Indian plastic industry poised for a boom: Plastindia

DUBAI, Oct 27: From being a net importer of plastics just five years ago, India is today a major exporter and might zoom out of the twilight era to scale new heights, a senior official of Plastindia Foundation has said.

With polymers - the raw material needed to produce plastics -being made available in abundance by one of the world’s largest plants at Jamnagar, the industry in India is poised for growth, said Mr P D Sampat of Plastindia.

The industry, which was "quite backward" barely five years ago, saw dramatic changes with the Ambanis putting up a big petrochemicals plant at Jamnagar in Gujarat, Doha’s Peninsula newspaper quoted him as saying.

Plastindia is the apex body of Indian plastics manufacturers and traders and Mr Sampat was in Doha to speak about Plastindia 2003 —the fifth international plastics exhibition and conference to be held in New Delhi in February next year.

The industry’s share in exports is the second largest after gems and jewellery. While many believe China is moving fast towards self-sufficiency and exports of plastics, Mr Sampat claimed that India actually exports some 30,000 tonnes of raw materials annually to that neighbouring country.

India produces some 3.7 million tonnes of polymers annually, with its total capacity being a million tonnes more and the market size for the raw materials being worth around 80 billion dollars, said Mr Sampat.

Major polymers consumed in India include Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polypropylene and Polyster (PET).

Demand is expected to grow by some 10 to 12 per cent yearly with electrical appliances, telecommunications and agriculture emerging as major consuming industries.

Washing machines, refrigerators, airconditioners and cell phone sets are poised to catalyse the demand, Sampat added.

India’s vast dairy industry consumes some 60,000 tonnes of polyethylene films a month for its packaging needs, a figure that is increasing rapidly. Likewise, the requirement of polyester by the ever-exploding mineral water industry for bottling is growing by a huge 35 per cent yearly.

The optic fibre pipes and cables are another key area that is set to grow and India hopes to gain mastery over the additives needed to manufacture these specialist items, he said.

An area where India currently lags behind is the feedstocks (polycarbonates) for engineering plastics widely used in the manufacture of automobiles and other heavy products.

However, India is a key producer and exporter of machines that are used in the manufacturing plastic goods, he added. (UNI)

Al-Qaeda’s tried establishing links with
rebels in Chechnya

LONDON, Oct 27: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s Chief Lieutenant, had tried to enter Chechnya to establish Al-Qaeda’s links with Chechen rebel leaders.

Court documents from the neighbouring Republic of Dagestan reveal how Al-Zawahiri, was arrested and handed over to Russia’s federal security service in December 1996 after he tried to enter Chechnya secretly, a media report said today.

51-year old Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, was held along with two Arab foot soldiers for six months in Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital.

Al-Zawahiri, one of the most powerful members of Laden’s terror network, was already wanted in connection with bloody terrorist attacks in his native Egypt. But the federal security service failed to realise how dangerous its captive was. The trio were put on trial, found guilty of entering Russia without a visa and were released in May 1997.

In court documents, Al-Zawahiri signs himself as Amin Abdulah Aman Mohammed, a businessman. "We entered dagestan to study the local market and to build contacts for our business," he wrote.

However, files stored on an Al-Qaeda computer, which later surfaced in Kabul, contain extensive notes written by Al-Zawahiri about his failed mission that tally with the court papers. "God blinded them to our identities," he wrote.

Al-Zawahiri came to the Caucasus in search of a new base-like bin Laden he had found a safe haven in Sudan, but in 1996 both men were among dozens of militants who were expelled.

Chechnya seemed ideal - Muslim rebels had defeated the Russian Army and gained de facto independence in their first war which had just ended in humiliating defeat for Moscow.

According to ‘The Sunday Times’, Al-Zawahiri is not the only possible link between Chechnya and Al-Qaeda. A court in Hamburg heard last week how Mohammed Atta, the leader of the September 11 hijackers, planned to travel to Chechnya to fight there instead.

Khattab, a Saudi-born fighter who was one of Chechnya’s main field commanders until he was killed, is also believed to have been close to bin Laden.

For Russian President Vladimir Putin, such ties support his contention that Russia’s fight against Chechen separation is part of the American-led war against terrorism. (PTI)

MOSCOW, Oct 27: As Moscow is limping back to normalcy after the three-day hostage drama in a local theatre, details of the special forces’ operations to liberate over 750 captives are gradually coming to light inspite of tight censorship clamped by the secret services.

The women suicide-bombers with explosive strapped to their bodies were shot in the temple while in sleep under the affect of sedative gas used by the special forces, a web-based internet news site reported.

The security operation ended with the killing of 50 hostage-takers including 18 women and over 90 captives.

"Our commandos simply entered the hall and shot down at point-blank the sleeping terrorists. In the temple. I understand that this is cruel, but when the person has two kilograms of plastic explosives strapped on his body, we did not see any alternative, specially when panic had broken out in the hall" an unnamed officer of the special forces personally involved in the operation was quoted as saying by newsru.com website.

It was a "text-book" operation, the special forces officer claimed.

At the very start the security forces had won the ‘psychological war’ by leaking the news that the storming would begin at 3 a m in the morning. The guerrillas were on the standby, but there was no storming. They opened fire, which was followed by the natural reaction of relaxation. The actual storming started two hours later at 5 a.m. yesterday. The sleeping gas was pumped into the ventilation system and some gas grenades were lobbed into the hall with the captives.

Due to the lack of co-ordination between police and secret services commandos some of the gunmen in the corridors opened fire and the hostages who were still awake rushed outside in panic where the police commandos were blocking the gates, the report said.

"The police commandos opened fire at the hall balconies, but, I think no one was hit, but in the confusion some bandits managed to slip out" the elite special forces officer was quoted as saying.

He said the guerrillas had several informers outside, who were reporting everything to them on mobile phones. However, from the very beginning the secret services were keeping track of them.

Earlier, ‘Kommersant" daily had reported in the days of standoff that attentive mobile users in the area of the theatre could notice the sign of an open lock on the screens of their cell phones.

At the request of security services the GSM operators had switched off signal scrambling at their transponders in the area, and each and every incoming and outgoing call could be easily monitored by the secret services as well as ordinary hackers.

In spite of a death toll of over 90, the foreign anti-terror agencies have described the Russian FSB operation as ‘unique’ and highly successful, local media reported.

It was for the first time sleeping gas was used to free hostages, though still hundreds of ex-hostages are undergoing treatment of its after-effects. According to Ttar-Tass messages with congratulations are pouring in at the fsb from foreign colleagues.(PTI)

Suicide bomber strikes at Jewish settlement; 3 killed

ARIEL (WEST BANK), Oct 27: A suicide bomber blew up today at a gas station next to the entrance of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, leaving three dead, including the attacker. At least 18 people were injured, some of them soldiers, officials said.

Israeli soldiers and civilians were at the gas station just outside the heavily guarded settlement of ariel, when a woman started shouting "suicide terrorist, suicide terrorist," said Yitzhak Zahavi, a reserve soldier who was lightly wounded.

Several soldiers told the man to stop, and the attacker raised his hands, Zahavi told Israel radio.

"He stopped and even started walking backwards," Zahavi added. "Then they tried to grab him to disarm him. When they saw that he had explosives on his body and they shot him twice," which apparently set off the bomb.

Three people were killed, including the bomber, and 18 people were injured, according to Yerucham Mandola, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service. Soldiers accounted for a number of the casualties, officials said.

While the settlement itself is heavily guarded, the attacker was able to reach the gas station along a main road, just outside the settlement.

On Sunday mornings, many soldiers are at the station, a gathering place for troops catching rides back to their bases at the beginning of the Israeli work week.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

An anonymous phone caller claiming to represent the Al Qqsa martyrs brigades told AFP here that the armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction carried out today’s suicide bombing at a West Bank Jewish settlement.

"We claim the martyrs operation that happened this morning at the ariel settlement," the caller said, without giving details.

The suicide bomber blew himself up at a filling station at ariel settlement, halfway between the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Ramallah, killing himself and at least two Israelis. (AGENCIES)

Moscow city doctor says most of deaths of hostages due to gas

MOSCOW, Oct 27: The head Moscow city doctor said today that all but one of the 117 people who died as a result of the operation to free hostages in a city theatre were killed due to the effects of the gas used to knock them and their captors out, a news agency reported.

The Interfax news agency quoted Andrei Seltsovsky as saying that just one person had died from bullet wounds.

It was the first time that a Russian official had identified the cause of death of most of the victims.

An anesthesiologist, Yevgeny Yevdokimov, said that the fatal effects of the unspecified gas were exacerbated by the weakned condition of the hostages, who had spent 58 hours in captivity under high stress and with little food or water, Interfax reported. (AP)

Musharraf meets PPP leader to discuss Govt formation

ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today reportedly held a surprise meeting with PPP leader Mukhdoom Amin Fahim and discussed the deadlock over the formation of a new Government following October 10 general elections in the country..

Fahim, a loyalist of former Premier Benazir Bhutto, was called by Musharraf’s office for the meeting, while the PPP leader was on his way to airport to go to Karachi, local television reports said.

Fahim cancelled his travel plans midway and met Musharraf at a restaurant, the reports said.

Confirming the reports of the meeting, PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) spokesman Faratullah Babar said that it was a "chance" meeting. The two met at a hilltop restaurant, he said.

"It was not a scheduled meeting", he told PTI here.

The meeting took place a day ahead of Musharraf’s visit to Saudi Arabia during which he is scheduled to hold talks with the Saudi Royal family, which has considerable influence over Pakistan’s politicians.

The meeting followed a stalemate over the formation of the new Government after general elections in which none of the parties won enough seats to form a Government. The reported meeting is Musharraf’s first with any opposition party leader since the elections.

The Musharraf-Fahim meeting also took place a day ahead of Bhutto’s scheduled meeting with US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in Washington. Bhutto, who reportedly wrote a letter to US President George W Bush few days ago making some serious allegations against Musharraf Government, was invited for a meeting with rice tomorrow. (PTI)

4 foreign hostages die in Moscow

MOSCOW, Oct 27: Four foreign hostages died after Russian special forces stormed a Moscow theatre where they were being held captive, including a Dutch woman and a Kazakh teenager who succumbed to gas poisoning, the Russian media said today.

Natalja Zjirov, 38, a Dutch national of Russian origin, died in hospital late yesterday, Interfax news agency quoted a diplomat at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow as saying.

A 13-year-old Kazakh girl, Alexandra Litiaga, also died in hospital, local media quoted the Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry as saying.

Both died after inhaling the mysterious gas pumped into the theatre by Russian special forces before their assault to incapacitate Chechen rebels holding more than 800 hostages there, doctors involved in treating the survivors said.

The unnamed doctors were quoted in a report on Russia’s privately-owned NTV television.

A Belarussian woman, 55-year-old Lyudmila Bogacheva, also died, RIA news agency said.

And an Austrian woman hostage died in hospital, Austrian diplomats were reported as saying.

A total of 75 foreigners had been among more than 800 people taken hostage in the theatre last Wednesday by heavily-armed Chechen rebels demanding an end to Russia’s war in their breakaway southern Russian Republic.

Witnesses said many of the hostages were overcome by an incapacitating gas that the special forces pumped into the theatre immediately before their pre-dawn assault on the building yesterday. (AFP)

Musharraf’s ministers scramble for Senate tickets

ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Some key ministers in President Pervez Musharraf’s cabinet approached the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Qaide Azam for tickets to get elected to the senate so as to retain their ministries, sparking speculations that the party was out to form the Government though it did not enjoy majority.

PML-Q leaders have said that so far Finance Minister Shoukat Aziz, Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider, Law Minister Khalid Ranjha, Information Minister Nisar Memon and Railway Minister Jahangir Ashraf Qazi have applied for party ticket to contest for Senate.

Elections for the 100 member strong senate, the upper house of the Parliament, are scheduled to be held on Nov 12.

Senate members were elected on the proportional representation system, based on the strength of the political parties in the national and provincial assemblies.

The PML-Q which has emerged as the single largest party with 77 seats out of the 270 seats of the lower house National Assembly, so far failed to get the support of any other major party to get the required numbers to form a coalition Government.

The former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto lead Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) and the six religious party alliance Muthahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which have won 63 and 45 seats to emerge as second and third parties respectively have so far declined to support a PML-Q to form Government.

Meanwhile, the Alliance of Restoration of Democracy (ARD) an alliance of anti-Musharraf parties, reportedly planned to call an all party conference early next week without PML-Q to discuss possibility of forming a coalition Government.

Speculation is rife in media that PPP has decided to support MMA Government form outside, based on a common minimum political programme.

An announcement was expected to be made by both the parties tomorrow, the reports said.

"We will make some announcement by tomorrow," president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan Shah Ahmed Noorani told reporters yesterday.

Meanwhile, cricketer-turned-politician and leader of the Tehrik-i-Insaaf Party Imran Khan has called for immediate convening the National Assembly session to end political uncertainty.

The delay of convening the National Assembly prompted speculation over imposition of martial law, he said.

Imran, who was the lone party candidate to win for the National Assembly told the media yesterday that manoeuvring for Government formation should end and the issue should be discussed on the floor of the Assembly.

He said the delay in convening the session is causing rumours of imposition of martial law.

The formation of the National Government appeared to be the only way out to over come the present crisis, he said.

"I had contested elections against these parties but I suggest that they should join hands to form a stable Government", he said. (PTI)

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