PARIS, Dec 7: Cesar Baldaccini, the sculptor best-known for....more

Astronomers think there
may be hidden planets in
universe

MUNICH, Dec 7: Astronomers believe there may be large, as yet ....more

Angolan ex-rebels release
14 UN soldiers

LUANDA, Dec 7: The United Nations said that 14 UN soldiers, including 10 Indians, held for almost...more

Moderate Sikhs keep
control of Vancouver temple

VANCOUVER, Dec 7: Moderate Sikhs have retained control of a Vancouver temple...more

Nelson Mandela

Mandela honoured

ABU DHABI, Dec 7: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decorated..more

Accords on trade
cooperation to be signed
during Primakov visit

MOSCOW, Dec 7: Several accords affirming Indo-Russian cooperation in defence and trade are likely to be signed during the two-day...more

Little cause to celebrate human rights declaration birthday

GENEVA, Dec 7: Amid pomp and pageantry, world leaders are marking the 50th anniversary this week of the universal declaration of human rights. But there is only limited room for celebration. Adopted in the aftermath....more

Boy savaged to death by cheetah in French zoo

PARIS, Dec 7: A cheetah savaged to death a three-year-old boy after escaping from its cage in a French zoo, officials said.

The youngster was visiting the zoo at Doue-La-Fontaine with his family when he was attacked on Saturday. The boy’s father was badly mauled trying to save his son.

Police said the cheetah escaped by burrowing a hole under the wire fence of its cage. The zoo was temporarily closed after the incident. (DPA)

Cesar, crushed car sculptor, dies at 77

PARIS, Dec 7: Cesar Baldaccini, the sculptor best-known for compressing cars into huge blocks of twisted steel, has died of cancer at his Paris home, French media reported early today. He was 77.

Cesar, as the artist is known, died at his home yesterday French radio and television said.

The sculptor "was a man who didn’t see any difference between life and creativity itself," Pierre Restany told French television LCI.

Born on Januaru 1, 1921 in Marseille, Cesar studied at the Beaux-Arts Schools in his native city as well as in Paris. He quickly sought to differentiate himself from his instructors by using auto bodies and scrap metal.

A member of the new realism movement, Cesar created "compressed automobiles," and he "sculpted" other objects by striking them with a sledgehammer.

Cesar also created the statuette used as France’s Oscar to award the country’s cinema greats. The award, first given in 1976, is called the Cesar.

Funeral arrangements were pending. (AP)

Astronomers think there may be hidden
planets in universe

MUNICH, Dec 7: Astronomers believe there may be large, as yet undiscovered, planets around 25 to 30 billion km out in the universe.

They have been led to this conclusion, European Southern Observatory (ESO) astronomer Richard West explained, by the discovery of a series of small planets, observed with the aid of the new telescope at the ESO base in Chile.

Experts have known for the past six years of the existence of these minor bodies, measuring up to 100 km in diameter. They are remnants of the birth of a planet, far enough away from the sun to have been preserved "as in a refrigerator", said Mr West.

The new, extremely powerful telescope will make it possible to explore the surface of these minor bodies. The focus of interest is whether, in addition to ice and dust, it will be possible to identify organic molecules there, something nobody has so far succeeded in doing.

The scientists hope that the minor bodies will provide them with further clues as to how the solar system emerged. Observation is being concentrated on the Kuiper Belt, stretching across a distance of between five and 30 km from earth.

So far, around 10,000 minor bodies have been catalogued in this region, 70 of them at its utmost extremity. However, experts suspect there may be more than 100,000 such planets, including "hidden objects" between 1,000 and 2,000 km in diameter, said Mr West. Earth is 12,800 km in diameter. (DPA)

Angolan ex-rebels release 14 UN soldiers

LUANDA, Dec 7: The United Nations said that 14 UN soldiers, including 10 Indians, held for almost a month by Angola’s former rebel movement had been released unharmed.

The UN peacekeepers — 10 Indians, one Bulgarian, a Swede, a Senegalese and a Brazilian — arrived yesterday at the headquarters of the UN forces in the Capital, a UN spokesman here said.

He said the released peacekeepers were in "good shape."

The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the former rebel movement of Jonas Savimbi, had refused to allow the UN troops to leave its stronghold of Bailundo and Andulo since October, after the UN ordered a withdrawal from an unstable area of the country.

The two towns were the main targets of a crackdown on armed UNITA combatants, who were due to have turned in their weapons and demobilised by March this year under peace accords sealed in 1994.

However, the Luanda Government has said that Savimbi Stil has some 30,000 men at arms, and has already recaptured dozes of towns and villages.

The UN had threatened to hold Savimbi personally responsible for the soldiers’ safety.

The UN mission in Angola (Monua) acknowledged that vital role played in the soldiers’ release by Issa Diallo, the special representative in Angola of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. (AP)

Moderate Sikhs keep control of Vancouver temple

VANCOUVER, Dec 7: Moderate Sikhs have retained control of a Vancouver temple, taking all 15 seats in yesterday’s election.

Voter turnout was lower than expected, with slightly more than 36,000 ballots cast out of a possible 56,000.

Temple members have been bitterly divided over an edict from Sikh leaders in India that bans tables and chairs from temples.

The Executive Board election was hotly contested because it will decide which faction has control of the Lucrative temple.

The issue has sparked violence in the past, but no trouble was reported during the voting.

Vancouver’s Ross Street temple, which opened in 1908, is the largest Sikh temple in North America, with more than 57,000 members.

The temple has been the site of violence between traditional and moderate Sikhs in the vancouver area since an edict outlawing tables and chairs in temple dining halls was issued by the religion’s high priest in India earlier this year.

The family of slain Sikh publisher Tara Singh Hayer say his death is linked to the struggle for control of the temple.

His children and friends have repeatedly said that Hayer, who was gunned down in the garage outside his home on November. 18, was killed because of his support of moderate candidates.

He was also among eight British Columbian Sikhs excommunicated last summer by high priest Ranjit Singh over his opposition to the tables and chairs edict. (AP)

Accords on trade cooperation to be signed
during Primakov visit

MOSCOW, Dec 7: Several accords affirming Indo-Russian cooperation in defence and trade are likely to be signed during the two-day summit between the two countries beginning on December 20, when Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov makes his first visit to India.

Russian news agency Novostsi quoted Defence Ministry sources here as having said that an agreement on the setting up of the Kudankulam nuclear power station with two reactors is likely to get the green signal during the summit. Russia will extend a two billion dollar credit to India for the project, which will be built on a Turnkey basis.

Moscow has also expressed its readiness to train Indian specialists to enable them to man such nuclear power stations.

The summit is also expected to resolve the vexed question of debt payment between Russia and India, which was one of the subjects of discussion at the session of the Indo-Russian Commission for Economic and Trade Cooperation held in Moscow recently.

At the session, it was agreed by the two sides that India will pay half of its debts in the form of commodities, which will include foodstuffs, medicines, cars and other equipment. Russia’s mode of payment of its debts to India will be decided at the Delhi summit, sources said.

The Russian Defence Ministry sources said Russia was also planning to sell to India its surface to air missiles, Sam-300, which will be used for training Indian defence personnel .

As part of its defence cooperation with India, Russia has decided to convert its Hitherto top secret defence plant at the Siberian city of Krasnoyersk into an Indo-Russian joint venture for turning out silicon chips . According to a report in the Daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the plant will produce chips for Indian defence and civilian sectors. These integrated chips are used to make solar batteries and semi-conductors.

The report said the project ranks among the first Indo-Russian joint ventures set up in high technology.

The Delhi summit is also expected to approve the Indo-Russian Joint Commission’s recommendations on trade expansion. Though this year’s trade turnover between the two countries will see some marginal fall over previous years, both the sides hope to raise the figure substantially in the next few years.

Observers here note that the trade turnover between India and Russia during 1998 was expected to be 1.5 billion dollars only. Till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the annual volume of trade between the two countries amounted to five billion dollars.

Mr Primakov’s visit to India will be preceeded by Russia’s participation in an international airshow in Bangalore, in which Russia will present, for the first time, its latest "war bird", the Su-33.

According to Russian Defence Ministry sources, the fighter plane is an improved version of Su-27 and is unmatched in the world among the flying vehicles of this type. The Bangalore airshow will witness performance of the trainer "war bird and "the mig-at" of the new generation which, Russians claim, is five to eight years ahead of the world standards of this class of planes.

After the conclusion of the official talks in New Delhi on December 21, Mr Primakov will leave for Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic, the sources said. (UNI)

Little cause to celebrate human rights declaration birthday

GENEVA, Dec 7: Amid pomp and pageantry, world leaders are marking the 50th anniversary this week of the universal declaration of human rights. But there is only limited room for celebration.

Adopted in the aftermath of World War II, the declaration was intended to prevent a repetition of the horrors of the holocaust and other atrocities.

"Beginning with the pronouncement that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," the United Nations document set out to cover the range of human existence.

It has become at once the most quoted and most ignored international document of modern times.

Since its inauguration on December 10, 1948, millions of people have been denied their most basic right that of life as a result of massacres such as those in cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia. In many other countries, inhabitants can only dream of basic civil liberties.

And the world is far from fulfilling the declaration’s pronouncements on economic rights." Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family," says Article 25.

According to UN figures, 1.5 billion people get by on less than one dollar a day. In South Asia, half of all children under five are malnourished. Only a third of the people in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to live past 40.

The problem for the common people is that they don’t understand their rights,’’ said Sri Hintang Pamungkas, a former political prisoner in Indonesia.

The declaration’s 30 articles are short, between one and four sentences each. They proclaim the right to life and freedom from slavery and torture. They also spell out equality in marriage and divorce, freedom of religion and the right to education.

In an effort to raise awareness of the declaration, human rights groups have spent the anniversary year staging street plays, pop concerts and school competitions to pass along its message.

Official observances culminate this week in ceremonies tomorrow in Paris and Thursday in New York with world leaders like French President Jacques Chirac and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

There is consensus among activists that despite blatant violations of the declaration’s principles, there has been progress.

Even if it’s not implemented, it’s the point of reference for Governments and people around the world,’’ said Isabelle Scherer of Amnesty International.

Most advocates cited Britain’s arrest and possible extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain on charges of genocide and torture as evidence of a changing international mood.

Pinochet’s arrest makes a very nice 50th anniversary present,’’ said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Peter Thomas Burns, Chairman of the U.N. Committee on torture, said: 20 years ago, dictators, when deposed, could look forward to a happy, comfortable retirement. International human rights law has caught up with them.’’

U.N. Organisations set up to monitor compliance with the declaration and related treaties meet frequently in Geneva. Although the bodies have little power other than to cajole or rebuke, rights advocates say their pressure makes a difference.

Many Asian nations have long argued that human rights are a purely internal matter, but there are signs of changing attitudes. Both Indonesia and the Philippines criticized Malaysia’s Government this year over the detention of a former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

Yet, while China recently signed a U.N. Treaty on civil and political rights and maintains its respect the universal declaration of human rights, it still punishes anyone who doesn’t toe the official line.

Many Chinese echo the Government’s position that national prosperity takes precedence over individual rights.

First, we must have economic change. As the economy has developed over the past 20 years, people have more rights,’’ a Chinese businessman, who gave his name as Mr. Wang, told a reporter. Twenty years ago, I could not be standing here talking to you.’’

Although there has been increasing recognition of women’s rights in U.N. documents, it has made little impact on the plight of millions of women in developing countries.

In Kenya, for instance, growing economic hardship is blamed for a big increase in physical abuse of women. Women’s groups there plan to mark the declaration’s anniversary Thursday by putting husbands of battered women on trial’’ to highlight the problem.

The declaration has frequently served as an inspiration to the oppressed.

Alexander Podrabinek, 46, who spent five years in Siberian exile during Communist rule in the Soviet Union, said the declaration was a touchstone for dissidents. He recalled how the KBG routinely confiscated copies of the document as anti-Soviet literature.’’

Conditions are better now in Russia, but there are still widespread violations of human rights, he said, citing religious discrimination and appalling conditions in prisons.

The broad public is largely unaware of the declaration,’’ he added. But it remains some kind of a distant ideal.’’(AP)

Mandela honoured

ABU DHABI, Dec 7: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decorated South African President Nelson Mandela with its highest national honour — the Zayed the first order — for his services and effort to unite his country.

The honour was conferred on Mr Mandela at a ceremony here last night by UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who described the South African President as a "history-making leader of international repute."

Mr Mandela is here to attend the 19th annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) beginning here later today. Sheikh Zayed and his presence at the meeting would be a "blessing."

"We hope his presence at the summit will reflect positively on the meeting," he said.

Mr Mandela and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan are due to address the opening session of the summit today to become the first dignitaries from outside the GCC fold to attend a meeting of the six-nation grouping that comprises Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.

At last night’s ceremony, Mr Mandela described Sheikh Zayed as a"leader I am proud of" and praised him for his contributions to international causes and his support for truth and justice. He said the UAE President had won great respect throughout the world for his role in establishing the UAE Federation and for providing peace and prosperity for his people. (UNI)