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March 9, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Lankan judge creates ruckus Manila ceasefire against Reds |
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Taliban vow to complete destruction Kabul, March 8 The ruling Taliban movement vowed today to complete the destruction of every statue in Afghanistan, saying any alternative would fail to satisfy Islamic law.
Indian admits sex trade Nepal rebels reject govt call for talks
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7-party Sharon unity govt sworn in Jerusalem, March 8 Alongside the popular hope pinned on his national-unity government of seven parties, an atmosphere of dread was also apparent: if this coalition and this leader prove unable to bring peace to the country, Israelis wonder what options will be left. Mr Sharon presides over the largest government in Israeli history, embracing a third of the 120 MPs. It has 27 ministers and as many as 15 deputy ministers. But while his parliamentary majority looks rock solid — more than 70 members of the Knesset, although his own Likud Party has only 19 seats — he comes to power at a time when many Israelis feel despairing and powerless and the security forces are on high alert for attacks in Israel. The Islamist militant group Hamas, which says it was behind this week’s suicide bombing of Netanya, has renewed a warning that it has ordered 10 suicide bombers to strike in Israel to mark Mr Sharon’s installation. Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah, an adviser to the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, said Mr Sharon faced a stark choice between resuming negotiations with the Palestinians and seeing more bloodshed. The uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has taken more than 420 lives in five months, almost all of them Palestinian. Mr Sharon refused to resume talks while the Palestinians are in a state of revolt. “It’s a moment of choice for the new Israeli government, a choice between a continuation of dialogue with the Palestinians and the continuation of a policy of siege of threats and pushing this process into a new escalation,’’ Mr Rdainah said. Mr Sharon acknowledged the pressures, and the high expectations of his own people. “I feel the weight of the responsibility, especially in this period,’’ he told army radio hours before presenting his Cabinet to Parliament. “I am sure that together with my colleagues in the government, we will know how to make the best response to the present dangers facing Israel.’’ The Palestinians, and the world beyond, will be closely watching the ageing warrior; the Arabs have not forgiven him for his role in the Lebanese massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982, and for his ruthless expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. His chance of survival was improved yesterday when Parliament voted overwhelmingly to abolish the direct election of the Prime Minister, which was introduced after the assassination of the incumbent Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and has proved a destabilising factor in Israeli politics. But he presides over a fractious collection of left, right and religious parties. On the left stands the incoming Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, the architect of a peace process, washed away by the blood of the hundreds killed in the past five months. On the far right stand Rechavam Ze’evi, the tourism minister, and Avigdor Lieberman, the infrastructure minister, who want Mr Sharon to use even more muscle against the Palestinians. Ordinary Israelis, who gave Mr Sharon two-thirds of the popular vote in the February 6 election, want him to go on the attack against the field commanders of the Palestinian “Intifada”, and so do the hardliners in his cabinet. But that may not get easily past Mr Peres, who will push for a relaxation of the army’s siege of Palestinian areas and the resumption of the peace negotiations. The top Israeli Ministers include Shimon Peres (Labour) Foreign Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer (Labour) Defence Minister; Limor Livnat (Likud) Education Minister; and Eli Yishai (Shas) Interior Minister. Washington: President George W. Bush telephoned new Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to congratulate him on being sworn in and invited the former General for talks at the White House on March 20. “The President looks forward to discussing bilateral and regional issues with Prime Minister Sharon, including ways to bring an end to the violence and to advance peace and stability in the region,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday. US Secretary of State Colin Powell met Mr Sharon in Jerusalem on February 25 during a Middle East tour and urged him to lift some of the restrictions on Palestinians. LONDON: Britain on Thursday urged Israel’s new government of national unity to pursue the path of peace in the troubled region. Junior Foreign Minister Brian Wilson said that he hoped Ariel Sharon’s new broad-based government, which was invested late last night, would try to reach a compromise with the PLO. Mr Sharon, a right-wing hardliner who heads the largest Cabinet in Israel’s history, offered a hand of peace to the country’s Arab neighbours but insisted he would not negotiate with the Palestinians under fire. The Guardian (London),
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Lankan judge creates ruckus Colombo, March 8 “The vast majority of the denizens of the North-East provinces seek the restoration of their rights, and not devolution of powers,” Justice C.V. Wigneswaran said, in an unusually hard-hitting speech at a ceremony held to welcome him and another new judge to the apex court yesterday. Arguing for according equal status to his language in the country’s constitutional system, the Tamil judge said the “wrong done by enthroning one language (Sinhala) in 1956, could never be erased, unless Tamil was recognised as the dominant language of the North and East”. We should recognise that Tamil language and culture are to Tamils what Sinhala language and culture are to the Sinhalese, he said. Raising issues that have been rankling in the Tamil psyche in Sri Lanka for decades, Justice Wigneswaran said the hurt caused by the anti-Tamil riots of 1958, 1977 and 1983 could never be assuaged easily. His ceremonial address was in reply to welcome speeches in the presence of Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and other judges and members of the Bar, headed by Attorney General K.C. Kamalasabayson. Justice Wigneswaran claimed that rights were snatched away from Tamils by mathematical innovation, where the majority in two provinces were added to the majority in seven provinces, and thus made a minority in nine provinces. Presenting a case for Tamils to govern themselves in their own language with little interference from outside, he said: The sterile and impotent cosmetic provisions now appearing in our Constitution has little meaning to the Tamil-speaking people of the Northern and Eastern provinces. Summing up his view of the progressive deprivation of rights of the Tamils through a childhood analogy, the judge said older boys used to snatch away all the marbles from their juniors, and then agree to part with a few, forgetting that they had no right to seize them in the first place. He also bemoaned the present system of nomination to the higher judiciary, saying that a judge could reach the higher reaches of the judicial hierarchy only at the condescending discretion of the executive. Sri Lanka is currently governed by a 1978 Constitution that declares that the country is a unitary state, makes Sinhala the official language, treats both Sinhala and Tamil as national languages and mandates that the state accord primacy to Buddhism. Sinhala is the language of the administration throughout Sri Lanka, but the Constitution provides that Tamil shall also be used for the maintenance of records and the transaction of business by public institutions in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Simmering differences over the status of Tamil and violent manifestations of the conflict over the years have been the main base on which Tamil separatism has grown in Sri Lanka.
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Manila ceasefire against Reds Manila, March 8 Chief Inspector of Police Abelardo Martin was injured during a gunbattle when patrolling Army Scout Rangers rescued him from the Communist New People’s Army in the mountains in Quezon province, 85 km southeast of Manila, officials said. Officials said the patrol may have chanced upon the rebels, who had previously agreed to release Martin and another prisoner within weeks. After the gunfight, a military helicopter could not take off to take Martin to hospital because of bad weather. He died later from loss of blood, “in the company of his rescuers,’’ said Col Anthony Alcantara, a military spokesman. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a suspension of military offensives, — in effect a ceasefire — in the Quezon and adjoining Cavite provinces. She said she was declaring the ceasefire “in the hope that this should enable third party emissaries to work with the rebels for the safe release of the remaining
NPA captive, an army Major’’. Kuala Lumpur: Thai Foreign Minister Surakiat Sathirathai today said he would be “surprised’’ if former Philippine President Joseph Estrada applied for asylum in Thailand as reported by a Thai newspaper. “There has not been any formal request so I can’t comment,’’ he told reporters when asked to comment on a report in The Nation that said Bangkok had rejected Estrada’s appeal for refuge.
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Taliban vow to complete destruction Kabul, March 8 Mr Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Taliban Foreign Minister, told Reuters that there was no possibility of reversing an edict issued by the movement’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, for total destruction of all statues, including the two giant Buddhas that were the country’s best-known archaeological treasure. The comments from the Foreign Minister appeared to rule out any change in policy despite intensifying international pressure to save Afghanistan’s rich heritage. In the interview, Mr Muttawakil said the Taliban would make clear to any international or religious delegation that it would not back down. Three members of parliament from Japan — a major donor of aid in the region — were due in Islamabad today to press Taliban authorities to change their minds. The Taliban’s main target was Buddhist art almost 2,000 years old, including the 53-metre and 38-metre Bamiyan statues. Egypt said yesterday that President Hosni Mubarak had accepted a request from UNESCO to ask the Taliban to halt the destruction. “We have no problem meeting anybody about this,” Mr Muttawakil said. “We have explained our position to UNESCO team and will mention this to others he said.
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Fiji President asks govt to stay Wellington, March 8 As the great council of chiefs, paramount body of the majority indigenous Fijian population, met, Ratu Josefa Iloilo asked the unelected administration to remain in power until he can take steps to restore a constitutional government, Radio New Zealand reported. A correspondent said that although the administration was continuing to rule illegally, the president was apparently concerned about creating a power vacuum if he accepted the resignation of the 20-strong Cabinet before deciding whether to reconvene the parliament in place before May last’s nationalist coup or call a new election. The move continues political uncertainty created last week when the court of appeal ruled that the interim administration under Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, which was appointed under a state of emergency in the wake of the coup, was illegal. It was unclear what legal authority the president had to ask the government to stay on. The situation in Suva was very confused as people awaited the outcome of the great council of chiefs meeting. Political parties dominated by indigenous Fijians are looking to the chiefs for direction to an outcome which will ensure their dominance. Former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the first member of the ethnic Indian minority to lead the country, was ousted in last year’s coup. He is in the middle of a power struggle over leadership of the Fiji Labour Party, which headed the ousted multi-racial coalition government and on Wednesday advised Iloilo to dissolve parliament and call a new election. This was later dubbed “unwise” by his former deputy and rival for the leadership, Dr Tupeni Baba, who held separate talks with the president. Baba favours formation of a government of national unity, embracing all parties, and has offered himself as its prime minister. The situation was further clouded on Thursday when the great council of chiefs reportedly sacked its chairman, Sitiveni Rabuka, who himself led two military coups in the nationalist Fijian cause in 1987. He is now blamed for the 1997 constitution that helped the Chaudhry government into power, New Zealand’s TV3 reported. DPA |
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30 schoolgirls
burnt alive Abuja, March 8 They said the fire broke out at Gindiri Girls School, near the central town of Jos, on Tuesday night. The girls had been kept in to prevent them from mixing with boys in a neighbouring school, they said, quoting survivors. “Many critically wounded girls were brought to Jos University Teaching Hospital on Wednesday morning, and there are others at a missionary hospital,’’ one hospital worker in Jos said by telephone. “We have reports from health workers in Gindiri and here indicating at least 30 girls died,’’ she said.
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Taiwan
test-fires 4 missiles Taipei, March 8 The four US-made Avenger and Stinger missiles were fired in Tuesday’s drills codenamed “divine bow” at Chiupeng, a military base in the southern-most county of Pingtung, the state-funded Central News Agency said. “After the verification firing, the shoulder-fired Stinger missiles will be put into service soon to upgrade the army’s air defence capability ”.
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Probe into collision begins Pearl Harbor, March 8 The Commander of the US submarine did his best but lacked key information that might have helped prevent the accident, his lawyer suggested yesterday. Cmdr Scott Waddle’s civilian attorney, Charles Gittins, opened his cross examination at a Navy court of inquiry by trying to show Waddle followed standard procedures but did not have enough data before the
February 9 collision. Gittins challenged the Navy’s preliminary investigation into the accident as incomplete and inaccurate. “You had some time constraints placed on you that made it difficult ... To do a thorough and complete investigation,” Gittins said in questioning Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr. Griffiths conducted the Navy’s preliminary investigation.
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Indian admits sex trade Oakland, March 8 Lakireddy Bali Reddy, 63, was yesterday ordered to pay $ 2 million in restitution to a group of east Indian women he reportedly imported as sex-slaves and low-wage workers at his businesses. Reddy has been described as the richest landlord in Berkeley, a university city near San Francisco. His lawyer tried in vain to convince the federal judge to allow Reddy to remain free until formal sentencing. But the Judge said the severity of the charges left her no choice but to jail Reddy. The plea bargain worked out between Reddy and prosecutors calls for him to serve five to six years in prison as well as paying restitution . Reddy was arrested in February, 2000, by the police who
believe he brought girls here from his home city of Velvadam and used them as sex slaves and low-cost workers at his properties and businesses. Reddy owns a real estate business, more than 1,000 apartment units, a tech company and restaurants. His assets have been estimated at more than $ 50 million. Evidence indicating he brought girls into the USA illegally and used them for sex came to light after Sitha Vemireddy, 17, died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a Berkeley apartment owned by Reddy. Sitha and her 15-year-old sister were found unconscious in the apartment in November, 1999.
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Nepal rebels reject govt call for talks Kathmandu, March 8 The Himalayan kingdom’s social democrat government released on Tuesday the names of over 300 rebels in prison on various charges and said it had met the main demand of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) for talks.
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