Israel may expand West Bank pullout: Defence chief

JERUSALEM, Oct 15: Israel’s Defence Minister said today it may soon pull troops out of another West Bank city amid US demands for an easing of pressure on Palestinians to help Washington build Arab support for possible war on Iraq.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was en route to Washington for talks with President George W Bush tomorrow. Bush was expected to urge Sharon to relieve hardships imposed on Palestinian cities in response to suicide bombings.

Israel’s superpower patron, laying out ground rules for the run-up to a campaign against Iraq, was also likely to urge Sharon to exercise maximum restraint should the Jewish state be targeted by Iraqi missiles during a US-led attack.

Sharon will be trying to patch up rare disharmony between the White House and Israel caused by Army raids on Palestinian militants that killed civilians and a siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound last month later aborted under US pressure.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the Israeli Government was holding "intensive talks on widening the area" of withdrawal from Bethlehem, completed in August, to the rest of the southern part of the West Bank.

He mentioned the city of Hebron, near Bethlehem, as the next possible focus of a tank and troop pullback.

"...I hope that by the end of the week this will happen if the conditions in the field will allow it," he said.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet Minister and President Arafat’s Chief Negotiator, told newsmen that Israel was not talking with the Palestinian authority about a new withdrawal. "It (pullout) should have happened a long time ago," he said.

Palestinians say Army curfews and blockades imposed on West Bank cities in response to suicide attacks in a Palestinian uprising for independence only breed bitterness ensuring that violence will go on, thwarting any resumption of peace talks.

Israeli authorities have said suicide bombings resume whenever the Army relieves its grip on the cities.

Israel removed tanks and troops from the city of Bethlehem on August 20 in a deal requiring local Palestinian police to restore calm by clamping down on Palestinian militants there.

Bethlehem has been generally quiet since then.

"If the situation right now allows Israel to get out of hebron, I will definitely encourage this," Ben-Eliezer said. "We are already out of Bethlehem. I assume that hebron and bethlehem will join the area of Jericho (free of troops)..." (AGENCIES)

Defiant Iraqis vote yes to Saddam

BAGHBAD, Oct 15: Amid vows to defend President Saddam Hussein to the death, Iraqis cast ballots in a nationwide Presidential referendum today assured to be declared a landslide victory for Iraq’s strongman.

The authorities urged voters to turn out in force to show massive support for Saddam in the face of us threats of military action and President George W. Bush’s declared desire to remove the Iraqi leader from power.

"With our blood and souls we defend Saddam Hussein," supporters chanted at a polling station in Central Baghdad as voters lined up to cast their vote. "All Iraq calls, Saddam is the pride of my nation," others shouted.

"This is Iraq, and this is the people of Iraq," Saddam’s top Deputy Izzat Ibrahim told reporters at the polling station. "How will America fight this great people? how much will America lose and for what reason?"

Ibrahim, the vice-chairman of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council, said the American people were being misled by the Bush administration.

"What is America’s interest in fighting Iraq? it is the evil ideas of the American administration," he said.

Merely an hour into the referendum, Saddam’s supporters were celebrating victory, dancing outside polling stations in the capital and bringing sheep to slaughter, a traditional Arab act of celebration.

"I voted a big yes to Saddam and a big no to Bush," voter Mohammad Khalil said. "No one can tell us who our leader should or shouldn’t be. We want Saddam Hussein." Polls opened at 8 a.m. local time (1030 hrs ist). Nearly 12 million Iraqis are eligible to answer a simple "yes" or "no" for a new seven-year term for Saddam, the man who has ruled Iraq for 23 years through the tight grip of the military and police.

Voting ends at 8 p.l. local time (2230 hrs ist) with official results expected tomorrow.

But the result is a forgone conclusion with the voting process tightly controlled by the authorities and with no independent observers or other candidates.

Saddam won 99.96 per cent in a first referendum in 1995. Officials say privately they want an even higher percentage this time, with some hoping for a perfect 100 per cent "yes" result.

"Iraq’s unified voice declaring...Yes, yes to the leader Saddam Hussein deafens small Bush and officials of his evil administration," Al-Jumhuriya state newspaper said in an editorial.

There was no sign of Saddam but Iraqi television showed live pictures of Ibrahim casting a ballot at a Baghdad school-turned-polling station.

Appointed President in 1979, Saddam has led Iraq through two major wars and survived several challenges to his rule. But with the United States determined to disarm Iraq, his toughest test might come in the next few months.

Bush, who says Saddam is producing weapons of mass destruction, has pushed ahead with US policy for a "regime change" in Baghdad. He is seeking a tough U N resolution on weapons inspections after obtaining congressional authorisation for the use of force against Saddam.

Iraq denies it has nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. (AGENCIES)

Afghans edgy over Pakistan islamists’ polls gains

CHAMAN (Pakistan), Oct 15: Afghanistan today expressed concern at gains made by Islamic parties in Pakistani provinces bordering Afghanistan after last week’s poll, saying it was a set-back to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

"We are concerned at the victory of extremist religious parties in Pakistan which had provided financial support and fighters to the Taliban in the past," foreign office spokesman Abdul Rehman told by telephone from the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak.

"There are clear indications that pro-Taliban religious parties will form Governments in Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), both bordering Afghanistan."

he Haid in such a scenario it would become difficult to hunt Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives, hundreds of whom are believed to have escaped from Afghanistan into the fiercely conservative and semi-autonomous tribal areas in these two provinces.

Hardline Islamic parties which supported the currently ousted taliban during the U S-led bombing of Afghanistan have emerged as a major political force by winning the majority of seats in the nwfp and a sizeable number of seats in Baluchistan.

The six-party alliance of religious parties, called Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), has also become a formidable player in the National Assembly lower house of Parliament.

MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed said yesterday the alliance would seek the ouster from Pakistan of U S forces.

Pakistan is used as a base for search and rescue operations inside Afghanistan, and there are intelligence personnel helping the authorities hunt Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Rehman feared that with Islamic parties controlling the two provinces, Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants would not only get refuge but also regroup.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally to Washington in its self-styled "war on terror", said yesterday the rise of the religious right would not derail his policies. (AGENCIES)

Pakistan’s religious right holds coalition talks

ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: Pakistan’s resurgent religious right, which posted huge gains in last week’s general election on a fiercely anti-American platform, held a series of coalition talks today with leaders of rival parties.

Fazal-ur-rRhman, secretary-general of the hardline Islamic Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) movement of six religious groups, met the leaders of the two largest parties in last Thursday’s poll in the capital Islamabad.

He kept his cards close to his chest, but speculation about the composition of the Government was rife and centred on whether the MMA, which this week called for the US military to leave Pakistan, would be part of a coalition or sit in opposition.

"We hope these talks will end up in the best interests of the country," Rehman said, after meeting Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mir Zafarullah Jamali, leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-a-Azam, or PML(QA), the largest party in the election.

Rehman was also due to meet Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the leader in Pakistan of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which came second. The PPP’s main leader is exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who accused the military of rigging the election.

Behind the PML(QA), which won 77 seats, and the PPP, with 62 seats, was the MMA with 50 seats, compared with a vote of just two seats for religious parties at the last election in 1997.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said he expects to hand over to a civilian Prime Minister by around November 1, and some analysts say it could take three weeks to form a Government.

The rise of the MMA has caused concern in the west and in Afghanistan over how it may affect the US-led hunt for Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives.

Several of the MMA’s six member parties had close links with the Taliban and opposed the US bombing campaign which toppled the hardline regime. Rehman was jailed for several months last year for leading street protests in favour fo the Taliban.

Hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are believed to have fled Afghanistan into the conservative tribal areas of western Pakistan, where the MMA swept the poll. The US-backed Government in Kabul expressed unease about the MMA’s sweeping gains in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan.

"We are concerned at the victory of extremist religious parties in Pakistan which had provided financial support and fighters to the Taliban in the past," said Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Rehman.

One commentator in the local The Nation daily said that renegade Afghan elements opposed to the Government in Kabul and believed to be hiding near the Afghan-Pakistan frontier would feel emboldened by the MMA’s success.

Musharraf, who prepares to hand over the country to civilian rule soon, has sought to allay fears that a conservative religious element in Government could undermine his country’s support for the US-led war on terror.

"The national strategy does not change with a change in Government, it continues," he said in Turkey yesterday.

But Rehman appeared to have a different view when he said:

"This decision by a large part of the nation should not be ignored, rather it should be reflected in the national policies including foreign policy, defence and the economy."

Newspapers struggled to make sense of the Labyrinthine coalition options.

The PPP and MMA could join as an anti-Musharraf front, with the MMA opposed mainly to his foreign policy of backing Washington and the PPP critical of his manipulation of the vote and the imposition of military rule in a bloodless 1999 coup.

Musharraf handed himself extra powers, including the right to dissolve Parliament, ahead of the election, and was accused of favouring the PML(QA) party. He also banned Bhutto and another former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting the poll.

A PML(QA) and MMA coalition is another possibility, sidelining Musharraf’s arch-enemy Bhutto, although the MMA would have to explain to voters why it linked up with a pro-US party.

Analysts and commentators have argued that the MMA should be in a coalition, because it would help to moderate its views.

But any coalition will be fraught with problems, and a common prediction is for the next Government to fall within a couple of years, if not a few months. (AGENCIES)

Bush, Indonesia link Al Qaeda to Bali blasts

BALI, INDONESIA, Oct 15: Investigators hunted for clues today to the planners of the Bali bomb explosions that both Indonesia and US President George Bush have linked to Al Qaeda.

Bush said in Washington that the explosions that killed more than 180 people, mostly foreign tourists, on the resort island on Saturday appeared to be part of a new global pattern of attacks which he vowed to stop.

"The attack in Bali appears to be an Al Qaeda-type terrorist — definitely a terrorist attack, whether it’s Al Qaeda-related or not, I would assume it is," Bush said.

Investigators from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Australia and Indonesia were working together to find the clues to the blasts on Bali’s Kuta Beach, a playground for Australians who flock to its beaches for the Sun and Surf.

A US intelligence official told newsmen the Bali bombings pointed to a "sophisticated" terrorist group because of the large amount of high explosives used and the coordinated attacks.

Indonesian and Australian officials said on Tuesday relatives will find it difficult to identify the bodies quickly as many of them were badly charred.

A large number of Indonesians were among the dead, many of whom have yet to be identified.

Other nationalities among the dead and more than 300 wounded were Singaporeans, Britons, Americans, Swedes, Swiss and Dutch.

An Australian official said 22 of around 40 bodies identified so far were of Australians. They said around 160 Australians were unaccounted for.

As the US ordered the evacuation of Embassy staff from Indonesia and frightened tourists fled Bali, Indonesian officials strove to show they were serious about tackling terrorism.

Police indicated the first breakthrough in an investigation into the blasts by saying they had names of individuals connected to the attacks.

Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil, seeking to head off criticism from the United States and Asian neighbours that Jakarta had been soft on Islamic militants, drew a connection between Al Qaeda and the attacks on the nightclubs.

He said the explosions were the work of professionals. That is why, he said, "I am not afraid to say, though many have refused to say, that an Al Qaeda network exists in Indonesia".

"I am convinced that there is a domestic link with Al Qaeda." Bush cited the Bali bombings, the attack on a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen and attacks on US marines in Kuwait as part of what appeared to be a concerted approach by the organisation blamed for the September 11 attacks.

"And therefore, it does look like a pattern of attacks that the enemy, albeit on the run, is trying to once again frighten and kill freedom-loving people," he told reporters. Frustrated that months of warnings fell on deaf ears, neighbours have piled pressure on Jakarta to finally clamp down on Islamic extremists. The United States ordered all non-essential diplomats and all family members — 300 people in all — to leave Indonesia.

Today, distraught relatives waited in a Bali morgue to identify loved ones.

"This will be a long and hard process. We are in for a long and hard time," said Australian Embassy spokesman Kirk Coningham.

An Indonesian Government official said dental records and dna techniques will be required to identified most bodies.

"Most of the remaining will not be able to be identified by sight," he said.

Australian survivors began streaming home through Sydney airport, some clutching surfboards and souvenirs as they fell sobbing into the arms of family and friends.

"It was like a war broke out. It was just fear," Leigh McGrath, 22, told reporters at Sydney airport. "I don’t think there will be many people going back to Bali."

Bali Police spokesman Yatim Suyatmo told newsmen that investigators "have names that would lead in some directions to solve this case".

"There are names which are linked (to the explosions) who could give information," he said, without giving any details.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister underlined an apparent hardening of resolve by telling reporters there was "no doubt" the country faced a terrorist threat.

"This has to be realised by all of us, including our political elites, that the danger is real and potential here," Hassan Wirajuda said after a meeting with foreign ambassadors.

The worst act of terror since September 11, 2001 fanned fears that Al Qaeda was regrouping after being dispersed from Afghanistan by a US-led military campaign.

Diplomats were watching for any moves against the Jemaah Islamiah group. Southeast Asian nations have rounded up scores of its members and warned others have gone to ground in Indonesia.

Several countries’ intelligence agencies tie Jemaah Islamiah to regional terrorism and link it to Al Qaeda. A key leader of Jemaah Islamiah has been identified as militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who runs a religious school in central Java.

Asked for his view of the Bali blast, he said: "It was a brutal act. I condemn such actions." Yesterday, he had blamed the United States for the attack. (AGENCIES)

If Ireland votes ‘no’, EU has no expansion Plan B

BRUSSELS, Oct 15: If Irish voters reject the European Union’s Nice Treaty again next Saturday, the awful truth is that there is no watertight Plan B to keep the Bloc’s historic eastward enlargement on schedule.

Latest opinion polls suggest the Irish are poised to reverse last year’s shock referendum rejection of the treaty laboriously negotiated in the French city in 2000 to adapt the 15-nation union’s creaking institutions to cope with up to 27 members.

But if they vote "no" a second time, the likelihood is that EU expansion, due to occur in 2004, will be delayed by two years rather than a few months or weeks, EU officials said.

In-house legal experts have advised the European Commission that the only plausible quick fix — writing Nice’s key institutional provisions into the accession treaty for the 10 candidates — would not stand up in court, the officials said.

Kirsty Hughes, senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, has argued for this "cut-and-paste" solution, incorporating the few elements of nice vital to enlargement into the accession treaty due to be ratified next year.

But an EU diplomat said: "Any Irishman could go to the Irish Supreme Court and s‘y ‘this is exactly what we voted against’, and the Government wouldn’t have a leg to stand on."

Even if such a solution were legally feasible, many EU officials doubt it would be politically acceptable.

"An Irish ‘no’ would cause a political crisis of confidence in Europe that no one should underestimate. I can’t imagine that leaders could legitimately turn round a few days later and say ‘never mind, we’re going ahead with enlargement anyway’," a senior Commission official said. The Irish voted 54-46 percent to reject the treaty on a low 34 per cent turnout in June 2001. The Irish Government says a key reason was concern for Ireland’s military neutrality, which has since been assuaged by an EU declaration that Dublin cannot be forced to join an alliance.

Analysts cite a lacklustre Government campaign last year, as well as fears of losing generous EU subsidies, of an influx of East European migrants, and of a general loss of Irish influence in the EU as other reasons for the defeat.

EU Foreign Ministers agreed privately at informal talks in Denmark last month that if this week’s result were negative, the Irish Government would immediately make a declaration that the vote was not a "no" to enlargement, and that the post-cold war unification of Europe must go ahead.

"We need this political signal from Ireland," a senior Commissioner said.

But it would not be enough to keep the project, launched after the fall of the Berlin wall, on track. And diplomats fear other wheels might start to fall off the enlargement wagon.

The Nice Treaty itself, which amends the number of votes and seats that member states have in the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament and the number of commissioners they send to Brussels, would be stone dead.

The Treaty expires automatically at the end of 2002 unless all 15 member states ratify it.

Without Nice, the EU would continue to be governed by the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for a maximum 20 members, until a new treaty can be negotiated and ratified.

The candidates would probably have to wait until the current convention on the future of Europe, chaired by former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing, has completed drafting a proposed EU constitution, and existing member states have held an intergovernmental conference to devise a new treaty. (AGENCIES)

English court of appeal rules for tabloid
against Naomi Campbell

LONDON, Oct 15: A court ruling in favour of supermodel Naomi Campbell against a British tabloid for breach of confidentiality was overturned by the english court of appeal sitting in London.

The mirror argued public interest in publishing a photograph and story in February last year on Campbell’s attendance of a drug addiction clinic, and this was upheld by the court of appeal in overturning a previous high court ruling.

Although the damages involved are minimal - 3,500 pounds (5,500 dollars) - the legal costs are considerable and could run to 750,000 pounds, according to one estimate. Campbell, who was not in court, will have to cover these costs.

The master of the rolls, Lord Phillips, giving the judgment of three judges at the court of appeal yesterday, said the report about the model’s drug addiction was justified in the public interest.

Campbell, who was born in the modest South London suburb of Streatham, had said she felt shocked, angry, betrayed and violated’’ by the article which included a photograph of her leaving a narcotics anonymous meeting in London’s fashionable chelsea.

Lord Phillips said Campbell was an internationally famous fashion model, who courted, rather than shunned, publicity and had gone out of her way to tell the media that in contrast to other models, she did not take drugs, stimulants or tranquillizers.

"This was untrue she had, in fact, become addicted to drugs. On one occasion it became known that Miss Campbell had entered a clinic - the Cottonwood De Tucson, Arizona. "The explanation she gave was that she was having therapy aimed at dealing with behaviour and anger problems. The reality is that she was also being treated for drug abuse," the senior judge said.

Lord Phillips, sitting with Lords Justices Chadwick and Keene, refused Campbell permission to appeal to the House of Lords, although her lawyers said they would petition the law lords for a hearing.

Mirror group lawyer Marcus Partington said: "Today’s judgment represents a complete vindication of the sympathetic way the mirror presented its story of Naomi Campbell being a drug addict and receiving treatment at narcotics anonymous."

Campbell said in a statement she had brought the case to establish her right of privacy and to ensure that she and others could receive therapy without intrusion from the media.

She said the appeal court ruling had "sent a clear signal" that intrusion on her privacy by a newspaper was not legally actionable.

"This they say is because I had previously denied having a problem. I do not think it so terrible or extraordinary to want to keep private the fact that you have problems and are seeking treatment," she said. (DPA)

Pope John Paul to mark 24th anniversary, change rosary

VATICAN CITY, Oct 15: Pope John Paul will mark his 24th anniversary as pontiff on Wednesday by changing the rosary — the most universal and commonly known catholic method of praying — for the first time in nine centuries.

According to Vatican sources, the Pope tomorrow will issue a document proposing that catholics meditate on five more events in christ’s life in the new rosary, adding a further layer of spirituality to the age-old prayer.

Changing one of Christianity’s most fundamental prayers after nearly a millennium will be a typical way for the 82-year-old pope to crown 24 years of a pontificate marked by bold initiatives sometimes taken against the advice of aides.

He was elected on October 16, 1978 as the first non-Italian pontiff in 455 years and, at 58, was the youngest in 150 years.

Since then he has set record after record despite his frailty, making history time after time.

He is the fifth-longest serving pope in history, and, if he lives five more months, will become the fourth-longest.

The most travelled pope in history has made 240 trips in Italy and abroad since his election.

He has travelled 1,237,584 kilometres (768,600 miles), which, the Vatican statistics office is quick to note, is nearly 40 times the circumference of the earth and more than three times the distance between the earth and the moon.

He has been out of rome for precisely 946 days, 17 hours and five minutes — amounting to some 11 percent of his pontificate.

The Pope has visited 129 countries on 98 trips abroad.

In the last 12 months, more than 2.2 million people saw him in Rome, not to mention the millions who have seen him on his three foreign trips to six countries in the same period. Numbers apart, tomorrow’s 24th anniversary will be significant as well for something that is conspicuously absent.

Nearly every anniversary or birthday in recent years has been marked by debate over whether the Pope could or should retire instead of ruling for life.

Since 1993, he has had the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a disorder of the central nervous system. His left arm trembles, often uncontrollably, and his facial muscles are stiff, leading to a mask-like expression and weakness.

But the Pope has made clear that he intends to run his one-billion member catholic church as long as god wants him to and his health has appeared to be more stable in recent months.

The last Pope to resign willingly was celestine v, who stepped down in 1294. Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the holy see.

The media has put the pope on his deathbed or at retirement’s door often in the past. In 1994, the sunday magazine of one of the world’s major newspapers ran a cover story saying the Pope’s end was in sight and named six cardinals who possibly could succeed him.

One has died and three have retired or turned 80, making them ineligible as candidates.

The Pope, meanwhile, has made 35 foreign trips since then. (AGENCIES)

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