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| Saturday, February
17, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Pressure mounts on Japan PM to quit UK to support US defence
shield? Barak, Peres may join Govt Lanka urges UK
to ban LTTE Hunger, cold claim refugees’ lives Kabila’s yes to UN troops |
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Pressure mounts on Japan PM to quit Tokyo, February 16 Local lawmakers from the premier’s own party also urged an early election to choose a new party chief to replace Mori, who has become one of Japan’s most unpopular Prime Ministers ever. The potential setbacks coincided with media reports of a fresh golfing scandal involving the premier, who is already under fire for not leaving the green on learning a U.S. submarine had hit and sunk a Japanese trawler packed with fisheries students. Nine of the 35 aboard are still missing, including four 17-year-old students, and all are presumed dead. “We are not thinking of voting in favour (of a no-confidence motion) but it is not the case that we have already decided to oppose it,” the official from the New Komeito Party, was quoted by domestic media as saying. “We are not sure until we see the circumstances and the content,” he added. Speculation is swirling that Mori, under fire for a string of gaffes and blunders, may be forced to resign by leaders of this three-party ruling coalition who are worried about their chances in an Upper House election in July. Support from the New Komeito — which is showing clear signs of distancing itself from the unpopular Prime Minister — is critical to the ruling camp, which lacks a majority in Parliament’s powerful Lower House without it. Opposition parties are pondering when to submit a no-confidence motion against Mori, whose popularity is in tatters. Mori was listed as a player on the membership held by a friend’s company at the posh Hamano country club in Chiba, near Tokyo, Kyodo news agency quoted Mori’s secretary as saying. Mori used the membership since December 1984, after the friend offered to register him as a member using one of two memberships his company owned, paying the annual membership fees of 63,000 yen ($545.5) himself, the secretary was quoted as saying. Mori was the only person qualified to play golf under that membership, it quoted him as saying, adding that Mori took steps on today to end the arrangement. Earlier, in a sign of brewing anti-American sentiment, Japan today condemned the US Navy for allowing civilians at control stations on the nuclear submarine that sank a Japanese trawler, leaving nine missing last week off Hawaii. “It is outrageous, (the US Navy) is slack,” Defence Agency chief Toshitsugu Saito said at a news conference. The US President, Mr George W. Bush, ordered a review of all policies on civilian activity during military exercises after the USS Greeneville, with two civilians sitting at control positions, surfaced rapidly, hitting and sinking the Japanese trawler carrying high school fisheries students. The Navy’s preliminary investigation into the tragedy could be completed by the end of this week, the Pentagon said yesterday. Los Angeles: The civilian who pulled the lever which made the US nuclear submarine Greeneville surface off Hawaii and sink a Japanese training ship last week has spoken on television about the incident. John Hall, who had been invited on board by naval public relations, told NBC’s Today programme that the submarine’s commanding officer had asked if he would like to operate the lever for “the blowdown”, an emergency drill that takes the submarine to the surface at high speed. Mr Hall said he had been "nervous’’ about it, but a naval officer had been at his elbow. Mr Hall and another civilian, Todd Thoman came forward after questions were raised about the part civilians played in the sinking of the fishery training vessel Ehime Maru on Friday. Mr Hall said, “I was to the left in the control room, and I was asked by the captain if I would like the opportunity to pull the levers that start the procedure. “I said, ‘Sure, I’d love to do that.”’ At the moment of impact, he said the entire submarine shuddered and he heard the captain, Commander Scott Waddle, say: "Jesus, what the hell was that?’’ Cmdr Waddle has been relieved of his duties pending the inquiry. Officers and crew may face criminal charges.
Reuters, The Guardian |
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UK to support US defence shield? London, February 16 Without giving sources, it said Mr Blair would agree to the idea in principle when he would meet new US President George W. Bush in Washington on February 23. However, in a flurry of interviews on his final day in office, the UK’s Chief of Defence Staff warned of a “doomsday scenario” posed by the National Missile Defence (nmd) scheme. Mr Bush made the support for the NMD scheme one of his key campaign pledges, but it was strongly opposed by Russia, China and several European countries, including France and Germany. The UK has not given an official position yet, although analysts say it is merely playing for time before agreeing. According to the conservative Daily Mail, Mr Blair will tell the President that he can count on British support for the nmd strategy, which would mean upgrading a radar tracking station at Fylingdales in northern England. AFP Moscow: A senior Russian Gal said on Friday that Moscow would be ready with details of its plan for a compact and inexpensive missile shield for Europe when NATO Secretary-General George Robertson would visit Russia next week. Col-Gen Leonid Ivashov, head of the Defence Ministry’s International Cooperation Department, said Moscow’s proposal would beat Washington’s “Son of Star Wars” plan, which Russia said could drain Europe financially. “It may be a special, mobile, non-strategic anti-missile force,” he told a news conference. Mr Robertson has asked Russia for more details on a proposal by President Vladimir Putin for a joint anti-missile defence force. Reuters |
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Barak, Peres may join Govt Jerusalem, February 16 In a late-night meeting yesterday, Barak accepted Sharon’s offer to remain in office as Defence Minister, while Peres would become Foreign Minister. Sharon trounced Barak in an election for Prime Minister February 6, a vote seen as repudiation of Barak’s offer of far-reaching concessions for peace with the Palestinians. Labour Party secretary Raanan Cohen said moderates would have a big voice in Sharon’s government. “I think that with the appointment of Ehud Barak on the one hand and Shimon Peres on the other, this will be a government which will determine all the diplomatic policy,” Cohen told Israel television. Both sides said agreement was close, with final details expected to be wrapped up over the weekend. Then Sharon would approach other parties to join the Labour-Likud nucleus. The unity government talks came as Israel buried its dead from a Wednesday attack, when a Palestinian driver rammed his bus into a crowd of Israelis, killing seven young soldiers and a civilian. Violence continued yesterday, when a Palestinian security officer was killed while trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in Gaza. The escalating violence added urgency to the coalition talks, but there was opposition to the results inside Barak’s Labour party. Cabinet minister Haim Ramon, a one-time Barak ally who broke with him before the election, said Barak has no right to consider joining Sharon’s government. “Public sense requires him to quit” after his defeat, he said. Barak had pledged to retire after Sharon buried him by nearly 25 percentage points. Newspaper commentators were highly critical of Barak’s decision to stay in office. In the Maariv daily, analyst Hemi Shalev called Barak a “knight of no honour,” while columnist Sever Plocker wrote in Yediot Ahronot that Barak reached “the lowest level of credibility ever recorded by a prime minister in israel or any other democratic country.” The Labour party central committee must approve an agreement to join Sharon’s government. After Barak’s resounding defeat, approval for his move was not certain. But Cohen told Israel television, “whenever Barak and Peres appear together, the party gives its approval.” Sharon, who cannot take office until he forges a majority coalition, was confident. “I will set up a unity government,” he told reporters before meeting European Union peace envoy Migue Moratinos. He said it would “enable us to reach security and peace.”
AP |
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Lanka urges UK to ban LTTE Colombo, February 16 Ms Kumaratunga said in a late-night television phone-in programme that a ban on the LTTE was in line with UK’s new anti-terrorism laws that would go into effect on February 19. In the Sinhalese-language interview with the state-run Independent Television Network, Ms Kumaratunga said the right thing for the UK was to list the LTTE as a “terrorist organisation”. Her remarks fuelled Sri Lanka’s intense lobbying to have the Tamil Tigers banned in London, where they maintain their international secretariat and run propaganda operations together with fund-raising activities. However, several minority Tamil parties as well as the LTTE are also lobbying to avoid the group being proscribed under the UK’s anti-terrorism laws. Yesterday Sri Lanka’s main opposition announced it was contemplating initiating a move to impeach the Chief Justice following the Supreme Court’s rejection of an election petition against President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The Supreme Court threw out the challenge to President Kumaratunga’s December 1999 election as the opposition United National Party (UNP) said it was not proceeding with the case because Chief Justice Sarath N Silva had limited the scope of the case. UNP spokesman Gamini Athukorale told reporters here today that they were collecting evidence against the Chief Justice to bring a resolution for his removal through Parliament. However, the UNP lacks the required simple majority in the 225-member Assembly to oust the Chief Justice who has been hand picked by President Kumaratunga. UNI |
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Hunger, cold claim refugees’ lives Islamabad, February 16 Mr Oshima, appointed UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs a month ago, added: “It is clear that no amount of international assistance is going to be enough.” Mr Oshima is having talks with representatives of Taliban regime, and has met deposed President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is still recognised by the UN as Afghan head of state. Throughout Afghanistan drought and the currently intensifying civil war have forced more than 500,000 persons to flee their homes in the past year, sell their few belongings and travel to makeshift camps, where they depend for survival on a slow trickle of foreign aid. Every day adds another 360 to the 80,000 living in tents and mud huts in the six camps around Herat. In Maslakh camp, the only site with space left, most tents hold two families. At night the temperature falls as low as -25C. More than 170 persons, 130 of them children, have died in Herat in the past month. Although the snow is melting 20 refugees die every week from hunger and exposure. To compound the problem, heavy fighting between the Taliban and opposition forces has continued throughout the winter. KABUL: In a stinging loss to the Taliban, Opposition troops captured a key city in central Afghanistan, cutting the only road that links the capital of Kabul to the north ern areas of the country, an Opposition spokesman said. In kabul, the ruling Taliban closed the UN political office in retaliation for a US demand to shutter the Taliban office in New York in keeping with UN sanctions. Opposition troops captured Bamiyan, a key city in central Afghanistan, late Tuesday in their first major victory in more than a year, spokesman Gulam Raza Azizada said yesterday. A Taliban official confirmed that Taliban soldiers were ambushed in the city, forcing them to withdraw. It wasn’t known how many casualties either side suffered. With the capture of Bamiyan, the Opposition has gained a firm hold on the Bamiyan province. Since then-President Burhanuddin Rabbani lost control of Afghanistan to the militia in 1996, the Opposition he led has retained control of only pockets of land in northern Afghanistan. With Bamiyan under its control, the Opposition has moved the front line and cut off a key supply route for the Taliban whic controls 95 per cent of the country. Hit by fresh UN sanctions, the Taliban announced in a letter circulated in Kabul on Wednesday that they have ordered the UN political office in the capital closed. The UN office has been trying to broker a peace agreement in Afghanistan’s 20-year civil war. The Guardian, AP |
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Kabila’s yes to UN troops Lusaka, February 16 Mr Kabila, 29, became president in January after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated by one of own bodyguards. Thursday’s summit in Lusaka was his first effort to hammer out terms for an end to the 30-month-old war in which Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola back his government against rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda did not participate in the meeting and Uganda and Angola sent ministers in place of their presidents. But Mr Kabila took the opportunity to signal some flexibility, reversing his father’s ban on UN peacekeepers in the Congo and on former Botswana President Ketumile Masire as facilitator of an internal dialogue on the country’s future. Reuters |
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