The report, released yesterday which is less than two weeks before a summit of G8 leaders in the French town of Evian, said the five worst offenders — the USA, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, in that order — together accounted for at least two thirds of global arms transactions between 1997 and 2001.

These countries, as well as three other G8 members — Italy, Japan and Canada — all have laws either imposing licensing restrictions on arms sales or banning them altogether.

“Yet in each case, (the) report shows how these controls have been ineffective, or bypassed,” Amnesty said.

“As the G8 heads of state prepare for their summit in Evian, Amnesty International reveals that despite assurances to the contrary, their governments are arming and supplying some of the world’s worst abusers of human rights,” the report added.

It singled out the USA as the world’s top weapons supplier, accounting for 28 per cent of global arms transfers.

The USA had supplied military rifles and machine guns to the Colombian armed forces, the report said, “despite the fact that these arms are persistently used to facilitate human rights violations”.

This year’s summit host, France, supplied small arms ammunition to its former colony Senegal, the report said, despite documented human rights abuses with small arms throughout the 1990s, “including civilians shot by security forces”.

And British military equipment had found its way into Israeli fighter jets despite an export ban on the country, Amnesty said.

In July last year the British government — which has in the past boasted of an “ethical foreign policy” — authorised the sale of Head-Up Displays to the USA, where they were to be incorporated into F-16 jets bound for Israel.

“That same month Israeli F16 jets were used to drop a one-tonne bomb on Gaza city, killing 17 people and wounding 70,” the report said.

“The UK controls would not have allowed this equipment to go straight to Israel. But they still allow it to get there via an intermediate destination,” it said. AFP

Noshad Ansari, 36, a member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) organising committee, and his 16-year-old nephew were killed overnight when gunmen intercepted their vehicle and opened fire.

Kanwar Khalid Younus, an MQM member of the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house, blamed a rival political group.

‘’It is an attempt to disturb the peace of Karachi ahead of next month’s byelections for a National Assembly seat,’’ he said.

The MQM, which enjoys support among descendants of the Urdu-speaking people who migrated from India at the time of partition, faces opposition from a small splinter faction and hardline Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

Several people have been killed in tit-for-tat political killings in recent weeks. Byelections are due on June 22. Reuters

Hayat’s suggestion amounted to abandoning UN resolutions on Kashmir, acting opposition leader of PoK legislative assembly, Haji Javed Akhtar Chaudhry said, adding the solution would not bear fruit unless the indigenous Kashmiri leadership is taken into account.

Charging the Pakistan government with not taking a principled stand on Kashmir, he said Islamabad was rather capitulating in the face of tough US pressure.

Hayat yesterday said that he supported the proposed Chenab formula under which Muslim majority areas should be given to Pakistan and the Hindu and Buddhist areas to India. Hayat also ruled out independence to Kashmir.

Terming Hayat’s statement as a setback to Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir, former Pakistan army Gen M.H. Insari (retd) charged that the Chenab formula was an American conspiracy.

He said the USA had divided Iraq in three parts and now plans to cut off Kashmir which was “life vein” of Pakistan.

Another former army Gen Hakim Arshad Qureshi (retd) said: “Though Kashmir is the lifeline of Pakistan, neither Pakistan nor India are in a position to dictate their terms in Kashmir.”

However, Air Marshal Zafar Chaudhry (retd) said the suggestion was according to principles. The Hindu majority areas should be included in India while Muslim majority territory should be a part of Pakistan, he said, adding as Ladakh had a majority of Buddhists they were free to join any country. PTI

General Musharraf said earlier he would retire as army chief before his five-year term as President ended. But the coalition of six religious parties, which represents a powerful opposition bloc in Parliament, was not satisfied. Talks to break the impasse collapsed yesterday.

“Musharraf should take off the uniform and hold fresh elections ...this is all we want,” said Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, a lawmaker and leader of one of the parties that make up the United Action Forum.

“We will not compromise on the issue of supremacy of Parliament,” he said. “Musharraf is mistaken if he thinks he can be both President and army chief. We will force him to quit,” he added.

The deadlock has crippled Pakistan’s Parliament. No legislation has been debated or passed since February. AP

A total of 65 school buildings were burned in the eastern Aceh district of Bireun, 1,575 km northwest of Jakarta, including one elementary school building that was razed by an unidentified man this morning, eyewitnesses said. “I saw an unidentified man leave the school building compound in a rush, and soon afterward the building was in flames,’’ Fauziyah, a resident told DPA.

School burning has been common in Aceh, plagued by a civil war for the past 27 years, where the government launched a new military offensive on Monday after peace talks with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) collapsed in Tokyo over the weekend.

Local government officials said more than 80 school buildings were set on fire as martial law entered the second day today across the restive province.

The school burnings mean hundreds of students will be unable to continue classes and hold their final exams.

Also this morning, local residents in Bireun found the body of a local legislator, identified as Jamaluddin, in an irrigation ditch with gunshot wounds.

Lieut Colonel Achmad Yani, spokesman for the military operation in Aceh, blamed the burning of the schools on GAM, the separatist force fighting for Aceh’s independence since December, 1976.

Yani said at least five separatist rebels were killed yesterday the first day of military operations in Aceh, while seven others were captured alive. DPA