 |
|
Friday,
May 9, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
Kanishka trial
Biological weapons lab found in Iraq
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
USA for end to UN sanctions against Iraq
Prabhakaran gives Eelam map to envoy Ex-FBI agent indicted in Chinese spy case Fiji vice-chief held for 2000 coup
|
|
Kanishka
trial Vancouver, May 8 Testifying at the trial of two men accused of being behind the bombing of the Kanishka flight, Antonio Coutinho, a station attendant for Air Canada in 1985, told the court that the hand-held security wand beeped repeatedly when passed over a 70-kg suitcase checked in at Pearson airport. The bag made it to the Air-India flight 182 after a security supervisor decided the alarm was triggered by a lock on the suitcase and not a bomb, he said. “There were lots of bags with zippers and with locks but they never beeped, only this one particular bag. The beep sound came in the centre of the bag and then on the left side. I saw all the bags that came through with locks and I never heard the sound,” Coutinho told the British Columbia Supreme Court. He said the beeping suitcase in Toronto had a reddish-brown tag and was destined for Mumbai. The bag was loaded in the bulkload at the rear of the Air India flight 182, the court hearing the trial of Vancouver businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik and Kamloops mill worker Ajaib Singh Bagri was told yesterday. The two face a total of eight charges, including attempted murder and conspiracy. Besides the Air-India deaths, the two are also charged with the murder of two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Narita airport. A suitcase bomb exploded there 54 minutes before the one that blew up flight 182 travelling from Toronto to London. The prosecution has alleged that the two bombs were placed on the Canadian Pacific Air flights in Vancouver. Luggage with the bomb blew up in Japan before the bag was transferred to an Air-India flight. The bomb on Air-India flight 182 was in the luggage transferred in Toronto from a Vancouver flight, it said.
PTI |
|
Biological weapons lab found in Iraq
Washington, May 8 Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence Stephen Cambone yesterday stopped short of calling the big truck a “smoking gun” proving US charges that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction. It was the first time the US officials have said they have found firm evidence of such an Iraqi weapons programme, which was cited before the war as a justification for the invasion to oust Saddam. The trailer was found on April 19 in northern Iraq and will soon be taken apart and minutely examined in Baghdad, Cambone told a Pentagon briefing. “While some of the equipment on the trailer could have been for purposes other than biological weapons agent production, US and U.K. tactical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond the production of biological agents,” he added. He said the vehicle was taken over by the US forces at a Kurdish checkpoint near the town of Tall Kayf. It was found on a heavy equipment transporter typically used for carrying tanks, he said. Navy Vice-Adm Lowell Jacoby, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told reporters that Iraqi sources has said the three types of biological weapons were produced in such mobile laboratories; anthrax, botulism and staphylococcus. But Cambone said the trailer “has had a very caustic substance washed through it,” perhaps ammonia, and no agents or components were found during initial inspections. Aboard the trailer was equipment that can be used to make biological weapons — living microorganisms or biological toxins used deliberately to spread disease, including a fermenter that could help produce germ warfare agents, he said. Other equipment included gas cylinders to supply clear air for agent production and a system to capture and compress exhaust gases to evade detection of weapons production. “As time goes by and the more we learn, I’m sure we’re going to discover that the WMD programmes are as extensive and varied as the Secretary of State (Colin Powell) reported in his February address (to the United Nations),” Cambone said. Cambone said the truck was very similar to those described by an Iraqi detector who had helped US officials understand the Iraqi weapons programme. That information was used by Powell when he described the alleged mobile weapons labs to the Security Council in an unsuccessful February attempt to win approval from the UN for the subsequent US-led invasion. Reuters
|
|
USA for end to UN sanctions against Iraq
United Nations, May 8 A “forward-looking” resolution seeking lifting of sanctions is likely to be circulated among the Security Council members this week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said here after an- hour long meeting last evening with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss the move. The proposed resolution would be co-signed by Britain and Spain. Earlier, US President George Bush prodded UNSC members to lift sanctions against Iraq, saying no country should use sanctions “to hold back the Iraqi people”. The resolution proposes creation of an international advisory board comprising Kofi Annan, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and US oil executives to oversee oil exports.
PTI
|
|
Prabhakaran gives Eelam map to envoy
Colombo, May 8 According to Tamilnet website, Prabhakaran during his three-hour deliberations with the Japanese envoy on resuming peace talks with the Lankan Government and participating in the Tokyo conference in June, said he would consider the request seriously if the government took “positive steps” towards implementing decisions taken at earlier rounds of talks. Prabhakaran during the talks was assisted by his political adviser Anton Balasingham, LTTE political wing head S.P. Thamilselvan and economic adviser Jay Maheswaran, while the Japanese delegation comprised Japanese Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi, Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Seiichiro Otsuka, Regional Directors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Takio Yamada and Ryousuke Kamono and Second Secretaries Koji Yagi and Masatomi Oikawa. Balasingham at a post-meeting press briefing in Kilinochchi said the LTTE was not “running away” from the peace talks, but had given time to the government to come out with positive steps on the implementation of the decisions already arrived at during earlier rounds of talks. “We have told him (Akashi) that we will seriously consider his request. But at the same time we have indicated that the Sri Lanka Government should take some immediate measures to see the proper implementation of decisions arrived at during the earlier phase of negotiations. According to Balasingham, the other issue taken up was the proper functioning of the “subcommittee for immediate humanitarian and reconstruction needs (SIHRN)”, an interim body set up with the participation of both the government and LTTE representatives, at one of the earlier six rounds of talks. The LTTE also requested the government through Akashi to take immediate measures for the resettlement of the displaced as they had been languishing in refugee camps for the past 10 years. UNI
|
|
Ex-FBI agent indicted in Chinese spy case
Los Angeles, May 8 James J. Smith, a 30-year veteran of the FBI’s counter-intelligence squad, was charged with four counts of removing national defence information through gross negligence and two counts of “honest services’’ wire fraud. Basically he has been accused of committing fraud, depriving the FBI and the USA of honest services as a government employee,’’ US Attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek said yesterday. Smith faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison if convicted . Sources close to the case
revealed that Katrina Leung, a naturalised US citizen who is being held without bail in a federal jail in Los Angeles, would be indicted. Reuters
|
|
Fiji vice-chief held for 2000 coup Suva, May 8 All five were charged before Chief Magistrate David Balram with taking an unlawful oath to commit a capital offence and to engage in a seditious enterprise. The charges carry life imprisonment sentences. However, no plea was taken and they were remanded on bail till June 11.
AFP
|
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
