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| Thursday, August 2, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Hamas out
to avenge missile strike
US concern
over Pak support to J&K ultras Friendly
Indo-Russian ties disappearing: CIA |
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Bus
stormed, one hijacker shot dead Ex-US
Presidents suggest poll reforms ‘First
proof of life’ beyond earth Lankan
troops kill 4 LTTE men Star’s
plea to India on animal cruelty Work stopped on Nepal’s
plea
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Hamas out
to avenge missile
strike Nablus (West Bank), August 1 Still slightly bloodied, the faces of brothers Bilal and Ashraf Khalil, peeked out from Palestinian flags that served as their death shrouds. Witnesses said the boys had happened to be nearby at the time of the attack. Tens of thousands of mourners, shouting “revenge, revenge” and “death to Israel” marched in a funeral procession for the boys and the six other dead from yesterday’s attack in the Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus in the West Bank. Some of the mourners fired shots in the air amid cries for a Jihad, or holy struggle, against the Jewish state. The bodies of the men, including two top political leaders of Hamas, a militant Muslim group responsible for deadly bombings in Israel, were wrapped in green religious banners and carried aloft on stretchers. “Our children are dying under the shoes of the Israeli soldiers and (arab leaders) are sleeping in their chairs,” one mourner lamented. Earlier, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin also promised a response to the deadly Israeli operations. “Istael has crossed all red lines. I leave it to the Qussam brigade to react,” Yassin said, adding that the Israelis must realise that they would pay heavily. Amid warnings of unprecedented attacks, Israeli security forces are placed on a high state of alert throughout the country. Several hundred policemen and soldiers have been deployed in crowded areas in Jerusalem and patrols have been beefed up along the Green Line to prevent atackers from entering
Isreal. Meanwhile, Three Palestinians found guilty of collaborating with Israel were sentenced to death on Tuesday by the Palestinian state security court in the West Bank town of Nablus, official Palestinian sources said. A younger Palestinian was handed a lighter 15-year prison term, the sources added. The four were arrested after the December 31 assassination of Thabet Thabet, a doctor who was head of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction in Tulkarem .Jerusalem: An explosion today ripped through the parking lot of one of west Jerusalem’s top hotels, a police spokesman said, adding that the blast did not cause any casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called a meeting of the Cabinet to discuss escalation in the fighting with the Palestinians following yesterday’s killings. A statement from Mr Sharon’s office said, “Israeli defence forces struck at a senior group of Hamas members, which had made attacks in the past, and were engaged in other terror activities.” It, however, regretted the death of children by Israelis. Meanwhile, the USA has condemned Israel in the strongest terms for the killings in Nablus and described the attack as “excessive,” “highly provocative,” and a type of escalation that will lead to “disaster.” State Department spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington that Israel’s attack was a violation of a US-brokered ceasefire, which failed to take hold since it was agreed to by Israelis and Palestinians in June. Meanwhile, a defiant Israel today defended the missile strike. US President George W. Bush spoke to King Abdullah of Jordan on telephone and told reporters that the USA urged the parties to reduce the violence. MOSCOW:
Russia on Wednesday condemned the latest upsurge in violence in West Asia saying it would send an envoy to the region after Israeli forces killed eight people in a missile attack. “It is absolutely clear that violence breeds new violence and a disproportionate use of force only increases mutual hostility,” a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Russia is formally a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process alongside the USA. Russia’s Middle East envoy Andrei Vdovin was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying he would set off on a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Thursday.
AFP, Reuters, PTI |
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US concern over Pak support to J&K ultras Islamabad, August 1 Ms
Rocca, who had wide ranging discussions with President Pervez Musharraf yesterday, told him that the Bush administration wanted to follow an independent policy towards India and Pakistan but made it clear that this was not aimed at isolating Islamabad. She said India figured high in the US priority list in the post cold war scenario and the USA did not want to see any country in the subcontinet through the prism of another country, according to diplomatic sources here. Ms
Rocca, who also had talks with Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and other senior officials, informed them the USA decision to link lifting of sanctions to the restoration of democracy, the sources said Ms Rocca sought Pakistan’s support to control militant groups operating in Kashmir. She asked Gen Musharraf to use Pakistan’s influence on the Taliban militia in Afghanistan to hand over international terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to stand trial The Agra summit also figured in talks between Ms Rocca and Gen Musharraf with the Pakistan President reiterating his commitment to resolve all outstanding bilateral issues including Kashmir, through negotiations. During the meeting, Gen Musharraf reiterated his plans to hold elections before the October, 2002, deadline fixed by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. He, however, did not provide any detailed road map for the democratic process, they said. Meanwhile, Ms Rocca today visited a number of Afghan refugee camps in north-west frontier town of Peshawar. Ms Rocca is scheduled to hold talks with Taliban Ambassador, Mulla Abdul Saleem Zaeef, here as part of the US engagement of the Afghan regime to hand over Bin Laden.
PTI |
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Friendly Indo-Russian ties disappearing: CIA Washington, August 1 “During the Cold War period, India was largely viewed by outsiders as the junior partner... the relationship is no longer one of equals, that India is pre-eminent because it is rising while Russia is declining,” the report released said today. “India still trusts Russia, a sentiment that is perhaps a residue of the genuine friendship of Cold War days, but clearly not in the same way it once did,” it says. “India is seen as exploring new strategic relationships with the west, especially the US, whereas Russia is seeking a form of accommodation with Pakistan,” Enders Wimbush of Strategic Assessment Centre, Science Applications International Corporation, said. India worries that its advantage is fleeting because Russia is selling sophisticated military equipment and associated technologies to India’s principal enemy, China. According to Wimbush, “While Russia is there for India, it is now also there for India’s enemies also.” “Russia’s repeated offers to create a ‘strategic alliance’ among Russia, India and China are transparent to Indians, who say privately that the only reason Russia proposes such things is not because it is strong but because it is so weak,” he said. According to a number of Indian strategists, India’s decision to become a nuclear power in 1998 was based on Russia’s weakness, the report states. “Russian weakness in Central Asia compounds India’s immediate and long-term problems there. The chaos in Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia over which Russia might once have exerted a strong restraining influence is now free to spread,” Wimbush said. “Most Indians believe correctly, it will spread southward, infecting Pakistan and eventually, possibly India’s large northern Islamic population,” he said.
PTI |
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Bus stormed, one hijacker shot dead Mineralnye Vody (Russia), August 1 Pyotr Kondratov, head of the regional FSB domestic security service, told reporters at the site that a hijacker had been killed and that FSB officials were now debriefing exhausted hostages on the bus after their 13-hour ordeal. The hijackers had demanded the release of Chechens serving prison terms for a similar hijack in 1994. “All concessions that we appeared to be making during the negotiations were just a diversionary trick. The main task was to render him (the gunman) harmless,’’ Kondratov said. RIA news agency quoted local security officials as saying that one hijacker was killed and another wounded and seized. A Reuters photographer at the scene said he heard what sounded like a stun grenade go off just before commandos stormed aboard the red commuter bus, which was surrounded by snipers. The bus, standing at Mineralnye Vody airport, was shrouded in smoke as the commandos rushed towards it. The lightning operation took around 30 seconds. Alisher Khodzhayev, a deputy aide to the regional presidential representative, said commandos had thrown stun grenades to distract the gunmen and a hijacker was shot dead by a sniper. “Nothing happened to the hostages. The windows (of the bus) were broken and some hostages were injured by glass...But they were so happy they did not notice their wounds,’’ he told ORT public television. The bus was raided after hours of tense negotiations between the hijackers and security officials. The bus was seized today near the town of Nevinnomyssk, 1,500 km south of Moscow, with 41 passengers aboard and taken to Mineralnye Vody airport. Earlier Itar-Tass news agency, quoting security sources, identified one hijacker as Sultan-Said Idiyev, an ethnic Chechen born in 1967. A spokesman for the FSB had said the gunmen were demanding the release of four men convicted of hostage-taking in May, 1994, who tried to flee to rebel Chechnya in a helicopter with several captives and a $10 million ransom.
Reuters |
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Ex-US Presidents suggest poll reforms Washington, August 1 Some critics are still of the view that Mr Bush is President because he was “selected” by the Conservative-dominated US Supreme Court and not by the voters. The two former Presidents have suggested, among other things, that voters challenged by poll workers should be allowed to cast provisional ballots, whose validity would be determined later. News organisations should be asked to refrain from calling presidential elections until 11 pm (Eastern Standard Time). If news organisations refuse to comply, the report wants Congress to force them to do so through legislation. The bipartisan commission has asked the federal government to provide financial assistance to the state governments to the tune of $ 1-2 billion over two to three years so that they can upgrade their poll processes. It has urged that the election day be declared a holiday.
PTI |
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‘First proof of life’ beyond earth London, August 1 Although the bugs from space are similar to bacteria on Earth, the scientists said yesterday that the living cells found in samples of air from the edge of the planet’s atmosphere are too far away to have come from Earth. “There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high 41 km well above the local tropopause (16 km up), above which no air from lower down would normally be transported,’’ Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astronomer at Cardiff University in Wales, said in a statement. He presented the findings to a meeting of the International Society of Optical Engineering in San Diego, California. Professor Wickramasinghe and scientists from India collected the space bugs from samples of stratospheric air using the Indian Space Research Organisation’s cryogenic sampler payload flown on balloons from a launch pad in Hyderabad. Using a fluorescent dye the scientists detected living cells in the sample and estimated by the way their distribution varied with height that they were falling from space. Prof David Lloyd, a microbiologist at Cardiff University who examined the space bugs and co-authored the report, said these look like common terrestrial bacteria but there was no explanation of how they could have risen so high.
Reuters |
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Lankan troops kill 4 LTTE men Colombo, August 1 Troops activated a claymore mine when they came under LTTE attack at Muhamalai in the Jaffna peninsula yesterday, killing four LTTE men and injuring three, a military statement said. In the east, a police team came under attack by the LTTE near Welikanda. Five home guards protecting the farmers at Nagastenna were killed in the incident. Reinforcements were rushed in to clear the place, it said. Meanwhile, the LTTE’s pistol group continued to be active, killing a police constable in the heart of Mannar town in the island’s north-west yesterday, the statement said.
PTI |
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Star’s plea
to India on animal cruelty New York, August 1 In a letter sent to all lawmakers, he said proposed amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act, passed four decades ago, would help “restore the world’s” confidence in India’s compassion for animals. The letter, released by the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, said “Video documentation of this cruelty in Gandhi’s homeland has shocked the world”.
PTI |
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Work stopped on Nepal’s plea Kathmandu, August 1 An Indian Embassy official told Reuters that the Uttar Pradesh Government had stopped construction on the Rassiyal Khurdaloutan embankment following complaints from Nepal. Opposition deputies in the Nepali Parliament had said the embankment — to control flood waters of the Danda and Danab rivers that flow from Nepal into India — would submerge several villages in Nepal. Reuters
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