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Monday,
May 28, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Car bombs rock Jerusalem Colombo, May 27 Sri Lanka’s rejection of the LTTE’s call for the suspension of its proscription is a clear insult to Norwegian facilitator Erik Solheim and also an ample proof that the government was not sincere in its peace effort, a Tamil party leader said. US Congress okays big tax cut Racial riot erupts in English town |
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| Koizumi now a poster pin-up Tokyo, May 27 As if being the poster boy for reform in Japan wasn’t enough, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is increasingly adorning the walls of Japan as a genuine pin-up. Posters featuring the tousle-maned Premier — now enjoying some of the highest support ratings in history — are being snapped up faster than they can be supplied at the headquarters of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Strike paralyses life in Nepal Karachi, May 27 There are 32.25 million Pakistani women who never visited a school or any other educational institution due to poverty and backwardness. According to a survey 59 per cent of the total population of Pakistan (80 million) are totally illiterate while the ratio of poverty among them is 74.7 per cent. The ratio for the same among matriculates is 13.2 per cent. Judiciary allows Khatami rally
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Car bombs rock Jerusalem Jerusalem, May 27 The bombs blew up 200 metres apart — one around midnight in a pub district packed with young Israelis and the other at 11.30 IST off a main shopping street on the eve of the Jewish Shavuot (tabernacles) festival. In the second blast — responsibility claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group - ambulance workers and the police said two persons were slightly wounded. More than 20 were treated for shock. No one was hurt in the first car bomb. The police said the second bomb was made from mortar shells and packed with nails. Some of the mortars were thrown hundreds of metres by the force of the blast, it said. “I was selling bagels when all of a sudden I heard two strong explosions and four small ones. People started running,’’ said a man who works at a coffee shop. The blasts dealt a severe blow to a bid by the USA, the traditional broker in the Middle East peacemaking, to coax Israelis and Palestinians to halt eight months of bloodshed and return to the peace table. Mr William Burns, the new US envoy for the Middle East, was due to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat hours later in the West Bank city of Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. A spokesman for the Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said Israel’s five-day-old call for a ceasefire remained intact but he said the Arafat and the Palestinian authority were to blame for the rise in car bombings. “At this stage the ceasefire is still in effect but of course our patience is running short with the continuation, the escalation in car bomb attacks which are all attributed to the Palestinian authority,’’ he said. Mr Sharon was due to meet senior Cabinet ministers later today to discuss the latest attacks, Israel Radio reported. Palestinians have dismissed Mr Sharon’s call as a public relations gimmick. They insist Israel’s policy of jewish settlement in occupied lands and use of military force to quell a Palestinian uprising are to blame for the unceasing unrest. At least 448 Palestinians, 87 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in the Palestinian revolt against Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza, lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war. The revolt erupted last September after peace talks stalled. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the latest attack in a fax to Reuters in Beirut. A second fax sent claimed responsibility for the midnight blast in the name of the Popular Army Front Return Battalions. The attacks were a harsh blow to the city, still reeling from the death of at least 23 persons after a banquet hall collapsed in the country’s worst civil disaster. It also came hard on the heels of Palestinian suicide attacks on Friday. More than 60 Israelis were wounded when two suicide bombers rammed their car into a bus in the central Israeli town of Hadera. DOHA: Muslim countries agreed to stop political contacts with Israel until it ends deadly clashes with the Palestinians and heeds UN resolutions on settling the Middle East conflict. Winding up an emergency one-day meeting on Saturday, the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said it had decided to “halt all political contacts with the Israeli Government so long as the aggression and blockade against the Palestinian people and its national authority continue and as long as Israel refuses to implement (related) UN resolutions’’. Foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League called at a meeting in Cairo last week for a freeze on relations with Israel but stopped short of demanding a full break in ties. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had appealed to the OIC gathering for strong support for the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In response, the OIC - representing 1.2 billion Muslims around the world — agreed on urgent financial aid without specifying any figures. A 25-point OIC statement, issued at the close of the meeting in Qatar, also prescribed a halt in normalising ties with Israel and closure of its missions and offices in member states. “(We) call on member states which have established, and which had started to take steps to establish, relations with Israel within the context of the peace process to break these relations and to close down any missions or offices,’’ it said. Some OIC states, including non-Arab Turkey, which has close military ties with Israel, and several African members with diplomatic relations had voiced reservation about breaking political contacts with the Jewish state.
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Lanka ‘not sincere’ in peace effort: TULF Colombo, May 27 “If it (the government) can’t trust the Tigers, it should have at least trusted Mr Solheim,” said Mr V. Anandasangari, Senior Vice-President of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), which has been urging the government to lift the ban on the LTTE and enter peace talks with the group. The government in a statement yesterday made it clear that the ban on the LTTE would not be lifted and declared such a move could only be “an outcome of the negotiations process”. Mr Anandasangari blamed the government for not initiating the peace talks when the LTTE observed the ceasefire. The government said the LTTE’s demand for the removal of the proscription prior to the commencement of negotiations was unreasonable and intended to delay and, if possible, prevent the commencement of the talks. EPDP leader and minister Douglas Devananda blamed the Tigers for dragging the peace process by putting hurdles in the peace process. The people of Jaffna have virtually rejected the LTTE. Another EPDP leader and Jaffna district parliamentarian S Sivathasan said the LTTE had no moral right to demand an end to a ban on them. “The LTTE has banned almost all Tamil political parties in the North and the East, and they have killed prominent politicians of various Tamil parties. We are for a negotiated settlement, but on the other hand, we feel that no room should be given for the LTTE to make such a unreasonable demand like lifting of the ban on them,” Mr Sivathadasan said. Meanwhile two Tamil Tiger rebels were killed when a landmine they were setting up exploded prematurely in northeastern Sri Lanka, said officials, who added that nine more guerrillas and a constable were killed elsewhere. The two members of the LTTE perished when the mine they were setting up exploded just outside the Trincomalee town last night. On Wednesday, a navy bus was caught in a rebel mine attack that killed 14 sailors and wounded over 35. Officials said in other fighting overnight, eight members of the LTTE were killed in two clashes with the security forces in Jaffna while another was killed at Welioya in the north. UNI/AFP
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US Congress okays big tax cut Washington, May 27 In a rare weekend session yesterday, the biggest tax cut in two decades was approved by a vote of 240-154 in the House of Representatives and by 58-43 in the Senate. The compromise package will give households a refund of up to $ 600 this year, reduce most income tax rates across the board by three percentage points starting from July 1, and create a new 10 per cent bracket. “Tax relief was the right thing to do, and it is the responsible thing to do for the American people and for our economy,” Mr Bush said at the White House, interrupting his long holiday weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland to applaud the Bill’s passage by the Congress. The President, who said he would sign the Bill into law next week, made a point of praising both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for their bipartisan cooperation in passing the measure. But Mr Bush’s prize came at an enormous cost, as Vermont Senator James Jeffords, who fought the White House’s original $1.6 trillion tax cut push, announced on Thursday that he would leave the Republican Party to become an independent. That would tip the balance of power to Democrats in the evenly divided Senate and make it far more difficult for the Bush to achieve other legislative priorities. Capping a tumultuous week on Capitol Hill, the Senate passed the measure, with help from 12 Democrats, while two Republicans - Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island — voted against it. In the Republican-led House the vote came after staff and some lawmakers worked through the night to assemble paperwork for the final deal struck late on Friday by the House and Senate negotiators. The House was called back into session after some lawmakers took naps on their office couches. In a move that Mr Bush said would give the US Economy “an important boost,’’ the Bill calls for the government to send out some 95 million refund checks to taxpayers this year, mainly in August and September. Single taxpayers would receive a lump sum refund of up to $ 300, single parents up to $500 and married couples up to $ 600.
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Racial riot erupts in English town London, May 27 Trouble started yesterday night when fighting broke out between rival white and Asian groups in Oldham, near Manchester, a spokeswoman for the Greater Manchester police said. “It is a very serious situation,” she said. “What we had early this evening were small groups of 30 or 40 fighting. From that we now have 500 persons throwing petrol bombs, setting cars on fire and fighting.” Oldham has a large ethnic minority population and has been a hotbed of racial tension recently, with media reports that parts of the town had been turned into no-go areas for whites. The riot police and officers from around Greater Manchester were being drafted in to quell the fighting. The spokeswoman said some police officers had received minor injuries. Oldham hit the headlines in Britain earlier this year when national newspapers printed pictures of the battered face of a 76-year-old white man who said he had been attacked by a gang of Asian youths. A 15-year-old Asian boy was later charged with racially-motivated assault. The situation in Oldham had become so tense that earlier this month Home Secretary Jack Straw issued an order outlawing any political marches.
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Koizumi now a poster pin-up Tokyo, May 27 Posters featuring the tousle-maned Premier — now enjoying some of the highest support ratings in history — are being snapped up faster than they can be supplied at the headquarters of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). “We’ve been forced to place new orders for posters almost everyday,’’ an LDP spokesman said. In contrast to typical political posters, which often feature a staid photo of a politician that resembles a police mug shot, the new offering shows Mr Koizumi’s face gazing dreamily into the distance. Framed by his trademark mane of long, tousled hair, the new Prime Minister appears idealistic and resolute. “Lend your strength to Mr Koizumi’s challenge,’’ the poster exhorts, referring to his promises of political and economic reform. “Let’s change the LDP.’’ Astonished party officials say that aside from bulk mailings to local chapters, more than 15,000 posters have been bought by ordinary people since Monday, when they first went on sale at the party headquarters. “We usually make these posters just for promoting the party, to put up in neighbourhoods and things like that,’’ the spokesman said. The posters are a bargain at $ 0.41, way less than a cup of coffee in Tokyo. This is only one-fourth of production costs, but party officials are more than happy to bear the burden in return for the publicity they gain ahead of the crucial July elections for the Upper House of Parliament. Although 65,000 posters were originally ordered, the demand has been so high that the party has been forced to place orders for more almost everyday. Some 230,000 have now been printed. The demand is also high from local chapters whose politicians are eager to ride to victory on Mr Koizumi’s coat-tails. A small line had formed at a corner of the souvenir shop at the LDP headquarters on Friday as harried shop attendants rushed to deal with customers. Tsumeko Nagasawa, 58, a self-confessed Koizumi fan, bought six for her relatives and friends.
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Strike paralyses life in Nepal Kathmandu, May 27 The groups are jointly demanding Koirala’s resignation over “irregularities” in a deal by Royal Nepal Airlines Corp to lease a Boeing-767 aircraft from Austria’s Lauda Air. Pradeep Nepal, a member of the Communist Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party, the biggest of the six groups, said: “The PM must resign because of his role in finalising the Lauda Air deal”. Employees walked to work as public transport and taxis went off the streets for fear of being stoned by activists enforcing the strike. However, there were no immediate reports of violence, police said. Meanwhile, reacting to the strike, business groups said the shutdown would cripple the economy and hurt tourism, which is the mainstay of the nation’s economy. An independent Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority last week charged a former civil aviation minister, seven officials of the state airline and two foreigners with corruption related to the deal signed late last year. The anti-corruption panel also sought the recovery of 389.7 million Nepali rupees, which it said was the amount lost by the airline because of the controversial deal. Though the panel did not name Koirala, it warned him against protecting corrupt officials in future. On the other hand, Koirala has vowed to step down only if “formally” charged by the anti-corruption panel.
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32 m Pak women illiterate Karachi, May 27 According to a survey 59 per cent of the total population of Pakistan (80 million) are totally illiterate while the ratio of poverty among them is 74.7 per cent. The ratio for the same among matriculates is 13.2 per cent. The survey report says the ratio of poverty among people having FA certificates is 7.9 per cent, among graduates 6 per cent and Master degree holders 1 per cent, among MBBS and BE degree holders 0.4 per cent. It adds that 2.2 million children are forced to leave schools in the very beginning every year due to unfavorable economic conditions. It says 30 million children are in dire need of facilities for their basic or primary education. Pakistan spends only 2 per cent of GDP on education while Iran, Turkey and Malaysia spend 20 per cent, Nepal and Sri Lanka 10 per cent and Bangladesh 17 per cent, America 5.6 per cent, Japan 3.6 per cent, Germany 4.8 per cent and France 6.1 per cent. Pakistan produces 54 scientists out of one million population annually while America produces 40,000, Japan 63,090, Germany 28,430 and France 25,840.
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Judiciary allows Khatami rally Teheran, May 27 Iran’s official IRNA news agency said late yesterday that the judiciary had ordered the police to stop the event, which was due to take place tomorrow in Teheran’s Shiroudi stadium. But a close aide of the President said the ruling had been reversed. “The meeting will be held at the same time and the same place. The ban has been removed,” the head of Khatami’s office, Mr Mohammad Ali Abtahi, told Reuters. Khatami’s camp says tomorrow’s gathering will be the only mass rally to be held by the President. The judiciary had said the ban was issued because candidates were not allowed to use government property to campaign. But, Mr Abtahi said the stadium had been rented by Mr Khatami for the rally and another candidate had already used it. Mr Khatami, facing nine mostly conservative candidates, is a clear favourite to win the June 8 poll, but is seeking a large majority to try to overcome conservative resistance to his reforms. The mid-ranking Shi’ite Muslim cleric has stuck to the same slogans that saw him swept to office in 1997 — spirituality, justice, freedom — hoping that will be enough to persuade the electorate.
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