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| Wednesday, January 31, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Parliament finds Wahid guilty M16 in Hinduja passport row USA offers $ 5 m aid for quake-hit Kuwait govt resigns Zanzibar clashes
toll 280: Oppn |
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Pinochet’s arrest reordered B’desh President may resign Bush plans not to reverse
pardons Steven Spielberg
knighted
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Parliament finds Wahid guilty JAKARTA, Jan 30 (Reuters) — An Indonesian parliamentary commission investigating two corruption scandals linked to President Abdurrahman Wahid has concluded he probably had a role in one and gave false testimony in the other. Parliament, due to announce its response on Thursday, is likely to reprimand the ailing, half-blind Muslim cleric but is expected to hold off formal impeachment proceedings, for now. The first scandal, dubbed Buloggate, involves the theft of $ 4.1 million from the state commodities regulator Bulog by people claiming to be acting on Wahid’s behalf, including his masseur. The second, Bruneigate, involves Wahid’s acceptance outside government channels of a $2 million donation from the Sultan of Brunei for aid for the troubled Aceh province. Wahid denies any wrongdoing. Ultimately, Parliament has the power to force the ouster of the embattled President, whose grip on power is becoming increasingly shaky as speculation mounts he will not last politically to serve out his term which ends in 2004. But the impeachment process is long and complicated. Here is a brief rundown of how it works: — if Parliament decides Wahid acted improperly, it must then rule whether the matter should be dealt with by the courts, or whether he has breached guidelines on government conduct; — if the latter, Parliament will issue a formal warning and urge Wahid to resolve the matter; — three months after that warning, Parliament will convene to consider whether the President has met its demands; —if Parliament is still unhappy, it can send a second warning letter, giving him another 30 days to act; — if Wahid still does not meet Parliament’s demands, the House has the power to ask the top legislature, the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), to hold a special session and force Wahid to account for himself. This is the formal start of the impeachment process; — should the MPR — which appoints the President and the Vice-President — reject Wahid’s accountability speech, it has the power to revoke his mandate; — Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri will then replace Wahid until his current term ends in 2004. If it goes to court, which is considered very unlikely, and Wahid were to be found guilty, he could, under the constitution, be removed from office by the MPR. —Ms Megawati’s support is crucial to Wahid’s survival because she heads the largest party in Parliament and the MPR, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle.
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M16 in Hinduja passport row LONDON, Jan 30 (AFP) — Britain’s opposition Conservative Party is seeking to establish whether ministers ignored advice by MI6, the state’s foreign intelligence service, on the billionaire Hinduja brothers at the centre of a passport scandal. The Tories are claiming MI6 recommended that Indian-born Srichand Hinduja’s bid for a British passport should be refused, The Guardian newspaper reported today. The row over the Indian tycoon’s passport request has already cost the ministerial job of Peter Mandelson, one of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s closest friends and advisers, and threatens Keith Vaz, Britain’s most prominent Asian politician. Ann Widdecombe, Tory spokeswoman on Interior Affairs, has written to the head of the official investigation into the affair, lawyer Sir Anthony Hammond, to ask him to examine whether the foreign intelligence service played a role in the scandal. “I believe it is in the public interest that these answers be known,” she wrote. Widdecombe suggested that MI6 agents were tasked to look into the Hinduja brothers by the British High Commission in New Delhi. They were, it was suggested, asked to look into the corruption case facing Hinduja and his brother Gopichand in India over a huge arms deal. Widdecombe has asked Hammond to examine whether immigration officers asked MI6 to draw up a dossier into the Hindujas’ alleged links to the Bofors arms deal. Mr Blair last week ordered an inquiry into whether Mandelson and Vaz did anything wrong in intervening on Srichand Hinduja’s behalf. Downing Street said the probe should be concluded by the end of next month. Mandelson stood down as Northern Ireland minister last week after reversing an earlier denial that he had telephoned a Home Office Minister in June 1998 about Hinduja’s application.
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USA offers $ 5 m aid for quake-hit WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (AP, Reuters) — An American woman and her daughter are among the thousands who died in an earthquake last week in India, a State Department official said. “So far, those are the only known American casualties,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday. “We have sent our condolences to this family. And, of course, we extend our condolences to all of the families of victims of this horrible tragedy.” The USA has provided India almost $ 1 million in emergency supplies and is prepared to send as much as $ 5 million worth. “We are coordinating very closely with the Indian Government, with the officials there, to see what they need, what we can help with and to get our assistance in there as soon as we can,” Mr Boucher said. SAN
FRANCISCO: Anxious to help friends and family back home, Gujaratis and other Indian-Americans have rallied to gather relief funds following the earthquake in Gujarat that killed an estimated 20,000 persons and left thousands homeless. One community leader yesterday said that he was disappointed by the response. Groups in the San Francisco Bay Area — home to many Silicon Valley high tech workers, said they were bonding together in hopes of setting a precedent for a swift collective response to Indian disasters. “It’s the survival element we want to focus on,” said Mohan Trika of Indus Entrepreneurs, a non-profit group based in Santa Clara, California, which is helping the effort to finance Indian purchases of blankets, medicine and bandages. More than two dozen Indian-American groups in the San Francisco area have formed an emergency quake relief committee dubbed “United Community Appeal.’’ Northern California is home to about 150,000 Indian-Americans, many of whom trace their families back to Gujarat. An organiser of an aid drive by the federation of Gujarati associations in the Washington, D.C., area said the quake’s location had tugged heartstrings. UNITED
NATIONS: The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it had committed at least $ 8 million in immediate aid to survivors of last week’s massive earthquake in India. More than half the total, almost $ 5 million will provide medical supplies and safe water for the estimated 100,000 persons in need of immediate relief in Gujarat state, western India,
UNICEF said. Two million dollars will be used to provide family survival kits, including cooking utensils, blankets, clothing, water-purification tablets, anti-diarrhea pills, soap, candles and kerosene lamps. The kits are locally made in India and cost about $ 43 each,
UNICEF said in a statement here yesterday. DAMASCUS: Syria said it would send an emergency aid to help the survivors of the earthquake which left an estimated 20,000 persons dead in Gujarat in western India. The official Syrian Arab News Agency said yesterday: “The government has decided to provide medical aid and supplies including food, tents, clothes and other necessary products (..) to help the friendly Indian people overcome the consequences of the catastrophe,” which happened on Friday. |
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Kuwait govt resigns KUWAIT, Jan 30 (Reuters) — Kuwait embarked on Tuesday on an exercise all too familiar to its people and potential investors — assembling a new administration after the resignation of a government analysts said was plagued by internal differences. At stake is the political stability of a tiny country of 2.2 million that owns a tenth of the world’s oil reserves and has huge investments in Western multinationals, diplomats say. The outgoing government — the 19th since Kuwait gained independence from Britain 40 years ago — had often come under attack in Parliament for alleged weakness and responsibility for an economic slowdown despite a rise in revenue from oil exports. The Head of State, Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, was holding talks to name a new Prime Minister after accepting the resignation of a government that political scientists say has repeatedly failed to resolve longstanding internal differences. The Emir accepted the resignation presented by Prime Minister Sheikh Saad al-Abdulla al-Sabah after some ministers insisted at a Cabinet meeting on Sunday on stepping down. Sheikh Saad (72) has headed successive Kuwaiti governments dominated by members of al-Sabah ruling family since he was first named Crown Prince of the Gulf Arab state in 1978.
Zanzibar clashes
toll 280: Oppn ZANZIBAR( Tanzania), Jan 30 (Reuters) —A senior official in Tanzania’s main opposition party said today at least 280 people were killed in weekend clashes between police and protesters on the Indian Ocean islands of Zanzibar. Mr Hiza Tambwe, a senior official from the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) which organised demonstrations to demand a rerun of last year’s disputed elections, said 150 bodies had been discovered in a forest in Pemba, the smaller of Zanzibar’s two main islands. “We have been informed from Pemba that 150 people were found dead, all dumped together in a place called Utaani, “he told newsmen, adding that the CUF would soon release a statement on the deaths. Mr Tambwe also said 80 people trying to flee Pemba by sea were killed when the police opened fire on their boat from a helicopter over the weekend. Opposition officials say at least 50 other CUF supporters died in the clashes. About half a dozen policemen were also killed. |
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Pinochet’s arrest reordered SANTIAGO (Chile), Jan 30 (Reuters) — A Chilean judge reordered the house arrest of ex-strongman Augusto Pinochet on charges of his alleged involvement in the murder and kidnap of leftists during his 1973-1990 dictatorship, brushing aside a bid to stop any trial of the aged general on health grounds. Human rights lawyers said yesterday that judge Juan Guzman, who has been investigating Pinochet for more than three years, ordered the house arrest of the Chilean military’s father figure in a document filed in a court here. Guzman overlooked a bid by Pinochet’s lawyers to halt any prosecution of the 85-year-old retired general because of his frail health, preferring to carry on with his efforts to force Pinochet to stand trial. Lawyers for Pinochet, who remains holed up in his coastal estate about 128 km southwest of the capital Santiago, are expected to try to block the court order with an appeal. For the moment, they simply vowed to continue their fight. “If Guzman’s resolution is confirmed. It would be a great disappointment, considering the physical limitations of the former President,” said Pinochet defense team member Guillermo Garin. “The courts have been used to pass political judgment, and because of that we will use all the tools at our disposal to face a political issue,” Garin said. However, the human rights activists hailed Guzman’s decision to go ahead with the prosecution. |
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B’desh President may resign DHAKA, Jan 30 — The cancellation of the scheduled visit to USA of the Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament Humayun Rashid Chowdhury following a meeting with the Prime Minister, Ms Sheikh Hasina, gave rise to speculation of resignation of the country’s President, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed. In that case, as the constitution provides, the Speaker will hold the charge of the President till a new President is elected. Mr Humayun Rashid Chowdhury was scheduled to leave on Tuesday. In the past three weeks relation between the President and the Prime Minister has deteriorated on the issue of the appointment of two judges in the Supreme Court. It is alleged that two senior judges were superseded and the President did not like it but had to agree to the proposal by the Prime Minister. One of the high court judges superseded, is the borther-in-law of Col. (retd) Farooq Rahman, one of the 15 former military officers convicted of the murder of founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — the father of the Prime minister, Ms Hasina. The government stood by its decision claiming that there are precedences of supersession including the appointment of Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed as the Chief Justice. There were media reports that President Shahabuddin has recently asked persons close to him to find out a residence he wants to hire immediately. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said at a press conference on Sunday that her party had the required strength to elect a new President if the incumbent resigned. He had to decide. The government would not oppose his decision. These developments gave rise to speculation of the stepping down by the President before his term is over and
cancellation of the tour by the Speaker has been considered a step towards such a development. Mentionable, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed, was elected by the members of the Bangladesh Parliament in October 1996. The Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) stayed out of the House on the day of the election. Now if President Justice steps down, it will be an incident unprecented in the history of Bangladesh. |
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Bush plans not to reverse
pardons WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) — President George W. Bush does not plan to seek to reverse any of the pardons former President Bill Clinton granted in his last hours of office, which include one for fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. “President Bush will not explore whether or not he has the authority to take any action in the case of his predecessor’s pardons,’’ the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “The President under the Constitution has unfettered authority to grant pardons, and that is President Bush’s judgement,’’ he said. However, he added, “The President may not have agreed with all of the pardons his predecessor granted.’’ Clinton has drawn criticism from prosecutors and several Republicans over his last-minute pardon of fugitive billionaire commodities trader Rich, and there was speculation Bush could draw on 19th century legal decisions to try to contest the Rich pardon.
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Steven Spielberg
knighted WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) — Britain yesterday awarded filmmaker Steven Spielberg an honorary knighthood to recognise his “unique and outstanding contribution to international film,” said British Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer. Spielberg, whose films include “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” received the honour at a brief ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington after a private dinner for his family and friends. The beaming director said he was surprised by the honour — which he believed was reserved for only British subjects — and initially thought it was an elaborate ruse by someone trying to get him to read a movie script.
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