The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Kerry, Lavrov hold talks to de-escalate Ukraine crisis
US calls for pullback of Russian troops from Ukraine border

Washington, March 31
US Secretary of State John Kerry has told his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Russia must pull back its troops from the Ukrainian border to deescalate the tension following Crimea's takeover by Moscow.

"Any real progress in Ukraine must include a pullback of the very large Russian force that is currently massing along Ukraine's borders," Kerry said at a news conference in Paris yesterday after four hours of talks with Lavrov.

"We believe that these forces are creating a climate of fear and intimidation in Ukraine. It certainly does not create the climate that we need for the dialogue and for the messages sent to both the international community as well as to Ukrainians themselves about the diplomatic channel," he said.

Kerry said he and Lavrov made suggestions on how they can deescalate the security as well as the political situation in and around Ukraine. "We talked very seriously and at length about the impact of the massing of troops and the importance of including the drawdown and redeployment of some of those troops with respect to the process moving forward," he said.

It's not up to the US or Russia to make any decision or any agreement regarding federalization, Kerry said. Kerry also ruled out discussion of Russia's demand for Ukraine to become a loose federation until-and-unless Ukrainians are at the table.

"We talked about it. But it's up to Ukrainians, and Ukrainians will decide their future for themselves, by themselves, with respect to what kind of definitions work for them. And it will have to be an input, obviously, of what the Russian view is," he said.

"And so tonight we did not explore that because it would have been inappropriate for me to do so without Ukrainian input directly with respect to that." "What we are looking for is how do we deescalate it, how do we get on a track to be able to give the Ukrainians the opportunity that they deserve to be able to do that," Kerry said.

Kerry said the Ukrainian Government has demonstrated remarkable restraint in the face of enormous pressure.

"It has shown the world a kind of courage and resilience that every country ought to applaud. And as it continues down this path, the United States of America and our partners will remain firmly by its side," he said. — PTI

Thai court allows extradition of India’s wanted arms dealer

Bangkok, March 31
India received a shot in arm today when a Bangkok court approved the extradition of a Thai gun runner to face trial in India for helping sell nearly $2 million of arms to Naga rebels. India had secured an Interpol Red Corner Notice against 54-year-old Wuthikorn Naruenartwanich, alias 'Willy Naru', after Anthony Shimray, one of the accused, alleged that he had paid for an arms consignment which included AK-series rifles for NSCN-IM cadre.

India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) alleged that Shimray had struck a deal with Willy Naru for the arms consignment.

The NIA registered a case on the basis of information that National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Chisi Swu and Thuengaleng Muivah faction (NSCN-IM) had contemplated purchasing huge quantity of arms and ammunitions from abroad since the beginning of 2008.

Wuthikorn is suspected of helping to sell nearly USD 2 million worth of arms to the insurgent Naga group. He is accused of buying 1,000 rifles and several rocket-propelled grenades to be sold to Naga rebels. Wuthikorn apparently acted as a liaison for NSCN-IM and had links with a Chinese firm for gun procurement.

Details of the extradition of Wuthikorn would be worked out soon, sources told PTI. The court said prosecutors had provided evidence that Wuthikorn was the same person wanted by Indian authorities.

The NIA would be soon sending a team to take his custody if the accused, arrested in August last year based on the Interpol warrant, did not move to a higher court to appeal against the order of the Bangkok Criminal court.

India and Thailand have signed an extradition treaty after the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangkok in 2012. The treaty was signed after two decades of negotiations.

NIA has already filed a chargesheet in this case and a trial was under way. Wuthikorn was being tried in absentia so far. — PTI

Was on Interpol radar

Wuthikorn Naruenartwanich, alias 'Willy Naru' (54), is accused of helping sell nearly $2 million of arms to Naga rebels
India had secured an Interpol Red Corner Notice against him after one of the accused, Anthony Shimray, alleged that he had paid for an arms consignment, which included AK-series rifles, for NSCN-IM cadre
India's National Investigation Agency had registered a case on the basis of information that the NSCN-IM had contemplated purchasing huge quantity of arms and ammunitions from abroad

MH370: Oz says ‘no time limit’ for search

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott meets Malaysia's Air Force personnel at RAAF Base Pearce near Perth on Monday; and in the image taken onboard a Royal New Zealand P-3 Orion, a piece of unknown debris floats just under the water during the search operation in the southern Indian Ocean. AP/PTI

Perth, March 31
There is no time limit for resolving the “extraordinary mystery” of the missing Malaysian jet, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said today, even as the latest leads on possible plane debris turned out to be false alarms.

Bad weather conditions today forced the Australia-led search team to suspend operations for locating the debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean. The search had been intensified today with 10 aircraft and 10 ships combing 2,54,000 sq km area.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the orange objects spotted by a plane have turned out to be nothing more than fishing equipment. The objects had been analysed and spokesman Jesse Platts said “they have nothing to do with the missing flight.”

“We can keep searching for quite some time to come and we will keep searching for quite some time to come. I'm certainly not putting a time limit on it,” Abbott told reporters at the Perth's Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base Pearce. “This is an extraordinarily difficult exercise...we are searching a vast area of ocean and we are working on quite limited information," he said.

Appreciating the contribution of those who were involved in the search operation, Abbott said the “best brains in the world” are on the task but until any wreckage was found, authorities will have to keep relying on "guesstimates”.

“All of the technological mastery that we have is being applied. So if this mystery is solvable, we will solve it,” he said, adding "But I don't want to underestimate just how difficult it is". “We owe it to the families, we owe it to everyone that travels by air, we owe it to the anxious governments of the countries who had people on that aircraft. We owe it to the wider world which has been transfixed by this mystery for three weeks now,” Abbott said.

There have been a number of sightings in the new area about 1,100 km northeast of the previous search zone which was changed after radar data showed the plane had been traveling faster than previously thought, thus burning more fuel.

Search crews from various nations have found an array of potential leads, only to later shoot down any links to the missing plane. — PTI

Russian PM flaunts grip on Crimea

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev speaks at a meeting in Simferopol. AFP

Simferopol, March 31
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday became the first Russian leader to visit Crimea since Moscow seized the Black Sea region from Ukraine, promising to shower economic benefits on the area to make it flourish.

Medvedev toured Crimea's main city Simferopol at the head of a major delegation of cabinet ministers and deputy prime ministers, and was set to later visit Russia's Black Sea fleet base in Sevastopol.

He vowed to raise the level of salaries for municipal employees and pensions to average Russian levels and to modernise the region's hospitals, which he said were outdated.

Medvedev also announced that Crimea would become a "special economic zone", designed to attract investors with lower tax rates. "As a result of joining Russia, not one resident of Crimea, not one resident of Sevastopol should lose anything.

They can only gain," Medvedev promised at a special cabinet meeting held in Crimea.

Local officials, including Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, were also present at the meeting that was aired live on Russian state television. Medvedev said the officials had come to "assess the situation and the scale of tasks ahead of us, and of course just to talk to the residents of the peninsula and support them.

Russia to create SEZ in Crimea to woo investors

Russia will make Crimea a special economic zone offering tax breaks and reduced bureaucracy to attract investors, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday. "Our aim is to make the peninsula as attractive as possible to investors, so that it can generate sufficient income for its own development," Medvedev told a Russian government meeting on the Black Sea peninsula, which Moscow has annexed from Ukraine. — Agencies

Israeli ex-PM convicted in bribery scandal

Ehud Olmert

Jerusalem, March 31
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was today convicted in one of the country's worst corruption scandals, a verdict that could make him the first premier to face prison and end his hopes for a political comeback.

A Tel Aviv District court handed down the historic verdict against 68-year-old Olmert after finding him guilty of bribery linked to the Holyland apartment complex deal here which took place before he became prime minister in 2006.

In 2010, Olmert was named the key suspect in the towering construction project on suspicion that he received hundreds of thousands of shekels for helping developers get the project past various legal and planning obstacles.

The 700-page verdict which branded Olmert as a liar ended the most serious legal battle the veteran politician had waged since he was forced to step down as prime minister in 2009 amid a flurry of corruption allegations.

A total of 13 government officials, developers and other businesspeople were also charged with Judge David Rosen slamming what he described as a "corrupt political system which has decayed over years and in which hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred to elected officials". — AFP

Koreas trade artillery fire a day after North’s N-threat

US Marines get out from an amphibious assault vehicle during a joint landing operation by US and South Korean Marines in Pohang, 270 km from Seoul, on Monday. AFP

Seoul, March 31
The two Koreas traded hundreds of rounds of live artillery fire across their disputed maritime border today, forcing South Korean islanders to take shelter a day after the North drove up tensions by threatening a new nuclear test.

The exchange, triggered by a three-hour North Korean live-fire exercise that dropped shells into South Korean waters, was limited to untargeted shelling into the sea, military officials said.

South Korea's defence ministry said the North fired some 500 shells during the drill, around 100 of them landing on the south side of the sea boundary.

The ministry said the South had responded to Pyongyang's "premeditated provocation" by firing 300 shells from K-9 self-propelled howitzer batteries based on its front-line islands. "If the North takes issue with our legitimate returning of fire and uses it to make yet another provocation towards our sea and islands, we will make a resolute retaliation," ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said.

Analysts said the incident, coming a day after Pyongyang threatened to conduct a "new" type of nuclear test, was largely a sign of the North's growing frustration with US resistance to resuming multi-party talks on its nuclear programme. "I don't see that this ran any real risk of escalating into a serious clash," said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. — AFP

Hollande axes PM after poll debacle

Paris, March 31
French President Francois Hollande has reacted to a humiliating setback at the polls by appointing popular Interior Minister Manuel Valls as his new prime minister, sources said today.

Hollande, who was expected to confirm the move in an address to the nation, decided to axe current Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault after his Socialist Party lost more than 150 towns and cities to the main opposition and far-right in municipal elections yesterday.

Officials at the prime minister's official residence, Matignon, confirmed that Ayrault and the government he headed had resigned.

Waking up to headlines that included "A rout", "A slap" and "A kick up the backside", Hollande was left with little option but to order a radical shake-up of his deeply unpopular government, which is seen by many voters as drifting hopelessly in the face of a stagnant economy, persistently high unemployment and falling living standards for many people.

Both the far-right National Front (FN) and the mainstream opposition made historic gains in yesterday's nationwide elections. — AFP

Thai PM rejects negligence charges

Bangkok, March 31
Embattled Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra today defended herself against charges of negligence in a controversial rice subsidy scheme that could lead to her removal from office and a five-year ban from politics.

Yingluck, 46, appeared before the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to defend her against allegations that she as chairperson of the National Rice Policy Committee has failed to address corruption in the scheme that brought her to power in the 2011 election.

"Today she gave 200 pages of evidence to an anti-graft body," her Secretary General Suranand Vejjajiva said.

Yingluck asked the anti-graft body to consider her documents and said she would provide more information if needed. She also told NACC she has prepared 11 witnesses to argue against the charges, according to Suranand.

The Thai government started buying rice from farmers at above market prices in 2011 to shore up rural incomes, fulfilling a campaign pledge by the Pheu Thai Party headed by Yingluck. — PTI

Pilots’ strike threatens to ground Lufthansa

Frankfurt, March 31
Lufthansa, Germany's biggest airline, said today it will be forced to cancel most of its flights later this week, grounding as many as 425,000 passengers, due to a pilots' strike.

"As a result of the planned strike by the pilots' union Cockpit, around 3,800 flights will be cancelled on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday," the carrier said in a statement.

"A total 425,000 passengers will be affected by the stoppages," it said. "During the three-day walkout by Cockpit teams, there will only be around 500 short- and long-haul flights by Lufthansa and Germanwings." Lufthansa said it would inform passengers via text message or email about the flight changes.

Most domestic and European flights on the strike days would be operated by Lufthansa Group companies Eurowings, Lufthansa CityLine and Air Dolomiti, whose pilots were not taking part in the strike, the statement said. — AFP