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Problems abound a year ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: General Pervez Musharraf approaches the first anniversary of his seizure of power in Pakistan dogged by ...more Pak to legalise NEW DELHI, Oct 6: The Pakistan Government has decided to legalise all arms factories in its tribal area of Dara Adam Khel, which have been a......more Fiji’s ethnic Indians boycott constitutional review Comm SUVA (FIJI), Oct 6: Fiji’s ethnic Indian political parties and social groups boycotted a Fijian Constitutional Review Commission named today by the....more Iran’s missile programme one of biggest in Mid East WASHINGTON, Oct 6: Iran’s missile programme is "one of the largest in the Middle East" and Russia is playing a crucial role in its ballistic missile . ....more |
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Scientists
link seabed WASHINGTON, Oct 6: About 8,000 years ago, a massive undersea landslide off the coast of Norway sent a (10-metre) wall of water — a .....more
Rajan arrested; to be BANGKOK, Oct 6: Thailand police today arrested Mumbai underworld don Chota Rajan for entering into the country on an "illegal" passport......more India for highest UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6: Pointing out that half of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, India has asked the UN to give highest ...more A short tale of history LOS ANGELES, Oct 6: Imagine a world in which the day invasion was a disaster, the apollo 11 astronauts never made it home.....more |
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Problems abound a year after Pak’s army coup ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: General Pervez Musharraf approaches the first anniversary of his seizure of power in Pakistan dogged by a poor image abroad and ingrained scepticism at home. Gen. Musharraf’s trip to the UN General Assembly last month, when his talk with US President Bill Clinton lasted all of five minutes, seemed to symbolise his domestic and foreign predicament on the eve of the anniversary. As Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India, began an official visit to Washington, Gen Musharraf was grounded at Kennedy airport while security officers searched his plane following a bomb hoax. Economists believe Gen Musharraf’s military Government has done enough to win a resumption of vital International Monetary Fund assistance cut off 18 months ago, but the list of problems facing the 57-year-old career officer is long and formidable. "This is their last chance," a western economist said of the military leaders. "We’ve just entered the next century and they really have a chance to do something — but not much time." Gen Musharraf seized power on October 12 last year in the culmination of a bizarre tug-of-war in which then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif fired him while he was out of the country and subsequently attempted to block the return of his plane. Although other countries immediately condemned the bloodless coup and still demand a speedy return to civilian rule, Gen Musharraf enjoyed wide popular support at home and diplomats express little sympathy for the discredited Sharif. Gen Musharraf promised immediately to reverse the economic decline of the 1990s, root out endemic corruption and dismantle political structures that had seen four elected but ineffective Governments in a row thrown out during the decade. "I think people expected a military Government to be more authoritarian and decisive," said Mr Shireen Mazari, head of the Government-funded Institute of Strategic Studies. "It was trying to be popular, but a military Government could have taken ruthless action." Gen Musharraf promises to follow a court order and restore civilian rule in 2002, although there is constant speculation on whether the court will give him an extension or the general will turn himself into a civilian ruler to stay on. (AGENCIES) |
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Pak to legalise all arms factories NEW DELHI, Oct 6: The Pakistan Government has decided to legalise all arms factories in its tribal area of Dara Adam Khel, which have been a clandestine source of weapons for terrorists and ethnic and sectarian militants in the country. BBC (Urdu) last night said the head of the Pakistan Ordnance Factory (POF) Lt Gen Qayyum Khan visited Adam Khel yesterday and met the factory owners and tribal leaders and talked of a tie-up between the POF and these factories. He said the factories would be supplied quality steel so that they improved the standard of their weapons. But factory workers have expressed apprehensions at the Government’s decision fearing ot will lead to lay-offs. The decision to legalise these factories is not new. In 1998, the then Nawaz Sharif Government, too, had announced a plan to legalise them and make them subsidiary to the POF. However, that plan could not work because some of the Government’s conditions were not acceptable to the factory owners and workers. These factories have existed for the past about 140 years in Adam Khel, a tribal area in Pakistan’s north-west frontier province. They are famous for masterfully duplicating guns produced in western countries. It is said that rival ethnic groups that rocked Karachi with bloodshed in the past decade received arms mainly from Adam Khel. And so did sectarian groups like Sipah-i-Sahaba and Sipah-i-Mohammadi. (UNI) |
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Fiji’s ethnic Indians boycott constitutional review Comm SUVA (FIJI), Oct 6: Fiji’s ethnic Indian political parties and social groups boycotted a Fijian Constitutional Review Commission named today by the troubled nation’s military-installed regime. The Indian-dominated Fiji Labour and National Federation parties, which have the support of at least 90 per cent of Fiji’s Indians, refused to nominate representatives to fill four places reserved for Indians on the 12-member Constitutional Commission. The parties believe the body will curtail their political rights. The Commission - which is dominated by Fijian nationalists - is redrafting the Constitution to ensure indigenous Fijians hold all key political posts. The redrawing of the Constitution was one of the key demands of George Speight, a failed businessman who led a may 19 coup to toppled Fiji’s first ethnic-Indian-led Government. He was later arrested. Speight claimed he was acting to protect indigenous rights, saying Indo-Fijians, who make up 44 per cent of the 840,000 population, held too much political and economic power. Indigenous Fijians make up 51 per cent of the population. Interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said the Commission should make recommendations for reforms by June, 2001, so that a Constitution can be drafted by December 2001 and elections for a democratic Government held between March and June 2002. Qarase named four Indians to the Commission: Joe Singh president of the Association of Pacific Islands Chambers of Commerce, Joseph Maharaj, a lawyer, Benjamin Baghwan, a social worker, and Fred Achari, a retired civil servant. But Pratap Singh, Education Minister in the labour-led coalition toppled by Speight’s coup, said the four Indians "are not representing the Indians in Fiji and they will never be forgiven or forgotten." Apart from the four Indians, the Commission is made up of one Fijian of neither Indian nor indigenous descent and seven indigenous Fijians nominated by the great council of chiefs -made up of all Fiji’s tribal leaders. (AP) |
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Iran’s missile programme one of biggest in Mid East WASHINGTON, Oct 6: Iran’s missile programme is "one of the largest in the Middle East" and Russia is playing a crucial role in its ballistic missile development programme, including the development of more sophisticated and longer-range missiles, CIA has said. Testifying before the Congress, special assistant to the CIA Director for non-proliferation, John Lauder, said Iran may soon deploy the 1,300 km-range Shahab-3 medium range ballistic missile, allowing it to reach israel and most of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He claimed Iran had already deployed "hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles, covering most of Iraq and many strategic targets in the Persian Gulf. "Teheran probably has a small number of Shahab-3S available now for use in a conflict. It has announced that production and deployment has begun, and it publicly displayed three Shahab-3S, along with a mobile launcher and other ground support equipment," he said. Stating that Iran was actively pursuing the acquisition of fissile materials, experties and technology necessary to form that material into nuclear weapons, lauder said as part of this process, "Iran is attempting to develop plutonium and highly enriched uranium. "It is seeking nuclear related equipment, material and technical assistance from variety of foreign sources, most notably in Russia," he added. (PTI) |
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Scientists link seabed gas crystal formations to Tsunami WASHINGTON, Oct 6: About 8,000 years ago, a massive undersea landslide off the coast of Norway sent a (10-metre) wall of water — a Tsunami wave — barrelling into the northern coast of Europe. If this were to recur today, as scientists say it could, almost anywhere in the world, it would cost billions if not tens of billions of dollars to repair the damage to coastal cities. And the cost in lives could be far higher. "A tsunami like that would wash into the baltic with some devastation," said scientist Charles Paull at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California. While scientists who study the so-called storegga slide with the tools of geology, biology and seismography are not sure what triggered it, they are fairly certain a mysterious crystalline solid composed of water molecules intertwined with methane gas, known as methane or gas hydrates, played a role. Paull says an earthquake might have triggered the slide, which occurred in stages over hundreds of years, removing an enormous chunk from Norway’s continental margin. But its magnitude suggests methane hydrates played a role. "Whatever the trigger," he said in a phone interview, "This is a natural disaster related to gas hydrates." Methane hydrates, which scientists are studying as a possible vast global energy resource, are among the weirdest natural phenomena. Sometimes called "flammable ice," they are just that: Highly unstable and combustible crystallised solids existing only in a high pressure/low temperature environment. Discovered by accident late in the 19th century by oil and gas exploration teams just below the arctic permafrost, the odd crystals are thought to contain more clean-burning fossil fuels than earth’s reserves of oil, natural gas and coal combined. Equally important is the key role they appear to play in the global climate and marine environment, as well as the occasional cataclysmic undersea event. Acting Director John Farrell said the ocean drilling program’s 15-year series of expeditions to explore the ocean floor had uncovered evidence that gas hydrates have spilled into the ocean in massive bursts repeatedly over the last 50,000 years. Evidence in tiny plankton shells called "forams" show "a chemical change in the world’s oceans that can only be explained by a lot of methane being injected into the water." Enormous implications for world climate Events of that kind have enormous implications for global climate change because methane is a potent greenhouse gas. A large enough release of methane, as in the storegga slide, could bring on or accelerate a cycle of global warming. Warming cycles might already have been underway when such slides occurred, triggered by some as-yet-unknown mechanism that warmed the oceans enough to destabilise gas hydrates, which dissolve when temperatures rise or pressures decrease. While release of methane from beneath the ocean floor could lead to a vicious cycle of warming, Paull and other scientists caution there is more at play. Rising sea levels would actually increase pressures on those hydrate deposits, locking them in and perhaps leading to a reverse cooling cycle. Whatever role they have played in the cycles of global climate change — as well as chemical changes in the oceans —it is clear that research into these odd combustible undersea ice formations is essential to understanding planet earth. In time, such research could lead to a way to predict or at least calculate the risk of events like the storegga slide. "If we understand what happened in the past, then we’re in a better position to anticipate the future," said Farrell. "What we first have to do is make sure we know where these gas hydrate layers are," Through research like that being done by the ODP, a partnership with seven international consortia representing more than 20 countries. "Then if we know about any factors that affect the temperature and pressure .... We might ultimately reduce the uncertainty" about where and when the continental margins might collapse and trigger Tsunami. The world’s largest earth science research project, the ODP is administered by the joint oceanographic institutions funded in part by the National Science Foundation. It will target an area off oregon in its next gas hydrate expedition, in 2002. (REUTERS) |
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Rajan arrested; to be sent back to India BANGKOK, Oct 6: Thailand police today arrested Mumbai underworld don Chota Rajan for entering into the country on an "illegal" passport and said he would be sent back to India after his trial. Immigration Police chief Lt Gen Hemaraj Theerathai said Vijay Kadam, alias Chota Rajan, was arrested after a three-member Mumbai police team, which arrived here yesterday, confirmed that the passport on which the don entered Thailand was not genuine. "This allowed Thai immigration police to detain him for illegal entry," he added. "Kadam is under arrest and won’t be allowed to leave the country until his trial for illegal entry is over. Then he will be sent back to India where he is wanted for many charges," Theerathai said. Under the Thai law, a person is deported to the country of his origin if he is charged with illegal entry after his trial for the charge. The Immigration Police chief said that the Mumbai Police also showed to them Rajan’s criminal records in India. He said Rajan, who is undergoing treatments of bullet wounds received during a murderous assault apparently by his rival Chota Shakeel gang members, would continue to stay in the hospital under police custody and "cannot leave the place without Immigration Police permission." Rajan was almost ready to fly out of Thailand yesterday after Theerathai announced that he was going to let the don free as the Indian police had not asked for his extradition. Thai authorities, however, later apparently changed their mind after the arrival of the Mumbai Police team and withheld his release documents and passport thus preventing him from leaving Thailand. They also blacklisted Rajan from re-entering the country in view of his arrest warrants in India. Rajan had received two bullet wounds in his stomach and thigh in the September 15 attack in which his aide Rohit Verma, alias Michael D’Souza, was killed. D’Souza’s wife Sangeeta Verma was also injured in the shootout in their Bangkok apartment. Three Pakistanis and a Thai national have been arrested in connection with the shooting while the Thai police is in the lookout for another four suspects including two Indians. (PTI) |
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India for highest priority to poverty UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6: Pointing out that half of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, India has asked the UN to give highest priority to tackling the problem of abject poverty. "A situation that provides comfortable life style to one-third of the population and condemns two-thirds to poverty and want is unsustainable," Indian representative N D Tiwari told a committee of the UN General Assembly yesterday. Despite improved prospects in international economic environment, he said, growth patterns among country groups remain divergent. While developed nations recorded gains in the per capita GDP last year, 37 developing states showed falling GDP, thus increasing the disparity between the rich and the poor. The rise in international oil prices would further add to the miseries of oil importing developing nations, Tiwari said. Advocating effective global partnership to attract domestic and foreign investment in the developing nations, he cautioned against weakening the Governments. "In any crisis, whether economic or political, the final guarantee of well being of all is presence of a responsible and functioning state. Nation-building is a complex task which needs strengthening, and not weakening the Government," he added. He demanded role for the developing nations in the decision-making process of international financial bodies to ensure their concerns are taken into consideration while formulating rules and regulations. (PTI) |
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A short tale of history that never happened LOS ANGELES, Oct 6: Imagine a world in which the day invasion was a disaster, the apollo 11 astronauts never made it home from the moon and Winston Churchill was killed by a taxi in New York eight years before the second World War began. Mere fantasy? think again. — Churchill in 1931 referred to his "miraculous escape" from death after he was run over by a taxi in New York. — Gen Dwight Eisenhower carried with him a handwritten note shouldering the blame for the failure of the 1944 allied landings in Normandy. — And President Richard Nixon was ready with one of the most powerful speeches never delivered on the loss of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969. Written by his speechwriter William Safire, it inspired the latest addition to the school of "what ifs" and "if onlys" that has spilled over from science fiction and movies into the world of scholars. "Almost history" (hyperion), compiled by Roger Bruns, Deputy Director for the National Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives, is a collection of memos, handwritten notes and Government documents covering some 80 incidents that would have changed the world as we know it. "People have always been fascinated with what could have happened or what might have been," Bruns told Reuters. "What this book is trying to do is provide physical evidence that things were close to being different — a kind of nexus from which you can build alternate history." In some cases the document itself played the vital role in life-changing events — like the thick wad of now-bloodstained notes carried by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt that stopped an assassins bullet aimed at his heart on Oct 14, 1912. Then there was the brief letter from the mother of young Tennessee Republican Harry Burn urging her son to ratify the controversial women’s suffrage amendment in August 1920. "Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs (Carrie Chapman) Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification," wrote Febb Ensminger Burn on Aug 17. The next day Burn reversed his stance and the amendment passed by a single vote. The book contains records of John F Kennedy’s administration beginning secret talks with Cuba aimed at rapprochement in June 1963. And in Oct. 1963, Kennedy approved military recommendations for an initial withdrawal of 1,000 US military personnel from vietnam by the end of the year. Six weeks later, Kennedy and his secret plans were dead, and five years later the American military presence in Vietnam had risen from 16,300 to more than 500,000. Along with the better-known twists of history such as CIA reports detailing bungled attempts to take out Cuban leader Fidel Castro with poisoned cigars, mobsters and booby-trapped beaches, the book contains some lesser known but equally bizarre might-have-beens. In July 1881, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell had the device that should have saved the life of wounded President James Garfield. But his experimental metal detector failed to locate the bullet in Garfield’s body because the President was lying on an innovative coiled spring mattress. "Metal mattress coils, it could be argued, made a successful Presidential assassin," commented Bruns. Had Churchill not lived to fight another day in 1931, the outcome of the second world war could have been drastically different without the determined British Prime Minister. Only days after Germany’s surrender in 1945, Churchill was drawing up detailed plans for operation unthinkable: A world war pitting Britain, the United States and newly defeated Germany against the Soviet Union, to begin in July 1945. But less than two months after the plan was prepared, Churchill was ousted by a british electorate exhausted by the war and clamouring for social change. American astronaut John Glenn adopted a more conciliatory tone when preparing for the worst during his historic manned space flight in 1962. Concerned that his capsule might splash down in remote south pacific seas, scaring local people, Glenn carried a note with him translated into several languages: "I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity." He never had to use the note but the precarious nature of early space missions is reflected in the speech drafted by safire for nixon to deliver to the world should the module carrying the first men to walk on the moon have failed to join up with the command module for the return flight to earth. "That speech was what inspired this book. It is probably one of the most powerful speeches ever written and not delivered. It is a speech that was lost to history, and it also had a poignancy because of what happened in the 1986 challenger tragedy," said Bruns. It read in part: "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace." "These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. ... For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind." (REUTERS) |
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