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Friday,
January 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Israeli incursion into Gaza Strip Israel suspends defence exports to China
Quattrocchi case hearing on Monday |
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Britons send Cherie to hall of shame Cliches banished Separatists torch 10 houses
Under-sea celebrations 36 Indian fishermen captured Instability hits Pak projects
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Israeli incursion into Gaza Strip Gaza City, January 2 The Israeli troops, backed by 20 tanks and two bulldozers rolled into areas including the Al Bureij Palestinian refugee camp, the sources said. The two Israeli soldiers were slightly injured, the Israeli military sources said. In the Maghazi refugee camp near Al Bureij, troops arrested six Palestinians from the same family in another incursion early today, while in the southern Gaza Strip near Rafah the army blew up five houses, the Palestinian security sources said. An Israeli army spokesman said the operations were partly aimed at militants of the radical secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPLP). The spokesman said four houses had been destroyed at Rafah, adding that they had been used by “terrorists to fire on our troops and throw grenades.” In the West Bank meanwhile, Israeli troops arrested 13 wanted Palestinians, including six in Bethlehem, an army spokesman said. Palestinian sources also said four other Palestinians belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, had been captured after the army surrounded a house at Tulkarm. Also in the northern West Bank four militants of Islamic Jihad were arrested at Annabta during an Israeli raid.
AFP |
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Israel suspends defence exports to China Jerusalem, January 2 Though surprised by the American request some three weeks ago, Israel, despite its qualms, decided to comply with the demand to freeze defence exports to Beijing, Defence Ministry sources were quoted as saying by ‘Ha’aretz’ newspaper today. “This is simply a new American dictate, and we didn’t have any choice in the matter,” a Defence Ministry official told the daily, apparently referring to American pressure earlier which led to the cancellation of a signed deal to sell Phalcon spy plane to Beijing. The controversial deal with Beijing, which included the installation of a Phalcon early warning radar on a Russian-built aircraft by the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), was scrapped by Israel following intense pressure from the Bill Clinton Administration in 2000 with Beijing expressing anger over the move and demanding compensation. The move had strained relations between Israel and China and the Jewish state settled the matter after paying compensation. While there were fears that the new American demand could harm Israel’s relations with China, defence officials said the freezing of ties would probably not cause significant economic damage to Israel. They said Defence Ministry Director-General Amos Yaron would “track down” the web of security ties with China, the daily reported. The American demand stems from the fact that given close security cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem, sophisticated US technology could flow to China via Israel. There were indications that Washington was considering formulating a new strategic policy toward Beijing and until such a policy was devised, the Bush Administration had decided to make every effort to prevent the supply of arms and advanced military technology to China, the daily said. It quoted one senior Israeli official as saying that Washington actually aimed at removing Israeli firms from the Chinese market while devising a policy shift towards Beijing that would enable American companies to export arms to China. Analysts said US objections were based on contention that access to sophisticated defence technology would provide China with a decisive military edge in any stand-off with Taiwan. They also contend that China, while aiming to maintain a hegemony in the region, is trying to contain Japan and India from emerging as powerful compitators. Israel, believed to be China’s second largest arms supplier after Russia, is the fifth largest exporter of weapons in the world following the USA, Russia, China, and France. Israel wants to sell three Phalcon spy planes to India and the advanced negotiations are believed to be underway in this regard.
PTI |
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Quattrocchi case hearing on Monday Kuala Lumpur, January 2 The Court of Appeal on December 16 had asked Quattrocchi to surrender his passport after India, through Attorney General of Malaysia, moved a petition challenging the dismissal of its plea by the High Court for the Italian’s extradition to stand trial in the Bofors case. A three-judge Bench of the Court of Appeal will decide whether Quattrocchi should surrender his passport to the court till a decision is taken on the Indian appeal. Quattrocchi’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah last week filed a “notice of motion” asking the Court of Appeal to revoke the ex parte order passed by Mr Justice Hamid Mohammad. Mr Shafee blamed the lawyers acting on behalf of India for not informing the Court of Appeal that Quattrocchi had already left the country. Quattrocchi, who had been living in Malaysia for the past few years, left for Italy on December 14 after winning the extradition case against him in the high court a day before. High court judge Augustine Paul had dismissed India’s plea for a review of the decision of the Sessions Court that had set Quattrocchi free without conditions. The Attorney-General of Malaysia, who is conducting extradition proceedings on behalf of India, then challenged the high court ruling in the Court of Appeal on the same day. It obtained an ex parte order from the Court of Appeal on December 16 that required Quattrocchi to surrender his passport in the court pending the result of the appeal against Mr Justice Paul’s decision.
PTI |
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Prof Bhagwati for building on dual loyalty Washington, January 2 The diaspora approach is far superior from a human rights viewpoint because it builds on the urge to migrate, rather than trying to restrict it, Bhagwati, a Columbia University Prof Jagdish Bhagwati says in the latest issue of ‘Foreign Affairs’. “And dual loyalty,” he stresses, “is increasingly judged to be acceptable rather than reprehensible.” The option, he says, is increasingly feasible. “Nearly 30 countries now offer dual citizenship. Others are inching their way to similar options. Many less developed countries, such as Mexico and India, are in the process of granting citizens living abroad hitherto denied benefits such as the right to hold property and to vote via absentee ballot.” However, he says, the diaspora approach is incomplete unless the benefits are balanced by some obligations, such as the taxation of citizens living abroad. He says he first recommended this approach for developing countries during 1960s and the proposal has been revived now. Estimates made by scholars Mihir Desai, Devesh Kapur and John McHale “demonstrate that even a slight tax on Indian nationals abroad would substantially raise Indian Government’s revenues. The revenue potential is real because the aggregate income of Indian-born residents in the USA is 10 per cent of India’s national income, even though such residents account for just 0.1 per cent of the US population.” Bhagwati notes that the “appetite” for skilled migrants appears to have grown in developed countries — “just look at Silicon Valley’s large supply of successful Indian and Taiwanese computer scientists and venture capitalists.” The enhanced appetite for such professionals, he says, reflects a shift to a globalised economy in which countries compete for markets by creating and attracting technically skilled talent.
PTI |
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Britons send Cherie to hall of shame London, January 2 In a tongue-in-cheek BBC survey drawing 15,000 votes, Cherie Blair topped the hall of shame with 31 per cent after damaging revelations last month about her property dealings with a convicted fraudster dominated headlines and embarrassed the government. The BBC radio current affairs programme today, which carried out the poll, said in a statement, “It has not been a good year-end for the prime minister’s wife.” In a parallel vote on who they wanted to see named honorary Britons, 51 per cent went for Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from 19 months of house arrest in May. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton came second with 18 per cent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — whom Britain is considering going to war against — came fifth on the list of favourites for British citizenship with 7 per cent of the vote. Reuters |
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Cliches banished Sault Ste, January 2 Other favoured utterances of President George W. Bush such as “material breach,” “weapons of mass destruction,” and “homeland security,” were the tired targets of the New Year’s Day list compiled by the public relations staff at Lake Superior State University. This year’s list of 23 worn-out words and phrases — the tradition was begun in 1976 — was whittled down from 3,000 entries submitted to the school from around the world to its website, www.lssu.edu/banished. “Make no mistake about it” was nominated by several contributors, one of whom commented, “Who’s mistaken, anyway?” As usual, the media and advertising worlds came in for ridicule. In response to the catch-phrase “must-see TV,” contributor Nan Heflin of Colorado wrote: “Must find remote. Must change channel.”
Reuters |
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Separatists torch 10 houses Zamboanga City (Philippines), January 2 Chief Superintendent Simeon Dizon, a regional police commander, said the pillage occurred yesterday in the village of Tigbabauan in Tungawan town in Zamboanga Sibugay province, 780 km South of Manila. Mr Dizon said an undetermined number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels swooped down on the village and forced the people out on the streets while they robbed their houses.
DPA |
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Cultured primates Washington, January 2 The discovery suggests that early primates, which include the ancestors of humans, may have developed the ability to invent new behaviours, such as tool use, as early as 14 million years ago, some six million years earlier than once believed. “If the orangutans have culture, then it tells us that the capacity to develop culture is very ancient,” says Birute Gald ikas, a co-author of a study appearing this week in Science. In the march of evolution, “orangutans separated from our ancestors and from the African apes many millions of years ago,” she said, and the new study suggests “they may have had culture before they separated.” Culture, in the scientific sense, is the ability to invent new behaviours that are adopted by the population group and are passed along to succeeding generations. Orangutan culture is crude by human standards, but it is culture nonetheless because it is developed and practised independently by different groups and succeeding generations in the same way that human societies develop and perpetuate unique forms of music, architecture, language, clothing and art.
AP |
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Under-sea celebrations Moscow, January 2 “We like to celebrate New Year underwater,” said Andrei Baranovsky, one of a team of divers who planted a decorated tree 17 metres (55 ft) below the ice on Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake. “And for the fish it’s fun too, although I don’t think they celebrate New Year so it’s probably all the same to them,” he quipped on Tuesday. Elsewhere, a team of extreme sports enthusiasts planted a tree on the bed of the Northern Ocean.
Reuters |
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Indian fishermen captured Colombo, January 2 According to reports, the fishermen have been handed over to Kilinochchi Government agent T. Rajanayakam by the Pooneryn Fishermen Association for further action. Representatives of the association complained to the government agent that their fishing nets and other related equipments had been damaged by the Indian fishermen.
UNI |
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Instability hits Pak projects Washington, January 2 The three project — the Gwadar port, the Iran-to-India pipeline and the trans-Afghanistan pipeline - form part of Islamabad’s regional economic and strategic plans, the situation report by Strategic Forecasting
(Stratfor) said. Pakistan’s government sees the projects as providing additional weight and leverage to regional relations.
UNI |
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