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Tuesday,
May 8, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Mitchell report divides Israel 13 killed in Lanka clashes Rebels kill 69
in Angola raid Indo-Russian row on NMD averted |
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‘Great Train Robber’ finally ends
run Iranian court lifts
ban on newspaper
Zimbabwe SC to decide Oppn case Altitude sickness
strikes Hillary
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Mitchell report divides Israel Khan Younis (Gaza Strip), May 7 “Baby Iman has become the youngest casualty of this Intifada (uprising),” Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said. Doctors said the infant was inside her house when it was hit during an Israeli attack on Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. “Shrapnel went into her abdomen and came out of her back,” said a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, identifying the dead baby as Iman Hejjo. Her mother, 19-year-old sister and brother, 14, were among 15 people wounded. The Israeli army said its forces fired light weapons at the camp in response to mortar bombs that fell in a Jewish settlement area in the Gaza Strip. A military spokeswoman said she could not confirm any Palestinian casualties. On the Golan Heights, Pope John Paul urged the region’s people to be as merciful as their God, to forgive past wrongs and commit themselves to peace. “From this place, so disfigured by war, I wish to raise my voice in prayer for peace in the Holy Land and the world,” the Pontiff said in the Syrian ghost town of Quneitra, which bears the scars of two Israeli-Arab wars. Erekat said the attack on Khan Younis was “an unjustified escalation”. After the firing was over, stunned camp residents told reporters they could not understand why it had been targeted. They scattered as an Israeli tank neared its entrance. In a 32-page report on the causes of the Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted last September, a committee headed by George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator and Northern Ireland mediator, said both sides are at a crossroads. “If they do not return to the negotiating table, they face the prospect of fighting it out for years on end, with many of their citizens leaving for distant shores to live their lives and raise their children,” the report said. The report, obtained by Reuters, called for an immediate and unconditional cessation of violence, resumption of security cooperation and confidence-building measures. In Tulkarm, the Palestinian Governor of the town, Izz el-Din al-Sharif, said Israeli troops had thrust 10 metres (yards) into its territory late on Sunday in the latest of several incursions into Palestinian-controlled areas. Palestinians welcomed the recommendations by the five-member Mitchell committee, established under the terms of a never-implemented ceasefire reached at an emergency West Asia summit in Egypt last October. Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting earlier, Mr Sharon said an appeal from the Mitchell Commission for a halt to settlement building was unacceptable because of “signed agreements according to which (the settlements) will be dealt with in the framework of permanent status arrangements.” “It is clear there is no connection between the eruption of Palestinian violence and the settlements,” Mr Sharon was quoted by the Israel news agency Itim as saying. An Israeli Cabinet spokesman objected to the committee’s call for a freeze on Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza, but Foreign Minister Shimon Peres termed the report fair and balanced. The mixed signals from Israel raised doubts whether the findings could serve as a blueprint for pulling back from the violence in which at least 407 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 76 other Israelis have been killed. Israel has said it will not build new settlements but will expand existing ones to take into account the “natural growth” of their populations. Some 200,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and Gaza, home to two million Palestinians. Under international law, settlements on occupied land are illegal. Settlers say they have a God-given right to live in the biblical Land of Israel. The committee urged Israel to lift its economically crippling “closure” of Palestinian areas and said its army should use “non-lethal responses to unarmed demonstrators”. The Palestinian Authority, the report said, should make clear “through concrete action” that “terrorism is reprehensible and unacceptable and that the PA will make a 100 percent effort to prevent terrorist operations and to punish perpetrators”. The findings fell short of Palestinian expectations by not placing blame for the eruption of the violence on now-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s September 28 visit to a sensitive Jerusalem shrine holy to Muslims and Jews. Israeli troops struck at a Palestinian police post on the edge of a Palestinian-ruled town during overnight fighting in which medical officials said one Palestinian had been killed and at least 10 hurt. Hussein Abu Tammam (55), died in hospital early today after being wounded during heavy Israeli machinegun and tank fire at the West Bank town of Tulkarm, the Palestinian medical officials said. Mr Yisrael Yitzhak, Israeli border police commander in the West Bank, said troops had entered the edge of Tulkarm to strike at a Palestinian security post from which they said they had been shot at. DAMASCUS: Syria renewed its verbal onslaught on Israel today, accusing the Jewish state of a long history of crimes against Palestinians and against sites sacred to Muslims and Christians.
Reuters, AFP |
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13 killed in Lanka clashes Colombo, May 7 Two soldiers were killed and as many injured when militants opened mortar fire and used artillery at Muhamali and Nagarkovil areas yesterday. Rebels ambushed and killed five Special Task Force (STF) commandos in Eastern Ampara on Saturday morning. Two STF personnel were also injured in the incident. Four soldiers were injured as militants opened mortar fire in Omntai while a soldier on a clearing operation was wounded as an anti-personnel mine exploded at Point Pedero in Jaffna yesterday, the statement said. Meanwhile, agitated political activists set fire to shops in north-eastern Sri Lanka, as a key Muslim coalition party warned the government to contain the violence or risk losing its support. A Defence Ministry statement today said party activists torched eight shops owned by Sinhalese in the town of Muttur overnight, but security forces brought the situation under control. Sinhalese are the national majority but they are a minority in the Muttur area of the Trincomalee district where Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims are almost in equal number. The ministry said in the neighbouring district of Batticaloa there had been a protest by members of the Muslim community, who set fire to tyres along the road, blocking traffic. The reports of fresh unrest came as Sri Lanka’s main Muslim party today demanded an independent panel to run the police and warned the government that it might withdraw its support. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a crucial partner in President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance coalition government, said last week’s attacks had been directed against the economy of minority Muslims.
Agencies |
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Rebels kill 69
in Angola raid Luada, May 7 “There were 69 bodies but there could be more than that,” a hospital worker told TPA. The hospital worker said there could be as many as 100 dead, but the toll could not be confirmed. The wounded included two Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) soldiers and five national policemen, an FAA statement reported by the state news agency Angop said. FAA repelled the attack just outside Caxito where rebels tried to destroy a bridge and loot an aid agency’s food stores, Angop said. Jonas Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has been fighting Luanda since Portugal granted independence to its former colony in 1975. The fighting has caused hundreds of thousands of casualties and uprooted about one-third of the population of 12 million. “The situation is calm but life has not returned to normal in Caxito,” church-run Radio Ecclesia said on Monday. It said the wounded were being treated in a Luanda hospital. UNITA’s legal political arm, UNITA-Renewed, denounced the attack, the state newspaper said on Monday. “We blame Jonas Savimbi for the country’s continuing violence and the climate of insecurity in contrast to the intentions of dialogue he recently expressed,” Jornal de Angola reported the party as saying.
Reuters |
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Indo-Russian row on NMD averted Moscow, May 7 Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov’s visit and his talks in the Indian Capital could have been at the centre of an international sensation — to Russia’s disadvantage — owing to the difference of opinion between the two strategic partners on the US President’s proposals, said the Nezavisimaya Gazetta. The paper draws attention to the fact that Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had in an interview with it last summer clearly said the US plan to deploy an NMD system would threaten prospects of nuclear disarmament and weaken the non-proliferation regime. The Indian media discovered “hints of displeasure” on the Indian position in statements made by the visiting minister from Russia, a country with which India has signed a declaration of strategic partnership, the Moscow daily notes. However, the paper says, notwithstanding the fact that Moscow was not aware of the Indian position in advance, the two countries reacted in a very similar manner. The Russian Foreign Minister, in his interview with Nezavisimaya Gazetta, confirmed Moscow’s positive response to the US statement that it had no intention of taking a unilateral decision and intended to hold consultations with Russia, China and India. Washington’s acceptance that a missile defence system is a topic of discussion not only between the USA and Russia, but the international community at large is a “good signal,” said Ivanov. The paper draws attention to the paradox that while open criticism of the US NMD plan has come from Washington’s European allies, Russia and India have reacted rather positively. The episode indicates that reflective anti-Americanism is gradually becoming a thing of the past in Moscow and New Delhi’s policies, it adds. The leaderships of both countries appear inclined to a more flexible reaction toward and minimum confrontation with the USA, it adds. The paper highlights Ivanov’s statement that there is no need for a “correction of Moscow’s ties with India”. It notes that given India’s obvious efforts to forge close ties with the USA to enhance trade, some concession or at least a softening of New Delhi’s attitude toward Washington is only to be expected.
IANS |
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US spy flights off China resumed Washington, May 7 The official, who asked not to be identified, said the first such flight in more than a month was flown by a big, unarmed RC-135 military aircraft in international air space off north-eastern China. It was not escorted by U.S. fighters nor was it intercepted by Chinese planes. Washington had vowed to resume the missions following an April 1 collision between a Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft and a Chinese jet fighter off China’s southeastern coast. The crippled four-engine EP-3E made an emergency landing at a Chinese military base on Hainan Island, where it is still being held by China. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday he hoped the aircraft could be repaired and flown out of China by the U.S. military. “Today’s flight was flown in daylight and was not intercepted,” the defence official told newsmen. “It was flown out of Kadena air base on Okinawa.”
Reuters |
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‘Great Train Robber’ finally ends
run
London, May 7 Sky Television showed the private jet, provided by a London tabloid newspaper, landing at the RAF Northolt base, where the police was waiting to take him into custody. Biggs, partly paralysed and in failing health after at least two strokes, had said he wanted to return to his native Britain to have a beer in a pub before he died. The robbery of a Glasgow-to-London night mail train in 1963 netted £ 2.5 million (some $ 50 million). The driver of the train was clubbed and badly injured in the attack, and never worked again. The Sun newspaper is covering the costs of Biggs’s return in exchange for exclusive interviews. Biggs is unable to speak because of the strokes, but scribbled down his thoughts for Sun reporters. “I want to be free in England again. I have to go back to England,” he said. Before take-off from Rio, Biggs signed a declaration stating that he was leaving of his own free will — the only condition Brazilian police set for his departure from the country he had made his home for 30 years. “I’m coming back in style with my head held high,” said a sobbing Biggs, 71, as he boarded an executive Dassault Falcon 900 jet in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, to end his years on the run. Biggs escaped from prison in Britain in 1965 just over a year into a 30-year sentence. He got away by scaling the wall of London’s Wandsworth prison and making off in a converted furniture van. He used his share of the loot to pay for plastic surgery and papers for a passage to Australia where he returned to his old job of carpenter and decorator. He later fled to Brazil via Panama and Venezuela. The British police, who tried unsuccessfully to extradite the robber from Brazil, say they will arrest Biggs as soon as he arrives. Biggs made it clear he was resigned to his fate. “Got him,” said a banner headline in today’s editions of the tabloid, with a full-page picture of Biggs in his wheelchair, wearing a cowboy hat. Dozens of police officers were on hand when the plane touched town at Northolt air base, west of London, and Biggs was whisked away in a van with blacked-out windows, escorted by half a dozen police cars. Biggs, who was part of the gang that pulled off the 1963 “Great Train Robbery,” was arrested aboard the plane moments after it landed, Scotland Yard said in a statement. He was taken to a police station for a medical examination, and was to appear in court later today on charges of being unlawfully at large.
Reuters |
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Iranian court lifts
ban on newspaper Teheran, May 7 The action comes as a welcome news for President Mohammad Khatami’s reformist camp ahead of the presidential polls on June 8, in which he will stand for re-election. Several new independent dailies have hit Iranian news stands ahead of the election, but there have been no indications that bans on some 30 other publications might be lifted. The bans have been imposed during a year-long hardline crackdown on the reformist press sympathetic to Mr Khatami. IRNA said the appeals court had struck down a four-month prison sentence issued in July against the newspaper Arya’s publisher, Mohammad Reza Zohdi. But the court upheld a two-year ban on Mr Zohdi, preventing him from working in the media, and imposed fines on him. Reformist newspapers were instrumental in major electoral wins by Mr Khatami’s allies last year, before they were closed down. More than 30 newspapers and magazines have since been closed, and many journalists have been imprisoned for allegedly insulting Islamic values or undermining national security. “Nearly a year after the closure of my paper, I still don’t have a clue how to go about press activity to avoid trouble,” IRNA quoted Mr Zohdi as saying.
Reuters |
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Zimbabwe SC to decide Oppn case Harare, May 7 “I am satisfied that after the request... I am obliged to refer to the Supreme Court for its determination,” High Court Judge Moses Chinhengo told the court. He did not give a date for the Supreme Court hearing. Mr Tsvangirai’s lawyers wanted to transfer the case from the High Court to make it an issue of freedom of expression, which is guaranteed under the Constitution. Mr Tsvangirai’s trial is seen as critical to decide whether the former trade unionist, who has emerged as the biggest political threat to Mr Mugabe in his 21 years in power, will be able to run against Mr Mugabe in presidential polls early next year. The state has argued that Mr Tsvangirai contravened the terrorist provisions of the Law and Order Maintenance Act, devised by former Rhodesia’s white minority rulers to suppress Black opposition.
Reuters |
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Altitude sickness
strikes Hillary Wellington, May 7 Sir Edmund, 81, who flew back to New Zealand to recuperate, said today that recurring bouts of altitude sickness won’t stop him from working in the Nepalese mountains he loves. He was hospitalised recently in Kathmandu for five days after becoming ill at “the very low altitude” of 2,440 metres. He was treated for fluid on the lungs before returning to New Zealand. “I’m still lethargic,” he said. “I’m not my normal energetic self by any means, but I am very much improved.”
AP |
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US dotcom bust
hits Indians Washington, May 7 |
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