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Tuesday,
September 9, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Bush seeks troops, money for Iraq 3 Indians held
for illegally entering Pak 11 Maoists among 19 killed
in Nepal Mass hysteria
hits girls in Nepal school
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Bush seeks troops, money for Iraq Washington, September 8 In an 18-minute address to the nation tonight from the White House’s Cabinet room, Mr Bush said Iraq was now the central front against terrorism and other nations must contribute troops and money to oppose the enemies of freedom. “We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure,” he said. Mr Bush announced that he would soon submit to the Congress a request for $ 87 billion. The request, he said, would cover the ongoing military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, which he expected would cost $ 66 billion over the next year. Members of the UN, he said, now had an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq became a free and democratic nation. He recognised that not all of America’s friends agreed with the US decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power. “Yet,” he said, “we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilised world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilised world.” In his first speech on Iraq since May 1 when he stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declared an end to major combat operations, Mr Bush said Iraq and the Middle East were critical to winning the global war on terror. Some countries, said Mr Bush without naming them, had requested an explicit authorisation of the UN Security Council before committing troops to Iraq. He said he had directed Secretary of State Colin Powell to introduce a new Security Council resolution, which would authorise the creation of a multinational force in Iraq, led by America. “Our strategy in Iraq,” he said, “has three objectives—destroying the terrorists, enlisting the support of other nations for a free Iraq, and helping Iraqis assume responsibility for their own defence and their own future.” The USA, he said, was committed to expanding international cooperation in the reconstruction and security of Iraq, just as in Afghanistan. Mr Bush concluded his address saying: “We are serving in freedom’s cause, and that is the cause of all mankind.”
— PTI, AFP |
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Guarded response from allies Tokyo, September 8 Japan, normally a quick backer of Washington, offered only a lukewarm response. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, busy kicking off a campaign for re-election as head of the country’s ruling party, had no immediate response to the speech. “It has always been the position of the Japanese Government that it is willing to assist as well as contribute to humanitarian efforts,” Koizumi spokesman Yu Kameoka said. The South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it had no immediate reaction to Mr Bush’s speech. However, a ministry official noted that South Korea had already dispatched 675 non-combat troops to help reconstruct Iraq. The military engineers and medics were sent to Syria and Iraq in April and May, he said. “There has been no request from the USA for further assistance from us,” said another official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “Our position is that we will look into it once the request is made.” Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity. Some leaders stressed the importance of a stronger United Nations role as a condition for assistance. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said the country “would look at what we could do,” to provide further troops for Iraq “if the UN were to step up its involvement”. But she added that with New Zealand already committed with teams of engineers and demining specialists in Iraq, and peacekeeping units in Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands, “it’s unlikely that New Zealand could contemplate any large contribution.” PARIS: France said today a speech by Mr Bush urging the international community to settle differences over Iraq and back an American-drafted UN resolution offered prospects of an agreement. The call signalled a shift from Mr Bush’s previous insistence that the occupying powers — the USA and Britain — take the lead role in Iraq. And it was a tacit admission of the failure to secure a swift and peaceful transition there. “This is unquestionably good news for us...as well as for Iraq and the Iraqi people,” European Affairs Minister Noelle Lenoir said on RTL radio.
— AP, Reuters |
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3 Indians held
for illegally entering Pak Quetta, September 8 The men were captured yesterday in Taftan, a town in southwestern Pakistan along the border with Iran, said Fateh Khan Khachak, a district government official. Taftan is 700 km southwest of Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. It was not immediately clear why the men entered Pakistan, but Khachak said the suspects might have gone to Iran in an effort to travel to Europe via Iran to find work. “Such people are often pushed back to Pakistan by Iranian officials,” he said. In recent months, Pakistan and Iran have stepped up border checks to prevent people from sneaking across the border.
— AP |
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11 Maoists among 19 killed
in Nepal Kathmandu, September 8 A 13-year-old student was killed when a powerful bomb exploded at the office of the Kathmandu municipality this morning. Over a dozen persons were injured in a series of bomb explosions in various places of Kathmandu, including land revenue offices at Kalanki, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, the labour office at Baneshwor and Naradevi.
— UNI |
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Mass hysteria
hits girls in Nepal school Kathmandu, September 8 A team of experts from the BP Koirala Institute of Health Science examined the girls, aged between 13 and 16, from Nepal Rashtriya Secondary School in Sunsari district, as they were displaying unexplained emotional outbursts since last few months. The girls, who would suddenly break into tears or start giggling, were found to be suffering from mass hysteria, the National News Agency reported quoting Headmaster Daya Shanker Chaudhari. There were only male teachers in the school and the disease had occurred due to suppressed feelings which the girls could not express in front of the male teachers, psychiatrist Binod Dev, who was involved in the treatment, said. Earlier, parents “believed the girls were under the influence of supernatural powers and they had even sacrificed a black goat, besides offering special prayers to Gods”.
—PTI |
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Bali bombings: 2 get 15-yr jail Denpasar (Indonesia), September 8 Judge Ida Bagus Jagra found Andi Hidayat, alias Agus, guilty of “jointly with others providing funds for a terrorist action”. The judge said Hidayat in August 2002 took part in a robbery of the shop at Serang in west Java in which 2.5 kg of gold jewellery and five million rupiah ($ 600) in cash was stolen. The gold and money were handed over to Imam Samudra, the alleged field commander of the Bali attack, later that month. Samudra, 33, would hear a verdict in his trial on Wednesday and prosecutors had asked for a death sentence. The robbery, in which four men were involved, left the shopkeeper’s daughter wounded by a gunshot. In a separate trial judges found Junaedi, alias Amin alias Engkong, guilty of the same charges as Hidayat and gave him the same sentence. Junaedi had testified that Samudra once tried to recruit him as a suicide bomber. The lawyers and the prosecutors, who had sought 18 years in jail, were given seven days to decide whether to appeal. The police said the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group carried out the attack on two crowded Bali nighspots, killing 202 persons, to strike at Westerners in revenge for oppression of Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
— AFP |
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WHO warns of
SARS resurgence Manila, September 8 “None of us can predict what will happen later this year. Will SARS come back or not?’’ Director-General Lee Jong-wook told a five-day WHO regional committee meeting in Manila. “We have to prepare on the assumption that this will come back. Our challenge now is to enhance surveillance networks that will detect and deal with SARS if it does come back,’’ Lee said in his opening address. “We are certain that the human-to-human transmission of the virus stopped in July and it hasn’t come back yet. But the virus is still out there,”
said Mr Peter Cordingley, WHO's head of public information in the Western Pacific
region. — Reuters |
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Washington, September 8
Kathmandu, September 8
