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Sunday,
December 8, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Palestinians
reject Sharon's claim Iraq hands over arms declaration to UN
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US
Senators visit Kurdish enclave Pacifist
Berrigan dead Cherie
accountants to be tried
Miss Turkey crowned Miss
World Bofors: CBI team in Malaysia Bibles
for cops WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Afghanistan
security worries UN
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Palestinians reject Sharon's claim Ramallah (West Bank),
December 7 As Israel came in for more international criticism for its latest army operation in the Gaza Strip, the government said Israel regretted any civilian victims, but accused Palestinian militants of using "human shields." The Palestinian officials, meanwhile, said the violence was making a delay in elections planned for next month increasingly likely. In a television interview set to air today, Mr Sharon said his government was already engaged "secretly" in talks with people "from the Palestinian leadership," but not Mr Arafat. He said there was "definitely" an alternative to Mr Arafat, but did not elaborate in the excerpts broadcast last night. Government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contacts had been going on "for a few months already." He said they would not reveal the identity of the contacts to avoid retribution against them by "Arafat and his cronies." Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat rejected the statements as "unfounded and baseless" and said the hard-line Sharon was trying to appeal to more moderate voters ahead of Israel's own elections on January 28 next year. He also dismissed Mr Sharon's claim on Thursday that Israel had information that a few Al-Qaida members had penetrated Gaza and southern Lebanon and were working to target Israel. Mr Arafat called the Al-Qaida charge "a big, big, big, big lie to cover his attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere, from Rafah to Jenin and in between."
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Iraq hands over arms declaration to UN Baghdad, December 7 The declaration “will answer all the questions which have been addressed during the last months and years,” Lt-Gen Hossam Mohammed Amin, the official who oversaw the declaration’s preparation, said earlier in the day. He said it would name companies and countries that helped Iraq develop weapons of mass destruction in the past, information that could help in prosecutions under other nations’ export-control laws. “I reiterate here that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction,” he told reporters. “I think if the USA has the minimum level of fairness and braveness, it should accept the report and say this is the truth,” he added. The huge declaration was to be flown out tomorrow on a UN plane, to reach UN headquarters in New York and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna late in the day.
AP
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Saddam apologises to Kuwaitis Baghdad, December 7
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US Senators visit Kurdish enclave
Irbil (Iraq), December 7 Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is outgoing Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and a fellow committee member, today addressed lawmakers at the legislative headquarters of the Kurdish autonomous area in the city of Irbil. The Senators, who arrived in northern Iraq last night amid tight security, also visited a camp housing Kurdish refugees displaced by years of regional conflict. Details of their visit have been kept secret for security reasons. They visited Israel before arriving in northern Iraq, but it wasn’t clear how — and from where — they entered Iraq. They will next travel to Qatar, which could be the US military headquarters for a possible war to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
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Pacifist
Berrigan dead Baltimore, December 7 Berrigan's family said he was diagnosed with cancer two months ago and decided to stop chemotherapy last month. He died at Jonah House, the communal residence for pacifists that he founded. His brother, Rev Daniel Berrigan, officiated over last rites ceremonies November 30, attended by friends and peace activists, family members said. Berrigan led the "Catonsville 9," a group that staged one of the most dramatic protests of the 1960s. The group, including Daniel Berrigan, doused homemade napalm on a small bonfire of draft records in a Catonsville parking lot on May 17, 1968.
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Cherie accountants
to be tried
London, December 7 The revelation is a serious blow to Tony Blair’s office after its humiliating about-face earlier this week over a link between Cherie and convicted Australian fraudster Peter Foster. After a spokesman for Tony Blair denied that Cherie was ever connected with Foster, she herself acknowledged Thursday that he had indeed played a part in helping her buy two apartments in the west of England. In a dramatic twist to the episode today, British Transport Police said Andrew Axelsen, the accountant who arranged the mortgage on the flats, has been charged following an investigation into the award of contracts for an extension to one of London’s underground rail lines. The police was responding to a report in today’s Daily Telegraph which said that Axelsen’s co-defendant at the trial at London’s Old Bailey court is to be Martin Williams, a lawyer suggested by Foster to do the conveyancing on Cherie Blair’s property deal.
AFP |
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Miss Turkey crowned Miss
World London, December 7
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Bofors: CBI team in Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, December 7 The two senior officers will tomorrow meet local lawyers representing India’s case to brief them about the case which will come up for review on Monday before the High Court. Malaysia’s Attorney General office at the request of India has sought review of a Sessions Court verdict rejecting the plea for Quattrocchi’s extradition saying that India’s case was too vague. “The purpose of the visit is to brief the lawyers and to clear the confusion created by the opposition regarding the charges against Quattrocchi,” Om Prakash Galhotra, Deputy Inspector General of the CBI, said. He is accompanied by Additional Legal Advisor Uma Shankar Prasad. One of the points offered in Quattrocchi’s defence was that there are no charges against him in India, but Mr Galhotra said this needed clarification. “In the Indian legal system it is the court that frames the charges against the accused and that too in the presence of the accused,” Mr Galhotra said, adding that the investigating agency gives a report of its findings to the court, which then examines the case to decide whether charges were warranted. In this case, in November 1999, a special judge’s court had decided that there was enough evidence against Quattrocchi to frame charges and issued a warrant but since he was in Malaysia the charges could not be framed against him, Mr Galhotra said. One of the Malaysian legal counsels for India said they would be discussing all possible arguments with the officials from New Delhi. “We will go through with the CBI officers all possible arguments we may face on Monday in court,” lawyer Steven Thiru said. “We will also evaluate alternative strategies,” he said. Today being the Id-ul-Fitr holiday in Malaysia, the Indian officials were unable to confer with Malaysian officials.
PTI |
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Bibles for cops
Manila, December 7 Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina was quoted in the Philippine Star as saying there is an imperative need for “spiritual cleansing of policemen to rid the service of scallywags and misfits.’’ “Soon, the Philippine National Police would become Policemen of God,’’ he told reporters as he announced of his plans to require cops to carry with them Bibles, for Catholics, and the Koran for Muslims, “to bring them closer to God.’’ Lina said the more than 100,000 policemen will also have to undergo “spiritual renewal seminars’’ as the government makes efforts to “review the recruitment of new law enforcers to weed out the (the PNP of) undesirables.’’
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Evidently the Delhi Declaration signed by India and Russia has unnerved the Pakistani establishment. Mr Zaffarullah Jamali, the new Pakistani Prime Minister, leading a fragile coalition government has rejected the charge levelled by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could land in the hands of terrorists and that it should stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir. He found all this baseless. In fact, some newspapers, particularly Urdu papers like Jang and Nawa-e-Waqt, smelt some kind of conspiracy against Pakistan. Clearly politicians displayed a siege mentality in which some Urdu newspapers, too, joined in. But two leading English-language newspapers, Daily Times and The News International, offered some sane advice to the rulers. Daily Times of Najam Sethi was more cogent and forthright. To the questions, “What should Pakistan make of this? Should Putin invite too much concern or can Pakistan afford to disregard him?” it answered, “Both extreme reactions would be wrong. Worry would overly feed into the “disaster scenario” and reinforce negative talk about Pakistan’s “isolation”; disregard would strengthen the old policy course (which has led to such Indo-Russian moves) without taking into account changing strategic and regional realities.” Daily Times suggested, “ A better course would be to situate Mr Putin’s statements, including his earlier assertion about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of “terrorists”, in a particular context. Russia is an old ally of India. But Russia needs allies more than ever before as it picks up the debris of the Soviet Union and seeks to reconstruct a new order. Russia also needs to shore up its export earnings and markets. That is why it is keen to sell India all the weapons it can buy on cash or credit. Then there is Russia’s Chechnya problem where it is fighting an Islamic separatist insurgency. That is why it has a vested interest in linking its Islamic “terrorist” problem in Chechnya with India’s Islamic “terrorist” problem in Kashmir. Russia also does not want the USA to become the sole player in the region. That is why it has willingly acceded to the Chinese request to try and mediate a dialogue between India and Pakistan. Last, though not least, Russia was opposed to the Pakistani “hand” in Afghanistan and Central Asia and Mr Putin is keenly interested in Moscow’s re-entry into Central Asia.” A very cogent argument indeed. Can Russia really sideline Pakistan? This newspaper did not think so. Reason: The Russian oil giant, Gazprom, has only recently clinched a contract to take a pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan’s exclusive economic zone. Russia is also keeping its channels of communication open with Islamabad. Russia can sell military equipment to Pakistan. Russia also senses that Washington may not be loath to allow it to play the role of a facilitator in the India-Pakistan conflict, an example of which was provided at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building in Asia where Mr Putin tried to get India and Pakistan to stand down. Mr Putin, nonetheless, stressed the “need to improve India-Pakistan relations” in the context of a nuclear South Asia. Pakistan really needs to revise its policy. Daily Times found the foreign policy deficient. “Islamabad did two contradictory things. One, it tended to overemphasise the issue of arms purchases at the cost of other potential issues; two, it was embarked on an Afghan and Central Asia policy that led it to collide with Moscow. The question should not have been whether or not Pakistan was right in opposing Russian hegemony in West and Central Asia. The issue should have been linked to making a choice about core interests. Was it more important to court Russia or was Afghanistan more important strategically? If the Russian President begins to cast doubts about Islamabad’s ability to keep its nuclear arsenal secure, trading accusations is not the best way to go about handling such a situation. Other countries may keep quiet because they have different strategic priorities, but such fears and accusations have a tendency to linger on and resurface at the most inopportune moments. The way forward for Islamabad is via policy review, patient diplomacy and image-building.” The News International [Jang] lamented that not only Russia, the USA, too, was critical of Pakistan’s policy. It is another matter that the criticism was muted. It said, “The Indo-Russian joint statement, therefore, is as much a reason for Islamabad to rethink its long troubled relation with Russia as its unrequited ties with the USA and, above all, its strategic vision on Kashmir and the woeful diplomatic effort in furthering it. India and Russia have also signed a strategic accord to lift their defence ties beyond the buyer-seller relationship into the realm of strategic cooperation in research and development. This may not have the dramatic impact of the sale of hi-tech weaponry to India — which, together with the US embargo on Pakistan, has unsettled the Indo-Pak military equation. But its import is far greater in that it binds the two together militarily and, as a consequence, diplomatically in a joint posture which cannot be friendly to Pakistan.” |
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Afghanistan
security worries UN India has expressed concern over the efforts of the Al-Qaida and the Taliban to destabilise Afghanistan, especially over reports of disturbances along that country’s southern and south-eastern borders, and indirectly blamed Pakistan for its support to them. India’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vijay Nambiar told the General Assembly on Thursday that these elements received “moral and material support from their mentors across the border,” which had yet to accept the loss of influence and power they had once wielded in Afghanistan. However, Mr Nambiar said, the intention to sign a declaration of
good-neighbourly relations with six neighbours would affirm the principle of non-interference. In reviewing India’s contributions towards the reconstruction in Afghanistan,
Mr Nambiar stressed that in extending its assistance, New Delhi had adhered to the concept of Afghan ownership and prioritisation in designing and implementing
programmes. In a day-long discussion on Afghanistan, the general view in the assembly, according to a UN press note, was that despite achievements since the signing of the Bonn Agreement, many challenges, including precarious security situation, remained in Afghanistan, and continued interest, vigilance and support by the international community were crucial. The assembly called on all Afghan groups to renounce the use of violence, respect human rights, adhere to their obligations under the international humanitarian law, respect the authority of the Transitional Authority and to implement fully the provisions of the Bonn Agreement, culminating in a constitutional Loya Jirga and national elections in 2004. The General Assembly adopted, without voting, a two-part resolution on emergency international assistance for peace, normalcy and reconstruction of war-stricken Afghanistan. |
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