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| Tuesday, March 6, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
Japanese Prime Minister survives no-trust vote
Fiji’s
ex-Dy PM quizzed |
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Russia summons US diplomat
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Stranded women skiers
rescued Pak arrests
‘Indian agent’ in blast case Bomb had
gutted Thai PM’s plane 10,000 pilgrims sans permits sent back Benazir decries
Taliban act Mir will ‘break into
bits’ before impact
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Japanese Prime Minister survives no-trust vote Tokyo, March 5 Votes against the Opposition-sponsored motion in the 480-seat Lower House totalled 274, while 192 voted in favour. ‘’We have scaled one mountain, but another steep peak awaits. That’s the position we’re in now,’’ said Mr Junichiro Koizumi, leader of Mr Mori’s faction in the dominant, Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters as he emerged from parliament after the vote. Opposition parties submitting the vote lambasted Mr Mori, one of the nation’s most unpopular premiers ever, for his gaffes and policy blunders that have shredded his public support. ‘’Can you hear the voices of the people, of the financial markets? The single-digit support rating is proof that the people do not trust you,’’ Mr Yukio Hatoyama, head of the main opposition, Democratic Party, said ahead of the vote. The relief for Mr Mori, however, was likely to be brief, given that the ruling coalition members were expected to intensify their calls to unseat him to improve their prospects in an Upper House election in July. Losing that election would not immediately end the ruling bloc’s rule, but would induce legislative stalemate and could spark an early general election, not mandated until 2004. Today, the head of the number two party in the ruling coalition turned up the heat, saying that he wanted a clear decision on Mr Mori’s fate ahead of a convention of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on March 13. “We want a clear decision so we can attend the LDP convention in a good mood,’’ Jiji news agency quoted new Komeito chief Takenori Kanzaki as saying. Mr Mori’s public support has plummeted to single-digit levels after a string of gaffes and blunders and pressure is mounting within the coalition for him to state his intention to step down ahead of the LDP convention. His actual resignation, however, could be delayed until early April after budget-related Bills pass, the domestic media said. The gaffe-prone Prime Minister could come under fresh attack after a weekend media report that analysts said puts in question Mr Mori’s qualifications as at national leader. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that he sent a hand-written fax last summer to North Korean leader Kim Jong-II via a North Korean official in Beijing, instead of going through proper diplomatic channels. The political confusion could hardly come at a worse time. Japan’s economy is showing clear signs of slipping into reverse after a decade of failed attempts to break out of stagnation. Financial markets are keen to know who will replace Mr Mori, but agreeing on who should accept what could well be a temporary post if the ruling coalition loses badly in July, is proving tough. In an apparent bid to keep Mr Mori in power by filling his diplomatic schedule, the Prime Minister’s aides have asked Washington to set up a meeting with President George W. Bush on March 19, the domestic media reported.
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Fiji’s ex-Dy PM quizzed Suva, March 5 Dr Baba denied being arrested. “It’s just a discussion. We want to make sure we can have another meeting,” he told mediapersons as he was led off. Nearly 20 policemen turned up at the meeting venue where Dr Baba had called a Labour Party caucus in his bid to take over from Mr Chaudhry. But the meeting failed to reach a quorum with only 14 of the Labour Party MPs turning up. Dr Baba told mediapersons he would call another meeting later in the week. His meeting with the Labour Party’s five coalition partners in the deposed government had to be called off after he was detained by the police. Police spokeswoman Sara Bernard said Dr Baba was taken in for questioning. “The police wanted to confirm whether he had a permit for this meeting,” she said. AUCKLAND: Meanwhile, Mr Mahendra Chaudhry has said Fiji’s military-backed interim government had no intention of surrendering power to a restored Parliament. “It seems at the moment they do not have an intention of doing that,” he told Radio New Zealand. He said his Labour Party was setting a weekend deadline for the government to surrender power, failing which it would resume an international campaign against Fiji. Mr Chaudhry arrived back in Fiji on Saturday night after Thursday’s Court of Appeal ruling that the country was still under constitutional rule and Parliament should be recalled.
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Russia summons US diplomat Moscow, March 5 A ministry statement said the diplomat had been asked to “explain the position of the US State Department’’. “If proved true, the reports will “amount to a blatant violation of recognised norms of international law, valid throughout the world in relation to diplomatic representations’’, the statement said. A US Embassy official said charge d’affaires George Krol had gone to the ministry for a clarification of the tunnel story. “A discussion took place to address the question,’’ the official said. Reports in the US Press over the weekend said the plan to dig the tunnel to monitor communications in the Washington embassy was betrayed by FBI agent Robert Hanssen, arrested last month on charges of spying for the erstwhile Soviet Union and Russia. The US Vice-President, Mr Dick Cheney, interviewed on CBS television, could not say whether the US Intelligence services had dug such a tunnel.
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Portugal bridge death toll may be 70 Lisbon, March 5 Mr Coelho, whose ministry is responsible for roads and transport, said he had submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Antonio Guterres. He added that his decision to leave the government was irreversible. “I assume the political responsibility (for the disaster). I believe that it is no longer possible for me to remain a minister”, he told a news conference early today. Mr Coelho’s statement was the first official word on the extent of the disaster that occurred late on Sunday on a bridge over the Douro river near Castelo de Paiva, just east of Portugal’s second largest city Oporto. “It is thought that 70 persons died,” he said. A missing bus was believed to be carrying 67 persons who had been on an excursion to the northwestern Tras-os-Montes region to see flowering almond trees and was expected to return to Castelo de Paiva over the bridge. It was not known how many people were there in the two cars.
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Stranded women skiers rescued Hobart (Australia), March 5 Bancroft and Liv Arnesen from Norway pulled a 113 kg (250 pound) sled 2,736 km (1,700 miles) from one side of the continent to the other via the South Pole. After finishing their trek in early February the pair found themselves stranded on the Ross ice shelf , a wide expanse of permanently frozen ocean ( 644 km) from the McMurdo base, due to bad weather. They had hoped to para-sail with their sled across the ice shelf to the base, but lack of wind made it impossible to reach their ship in time. The vessel had to leave Antarctic waters before it became frozen at the onset of winter. The pair erected a makeshift camp in white-out conditions on the ice shelf to await rescue. Temperatures in Antarctica at this time of year are around -34°C, with winds gusting up to 100 miles (160 km) per hour, amid 24-hour daylight. A plane equipped with skis was eventually able to land on the ice shelf, picking up the two women and flying them to McMurdo, where they were able to hitch a ride with an Australian research ship. “I was really sea sick for four days,” said Arnesen(47) of Oslo of her voyage to Australia. The women had been in Antarctica since mid-October. The adventurers, who suffered only minor frost bite on their trek across the continent, said it was very frustrating not to have been able to complete the final leg across the ross ice shelf to their expedition’s aircraft and ship. “What we learned from this trip with 96 days under our belt was that you can think you know where the hardest parts are, but there’s another around the corner,’’ Bancroft told Reuters. The pair plan to return home later this week, but are already talking about a return to the Antarctic. “We didn’t see much wildlife on this trip, so we want to do something coastal next time,” Arnesen said. The expedition’s website is at http://yourexpedition.com.
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Pak arrests ‘Indian agent’ in blast case Karachi, March 5 Uzair Qureshi, 40, was arrested at his “hideout” in the city’s central neighbourhood of Liaquatabad, senior police officer Rasheed Butt said, describing him as an agent of India’s secret service Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). “He has admitted his involvement in the blast and his links with RAW,” Butt told AFP. The accused was caught on Friday but his arrest was kept secret for investigation purposes. A powerful bomb exploded in the building owned by the Nawa-e-Waqt group of newspapers in November, killing four persons. Qureshi allegedly told the investigators that he had used his Bangladeshi maid Parveen Bibi and sent her to the media office with a “gift packet” carrying a time bomb for the editor of Urdu language daily Nawa-e-Waqt. The woman had no knowledge that the packet contained the explosive device, he added. “The motive behind the blast was to create terror in the city,” he was quoted as telling the police. The police said they were now looking for four other accused in the case.
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Bomb had
gutted Thai PM’s plane Bangkok, March 5 “We can identify it was a bomb, but cannot identify yet what kind of bomb or where it was and what its purpose was,” said Deputy Commissioner General of Police Sant Sarutanond. “After questioning 39 witnesses, the police has completed about 80 per cent of the investigation and can conclude the police part of the investigation soon. The police says it had sufficient evidence to show a bomb triggered the fire that gutted the Boeing 737-400, killing one member of the cabin crew and injuring seven. Mr Thaksin told reporters in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai that a bomb caused the fire, and it was not an accident but an assassination attempt. “According to the information I have received, there are several kinds of chemicals that can be made into a bomb,” Mr Thaksin told reporters today at his office in Bangkok. AFP |
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10,000 pilgrims sans permits sent back Dubai, March 5 Director-General of the Saudi Passports Department Maj-Gen Abdul Aziz Sajeeni has been quoted by the Al-Madinah newspaper as saying that this year fewer pilgrims were turned back compared to previous years. He attributed this to the growing awareness among both Saudis and expatriates that they must carry Haj permits before proceeding to the holy sites. He blamed domestic Haj agents for the delay in some pilgrims getting the permits. The decision to impose restrictions on domestic pilgrims, allowing them to perform Haj only once every five years, has helped in reducing congestion at the holy sites. Officers had also held about 1,000 overstayers while trying to enter Makkah for Haj. Meanwhile, the Riyadh police arrested a 10-member gang involved in forging Haj permits and seized forged stamps, passports, and travel documents with fake signatures of district chiefs. MINA(AFP): Almost two million Muslim pilgrims took part in the symbolic “stoning of Satan” ritual today, the first day of the Islamic feast of Al-Adha (sacrifice) that rounds off the annual haj pilgrimage. Pilgrims from 160 countries, to cries of “Allah Akhbar”(God is great), hurled stones at three giant pillars representing the devil in the Mina valley near the birthplace of Prophet Mohammad in Mecca. As part of measures to avoid a stampede, elderly pilgrims had a head start yesterday night on the stoning ritual. The Saudi authorities have set up a huge abattoir with a workforce of almost 46,000 persons, including veterinary surgeons, to oversee the slaughter of around 700,000 sheep, goats, cows and camels during Id.
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Benazir decries
Taliban act Islamabad, March 5 “The greatest religion of Islam has been done a disservice by rulers like Mullah Omer, who studied in a Karachi madrasa. The graduates of the madrasas are singularly focussed on the sectarian nature of their studies. Independent thinking is prohibited”, she said in an article in The Daily News. Strongly criticising the Taliban for its intolerance, she said the demolition of the pre-Islamic cultural wonders of the Bamiyan province exhibited the malitia’s growing intolerance. She blamed the Pakistan authorities for drift the towards radicalisation” of society which had increased further after the military seized power. The government’s promise to take action against militants, who practised sectarian hatred, had vanished into thin air.
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Mir will ‘break into bits’ before impact Canberra, March 5 Mr David Templeman, head of Emergency Management, Australia, said the wreckage was not expected to hit Australia, but his agency had plans in case the descent went wrong. He admitted the agency would only have about an hour to react, if the Mir went off the course. Russia has decided to bring the aging Mir down because it can no longer afford to maintain the 15-year-old station. The Mir is expected to crash in the Pacific Ocean, east of Australia, later this month. Most of the Mir would burn up in the atmosphere, but five or six chunks weighing up to 700 kg might survive, Mr Templeman said. “The re-entry track of Mir takes it well to the east of Australia and is highly unlikely that Australia will be affected,” Mr Templeman told a press conference. “We are not nervous,” he said. The wreckage of the Mir was expected to hit an area in the Pacific between New Zealand and Chile, called the graveyard because it had been used by Russia to dump space vehicles, Mr Templeman said.
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