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| Tuesday, January 23, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Arroyo resumes talks with
Muslim rebels Oil spill threatens rare
species Bangladesh
strike paralyses life Panel to probe Dhaka blast Israel reopens Gaza, W. Bank
borders Global warming has
been faster: UN Suu Kyi wins
court case |
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Moves to end Congo
war quicken India
repressing Kashmiris : Pak
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Arroyo resumes talks with
Muslim rebels MANILA, Jan 22 (AP) — Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today ordered officials to restart separate peace talks with Communist and Muslim guerrillas who have battled government troops for years, Defence Secretary Orlando Mercado said. “She has given us specific instructions as Commander-in-Chief and those instructions are basically in the area of restarting the negotiation process,” Mr Mercado said after meeting the woman who had been President for barely 48 hours. Mrs Arroyo was catapulted to power on Saturday after massive protests and the stunning resignations of top officials forced President Joseph Estrada from office. Estrada’s administration held failed talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a large rebel group fighting for a separate Islamic nation in the southern Philippines, and the Communist Party. Muslim guerrillas welcomed Mrs Arroyo’s order, saying they were optimistic about a political settlement with the new administration. “That’s a welcome, welcome development,” MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told Associated Press by telephone. “We should immediately start the talks and we could probably arrive at a settlement with her. If people don’t talk, things get murky.” Kabalu urged Mrs Arroyo, as a sign of goodwill, to withdraw an “all-out war” policy adopted by Estrada. The MILF refused to resume peace talks after Estrada ordered a massive offensive last year. Mrs Arroyo met a group of left-wing activists, including former Marxist rebel spokesman Satur Ocampo. He said the guerrillas were ready to resume peace talks. “It’s remarkable that on her first day in office, she decided to meet with us,” Mr Ocampo said afterward. Leftist groups were invited to share breakfast with the President tomorrow. Mr Ocampo said rebels raised an old demand for the government to free more than 100 political prisoners jailed. They were promised that the demand would be studied. She also promised to replace Estrada’s “all-out war” policy against rebels with a “peace policy.” Separately, Mrs Arroyo saw Mr Ralph Boyce, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, who relayed the continued Us support to the Philippines, officials said. Despite the olive branch, Mrs Arroyo still appeared ready to deal with the rebels sternly. Mercado said she ordered him to speed up a programme modernising the armed forces, one of Asia’s most ill-equipped. The programme has been stalled by a lack of funds. Meanwhile, prosecutors said they were launching an investigation into the charges against former President Joseph Estrada of plundering millions of dollars in office. Estrada, who left the presidential palace under the pressure of mass demonstrations on January 20, has 10 days to file an affidavit in response. While the top charge technically carries the possible death penalty, it is considered extremely unlikely that the former action film actor could face execution by lethal injection. Government Ombudsman Aniano Desierto told a news conference that the preliminary investigation would take 60 days and involve six charges: plunder, misuse of funds, violations of the anti-graft law, perjury, bribery and possession of unaccounted wealth. At the time of his departure, Estrada was facing an impeachment trial on corruption charges. It had been suspended on January 16 when the entire prosecution team walked out after the senators acting as judges decided to bar access to bank documents contained in a sealed envelope. Earlier, Mrs Arroyo named a retired General as her chief aide and retained the Defence Secretary of her ousted predecessor Joseph Estrada, as she stressed the need for stability and unity on her first day in office. Mr Renato de Villa, former Defence Secretary and armed forces chief as well as one-time presidential candidate, was named Executive Secretary — a post roughly equivalent to that of the Prime Minister. Estrada’s Defence Secretary Orlando Mercado, whose defection to the Opposition last week helped tip the balance during a popular uprising against Estrada, will retain his post. Mr Eduardo Ermita, like De Villa a retired General, was named National Security Adviser to Ms Arroyo. Ms Arroyo today formally began her duties with an appeal for national unity and assured civil servants that there would be no purge of the bureaucracy she inherited from Estrada. |
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Oil spill threatens rare species QUITO (Ecuador), Jan 22 (Reuters) — An oil spill in waters just half a mile (800 metres) off Ecuador’s Galapagos islands grew worse yesterday, threatening some of the world’s rarest land and sea animals and birds, officials said. “It is a disaster,” Environmental Ministry spokesman Mauro Cerbino told Reuters. “It may be one of Galapagos’ worst disasters.” A damaged vessel, the Ecuadorean-registered Jessica, ran aground on Tuesday near the archipelago’s main port, on its easternmost island of San Cristobal. The Jessica was on its way to service a private tour boat operator and Petrocomercial, an arm of the state oil company that provides the islands with fuel. The spill has already affected animals, including sea lions, pelicans and several other species of birds in the islands, administered by Ecuador and located 1,000 km off the coast in the southern Pacific Ocean. Adm. Gonzalo Vega, Director of Ecuador’s Merchant Marine in Guayaquil, said yesterday that about 655,000 litres of diesel and bunker, a heavy fuel used by tour boats that operate in Galapagos, had spilled into the sea. As much as 436,000 litres of fuel remained aboard the ship, though crews were working to remove the tanks to avoid future spillage. The Exxon Valdez supertanker dumped 41.6 million litres of oil into the Alaskan seas when it ran aground in 1989. AP adds: More than 570,000 litres of diesel fuel had escaped from the Ecuadorean tanker as pounding surf caused new fissures in the ship’s hull, officials have said. “The environmental damage is extremely grave,” said Ecuador’s Environmental Minister yesterday, adding that the spill had spread about 300 square kilometres. The boat, tilted heavily to its starboard side some 500 metres offshore, started leaking on Friday. New breaks in the hull yesterday had increased the flow of fuel, and that 570,000 litres had leaked out. President Gustavo Noboa yesterday demanded a “detailed report” about the cause of the accident, which officials had attributed to navigational error. The police said no charges had been filed against the ship’s captain, Tarquino Arevalo, who remained on the island yesterday, or against his company,
Acotramar. |
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Bangladesh strike paralyses life DHAKA, Jan 22 (Reuters) — An Opposition-led strike in Bangladesh in protest against a new security law disrupted life across the country today. An alliance of four Opposition parties called the strike in an attempt to persuade the government to scrap the Public Safety Act, adopted by Parliament last year, which it claims is used to hound the government’s political rivals. Today’s action comes a day after hundreds of Bangladesh Communist Party members staged a half-day general strike in protest against a bomb explosion which killed six and injured 40 at a party rally on Saturday. In the Capital, only rickshaws moved on largely deserted streets, while schools, shops and offices kept their shutters down. Nearly 20 person were injured in clashes with the police last night after alliance activists torched a bus and attacked several vehicles here ahead of the strike. “They attacked the vehicles and set one ablaze during a warm-up street march ahead of Monday’s strike,’’ one police officer said. The strike was likely to halt operations at the country’s main Chittagong Port and prevent trading on the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges. Airport officials said some flights might be delayed or cancelled. The alliance, headed by former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (bnp), also wants Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to dissolve Parliament and allow elections to take place before they are due on July 13, 2001. But Sheikh Hasina has refused to quit and the government says the security law is aimed at curbing crimes and anti-social activities. The bnp and its allies have staged nearly 70 general strikes since Sheikh Hasina took office in June, 1996, costing the impoverished country billions of dollars in lost production and exports. |
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Panel to probe Dhaka blast DHAKA, Jan 22 — The Bangladesh Government has constituted a three-member committee of inquiry to probe a bomb explosion at a public meeting of the Communist Party of Bangladesh on Saturday in which six persons died. The committee headed by Additional Secretary of the Home Ministry included a Deputy Secretary of the same ministry and a Metropolitan Magistrate. The Committee will submit its reports in a week. All the civil intelligence agencies have started separate inquiries into who were involved in such a heinous act. Explosive experts of the Bangladesh army conducted a thorough search of the two places of occurrence on Sunday and collected material evidences. Police and agencies seems to be sure that the bomb was not thrown but was put in a travel bag and was at a place where four of the victims died. Meanwhile, the Home Minister in his speech at the Bangladesh Parliament Saturday night hinted at possible involvement of elements from Hawkers Kalyan Samity, an organisation of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami . He also doubted involvement of Jamat ally , main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The police has taken into custody ten miscreants who are usually involved in making of crude bombs. It has also taken into custody two CPB supporters injured in the blast. Police says the blast was in a travel bag carried by Moshiur, a young party cadre from southern port city of Khulna, more than 300 km from Dhaka. Two others were also held . Interrogation of the three was going on in the police hospital where they were shifted from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. |
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Israel reopens Gaza, W. Bank borders GAZA, Jan 22 (Reuters) — Israel opened its borders with Gaza and the West Bank today to 16,000 Palestinians granted Israeli work permits last month, easing a travel ban as negotiators held peace talks in Egypt. “They began leaving (for Israel) this morning. At the moment only some have gone through,’’ said Yarden Vatikay, spokesman for Israel’s military-run civil administration in occupied parts of the two regions. He said 16,000 Palestinian labourers, aged 35 and over and married with children, were given work permits after passing Israeli security checks. Israel considers family men less likely to carry out guerrilla attacks. The permits were granted in December but entry was frozen for several weeks in response to violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where a Palestinian uprising has been raging since late September. The number of workers allowed back in Israel was only a fraction of the estimated 120,000 Palestinians legally or illegally employed in the Jewish state before the bloodshed erupted. The decision coincided with a last-ditch bid by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Taba to reach an agreement ahead of Israel’s Prime Ministerial election on February 6. “Only several dozen have actually crossed into Israel today because the announcement was made only late last night,’’ Mr Said Al-Mudallal, head of the employment department of the Palestinian Labour Ministry, told newsmen. Witnesses said Israeli soldiers at the Erez crossing with Gaza stepped up their security inspection procedures on Monday as they let workers through. |
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Global warming has been faster: UN SHANGHAI, Jan 22 (Reuters) — The earth’s atmosphere is warming faster than expected and evidence is mounting that human activity is responsible, the United Nations Environment Programme said on Monday. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now projects that the earth’s average surface temperature will rise 1.4°C to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100, higher than its 1995 estimate of 1°C to 3.5°C rise. “There’s no doubt the earth’s climate is changing,” IPCC chairman Robert Watson told a news conference in Shanghai. “The decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the last century and the warming in this century is warmer than anything in the last 1,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said. “We see changes in climate, we believe we humans are involved and we’re projecting future climate changes much more significant over the next 100 years than the last 100 years,” he added. Mr Watson said the IPCC’s latest report on climate change released on Monday showed the main reason behind the faster than expected temperature rise was a fall in sulphur dioxide emissions. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide tend to warm the earth’s atmosphere whereas sulphur dioxide tends to cool it. |
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Suu Kyi wins
court case YANGON, Jan 22 (Reuters) — A court in Myanmar has dismissed a suit by the estranged brother of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi over ownership rights to her home. In another sign the military is easing its crackdown on the pro-democracy figurehead. “I hereby dismiss the suit as the plaintiff side filed it in the wrong form,’’ Judge U Soe Thein said in a judgment on Monday. Suu Kyi’s brother Aung San Oo, who lives in the USA, filed a suit last year claiming the right to half of the large lakeside house in Central Yangon, which local real estate agents have valued in the neighbourhood of $ 2 million. |
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Moves to end Congo
war quicken KINSHASA, Jan 22 (Reuters) — Diplomatic moves to end the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo gained momentum as the people of the vast African country mourned assassinated President Laurent Kabila, whose body was taken through the streets of Kinshasa. The Presidents of three of Kabila’s allies — Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia — yesterday called a meeting in the Angolan Capital Luanda for broader talks to end the conflict. They pledged continued military support for the new Congo government until peace is restored in the mineral-rich country which faces an even more uncertain future after Kabila was shot by a bodyguard last week. Diplomatic sources said a summit of southern African nations, including Uganda and Rwanda who have backed rebels fighting the Kinshasa government, could be held in Mozambique on Wednesday. "The allies are agreed that they will remain in the drc (Congo), but we have to define what kind of assistance the authorities in the drc need, how we can help, and at the same time, ensure how we consolidate the search for peace," an official at the Luanda meeting said. India repressing Kashmiris : Pak ISLAMABAD, Jan 22 (Reuters) — Pakistan today accused India of continuing repression in Kashmir, despite declaring a ceasefire there. The foreign ministry made the charge as military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf consulted top army generals amid repeated Pakistani allegations that India was delaying a peace process in the Himalayan region. It said the international community, particularly human rights organisations, should demand that India “stop the repression of Kashmiri people’’, ensure Alam’s safety and release him immediately. An army commanders’ meeting chaired by General Musharraf today “reviewed matters relating to regional security and situation along the Line of Control (LoC),” a military statement said. It said the participants discussed “different security issues’’ and the situation along what Pakistan calls “working boundary’’ between its Punjab province and Indian Kashmir. |
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‘Gladiator’ in race for award BEVERLY HILLS, Jan 22 (AP) — George Clooney won the best actor in a comedy film award for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and Renee Zellweger of “Nurse Betty” won the best comedy film actress award at the Golden Globes ceremony. Clooney, who played an escaped chain-gang prisoner in the depression era of the South, denied Jim Carrey a third consecutive win in the category. “I think when you list the names of the actors in this category that you’ve got to figure I’m going to win this,” Clooney deadpanned to the audience last night. Listing his competitors — Carrey, John Cusack, Robert De Niro and Mel Gibson — he cracked: “What have they done?” Zellweger, who played a delusional soap opera fan in “Nurse Betty,” almost missed her award because she was outside the auditorium in the restroom, a fate that befell christine Lahti in 1998 when she won for “Chicago Hope.” Presenter Hugh Grant vamped until Zellweger walked from the back of the room, first in tears, then screaming for joy. “A moment I’ll never forget,” she finally said. “A moment I almost didn’t have.”
"Well, I got lucky," Del Toro, who played a Mexican police officer, told the star-studded audience. “I’d like to congratulate all the nominees. I love their work. If they want a recount, they can talk to my lawyer.” The films “Gladiator,” Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Sunshine,” “Wonder Boys,”and “Billy Elliot” were competing for the best dramatic motion picture. “Traffic” won the screenplay Globe for Stephen Gaghan, and “Gladiator” picked up the original score honour for Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. Another diverse collection filled the category for best film musical or comedy: “Almost Famous,” “Best in Show, “Chocolat,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and the claymation movie "Chicken Run.” “This is so intense,” said Hudson, who won for her role as a groupie in the film. |
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Anti-Taliban forces
recapture town PPP warns of
agitation Nine killed in
Ukraine blast Immigrants protest
against new law More quakes in
Nicaragua
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Benicio Del Toro won best supporting film actor award for his role in the drug war drama “Traffic” and Kate Hudson won supporting film actress award for “Almost Famous.”