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Sunday,
August 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
Fiji goes to the polls
China tests
N-missile |
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USA doesn’t want to lose Pak: Pentagon
War heroes of undivided
India honoured |
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Taliban tell
Red Cross to
visit aid men Pakistanis seeking Indian visa ‘harassed’ Tripp seeks donations
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Fiji goes to the polls Suva, August 25 Police Deputy Commissioner Moses Driver said he was confident the security measures in place would control any problems which arose, but there were no immediate signs of trouble. The poll to elect a new government comes 15 months after gunmen led by failed businessmen George Speight stormed the country’s Parliament and took its first ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahandra Chaudhary and his Cabinet hostage. Fiji’s current military installed Prime Minister, Mr Laisenia Qarase, said the ballot was “one of the most important elections in the country since independence, in 1970.” “It’s not the last chance (for democracy in Fiji). Democracy is here and it’s alive, and we’ll take it from here,” he said. Long queues of voters waited in line for up to three hours to vote in many parts of the country, with election officials and international observers reporting that as the only serious glitch in the process. Extra staff were rushed to some polling stations to cut the queues, deputy election supervisor Kameli Koto said. No incidents occurred during the first day of voting, “and we expect it to go the same way to the end of polling” on September 1, Mr Driver said. The Fiji military was on full alert as the polling opened, but voting started smoothly under the watch of around 60 foreign observers from the UN, the Commonwealth and other groups. Deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, overthrown in the May 19, 2000, coup, cast a postal vote in the capital for the western seat for which he is standing. Some 451,000 persons are eligible to vote in the election, to produce a 71-seat Parliament, with 23 seats reserved for ethich Fijians, 19 for Indians, three for other ethnic groups, one for Rotuma island and 25 open seat. Among those won’t be able to vote — even though they are candidates in the election — are coup leader George Speight and two of his co-accused, being held on a prison island off Suva awaiting trial for treason. Speight and fellow conspirators, former MP Timoci Silatolu and retired special forces soldier Ilisoni Ligairi were expected to win their seats, but the authorities said they would lose them soon afterwards as they would not be able to leave prison to attend Parliament.
AP, AFP |
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China tests N-missile Washington, August 25 A CSS-2 intermediate-range ballistic missile was fired from a test facility in northern China on Tuesday and tracked by US military satellites to an impact area near the Mongolian border. The missile had a dummy warhead, the ‘Washington Times’ reported. The CSS-2, a liquid-fuel missile with a range of about 1,922 miles, can target Russia and India, according to an Air Force intelligence report produced several years ago, the paper recalled. The launch coincided with the end of four months of large-scale military exercises that included amphibious landing drills near Taiwan, long-range bombing manoeuvres and information warfare exercises by the Chinese military, the paper said quoting US defence officials. While Dongshan island, near Taiwan, has been the scene of most of the exercises, Chinese military forces conducted war games in other coastal locations and inland, officials said. “We have been seeing military operations all along the Chinese coast,” said a US intelligence official, adding that the exercises involved thousands of Chinese troops, ships, tanks, aircraft and missiles. The Chinese are said to have about 40 mobile CSS-2 launchers, the paper said, adding that the CSS-2 is being replaced with a shorter range missile known as CSS-5. “This has been an unprecedented use of military exercises to send a propaganda message to Taiwan,” an official said, adding that Dongshan exercises included a mock invasion of Taiwan with scores of ships and thousands of troops. However, US Assistant Defence Secretary, in charge of Asian affairs, Peter Rodman, said earlier this week, the exercies were not unusual and that he did not see “an imminent threat of a conflict” from the manoeuvres. “They have done exercises on a regular basis. I am sure they learned something from it. You know, they are modernising their forces. They are exercising their forces,” he said. Rodman added the Pentagon is closely watching the war games and “perhaps we can learn something from that exercise too.”
PTI |
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USA doesn’t want to lose Pak: Pentagon Washington, August 25 “Our relationship with Pakistan is valuable to us. And I don’t think this administration is going to lose sight of that,” said Peter Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Affairs, on Tuesday. US-India ties have warmed considerably in recent years, as financial and technological links multiply between the world’s largest democracy and its most powerful economy. But Rodman told reporters that Pakistan had been a US ally over many decades, notably during the Cold War when India leaned closer to the Soviet Union than the USA. In recent months though, US-Pakistan ties had been strained amid some disquiet in quarters of the administration over Islamabad’s relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and Gen Pervez Musharraf’s overthrow of democracy, he said. “Our relationship with India is different, but Pakistan has been an ally over many decades,” said Rodman. “I don’t think we, as a great power, should be dispensing with allies when, you know, we think conditions have changed.
AFP |
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2
Palestinians, 3 Israeli
troops killed Khan Yunis, (Gaza Strip), August 25 Seven Israeli soldiers were hurt in the fierce gunbattle at the Marganit military base, the Israeli military said. Palestinian militants opened fire on the base with automatic rifles and hand grenades, the army said. The dead Israelis included a Major, the army statement said. Both Palestinian attackers were killed, the army added. |
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War heroes of undivided
India honoured Berlin, August 25 Indians of different walks of life responded the invitation of the Military Attache of the Indian Embassy, Brigadier Harwant Krishan, to honour the 50 soldiers of undivided India whose graves are at the Berlin War Cemetry. In all there are 3,580 graves of foreign soldiers at the cemetry. They include 2,680 British, 527 Canadians, 223 Australians, 56 from New Zealand, 31 South Africans, 50 Indians (27 Muslims and 23 Hindus), five Polish and eight unknown soldiers. Among Indian soldiers there are graves of several young boys who were 17 years old, such as Manohar Lal of Indian Army Medical Corps (MC Training Centre, Lucknow) who died on February 15, 1942, as well as of Sepoy Mohammad Roshan and Sardar Khan who died or were killed on December 16, 1944. Members of the Indian community laid flowers and Agarbattis at the graves of the 50 Indian soldiers and paid respects to them. Speaking on the occasion, Brigadier Harwant Krishan said, “A cemetry like this is a kind of reminder of the human losses that has occurred in a war. It reminds us to keep peace as long as feasible. For soldiers, especially people like us, who are in service, it is a lot of nice feeling. This may be a small gesture, but for us it is very big, that people find time every year to remember those who have lost their lives in the battle field. And it happens here every year.” Explaining about these soldiers, he said they were not fighting the battle for Berlin. They were in various parts of Germany and would have lost their lives close to Berlin. He appreciated the decision of the Indian community in Berlin to honour these soldiers every year on the Sunday following India’s Independence Day. According to Brigadier Krishan, the number of Indian troops that participated in the western theatre in the second world war was 2,80,000. Out of these 2,10,000 had returned home safely. The remaining 8,000 were known dead and 69,000 missing. They could have returned some time later. Many may have been prisoners of war for certain periods. But pretty large numbers would have lost their lives. |
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Taliban tell
Red Cross to visit aid men Kabul, August 25 “The Red Cross spoke to me this morning and I told them you can visit them anytime,” Mr Muttawakil told AP in a telephone interview from southern Kandahar, the headquarters of the Islamic militia. Red Cross officials in Kabul were not immediately available for comment. Despite earlier Taliban statements saying that the Red Cross would be allowed to visit the detained workers, it wasn’t until today that Mr Muttawakil said he spoke to Red Cross officials in Kabul, giving them the go-ahead. The eight foreign aid workers of Shelter Now International were arrested nearly three weeks ago along with 16 Afghan staff of the organisation. They have not been seen since their arrests.
AP |
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Pakistanis seeking Indian visa ‘harassed’ Islamabad, August 25 In a strongly worded aide memoir sent to the Foreign Office here, the High Commission said that visa seekers were being subjected to personal searches and rigorous questioning by groups of persons in plain clothes, who at times resorted to beating up the visa seekers and taking them away in vehicles. Aggressive body searches and questioning are also undertaken by uniformed police personnel as well as personnel of the Frontier Constabulary, it said. This multi-tiered system of harassment of visa applicants has been resulting in delays in the processing of visas in the High Commission, it said, adding that applicants were not permitted to approach the visa counters for several hours. Over 350 to 500 persons turns up at the High Commission every day to apply for visas. Commission officials believe that the harassment has increased after India announced liberalisation of the visa regime as a part of confidence-building measure before the Agra Summit. The complaint said Pakistani visa seekers, who mostly come from far-off places, were being harassed due to the deliberate actions of locally based intelligence and security functionaries outside the mission premises, it said.
PTI |
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Tripp seeks donations New York, August 25 In a letter, seeking financial assistance from her Republican supporters, she says she can no longer pay her rent, buy food or support her family. She also appealed to her supporters to sign a letter to President George Bush asking him to find a meaningful position in his administration for her. Tripp was fired from her Pentagon job a day before Bush took office. Tripp says that she’s sinking under a mountain of debt, including more than $ 2 million in legal bills.
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