Sniper demands millions to stop killings, threatens children

NEW YORK, Oct 23: The elusive serial sniper stalking the Washington dc area has claimed his tenth victim and sent a message threatening children in the region even as reports quoted a letter found behind a restaurant where he wounded one man last weekend as demanding millions of dollars to stop the killings.

In the letter which the police has not released, he threatened more killings, of children in particular, if ten millions dollars were not deposited in a bank account within two days. The letters was found sometime Saturday.

The letter, quoted by ‘Washington Post,’ listed half a dozen calls that had been "ignored" by operators answering phones at the command center in Rockville, the Montgomery country police station and the FBI. It even named some of the people who had answered the phones.

They had hung up, the letter stated: that was ‘incompetent’. "Five people had to die" because of it, the letter said, according to one law enforcement source who has seen a copy of the letter.

The letter gave a deadline of Monday for the money to be deposited in a bank account. It warned investigators that if they were more concerned with "stopping" the killings than making an arrest, they should follow the orders precisely, or else there would be "body bags", the post quoted a source as saying.

Meanwhile, a bus driver pausing before his morning rounds in silver spring in Maryland yesterday became the tenth victims of the dreaded serial killer who has struck 13th time since October 2 and sent a message threatening children in the Washington area, "your children are not safe anywhere at any time."

Police said the latest shooting was "certainly very similar" to the earlier ones though they were awaiting ballistic results.

If the test results prove that yesterday’s killing was indeed the handiwork of the sniper, he would have till date killed ten people, wounded three and missed one. But more than that he has created a panic in areas which is, according to New York Times, inhabited by more than four million people.

"You indicated that this is about more than violence," Montgomery county police chief Charles Moose said, reaching out on television to address the sniper directly. "We are waiting to hear from you."

Police offered the sniper telephone, mailbox or other ways to communicate, saying it had problems with electronic method proposed in an earlier communication even as evening police patrols were on the alert for the sniper’s next move.

"We realize that the person or the people involved in this have shown a clear willingness and ability to kill people of all ages, all races, all genders, all professions, at different times, different days and different locations," Moose said.

The fear for children’s safety has became a major concern as the sniper had killed a 13-year old boy. He kills his victims with a single shot fired from a distance indicating he is a good marksman and then disappears without trace.

Police has closed highways and roads around the shooting each time but has had no success in finding the killer. (PTI)

Canada’s Martel Narrow winner of Booker prize

LONDON, Oct 23: Canadian writer Yann Martel won the booker prize late last night, taking one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards for "life of Pi," his quirky fable about a boy’s survival after a shipwreck.

The Nontreal novelist was the hottest favourite in the 34-year history of the renowned prize after the organisers mistakenly put out his name as the winner last week when doing a test run on the prize’s website.

After the judges made their final decision late last night, prize administrator Martyn Goff said: "the discussion was strong and good but never unpleasant. They felt very strongly about things and really discussed them."

"It was a close run thing with another book," Goff said.

But he refused to say who was the runner-up after the judges opted 4-1 for martel after 70 minutes of thrashing out their final choice.

Asked if last week’s embarrassing slip-up had posed a problem with the judges, Goff said: "no, it wasn’t even mentioned."

That had been one of Martel’s prime fears when money poured onto his book from literary gamblers and he was installed as the evens favourite.

He told media before the prize-giving: "I hope it won’t annoy the judges". But he said he felt lucky: "I hope it is an omen," he said.

The 39-year-old Martel did not start making his living from writing until his late twenties. He now divides his time between writing, yoga and volunteer work at a care unit.

His book was described by his compatriot and former booker winner Margaret Atwood as "a boys’ adventure for grown-ups." Lisa Jardine, chair of the 2002 judges, said: "In ‘life of Pi’ we have chosen an audacious book in which inventiveness explores belief. It is, as the author says, a novel which makes you believe in god or ask yourself why you don’t."

The winner, hailed by London literati at a glittering dinner in the British museum, received 50,000 pounds (77,300 dollars) for his Booker prize, sponsored for the first time this year by the Hedge Fund Managers Man Group PLC.

The booker, picked from 130 novels from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, always sparks massive media coverage — and Martel looked only too happy to bathe in the spotlight.

"Writing is such an isolating profession that it is nice to break out of it," the writer told media.

But, reflecting on the publicity bandwagon that 21st century novelists have to jump on, he said: "I couldn’t do this week after week".

Martel’s slim novel tells the tale of a boy brought up in an Indian zoo. When the family moves to live in Canada, their boat is shipwrecked and Pi finds himself on a raft with a Hyena, an Orang-Utang, a zebra and a Bengal tiger.

Martel, the third Canadian winner of the Booker after Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, was born in Spain in June, 1963. He is the son of diplomats and spent his childhood travelling the world with them.

He was one of three Canadian writers shortlisted for booker 2002 — the others were Carol Shields and Rohinton Mistry.

In a truly international shortlist, the other contenders were welsh-born writer Sarah Waters, Australia’s Tim Winton and Irish septuagenarian novelist William Trevor. (AGENCIES)

Sri Lankan PM, President urged to work together

COLOMBO, Oct 23: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister and rival President will have to learn to work together or risk derailing a peace process after a court rejected a bid to amend the Constitution, officials said today.

The two top an awkward Dual-headed Government and their public spats have raised worries about early elections and the future of a peace bid that has given the island its best chance to end two decades of war that has killed 64,000.

An amendment proposed by the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that would have limited President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s powers was shot down yesterday by the Supreme Court, which said a referendum was needed for the change.

"It forces both parties to face the obvious, that they have to work together," said Chinthaka Ranasinghe, head of research at John Keells Stock Brokers, who has watched the stock market go up and down in line with the political woes.

"This was no love marriage in the first place, and when there are domestic fights we all feel it," he said.

Constitutional Affairs Minister Gl Peiris said last week the Government does not want a referendum and would consider an election to show that it has a strong mandate for its peace and economic plans.

But no decision has been made, a Government official said.

"We are still studying it. We are sending the judgment to the Attorney-General," spokesman Gairuka Perusinghe said of the ruling that would have also required a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The political woes come as Norwegian mediators are in Sri Lanka to meet Wickremesinghe and the Tamil tigers to prepare for a second round of peace talks at the end of the month.

But Kumaratunga cancelled a planned meeting with Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen, citing her busy schedule.

"The President will not be meeting Helgesen during this visit," said Janadasa Peiris, an official at the President’s office.

The Government said it wanted the amendment to ensure Kumaratunga — who has accused Wickremesinghe of making too many concessions to the rebels — would not dissolve Parliament if she was unhappy with the peace process.

Kumaratunga is elected separately and her People’s Alliance party lost an election last December that brought to power an alliance headed by Wickremesinghe’s United National Party.

The only other time since the current constitution was enacted in 1978 that the two leaders have come from opposing parties was for a three-month period in 1994.

Kumaratunga, who heads a cabinet that includes several ministers who defected from her party last year, has broad powers that cannot be overridden without a two-thirds majority of the 225-seat Parliament.

Wickremesinghe and his allies, including Tamil parties, have 129 seats, 21 short of the two-thirds mark.

An election was not expected to give the Government the extra seats it needs and could just add to the confusion, the independent Daily Mirror newspaper said in an editorial.

"It would certainly spell disaster to this nation politically, economically and socially," it said.

"The people on the ground don’t want an election. The people on the ground want peace, but mostly they want economic growth," said an adviser to the President.

Kumaratunga was expected to make a televised speech to the nation tomorrow night. (AGENCIES)

Oppose Iraq war like Gandhi, says India author Roy

ROME, Oct 23: Indian novelist Arundhati Roy today urged anti-war campaigners to use civil disobedience to oppose military action against Iraq, just as Mahatma Gandhi used it to fight for India’s independence from British rule.

Speaking about actively opposing globalisation, Roy told a news conference in Rome "the struggle has hit a dead-end. We need to re-imagine non-violent resistance. It’s not simply about demonstrations on the streets and wearing masks."

"The answer lies in civil disobedience," she said, detailing some of the boycotts and non-violent protests Gandhi used to weaken Britain’s grip on the Indian subcontinent, which gained independence in 1947.

Asked whether she would advocate civil disobedience against a possible US attack on Iraq, Roy said: "Absolutely, of course. That is where it is most urgently needed."

"Those activists who in the past have gone into palestine, or gone into Iraq and said ‘bomb us, we’re here, we’re white people and we’re here’ — those are fantastic people," she told Reuters later.

"Maybe not everybody is prepared to do that. But there must be ways in which you can find out who is making the guns, who is signing the deals, and target them — not violently, but make them know that they are doing this at a price, make their jobs difficult."

Roy, was in Italy to speak at a festival featuring films on a campaign of opposition to a hydro-electric dam project in India that has displaced millions of people. Roy was fined and briefly jailed by the Indian authorities for her role in the campaign.

But she spoke most heatedly about the threat of war in Iraq.

"The idea that America or any other country has the right to organise a pre-emptive strike against Iraq on the suspicion that it might be developing nuclear weapons...It justifies anybody going to war against anybody," she said.

"It justifies India going to war against Pakistan or Pakistan going to war against India based on any suspicion that they have. It’s the most outrageous thing you can possibly imagine."

Earlier this year Roy made her first trip to Pakistan, whose dispute with India over Kashmir has brought them to the brink of war in the past year.

She is fiercely critical of both Governments, accusing them of fanning the Kashmir issue to cover up their own failure to fight poverty and social problems. (AGENCIES)

Future policy on Kashmir to be made by new
Parliament: MMA

ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: Asserting that Pakistan’s future policy on Kashmir would be decided by the new Parliament, hardline Islamic religious parties told an Indian diplomat here they preferred the issue to be resolved "in accordance with UN resolutions, Simla agreement and aspiration of the Kashmir people".

The Indian Charge De Affairs to Pakistan, Sudhir Vyas, has asked leaders of the alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) as to what their stand would be on Pervez Musharraf Government’s decisions, including ban on militants groups like Jiash-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Toyaba in February.

Replying to Vyas’s question, MMA leader and its Prime Ministerial candidate Fazlur Rehman said that his alliance preferred Kashmir issue "to be settled in accordance with the UN resolutions, Shimla agreement and aspirations of Kashmiri people."

Asked about Pakistan’s cabinet resolution promising not to let the territory of the country to be used for committing terrorism abroad, Qurshid Ahmad, senior leader of the Jamat Islami and Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies replied that "the future policy would be decided by the new Parliament."

Vyas later told reporters that "we discern attempts to back away from the commitments Pakistan has made to the international community".

The meeting was called by MMA leaders with diplomats of different countries to explain their stand on various policy issues in the light of impressive victories posted by their alliance in the Oct 10 elections.

The comments made by Rehman and Ahmad reflected differences within the alliance about Kashmir. While Rehman, who heads Jamat Ulema Islami (JUI) was known to strike a moderate stand on Kashmir issue even while taking a hardline stand on us and its war on terror, Jamat Islami, which focuses much of its political campaign on Kashmir and Pakistan’s differences with India takes a more strident stand on the twin issues.

The MMA leaders have replied to a host of questions by diplomats from US and Europe about the broad parameters of foreign policy to be followed by them if they form the Government.

The interactive meeting which was specifically arranged to allay fears that they would follow a hard-line foreign policy was thrown open to the press in the last minute.

Earlier the MMA leaders told a seminar in Rawalpindi that in the future setup, whether remaining in Government or opposition, MMA "will not only establish good relations with all the countries of the world including United States and Britain but will also shape such a foreign policy under which every citizen of Pakistan will have feelings of independence". (PTI)

Iraq says new UN resolution futile, US wants war

BAGHDAD, Oct 23: Iraq today said it was futile for the United Nations Security Council to adopt any new resolution on Iraq as the United States was determined to go to war and would find any pretext to do so.

Washington has met widespread opposition for threatening to attack Iraq, with or without UN support, to remove President Saddam Hussein, whom it accuses of seeking weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad denies the charge.

A revised US proposal aimed at ending a month-long deadlock over Iraqi weapons inspections met fresh resistance in the UN Security Council on Tuesday from Veto-powers Russia and France.

"There is no need for the Security Council to adopt a new resolution," Iraq’s official Al-Thawra daily said.

"The US objective is to find a new pretext to launch its aggression on Iraq after all its other pretexts failed, and to try to find a fake international cover for this aggression," it declared in a front-page editorial.

Iraq’s official INA news agency quoted Saddam as telling an Arab journalist that Baghdad "was determined to fight to defend its principles, goals and role."

"We will not let you down god willing. We will make you proud," Saddam said.

Washington drew up a new draft and met twice on Tuesday with permanent members of the 15-nation Council who hold Veto power. But there was no sign the two sides were moving any closer to a compromise.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was quoted as saying the proposed resolution on Iraq did not meet minimum requirements. (AGENCIES)

Yugoslavia launches probe into Iraq arms

BELGRADE, Oct 23: Yugoslavia has launched an investigation into businesses that may have violated a United Nations’ arms embargo on Iraq, a source close to the federal Government in Belgrade today said.

"You can consider it over," said the source, who asked for anonymity. "The damage has been done, but the consequences will be reduced to a minimum."

Frustrated by a failure to heed stern warnings, the United States and its NATO allies went public yesterday with evidence that the Bosnian Serb Orao aircraft firm was supplying military equipment to Iraq via a Gugoslav state company. "It was engines for Soviet-era MiG-21 warplanes, that’s all it was," the source said. And it was not the Yugoslav Government but individuals who had benefited financially, he added.

Belgrade reacted immediately to the public allegations, sacking a Deputy Defence Minister and the Director Yugoslavia’s State Import-Export Company Jugoimport. It also ordered Jugoimport close its office in Baghdad.

Some military analysts said the MiG-21 was a museum piece, but others said that did not reduce its potential significance in any war with Iraq.

Like the Americans, French and British, Yugoslavia traded with Iraq during the 1980s when Saddam Hussein needed arms imports to fight a war with Iran.

Military analysts in Bosnia said that even if the spares kept ageing Iraqi aircraft flying they would hardly help Iraq defend against high-tech US weapons.

But Nick Cook of Jane’s defence weekly said any spare parts for MiGs would be important for the Iraqis and that they would look anywhere to get them. "Ex-Yugoslavia would be a natural place for them to go and shop," he told Reuters in London.

"The Iraqis are in desperate need of spare parts for their MiGs...Their airforce is almost nine-tenths grounded by the lack of spare part capability for their combat aircraft," he said.

A NATO diplomat also said the issue was being taken seriously in case it made the difference between Iraq being grounded or being able to put planes into the sky — even if the antiquated jets would then pose no major threat.

"Given that Saddam has had 10 years of sanctions, how does he keep his old equipment going? if they (orao) are sending in spare parts they would be very useful in keeping his decrepit air force flying," the diplomat said. (AGENCIES)

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