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Friday,
June 6, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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17 Russians killed in suicide attack Vancouver, June 5 A man suspected of being the Canadian intelligence agency’s mole planted in a Sikh militant group prior to the Kanishka tragedy had explosives and airline tickets with him shortly before two bombs were allegedly checked onto flights at Vancouver airport, a police officer has stated in an affidavit. World Hindi Conference begins today
Video: Newly appointed Prime-Minister of Nepal Surya Bahadur says his priority would be to work for all- party
consensus and then hold
dialogue with the Maoists.
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| UN inspectors head for Iraq Kuwait, June 5 A team of seven inspectors from the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Kuwait, en route to Iraq to conduct a limited probe into reports of looting at Iraq’s main nuclear facility.
UN cancels mission to Myanmar
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17 Russians killed in suicide attack Moscow, June 5 According to Radio Mayak, the bomber clad in white coat — the uniform for medical personnel — approached the bus when it slowed down at a railway crossing in Mozdok and exploded herself. “We have been unable to identify the suicide bomber so far — there was little left of her,” Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor-General Sergei Fridinsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax new agency. All the passengers of the ill-fated bus were military and civilian employees of the local Air Force station, spokesman of the North Osetian administration said on the phone. “Bordering on Chechnya, North Osetia’s Mozdok is Russia’s main air base in the Caucasus, which was widely used for attacks on Chechen terrorist bases in remote mountains,” the North Osetian official speaking on the conditions of anonymity did not rule out more such attacks by terrorists. North Osetia is the only Christian republic in Russia’s Muslim-dominated Caucasus and has always been loyal to Moscow. Last month the police had intercepted and destroyed two explosive-laden trucks when they were trying to sneak into North Osetia from neighbouring Ingushetia. President Vladimir Putin has been informed of the incident and the Defence Ministry is rushing investigation team to Mozdok.
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8 UN observers taken hostage in Georgia Tbilisi, June 5 Nora Kvetsiani from the Georgian administration said that Russian troops accompanying the observers had raised the alarm after being released by the unknown assailants who seized the UN monitors. The UN observers were kidnapped in Kodorsky Gorge where they were patrolling the buffer zone which separates Georgian forces from Abkhaz rebels. AFP |
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CSIS mole ‘had hand’ in Kanishka bombing Vancouver, June 5 Canada’s spy agency intercepted a telephone call on June 21, 1985, between Surjan Singh Gill and the alleged mastermind of the scheme, Talwinder Singh Parmar, Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) Constable Gary Clark-Marlow said in an affidavit sworn to obtain court approval for wire taps, a media report said. Parmar and Gill spoke in code, stated Constable Clark -Marlow, a member of the Air-India task force. The affidavit was among documents from the Air-India trial released last week after a publication ban was lifted. “Mr Parmar asked Mr Gill whether he had delivered those papers. Mr Gill replied: Yes. Mr Parmar then told him to deliver the clothes to the same place,” the officer stated. “I believe that the ‘papers’ refer to the airline tickets and ‘clothes’ refer to the suitcase for the bombs,” Canadian daily The Globe and Mail quoted him as saying. The revelation raises questions about the Air-India investigation and Gill’s move to England in 2000 shortly before two other men were charged in the case. Before he left Canada, the RCMP had identified Gill as one of six main suspects in the Air-India case, recently released RCMP documents show. Gill was never charged in the bombings. RCMP Staff Sergeant Grant Learned said in an interview that he could not respond to questions about the affidavit, which was sworn some time after April 1996. The date of the affidavit is included in information still subject to publication ban. The recently released police documents from the Air-India trial tell only part of the story, he said. “There’s still hundreds of thousands of pages and tapes and interviews that the media do not have access to,” he said. “Everyone has questions about bits and pieces of information. . . . I expect the same questions will be raised during the trial. Constable Clark-Marlow’s comments in the affidavit provide an extensive account of dozens of Parmar’s telephone conversations monitored by the CSIS starting in late March, 1985. Gill was in frequent contact with Parmar in the days leading up to June 23, 1985. Although tape recordings of most conversations were erased, the spy agency had officers’ notes and various reports to piece together a portrait of Gill’s activities, the report said. A CSIS agent, Larry Lowe, followed Gill, Parmar and an unidentified man to the Vancouver ferry terminal on the afternoon of June 4,1985, that said Gill was resigning from a Sikh militant group run by Parmar. Another police officer Staff Sgt Don Adam suggested during the interrogation of one of the Air-India defendants that Gill was a CSIS agent who was instructed to pull out before the disaster. Solicitor-General Wayne Easter has denied that the agency knew in advance about the bombing.
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World Hindi Conference begins today Paramaribo (Surinam), June 5 Surinamese President Ronaldo, India’s Minister of state for External Affairs, Digvijay Singh and participants in the World Hindi Conference beginning here tomorrow, today garlanded a magnificent memorial built for “Mai Baap” here. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Ronaldo said the people of Indian origin had enriched the country with their hard work and commitment and added to its cultural heritage a chapter that would be forever shining. On the occasion, a road here was named as “Hindi Path” and the building of Surinam Hindi Parishad built at the end of the road was inaugurated. Speaking at the “Mai Baap” memorial, Mr Digvijay Singh said the day was historic for both Surinam and India and he was pleasantly surprised to see Indian culture and language thriving in this land. Those present on the occasion of the inauguration of the Hindi Bhavan included Hindi Parishad’s Chairman Janaki Prasad Singh and Surinam’s Culture, Education and Community Development Minister, Walter Sandriman. Meanwhile, arrangements are complete for the World Hindi Conference, which would be inaugrated by President Ronaldo tomorrow and a message of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be televised on the occasion. The Surinam government would issue a postage stamp on the day and four exhibitions, including one on Indian heritage, language and industrial development would be organised.
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Indian team alleges ill-treatment Paramaribo (Surinam), June 5 Kamleshwar broke down on the steps of President’s house during a dinner hosted last night and said when he complained about the lack of certain facilities, he was curtly told by an official of the External Affairs Ministry that he would have to bear his board and lodging expenses himself. Organisers said the Delhi delegation had landed two days ahead of the schedule and they were unable to do anything about it. A delegation member, Mukund Dwivedi, said they had only advanced the money given by the Delhi Government and the air booking and the date of journey had been decided by the External Affairs Ministry. A scholar from Venice University also did not find any arrangement for him and had to hire an accommodation for himself.
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Thapa’s appointment sparks off agitation Kathmandu, June 5 “We have not recognised this government and will not join the ministry,” said Nepali Congress spokesperson Arjun Narsingh K.C. “Our joint agitation will continue as per the schedule. This is an undemocratic exercise to keep aside proposals made by five parties whose combined strength is more than three-fourths in the dissolved House of Representatives,” he said. “The appointment of Thapa has made democracy and multiparty system a joke,” said Bharat Mohan Adhikari, standing committee member of the CPN-UML. The parties have never recommended Thapa’s name for Premiership during their joint audience, he said. “King Gyanendra has breached the Constitution by not appointing Madhav Kumar Nepal Prime Minister even if his name was proposed by parties that command 90 per cent votes in the dissolved Parliament, he added. The Constitution cannot be reactivated without reviving the House of Representatives, NC leader Ramchandra Poudyal said.
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UN inspectors head for Iraq Kuwait, June 5 The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) task will be to determine how much nuclear material was looted from a storage site near the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre after the war. But the USA as the occupying power in Iraq, has limited its mission to counting missing containers of radioactive material and repackaging spilled material. They will not measure environmental contamination or look into reports of radiation sickness among nearby residents. The team is also barred from entering the main Tuwaitha complex and will have no access to six other nuclear sites in Iraq that were allegedly looted in the post-war chaos. “We have been assured by the USA that the other radioactive sources in Iraq would be secure,” IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters at Vienna airport. Report doctored Berlin:
A former UN inspector in Iraq said today he believed that intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was made up, and he voiced doubt that Saddam Hussein had stocks of VX nerve gas left when US-led forces toppled him. Evidence “was created” after even the CIA raised doubts about whether Iraq had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, Bernd Birkicht alleged in a German radio interview. “Basically, all intelligence information we got and tried to verify turned out to be wrong,” he told Berlin’s Inforadio station. Birkicht, a 39-year-old Berlin computer scientist, said it was unlikely that any VX stocks remained. Reuters,
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USA to eliminate WMD in all rogue states Washington, June 5 Under Secretary of State John Bolton also told Congress yesterday that Washington would not offer disarmament inducements to North Korea, would punish suppliers of dual-use materials, and was going to offer Iraqi scientists specialising in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) a chance to emigrate, presumably to the USA. “We aim ultimately not just to prevent the spread of WMD but also to eliminate or ‘roll back’ such weapons from rogue states and terrorist groups that already possess them or are close to doing so,” Bolton told the House Committee on International Relations. He noted that while the administration of President George W. Bush favoured peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the proliferation threat, it ruled out no options.
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UN cancels mission to Myanmar Yangon, June 5 The envoy’s visit had been in doubt as the country’s ruling junta faced mounting worldwide outrage over the arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi has been held incommunicado at a secret location since last Saturday and the junta has ignored calls from world leaders, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US President George W. Bush, that she be freed or at least allowed to see visitors. Her continued incarceration has given credence to reports that she was seriously injured in an attack by junta supporters in northern Myanmar on the night of May 30. Military leaders said four people were killed and 50 injured in violence that night, but Myanmar dissident sources said the death toll may have been more than 70. Razali, a senior Malaysian diplomat, brokered talks between the junta and the NLD in 2000 aimed at bringing about a peaceful transition to democracy. But the talks failed to make progress and the current crackdown appeared to scuttle hopes for compromise.
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