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March 2, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
British ban a significant step, says India FMD spreads to N.
Ireland Quake rocks north-west USA |
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Two Suharto men
named in graft probe Taliban begin
demolition
Security scare on A-I
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China ratifies rights treaty Sharif hands over 2 houses to NAB Pak purchases Chinese aircraft
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British ban a significant step, says India London, March 1 “The decision is one of the most significant steps in combating terrorism and it clearly shows the determination of the British Government to deal firmly with the menace,” India’s Deputy High Commissioner to Britain Hardeep Puri told reporters last night after the
announcement. British Home Secretary Jack Straw, while tabling the list of proscribed organisations in Parliament, said he believed that “the action is both fair and proportionate to the threat that is found, both in this country and abroad.” Other militant outfits banned include Babbar Khalsa, the most violent Sikh terrorist group led by Pakistan-based Wadhawa Singh, the International Sikh Youth Federation and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), waging a war in Sri Lanka for a separate homeland for Tamils in the island nation. British Home Office Minister Charles Clarke emphasised at a press briefing that the curb was not aimed at any community. “It is utterly wrong to say that the government is targeting the Muslim community. Our purpose is to send a signal to terrorists that the UK cannot be used as a base for their activities,” he said. COLOMBO:
Britain’s decision to ban the LTTE will impose severe restraints on the current peace initiatives undertaken by the Norwegian Government to resolve the conflict in Sri Lanka, Mr Anton Balasingham, chief negotiator and political advisor to the Tamil militant outfit said today. Commenting on the inclusion of the LTTE in the list of proscribed organisations announced by the Home Secretary Jack Straw in the British Parliament last evening, Mr Balasingham stated: “It is regrettable that our liberation movement, the authentic representative organisation of the Sri Lankan Tamils which has been fighting for the political rights of our people for the past 25 years, is included in the list of proscribed organisations in Britain. It is a sad day for the Anglo-Tamil relations. The Tamil people, who have been collectively campaigning as a single voice against the proposed ban will be seriously disappointed by the British decision.’’ Mr Balasingham’s statement had appeared on a Tamil website immediately after the decision by Britain. Mr Balasingham said the decision to include the Tamil Tigers in the proscribed list was taken primarily on the logical criterion of the legislation which provides a wider definition of terrorism to include all forms of legitimate armed political struggles for freedom and dignity. “The British decision makers have paid scant regard to the lengthy and complex history of the Tamil political struggle, the ugly history of the genocidal mode of state repression and the glorious history of armed resistance against repression and gross violations of human rights. Mr Balasingham declared that irrespective of the British ban, the Tamil Tigers would continue with the peace process and cooperate with the Norwegian facilitatory efforts. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka today welcomed the move by the British Government to ban the LTTE saying that it was very much on the expected lines. Foreign Minister Lakhsman Kadirgamar will visit London this week-end to personally thank the British authorities for proscribing the LTTE, ministry sources said. Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader R. Sampanthan said the ban would affect the peace initiative undertaken by Norway. However, he hoped Britain would reconsider its decision. Several Tamil political parties had urged the British Government not to ban the LTTE. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan nationalists, who lobbied hard to win a British ban on a Tamil rebel group, said they would now push Norway, an intermediary in the country’s peace process, to outlaw the guerrillas. “Our next target is Norway,” said Tilak Karunaratne, lawmaker of the hardline Sihala Urumaya party. Both the government and the LTTE have agreed on Norway as facilitator for peace talks to end an 18-year conflict that has claimed an estimated 64,000 lives. The tigers have their international offices and a fund-raising network in Britain, Sri Lanka’s former colonial ruler. Karunaratne said Norway was not a neutral intermediary and he called on the government to finish the separatist Tamil rebels militarily. “The proposition that Norway is a neutral intermediary is a myth and Oslo is most likely to be the next haven for the LTTE,” said Karunaratne. “We urge the government to pull out of this sham peace process and militarily defeat the LTTE,” he said. SU was largely responsible for the deluge of petitions demanding the ban that inundated the British High Commission in Colombo in recent weeks.
PTI, UNI, Reuters |
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FMD spreads to N. Ireland London, March 1 Eight new cases in England and Wales were reported yesterday, pushing the total number up to 26. The case in Northern Ireland remains unconfirmed, but the farm concerned straddles the border with the Irish Republic, raising the alarm there too. “It is now our belief we are looking at an outbreak of this disease in northern Ireland,’’ Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Brid Rodgers said. Attention was focused on 200 sheep at a farm at Meigh in South Armagh, which were found to have been imported after being bought at a market in Carlisle in England. The flock was destroyed and incinerated. A livestock importer and dealer were being questioned on suspicion they breached animal movement regulations. Scotland remains free of the virulent disease that strikes cloven-hoofed animals. British Agriculture Minister Nick Brown insisted that measures to contain the disease, including the ban on moving livestock, were working, as all but one of the new cases were linked to existing outbreaks. Mr Brown said he was still determined to introduce special measures tomorrow allowing some uninfected animals to be transported to abattoirs and enter the human food chain. Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore said as many as 15,000 animals had either been or were due to be destroyed in Britain as part of the ongoing attempt to contain the outbreak. He also admitted that it was possible the pigs believed to be the source of the outbreak - from Burnside Farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall in Northumberland - had been fed waste from schools which included contaminated pork. The European Commission said vaccinations against foot and mouth disease in the European Union would only be reintroduced as a ‘’last resort’’. The first economists to estimate the cost to Britain of the current outbreak guessed that it could cost up to £ 2.6 billion ($ 3.8 billion ) in the long run. The figure, put forward by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, was based partly on an examination of the financial impact of the last major outbreak in 1967.
DPA |
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Quake rocks north-west USA
Washington State Governor Gary Locke declared a state of emergency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency swung into action. Mr Locke said a man died of heart attack at Edmonds Community College, north of Seattle, as a result of the quake. After surveying the quake-affected areas by helicopter, Mr Locke estimated the damage to be more than $ 1 billion in western Washington alone. The Federal Aviation Administration closed Seattle-Tacoma International airport to check for any damage but later reopened it for limited flights. The quake tripped power lines, cracked the dome atop the capitol in Olympia and briefly trapping about 30 persons atop the swaying landmark Space Needle, 180 meters above the city. President George W. Bush asked the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Joe Allbaugh, to go to Seattle. “Our prayers are with those who were injured and their families and with the many thousands whose lives have been disrupted,” Mr Bush said. The Northwest quake was felt as far away as British Columbia in Canada and southern Oregon, 480 km away. Buildings in Downtown Portland, 225 km away from the epicentre, swayed for about half-minute. The authorities immediately evacuated public buildings and occupants fled to the streets. In Olympia, which was less, than 16 km from the center of the tremor, the state’s high-domed Capitol building, where legislature meets, suffered a crack in a column. The legislators and school children who had come to visit it were evacuated, reports said. Damage was reported from downtown Seattle also where mall fires were burning. Building facades had crumbled throughout the city, with the 19th century structures hit the hardest. Seattle’s state ferry system was shut down by damage to the main ferry dock. A major highway buckled in places northwest of Olympia. The earthquake also knocked out power lines. The air traffic centre for Washington and Oregon was operating on backup power. Reports said 200,000 customers in western Washington lost service, but power was expected to be restored soon. The quake was the biggest in the area since 1949 when eight people died in a 7.1 magnitude
tremblor. PTI 
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Two Suharto men
named in graft probe Jakarta, March 1 Office spokesman Mulyohardjo said Kartasasmita and former Mines and Energy Minister Lde Bagus Sudjana were suspected of involvement in causing losses to the country of $ 18 million and $ 6.8 million, respectively, stemming from a technical assistance contract Pertamina signed in the mid-1990s. “Based on statements by witnesses...we found involvement of Ginandjar Kartasasmita and I.B. Sudjana (in the case), Mr Mulyohardjo told reporters. “The two men will be summoned and questioned as suspects.” Both served during the rule of former President Suharto, and Kartasasmita is now a Vice Speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly, the country’s top legislative body. The naming of the ex-ministers is the latest in the government’s floundering efforts to prosecute those suspected of corruption under Suharto. Most of those named so far are close associates of the one-time autocrat or members of his family.
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Taliban begin demolition Kabul, March 1 “The work started about five hours ago but I do not know how much of it (the Bamiyan Buddhas) has been destroyed,” Taliban Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal said. “It will be destroyed by every means, all the statues are being destroyed.” He said Taliban soldiers were also wrecking ancient statues in the Kabul museum and elsewhere in the provinces of Ghazni, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar. Appeals for their preservation have come from the USA, France, Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka, Iran and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Koichiro Matsuura, chief of UNESCO, said their destruction would be a “real cultural disaster that will cause irreparable harm to a heritage of exceptional universal value.” “This heritage is central to Afghanistan’s memory and identity and is a landmark in the history of other civilisations. “The loss of the Afghan statues, and of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in particular, would be a loss for humanity as a whole.” But Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel said the edict was irreversible. “Have you every seen any decision of the Islamic emirate (Taliban) reversed?” Mutawakel asked.
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Security scare on A-I flight Singapore, March 1 Passengers said emergency vehicles pulled alongside Flight 478 from Mumbai after it landed and that they had been searched in India before take-off and upon arrival in Singapore. “A telephone call was received at Mumbai airport. The call was that there was some security threat to the flight. So, the flight was subjected to a normal security check,’’ an Air-India spokeswoman in Mumbai told Reuters. She couldn’t give any details of the call made to the airport. A Singapore Civil Aviation Authority spokesman spoke of “some security issue’’ on board the plane but an airport official played down the incident. The Authority said there were 211 passengers and crew on board the Airbus A310. The flight was scheduled to leave Mumbai for Singapore yesterday, but was delayed for about an hour, she said without giving a reason for the delay. But a member of the flight crew, who asked not be named, said there had been a security alert but nothing had come of it.
Reuters |
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China ratifies rights treaty Beijing, March 1 Approval of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights came four years after China signed it and two weeks before a UN human rights conference in Geneva where Beijing’s rights record will again come in for scrutiny. The economic pact and a companion treaty on political rights provide a framework for safeguarding basic civil liberties, which overseas rights groups say are mostly lacking in China. China signed the pact on political rights in 1998 but says it is not ready to ratify it.
AP |
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Sharif hands over 2 houses to NAB Islamabad, March 1 Earlier the
family, who owed Rs 50 crore to the NAB, shifted all their belongings to other places. The NAB sources said the confiscation of the property was a part of the agreement reached by Mr Sharif’s family with the NAB.
UNI Pak purchases Chinese aircraft Islamabad, March 1 Pakistan’s air force chief, Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, firmed up the delivery scheduled of “the medium-tech supersonic aircraft” during his recent visit to Beijing, the daily The Nation reported, quoting an unnamed air force officer. Mir also discussed about the Super-7 combat aircraft which the two countries are jointly developing, the newspaper said.
DPA |
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