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Sunday,
May 27, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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UN puts onus on Pakistan Halt Israeli attacks, OIC appeals to USA PM could recover in 6 weeks: Ranawat
Shevardnadze wins
over mutineers USA ‘leans to India’ for countering China |
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Rabuka takes a break from politics Polish bishops to
apologise 7 killed as Muslim rebels, troops clash
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UN puts onus on Pakistan United Nations, May 26 In a report to the Security Council, a group of five experts emphasised the near-impossibility of imposing sanctions on the Taliban without the cooperation of the six countries bordering on Afghanistan. The group was set up by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to recommend how to monitor the arms embargo and the closure of “international terrorist training camps” demanded by the council in a resolution adopted on December 20. The resolution also banned all flights into Taliban-controlled areas, but the experts noted that “no means currently exist for observing and verifying illegal flights”. Afghanistan has a 2,430-km frontier with Pakistan and another of 936 km with Iran, and the experts noted that because of the terrain, planes “flown low by determined and experienced pilots” could escape detection by radar. The experts said the difficulty with insisting on closing terrorist camps was that “many of these are simple, rudimentary affairs that can be rapidly dispersed to other locations.” But, they said, Pakistan had failed to regulate the Islamic religious schools known as madrasas, which are an important source of recruitment for the Taliban. The UN panel has accused the Taliban of financing their war and training terrorists with drug money and said the ruling militia was stockpiling opium and heroin to prevent their prices from plummeting. WASHINGTON: Condemning strongly the Taliban use of “Nazi” tactics in Afghanistan, the US House of Representatives has demanded that the regime revoke its recent decree on Hindus and other non-Muslims forthwith. A resolution, introduced in the House, criticised the reprehensive policy of the Taliban regime to force non-Hindus to wear yellow identity label and called upon Pakistan to use its good offices with the Afghan regime to do away with the practice. It said the decision was reminiscent of the yellow star of David that Jews were forced to wear in Germany and Nazi-occupied areas during World War II. The resolution expressed sympathy for the people of Afghanistan and said the American Government would continue to provide humanitarian assistance to alleviate their suffering. ISLAMABAD: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has defended the imposition of the “dress code’’ for the minorities claiming that the step has been proposed at a request by the Hindus to protect them from any harassment by the police. Talking to newspersons here, Taliban Ambassador in Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said this was not something new. “Infact, this tradition has been in place since the times of Holy Prophet for the safety of minorities,’’ he added. The decree that non-Muslims in the country should wear identity tags, has been fiercely denounced by several countries including the USA, Pakistan and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
AFP, UNI |
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Halt Israeli attacks, OIC appeals to USA Doha, May 26 The Emir of host country Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, in an opening address called on “the American administration and President George W Bush to intervene urgently” to halt the Israeli attacks on Palestinians. Qatar, current chairperson of the Islamic body, convened the one-day talks to “examine the dangerous situation in the Palestinian territories”. Sheikh Hamad urged members to “bring their support to the Intifada to face up to the aggression.” “This meeting is called upon to adopt a unified strategy ... To force Israel to end its expansionist policy,” he said. The USA and Russia, co-sponsors of the West Asia peace process, should shoulder responsibilities, he added. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, seeking stronger international support for the Palestinians, was due to address the forum. However, the meeting began with a divided front after several countries, including Egypt but also Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, announced they would not send foreign ministers to Qatar to protest against the fact that an Israeli trade office was still operating in Doha. Several countries only agreed to attend the meeting on the express request of the Palestinian authority. Yasser Arafat slammed what he called the United Nations’ “total impotence” in the face of mounting deaths in the Palestinian territories, pinning the blame on the USA. “Why is there this total impotence of the Security Council?” asked Arafat at the opening of a ministerial meeting in Doha of the 56-member organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Arafat vowed that the intifada, or uprising against Israel, would continue. “Our people will continue their resistance until the Palestinian flag is hoisted in Jerusalem,” he said. GAZA CITY: Israel maintained a unilateral ceasefire today after two bombers died in a blast that ripped through the northern Israeli town of Hadera. Following the blast yesterday, hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to maintain the ceasefire for “a few more days” to see if the Palestinians reciprocate. “The Palestinians are behind terror activity, and they must order a ceasefire,” Sharon told reporters. In the first attack on Israel since Sharon’s declaration of a ceasefire on Tuesday, a bomb-laden taxi blew up next to a public bus in Hadera, 70 km northwest of Jerusalem. Two babies were among the 12 injured reported by the police, Israeli public radio said. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the blast and said the two dead were members of the movement. Islamic Jihad, opposed to peace with Israel, has been responsible for several bloody attacks on Israeli targets. Late yesterday, at least one member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement was killed when a car also carrying three other Palestinians exploded near the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian security sources said.
AFP |
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PM could recover in 6 weeks: Ranawat New York, May 26 “He is having pain in the right knee, which has been bothering him,”Dr Ranawat, Director of the Center for Total Joint Replacement at Lennox Hospital, New York, said. Mr Vajpayee announced last week that he would undergo a right knee surgery in the first week of June. “It will take him around the same time to resume normal operations as before — around a month to six weeks,” he said. Mr Vajpayee would be conscious during the operation, as before, he added. In October, when Ranawat operated upon Mr Vajpayee’s left knee at Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital, doctors had ruled out immediate surgery for the right, which had moderate arthritis. In the operation, Dr Ranawat was assisted by orthopaedic surgeons Nandu Land, Harish Bhinde and anaesthetiat S. R. Gupta. Dr Ranawat said he was happy with the progress in the knee he operated upon, and was not anticipating any further surgery on it. He would be taking his full team to Mumbai for the operation. He dispelled worries that the Prime Minister’s weight or age could add to the problem. “You can’t make people younger,” Dr Ranawat said, adding that most of the time they were operating upon people past 65 years of age. “He is like any good patient,” he said about Mr Vajpayee. Asked whether the paraphernalia of security guards, pushy colleagues and crowds irritated him, he said, “It takes my time, yes, but doesn’t bother me.” Asked about the criticism from some quarters the last time that the expertise to perform the operation was available in the country and yet the New York-based surgeon was flown in, Dr Ranawat said, happens many times. Yes, the expertise is available within the country.” Asked if he was called because Mr Vajpayee trusted him, he said, “that you ask the PM.”.
IANS |
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US surgeon oldest man to scale Everest Kathmandu, May 26 Mr Sherman Bull, a surgeon from Connecticut, became the oldest person to scale Everest when he reached the summit accompanied by his Nepalese guide Lakpa Sherpa, the Tourism Ministry said. Also reaching the 29,029 feet summit yesterday was another American, Erik Weihenmayer, who became the first blind mountaineer to conquer the world’s highest mountain, the ministry said in a statement. Weihenmayer, a 32-year-old writer from Colorado who had already climbed four of the world’s highest mountains, reached the summit, said his father, Ed Weihenmayer. Ed Weihenmayer told Everestnews.com web site that his son had received a telephone call from US President George W. Bush before setting off for the summit. “Just before the winds increased on Thursday, Erik had a opportunity to talk to the president, who wished him a successful — and safe — climb to the summit. Erik was awed,” Weihenmayer told Everestnews.com. “Can you imagine,” he said, “talking to the President of the United States of America from 26,000 feet high on Everest!” Weihenmayer, who lost his sight to an eye disease as a teenager, was accompanied to the top by a team of Nepalese sherpas and other climbers. His climb was sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind based in Baltimore, Maryland.
AFP |
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Shevardnadze wins over mutineers Mukhrovani, (Georgia), May 26 Claiming months of back pay, new uniforms and decent meals, up to 400 men of a National Guard battalion left their garrison and seized an Interior Ministry base at Mukhrovani, 25 km from Tbilisi. Shevardnadze, (73), who has led his unpredictable trancaucasus country since 1992, yesterday personally went to negotiate the return of the rebels to barracks, scotching rumours that an attempted coup was under way. “The soldiers, officers and generals will return to their garrison,” Shevardnadze, a former Soviet Foreign Minister, who played a key role in 1980s east-west detente, told state television at the end of late night talks with the mutineers. An officer standing nearby said the rebel servicemen had promised to go back on Saturday. Dismissing an earlier statement by a senior official that the walkout by some 300-400 servicemen was tant-amount to an attempted coup dètat, the protest related to their conditions of service. “The state is no less guilty, than they are, in what has happened. In normal conditions this would not have happened,” he said. He promised the soldiers immunity from prosecution and they had agreed to return the base. “For me the most important thing is the word they gave me,” he said. He also mentioned that no concessions had been made to the servicemen, who were reported to be claiming 14 months of back wages, new uniforms and decent meals.
Reuters |
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USA ‘leans to India’ for countering China Washington, May 26 General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, next week will make the highest level US military visit to India since the 1998 underground nuclear tests that set off an overt nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and prompted US sanctions, the official said. India signalled its readiness for a closer security relationship with Washington earlier this month by responding positively to President George Bush’s US missile defence initiative, the official said. “It reflects kind of a diplomatic revolution,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity in an interview yesterday. Never close, the two countries had testy relations during the cold war when non-aligned India looked to the Soviet Union for military supplies and Washington allied with Pakistan to thwart the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Now, prompted by US concerns about China and the belief that sanctions have allowed nuclear instability to fester on the subcontinent, the administration wants to waive the sanctions and substantively upgrade its military relations with India, the official said. Lifting sanctions would allow India to receive military assistance and buy US-made weaponry and military equipment. “People see us and them having a common concern in Chinese power in the Far East,” he said. Some in the administration see India as a strategic partner in the containment of China, he said, while others regard it as a coming power that has interests in common with Washington. “In the abstract you could go down the list of common interests, common threats and you could easily conclude that we and the Indians should be strategic allies cooperating to contain the Chinese threat,” he said. But, he cautioned, “a good part of the Indian establishment probably mistrust us more than they mistrust the Chinese.” The official said it would take at least several months to lift the sanctions but “there is a disposition to get beyond sanctions.” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage informed members of Congress several days ago that the State Department supported a presidential waiver to lift sanctions against India, and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also supports a waiver, the official said. The debate now centres on whether sanctions should be lifted at once or in phases and whether concessions should be required of India, he said. A presidential waiver would not help Pakistan because it is subject to yet another layer of sanctions imposed in response to a 1999 military coup. The official said US military cooperation would likely be aimed initially at building relationships that would be crucial if the USA is to gain influence over the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan. “It’s not a big stretch to spin scenarios that end up in nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan,” he said.
AFP |
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Rabuka takes a break from politics Suva, May 26 Former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who staged two coups in 1987 and whose name has been linked to last year’s May 19 coup when soldiers of a crack unit he created carried out an armed insurrection against Parliament, feels the time is not right for him to contest an election. “I will bide my time. When the time is right I will begin the climb back into national politics,” said the man who for several years after his 1987 coups was hailed as the saviour of the indigenous people. He led his Soqosoqo Vakavulewani Taukei (SVT) party to a crushing defeat in the 1999 general election, but has been unable to find a niche in the new chaotic Fiji. Although several months after the 1987 coups Rabuka handed power over to a civilian government, he remained the real force as the military head. He was largely responsible for the racist 1990 post-coup Constitution that marginalised and alienated the ethnic Indian population (about 50 per cent then) and was rejected by the international community. His popularity with the indigenous community, however, saw him elected Prime Minister in 1992 and 1994.
AFP |
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Polish bishops to
apologise Warsaw, May 26 Polish Catholic leaders say, they hope the apology will be a landmark in reconciliation with Jewish groups who often accuse them of being too tolerant of anti-Semitism.
AP |
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7 killed as Muslim rebels, troops clash Zamboanga (Philippines), May 26 Meanwhile another gang of suspected Muslim rebels robbed a ferry and took four passengers hostage, also in the southern Philippines, a police official said. The gunmen who raided one of the country’s top tourist resorts on Tuesday encountered pursuing troops yesterday, resulting in the death of five raiders and two soldiers, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Danilo Servando said.
AFP |
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