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Thursday,
April 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Estrada
jailed for plunder ‘Restore
defence ties with India’ Tigers end
ceasefire, kill 12 soldiers Shabana,
Mandela share platform again |
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North Korean
N-aid to Pak concerns USA Pak,
Bangla navy in flag row Asian kids
‘involved’ in Bradford riots US-Bangla
extradition pact |
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Blasts
mark strike Judge
upholds Anwar men’s detention No to
plea to cremate Khmer victims
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Estrada jailed for plunder Manila, April 25 Top police generals, armed with an arrest warrant, picked up Mr Estrada from his residence in a smart Manila housing complex and drove away with him in a dark van as dozens of supporters of the former movie star broke down in tears. Officials said Mr Estrada, who faces death or life imprisonment on the economic plunder charge and whose power base is among the country’s urban poor, had surrendered to the police. Photographers who joined a convoy carrying Mr Estrada to his detention cell in a nearby police camp said the former President, wearing a white jacket over a polo shirt, looked glum and stared blankly into space. Meanwhile, Mr Estrada’s cell in a Manila police camp may be safe and cozy, but the former movie actor will be shut off from the rest of the world. Interior Secretary Jose Lina told reporters today that the size of Mr Estrada’s cell was 3.5 metres by 5.5 metres with a well-ventilated ceiling and two small windows. Before the generals managed to enter the house, about 500 fist-waving, chanting supporters of Mr Estrada formed human barricades outside his residence. After several hours of standoff, the riot police charged and dispersed Mr Estrada’s followers who hurled rocks at the police. Several persons were injured, the local television said. After the protesters were driven away, the national police chief, General Leandro Mendoza, and other senior officers entered Mr Estrada’s house to take him into custody. Police sharpshooters climbed onto the roof of the mansion as part of security measures, witnesses said. A police helicopter swirled overhead. The court’s presiding justice, Francis Garchitorena, said Mr Estrada would be automatically put in jail while waiting for his trial since the plunder charge was a non-bailable crime. Minutes after the court issued the warrant, senior police generals drove to Mr Estrada’s residence to serve the warrant. “We have shown that justice is working in the Philippines,” presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao told reporters. “We consider this a historic event. We showed that the former highest official of the land could be held answerable for his actions.” Mr Estrada, the first Asian leader to be impeached, was ousted in January following protests triggered by corruption allegations. Mr Estrada has since been indicted on eight charges, including economic plunder. He has denied any wrongdoing and dismisses the charges as fabricated. The plunder charge stems from prosecution allegations that Mr Estrada illegally amassed more than four billion pesos ($80 million) during his 31 months in office. The court ordered the arrest of seven co-accused, including Mr Estrada’s son, Jinggoy, mayor of the Manila district of San Juan.
Reuters |
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‘Restore defence ties with India’ Washington, April 25 At US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s direction “there is work going on to look at higher level (defence) contacts),” an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted by Defence Weekly as saying. The official said, “There is more focus on India’s strategic importance by the Administration of George W. Bush, and an inclination to try to find ways to engage with Indians on the defence front as well as other fronts.” “We have a long history of cooperation in a wide number of areas from economics to science and technology to agriculture, and more recently defence. We are now looking at each other with a view that we have an increasing number of things in common,” the weekly said quoting a senior Indian Government official. “But there hasn’t been any formal decision made as to exactly how we are going to do that. But it is very clear from the meetings that External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had here that there is an interest in the Bush Administration in finding a way to move forward,” the official said. The Indian Government official said the reception given by the USA to Mr Jaswant Singh during his recent visit to Washington also went a long way towards closing the psychological gap following limited contact since 1998. In addition to the recently begun low level working group meetings, the Defence Department received a waiver from Congress to spend $ 6,00,000 in 2000 on International Military Education and Training for India, which financed 30 Indian students’ studies at US defence establishments, according to a Pentagon spokesman, Lt-Col Dave Lapan.
PTI |
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Tigers end ceasefire, kill 12 soldiers
Colombo, April 25 They said heavy casualties were inflicted on the rebels. As the four-month-long truce by the LTTE came to an end, army columns were out of their bases in an operation codenamed ‘Agni Khela’ to expand their area of control, but ran into heavy mortar and artillery fire by the rebels. While the exact casualty figures among the rebels were not known, the army lost over 10 combatants in a fierce battle south of Eluthumadduval on the way towards the strategic Elephant Pass on the Jaffna-Kandy highway, the sources said. The military establishment reported that 22 soldiers were wounded in two days of shelling by the LTTE in the Muhamalai and Nagar Kovil sectors using 120 mm and 81 mm mortars. Agni Khela, a land offensive backed by the air force and navy, was aimed at wresting control over the area captured during the second stage of ‘Operation Kinihira IX’ in January. The rebels had called off their ceasefire on Monday night, accusing the government of pursuing war and not reciprocating their peace gestures. The rebels claimed to have lost 160 cadre during the four months of cessation of hostilities since December 24. The government, which has always been dismissive of the ceasefire announcement calling it a political ploy aimed at gaining international sympathy, has accused the LTTE of violating its own truce 220 times. A policeman was injured when a parcel bomb exploded in a high security area near the President’s residence, the police bomb squad said. Police personnel carrying out a routine security check of the area had detected the package in an abandoned building near the country’s central bank in the Fort, the commercial hub, said Patrick Edema, chief of the bomb squad. Meanwhile, President Chandrika Kumaratunga has described the LTTE as an ‘unprincipled terrorist organisation’ and vowed to fight it militarily to bring it to the negotiating table. Asserting that her government would not allow the nation to be divided as intended by the LTTE, the President reiterated her willingness to enter into talks with the Tigers. “The door is still not closed to it (LTTE) to enter into negotiations,” she said addressing the armed forces gallantry awards presentation ceremony yesterday.
PTI, UNI |
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Shabana, Mandela share platform again Johannesburg, April 25 That was in 1993. Mandela had just been released from prison after 27 years as a political prisoner and Shabana’s kiss made headlines all over the world. Seven years later, the Indian legislator and the former President met again, this time to discuss civil society in their respective countries. Shabana and Mandela shared the platform with former US President Bill Clinton at the first national civil society conference that started here yesterday where she delivered a paper on “Civil Society in India.” The two-day conference that ended today aimed to create greater awareness in South Africa about the role that a civil society had to play in improving the lot of the poor and underprivileged. “The fact that there were people like Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton speaking right at the outset highlight the importance that civil society efforts in South Africa deserve,” said Shabana referring to Mandela’s opening address and Clinton’s keynote address. “We in India have had social reform movements followed by (Mahatma) Gandhi’s movement to secure freedom from the colonial British rule. They were supporting the socio-economic strengthening of people so there has been a history of civil society movements in India,” she said. Shabana, who is also a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador on Population and Development, said examples of this resurgence were protests against dam construction that displaced people and women’s movements, especially issues of health and population. “Earlier women were targeted as victims of coercive policy and today women’s health is important for itself and not for reproductive purposes only,” she said. She said the women’s movement in India was very different from that in the West. “Of course it talks about individual rights and about violence against women, but it also places women at the centre of development and says that the yardstick of progress for a nation is women’s empowerment,” she said. In her paper, Shabana reflected on the role that cultural and religious organisations, voluntary agencies and developmental organisations, social movements, business sector and the media, amongst others, play in securing a better life for the underprivileged in India.
IANS |
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North Korean N-aid to
Pak concerns USA Washington, April 25 Speaking at a Texas University conference, CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin said North Korea “equipment and technology” to places such as Iran and Pakistan “where they have the potential to alter geopolitical and military calculations in important ways throughout West Asia and South Asia.” “We find the Ro Dong (missile) and its variants in places like Iran and Pakistan” he said. He pointed out that North Korea had accelerated the pace at which other countries acquired and refined potential delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction. The flight of a Taepo Dong rocket over Japan more than two years ago added a new and worrisome dimension to North Korea’s own definitions of deterrence and power projection, he said. McLaughlin said North Korea was also busy at work on new models that could reach the USA with nuclear-sized payloads.
ANI |
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Pak, Bangla navy in flag row Dhaka, April 25 The daily Bangladesh Observer said the Pakistanis also called off the joint naval exercises with the Bangladeshi navy before leaving for Myanmar on Sunday. Two Pakistani warships and a submarine ‘’Suhushak’’ were on a four-day friendly visit to Bangladesh. The daily quoting Bangladeshi port officials as saying the Pakistani sailors had also passed derogatory remarks on Bangladesh.
DPA |
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Asian kids ‘involved’
in Bradford riots London, April 25 According to witness accounts collected by the police, several young Asian children were observed throwing stones and lumps of concrete during last week’s violence in Bradford, which is home to more than 70,000 Hindus, Muslims and Sikh immigrants from South Asia. Detective Superintendent Phil Sedgwick, who heads the police investigation team, has described two incidents, said to involve Asian attackers. In one case, according to Sedgwick, a white couple was pulled off their Vespa scooter. A visiting nurse from Derbyshire, Julie Cook, was also a victim of the rioters when she lost her way in Bradford late at night and was hit in the face by a rock. Describing the incident Sedgwick said, “The nurse could not say who it was who threw missiles at her car but other people around at the same time said they saw Asians, some as young as 11, throwing stones.” Shocked leaders of the Asian community have told IANS that they are not aware that any children has been involved.
IANS |
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US-Bangla extradition pact Dhaka, April 25 The agreed text was signed in Washington last week and would come into effect after the “necessary formalities” were completed, press reports here said, quoting officials. “As soon as the treaty is enforced... the convicted and accused will be extradited,” an official, who took part in the negotiations for the treaty, told the official BSS news agency. Bangladesh’s founder Sheikh Mujibur was assassinated along with most members of his family in the 1975 coup when his post-independece Awami League government was toppled. A lower court in 1998 sentenced 15 former army officials to death for the 1975 killings. The death penalties were reviewed and are now being heard at the Supreme Court by a third judge, after a high court Bench differed about the sentences handed down to two of the men. Only four of the 15 convicted are in jail. The rest fled the country when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur, took office in 1996 and scrapped an Indemnity Act which until then had protected the coup leaders from legal action.
AFP |
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Blasts mark strike Dhaka, April 25 The strike was called by Bangladesh’s four-party Opposition alliance led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Nationalist Party (BNP). Witnesses said bombs exploded in different parts of the city early today, including one in the Malibagh area. The strike-related death toll since April 1 stood at 14, mostly from bomb injuries. AFP |
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Judge upholds Anwar men’s detention Kuala Lumpur, April 25 Lawyers, acting on behalf of clients they have not been allowed to see, challenged the right of the police to hold the men, all supporters of jailed former Finance
Minister Anwar Ibrahim. “It is inappropriate for a person or a body of persons to call for the release of persons under the Internal Security Act (ISA) to ask for them to be tried in a court”, high court Judge Augustine Paul said in dismissing arguments by lawyers for the five. “It is no part of my function to deal with an action done outside of my court”, said Justice Paul. The police said the detainees, all supporters of the Parti Keadilan Nasional (National Justice Party) led by Anwer’s wife, were planning violent protests to overthrow the government and had sought weapons and explosives.
Reuters |
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No to plea to cremate Khmer victims Kompong Chhnang, April 25 A group of Cambodians living in California appealed to King Norodom Sihanouk last month to have the bones — located in various “killing fields” throughout the country — cremated. Many Buddhists believe that the soul of a person cannot be reborn until the body and bones are cremated.
Reuters |
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