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Situation in Tibet worsening: Dalai WASHINGTON, June 21: The Dalai Lama has said that the situation in Tibet was "worsening" but showed his willingness to talk to China at any place and at any time. He also asked US Congress members to help initiate a dialogue on the issue. .....more US had persuaded DUBAI, June 21: Gen Anthony Zinni, commander of the US Central Command, has.....more |
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Britain
probes for LONDON, June 21: British officials today said they were investigating .....more India, UK discuss strategy LONDON, June 21: India and Britain today decided to intensify.......more ISLAMABAD, June 21: A US diplomat John Smith has met a senior leader of Pakistan.......more Security, economic MOSCOW, June 21: Global and regional security and Indo-Russian economic......more |
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Situation in Tibet worsening: Dalai WASHINGTON, June 21: The Dalai Lama has said that the situation in Tibet was "worsening" but showed his willingness to talk to China at any place and at any time. He also asked US Congress members to help initiate a dialogue on the issue. "The present situation inside Tibet is very very critical. If we look (at the) Tibet problem locally, then time is running out," he told reporters here yesterday after a meeting with US President Bill Clinton. The Tibetan spiritual leader during his meeting with key republican and democratic legislators and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sought their support. The Dalai said he was willing to talk to China without any preconditions. "Anyplace, anytime. I am willing to meet with the Chinese leadership without preconditions," he said. On the influx of Chinese people into Tibet, he said when he met President Liu Shao-Chi in the 50s he told him that China had a great many people and tibet had much land. "If there is mutual friendship between Chinese and Tibetans, bringing in more Chinese would be no problem but not under present circumstances. At present, relations between Tibet and China are very sad," the self-exiled leader said. He thanked the senators and representatives for their friendship which, he said, was deepening year after year. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), an organisation that supports the Tibetan cause said on the Dalai Lama’s current 15-day visit to the US that it has planned a March in front of the Chinese Embassy on July 1. On July 2, the Dalai Lama will hold a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony followed by a public address on the mall. According to many Tibetans, the Chinese presence in Tibet is destroying the region’s unique Buddhist culture. ICT said that in the early years of China’s occupation of Tibet, the Chinese "virtually banned the study and practice of Buddhism and that by 1969, not a single practising nun or monk was left in Tibet—they had all fled, been executed or imprisoned or defrocked". (PTI) |
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US had persuaded Pak to pull back from Kargil: Gen Zinni DUBAI, June 21: Gen Anthony Zinni, commander of the US Central Command, has acknowledged that his country had, to an extent, persuaded Pakistan to pull back from Kargil during last year’s conflict and stop supporting militants in Kashmir. The General, who had visited both India and Pakistan as a special envoy of President Bill Clinton during the conflict to defuse the situation, however, hastened to add that the decision to withdraw was entirely "their (Pakistan) own". Gen Zinni was in Abu Dhabi yesterday as part of a pre-retirement tour of the Gulf region. His comments assume significance, coming as they do at a time when an intense debate is on in Pakistan as to who masterminded the Kargil conflict. Mr Nawaz Sharif, who was Pakistan’s Prime Minister at the time of the conflict, has claimed that he was kept in the dark by the Army about its Kargil plan. The present military Government, headed by Gen Pervez Musharraf, has termed Mr Sharif’s statement as "ill-founded, factually incorrect and containing wild accusations against the Army". Some prominent Pakistani politicians have suggested that the deposed premier be tried for treason for his comments on the Kargil conflict. When a reporter asked Gen Zinni if he had been sent by President Clinton to Pakistan to pressurise Mr Sharif into withdrawing from Kargil, he said "the US was concerned and feared that the situation could escalate into something extremely dangerous for the region". Khaleej Times quoted Gen Zinni as saying "both sides were beginning to mobilise and escalate, obviously both sides possessed weapons of mass destruction". He said his role as envoy of the President was to ask the Pakistani Prime Minister to withdraw from Kargil and use his influence on militants in Kashmir to cease the situation in Kargil. He said "I talked to Mr Sharif and the Chief of Staff and convinced them to take steps to ease tensions and to withdraw from Kargil. They agreed, there was no interest I found in Pakistanis to see the situation escalate beyond control from either side and they cooperated making the decision on their own". (UNI) |
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Britain probes for clues to Chinese truck deaths LONDON, June 21: British officials today said they were investigating reports that 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated to death on a truck had spent four months trying to reach Britain. "We are following all lines of inquiry," said one official as the probe into the grisly find at the Southern english port of Dover entered its third day. The guardian quoted Yang Chen, 20, who fears his 19-year-old cousin Chen Lin was among those who died, as saying the group had trekked overland through Russia and Europe, including crossing mountains to get across the border from the Czech Republic. "All the way through their trip they were allowed to make calls back home to say where they were. The last call was from Holland on Sunday and they said they were travelling to the UK that night," he said. Chen said his cousin had left the city of Jiangle in China’s Fujian province in February and had travelled through Beijing, Moscow, the Czech Republic and then on to the Netherlands. Dutch police have arrested one person over the truck deaths and British investigators have appealed for leads from the close-knit Chinese community. British police said the victims and two survivors were all believed to be in their early 20s and from the coastal Chinese province of Fujian. The tragedy brought calls from European nations for a crackdown on the shadowy trade in human cargo. British police have not commented on reports that "snakeheads" from Chinese crime syndicates were behind the tragedy. But by keeping two hospitalised survivors under guard, they were clearly not taking chances. The horror of how the 54 men and four women died in the sweltering container truck behind pallets of tomatoes could only be hinted at by the customs officers who found them late on Sunday and the rescuers who pulled out the bodies. The truck’s cooling system was switched off, turning it into a nearly airless oven in steamy summer temperatures during the ferry crossing from Zeebrugge in Belgium. Police said the Coroner’s initial findings showed the victims had died from ‘’some form of respiratory failure’’. Dutch prosecutors said yesterday police had arrested one person on Monday after searching three houses in Rotterdam but declined to say whether the suspect was Arie Van Der Spek, who registered the company that owned the truck on June 15. British police gave no details of the driver they were questioning, other than to say he was being held on suspicion of manslaughter but had not been charged. (REUTERS) |
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India, UK discuss strategy to deal with drug traffickers LONDON, June 21: India and Britain today decided to intensify cooperation to deal firmly with drug-traffickers and discussed the question of upgradation of the extradition treaty. These and several other matters of "mutual interest" came up for discussion when Home Minister L K Advani met the British Home Secretary Jack Straw in the morning and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in the afternoon, sources said. Advani, who arrived here by Euro-Rail from Paris yesterday on a four-day visit, is accompanied by Home Secretary Kamal Pande, Director of the Central Bureau of Investigtion (CBI) R K Raghavan, Intelligence Bureau Director Shyamal Dutta and Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF) E N Rammohan. This is the second senior-ministerial level meeting between the two countries within a week. Defence Minister George Fernandes paid a four day visit last week and discussed defence cooperation between the two countries. A spokesman of the British Home Ministry told PTI after the 25-minute meeting between Advani and straw that a "whole range of issues" and "matters of mutual interest" figured in the discussion. The Home Minister, who came here after visits to Israel and France, would visit the Scotland Yard tomorrow morning and interact with anti-terrorist legal experts. Indian High Commissioner Nareshwar Dayal hosted a dinner in honour of the Home Minister last night. During his stay here, Advani will meet members of the Jewish community and Overseas Friends of BJP. He is scheduled to address a press conference tomorrow evening. (PTI) |
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ISLAMABAD, June 21: A US diplomat John Smith has met a senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League, party of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and discussed the country’s political situation, recent remarks by Sharif on Kargil intrusions and Indo-Pak relations. Smith, head of political cell of the US embassy in Islamabad, also discussed with Lt General (Retd) Abdul Majeed Malik the Pakistan-US relations, party sources said. Malik apprised Smith of PML’s viewpoint on restoration of democracy and economic situation and urged that US play its role in resolving the Kashmir issue. The US diplomat said that his country favoured restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Malik also dispelled the impression that there were serious differences within the party. "Difference of opinion in major political parties is very common, same is the case with PML but these differences are not serious enough to break the party, " Malik told reporters. (PTI) |
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Security, economic cooperation
to top Jaswant’s MOSCOW, June 21: Global and regional security and Indo-Russian economic cooperation are to top External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s agenda at his talks with the Russian leaders in Moscow begining tomorrow. Singh is arriving in Moscow today on a four-day visit to kick-off preparations for the India visit of Russian President Vladmir Putin in the beginning of October, during which the two countries are to sign strategic partnership declaration and about half a dozen key bilateral agreements, Indian Ambassador to Moscow S K Lambah told Itar-Tass today. Singh’s visit would be the first of a senior Indian leader to Moscow since President Putin took office in May. During his stay Singh will call on Putin and hold extensive discussions with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Singh is also scheduled to visit Russia’s imperial capital and President Putin’s home town St Petersburg. Tomorrow Singh is scheduled to hold wide ranging talks with the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Ivanov on regional and global security concerns and closer Indo-Russian cooperation in combating international terrorism and religious extremism, a common threat for the multi-ethnic and pluralistic societies like India and Russia. The future of 1972 anti-ballistic missiles treaty and Russia’s proposal of a joint missile shield to thwart potential missile threat from ‘problem’ states is also likely to be discussed during Singh’s ‘parleys with the Russian leadership. Singh is scheduled to hold in-depth discussions on Indo-Russian economic cooperation and trade with Vice Premier Viktor Khristenk, Russian co-chairman of the bilateral Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) on trade, economic, scientific, technolgical and cultural cooperation. "The present level of interaction between India and Russia in the economic and commerical sphere is neither commensurate with the potentialities nor does it correspond to the Indo-Russian political and diplomatic relationship," Ambassador Lambah said in a press interview. "India could become the biggest foreign investor in Russia’s oil industry in the foreseeable future" sources said. Negotiations are underway on the acquisition of 50 per cent stake by ONGC Videsh Ltd from the Russian Government oil company `Rosneft’ in Sakhalin offshore oil field. ONGC Videsh Ltd MD Atul Chandra recently visited Sakhalin and Moscow and sources do not rule out that the major deal could be signed during President Putin’s India visit. While Indo-Russian relations are acquiring unprecedented dynamism with Singh’s visit to be followed by those of Defence Minister George Fernandes and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, the two sides are trying to put on the backburner irritants like the Purulia convicts and harrassment of Indians by the Russian immigration authorities. India is ‘mindful’ of the problems of the Pilots convicted in Purulia armsdrop case and arrangements have been made to ‘substatially’ improve their living conditions in the jail, Lambah said stressing law has to take its own course. Sources say the Indian mission here has strongly taken the issue of harassment of Indians at Moscow airport by the Russian immigration authorities. (PTI) |
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