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| Monday, February
5, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
Gaddafi ordered bombing: spies
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Chandrika’s olive branch to
LTTE
No N-pact with Israel: Jaswant Maoists attack Nepal CJ,
kill five Only a miracle can save Barak Wahid backers
hold rally |
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‘Sick’ Ershad back
in cell
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Gaddafi ordered bombing: spies LONDON, Feb 4 (DPA) — Spies inside Libya’s own intelligence agency have told Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency that Moammaer Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing of two airliners that caused 440 deaths, according to The Sunday Times. Two senior officials in Gaddafi’s regime - one codenamed Piebald - have given detailed accounts of the plot that led to the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 and the bombing of a French UTA airliner over West Africa nine months later, the newspaper reported. Both reportedly confirm that Gaddafi directed the attacks. The Sunday Times first revealed in 1999 that the government had evidence that Gaddafi ordered the bombing, but the paper was prevented by an injunction from explaining how the information was gathered. DUBAI (Reuters): The leader of Palestinian guerrillas once suspected of having carried out the Pan Am airline bombing over Lockerbie said in remarks published today that his organisation was considering legal action against the USA. Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), denied the group was linked to the 1988 bombing which killed 270 persons. He made his comments to the Saudi Arabian al-Watan daily. On Wednesday a special Scottish court set up in the Netherlands found Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi guilty of the bombing and acquitted his Libyan co-accused. The court sentenced Megrahi to life in jail. He faces at least 20 years in Scottish prison and is expected to appeal against the conviction. The Saudi paper said Jibril “voiced his readiness and that of other PFLP-GC officials to counter the fabricated accusations in front of any neutral body and said they were now waiting for the (Megrahi) appeal to look into the possibility of filing a defamation and slander suit against the USA.” Jibril said the PFLP-GC had for many years suffered “a siege and false accusations” by several US administrations “which made many friendly countries refrain from dealing with us” and affected the work of the organisation. Defence lawyers for the two Libyans had argued that the Syrian-backed PFLP-GC and the obscure Popular Struggle Front were behind the bomb. Both
organisations said they were not linked to the attack. TRIPOLI: Three Libyans slashed their throats with razors on Saturday in apparent suicide attempts to protest the conviction of Libyan secret agent Abel Basset al-Megrahi for the Lockerbie airliner bombing, witnesses said. They were among thousands demonstrating in the centre of Tripoli, outside the UN building, against the verdict handed down on Wednesday by a special Scottish court in the Netherlands. A Reuters correspondent saw one young man fall to the ground, blood spurting from his neck. He was bundled into an ambulance and rushed to hospital. Other witnesses said two other protesters had cut their throats in the same way to show their anger at what they called a USA inspired guilty verdict. |
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Chandrika’s olive branch to LTTE COLOMBO, Feb 4 (PTI) — Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga today held out a ray of hope for the Norway-brokered process of making peace with the LTTE and said converting this ray into a “floodlight” would help bring in lasting peace to the strife-torn island. “Let us take this ray of hope as a good omen for achieving our objective. Let us convert the little ray into a floodlight which will some day strengthen and illuminate the independence or our beloved motherland,” Ms Kumaratunga said in an address to the nation on the 53rd Independence Day. She said the LTTE’s unilateral ceasefire would remain “meaningless” unless progress was made in negotiations, which the government wanted to begin soon. “We have reached a moment when we are close to finding a resolution of the civil war and to rebuilding the economy,” the President said. She said any negotiation should not cover plan to divide the country. The President said the solution to end decades of bloodshed still lay in the draft constitution she had unsuccessfully brought before Parliament in August last year. Blaming the Opposition for a lost opportunity to ensure equal sharing of power by all sections of Sri Lankan society, Ms Kumaratunga said she was still hopeful that the constitutional reforms would succeed and the people would be able to enjoy the full benefits of independence. Ms Kumaratunga, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, sought to balance her remarks on the peace process with praise for the army and underscored the military objective of “liberating the Tamil people of the north and east from a fascist dictatorship.” In a message to detractors of the peace talks and her idea of ushering in a society where people of all races speaking different languages could live with equal honour, she said devolution of power was a fundamental principle in a democracy. The President asked the Tamils and all those who desired peace to prevail upon the LTTE to enter the peace negotiations and emphasised that the “seemingly unending war” had imposed an economic burden on the people. “We should never forget that the only lasting solution to the problems we are facing today is to bring an end to the war by settling the national question. Only that will help us achieve faster economic prosperity.” “We are not ready to accept meaningless ceasefire which takes us nowhere. Our position is that we will commence negotiations and if these negotiations progress satisfactorily we can explore the prospects of a genuine ceasefire,” she said. Ms Kumaratunga made no direct reference to Norway’s peace facilitation or her recent discussions with special envoy Erik Solheim on commencement of talks with the rebels, but gave enough indication that sound progress was being made on that front. She announced plans to generate one lakh new job opportunities in the public sector through some 50 new development projects in the next two years. The National Day event, held under a blanket of security at Parliament Complex, was attended by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, Chief Justice Sarath Silva and the service chiefs. |
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No N-pact with Israel: Jaswant CAIRO, Feb 4 (PTI) — External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has denied that India has either a strategic alliance or nuclear cooperation with Israel. “Strategic alliance between India and Israel is an illusion,” Mr Jaswant Singh yesterday told a gathering of academicians and diplomats at the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, an influential think-tank, allaying fears raised on the issue. “It is an illusion, a canard being spread,” the minister said, adding that India had only good diplomatic ties with Israel as with other countries, which was not at the cost of ties with Arab countries. India’s alleged nuclear cooperation with Israel was based on some media reports wrongly quoting Union Home Minister L.K. Advani after his Tel Aviv visit, Mr Jaswant Singh clarified. His denials on the same unfortunately did not get equal publicity, he lamented. “We have no such cooperation. India’s acquisition of nuclear technology was a slow process. And in that no country has given us any assistance nor have we asked for any,” he said.
Maoists attack
Nepal CJ, kill five KATHMANDU, Feb 4 (AFP) — Nepal’s Maoist rebels yesterday attacked a convoy carrying the country’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, killing five persons, including a senior court official and injuring five others, the police said today. Chief Justice Keshav Prasada Upadhyay narrowly escaped the bomb and gunfire attack on the road to Surkhet, 450 km west of the Capital, yesterday, the police said. The Registrar of the Surkhet Appellate court, Bal Dev Dhittal, and four others, including a police constable and the Chief Justice’s bodyguard, were shot dead in the ambush, the police said. “Two judges of the appellate court, two security personnel and a driver were seriously injured in the incident,” state radio added. The five-car convoy being escorted by the police, was stopped by an initial explosion followed by several more explosions and fierce gunfire, the police said. “The suspected Maoist rebels began firing from the near-by hills on all five vehicles that were carrying the Chief Justice and his team,” a police spokesman said. “The five persons were killed after their driver ran away from the area.” he added. The Maoists have refused to either claim or deny the responsibility for the attack. Only a miracle can save Barak JERUSALEM, Feb 4 (Reuters) — Israeli ultra-orthodox leaders dealt Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s campaign a new blow today by endorsing right-wing front-runner Ariel Sharon two days before a prime ministerial election. Barak is focusing on Israeli Arab, left-wing and Russian voters in a last-ditch effort to try to narrow a huge gap in opinion polls of 17 to 21 per cent. But there was more bad news for him today when Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published the cumulative results of an unorthodox opinion survey. For the past two months the daily has asked Israelis to “vote” in a mobile polling station. This technique showed Sharon crushing Barak by 58.67 to 33.8 per cent of votes cast by 7,675 people, of whom 7.53 per cent put in a blank ballot, rejecting both candidates. Barak won in only four of 32 districts, taking the port city of Haifa by 60.8 per cent to Sharon’s 37 per cent. The decision by the Torah Sages Council of the ultra-orthodox United Torah Judaism political faction to call on its community —about 7 per cent of the electorate — to back Sharon came as no surprise. The party did not mention Sharon by name in its newspaper announcement in ultra-orthodox newspapers, simply urging supporters to vote for “the candidate who it can be hoped will not destroy the religious situation in the holy land.” In army bases, soldiers began voting in rain and snow today. Israel Radio said ballot boxes had to be brought to some army camps in the Golan Heights by snowmobile. Israeli troops assisting earthquake victims in India voted on Saturday. An election officer was to bring the ballot box back to Israel handcuffed to his arm in time for counting on Tuesday. Less than 48 hours before polls opened in Israel, gunbattles erupted anew in the West Bank and Gaza Strip underscoring the violence that has plagued Barak’s government. The Israeli army said Palestinian gunmen fired on an Israeli car near the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip the army said it had shot and wounded a Palestinian trying to penetrate the Israel-Gaza border overnight. Barak and party loyalists remained optimistic there was still a chance to win the election against the odds. “Anyone who thinks Arik (Sharon) has the election in the bag should wait and see,” Cabinet Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel’s Army Radio. He said there was still a chance Israeli Arabs would set aside their anger over the killing of 13 of them at the start of the Palestinian uprising and turn out to vote, despite calls by some leaders for a boycott. Wahid backers
hold rally JAKARTA, Feb 4 (AFP) — Some 3,000 Muslim students took to the streets in Indonesia’s East Java province today in support of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid. The protestors marched through the streets of Pasuruan district after staging a mass gathering which caused traffic congestion, the Detikcom online news portal reported. The students vowed to defend Mr Wahid “to the last drop of our blood,” Detikcom said. Most of the students were from Muslim schools affiliated to the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country’s largest Islamic group which Mr Wahid chaired for 15 years before he was elected President. Mr Wahid has been under mounting pressure to step down and hand over to Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri after Parliament censured him on Thursday for his alleged involvement in two corruption scandals. NU Chairman Hasyim Muzadi was quoted as saying by the Kompas daily today that the censure had made it impossible for the group’s leaders to rein in their members. Mr Amien Rais, Chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country’s top legislature, has called for an immediate special session of the upper house to impeach Mr Wahid. A parliamentary probe has found that Mr Wahid could be suspected of involvement in the Bulogate scandal and had lied in connection with the Bruneigate affair. |
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‘Sick’ Ershad back
in cell DHAKA, Feb 4— The “sickness drama” by the former Bangladesh military ruler, Chairman of the opposition Jatiya Party (JP), ended last evening when the doctors of the National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases discharged him from the hospital saying that his heart condition was normal. He was immediately transfered to the Dhaka Central Jail
putting an end to all speculation of Ershad ditching the four-party alliance by leaving for USA or Saudi Arabia on parole on the basis of an alleged understanding with the Sheikh Hasina Government. His return to jail was actually preceded by two separate exclusive meetings — one with JP Secretary-General Naziur Rahman Manju on Friday followed by a meeting with Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s Secretary-General Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan — both at his hospital bedside. This was reported in daily Bhorer Kagoj. It is not clear what actually transpired but local dailies speculated that both leaders discouraged him against a possible sommersault. Moreover, his wife Raushan may have a role in sending him back to prison. Meanwhile, before his removal from the hospital, while talking to a reporter of Bangla daily Jugantar, Ershad denied having reached any understanding with the government to obtain release from the prison. He hoped that the fine of more than Taka Five crore would be paid and he would come out of prison by March. Despite his return to the prison, the mistrust among partners of the four-party alliance of which JP is a component, created because of the sickness drama could not be removed, commented another Bangla daily, Banglabazar Patrika. It remarked that the JP will have to struggle hard to repair the damage caused because of this drama. Vaz used office illegally LONDON, Feb 4 — Britain’s Europe Office Minister Keith Vaz used his office premises for a meeting where he convinced an insurance company to settle a claim of an Asian restaurant owner, the British Foreign Office has confirmed. According to the Daily Mail newspaper, Vaz used his office to hold a meeting between Red Fort restaurant owner Amin Ali and the Norwich Union insurance company last September. The meeting led to the successful resolution of a £175,000 claim logged by Ali. The Foreign Office describes the use of its offices for such purposes as “exceptional”, but a spokesman added that Vaz had not broken any rules. Vaz, in recent times, has been under attack in Parliament for his links with the controversial billionaire Hinduja brothers and his role in helping them secure British passports. The latest revelation of his using his office for the claim meeting is expected to increase pressure on him. According to the Foreign Office, the government’s code of conduct for ministers does not forbid the use of official premises for such meetings, but they are more often used for constituency or party matters. A Foreign Office spokesman has explained that last September’s meeting was supposed to take place at a different venue, but was altered at the last minute because of “diary scheduling”. Four-month
premature baby normal DUBAI,
Feb 4 (UNI) — The youngest premature foetus in the world — 21 weeks and three days old — and weighing 524 gm was born in a hospital here yesterday , a local newspaper said. The Khaleej Times quoted Prof Mohammed Sadeqian, Head of the Premature Children’s Department at Al Mafraq Hospital, as saying that the baby was normal. Professor Sadeqian said according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the youngest surviving child was born after 22 weeks. The child was being fed by his mother’s milk through tubes linked to blood vessels. Regarding reasons for performing Caesarean on the mother of the baby, Professor Sadeqian said she was suffering from stomach cancer and they had to carry out the operation to save her life. The Guinness Book of World Records lists James Gill of Ontario, Canada as the world’s most premature baby. He was 624 gm when born 128 days premature in 1987. |
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This President doesn’t drink WASHINGTON,
Feb 4 (PTI) — US President George W. Bush, who emerged victorious in the presidential elections after 36 hard-fought legal battles, remained a teetotaller in the moment of victory even though he offered champagne to those who had stood by him. The champagne had been sent to him by his father and former President George Bush, the Washington Post reported. “The future President worked the room, hugging and mugging and wiping away tears with some of his most ardent supporters and advisers. The champagne was popped, a gift from the first President Bush to the second,” the newspaper said. The wine was poured and many people took a sip, the paper said, adding “not Mr George W. Bush, however. He was a teetotaller. And besides, for Mr Bush, the battle wasn’t over. His work was only beginning.” About Mr Al Gore, the paper said, the Vice-President wanted to close his concession speech by turning a joke on his famous campaign line from 1992: “It is time for them to go.” He wanted to say: “And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it’s time for me to go.” |
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News
analysis WASHINGTON is steadily veering round to accepting the Taliban set-up in Kabul as the ‘single most important stabilising factor’ in an otherwise volatile situation, according to diplomatic sources in New Delhi. Of late, there has been a flurry of activity in New Delhi concerning developments in Afghanistan, especially in the wake of enforcement of UN sanctions on Kabul, beginning January 19. With sanctions in force, New Delhi has been closely monitoring happenings in an around Afghanistan, and holding wide-ranging discussions and exchanging notes with US experts on Afghanistan. Notable among these was the Director US Department of State (Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan), Mr Jeffrey Lundsted, who discussed the possible impact of UN sanctions on Kabul with his counterparts in South Block. In enforcing UN sanctions on Kabul, Washington appears keen not to push the Taliban further into the lap of Islamic radicals opposed to America, but to pressurise them to a point where they give up their uncompromising stance and gradually return Kabul to accepting a civilised behaviour in dealing with countries they consider hostile. As one diplomat put it: “Sanctions are no doubt expected to act as a squeeze, but applied in a way as to act as a gentle prodding instrument”. In the course of the discussions South Block experts had with Mr Lundsted and the Turkish Ambassador, Mr Aydemir Erman, it became apparent that UN sanctions on Afghanistan were not intended to produce any dramatic change in Kabul’s behaviour. The sanctions are not to be over-stretched and harshly enforced, since these might provide Jehadi forces in Pakistan an excuse to mount pressure on Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, who hopes not to rouse public ire on the issue of taming Jehadi forces in Pakistan. Fearing volatile reactions from Jehadi forces on the issue of UN sanctions, Gen Musharraf wants sanctions to be enforced discreetly without visible presence of UN officers to implement them. Accordingly, it has been agreed that UN inspectors will not be posted in Pakistan to oversee the implementation of sanctions. New Delhi’s primary and immediate interest in the imposition of UN sanctions is to assess whether these will lead to winding up terrorist camps in areas directly controlled by Kabul. It is well known that Jehadi groups in Pakistan and Taliban-run camps maintain close liaison, constituting a major source of recruits who operate as mercenaries in Kashmir. While New Delhi is appreciative of the imposition of sanctions on Kabul, hoping it will contribute towards stability and peace in Afghanistan, it does not share the view that the fate of the war ravaged country can be wholly placed in the hands of the Taliban. Peace and stability in Afghanistan can come only when warring and ethnic interests are persuaded to come together on a positive programme of reconstruction and development. South Block’s assessment is that this cannot be done without recognising the Masood-led Northern Alliance and the exiled Badruddin Government as effective partners in rebuilding Afghanistan. A vital point on which South Block and Washington experts do not see eye to eye is on the role of the Northern Alliance, which in the opinion of US experts cannot be given any dominant role in the Kabul set-up in case of a compromise. In the opinion of the USA, Masood may be a significant military challenge, but he and his alliance is no substitute for the Taliban. Americans, on the contrary, see a bigger and positive role for ‘various other tribes’, who can be given on effective and influential say in the governance of the country by the Taliban. This may prove to be a more positive stabilising factor, than replacing the Taliban and substituting it with other power combinations, according to some Washington experts. This is, however, a tentative assessment of a changing situation and it is quite possible something more acceptable on a broader canvas might emerge.
— IPA |
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