BEIJING, Dec 29: After years of debate and bureaucratic infighting, the top committee of China’s legislature approved a national law to police.....more

‘No fly zone’ over Iraqi territory illegal: China

BEIJING, Dec 29: China today slammed the latest US-UK led aggression on Iraq and for the first time opposed the imposition of a ‘no fly zone’ inside Iraqi territory as a violation of United Nations charter and international law. ....more

Iraq accuses US of
aggressive behaviour

BAGHDAD, Dec 29: Iraq has accused the United States of "aggressive and vicious" behaviour after US warplanes fired on its anti-aircraft guns,. .....more

LONDON, Dec 29: Love letters exchanged between Queen Victoria and her gamekeeper, Mr John Brown, have been discovered in an attic in Scotland, a British newspaper has reported. ...more

US Senate leader faces
toughest challenge

WASHINGTON Dec 29: With the impeachment debate squarely in his court, Senate majority leader Trent Lott faces his toughest challenge yet as the Senate prepares to consider President Bill Clinton’s fate. ..more

Lankan Navy succeeds in
restricting sea tigers
movement

COLOMBO, Dec 29: Sri Lankan Navy has succeeded in restricting the movement of sea tigers between South Indian Coasts and North of the island even as several of them were killed in fierce sea battles during the last few weeks. .more

China approves national law

BEIJING, Dec 29: After years of debate and bureaucratic infighting, the top committee of China’s legislature approved a national law to police the country’s freewheeling securities markets.

The Standing Committee of the national people’s Congress adopted the law on the last day of a six-day session. The law will take effect July 1, 1999, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

It said the 12-chapter, 214-article law governs all aspects of the securities industry, from the issue and trading of stocks to purchases of listed companies, registration and accounts settlement agencies, Government regulatory bodies and penalties for violating the law.

The new law retains a prohizition already in force against foreign investors buying shares in China’s a-share market, which is open only to domestic investors, Xinhua said. Foreign investors remain limited to the smaller, less active B-share market.

The securities industry will be separated into two tiers, with brokerages required to separate their own trading accounts from those of their clients. Securities firms are also to be kept separate from banking, trust and insurance businesses, it added.

The report said legislators had drawn lessons from the financial turmoil afflicting other Asian markets in formulating the law.

At least five earlier draft versions of the law had been debated and rejected during the past six years, mainly due to disagreements between the various bureaucracies responsible for enforcing market regulations.

The regional crisis may have finally pushed the legislature into approving the law, which codifies and unifies a hodgepodge of regulations that have been loosely enforced.

Legislative debate over the securities law led to late revisions firming regulations prohibiting state-owned companies or listed companies from trading shares, the newspaper China securities news reported Tuesday.

Investors who own 30 percent or more of a listed company’s shares will be required to issue a takeover notice to all shareholders, the paper said.

The new law is expected to help prevent the frequent trading irregularities and bouts of volatility that have troubled the stock exchanges and other financial markets since their inception in the early 1990s. (AP)

Iraq accuses US of aggressive behaviour

BAGHDAD, Dec 29: Iraq has accused the United States of "aggressive and vicious" behaviour after US warplanes fired on its anti-aircraft guns, killing four soldiers.

The US attack yesterday came two days after Baghdad announced it would fire at Western aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones over Northern and Southern Iraq.

The Iraqi casualties were the first since the United States and Britain ended four nights of airstrikes on Dec. 19. Iraq says those raids killed 62 Iraqi soldiers and at least 40 civilians.

In Washington, President Bill Clinton said the US pilots opened fire in self-defense:"They attacked because they were attacked, and they did the appropriate thing."

The official Iraqi News Agency later quoted an Army spokesman as saying a "an enemy plane" had been shot down by Iraqi forces during the exchange.

"We declare that our air defense batteries almost certainly shot down an enemy plane and search is underway for the plane’s wreckage and the pilot," the spokesman reportedly said. "It’s possible that the American authorities did not announce the shooting down of the plane so they give their pilot a chance to escape, if he is alive, or give their agents an opportunity to retrieve his body, if he’s dead."

But US officials said all US planes has returned safely.

"It’s totally not true," said David Leavy, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council. "This is just more propaganda from Saddam Hussein."

An Iraqi military spokesman said earlier that yesterday’s initial clash began when Western aircraft approached one of our air defense weapons sites ... And fired criminal missiles.

"These criminal and vicious actions led to the martyrdom of four of our valiant soldiers and the wounding of seven others," the unidentifiee spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency.

The spokesman said the aircraft came in two waves. Iraqi air defenses "confronted" the first group "with all valour and capability."

The second wave of warplanes killed four soldiers and wounded seven, the spokesman said.

US pilots said the iraqis launched three missiles and used radar to lock onto US planes, said a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Americans scored at least two direct hits against the anti-aircraft site, the official said.

In Washington, a US Defense Department spokesman said the clash took place near Mosul, 400 km North of Baghdad.

In Stuttgart, Germany, a spokeswoman for the US-European Command, Maj Tony Kemper, said the US planes fired anti-radar missiles and precision-guided munitions. (AP)

Queen Victoria’s love letters found

LONDON, Dec 29: Love letters exchanged between Queen Victoria and her gamekeeper, Mr John Brown, have been discovered in an attic in Scotland, a British newspaper has reported.

The cache, which also included photographs of the couple, had been stored for many years in a trunk belonging to one of Mr Brown’s descendants at a home near Balmoral Castle, the Royal Estate in Scotland, the times said yesterday.

The unusual relationship between Queen Victoria, who was mourning the death of her husband Albert, and her servant sparked many rumors in the Mie-1860s "and was also the focus of the hit 1997 movie," Mrs Brown."

While researching the movie, the executive producer Douglas Rae and writer Jeremy Zrocks were alerted to the letters by one of Mr Brown’s descendants, who is now living in Canada, the newspaper said. The woman, who was not named, gave the film makers access to the letters, which had been hidden in her sister’s home in Scotland.

"We sat and read all the correspondence between Victoria and Brown and there is no doubt in my mind they were written two people who were very, very close and shared an intimate friendship," Mr Rae was quoted as saying. "We even found a Valentine card from the queen which read to my best friend JB from his best friend VR."’

Mr Rae said the family allowed them to use background material gleaned from the letters in the movie, but specific details were kept secret.

"The family has decided nothing will be made public while the present members of the royal family ... Are still alive," Mr Rae was quoted as saying.

The discovery of the letters was announced to coincide with the television premier of the film in Britain. (AP)

US Senate leader faces toughest challenge

WASHINGTON Dec 29: With the impeachment debate squarely in his court, Senate majority leader Trent Lott faces his toughest challenge yet as the Senate prepares to consider President Bill Clinton’s fate.

Mr Lott, a Republican from the Southern state of Mississippi, has been largely silent on the shape of the Senate’s impeachment proceedings next month, but he is getting plenty of public advice from his colleagues.

The Senate is to hold proceedings on two articles of impeachment passed by the house of representatives. But the White House, along with many Senate democrats, are seeking a compromise punishment for Mr Clinton that would avoid a formal Senate trial.

Lott, according to some who know him, already may have made up his mind. He has said, for example, that the constitution requires the Senate to at least convene a trial, and he excluded any "deal making" before such proceedings begin.

"He listens a lot but I think that he usually has a pretty clear idea to start with about where he wants to go," said Mr Mickey Edwards, a former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma who worked closely with lott while both served in the House.

Senators close to Mr Lott widely believe the movement to oust Clinton lacks the 67 votes to succeed.

Fellow Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran said he hasn’t talked to Mr Lott in weeks. "But it’s not as if this kind of thing is new to him," Mr Cochran said yesterday. He noted that Lott served on the House Judiciary Committee during the watergate proceedings, which forced President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 before a formal impeachment vote was held in the House.

"He would like to be able to please everybody but he knows he can’t," Mr Cochran added.

Whatever happens, said Mr Lott’s democratic counterpart, the proceedings must have more credizility with voters than did the House’s party-line passage of impeachment articles on December 19.

"I believe that the Senate is going to set a very high standard for civility, for bi-partisanship," democratic leader Tom Daschle said on Sunday. "We really want to demonstrate that now that we’re the ones on trial, as well, that we can live up to people’s expectations." (AP)

.Lankan Navy succeeds in restricting sea tigers movement

COLOMBO, Dec 29: Sri Lankan Navy has succeeded in restricting the movement of sea tigers between South Indian Coasts and North of the island even as several of them were killed in fierce sea battles during the last few weeks.

Senior Naval officers said that the LTTE had admitted last week that at least 14 of its sea cadres were killed during an encounter confrontation with security forces off the Mullaitivu Coast on November 24.

The voice of tiger broadcast identified the dead.

The November 24 incident occurred when a tiger craft was attacked by the Navy. "We don’t know whether they were wounded cadres on their way to get medical treatment in South India." A senior officer said. The attack on the large logistical craft carrying senior LTTE cadres was one of the most successful naval assaults, he added.

The boat escorted by three attack craft was moving Northwards of Chalai. A Sri Lankan Navy left had engaged the logistic craft which caught fire while the attack boats fled.

The sea tigers admitted the loss more than a month after the incident. But they have not so far acknowledged harm they suffered on December 15 South of Delhi when the Navy attacked, sinking a boat of theirs coming from the Indian Coast.

At least 15 people on board the enemy craft died when it caught fire and exploded during a fierce eight.

Senior officers said despite on and off attack carried out by the sea tigers the Navy has been able to inflict considerable losses on the enemy. (UNI)