|
|
UNSC, Annan, concerned UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8: The UN Security Council voiced concern late at the growing escalation......more
Barak issues 48-hour JERUSALEM, Oct 8: Prime Minister Ehud Barak has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Yasser Arafat......more Germany sees "alarming" BERLIN, Oct 8: A German Government agency warned in an internal report of an "alarming" rise in ....more Researcher claims BELGIUM, Oct 8: A researcher has developed a new phonetic script that he claims surpasses all....more |
|
US abstains as
UN condemns excessive force against Palestine UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8: The United States abstained as the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning "excessive use" of force against Palestinians, called for immediate resumption of stalled peace .....more
Pak urges world community to pressurise India for talks ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: Pakistan today asked the world community to "exert pressure" on New Delhi to hold talks with Islamabad to resolve the Kashmir .....more Indonesia to disarm SINGAPORE, Oct 8: Indonesia today said it has moved to disarm and disband pro-integration militias in West Timor whose activities threaten its...more Israel prepares for worst as clock ticks for Palestinians JERUSALEM, Oct 8: Israel prepared for the worst day as the clock ticked towards the expiry of its 48-hour ultimatum to the Palestinians to halt violence or face the end of the peace process....more |
 |
 |
UNSC, Annan, concerned over Lebanon clashes UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8: The UN Security Council voiced concern late at the growing escalation of tensions and violence at the Lebanese border but did not mention the capture of three Israeli soldiers along the Israeli frontier. It said yesterday that Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who briefed Council members, was asking his special West Asia Envoy, Terj Roed-Larsen, to approach leaders of all states concerned and "urge immediate steps to ensure a restoration of calm." "The press statement could not cover all the aspects of the situation," Council president Martin Andjaba of Namibia said in answer to questions. He spoke after the 15-member body adopted a resolution implicitly condemning Israel’s "excessive use of force" against Palestinians. But this does not mean the kidnapping of the three Israeli soldiers is not an important matter. "There are many other things that are not covered in the statement," Andjaba said. The statement was issued to the press shortly after Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry filed a formal complaint to the Council on "acts of aggression against israel from lebanese territory." The pro-Iranian Hizbullah group seized the three soldiers in an ambush and shelled Israeli Army positions along the border for the first time since Israeli troops withdrew from South Lebanon in May. The United Nations certified the Israeli withdrawal and delineated the border. (REUTERS) |
|
Barak issues 48-hour ultimatum to Arafat JERUSALEM, Oct 8: Prime Minister Ehud Barak has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Yasser Arafat saying that unless the Palestinian leader stops violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel will call off peace talks and let Israeli troops act with full force. The strong statement came last night after Hezbollah guerrillas seized three Israeli soldiers in an ambush yesterday at the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israel ferried hundreds of troops, including special forces to the frontier. Within hours of Barak’s announcement, Palestinian gunmen intensified shooting attacks in Israeli positions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Israel deployed tanks at several locations including the edge of Jerusalem, after having withdrawn them two days earlier as part of a US-led attempt to reach a truce. Gunmen fired on an Israeli bus in Gaza, injuring seven passengers, including two who were in serious condition. Near the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli tanks shot their machine guns at Palestinian positions, a first in 10 days of clashes that have claimed the lives of 67 Palestinians, 10 Israeli Arabs and three Israeli Jews. The bus that came under attack was carrying Israeli inspectors who work at the Palestinian airport in Gaza. In response, Barak ordered the airport closed, except for flights carrying Arafat himself. (AP) |
|
Germany sees "alarming" rise in far-right violence BERLIN, Oct 8: A German Government agency warned in an internal report of an "alarming" rise in the potential for far-right violence and said it could not rule out further hate crime attacks, a newspaper said. The report by the Government’s office for the protection of the constitution published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung Daily yesterday also said there were "indications Germany is facing a terrorist threat" from the far right, and cited an increase in arms and explosives captured in recent police raids. Two attacks on synagogues in the last week have jolted the nation still trying to come to terms with its Nazi past and the holocaust. No one was hurt when a synagogue in duesseldorf was firebombed and windows in a Berlin synagogue were broken by hurled stones. But the incidents — which recalled the Nazi’s "night of broken glass" raids on Jews in 1938 — were the latest in a long line of racist violence this year and sparked fears of a resurgent far right. "We are standing before a pile of broken glass that is not only the Jewish community but all of German society," said Andreas Nachama, leader of the Berlin Jewish community, Germany’s largest with 12,000 members. Most of the racist violence that has swept across Germany in the decade following reunification had until recently been directed at foreigners and refugees. Until recently there had been hardly any incidents involving the 90,000-strong Jewish community. Michel Friedmann, Deputy Chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in an interview with the Magdeburger Volksstimme Daily that the country was failing to grasp the danger from the far right and that violence was escalating. "It’s inexcusable that the duesseldorf synagogue wasn’t protected by police," said Friedman of the late-night firebombing. "Politicians haven’t taken the problem seriously enough. The violence has risen to a higher level. The criminals and their sympathisers are in the middle of our society." Heinz Fromm, the head of the Government agency, said in an interview with the news magazine Focus that it was difficult to predict where the far-right extremists would strike because those who use violence were often poorly organised and the incidents often were spontaneous acts of violence. "The violence against foreigners or against homeless people by the far right erupts mostly spontaneously," Fromm said. "It is difficult to anticipate where these attacks may occur." Fromm, who did not comment on the internal report, said the Neo-Nazi groups were increasingly popular among unemployed and those who seem to have no prospects. "For a segment of the young population the far right is an attractive sub-culture because of their rumbles, their skin-head rock music and the camaraderie," Fromm said. The agency’s internal report said that in the past Neo-Nazi groups had collected weapons for show — "an illustration of a weapons cult or as a masculine fetish." It said arsenals were now being assembled "for use against political opponents." Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has condemned the violence and hurried to visit Jewish leaders in Duesseldorf after Tuesday’s attack. Economics Minister Werner Mueller said he was afraid racism was damaging the country’s reputation. "Foreign investors are closely watching what’s going on in Germany," he said. "I’m always having to explain abroad that these racist attacks are isolated incidents." (REUTERS) |
|
Researcher claims to have developed new phonetic script BELGIUM, Oct 8: A researcher has developed a new phonetic script that he claims surpasses all existing scripts in its global applications. Col. (retd) D B Patil, in his research paper, the "New phonetic script" brought out in book form, said the new script provides full scope to write any language of the world with perfect phonetic accuracy. He claimed that the new script possessed all the good aspects of the developed scripts. Basically a pronunciation script, it has inherited good geometric designs, near perfect pronunciations and reasonably convincing meanings from the existing mother scripts. In addition, the letter designs maintained similarity with the shapes of body organs used during speech to produce the sounds of the related letters, Col Patil said. The innovative design relations help in identifying and learning the correct pronunciation. The 188-page book illustrates the mechanism of speaking covering the science of sounds articulated while speaking. He said he had spent at least 12 years to research scripts of at least 40 languages. The phonetic mechanism is put in script, adding rationalised index to indicate a particular accent, tone, sound and stress of every pronunciation. Col Patil expressed the hope that the new script will become the mechanism and medium to learn foreign languages and eventually prove to be a common script. "At present we do not have a script in which all the world language could be written with phonetic perfection, because most of the scripts have a deficiency of letters to certain sounds used by other languages in their scripts," he said. Similarly the designs of the letters of all the existing scripts do not suggest the pronunciation. Examples of lsuch letters and sounds of important world scripts are given in the book. Col Patil said he found in his studies that the letters of most of the scripts were not designed to give an idea as to how the sound of the letter is to be pronounced. The letter designs also do not show specific relations to the human body speech organs like vocal chords, tongue, lips and nose, he said. Col Patil however said, that the Greek and Roman scripts have good and easy geometric letter designs. While Arabic and Devanagari have letter pronunciation perfection, the Chinese and Japanese scripts denote more effective meanings, he said. After an elaborate research he felt that a common script had to be pronunciation-oriented, with a perfect phonetic base. The script developed by him has 14 basic strokes of single lines which identify with the places and shapes of the speech organs. These stroke lines have been used to construct the pronunciation letters. The script with 60 letters includes 17 vowels, three consonant-vowels, 15 vowel-consonants, and 25 consonants. Prevalent punctuation signs as well as numerals used all over the world have been incorporated because of their simplicity. In the first two chapters the author explains the necessity of evolving a common script for all the world languages. Then he gones on to give an idea of the mechanics of speech using the air flowing from the lungs through the vocal chords, producing different kinds of sound flows. These sound flows are further modulated by changing the shapes of the lips and tongue to produce distinct letters. Col Patil said that the rest of the book gives details of the specific articulations produced in the mouth, study of the mechanism of speaking through illustrations, and an easy way to learn the script by understanding the uses of the strokes related to particular articulations and wind frequencies. He said the science of the script provides the scope for designing additional letters for unknown human speech sounds, with the help of its 14 strokes. Regarding the history of phonetics, he said it was originally developed in Sanskrit for chanting of Mantras, many of the alphabets of Sanskrit origin have vanished but found place in Chinese and Japanese. International phonetics designed in the last century by modifying the characters on the basis of Devanagari and Arabic have not become popular, he added. (UNI) |
|
US abstains as UN condemns
excessive UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8: The United States abstained as the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning "excessive use" of force against Palestinians, called for immediate resumption of stalled peace process and demanded a "speedy and objective" inquiry into the eruption of violence in the Middle East. The resolution which does not explicitly name Israel was adopted 14-0 after two late last night sittings. "A negative vote by the United States would have killed the resolution but Washington decided to abstain and allow it o be adopted, apparently fearing that a Veto could exacerbate the already tense situation in the region," US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, told reporters after the vote. He said "the United States does not think it was a good resolution, to put it mildly. It was one-sided. It did not reflect the fact that Israelis had been killed and wounded, but Washington did not veto it because some changes had been made in it". The resolution, which saw intense negotiations over last two days, was moved by Malaysia on behalf of the 114-member non-aligned movement at the instance of Palestine UN observer Nasser Al-Kidwa. In its original form, it would have criticised Israel by name, put the blame for eruption of violence on Israeli right wing leader Ariel Sharon and called for an international inquiry into the circumstances. "But to win the United States abstention, the name of Israel and Sharon were deleted as also explicit demand for international inquiry," he said. (REUTERS) |
|
Pak urges world community to pressurise India for talks ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: Pakistan today asked the world community to "exert pressure" on New Delhi to hold talks with Islamabad to resolve the Kashmir issue as it said the prospects of Indo-Pak dialogue was "very poor". "The world community should see how it could exert pressure on India for resumption of talks .. The talks should be purposeful to address the root case of tension," Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told leading Japanese daily Nikkei. "Prospects of the Indo-Pak talks are very poor," he said, accusing New Delhi of "not responding to the call for resumption of stalled talks." Referring to the nuclear issue, Sattar said Pakistan would review its unilateral moratorium on further nuclear tests if "another country" conducted explosions. "We will not be the first to resume tests," he said. On Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to India during which the two countries embarked upon a strategic partnership in nuclear and defence fields and resolved to cooperate in combating international terrorism and religious extremism, Sattar said Pakistan had no problem about the bilateral ties of other countries as every country had the right to improve ties with other. Asked about reports that Pakistan had tested long-range Shaheen-II missiles, Sattar said his country’s missile development programme had been going on for a decade and that he had no information about any new tests. He denied any support to Pakistan by North Korea and China in missile development, saying Islamabad’s missile programme was indigenous. On CTBT, he said the military regime was building a domestic consensus on the issue. "Pending signatures on the treaty, Pakistan will observe its key obligation of no further tests," he added. (PTI) |
|
Indonesia to disarm pro- integration militias SINGAPORE, Oct 8: Indonesia today said it has moved to disarm and disband pro-integration militias in West Timor whose activities threaten its international aid lifeline. Economics Minister Rizal Ramli told a news conference Indonesia would invite international observers to see the results for themselves at the end of the month. "This process has already resulted in the confiscation of a large number of weapons," said Ramli, who is making a two-day official visit to Singapore. The militias, which opposed last year’s independence vote in East Timor, killed three foreign aid workers in a mob attack on the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the West Timor border town of Atambua on September six. That sparked international condemnation of Jakarta, and the United States and the World Bank have both warned vital aid could be at risk if the Timorese militias are not reined in. Ramli said Indonesia has stepped up its efforts to contain trouble in West Timor ahead of a donors’ meeting in Tokyo due in two weeks. Indonesia will seek about 5 billion from the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), to fill the gap in its 2001 budget starting January. "We intend to invite the UN observers, sometime at the end of October, the schedule is not yet decided, after we have done this," Ramli said. "We show results first, then we invite you." Last week, Indonesia arrested pro-Jakarta Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterres over weapons offences, adding him to a list of suspects in its investigation into violence over East Timor’s vote last year for independence. The violence was fanned by the pro-Jakarta militias with backing from elements of the Indonesian military. Followers of Quterres went on the rampage in a West Timor town last week during a handover of weapons as part of Jakarta’s efforts to disarm violent gangs now operating from West Timor. (REUTERS) |
|
Israel prepares for worst as clock ticks for Palestinians JERUSALEM, Oct 8: Israel prepared for the worst day as the clock ticked towards the expiry of its 48-hour ultimatum to the Palestinians to halt violence or face the end of the peace process. Israeli tanks moved into the Gaza strip and National Security Council chief Uzi Dayan warned that Israel’s forces would escalate their attacks against the Palestinians if the violence rages on. "If the shooting on the Palestinian side does not end, it is possible that our attacks will target the headquarters of those responsible for the situation," the General told Israeli public radio. "We are at the start of a new period which requires Israeli Army initiatives and not simply response operations," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak yesterday gave Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat 48 hours to halt the violence in which some 90 people, mainly Palestinians, have died in 10 days, or else he would consider the peace process over. Dayan also said Israel would respond to any unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians by imposing a "complete separation to preserve our vital interests." Israeli Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said the Army had "acted with restraint" against the Palestinians, but warned of an escalation. "The Army’s hands are not tied," he added. Israel also sent extra troops and equipment to its border with Lebanon today, the day after Lebanese guerrillas kidnapped three Israeli soldiers in an ambush. The Army closed off the disputed area known as the Shebaa Farms where the soldiers were seized by guerrillas of Hezbollah in an ambush that sparked warnings of fierce reprisals from Israel. An AFP correspondent saw tanks on transporters waiting to enter the area, where troops and mobile communications equipment have been massed since yesterday. Special Army commando units were rushed to the northern border and put on a state of alert following the kidnapping and a Hezbollah attack on Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms. Israel has also warned Lebanon and Syria, the controlling power in Beirut, as well as Hezbollah of reprisals if the soldiers are not returned safe and well. "We will spare no effort of any kind in order to bring our boys home quickly," Prime Minister Ehud Barak said. Hezbollah has said it seized the three soldiers in a bid to secure the release of Lebanese Islamic militants who have been held for years by Israel as bargaining chips for missing troops in Lebanon. The Hezbollah action also followed the killing by Israeli troops of two Palestinians demonstrating on the Lebanese side of the border against the violence in the Palestinian territories. A pro-Syrian daily in Beirut, as Safir, said a "Western capital" had contacted the Shiite radical Hezbollah to negotiate a prisoner swap. "Israel wants first to obtain information about the three soldiers through an international organization and then know about the demands of Hezbollah," the daily said. As Safir said calls from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud were also meant to facilitate a prisoners’ exchange. US President Bill Clinton and his aides stepped up contact with mideast and European leaders as the mounting violence in the middle east threatened to spin out of control. The US is "very, very concerned" by the situation and hopes "to do everything we can to prevent an escalation" of violence there, White House spokesman P J Crowley said, adding "if the violence doesn’t stop, there is always the danger it can spiral into a much more difficult situation." Stating that Clinton "has been engaged for virtually the entire day in helping to try to defuse the situation", he specified the US President spoke three times with Barak, twice with Arafat and once with Mubarak over the course of the day. On Barak’s ultimatum, he said: "we are doing everything we can to work with both sides to see an end of violence, defuse the situation and help both sides bridge back to a point where we can once again focus on the peace process." Meanwhile, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the crisis with Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Al-Shara and Lahoud, as well as her counterparts Hubert Vedrine of France and Josep Pique of Spain. The State department reminded the Israeli and Palestinian leaders of "commitments" made in Paris last week to do everything possible to restore calm in the region. (AFP) |
|
|
