Sri Lanka seeks new arms to battle rebels

COLOMBO, Apr 30: Sri Lanka’s Army, desperate for more weapons after its worst setback in the long ethnic war, is holding emergency meetings with major weapons suppliers including Russia, Britain and Iran, officials and local media said.

They said the Government had embarked on a fast track programme to re-equip the security forces after the loss of Elephant Pass, a key military complex straddling an Isthumus land route to the Jaffna Peninsula that was captured by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last week.

"All possible arrangements have been made to bring the situation back to normal after the recent setback in Elephant Pass," the Government-run Sunday Observer quoted Chief of Defence Staff Lieutenant General Rohan Daluwatte as saying.

"There is still a lot to do since we have to start from the beginning," Daluwatte said, without revealing details.

He acknowledged the defence forces faced a difficult situation, adding the military would have to wait for a while before launching a bid to retake Elephant Pass.

Army Commander Lieutenant General Sirilal Weerasooriya told reporters last week that the LTTE had more firepower than the military.

The Government has earmarked 52.4 billion rupees (708 million dollars) for defence this year, but the war bill is now likely to exceed the budgeted total.

The independent Sunday Times said officials led by Defence Secretary Chandranand De Silva had begun meeting representatives of arms manufacturers from Russia, Britain, Pakistan, Iran and Israel among others.

"One of the important conditions the suppliers have been called upon to confirm is ex-stock availability and early delivery. The procurements include day-to-day items and state-of-the art equipment," the newspaper said.

The arms buying plan was unveiled after President Chandrika vowed to unleash the full force of her Government against the LTTE, which has said capturing Jaffna was its main objective.

The military lost a huge quantity of arms and ammunition at Elephant Pass, which was defended by up to 17,000 troops before the Army ordered a "tactical withdrawal" due to LTTE attacks.

"We have continued with the war relentlessly with the objective if ushering in lasting peace to the nation. Therefore, my Government, the armed forces and I have resolved to unleash all our maximum energies to combat this menace...," Kumaratunga, also the Defence Minister, said in a televised speech on Friday.

Kumaratunga made her comments after a Government decision to bolster its armed forces through recalling to active duty all military reservists.

This is the first time reservists have been called up since the war against the LTTE — which is fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka’s North and East — began in 1983.

Fighting has continued in Jaffna after the LTTE asked civilians in some areas of the Peninsula to evacuate as they were planning fresh assaults on Army positions.

Kumaratunga said the door was still open to the LTTE for peace talks as long as they first renounced the armed struggle, but added that there would be no compromise if the rebels were unwilling to lay down arms.

Norway has offered to facilitate talks between the rebels and the Government, but analysts say LTTE’s intention to capture Jaffna might delay peace moves which had made some headway earlier this year. (REUTERS)

India showcases industry progress to Israel

TEL AVIV, Apr 30: India showcases its ever growing scientific, technological and industrial progress and displays goods of burgeoning fashion industry, food and culture during its first ever trade fair here this week, adding yet another glorious chapter to Indo-Israeli ties in the new millennium.

During the India Week fair beginning here from May 3, over 100 Indian companies representing varied sectors of economic activity will display their scientific, industrial and technological advancement equipments here, Indian Ambassador Ranjan Mathai told PTI.

While the ‘tree of life’ audio-visuaal show and fashion tableau, a blend of glamour, tradition, culture and style by leading fashion designer Ritu-Kumr — featuring models like swelt Madhu Sapre and Manpreet Brar — is expected to generate enough excitement here, the fair primarily features industrial goods and consumer products such as automotive components, electronic assemblies, transformers, granite, marble and hand tools, garments, leather, handicrfts, furniture, toys, jewellery, and industrial goods.

India’s message is that the country is ready to offer to Israelis diverse ways of market, Harsh Shringla, India’s economic counsellor here, said adding India had a massive potential of cooperation in software and electronic industry. (PTI)

Pak, Afghanistan wither as drought worsens

ISLAMABAD, Apr 30: Crops in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan have failed and livestock has died as a drought that has also parched neighbouring India tightens its grip, local officials and aid agencies said.

Authorities in Pakistan and Afghanistan have appealed for international aid to tackle the problem, which officials say will worsen later this summer as little rain is expected.

The worst affected areas have not seen adequate rainfall for up to eight years, officials say.

International Relief Organisation Oxfam, after its experts had visited the worst-hit districts in Pakistan, said earlier this month that over the past three years some 90 per cent of livestock had died.

Pakistani officials said almost two thirds of the country’s largest, but least populated, province of Baluchistan and the Thar Desert area in adjoining Sindh province had been hit by the drought, forcing people in some areas to migrate.

In Afghanistan, the worst drought in nearly three decades has hit the Southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and Nimroz, aid workers from the area said.

A UN official who recently visited parched Southern Afghanistan said the situation was "very serious" but not yet critical.

Some areas had lost almost all the rain-fed wheat crop, half of the irrigated crop and up to 80 per cent of livestock, the official, who declined to be identified, added.

A senior Government official in Baluchistan said on Friday the drought had affected about two million people out of the province’s population of 6.5 million, as well as ten million head of livestock.

Provincial Relief Commissioner Abbas Shah has called for aid worth 2.5 billion rupees (50 million dollars) and appealed for all national and international donors and "brotherly countries" to help.

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement appealed earlier this month for aid from the United Nations and other agencies.

Authorities in Pakistan have been distributing food in the country’s worst-hit areas for several weeks, but officials say people were migrating as wells became dry.

No exact estimate of drought-related deaths in Pakistan is available, but officials say dozens of people have died, including three children on Thursday at one village in Baluchistan’s Chaghai district.

People had started migrating on a large scale from drought-hit areas in eight districts of Baluchistan, local officials said.

A world food programme team visited Afghanistan’s Zabul and Kandahar provinces last week and saw scattered carcasses of camels, sheep and goats.

The most seriously affected Afghans are reported to be livestock owners, specially the Koochi nomads, and farmers.

Urban residents have also been affected. UN sources say that in the city of Kandahar an estimated 90 percent of the population relys on shallow mosque wells. (REUTERS)

Breaking up Microsoft
What would it mean for you?

WASHINGTON, Apr 30: Make no mistake: The US Department of justice’s recommendation Friday that Microsoft be broken up into two distinct companies - one devoted to operating systems and the other to application software - could become a reality. If it does, consumers will face a host of questions and uncertainties, as the computing landscape would forever be changed.

Exactly how would it change? the best way to answer that question is to look point-by-point at the Justice Department’s assertions about the proposed break-up of the world’s largest software company.

Assertion 1: Breaking up Microsoft will "stimulate competition", according to US Attorney General Janet Reno.

The Justice Department believes that splitting up Microsoft into an applications company and a separate operating system company will be reasonable, but will former Microsoft developers ever do this? the folks that make programmes such as the popular office suite of productivity applications - to develop their software for other, competing operating systems.

Joel Klein, Assistant Attorney General for the US Department of Justice, said as much when he suggested in a news conference that as a result of the proposed break-up, "office developers will be able to develop for unix," a competing operating system.

This sounds reasonable, but will former Microsoft developers ever do this? the question is very debatable. Currently, as Microsoft’s famous chief software architect and former Chief Executive Officer Bill Gates would point out, Microsoft already develops applications for competing operating systems, including the Macintosh Os and Unix.

It is true, however, that currently no one can seriously consider moving to a more "untested" operating system such as Linux if certain mainstream applications - such as office programs - will not run under Linux. So to the degree that Microsoft’s developers would begin coding for other operating systems, the breakup could, eventually, have the effect that the Justice Department is after -and consumers would, eventually, benefit.

Assertion 2: The breakup will "promote innovation", according to Reno.

The reasoning behind this statement is that because Microsoft’s operating system and applications businesses are so inextricably entwined, there is little incentive within the company to innovate in ways that would lead the marketplace away from the indows-centred universe we all find ourselves in.

What are some of these innovations that aren’t being explored? office developers could, for example, be more heavily involved in developing their software for web-based computers that do not use the windows operating system, or for computers that use sun’s competing solaris operating system. Currently, there is actually an incentive within Microsoft not to push too heavily in either direction, since doing so could arguably detract from the windows hegemony.

Microsoft’s applications programmers could even, as Joel Klein suggested, evolve the office suite of programs into its own operating system, which would compete with windows. In this case it’s important to remember wordperfect couldn’t read wordstar files well at all, and of course Xywrite couldn’t touch word files. Were we better off then, or now?

Assertion 3: Breaking up Microsoft wie."In addition, though, one has to remember that wherever there’s the type of innovation that the Justice Department is thinking of, there’s also the attendant confusion over standards. Remember, for example, when there were five or six competing word processors, and it seemed that everyone you knew used a different one? wordperfect couldn’t read wordstar files well at all, and of course Xywrite couldn’t touch word files. Were we better off then, or now?

Assertion 3: Breaking up microsoft will "give consumers new and better choices in the marketplace," Janet Reno insists.

There’s little doubt that a breakup of the software behemoth would give consumers new choices, as outlined above. Would the choices be better though? only time will tell. It’s clear that now, in a microsoft-dominated computer world, we have fewer choices in word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and many other applications than we had five or ten years ago.

What’s less clear is whether our having fewer choices now is truly the result of one company snuffing out others or a simple case of the best eventually rising to the top and consumers making their voices heard.

So Microsoft stole market share. And the company’s resulting size and power have clearly given it a lasting advantage in the software marketplace. It has been able to hire the best programmers, use its installed base to discourage other companies from entering Microsoft-dominated areas, and dictate the direction of an entire industry as much by decree as by example.

Finally, a break-up of the software giant may actually be the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft. After all, few in the business world will argue with the idea that it’s often more difficult for huge companies to stay focused on a single mission. A smaller Microsoft focused solely on operating systems could find itself free of the burden of coordinating with Microsoft’s other businesses, and thus become more nimble.

Similarly, a smaller microsoft applications business could indeed innovate in ways now impossible because of its ties to windows. That could very well be good for consumers - and, once gates and company get over the sting of having been beaten down to size - good for Microsoft as well. (DPA)

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