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Monday,
December 9, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Iraq submits arms declaration
Blasts rip Bangladesh cinema halls; 20 dead Probe report on Sept 11 next week
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Asians hope next generation will fare better
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Iraq submits arms declaration Baghdad, December 8 A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entered the State Company of Geological Survey and Mining facility after a short drive from the U.N. headquarters at Canal Hotel on the outskirts of Baghdad. Another team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) headed for an undisclosed location northwest of the capital. The inspectors resumed searches shortly after a U.N. plane left Baghdad with a mammoth dossier which Iraq says proves it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. The roughly 12,000-paged document is headed for New York for analysis at the UNMOVIC headquarters. It will also be studied at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna. Iraq handed over the declaration to the inspectors yesterday, a day before the deadline set by a U.N. resolution passed last month requiring Iraq to disarm. The inspectors received more equipment yesterday, including the first of several helicopters that would be used to fly inspectors to distant sites in future missions. Meanwhile, the USA said today it would take “some time’’ to thoroughly analyse Iraq’s arms declaration, but expressed scepticism President Saddam Hussein would meet U.N. disarmament demands. “We will judge the declaration’s honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it and that will take some time,’’ President George W. Bush said in his weekly radio address. “The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world that once again he has chosen not to change his behaviour.’’ The 11,807-paged declaration, containing 352 pages of supplements, is to give a full account of any past or present Iraqi programmes involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. |
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Armitage in Japan to drum up support on Iraq Tokyo, December 8 Armitage, Washington’s second highest-ranking diplomat,
arrived at Tokyo’s Narita airport around 3:55 pm (12.25 p.m. IST) today, an embassy spokeswoman said, just hours after Iraq handed to the UN a 12,000-page declaration of its banned weapons programme. The US envoy is expected to present a possible war scenario to Washington’s three key regional allies Japan, South Korea and Australia as well as China. Armitage’s spokesman Philip Reeker said the Asia trip was “part of our continuing consultations with friends and allies on Iraq.”
AFP |
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Blasts rip Bangladesh cinema halls; 20 dead Dhaka, December 8 Officers said those held were theatre employees, including some security guards. No suspects have been identified. More than 200 persons were injured in yesterday night’s blasts that tore through the movie houses during a 30-minute period across Mymensingh, a small town about 110 km north of Dhaka. Three men died of their wounds today and poorly equipped hospitals appealed for medicines and blood donations. Doctors are struggling to treat more than 200 persons injured in the blasts. The doctors feared the number of dead would rise further because 12 of the injured were in a critical condition. Police chief Modabbir Hossain Chowdhury said the blast were “the work of an organised group,” but he stopped short of labelling it an act of terror. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks. Hundreds of grieving residents thronged a hospital morgue to identify victims. Meanwhile, thousands of shocked residents work today to learn of the tragedy as army troops guarded main blast sites and key installations of the town of more than 2,00,000 people. The police raided the houses of opposition politicians early today and arrested four of them. Detectives detained Saber Hossain Chowdhury, a former deputy minister and political secretary of main opposition leader Seikh Hasina Wajed, the police sources said. There was no official confirmation of the arrests but the sources said also detained were Shariar Kabir and Muntasir Mamun, both pro-opposition intellectuals, as well as Shafi Ahmed, a leader of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Party.
AP, AFP |
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Probe report on Sept 11 next week New York, December 8 But the congressional leaders have agreed not to assign blame to any individual government officials for the intelligence failure before September 11. Instead, they will emphasise on proposals for changes to make sure that such devastating attacks do not happen again, the New York Times said. However, it said, officials cautioned that it was unclear how their draft would be received by the committee’s other members, or whether it would be revised. If the committee votes on the report on Tuesday, it may announce its final recommendations by Wednesday. The final report, summing up the joint panel’s nearly year-long inquiry into the government performance before September 11, is based on evidence of missed signals at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies.
PTI |
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Asians hope next generation will fare better Silicon Valley, Dec 8 Most people in the West had a positive view of their personal with two — thirds of Canadians and nearly as many Americans giving their lives the highest rating — at least seven on a scale from zero to 10 — the Global Attitudes Survey’s report “What the World Thinks in 2002” said. In Asia, on the other hand, only 17 per cent Indians, 23 per cent of Chinese, 39 per cent of Japanese and 53 per cent of South Koreans gave their personal lives highest rating, the study released this week by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press said. However, this pattern was reversed when respondents were asked about the future of their nation’s children. Asians, in particular, were much more bullish about prospects for the next generation than were Americans or Europeans, with 46 per cent of Indians, 80 per cent of Chinese and 98 per cent of Vietnamese saying they expected their children to be better off. On the other hand, 50 per cent of Americans and 54 per cent of Canadians were pessimistic and only 41 per cent of Americans and 34 per cent of Canadians expressed positive sentiments on the future of their children. In Germany and France, pessimism was even higher with 64 per cent and 59 per cent of the respondents saying their words would be worse off. By and large people in Asia, North America and Europe generally believed that their lives had improved over the past five years, the study said. In India, 35 per cent rated their lives more highly than five years ago, while 32 per cent said it had remained the same and 30 per cent said it had lost ground. Respondents in Japan, Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon said their lives had taken a turn for the worse. In Japan, where economy has been stagnant and unemployment is at record levels, only 21 per cent said their lives had improved, while 40 per cent said it had deteriorated. In Pakistan, 22 per cent said they had made progress over the years, while nearly twice as many said they had lost ground. Dissatisfaction with the state of one’s country surfaced as a common global point of view. Unhappiness over national conditions was a major point of contention with the number one concern being economy followed by crime and political corruption. Interestingly, 57 per cent of respondents in India gave their economy a poor rating, while 49 per cent of Pakistanis rated their economy as good and only 37 per cent gave it an unfavourable rating. By nearly all measures, the Turks were among the unhappiest people surveyed.
PTI |
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A Chinese policeman displays their latest weapon called "Net Gun" in
Guangzhou on Saturday.
Another policeman demonstrates how to use
the weapon. The non-lethal device, which is in the shape of a baton and can be installed on an assault rifle, contains pressurised air to project a net up to about 10 metres. The
Chinese-made reusable gun sells for about 1,000 yuan ($120).
— Reuters photos
