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Saturday,
September 8, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Qarase’s party close to majority
Deal to end whites’
farm occupation reached Pervez suspects plot to overthrow govt
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A troika to fight terrorism
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Qarase’s party close to majority Suva, September 7 Qarase, who has said he is ready to form a new coalition government and is holding talks with independents and minor parties won 31 seats in the 71-seat Parliament. A confident Qarase, however, asserted that his party, Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL), had the support of the two Independents in the House, taking him closer to a majority. The staggered elections resulted in a hung Parliament after the final results came in Thursday. The key to the balance of power is held by the Conservative Alliance Matanitu Vanua (CAMV) party that fielded George Speight, who last year ousted Chaudhry sparking a major crisis. It has won six seats. including one by Speight. Talks between Qarase and the CAMV are, however, deadlocked because of the latter’s insistence that the new government pardon Speight and give it the post of one of the Deputy Prime Ministers. Despite the setback, Qarase is confident of forming the government early next week. Deposed ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, who was toppled by Speight in the name of indigenous rights in 2000, won 27 seats. But Chaudhry is not conceding defeat and hasn’t given up hope of leading the government. He is also talking to CAMV but he said the latter had made no demand to pardon those involved in last year’s coup. On the possibility of going back to the Opposition benches, Chaudhry said: “I have been an Opposition leader for a couple of years and have done a good job of it, so I would not mind doing it again.” Some commentators have said this is an excellent opportunity for Qarase and Chaudhry to work together, but Qarase has refused to talk to the
ethnic Indian leader. “He will make an excellent opposition in Parliament,” Qarase quipped. In a bizarre twist Chaudhry, who has claimed widespread vote rigging, said on Friday he would meet coup leader Speight’s party to discuss a possible union. “They have asked to see me and I will see them and see what they want,” Chaudhry said. Meanwhile, Commonwealth observers have said they were satisfied with the way the elections were conducted and described the outcome as fair and representative of the people’s wishes. A statement from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) said the formation of a new elected government in accordance with the constitution would mean that democracy had been restored in the island
nation. Reuters, IANS |
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Deal to end whites’ farm occupation reached Abuja, September 7 Officials at the conference called the deal, brokered by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, “a breakthrough, a total breakthrough” after more than 18 months of upheaval and unrest which had threatened what Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido called “another African war”. Mr Lamido told reporters Nigeria was delighted by the outcome. According to a copy of the agreement read out to AFP, Zimbabwe agreed to move settlers off illegally occupied land, something Mr Mugabe has so far steadfastly refused to do. In return, Britain and other countries agreed to accelerate the processing of a UN-administered fund to help compensate those white farmers who will give up their land, easing the way for the government to legally purchase land. A conference source told newsmen that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, heading a powerful government delegation, voiced his country’s willingness to put money into a fund administered by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) to compensate white farmers for the seized land. Zimbabwe also agreed to an “acceleration of discussions with the UNDP to reach agreement as quickly as possible”. The Zimbabwean Foreign Ministry issued a commitment to invite the Commonwealth ministerial committee. The
communiqué said the meeting agreed that the way forward was for Zimbabwe’s international partners “to engage constructively with the UNDP and the government of Zimbabwe in pursuing an effective and sustainable land reform programme on the basis of the UNDP proposal of December 2000”. The
communiqué also asked the international community to “respond positively to any request from Zimbabwe in support of the electoral process”. Britain has stressed that any resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis should include broader issues of democracy, human rights and press freedoms. Host Nigeria, a powerful voice in Africa, set the tone for candid discussion of Zimbabwe with a rare public rebuke of President Robert Mugabe’s government for its handling of the land crisis. “Government must not give the impression that it, directly or indirectly, acquiesces in forcible land takeovers,” Lamido said in his opening address. Mugabe’s government has identified about 5,000 white-owned farms for acquisition, two-thirds of the 12 million hectares (30 million acres) the government says is held by whites. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said international pressure had to be kept on
Mugabe to ensure it was honoured. “We welcome it as a major step, but the real test will be on the ground, on whether Mugabe and his government will implement it, “MDC leader Morgain Tsvangiral said. Tsvangirai, who poses a serious threat to Mugabe in presidential elections that are due before next April, cautioned that the Mugabe Government often agreed to change its behaviour, “but in practice continued to behave like a rogue”.
AFP, Reuters |
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Pervez suspects plot to overthrow govt Islamabad, September 7 General Musharraf has castigated the country’s intelligence agencies, including the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), twice in the past three weeks while presiding over law and order meetings, the daily The News reported today. The military ruler did not mince words in telling the heads of the agencies that he was utterly dissatisfied with their performance, it said. “The continuing cases of terrorism, particularly those targeting the larger cities, represent a wider conspiracy to destabilise the Musharraf government,” the daily quoted a member of General Musharraf’s Cabinet as saying. “We in the government are not impressed with the performance of any of our intelligence agencies, at least not so far,” he said. There was a growing sense in some senior members of the military government that recurrences of terrorist incidents, that inevitably made international media headlines, represented a wider conspiracy against the present government, the paper said. The criticism about the abject failure of the intelligence agencies followed a manifold increase in violence stemming from growing sectarian divisions between the extremist outfits of the Sunni and Shia sects followed by an unprecedented increase in terrorist activities. For instance, the paper said, the ISI headed by Lt-Gen Mahmoud Ahmed who was currently in the USA interacting with American officials on internal and regional security issues, including terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden who took refuge in Afghanistan. It said the ISI monitored the internal and political situation of the country through a Major-General, who operated through a Brigadier in each province. Each of the brigadiers had the services of at least 1,000 to 2,000 active military service personnel, besides scores of civilian informers in every province.
PTI |
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Mangrove
forests become shrimp farms In the Chandpai range of the Bangladesh Sundarbans, there are shrimp farms just opposite the forest. They are tended by several people living in small huts and settlements, who often venture inside the forest to collect produce. Such activities, along with other intrusions, threaten the survival of these rich mangrove ecosystems. Bangladesh’s natural mangroves cover the Sundarbans, the Chokoria Sundarbans and some small patches along the river Naf of Cox’s Bazar district along with the smallest patch on St. Martin Island. Mangroves have been defined as “salt-tolerant forest ecosystems of tropical and sub-tropical inter-tidal regions of the world.” Estimates reveal that the global mangrove coverage is not large, being over 180,000 km and has been declining. The Sundarbans is the largest natural continuous mangrove forest in the world, covering 6017 km. Nearly 62 per cent of the Sundarbans is located in Bangladesh’s Khulna district, while the rest — 38 per cent — is in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. The Chokoria Sundarbans, an abundant mangrove forest that once spanned nearly 21,000 acres of land in the Cox’s Bazar district has disappeared. Today, shrimp farms have practically replaced the forest, considered one of the oldest mangrove areas in the sub-continent. The Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD) made a documentary film on the Chokoria Sundarbans entitled ‘A Forest without Trees ‘. Philip Gain, its Director remarks: “ The Asian Development Bank and the World Bank funded shrimp cultivation in the 1980s within the forest area and many trees were cut. By the time the ADB project was completed in 1986 and the WB project in 1993, the entire forest had been practically destroyed by shrimp farming.” Many factors, which include conversion of mangrove areas to salt pans, steps for oil and gas exploration, construction of embankments and roads along with socio-economic conditions, have taken their toll on the mangroves. The Sundarbans of Bangladesh is a reserved forest, divided into four administrative ranges having 55 compartments. But now experts, environmentalists and journalists are concerned at the hasty decision to enter into production sharing contracts with oil and gas exploration companies to extract these commodities from the Sundarbans and its periphery 25-km impact zone. Nearly 3.5 million people depend either directly or indirectly on the Sundarbans, on resources which include firewood, timber, fish, honey and other materials. The sanctuaries were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. The mangrove forests also offer protection against the cyclone fury and storm surges that frequently ravage the Bangladesh coast. More than 40 per cent of the world’s entire cyclone deaths occur in Bangladesh. Mr S.I. Choudhoury, Divisional Forest Officer, Chittagong, remarks: “We started our programme in the coastal areas and on freshly accreted land in the 1960s, when the Sundarbans remained unscathed after killer cyclones. It was realized that land and human life could be protected by a green coastal afforestation belt”. Kajol Talukdar, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Chittagong, stated, “After the 1991 cyclone which left behind a trail of devastation, the coastal green belt project was started. An embankment plan was also carried out under this
project.” (The writer visited Bangladesh on the South Asia Media Exchange Programme Fellowship awarded by the National Foundation of India) |
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A troika to fight terrorism Moscow, September 7 Titled “Challenges of Globalisation and Prospects of Trilateral Cooperation,” it was the first such trilateral conference of its kind, involving leading academicians and experts from the three countries. Held at the President’s Hall of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it was attended by an Indian delegation led by Mr G.P. Deshpande of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and a Chinese team headed by Mr Yang Chengxu, head of the China Institute of International Studies. “The two-day conference, the first of its kind in the post-Cold War era, was a success beyond expectation,” Mr Titarenko said.
IANS |
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‘Lady Marmalade’ wins Best MTV Video Award New York, September 7 “Lady Marmalade,’’ featuring pop and hip-hop divas Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya, Pink and Missy “Misdemeanor’’ Elliott, won the top honour at the 18th annual awards given out by the cable’s Music Television, beating out U2, Eminem and Janet Jackson among others. The video also won best video from a film, from the musical “Moulin Rouge’’, which starred Nicole Kidman. The night’s other big winner was the boy band, “N Sync”, which took four awards, including the Best Group Video, the Best Pop Video, the Best Dance Video and the viewers’ choice, voted on by the public, all for “Pop.’’ The first award in the three-hour-plus telecast, for the Best Hip Hop Video, went to Outkast for “Ms Jackson.’’ Following a performance by Jennifer Lopez of “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,’’ the show featured a moving tribute to Aaliyah, last year’s best female video winner, who was killed in a crash last month.
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