Bill Clinton

US house panel passes
3 impeachment articles

WASHINGTON, Dec 12: Unconvinced by President Bill Clinton’s last ....more

Rare blood transplant

ATLANTA, Dec 12: A rare blood transplant from an ...more

44 survive air crash
at Thai tourist resort

SURAT THANI, THAILAND, Dec 12: Forty-four people, including at least nine foreigners, survived a ...more

Alexander receives Russia’s top cultural honour

MOSCOW, Dec 12: President Boris Yeltsin said Alexander ....more

Committee votes for impeachment as Clinton hopes for censure

WASHINGTON, Dec 12: In a jarring blend of constitutional drama and partisan struggle, the Republican-controlled house....more

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 12: An explosion destroyed an illegal firework factory in Northeastern Brazil yesterday,....more

Hong Kong make
record seizure of
156 kg of cocaine

HONG KONG, Dec 12: Hong Kong has made a record seizure of 156 kg of cocaine worth about 23.3 million.....more

Solzhenitsyn turns
down Russia’s highest
civilian honour

MOSCOW, Dec 12: Russian nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn has refused to accept post-communist Russia’s Highest Civilian Award....more

Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama prepared
for talks with China

PATNA, Dec 12: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama today said he was ...more

US house panel passes 3 impeachment articles

WASHINGTON, Dec 12: Unconvinced by President Bill Clinton’s last minute expression of profound remorse over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a US house panel today voted to send three impeachable charges accusing him of perjury and obstruction of justice to the full house of representatives.

The deeply polarised panel voted on party lines to carry forward the three charges to a full house, in a move fraught with unpredictable political consequences for Clinton’s scandal-tainted presidency.

In an emotional plea that was televised liveminutes before voting, President Clinton, said he was profoundly sorry for misleading the country over his 18-month-old affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Addressing the hastily-convened press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Clinton said mere words cannot fully express the profound remorse I feel for what our country is going through and for what members of both the parties in Congress are now forced to deal with.

But the Republican-dominated committee brushed aside his apology to approve the first article of impeachment 21-16 seeking his removal from office on grounds of having wilfully provided perjuries, false and misleading testimony.

The voting, the third time in the US political history that impeachment articles against a President had been carried through, came after days of political high drama which saw the deeply divided democrats and republicans in the judicial panel nearly come to blows.

The house panel will debate and vote on a fourth article of impeachment today.

If the charges are voted through next Thursday in the full house of representatives, the senate will convene for the second time in history to try a president.

No impeachment stick to President Clinton, as it requires the backing of an unprecdened two-thirds majority of the upper chamber.

In an emotional speech targeted to sway Republican panel members, Clinton, briefly spoke of his pain and said he was prepared to face a censure for his past actions.

Like anyone who honestly faces the shame of wrongful conduct, I would give anything to go back and undo what I did. But one of the painful truths I must live with is the reaccept a censure for his actions but refused to admit to perjury to cover up is affair with Lewinsky.

I must be at peace with the fact that the public consequences of my actions are in the hands of the American people and their representatives in the Congress. Should they determine that my errors of word and deed require their rebuke or censure, I am ready to accept that, he said.

I never should have misled the country, the Congress, my friends and my family. Quite simply, I gave in to my shame, he said shortly before walking back to the White House with downcast eyes. (PTI)

Rare blood transplant

ATLANTA, Dec 12: A rare blood transplant from an unrelated newborn’s umbilical cord has been used in an attempt to cure a twelve-year-old boy suffering from sickle cell anaemia.

Unrelated cord blood has been used to treat other blood diseases such as leukemia and other cancers, but this is believed to be the first time it’s been used specifically to treat sickle cell, an inherited, crippling, and sometimes lethal disease prevalent among blacks.

The boy, Keone Penn of Snellville, was partially paralyzed at age five after suffering a stroke. He has since undergone monthly blood transfusions to reduce his chances of a second stroke and has had to take medication to keep the transfusions from causing his iron levels to become toxic.

"We hope there is a 50-50 chance that this cord blood transplant will cure Keone’s sickle cell disease," said Dr. Andrew Yeager, director of pediatric hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplant at Emory University, where the procedure was performed.

About 72,000 Americans have sickle cell anaemia in which hemoglobin clumps inside red blood cells, changing the normally round cells into a sickle shape that cannot squeeze through tiny blood vessels.

Within two to four weeks, doctors will have an initial indication of whether the transplant is working, Dr Yeager said.

Keone had to rely on an unrelated donor because none of his siblings nor his parents matched his tissue type, Dr Yeager said.

His mother, Leslie Penn, 37, said she left the decision to have the cord blood transplant up to her son.

"His whole attitude has been like let’s just do it. He’s been very courageous and his attitude has been very positive," she said. (AP)

44 survive air crash at Thai tourist resort

SURAT THANI, THAILAND, Dec 12: Forty-four people, including at least nine foreigners, survived a plane crash at a popular Thai tourist resort, the Counr’s Transport Minister and officials said today.

Hundreds of rescue workers waded through muddy swamp in the early hours to pull charred bodies from the wreckage of the Thai airway plane which crashed yesterday carrying 146 passengers and crew.

They pulled out eight more bodies, including the mangled remains of the pilot from the smashed cockpit and fuselage of the A310-200 airbus.

It brought to more than 70 the number of corpses recovered since the plane crashed late yesterday.

Transport and Communication Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters 72 bodies had been removed from the aircraft. Of the total, 15 had been identified, one was a westerner.

Forty-four people survived, he said. The plane was carrying 132 passengers and 14 crew. Officials said the survivors included three Japanese, two Israelis, two Australians, one German and a Briton.

Local officials said those unacquainted for were believed to be in the burned fuselage of the jet and were feared dead.

Flight number TG 261 to Surat Thani from Bangkok plunged into a fallow paddy field in bad weather three km from the airport and burst into flames after failing to make an emergency landing.

Surat Thani airport serves the island resort of Koh Samui and other nearby tourist destinations. (REUTERS)

Alexander receives Russia’s top cultural honour

MOSCOW, Dec 12: President Boris Yeltsin said Alexander Solzhenitsyn would receive the country’s top cultural honour in an announcement, the 80th birthday of Russia’s most famous living writer.

" Mr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the order of St. Andrew for

outstanding service before the fatherland and great contributions to world literature,’’ presidential spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin told the Interfax News Agency yesterday.

The award, named after the Christian missionary, is one of Russia’s highest honours.

Mr Solzhenitsyn is the author of such renowned works as one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’’ and the three-volume "The Gulag Archipelago," which chronicled the atrocities in the Soviet Union’s Gulags, or prison camps.

Yesterday, Solzhenitsyn was expected to attend a play, "Sharashka," based on an adaptation of his novel "The First Circle." (AP)

Committee votes for impeachment as
Clinton hopes for censure

WASHINGTON, Dec 12: In a jarring blend of constitutional drama and partisan struggle, the Republican-controlled house Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against US President Bill Clinton on grounds of perjury.

"Mr Clinton pleaded yesterday for the lesser punishment of censure and rebuke."

The votes along party lines set the stage for a momentous showdown next week on the floor of the US house of representatives. The panel rendered its verdict just moments after Mr Clinton stepped before the television cameras with his extraordinary public apology.

"I am profoundly sorry for all I have done wrong," the 42nd President said to Americans he misled for so long about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. "I would give anything to go back and undo what I did," he added in remarks televised live from the lawn of the White House.

He admitted to no specific legal wrongdoing, and aides said his remarks particularly those inviting censure were intended to reach out to Republican moderates who hold the pivotal votes in the full house.

Several members of the Judiciary Committee interrupted their debate to watch the President on television. Returning to the historic committee room moments later, they somberly voted to seek his removal from office for having "willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony" to Kenneth Starr’s grand jury.

"Article one is approved," intoned US Rep. Henry Hyde, the Committee’s Chairman, after the clerk announced the tally on only the third Presidential impeachment vote in American history. The vote was 21-16, strictly along party lines.

The second impeachment article, alleging that Mr Clinton lied in a civil deposition in the Paula Jones case, was approved a few hours later. That vote was 20-17. The only lawmaker to cross party lines was Rep. Lindsey Graham.

Debate fell predictably along party lines.

"The President of the United States engaged in a scheme to lie, to get other people to lie, to hide evidence and to get other people to hide evidence," said Rep. Bill McCollum, shortly before the roll was called.

Democrats battled to the end.

Inside the very room where Richard Nixon’s fate was sealed a quarter-century ago, Hyde was shepherding four articles of impeachment to a final vote.

One alleged perjury by Mr Clinton before Starr’s grand jury.

A second alleged perjury in a deposition under oath as part of the Paula Jones lawsuit.

A third alleged obstruction of justice by Mr Clinton in his attempt to thwart Starr’s investigation, and cited conversations he had with Ms. Lewinsky and oval office secretary Betty Currie and other actions.

A fourth alleged abuse of power, including the charge that by invoking executive privilege to blunt Starr’s investigation, Mr Clinton was guilty of impeachable offenses.

Approval of even one article guaranteed that Mr Clinton will become only the second chief executive in history to face an impeachment vote by the full house. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, but was acquitted in a senate trial by a single vote.

Mr Nixon resigned rather than suffer impeachment by the full house after the committee voted against him during watergate.

Unlike Nixon, Mr Clinton’s standing is strong in the polls, and he enjoys the support of lawmakers of his own party.

Still, his decision to issue an apology reflected concern among aides and democratic defenders in Congress that he could lose the vote next week in the full house.

"I never should have misled the country, the Congress, my friends or my family," he said. "Quite simply, I gave in to my shame." (AP)

17 killed, 45 injured in blast at firework factory

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 12: An explosion destroyed an illegal firework factory in Northeastern Brazil yesterday, killing 17 people and injuring 45, police said.

"There were a lot of people, many of them women, working in the building when the explosion happened," police officer Paulo Raimundo De Souza said by telephone. "It seems like they had been working flat-out because there is a big demand for fireworks at this time of year with new year’s eve coming up shortly."

The explosion happened at 11:30 am on the outskirts of the town of Santo antonio De Jesus, about 1,050 miles (1,700 kms) Northeast of Rio, he said.

Nine of the dead were children who had been working in the factory, reported tv globo.

The cause of the explosion was unclear, but it appears to have been an accident, Souza said. It happened in a house which was being used as a factory.

The blast also badly damaged three nearby houses, he added.

Firefighters continued to search for people in the burned remains of the factory, said Souza. The injured were being treated at different hospitals in the region.

The town which is in the state of Bahia has a population of about 80,000 people. (AP)

Hong Kong make record seizure of 156 kg of cocaine

HONG KONG, Dec 12: Hong Kong has made a record seizure of 156 kg of cocaine worth about 23.3 million US dollars, authorities said today.

Speaking at a news conference where the drugs were displayed, the chief of customs drug investigation bureau, Chan Hon-Kit, said the cocaine was found concealed inside an cargo aircraft tyre among items of a cargo aircraft under maintenance.

Mr Chan said the plane arrived last week in Hong Kong from the United States. He said the cocaine was not destined for Hong Kong as it was only a small market. No arrests had been made and the investigation was continuing.

"In an operation conducted in the maintenance area of the Chek Lap Kok Airport, we checked the supplies of the aeroplane which was under maintenance service, and we found among the supplies a tyre which was of extra weight," Mr Chan said.

"So we carried out further examination by means of a high-tech eye-scanner which could indicate drugs," he added. "Eventually, we dismantled the tyre and found the cocaine inside."

Mr Chan said that before arriving in Hong Kong, the plane had been to European and US cities. (DPA)

Solzhenitsyn turns down Russia’s highest civilian honour

MOSCOW, Dec 12: Russian nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn has refused to accept post-communist Russia’s Highest Civilian Award — the order of St Andrew.

While thanking President Yeltsin for honouring him on his 80th birthday yesterday, Solzhenitsyn, declined to accept the offer saying, I cannot accept any award from the regime which has led Russia to the perilous state it is in now.

The towering literary giant was instrumental in hastening the downfall of erstwhile USSR’s communist regime by exposing the chilling reality of Stalin’s labour camps in his magnum opus gulag archipelago.

When people aestarving and striking just to get their wages, I cannot accept this award, he said in an apparent snub to the beleagured Yeltsin under fire for his inability to come to grips with the country’s collapsing economy.

Addressing fans shortly before the stage performance of a play based on his novel the first circle, he said, may be, may be, in a long, long time, when Russia overcomes its insurmountable problems, my sons may accept such an award.

The writer, who has single-handedly kept aloft the hoary Russian literary tradition, has been dubbed by Russian media as ‘The living tolstoy’ for his outstanding contribution to world literature. (PTI)

Dalai Lama prepared for talks with China

PATNA, Dec 12: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama today said he was prepared for talks with China anytime anywhere to solve the vexed Tibetan problem.

In an informal chat with reporters the Dalai Lama said he was hopeful that China would reciprocate his gesture and come forward for a substantive dialogue.

The Tibetan problem was man-made, he said, adding things are now moving in the right direction.

Asked if he perceived China as enemy number one of India, the Nobel laureate said, as a Buddhist, no... there is no such word in Buddhist vocabulary.

India and China are the most populous countries in the world... It is in the interest of the world as well as the two countries that they live in peace, he said.

Earlier, replying to felicitations accorded to him by the Bihar chapter of Indo-Tibet friendship society, the Dalai Lama extolled India’s role in rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and providing them education and healthcare. (PTI)