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Saturday,
September 28, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Suu Kyi ready to cooperate with junta Pervez plans presidential poll? France holds talks with China, Russia on Iraq
PA not to disrupt
talks with LTTE
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Suu Kyi ready to cooperate with junta Yangon, September 27 Speaking on the 14th anniversary of the founding of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Ms Suu Kyi said she would not hesitate to cooperate with Yangon’s generals. “We will never hesitate to cooperate with the armed forces, based on sincere goodwill,” the Nobel peace laureate told 400 party members and diplomats gathered at her headquarters. “It is high time we all worked for the country holding hands together.” Ms Suu Kyi’s statement comes just days before Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is due to visit Myanmar to hold landmark talks with the government and meet the opposition leader. Mr Downer’s visit, on October 2-3, will be the highest level visit by a Western politician for years. Washington issued a statement on Thursday to mark the NLD’s anniversary, urging the regime to resume talks with the group and release all political prisoners. After strong international pressure, Ms Suu Kyi was released from 19 months of house arrest in May, raising hopes of progress towards political change in Myanmar. But since then she has had no meetings with senior members of the junta. She has repeatedly called for talks to begin as soon as possible and for the release of all political prisoners. The NLD won 1990 elections in Myanmar by a landslide, but the military refused to recognise the poll result and has locked up many of her party members in repeated crackdowns on dissent. The United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, who brokered talks between the junta and Ms Suu Kyi in 2000, has said the NLD will be willing to cooperate with the generals in some areas. The NLD has said this means they will be willing to allow Myanmar to receive some international aid, if it were closely monitored. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s ruling military said on Friday it had invited a United Nations human rights envoy to visit the country in a bid to dispel allegations that its troops used rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minority girls and women. The invitation follows criticism by Washington and a report from two minority rights groups saying Myanmar troops had raped at least 625 girls and women between 1996 and 2001 in eastern Shan state. “Responding to the allegations of human rights abuses in Shan state, today the government of Myanmar extended an invitation to Prof Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, United Nations special human rights rapporteur, for an official visit.” junta spokesman Colonel Hia Min said in a statement. Professor Pinheiro would visit from October 12-22.
Reuters |
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Pervez plans presidential poll? Islamabad, September 27 General Musharraf and his team have already started working on a plan to ensure his victory, the Daily Times said quoting unnamed sources. It said General Musharraf intended to hold the presidential election to further strengthen his position. “He has directed his aides to work out a plan immediately to ensure his victory with a considerable margin,” the paper said. General Musharraf, who seized power in October 1999 in a bloodless coup, got elected himself as President for a five-year term through a controversial referendum this year. The Pakistani opposition and international community had criticised the referendum exercise. General Musharraf himself acknowledged that there were “some irregularities” during the polling. Under the constitution, the President is elected indirectly for a term of five years with members of the national and provincial legislatures eligible to vote. A candidate has to secure over 50 per cent of the votes to be elected. The paper said: “Sources claim that the President’s team has achieved its objective in Punjab, as all the candidates for the national and Punjab Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA), the government-backed National Alliance (NA) and several smaller parties have assured the authorities that they will vote for President Musharraf if elected in the upcoming poll.” The paper said the PML-QA and NA will manage to get 60 to 70 National Assembly seats out of 147 seats from Punjab, and will manage to bag 150 seats out of the 297 general seats in the Punjab Assembly. The paper said the President’s men were contacting front-runners of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Punjab to seek their assurances that, if elected, they would support General Musharraf. A couple of candidates of the PPP and PML-N confirmed this, the paper said. “The President’s representatives had contacted them and asked them whether they would vote for President Musharraf,” it added. According to PML-N Chairman Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, General Musharraf is capable of doing anything. Officials were making “massive efforts” to force politicians to abandon parties like the PML-N and stand instead for what had become known as the “King’s Party”, a Muslim Leaguers’ faction loyal to General Musharraf, he said. IANS |
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Bhutto’s fresh poll bid Karachi, September 27 The petitions were filed at the provincial Sindh High Court against earlier rulings which rejected an appeal challenging a July conviction for failing to answer corruption charges and a law barring convicted people from contesting elections. "We have made election tribunals, returning officers and the Election Commission respondents in our petitions and pleaded the court to cancel the decisions of tribunals and allow her to take part in the elections," Ms Bhutto’s lawyer Farooq Naik said.
Reuters
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France holds talks with China, Russia on Iraq
Paris, September 27 Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin also issued a strong warning yesterday against a military attack on Iraq, saying war was the last resort and the international community should first see if Baghdad would let arms inspectors work without hindrance. France has proposed a two-step plan for dealing with Iraq, with a UN Security Council resolution on the return of the arms inspectors and the second on the consequences if Baghdad does not let them operate freely in the country. Chinese premier Zhu Rongji discussed Iraq with Mr Chirac in Paris on Thursday and approved the French leader’s two-step plan for dealing with Baghdad, Mr Chirac’s spokeswoman said. “China approves the two-step approach proposed by France for the Iraq problem within the framework of the United Nations,’’ Mr Catherine Colonna said after the meeting. Later yesterday, Mr Chirac spoke near the telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to cooperate closely in the next few days on Iraq, Ms Colonna said. “France and Russia have the same approach to this question, which should be handled within the United Nations,’’ she said. “The two heads of state agreed that our two countries should cooperate very closely in the next few days in their capitals and at the Security Council in New York.’’ WASHINGTON: The USA has solid information on top level contacts between Al-Qaida and Iraq going back a decade, including possible chemical weapons training, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. Links between the terrorist group that carried out the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington last year and the Iraqi regime that US President George W. Bush wants to bring down have intensified since 1998, Mr Rumsfeld said. “We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al-Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad,” he said. “We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior-level contacts going back a decade and of possible chemical and biological agent training,” Mr Rumsfeld added.
Reuters, AFP |
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New UN resolution to ‘delay’ inspectors Moscow, September 27 "We believe that it would be an unforgivable mistake now to delay the departure of international inspectors to Iraq," Ivanov told a news conference. He also said that Moscow was not convinced of the allegations by the USA and other countries that Iraq had links with the Al-Qaida terrorist network.
AP |
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Saddam has three
look-alike: report Berlin, September 27 ZDF said yesterday in a summary of a report broadcast later yesterday that research by a German medical expert had shown that the Iraqi leader had avoided all public functions. Instead, he was replaced by people who bear a striking physical resemblance to him. Saddam Hussein also skips meetings of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, the legislative and executive he chairs, by sending a look-alike instead.
AFP |
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PA not to disrupt
talks with LTTE
Colombo, September 27 “Nobody wants war. We will do nothing to disrupt the peace process that has already brought the parties to the negotiating table, although we have not been informed officially about the outcome of the first round of talks in Thailand”, former Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, who now is senior advisor to President Kumaratunga, said here at a media briefing. “We will never be a spoiler at no circumstance for an immediate political advantage. We all have stakes in this process to make it a success,” he observed. The President had also expressed concern over the government’s move to lift the ban on the LTTE. However, the former minister, who led a tireless campaign during his tenure against the LTTE, said President Kumaratunga’s objection to the de-proscription could not be considered as an indication of spoiling the process. He said it was President Kumaratunga who had initiated this process.
UNI |
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DIE AS BUS FALLS INTO RAVINE PROTEST
ORGANISER TAKEN INTO CUSTODY HEIGHT
OF MANGLA DAM TO BE RAISED |
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Yangon, September 27
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