dismissed western media reports of disunity among the ruling communist party leaders and rejected the leaked Tiananmen papers as fake. Judge postpones Pinochet hearing Adam, Eve ‘were Australians’
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| Bush plans enlarged NMD system GEORGE W. Bush is preparing to commit billions of extra dollars to develop a more elaborate system of national missile defence (NMD) which is certain to sour relations with Russia, China and Europe, and could bind future administrations to the policy. His plans, which are being driven by his Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, and his nominated Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, are likely to dwarf the 100-missile Alaska-based system which was under consideration by the Clinton Administration before test failures last summer forced it to pass the issue to its successor’s in-tray. The scale of the Bush team’s thinking began to emerge as the President-Elect met congressional leaders in Austin, Texas, on Monday to begin mapping out the Republican legislative programme for defence. His three principal campaign commitments on defence were raised at the meeting: a $ 1 billion pay rise for the armed forces, a $ 20 billion boost for hi-tech weapons research, and the NMD system. “Strengthening the military is one of my top priorities,’’ Mr Bush said. He was joined in the discussions by Mr Cheney, who is himself a former Defence Secretary, Mr Rumsfeld, and his National Security Adviser, Mr Condoleezza Rice. They were attended by eight senior Republicans and six senior Democrats, including the chairmen of key defence-related committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives. One notable absentee was Gen Colin Powell, Mr Bush’s choice for Secretary, who will have the job of selling the NMD plans to the USA’s allies, including the UK, which opposed the Clinton Administration’s scheme and object to Republican plans to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. Diplomats in Washington believe that Mr Powell is advising his colleagues not to plunge into an immediate and detailed commitment to implement the NMD, but to remit the whole issue to a commission which could consider all military, political and spending issues involved in a long-term strategic commitment to missile shields. Mr Powell is a supporter of missile defence, but he is understood not to favour developing a system in response to the dangers posed by North Korea, whose ability to launch missiles ostensibly triggered the current NMD development programme. Rather, he wants the NMD to be a long-term strategic cornerstone of the US defence strategy, and is anxious not to antagonise world opinion by what might otherwise appear to be a premature and provocative development. Mr Powell may get his way in having the implementation strategy remitted to a commission, but it will be given the job of defining how, not whether, the NMD is introduced. Mr Bush’s team has not yet said in public how it will build missile defences, but several radical developments are under discussion. The most important of these are design changes which would shift the NMD strategy from its current land-based launching sites to sea-based and space-based interceptors. “We need a system that is more robust than what the Clinton Administration has designed,’’ said Dave Smith, a Republican missile defence expert who served on the 1998 commission chaired by Mr Rumsfeld which persuaded Mr Clinton to go ahead. The most likely expansion, at least as the first step which Ms Rice supported in remarks during the election campaign last year, would be for sea-based interceptors. These would allow the USA to attack enemy missiles at a much earlier stage in their trajectory, when interception would cause the debris, including any chemical or biological warheads, to fall over the launch country rather than the target country. Interceptors based at sea would also enable the USA to provide missile defence protection to its allies and US troops stationed overseas. —The Guardian, London |
| Cloud over 3 Bush appointments WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (AFP) — US President-elect George W. Bush’s transition appeared headed for trouble today as at least four of his Cabinet nominees came under fire for possible legal and ethical lapses or suspected racial biases. Ms Linda Chavez, the nominee for Secretary of Labour, seemed to be in most serious trouble after a Guatemalan immigrant admitted yesterday that Chavez knew about her illegal status when she allowed her to stay at her home in the early 1990s. But as the president-elect and his aides closed ranks behind Chavez, news reports indicated that New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, may have a similar problem. Meanwhile, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, slated to become Secretary of Defence, faced questions about his dedication to racial equality after the Chicago Tribune published Sunday a transcript of his 1971 exchange with the then President Richard Nixon. |
| Two charges dropped against Libyans CAMP ZEIST, (Netherlands) Jan 9 (Reuters) — In a make-or-break bid for conviction in the Lockerbie trial, prosecutors asked a special court on Tuesday to drop lesser charges and find the two Libyans accused guilty of murder. Summing up as the eight-month trial lurched towards an unexpectedly early conclusion, they proposed eliminating indictments on conspiracy to murder and violation of aviation security, to focus on the single charge that they murdered 270 people in the 1988 airliner bombing over the Scottish town. Legal experts said it was a bold strategy that staked the outcome on proving the most difficult of the three alternative charges, and it appeared to reflect confidence on the prosecution side that the case was solid. “It’s all-or-nothing now on the most heinous charge,” said Clare Connelly, a Glasgow University trial watcher. A verdict could come almost immediately after the defence, in its turn, finishes summing up, or it may take days or weeks. The three judges will have three verdicts to choose from under Scottish law: guilty, not guilty or not proven. The proceedings vaulted dramatically towards an end on Monday when lawyers for defendants Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima abruptly closed their cases after calling just three witnesses. The Libyans, wearing Arab headgear and listening attentively to Arabic translations, deny planting the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight No 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground. Prosecutor Alastair Campbell spent the morning in a long and detailed summary of volumes of circumstantial evidence and testimony from 230 prosecution witnesses, including East German secret agents. “In my submission, the (Scottish) Crown have proved the case against each accused beyond reasonable doubt,” he told the Scottish court on a former US airbase in the Netherlands. “This is a circumstantial case. Evidence comes from a number of sources which when taken together provide a corroborated case both as to the commission of the crime and the identity of the perpetrators,” Campbell told the three-judge jury. According to the indictment against them, Megrahi and Fahima were members of Libyan intelligence who used cover as Libyan Arab Airlines employees at Malta’s Luqa airport to put a suitcase bomb on a plane to Frankfurt, which was later loaded at Heathrow airport aboard the doomed New York-bound flight. Campbell also proposed deleting the reference to Fahima as a Libyan intelligence agent, substituting a reference to him only as a Libyan Arab Airlines employee. The case against Fahima is seen as weaker than that against Megrahi. The shock defence announcement on Monday that it was closing its case came after a one-month break that the Libyans’ lawyers had requested while it sought what was billed as a potentially key document from the Syrian Government, to help prove their contention that Palestinian extremists carried out the bombing. Syria, however, refused to cooperate. (Reuters) |
| Mass rally blow to US peace efforts JERUSALEM, Jan 9 (PTI) — Dealing a further blow to US President Bill Clinton’s efforts to clinch a peace deal, tens of thousands of Israelis thronged the streets of the city last night in protest against handing parts of the city to the Palestinians. While there was no official word on the number of participants, unofficial estimates put the number at 1,50,000, but organisers said 4,00,000 persons were present in the rally which they called the ‘largest of its kind’. Huge crowds of religious and nationalist Israelis poured into the congested heart of the city to pledge allegiance to the holy city and put on a strong show of opposition to the US plan that suggests to divide it. Mr Clinton’s peace plans already appeared faltering as Palestinian negotiators earlier rejected his proposals alleging that they were copies of Israel’s blueprint for ending the 52-year-old conflict. Bearing placards and large torches and singing patriotic songs, thousands of right-wing Jewish settlers and a number of Israelis from other shades of political opinion formed a human chain around the city. S Goldberg of the Guardian adds: His belated interest in rapprochement with the man awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to Israel was spurred by the opinion polls, which show the hardline challenger for the premiership, Ariel Sharon, winning half the votes. Mr Barak hopes that Mr Peres can help him convince leftwingers and Arabs that he is still a peacemaker. But the prospect of a peace deal being agreed before Bill Clinton relinquishes the US presidency on January 20 seems to be all but dead, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. And any hope that the two sides might resume security cooperation soon was shrinking, too. The peace camp is hugely disillusioned with Mr Barak, and Labour party activists are afraid that a low turnout or spoilt ballots may give Mr Sharon victory by default. Mr Barak’s standing in the party is so low that he has to fend off calls from Cabinet ministers and a petition from party activists to step aside for Mr Peres. On Sunday he was reduced to telling Israel Radio that he would fight the election even if he had only four supporters. He is reaching out to Mr Peres as an insurance policy. The two appeared together on television at the weekend, promising to work together for peace, just as Mr Peres worked with Yitzhak Rabin, who became an icon of peace after his assassination by Jewish religious fanatics in 1995. “The goal is not to become Prime Minister. It is to do the best for the state of Israel,” Mr Peres said. The Israeli press has speculated that Mr Peres could be rewarded with the post of Foreign Minister, a giant step up from the ministry of Regional Cooperation, where he has been languishing in recent months. He is also reported to have been promised a leading role in the peace negotiations. The effort to unite the centre and left is intended to counter Monday’s rightwing show of strength in Jerusalem. The organisers say they have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad, provoking a debate on the right of Jews living outside Israel to influence policy. They have also roped in some high-powered supporters who accuse Mr Barak of betraying all Jews by contemplating compromises in Jerusalem. “Jerusalem is the identity of all the Jewish people,” said the sometime Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who has helped to mobilise Israel’s 1m Russian immigrants against giving concessions to the Palestinians. “Our argument is that this government is out of step with the will of the people.” |
| ‘US allies warned of uranium risk’ NEW YORK, Jan 9 (PTI) — The USA had asked the allied armies to take special precautions before entering the Yugoslav war zone, after the bombing of Kosovo in 1999, as the shells fired by its aircraft contained depleted uranium which posed possible health risks, media reports said today. A document named “Hazard Awareness” issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and made available to the New York Times in Europe by a military official from a NATO country had warned soldiers and civilians against touching spent ammunition or other contaminated materials. “Personnel handling the heads of anti-tank shells or entering wrecked vehicles should wear protective masks and cover exposed skin, and the people involved in the more hazardous clearing tasks should undergo health assessments afterwards”, the daily said, quoting the document. The document contents were likely to compound the fears that radiations emanating from depleted uranium weapons could be linked to cancer among some members of peace-keeping force in Kosovo. The document dated July 1, 1999, was circulated among the militaries of the countries involved in the Kosovo campaign, and Germany, France and other countries passed the warnings to their soldiers, the Times said. The Dutch Defence Ministry said it gave specific instructions about how troops were to confront the uranium problem before they went to Kosovo. “Our troops were told to mark or cordon off contaminated areas, avoid any contact and call in special demolition units” a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying. At least 15 have died of Leukemia — six in Italy, five in Belgium, two in Netherlands and one each in Portugal and Spain, the daily said. While acknowledging the hazards, both the Pentagon and NATO, pointing to medical experts, have denied that any links could exist between exposure to depleted uranium and the illness and deaths of veterans, the Post said. Defence ministries in several countries, it said, have admitted receiving the US document, which has not been released. It was made available to The New York Times in Europe by a military official from a NATO country. While NATO officials said it was normal practice to inform troops about hazardous materials, 10 countries have ordered investigations into possible links between the illness of soldiers and their exposure to depleted uranium, the daily said. |
| China dubs Tiananmen papers fake BEIJING, Jan 9 (PTI)- china today dismissed western media reports of disunity among the ruling communist party leaders and rejected the leaked Tiananmen papers as fake. “The communist party of china (CPC) central committee, with president Jiang Zemin at the core, is united," the Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman, Mr Zhu Bangzao, was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency. Attacking the authenticity of the secret documents published in the USA, which vividly described how Chinese leaders were divided over handling the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square protests, Mr Zhu rejected them as fake. “Any attempt to play up the matter again and disrupt China by despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile,” Mr Zhu said in the first official reaction to the papers, reportedly smuggled out of China by a disaffected Chinese official. He said the CPC and the Chinese government had made a correct conclusion about the political disturbances that took place in Beijing at the end of spring and beginning of summer in 1989 and that the conclusion would not change. “The practice over the past decade and more has proved that the prompt and decisive measures that the CPC and the Chinese government took at the time were highly necessary for the stability and development of china,” Mr Zhu said while defending the Chinese army crackdown . The CPC and the government led by the party has resolutely defended the army crackdown saying the protests were an anti-government rebellion that needed to be crushed to safeguard china’s double digit economic growth. |
| Judge postpones Pinochet hearing SANTIAGO, Jan 9 (DPA) — Chilean judge Juan Guzman has postponed questioning of former dictator Augusto Pinochet about human rights abuses from today to next Monday, news reports said. He also ordered the 85-year-old to undergo psychological tests on Thursday or Friday this week to assess whether he is fit to stand trial over atrocities committed under his 1973-1990 rule. |
| Adam, Eve ‘were Australians’ SYDNEY, Jan 9 (AFP) — Adam and Eve were Australians, not Africans as most experts on human evolution now believe, according to a recently completed Australian research. The research, soon to be published by an American scientific journal, presents a new genetic tree showing anatomically modern humanity emerged from a common ancestor who lived in Australia 60,000 years ago. A team led by anthropologist Alan Thorne of Canberra’s Australian National University, also shows Australia was once home to a group of Aboriginal people. The discoveries are based on new analysis of the oldest DNA recovered from human remains; genetic material from a 60,000-year-old skeleton found near Lake Mungo in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales in 1974. 15 die in Pak train mishap KARACHI, Jan 9 (AP) — At least 15 persons were killed and more than 200 injured today when a passenger train derailed near the southern Pakistani town of Hyderabad, the police and railway officials said. The Kushal Khan Express was heading to the southern port city of Karachi when the accident took place. The cause of accident was not immediately known. At least eight bodies have been taken out of a demolished railway car, while many more are still trapped, they said. |
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