Warsaw, October 1
Miss Czech Republic took the Miss World crown yesterday in Poland’s capital Warsaw, the first city in ex-Communist East Europe to host the pageant.

Tatana Kucharova, a blue-eyed blonde wearing a tight-fitting white gown, fought back tears as the Miss World sash was draped over her shoulder and a glittering crown placed on her head.

Kucharova blew kisses to the crowd and hugged her competitors, 103 women from five continents, but made no comments.

The two-hour pageant was held in Warsaw’s Palace of Culture.

Seventeen-year-old Miss Romania, Ioana Valentina Boitor, was the first runner-up.

In keeping with its conversion to capitalism, Poland is aiming to cash in on Miss World, billed as television’s most watched event. A think tank calculated exposure from the pageant would help draw five million extra tourists to the country by 2010.

Miss Australia, Sabrina Houssami, was the second runner-up.

Feminists dismiss Miss World, founded in 1951, as a sexist ‘‘cattle show’’, yet organisers expected more than 2 billion people in 200 countries to tune in.

Kucharova is the third Eastern European to win the Miss World crown. The first, Poland’s Aneta Beata Kreglicka, was one of the three moderators at the Palace of Culture on Saturday. — Reuters

London, October 1
A new video tape has emerged which shows two of the September 11 hijackers, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, at a hideout of Osama- bin-Laden in Afghanistan, Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The paper said it had obtained a copy of the video through ‘‘a previously tested channel’’, without giving details.

It said US and Al-Qaida sources had verified the authenticity of the tape, which it said would be available on its Website today.

The paper said the video showed Egyptian-born Atta alongside another of the hijackers, Lebanese Ziad Jarrah.

Jarrah piloted United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

The two men are seen laughing and joking and then apparently reading their wills to the camera. There is no sound on the tape and lip-readers have failed to decipher their words, the paper said.

The Sunday Times said the footage, dated January 18, 2000, was the first to show Atta and Jarrah together, and helped fill in a gap in the chronology of Atta’s life.

Until now, investigators had not known where he had been in early 2000, but the tape shows he was in Afghanistan at Bin Laden’s Tarnak Farm hideout, the paper said.

The footage also shows Bin Laden addressing a crowd of around 100 Al- Qaida members on January 8, 2000 — 10 days before the footage of the hijackers. — Reuters

London, October 1
Asserting Britain’s multicultural credentials, Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it should be the top destination for Indian students for higher studies.

“Britain appreciates talents and appreciates all types of art, culture, cuisine and it should be the top destination for Indian students,” the Prime Minister said in a message to the 33rd anniversary celebrations of International Punjabi Convention which concluded here last night.

At present about 17,000 Indian students are pursuing higher studies in the UK.

In the message, read out by Baroness Patricia Scotland, Minister of State for Criminal Justice in the Home Office, Blair said he was proud to be Prime Minister of a country as diverse as Britain in which Punjabis played a key role.

He said, “when I last visited India as EU President, I was impressed by the rapid development India was making. It is a land of opportunities and Britain must appreciate the challenges India is presenting. Britain now enjoys a great network with India.”

He said Punjabi were recognised throughout the world for the positive contributions they make to the communities. “I much admire your passion for your rich cultural heritage, as well as your success in integrating into multicultural and diverse societies.”

The function, held at the London Hilton, was attended by R.L. Bhatia, Governor of Kerala, Kamalesh Sharma, Indian High Commissioner, Lord Navnit Dholakia, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, Keith Vaz, MP, former Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Office, NRI industrialist Dr Rami Ranger and about 500 Punjabi delegates from all over the world. — PTI

A group of Muslim lawyers, condemning the failure of international efforts to halt the violence in Sudan’s Darfur province, has called for the deployment of adequate peacekeeping forces in the African nation.

“It is incumbent on all, particularly Muslims and Muslim organisations, to see that there is an end to the violence and the humanitarian catastrophe/crisis in Darfur so that there is no further human suffering or loss of life,” the group said in a statement made available to The Tribune.

The group includes the Muslim Bar Association in New York, the Muslim Bar Association in Chicago, the Bay Area Association of Muslim Lawyers in California and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers in Washington.

The lawyers said intolerable atrocities — be it called genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity or mass violation of human rights — have taken place and continue to take place against men, women and children in Darfur.

A UN panel found the government of Sudan and the government-backed militias, the janjaweed, are responsible for widespread violations of international law that the lawyers said might amount to crimes against humanity.

Sudan has resisted Western demands to allow United Nation’s peacekeepers into the region and last week Al-Qaida’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, in a videotape message called on Muslims to wage a jihad against UN troops if they set foot in Darfur. Sudan insists that the African Union force should remain in charge of peacekeeping in Darfur rather than the UN. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack conceded, “Its some tough diplomacy, and the Sudanese government is intransigent at the moment”.