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| Tuesday, February 20, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Riots in
Brazilian jails: 8 dead
Barak,
Sharon struggle for unity govt |
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LDP
rushes to defend Mori PM,
President clash in Turkey Taliban agree to hand
over Laden Iraq set
to fight back 8 die in clashes Lovers
blow themselves up Mob
attacks church
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Riots in Brazilian jails: 8 dead Sao Paulo, February 19 Sao Paolo’s public security chief Marco Vinicio Petreluzzi said last night the situation had been brought under control in nine of the 19 jails overtaken in the coordinated series of mutinies. About half of Brazil’s entire prison population of 196,000 are detained at jails in the state of Sao Paulo, according to figures provided by the Roman Catholic Church. The most disruptive uprising, at Carandiru prison, Latin America’s biggest prison complex, saw some 9,700 prisoners take at some 5,000 persons hostage, among them around 1,000 children. Three persons died in that riot, according to security officials. Two other deaths were reported at a prison at Belen in eastern Sao Paolo state, as rioting inmates executed two of their own, military police commander Rui Cesar Mello said. Unofficial reports were that between 5,000 and 7,000 hostages, including prison officials, had been seized in the riots, which started around noon yesterday. Inmates at Carandiru prison, home to some 10,000 prisoners, seized visitors, including women and children, as the jail opened yesterday for family visits, according to security officials. Prisoners later released an undetermined number of captives after riot police stormed the giant complex some five hours after the uprising began. According to Petreluzzi, the mutinies were orchestrated by a prisoners’ “organisation” which is demanding that 10 of its leaders, switched from Carandiru to other jails this week, to be returned to Sao Paulo. Television images filmed from the air showed a number of Carandiru’s nine prison blocks ablaze, hundreds of white sheets hanging from windows, barricades and blood stains shots were also heard. Relatives and friends of jailed inmates, gathered outside the complex, many of them hysterical and yelling “murderers,” and anti-riot police preparing for a possible assault. The Carandiru complex was the site in October 1992 of Brazil’s bloodiest prison massacre, when the police stormed the jail after a fight between prisoners, killing 111 inmates and injuring 100 others in the space of just 30 minutes.
AFP |
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Air crash Yangon, February 19 The helicopter, carrying Lt Gen Tin Oo, known by the title of Secretary II in the ruling State Peace and Development Council, two unidentified ministers and some government officials, crashed in the country’s southwest after developing engine trouble, the reports said. Gen Oo, the two ministers and some of the officials were reported killed in the crash, the reports said, adding some people survived the crash. There was, however, no official confirmation. The senior junta leader was on tour to inspect plantations in Karen state. Tin Oo had met External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh during the latter’s visit to Myanmar last week. Mr Jaswant Singh had gone to inaugurate the Tamu-Kalemyo-Kalywa highway near the Myanmar border built by the Border Roads Organisation.
Reuters, PTI |
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Barak, Sharon struggle for unity govt Jerusalem February 19 Barak was expected to meet influential members of his centre-left Labour Party to try to put down opposition to his plan to join forces with Sharon’s right-wing Likud Party. Labour could meet to consider the coalition plan as early as Tuesday. Sharon and Barak, who say joining forces is the best way to tackle nearly five months of Israeli-Palestinian violence, were also watching closely the crisis involving Baghdad after U.S. and British air strikes against Iraq on Friday. Israel and the USA began a joint military exercise in the Negev desert testing Patriot missiles, which were used against Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf war a decade ago. The Israeli army said the long-planned six-day exercise was not linked to the crisis in Iraq, which rained 39 Scuds on Tel Aviv during the 1991 war. Sharon, who will take over as Prime Minister after he succeeds in forming a government, appealed to opponents not to derail the coalition plans in a statement issued on Sunday. “Unity among the people, in light of the difficult security situation as well as the political challenges facing us, is more important than narrow political interests,” he said. Dovish Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami have expressed bitter opposition to a Labour Likud coalition. “I really expect this government of opposites that they want to form to be constantly stuck and I would really advise the Labour Party not to be a part of this, “Ben-Ami told Israel’s Army Radio. Meanwhile in fresh violence, an activist from the militant Hamas group, Mahmoud al—Madani (25) was shot in the chest times and critically wounded in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, hospital officials said. Bethlehem: At least 10 Palestinians were wounded when Israeli forces fired tank shells and heavy machineguns in several parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials said. The death toll from the almost five months of unrest also rose yesterday when a Palestinian man died of wounds suffered in violence in the West Bank town of Hebron two days ago. Violence also flared in the Gaza Strip. Also, last night, the Israeli army launched rockets at the Palestinian refugee camp of Aida near Bethlehem after an attack on the Gilo settlement in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, military sources said. No injuries were reported. Earlier, the army said a bus transporting Palestinian workers to the same area had been fired at and that its soldiers had returned fire. In the West Bank, the army said two explosive devices blew up near a military convoy near the town of Jenin in the far north of the West Bank. It also said shots were fired from a passing car at the Halamish settlement near the West Bank town of Ramallah. Meanwhile, around 2,000 persons attended the funeral of Ahmed Faraj Alla, who became the 415th person to die after being shot Friday when Israelis used heavy machinegun fire during clashes in Hebron, a frequent flashpoint for violence. JERUSALEM:
Newly elected Israeli leader Ariel Sharon appealed to opponents of an alliance with the centre-left Labour Party not to derail his bid to form a government amenable to peacemaking with the Palestinians. Mounting opposition from key Labour Party leaders, coupled with anger from Sharon’s potential right-wing coalition partners, raised doubts over a deal the 72-year-old ex-General struck with outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak last week. Sensing the rising storm of opposition, sharon called on political parties to “rise above petty politics and their own individual interests” and work towards a unity government.
AFP, Reuters |
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Tokyo, February 19 “I would say it is not good to have 10 Prime Ministers in 10 years,” Shizuka Kamei told a luncheon for foreign correspondents, referring to the numerous changes of face in Japan’s top job recent years. “If we switch the Prime Minister so many times, it will destroy the country,” he said. Pressure has been mounting on the unpopular Mori to step down amid growing concern over the faltering economy and tense ties with the USA after a US submarine hit and sank a Japanese trawler off Hawaii, leaving nine missing and presumed dead. A new opinion poll showed support for Mori had sunk to levels fatal to previous premiers and speculation mounted that he would be forced to quit next month. But Kamei stepped forward to defend Mori, who has been widely criticised for a decision to remain on the golf course 10 days ago after hearing that the submarine and sunk the training trawler carrying fisheries students. “What I want to say is that if you’re a leader you shouldn’t be running around solving nitty-gritty things. The sign of a leader is not to panic and exercise judgement,” Kamei said. Some 71 per cent of voters polled at the weekend by the daily Asahi Shimbun said they wanted Mori, under fire for a string of gaffes and scandals, to quit as soon as possible. Chikara Sakaguchi, a member of the ruling coalition partner New Komeito, who holds the Health, Labour and Welfare portfolio in Mori’s Cabinet, was also pressed for his views. Mori himself already faces the biggest crisis of his 10-month rule amid mounting talk that he will have to resign next month. The question mark over who will run Japan comes amidst growing concern of the nation’s faltering economy and tense ties with the USA after a US submarine sank a Japanese trawler off Hawaii, leaving nine missing, presumed dead.
Reuters |
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IGNORING a nationwide poll showing plunging popularity, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday refused to step down and said he wanted to get the fiscal 2001 Budget through Diet. “I hope the Diet (Parliament) will pass the Budget by any means. I will like to fulfil my responsibility to carry out educational reform and IT reform”, he told a House of Representatives Budget Committee session. |
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PM, President clash in Turkey Ankara, February 19 The crisis cast doubts on the stability of the government, which is pushing vigorous International Monetary Fund reforms. The 75-year-old Prime Minister appeared to be taking a serious political risk in confronting President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose popularity is greater even than that of the powerful military establishment. Ecevit was clearly shaken after an abortive meeting of the National Security Council, which groups military and political leaders under the President’s chairmanship, but he did not reveal the subject of the dispute. He announced an emergency Cabinet meeting for later in the day. “Nothing like this has been seen before....I left the meeting after finding the President preaching at me in a manner beyond the rules of politeness or the traditions of the state,” Ecevit told journalists. "This is a serious crisis. We are going to have to reach a healthy solution to this, of course,"
he added, flanked by senior ministers from all parties in his three-party coalition. “I was either going to give an answer to him in the same style or leave. That is why I chose to leave the meeting.” Sezer emerged as Ecevit’s candidate for President last May after the Prime Minister failed to persuade Parliament to extend the term of veteran politician Suleyman Demirel. But frictions soon emerged between Ecevit and Sezer, a former constitutional court head with no political experience. The presidency is largely ceremonial but has powers to limit government actions. Sezer has overruled government decrees several times, sometimes on key economic issues, demanding they be resubmitted as parliamentary bills. The crisis was a blow for Turkey as it enters a crucial phase in the three-year IMF programme designed to cut inflation which reached 100 per cent a year in the 1990s.
Reuters |
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Taliban agree to hand over Laden Islamabad, February 19 The offer to send bin Laden to Saudi Arabia was made by Taliban’s supreme leader Mulla Mohemmad Omar to Pakistan’s Interior Minister Moinuddeen Haider during the latter’s recent visit to Kabul, The Dawn quoting authoritative sources said. Omar offered to hand over bin Laden to Saudi Arabia even without Haider raising the issue, the newspaper said. “We never raised the Osama issue. It was raised by no less a person than Mulla Omar during the talks,” it quoted a high-level Pakistan official. The paper quoted the official as saying that Omar told Haider that if Saudi Arabia was not willing to accept Osama because of political repercussions in the country, Kabul was ready to shift him to another Muslim country. He, however, did not name any particular country, the official said. The Saudi Government has already stripped bin Laden of his citizenship for his terrorist activities at home and abroad. Since then he has stayed put in Afghanistan under Taliban patronage.
PTI |
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Iraq set to fight back Baghdad, February 19 “We will continue, without respite, to retaliate against enemy planes,” Shahin told Iraqi youth television, a network run by President Saddam Hussein’s elder son Uday, yesterday. Shahin also said he expected another US and British “aggression”. “The important thing is to stay vigilant, and to be capable of retaliating”, he said. Meanwhile, Iraq has vigorously rejected Washington’s explanation for Friday’s US-British air strikes over Baghdad. “The American explanations are a laughable pretext. Their words are
inadmissible and are condemned by the entire world,” Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told reporters yesterday.
AFP |
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8 die in
clashes Jakarta, February 19 Fighting broke out early on Sunday in the town of Sampit, some 750 km northeast of Jakarta, after a mob attacked a migrant settlement area. Tension escalated throughout the rest of the day with mobs setting fire to several houses. Antara said the fighting was believed to have been between indigenous Dayak people and migrants from the island of Madura.
Reuters |
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Islamabad, February 19 A suicide note left by the Christian girl and Muslem boy said they could not live without each other but “religion and society would not allow them to do so”. The police is investigating how the couple got the hand grenade.
DPA |
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Mob attacks
church Colombo, February 19 They said the attack took place yesterday in the village of Nuwarawatte, about 200 km northeast of Colombo, when a number of persons were attending a service in the church which is used by an evangelical group. |
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