Gaza, January 18
Hamas today announced an immediate ceasefire by its fighters and allied groups in the Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Ayman Taha said, adding that the Islamists gave Israel a week to pull out its troops.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier that if a ceasefire held in the Hamas-ruled enclave, Israel could start the process of withdrawing its forces.

“Hamas and the factions announce a ceasefire in Gaza starting immediately and give Israel a week to withdraw,” said Ayman Taha, a Hamas official in Cairo for talks with Egypt on a truce deal.

Earlier, the Islamist group had said it would not stop its attacks as long as Israeli soldiers remained in the Gaza Strip.

Taha said Hamas was demanding the opening of all Gaza border crossings for the entry of “all materials, food, goods and basic needs”. Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after Hamas seized the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Just hours earlier, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into southern Israel in defiance of the unilateral ceasefire that Olmert declared late on Saturday and which went into effect at 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Palestinians rushed to remove bodies from rubble and survey damage to homes damaged or destroyed since Israel launched on December 27 its most powerful offensive in the enclave in decades.

Leaders from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were to meet in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh within hours to coordinate policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Israel must allow full access to humanitarian workers, and to relief supplies,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters en route to the summit. “We must also end Gaza’s economic isolation by reopening the crossings that link it to the outside world.”

Egypt said the gathering would try to help it turn the ceasefire Israel declared into a mutual agreement leading to Israeli withdrawal from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

During the 22-day-long offensive, Israeli attacks killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, including some 700 civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Israel said hundreds of gunmen were among the dead. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed as well as three Israeli civilians hit by rockets.

The mounting civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip and mounting destruction and hardship in the territory brought strong international pressure on Israel to stop the offensive.

Hours after the Israeli ceasefire began, Gaza militants fired five rockets into the Israeli town of Sderot, causing no casualties, an Israeli military spokesman said. By the afternoon, another nine rockets hit Israel, the police said.

Israeli aircraft staged what appeared to be a limited response, attacking sites where the rockets were launched.

In the first reported fatality since the ceasefire began, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces near the town of Khan Younis after mortar bombs were fired from the area, medical workers said. They identified him as a civilian.

In an address late on Saturday, Olmert said the Israeli operation, launched with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks that had killed 18 people in Israel over the previous eight years, had achieved all its objectives. — Reuters

A local court in Parsa district of central Terai on Sunday remanded criminal- turned-lawmaker Baban Singh to three-day custody.

The police had arrested Singh on Saturday from Birgunj on the charge of colluding in the murder of businessman Rajesh Kyal on December 22 last year and the earlier murder of Jatasankar Sah in the town of Birgunj. According to the police, he was arrested after one Fulhasan Ansari had pronounced his name during an investigation.

According to a local correspondent of The Kathmandu Post, a leading English daily in Nepal, Singh has claimed he has been framed by the Maoist-led government. He said he neither knew Ansari nor those who murdered the businessman, adding he was arrested after he pointed fingers at the Maoists for the murder of Janakpur-based journalist Uma Singh. In his deposition, Singh has refuted his involvement in the murders.

Pleading on Sigh’s behalf, half-a-dozen lawyers said it was wrong to arrest a lawmaker, who enjoys greater immunity than ordinary citizens, without sufficient proof. “It is not legal to arrest an honorable CA member just because an individual pronounced his name,” said Lawyer Sudhir Karna.

Locals enforced a shutdown in Birgunj on Sunday protesting the arrest of Singh. They also vandalised a van with an Indian license plate. Locals in Rautahat, Singh’s home district, blocked the Chandranigahapur-Gaur road on Sunday morning, demanding Singh’s release. There was a clash between locals and shopkeepers in the afternoon when some supporters of Singh forcibly shut shops in Gaur, district headquarters of Rautahat. The police took a dozen local supporters of Singh in custody but later freed them.

Colombo, January 18
Media personnel in Sri Lanka have begun feeling the pressure of working in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, which has escalated since the recent killing of the editor of a fiercely anti-government newspaper with several journalists reportedly leaving the country.

The editor of ‘The Sunday Leader’, Lasantha Wickrematunge was shot dead on January 8 on a busy street in the outskirts of Colombo but no one has yet been arrested.

Wickrematunge’s killing came just days after a private television station had its premises attacked by a group of unidentified armed men but no arrests have been made in this connection either.

Days after the killing, the secretary of defence and President’s brother, Ghothabaya Rajapaksa, in a television interview called the news director of the attacked station a “terrorist”.

He warned that the editor would be taken into custody for a statement he made to CNN regarding the arson attack on his station.

The new director of the station, Chevan Daniel, has since gone into hiding.

In the light of these incidents, and with the growing feeling of uneasiness among media personnel who work for private media institutions, at least two journalists have reportedly left the country.

The attacks on media have grown as government troops are drawing near to take control of the remaining areas under the Tamil Tigers.

Many of the journalists who have faced threats are those reporting on defence-related news. Other journalists engage in self-censorship for fear of reprisals.

Opposition politicians have been demanding proper investigation into these attacks and even called for an international inquiry into the killing.

They accuse government elements for the attacks. These allegations have, however, been denied by the government. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who met newspaper editors a few days ago, assured the media persons of safety in his country.

But the lack of credible investigation into the past incidents of attacks on journalists gives them little reason to feel secure in the country.