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| Sunday,
January 21, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Estrada out, Arroyo sworn in
President Ray closes Lewinsky case Myanmar forces refuse flag meeting with
BDR Harare sheds no tears for
Kabila |
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North Korean
leader meets Jiang USA compensates
China for Embassy bombing
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Estrada out, Arroyo sworn in
President
“A resignation letter is no longer needed because the Supreme Court has already decided,” Angara said in a television interview. “The president felt cheated because he was not given the courtesy.” “But the important thing is that he has accepted that he has to vacate his office,” he added. Arroyo took her oath at the edsa Shrine, where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos held a vigil to wait for Estrada’s resignation. Renato Corona, Arroyo’s chief of staff, said representatives of foreign government were invited to the swearing-in at the shrine, a church built to mark a highway where millions converged in 1986 to overthrow late Dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as the justices of the Supreme Court were also present to witness the ceremony, Corona added. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the USA is “following the situation very closely”, which he described as a domestic matter. He said there are US airplanes at the Clark economic zone in the northern province of Pampanga for a military exercise planned for Monday, but there had been no indication from Estrada “of any desire on his part to come to the USA”. The opposition had initiated talks for Estrada’s “graceful exit”, but the negotiations failed when the embattled President sought at least five days grace “to explain to his friends and relatives” the unexpected turn of events. Corona said the Vice-President had already identified her choices for such vital posts as executive secretary, national security adviser and the secretaries of finance, trade, budget, defence and interior. “The new Cabinet is almost complete,” he told reporters. Estrada’s government crumbled yesterday when top officials of the military, the police and the Cabinet threw their support behind Arroyo — the President’s constitutional successor. Last evening Estrada tried to quell mass demonstrations — which were triggered by the failure of his impeachment trial on bribery and corruption charges — by calling for a snap poll in May to elect his replacement. While he vowed not to run in the special presidential poll and to relinquish his post to whomever would be elected, the opposition and the protesters quickly rejected the suggestion. The 63-year-old was voted in as President in 1998 by the widest margin in Philippine history. His six-year term was supposed to end in 2004. Estrada’s woes started in October when an estranged friend accused the President of collecting more than $ 8 million in illegal gambling pay-offs and pocketing $ 2.6 million in tobacco tax kickbacks. The expose resulted in Estrada’s impeachment in November by the House of Representatives for charges of bribery, graft and corruption, betrayal of public trust and violations of the constitution. The trial was suspended on Wednesday after the Senate voted 11-10 to block the inspection of documents that prosecutors said would show that Estrada hid $ 66 million in secret bank accounts under the alias Jose Velarde. AFP: After a four-night vigil around a Roman Catholic shrine, tens of thousands of Filipinos marched on the presidential palace today to oust corruption-tainted President Joseph Estrada. One group of protesters converged on the streets around the palace, determined to pressure the besieged leader to resign in the country’s second bloodless uprising in 15 years. Another crowd remained at the shrine, waiting for Estrada’s successor, Vice-President Gloria Arroyo, to take her oath of office. The thousands of pro-Estrada demonstrators who had surrounded the palace to safeguard the president from the anti-Estrada rallyists dwindled to a few hundred, leaving only a thin line of riot police to hold back the anti-Estrada marchers some two blocks from the palace. To lift their spirits, the Estrada supporters sang “Erap, we will not abandon you,” and chanted “Erap Remain”, referring to the President by his popular nickname. The fall of Estrada is proving to
be uncannily similar to the 1986 popular revolt that toppled
then-President Ferdinand Marcos, an ally of Estrada.  |
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Ray closes Lewinsky case WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) — Independent counsel Robert Ray said he had ended his investigation of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair after Clinton admitted knowingly giving false, evasive statements, describing it as a just resolution in the nation’s best interests. Mr Ray told reporters yesterday that Clinton’s acknowledgement, made public in a statement issued at the White House, convinced him to end his investigation into whether Clinton should be indicted on criminal charges for lying about his relationship with the former White House intern. “The nation’s interests have been served and therefore I decline prosecution,” said Mr Ray, who had been considering bringing a criminal case after Clinton had left office. As part of the deal, Clinton accepted a five-year suspension of his licence to practise law in Arkansas and paid a $ 25,000 fine. He also agreed not to seek reimbursement of his legal fees, Mr Ray said. At issue was Clinton’s testimony three years ago in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. During the investigation of that case, it was alleged he had had sexual relations with Lewinsky. Clinton denied that he had, but later admitted the liaison. Ray’s predecessor, Kenneth Starr, initially investigated the Lewinsky affair. Starr’s report to Congress led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999. Since the summer of 2000 Ray has been presenting evidence to a federal grand jury considering whether to indict Clinton after he leaves office. No U.S. President has ever been indicted on criminal charges. The Lewinsky affair was one of a number of investigations conducted by the independent counsel’s office, dating back to Starr’s appointment in August 1994, of the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, costing more than 50 million dollars. Ray said he still must file a final report on the Lewinsky investigation to a panel of three federal appellate judges that appointed him. Linda Tripp, whose recordings of her conversations with White House aide Monica Lewinsky fuelled the sexual scandal involving President Bill Clinton and Lewinsky, has been dismissed from her $ 98,744 Pentagon job, the White House said yesterday. White House spokesman said Tripp failed to submit her resignation, as virtually all “Schedule C” federal employees are required to do at the end of presidential administrations, and would lose her job when President George W. Bush takes office today. Linda Tripp will take legal action to try to get it back, her attorney said. Her lawyer Michael Kohn said she had already filed a lawsuit to complain about a violation of a privacy act and would now file an ‘amended complaint’ after her firing. |
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Myanmar forces refuse flag meeting with
BDR DHAKA, Jan 20 — Despite an agreement reached at the diplomatic level to ease tension, the border security forces of both Bangladesh and Myanmar are still face to face at two sides of Naf river, at Teknaf, the southeastern point of Bangladesh. The Nasaka, Myanmar border force, has refused to sit for a flag meeting to discuss the dispute. The people in the Bangladesh side of the area are scared of an impending armed conflict and many families have left to distant places for safety. Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) is on the alert and living in bunkers. The Myanmar authority summoned the acting chief of Bangladesh mission in Yangon on Wednesday and proposed a joint survey of the disputed area. Bangladesh has agreed to it. The details of the joint survey will be worked out later. However, Myanmar has proposed to include river experts from both sides in the respective survey teams. The tension began when the Myanmar forces started the construction of an embankment on January 4 last closing the Boat Khal, in their area in Arakan province opposite Teknaf police station of Bangladesh. The canal is a tributary of the Naf which actually demarcates the border of the two countries. The BDR in a letter requested the Myanmar forces to stop the construction as it would cause flood on the Bangladesh side. In reply Myanmar forces demanded the removal of Bangladeshi shrimp farms from the bank of the river. The BDR in their latest letter, the third one, said that these shrimp farms had been there for the past two decades and were causing no harm to Myanmar. The Myanmar forces refused to yield , but however, agreed to extend the period of suspension of work by another week. The earlier time limit ended on Sunday. Meanwhile, the two forces have mobilised additional troops in the area and exchanged fire for some hours on January 8. Media reports from the area suggested that the Myanmar forces were observing blackout at night which is considered as a preparation for a large-scale conflict. Most of the Arakan province of Myanmar is inhabited by Muslims who are known as Ruhingyas. Since 1978 on two occasions, the Myanmar forces drove out thousands of Ruhingya families to Bangladesh. More than 2000 such Ruhingyas are still living in refugee camps at Teknaf run by UNHCR. Others were taken back by Myanmar through long-drawn negotiations. |
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Harare sheds no tears for
Kabila HARARE, Jan 20 — For two days, Laurent Kabila’s cronies hid his corpse away in a Zimbabwean morgue and pretended that the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo was still of this world. But having finally admitted the reality, they put his body on display amid tight security. Kabila, wearing a black suit and showing no sign of bullet wounds, was ensconced in an elaborate white and gold coffin, draped with the Congolese flag. It lay in the chapel of a Zimbabwean army commando unit barracks, for diplomats and others who looked suitably respectful to view. A man in a leather motorcycle jacket decided who fitted this bill. He brusquely refused entrance to all journalists save for Zimbabwe’s state news media. This time Congo’s president had the kind of security that was clearly lacking when one of his own soldiers shot him in the back on Tuesday. It is fitting that Kabila’s corpse should be put on display in Zimbabwe before Congo. He was certainly more welcome there, at least among its leadership, than he was in his own country. Kabila’s ally, Robert Mugabe, arrived to acknowledge the death of a man who was a puppet and yet frustratingly unmanageable despite his reliance on Zimbabwe. At a service attended by about 300 people, including Kabila’s wife and six of their children, two senior vice-presidents and diplomats from several African countries, mourners were greeted by 40 wailing Congolese women in T-shirts with Kabila’s face emblazoned on the front and ``Adieu mon President’’ on the back. But one of the women uttered what her compatriots believe - Kabila’s death is no bad thing. ``We hope that with Kabila’s departure we will be able to sit down and find a way to peace and we will be able to live like other countries,’’ she said. Mr Mugabe said nothing. He had looked badly shaken on state television as the Zimbabwean government finally confirmed the Congolese leader’s death. Both governments had claimed that Kabila had been airlifted to Harare for emergency medical treatment but Moven Mahachi, the Zimbabwean Defence Minister, admitted yesterday that he died in Kinshasa of his wounds. Mr Mugabe ordered that Kabila’s corpse flown to Harare to create the fiction that he was still alive in order to buy time to entrench the new regime headed by the late President’s son, Joseph. Zimbabwe’s President may mourn but on the streets of Harare there was no great sorrow. It is not that Kabila was particularly despised in Zimbabwe, although there was resentment that its soldiers should be dying to keep a despot in power. But Mr Mugabe’s many opponents drew a strange pleasure from knowing that one of his close allies met such a swift end. It was as if Kabila’s demise somehow made Zimbabwe’s leader more vulnerable. ``Mugabe must have shivered when he heard Kabila was shot because he is afraid that is how he will go,’’ Evans Zvika, a Harare office worker, said. The Zimbabwean government continues to say publicly that its 11,000 troops will remain in Congo, but it increasingly wants to see the 1999 Lusaka peace accords implemented so that it can extricate itself from a venture that has cost the country hundreds of millions of pounds. But there are those who think even the presence of his body could stir up trouble. ``Let them get Kabila’s body out of Zimbabwe as quickly as possible,’’ the Zimbabwean political scientist Masipula Sithole said. ``The very fact that Kabila’s body is here shows how much Kabila relied on Mugabe. His killing is not surprising. He came to the leadership through illegitimate means, shrouded with suspicion. He did not take any steps to hold democratic elections ... Live by the sword, die by the sword.’’ — Guardian News Service |
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North Korean
leader meets Jiang SEOUL, Jan 20 (AFP) — North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-II yesterday held summit talks in Shanghai with China’s President Jiang Zemin, according to diplomatic sources quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Mr Kim, who started a second secretive visit to China on January 15, cancelled a planned visit to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, according to sources quoted by the news agency. A diplomatic source in Beijing told the agency that Mr Kim and Mr Jiang held a one-hour meeting to discuss topics including the situation in North-east Asia and the launch of the new US administration led by Mr George W. Bush. The two met in Shanghai to avoid complicated protocol in Beijing and to give the North Korean leader more time to outline his plans for reform and opening up his isolated country, the source was quoted as saying. The two leaders also met in Beijing last May just before the historic inter-Korean summit which saw the start of a reconciliation between the two Koreas. |
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USA compensates
China for Embassy bombing BEIJING, Jan 20 (PTI) — The USA has paid a sum of $ 28 million to China for the property loss caused by the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia during the Kosovo operation on May 8, 1999. “The payment was made yesterday according to an agreement reached between the Governments of China and the USA,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said today. Mr Zhu did not say whether China paid any amount to the USA for the damages suffered by US diplomatic missions in China during the anti-NATO demonstrations after the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was hit by five bombs. The USA had earlier paid $ 4.5 million to the families of three reporters killed and 27 persons injured in the bombing incident. The bombing plunged Sino-US relations to their lowest level in decades. Beijing broke off talks on human rights, security issues and China’s efforts to join the World Trade Organisation. China still refuses to accept the US explanation of the bombing as a ‘mistake’ resulting from faulty intelligence. |
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