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Saturday,
December 28, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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US air
raids on Iraq, three dead
N. Korea
to expel UN nuclear inspectors N-sites:
India, Pak to exchange lists E.Timor
violence: 5 years’ jail for officer |
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Church
attack: 3 cops suspended Hasina
re-elected party chief Cold wave claims 33 more lives in B’desh Muslim
rebels deny Philippines attacks Produce
Al-Qaida suspects: court USA
arrests nine suspected ultras
4 Maoists shot in
Nepal Spell Korea with
‘C’, say academics
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US air raids on Iraq, three dead
Washington, December 27 The US Central Command said it attacked the facility yesterday with precision-guided weapons, near Tallil, about 280 km southeast of Baghdad. The attack was in retaliation for Monday’s downing of a spy drone by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire and warplanes, which entered the “no-fly” zone over the southern part of the country, the command said in a statement. “Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a self-defence measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft,” the statement said. In Baghdad, the official INA news agency said three Iraqis were killed and 16 wounded in the strike. “Enemy warplanes bombed civilian installations in the provinces of Basra and Zi-Qar and three Iraqi civilians were killed and 16 wounded in the attacks,” a military spokesman told the agency. The air-exclusion zones over northern and southern Iraq set up after the 1990-1991 Gulf War are enforced by US and British air patrols. Airstrikes against Iraqi defences that fire on the patrols are common. Baghdad has long opposed the zones, which are not sanctioned by any specific UN resolution, and insists it will defend its airspace against incursions. In recent weeks, the air patrols have resulted in almost daily clashes with Iraqi defenses on the ground as Washington and London step up enforcement of the zones ahead of a possible US-led invasion. Air-to-air encounters are rare, however. Coalition aircraft have dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning Iraqi troops not to resist efforts to enforce the zones. The last US-British strike was Friday, when two air defence communications facilities were bombed in southern Iraq.
AFP |
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N-sites’ inspection continues Baghdad, December 27 Three convoys of all-terrain vehicles belonging to the UN Monitoring, Control and Inspections Commission (UNMOVIC) moved out of their base at the former Canal Hotel at 1100 hrs IST. Inspectors visited six sites yesterday, including Baghdad’s Technological University, where they interviewed the institution’s president and asked detailed questions about its possible relations with industry and the military establishment. “In the final analysis, the teams have not been able to find any evidence... to support American and British allegations that Iraq is harbouring or storing banned weapons,” General Amin said.
AFP |
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N. Korea to expel UN nuclear inspectors
Seoul, December 27 Yonhap, which publishes Korean-language reports by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, said the two-man team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors was no longer needed. ‘’As our freeze on nuclear facilities has been lifted, the mission of the IAEA inspectors, who have been in Yongbyon under the (1994) Agreed Framework between North Korea and the USA, has naturally drawn to an end,’’ said the report, quoting a letter North Korea sent to the IAEA. ‘’In a situation where there is no longer justification for the inspectors to stay in our country, our government has decided to send them out,’’ it said of a move that escalated North Korea’s two-month nuclear showdown with the international community. The IAEA said yesterday it had ‘’serious non-proliferation concerns’’ after North Korea said it planned to restart the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was frozen in 1994 after a crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear arms ambitions. The reactor and three related facilities at Yongbyon, 90 km north of Pyongyang, were mothballed under a 1994 pact with the USA, which offered oil and safer reactors in return for North Korea’s freezing the reactor.
Reuters |
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N-sites: India, Pak to exchange lists
Islamabad, December 27 Both countries complied with the agreement signed in 1991 and began exchanging the lists of the nuclear installations on January 1, 1992. Even at the height of tension between the two countries following the December 13 attack on Parliament House last year, India and Pakistan exchanged the lists on January 1, 2002. Now they are again poised to exchange the same and officials on both sides do not see any problem in that. The 1991 agreement prohibits both countries from attacking against each other’s nuclear installations and facilities in times of war. The last year’s list contained 11 Indian nuclear installations against six on the Pakistani side, local daily ‘The News’ reported. “The exchange of the lists of nuclear installations on the first day of the New Year would herald a new era of conciliation and rapprochement as both India and Pakistan have given a firm commitment to the international community to bolster the set of Confidence Building Measures
(CBMs) leading to a structured dialogue,” the paper quoted western diplomats in Brussels as saying.
PTI |
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E.Timor violence: 5 years’ jail for officer
Jakarta, December 27 But human rights activists dismissed the verdict as a token ruling following previous acquittals of 10 former or serving military and police officials over the violence that accompanied East Timor’s vote to break from Indonesia’s harsh rule. The court said Lieut-Col Soedjarwo, former military chief of the East Timor capital Dili, failed to prevent attacks around and on the home of Timorese spiritual leader Bishop Carlos Belo that left an unknown number of persons dead. Prosecutors had demanded 10 year’s jail for Soedjarwo, who could have faced the death penalty for the charges. ‘’We declare that the defendant has been proven guilty of gross rights violations and crimes against humanity,’’ presiding judge Andi Samsan Nganro told the special human rights court, set up by Jakarta to account for the East Timor bloodshed. Colonel Soedjarwo said he would appeal the verdict. The seaside home of Belo, the joint 1996 Nobel Peace Laureate, became a rallying point for refugees and independence supporters in the aftermath of the vote. Pro-Jakarta militias burned it down in the days after the ballot. Rights groups have long been sceptical about the process. ‘’It’s illogical. Amidst huge riots only one military officer has been found guilty...,’’ Hendardi, head of Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said of today’s verdict. Two military generals are still on trial. One was East Timor Commander at the time, and the other the regional military chief, whose responsibilities included the tiny
terrority.
Reuters |
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Church attack: 3 cops suspended
Islamabad, December 27 Despite intense security nationwide, a grenade was thrown on Wednesday into the United Presbyterian church at Chuyyanwali village, some 200 km southeast of Islamabad. “These police officers were under clear instructions to provide security to around 15 churches in their area but the local police changed the order and strangely did not provide security at the church,” the deputy inspector-general of police in Gujranwala district said. Security had been provided to 13 of the churches, he said. “The station house officer and two others are clearly guilty of criminal negligence and they have been suspended from the service and will face action,” he said, adding that “had they not changed the duty order the unfortunate tragedy could have been avoided.” The security breach at Chuyyanwali appeared particularly glaring as investigators revealed the same church had been pelted with stones six months earlier in an attack orchestrated by a suspect in Wednesday’s attack. Four persons have been taken into custody in the grenade case, including a firebrand Muslim cleric suspected by victims and witnesses of orchestrating the attack. Interrogations are ongoing for Mullah Maulvi Mohammad Afzal, his son and two other men.
AFP |
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Hasina re-elected party chief
Dhaka, December 27 Hasina was elected the Awami League president unopposed for the sixth time since 1981. Mohammad Jalil, former Commerce Minister, succeeded a long serving general secretary Zillur Rahman here yesterday. Jalil faced no contender, media reports said today. However, party veterans like Mohammad Nasim, and Prof Abu Sayeed were not elected to the committee. The triennial council of Bangladesh’s largest party ended in a day electing new leaders for what Hasina said to prepare the organisation for a “tough battle ahead”. Hasina, who renewed her demand for mid-term poll in the country, said a mere call would not be honoured by this “repressive government” led by Premier Khaleda Zia.
PTI |
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Cold wave claims 33 more lives in B’desh Dhaka, December 27 No official figures have been released on the death toll. The government said it was providing relief to those hit by the cold. The temperature dipped to nearly 13°C today in Dhaka and 10°C in the Srimongol district.
AFP |
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Muslim rebels deny Philippines attacks Zamboanga, Philippines, December 27 Military and police officials have said they believed the shooting and bombing attacks on the island of Mindanao, about 800 km south of Manila, were the work of MILF guerrillas. But the group, which is fighting for an independent state in the mainly Roman Catholic country, denied it was responsible. “The MILF has a standing policy that we do not target civilians and this was proven when the government waged an all-out war in 2000,” spokesman Eid Kabalu said. ‘’We are also observing the August 7, 2001, ceasefire agreement we entered with the Philippines Government and we are even, in fact, pushing efforts to go back to the negotiating table.” The government and the MILF have held sporadic talks to try to end a 30-year conflict in which more than 125,000 persons have been killed, most of them civilians. At least 13 persons were killed and 11 wounded yesterday when about 40 gunmen attacked a truck in a remote village in nearby Zamboanga del Norte province.
Reuters |
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Produce
Al-Qaida suspects: court Lahore, December 27 The high court judge in the eastern border city of Lahore said the three detainees — Omar Karar, Khizar Ali and Mohammad Usman — should be produced before the court on Tuesday, after a government attorney said he was not aware of their whereabouts. At a prior hearing on attorney said the three were being investigated by an unmentioned federal agency, sparking angry calls by Islamic militants to produce the detainees. The three were among nine family members of Dr Ahmed Ali Khawaj, whose Lahore home was raided by over 50 police and US FBI agents last week in their search for Al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives.
AFP |
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USA arrests nine suspected ultras Kabul, December 27 The arrests were made near the city of Khost, close to the border with Pakistan, the statement said. Khost was the scene of an unsuccessful Christmas day attack on US troops operating in the area. “Soldiers from the 82 Airborne Division in routine patrol south of Khost discovered a site previously used to launch rockets,” the statement said.
AFP |
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4 Maoists shot in Nepal Kathmandu, December 27 The Kantipur FM radio said the two-hour clash took place last morning at Toli village, about 7 km from the Bhojpur district headquarters, east of Kathmandu. The radio quoting security sources said immediately after the incident helicopters brought in reinforcements. Additional ground troops were sent in the afternoon following the morning clash. The radio also reported that a woman Maoist rebel died after a bomb she was carrying exploded. The incident occurred even as the Maoists stepped up their violence in the city. In two incidents yesterday, a bomb suspected to have been planted by Maoist rebels exploded in a busy shopping complex in the capital injuring over 12 civilians.
DPA |
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Spell Korea with ‘C’, say academics Seoul, December 27 North Korea yesterday suggested that linguists and historians from the two Koreas should meet to discuss changing the spelling, according to the state-run media. According to North Korean linguists, the country was called “Corea” by the international community from 1250s to late 1800s, but the English spelling later changed to “Korea” when Japan ruled the peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945. The change was “prompted by (the Japanese’s) wicked contention that our country should always come after Japan (in the alphabetical order) on the international arena as it was their colony,” the Korean Central News Agency said today. “Correcting the English name of the country is an important issue for the nation,” it said.
AP |
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