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| Sunday,
April 1, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Clashes
mar visit of Dalai Lama
Taliban
cannot govern: USA Wahid
ready to give up some powers |
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Hope for
HIV-infected Bid to
arrest Milosevic
Stem cells may repair damaged heart muscles 7 Tamil
rebels killed in air raids US Administration to
re-examine CTBT
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Clashes mar visit of Dalai Lama Taipei, March 31 The protesters, wielding placards with slogans of opposition to Tibetan independence, accused the Dalai Lama of attempting to split China. The riot police armed with shields and batons chased after several of them who tried to break through a security line. But there were no injuries or arrests. “The Dalai Lama is using religion as a pretext to engage in the practice of splitting China,” one demonstrator said. The Tibetan leader no longer formally advocates Tibetan independence, calling instead for far-reaching autonomy. He has lived in exile since an anti-China uprising in Tibet in 1959 was crushed. China’s communist government has branded his stance “insincere” and denounced him as a tool of anti-China forces in the West. Meanwhile, a group of Taiwanese nuns and monks have called on the Dalai Lama to scrap discriminatory rules against nuns in Tibetan Buddhism. In a symbolic move the group publicly tore down from a wall a list of the written rules which require nuns to show absolute respects to monks under the Tibetan system, before they attended a seminar on Buddhism. Among the rules, dating back at least a thousand years, is that even a 100-year-old nun must display respect towards a new monk, and that nuns must not blame monks regardless of any errors. Any nuns who violate the rules may have their status as nuns removed. “Due to the outdated rules, some people have become arrogant after they become monks,” senior nun Chao Hui said.
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Washington, March 31 “They (Taliban) have not addressed the needs of the Afghan people. They have not taken account of the wishes of the international community with respect to the issues of terrorism, narcotics and protection of human rights,” Mr Eastham said in a radio interview. “They have had four-and-a-half years now since they occupied Kabul and took the capital of Afghanistan and proclaimed themselves to be the government of Afghanistan, to get their act together. So far they haven’t. After four-and-a-half years, you have to question whether they have the capability to govern or not,” he said. “Taliban have ruled out any productive role outside the home life for half the population, namely women. By doing so, they are essentially condemning the country to backwardness,” he said. “The respect and tolerance which is the hallmark of most countries in the world is also missing in Afghanistan these days. They have (carried out) terrible destruction of Buddhist statues which were harming no one, which were worshipped by no one and which were not objects of veneration by anyone except art historians as a part of great cultural heritage of the world,” he said. “Their destruction was an act of intolerance, which is not at all in keeping with the spirit of the world. In our view, it has nothing to do with Islam or with the practice of religion in Afghanistan. We accept that Islam is the religion of most Afghans. They can practice it the way they want. But it should be in a spirit of toleration, in a spirit of acceptance of other faiths and creeds,” Mr Eastham said. Taliban’s refusal to hand over international terrorist Osama bin Laden to justice in a third country creates an impression that “the militia and Afghanistan in general are harbouring terrorists, that it is a place where bad guys in the world can go and find relief and shelter,” he said. “I don’t see any evolution in Taliban. What I do see is a growing concern amongst Afghans, other Afghans in the region, in Pakistan, in Iran, in the central Asian countries, in Europe and in the USA, who are increasingly concerned that the Taliban control in Afghanistan is a very, very negative factor in Afghanistan’s evolution,” he added.
PTI |
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Wahid ready to give up some powers Jakarta, March 31 Mr Akbar Tandjung, Parliament’s Speaker and head of the second largest party, Golkar, has suggested handing Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri more power over the day-to-day running of the government to end political bickering over Wahid’s fate. “The President responded that the issue of splitting power between a head of state and a head of government must be fully based on the constitution,’’ palace spokesman Adhie Massardi quoted Wahid saying. “The constitution should be changed first and that would have to be discussed by the MPR,’’ he said, referring to the top legislature, the People’s Consultative Assembly. “If all (the nation) agree then it can be implemented,’’ Mr Massardi told mediapersons. The MPR is due to hold its annual session in August. Wahid has come under mounting pressure since rejecting on Wednesday a parliamentary censure over two graft scandals and he faces possible impeachment within months. He would remain head of state under Mr Tandjung’s proposal. Ms Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia’s founding father, Sukarno, is adored by the masses and increasingly regarded by MPs as a preferable alternative to Wahid’s faltering and chaotic 17-month rule as the country’s first democratically elected leader. Although believed to want the presidency, Ms Megawati’s aides say she will not dirty her hands by joining public efforts to oust her old friend, who slipped past her to grab the top job in late 1999.
Reuters |
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Washington, March 31 In a study involving mice implanted with human tissue,
AIDS Institute researchers at University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) found that HIV invaded the thymus, the organ that transforms immature bone-marrow stem cells into the mature
immune system T-cells that the virus targets. The finding may not point the way to a cure for AIDS but could enable some
HIV-infected persons to improve their lives, said Dr Jerome Zack, who led the study. He said the study could help in the development of drugs to target latent
HIV in the body, thus allowing some patients to go off the highly toxic and expensive combination drug therapies used to combat
AIDS. “I am very excited about this because I think it has the potential to eventually be helpful for patients,’’ Dr Zack said in an interview yesterday. The study appears in the journal Nature Medicine. HIV’s ability to evade powerful anti-aids drugs by hiding dormant in the body has frustrated scientists. Current anti-aids drugs prevent hiv from spreading new infection, but are useless against cells already infected. Dr Zack said when doctors could not detect hiv in the blood of patients taking anti-aids drugs, they knew the dormant virus still lurks elsewhere in the body. But this was the first time that researchers had been able to show how hiv sidestepped the drugs, resurrected itself from a resting state and spread infected cells throughout the body, he added.
Reuters |
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Belgrade, March 31 An interior Ministry source said on condition of anonymity that in refusing the warrant, Mr Milosevic said he did not “recognise the police and the authorities, all of them being NATO servants.” The police remained outside the residence but appeared to be settling in for a wait after those guarding Mr Milosevic responded with a hail of gunfire from automatic weapons and pistols to attempts by riot squads to get him. Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, chief of Serbia’s police, said the police stopped its assault because, “if we used force, there would be victims.” At a meeting with the senior police official conducting the operation at the scene, Mr Milosevic told the official “he won’t go to jail alive,” Mihajlovic told reporters. Mr Milosevic is wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged involvement in atrocities committed against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority. But Mihajlovic said the purpose of the attempted arrest was not to turn Mr Milosevic over to the tribunal, “but to hand him over to an investigative judge, under domestic laws.” The attempted arrest came on the very day the US Congress had set as a deadline for Yugoslavia to begin cooperating with the UN war crimes tribunal. Washington had threatened Belgrade with a suspension of $ 100 million in economic aid if it did not comply. Mihajlovic said two policemen were wounded by the fire from Milosevic loyalists.
AP |
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Bamiyan statues ‘missed’ heritage list Paris, March 31 The towering Bamiyan Buddhas, carved into cliffs in Central Afghanistan, were destroyed earlier this month as part of the Taliban’s efforts to create the world’s purest Muslim state. Unesco fought to save the massive statues, but has since been criticised for failing to designate them as a prestigious world heritage site. “The criticism is not fair because unesco was never entitled to put them on the list,” unesco’s chief spokeswoman Helene-Marie Gosselin told Reuters yesterday. A Sri Lankan Buddhist organisation, Shanthi Foundation, asked the UN to declare an international day of mourning over the loss of the Buddhas and accused unesco of failing in its duty by not listing the statues. Ms Gosselin said sites could only get world heritage status if their home country presses for their inclusion. When unesco asked for further documentation regarding the sites, the Taliban militia had taken control of much of the country in 1996, and the Bamiyan application bid was left to collect dust. “The Taliban was not recognised by the UN,” Ms Gosselin said. “We could not have put it on the list even if we had wanted to because there was no government representative that we recognised that could have completed this file,” she added. Some 690 sites in 122 countries are on the list. By signing the convention, each country pledges to conserve sites situated on its own territory. However, unesco officials believe that even if the Bamiyan statues had been on the list the Taliban would have destroyed them.
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Osaka, March 31 “I officially declare Universal Studios Japan (USJ) open,” the muscle-bound actor of “Terminator” fame shouted in front of a colossal globe, the legendary film studio’s symbol. Thousands of people, including those who had queued up overnight, streamed into the park on the waterfront of Japan’s second city to try 18 attractions based on blockbusters including “E.T.” And “Jurassic Park.” The park has sold out 30,000 tickets for its first day of operation and in the initial year expects eight million visitors, including half a million from abroad, mainly the rest of Asia. The film studio, now a subsidiary of France’s Vivendi group, already has two movie theme parks in California and Florida. “We got up at four in the morning to come here,” said Umiko Asada, a 35-year-old Osaka housewife, who took along her daughter as well a teenaged niece and nephew. She added: “We have been looking forward to coming here for a long time.” Located in a previously disused 54-hectare industrial zone, the park recreates the Wild West of film lore as well as the white villas and studio lots of the
Hollywood original. For an entry price of $ 44, the visitor has a dizzying choice of Universal movie-based attractions, including facing up to the killer Great White Shark from Jaws or touring a jungle full of dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park”. The film “Terminator II” also is back, leaving a familiar trail of carnage, and other attractions range from a 1,200°C Backdraft firestorm to the wall-shaking music of the Blues Brothers. For the young — or those of a nervous disposition — the park also offers the gentler charms of Snoopy and Woody Woodpecker. Despite being 450 km apart, competition between USJ and Tokyo Disneyland, which attracts around 17 million visitors a year and will double the size of its park in September, is expected to be fierce. Launched 10 years ago, USJ has cost 170 billion yen to build. The major shareholder, with a 25 per cent stake, is the city of Osaka which has also financed the upgrading of transport links to the theme park. Universal Studios has a 24 per cent stake, with the remaining 51 per cent held by about 45 other investors.
AFP |
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Stem cells may repair damaged heart muscles
Washington, March 31 The study involved the use of adult stem cells - avoiding the ethical storm swirling around the use of stem cells from embryos -and demonstrated that stem cells can help repair muscle killed in heart attacks. This, and another study involving rats given adult human stem cells, also pointed the way to a possible revolution in the treatment of heart attacks, a top cause of death in the industrialised world. Dr Piero Anversa of New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, who helped lead the mouse study, said researchers would try the technique on rhesus monkeys starting within two or three months and if all went well, clinical trials on people could begin in three years. In the second study, researchers at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons used adult human stem cells to spur new blood vessel development in heart tissue in rats after a heart attack, preventing the tissue starvation and death that typically results in heart failure. The researchers injected a type of stem cell present in adult human bone marrow into rats that had suffered heart attacks two days earlier. The cells migrated exclusively to the damaged heart tissue, where they spurred the formation of new blood vessels, the researchers reported. Dr Silviu
Itescu, who led the study appearing in the journal Nature Medicine, said, “There’s very little downside to trying this in humans. Stem cell therapy is an accepted therapeutic protocol already. ”
Reuters |
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7 Tamil rebels
killed in air raids Colombo, March 31 “Kfir jets bombed terrorist defences in Nagar Kovil and monitored transmissions said that seven of their cadres were killed,” Brig Sanath Karunaratne said. The attack came two days after the government asked civilians in rebel-held territory to move out of villages near separatist camps, because aerial bombing would begin soon. Tamil language leaflets distributed by the military warned that they would use new aircraft and sophisticated weapons to continuously attack LTTE camps. The government recently increased air raids against the rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 for a Tamil homeland in the north and east of the country. They claim discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese.
AP |
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US Administration to re-examine CTBT Washington, March 31 The recommendations of former President Bill Clinton’s Special Adviser John Shalikashvili favouring the ratification of the CTBT would also be examined, said. Mr John R. Bolton, Under Secretary designate in the State Department on Arms Control. He said President Bush had given an indication to his administration that he had no intention of resuming nuclear tests.
UNI |
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