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Fiji rebel
leader Speight SUVA, July 11: Rebel leader George Speight today said on Tuesday the ideal outcome of Fiji’s eight-week hostage crisis would bel.....more
India, Kuwait sign MoU KUWAIT, July 11: India and Kuwait have added a new dimension to their relations by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).......more |
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New
offensive against GENEVA, July 11: Cybersquatters beware. The World Intellectual Property Organisation is launching a new offensive against people who try to...more China repeats ‘one
China’ BEIJING, July 11: China has quashed calls by a visiting Taiwan opposition party delegation .....more Devotees question NEW DELHI, July 11: Can one turn consciousness, thoughts, prayer or meditation into registered trade marks, and can they be subject of copyright disputes ? .....more |
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Fiji rebel leader Speight happy to become new PM SUVA, July 11: Rebel leader George Speight today said on Tuesday the ideal outcome of Fiji’s eight-week hostage crisis would be for him to be named Prime Minister by the South Pacific country’s traditional chiefs. "Yes. I believe it would, because that is the overall desire and will of the people," Speight told reporters when asked if the best outcome would be for him to become Prime Minister. "I would be honoured to serve my country. That’s huge, that’s the ultimate," Speight said. Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs will meet on Thursday to decide on a new Prime Minister and President under an accord agreed on Sunday between Speight and Fiji’s military aimed at freeing his 27 hostages and ending the crisis. Speight and his rebels stormed Parliament on May 19 in the name of indigenous rights, taking Fiji’s first ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his multi-racial cabinet hostage in a bid to end Indian political power. Chairman of the Chiefs’ Council Sitiveni Rabuka, a former Prime Minister, has said Speight could become Prime Minister. He said today it was likely Speight would at least be included in the new Cabinet. "There is a chance — he has been given so much and I wouldn’t be surprised if they include him on the list," said Rabuka, who will convene the chiefs meeting but will not take part in any vote. Under Sunday’s accord a civilian Government appointed by the military only last week will be dismissed, the chiefs will appoint a new President and Prime Minister, the hostages will be freed and Speight granted amnesty. The military today called for calm as unrest flared despite the Sunday agreement between Speight and the military. "We would like everyone to remain calm and await the outcome of Thursday’s events," spokesman Major Howard Politini said. Military rulers said nationalist rebels had taken over a telecom Fiji office in Labasa, on Fiji’s second largest island Vanua Levu, and taken at least one telecoms worker hostage. Communications with Labasa appeared to be unaffected. Speight’s supporters have also erected roadblocks, occupied police stations and businesses. But the military denied rumours that troops had been put on alert in the western district of the main island, Viti Levu, and that the main airport at Nadi was about to be taken over. Speight said earlier he would release the hostages this week as agreed in the Sunday accord but he threw some doubt over the exact timing of their release, suggesting it might not be on Thursday as originally planned. Speight said the hostages would be released after dark to avoid publicity, but he declined to say on what day. "When it happens it will be very secret. They will be released in the evening," Speight told New Zealand’s Irn radio network. "I won’t tell you which evening because we don’t want you people (the media) around when it happens," said Speight, who has repeatedly dashed hopes of a deal to free the hostages. Speight had earlier agreed to release the hostages on Thursday before the Great Council meets. Speight said media would not be allowed near the hostages. "What gives the media the right to be there when the hostages are released? they definitely have made it very clear to us that they want their privacy. It is a matter of personal dignity." Irn said the 17 ethnic Indian and 10 indigenous Fijian hostages had been reunited on Tuesday inside the parliamentary compound for the first time in more than seven weeks. The Indian and Fijian hostages were separated and moved to different buildings shortly after Speight’s gunmen took control of the Parliament. Indians were first brought to Fiji in the 19th century to work in the sugar cane fields and now make up about 44 percent of Fiji’s 800,000 population and dominate the economy. (REUTERS) |
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India,
Kuwait sign MoU for mutual consultations KUWAIT, July 11: India and Kuwait have added a new dimension to their relations by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to hold regular Foreign office consultations to chalk out common strategies on international issues of mutual interest. The MoU was signed by visiting Minister of State for External Affairs Ajit Kumar Panja and Kuwaiti Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sulaiman Majed al-Shaheen at a ceremony here last evening. According to the agreement, the two countries shall hold consultations at official level annually or more frequently alternatively in India or Kuwait on all aspects of bilateral relations as well as regional and international issues. The discussions could also be held between the permanent missions of the two countries in international organisations or at international conferences. The two Ministers described the signing of the MoU, which would remain in force for two years and then get renewed automatically, as ‘’yet another step in the direction of strengthening close bonds of friendship’’ between the two countries. Later talking to reporters, Mr Panja said there was commonality of views between India and Kuwait on most of the international issues. He said some more major agreements, dealing with economic and trade issues, were being discussed between the two countries and would be signed soon. Mr Panja said that during the course of his 4-day visit, he had also met Kuwait Crown Prince and Prime Minister Shaikh Sa’ad Al-Abdulah Al-Salem Al-Aabah, Speaker of the national Assembly of Kuwait Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. During his meeting with the Crown Prince, he delivered a personal letter from Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to the Kuwaiti leader dealing with bilteral relations. On the issue of Kuwaiti Prisoners of War (POWs) languishing in Iraqi jails, Mr Panja said India was of the view that they should be dealt with in accordance with relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. To a question, he made it clear that any economic transactions between India and Iraq were within the framework of the U N Security Council resolutions. He also indicated that India would this year lift the ban on its nationals from going to work in Kuwait as domestic staff. ‘’we told Kuwait we are not going to keep the ban for long. It might be lifted before the end of the year’’, he added. He said a community welfare team, comprising senior officials, would soon visit Kuwait to study the condition of Indian workers and suggest ways to ensure their steady flow into the tiny Arab state. New Delhi imposed the ban in February because of maltreatment at the hands of unscrupulous agents and after complaints to human rights organisations in India highlighted the difficulties faced by Indian domestic workers in Kuwait. Mr Panja said a 1500-strong medical team from India, comprising doctors and nurses, would soon reach Kuwait to take up jobs in various hospitals in the country.(UNI) |
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New offensive against internet hijackers GENEVA, July 11: Cybersquatters beware. The World Intellectual Property Organisation is launching a new offensive against people who try to hijack internet addresses. While efforts have so far focused on the misleading use of trademarks in domain names, WIPO said yesterday it would start consultations on protecting other intellectual property rights such as trade and personal names and geographic regions. "In examining personality rights, geographical indications and (the other areas) we will be embarking on a more complex, but no less important, legal and policy terrain," said Francis Gurry, Assistant Director General of the Geneva-based WIPO, a United Nations agency. The United States, Australia, the European Union and others had all asked the WIPO to tackle the problem. The discussions aim to expand the ability of bodies like the WIPO to arbitrate in cases of cybersquatting — when net users register internet addresses including famous names or trademarks in the hope of making a fast buck by selling them "back". WIPO expects to submit a final report to its members and the internet community in April 2001. Members must then approve the report before expanded arbitration capacities can take effect. WIPO last year helped put in place a uniform dispute resolution policy which has been the basis for settling conflicts about trademarks on the internet since December 1999. Groups that have evicted Cybersquatters through the new procedure include the World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc, Christian Dior and Nike Inc. The approval process for the fast-track procedure took about 18 months, with the backing of all 175 WIPO members. Gurry told a news conference that 2,000 cases had already been filed this year, 800 of them with WIPO. Arbitrators have 45 days to resolve a case. If the panel then orders a registrar to transfer a domain name, the affected party has 10 days to challenge the decision in a competent court agreed by both sides. But efforts to stamp out abuse beyond trademarks are tricky because the legal basis is not as clear. WIPO will have to address the protection of everyday personal names, corner-shop trade names and a multitude of geographic indications — the names of places that have a product associated with them, such as roquefort for cheese or bordeaux for wine. "These areas are very complicated legally because, unlike trademarks, there is slightly less uniformity in the various national approaches to these areas," Gurry said. "When you have greater diversity on the national level, it is more difficult to find a uniform approach." WIPO has already helped actress Julia Roberts win back her name from a Cybersquatter, because the arbitration panel ruled she had common law trademark rights to her name. Pop star sting also has a case pending for the site sting.Com. (REUTERS) |
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China repeats ‘one China’ condition for Taiwan talks BEIJING, July 11: China has quashed calls by a visiting Taiwan opposition party delegation for mutual confidence-building steps, saying Taipei must first bend on Beijing’s "one China" policy, the China daily said today. Li Yafei, Secretary of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), told a delegation from Taiwan’s new party yesterday that accepting Beijing’s terms was "the only way out" of the China-Taiwan stalemate, the official newspaper said. Li said talks China broke off in 1995 could not restart until Taipei embraced Beijing’s principle that there was but one China — the Communist-ruled People’s Republic of China —and Taiwan was part of it. Taiwan lawmaker Feng Hu-Hsiang, who led the pro-reunification new party delegation, had called for a "military mutual-trust mechanism" to calm tensions across the Taiwan strait, the newspaper said. Tension across the strait has been high since new Taiwan President Chen Shui-Bian, whose Democratic Progressive Party espouses independence, won presidential elections in March. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said China’s People’s Liberation Army has held six sets of live-fire war games in waters in the Taiwan strait since May. Li said "all depends on whether Taiwan authorities will adhere to the one-China principle". Taiwan’s has flatly rejected Beijing’s demand, saying "one China" could be on the agenda of the talks but not a pre-condition. (REUTERS) |
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Devotees question copyright
on meditations, NEW DELHI, July 11: Can one turn consciousness, thoughts, prayer or meditation into registered trade marks, and can they be subject of copyright disputes ? This is the question perplexing hundreds of thousands of devotees of Bhagwan Rajneesh all over the world, especially since the Osho commune in Pune allegedly at the behest of the New York commune claimed that Osho’s thoughts had been copyrighted in New York and nothing could be published without their permission. Interestingly, Osho never wrote a word while he was ‘in body’ (as his disciples describe it). The matter has taken on a serious turn with the Pune commune banning the entry of Ma Yoga Neelam, former secretary to Osho and Swami Chaitanya Keerti, one of the senior-most devotees who had been editing the journal ‘Osho Times’ since its inception. Initiated into Sanyas in 1971, Swami Chaitanya Keerti had since 1973 been involved with various publications related to Osho. And now, the ‘three dictators’ - an Australian, a Briton and a Canadian - who claim to run the Osho commune in New York have through a legal notice challenged the right of Osho followers in the capital who are attempting to set up the website ‘oshoworld.Com’. The complainant D’Arcy O’Byrne, son of Canadian-born real estate agent Michael O’Byrne who is one of the three ‘dictators’, has alleged that Osho was registered as a trademark by them in August 1998 and that ‘Osho active meditations’ were registered as trade marks in October 1999. Ironically, Osho had himself scoffed the very idea of copyright of meditations when he was ‘in body’. Ma Yoga Neelam told that he had once told her that meditations are god’s gift to uplift the conscious level of humanity. He said these are ‘things of the market and should not be copyrighted and should be made abundantly available. He said thoughts, and certainly mediations, cannot be copyrighted. He had also said the job of his headquarters was to serve the sanyasins and not govern over them. Ma Neelam said when Osho came back to India in 1987, he wanted everything belonging to the commumne to be transferred to India including the copyright of his books. But the copyrights never got transferred and the publishing rights continued to remain in new york, she says. Thus, although the world headquarters of the commune is in Pune, permission had to be sought from New York to publish Osho’s works, she said. A 21-member decision-making committee described as the ‘inner circle’ had been chosen for life by the Osho himself, she said. But over a period of time, 15 of the original members left the commune in disgust, peeved over the autocratic functioning of the chairman, vice chairman and secretary of the ‘inner circle’, says Ma Neelam, who herself had been a member of this circle. All these 15 members had been replaced by nominees of New York-based inner circle chairman Swami Prem Jayesh (Canadian-born real estate agent Michael O’Byrne), she alleged, adding that the actual policy decisions were taken only by the three members at the top of hierarchy. Swami Keerti said disciples all over the world have to take permission from New York for any publication. ‘This is the height of stupidity, obsession and paranoia’. For the last so many years, Osho had not been seen on tv in India because of the restriction by New York’s commercial considerations. ‘For them, Osho is just another author, Albeit a best-selling one to be commercialised and traded in the marketplace’, he said. (UNI) |
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