ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Four Pakistani Government workers were convicted today of espionage and sentenced to 10 years in jail, a private news agency........more

US ready, capable to strike
Iraq, UN evacuates its staff

DUBAI, Nov 11: United Nations today evacuated its arms inspectors and all non-essential staff from Baghdad for their own safety as United States stepped up military preparations for a possible strike against Iraq........more

Russia reaches a pact
with EU on food aid

MOSCOW, Nov 11: Russia has reached a tentative agreement on food aid with the European Union just days after completing a similar deal with the United States......more

9 LTTE activists killed

COLOMBO, Nov 11: Nine Tamil militants were killed and twelve injured while the navy destroyed one terrorist boat in the seat off Mullaitivu during the past 48 hours..........more

The move condemning Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Khaleda Zia came as a three-day general strike called BNP and its allies entered its final hours. At least four people have been killed during the strike.

A defence press office statement said reported comments by Zia during a protest on Monday over security road blocks in front of her house were provocative.

It criticised Zia for pursuing political activities in the military district where she lives and also criticised the behaviour of her family.

The military ruled Bangladesh directly or indirectly between 1975 and 1990, this was its first statement in recent years linked to politics.

The Army called for an explanation of reports on Zia’s outburst.

Zia said the Government had destroyed the Army. The Government has withdrwn the Army from the Chittagong hill tracts and engaged them in controlling traffic, the Army quoted her as saying.

Speaking to soldiers and officers present at the scene, she said ‘don’t you want to continue your job in the Army in the future ?’. (AP)

The US Energy Department yesterday declared a supercomputer dubbed blue mountain and made by Silicon Graphics Inc., as the fastest computer in the world. It ran 1.6 trillion calculations per second, officials said.

But only two weeks earlier, the department touted big blue, a computer from IBM, as the fastest in the world. At the time its speed was put at 3.9 trillion calculations per second.

"They’re both the world’s fastest in a certain sense," explained Ernest Moniz, the Undersecretary of Energy Department.

Apparently, the test standards were different when testing the computers. Simply put, big blue tested for peak speed, while blue mountain tested for sustained speed.

Big mountain ran one of the computer industry’s standard speed tests known as linpack and produced the speediest performance ever. It was the clear winner in the supercomputer equivalent of the indianapolis 500, the Energy Department said in a news release.

It seems, big blue hasn’t run that test yet. And big mountain hasn’t run the peak speed test yet.

Richard Belluzzo, Chief Executive Officer at Silicon Graphics, says his computer ran "real live applications" which is the true test.

"There should be no question about the fact that this is the fastest computer in the world," Belluzzo told reporters in a telephone conference call. "We waited until we had real data with real applications."

IBM officials couldn’t be reached for comment on whether they consider their big blue now in second place.

Both computers are being developing in conjunction with federal weapons programmes and are critical in the Government’s ability to simulate underground nuclear tests in the laboratory.

Blue mountain, which costs 120 million, dollars is located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Albuquerque, new Mexico while big blue, which is priced at 96 million, dollars is at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. (AP)

The Buddhist leader and nobel peace prize laureate told reporters yesterday that he had a good meeting with Clinton, who briefed him on his talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Tibet, which China occupied in 1950.

He explained his meeting with Jiang Zemin and his efforts, the Dalai Lama said, declining to offer details. Sometimes more open discussion is useful, sometimes more silence is useful, so I feel it is better to remain low key.

Jiang surprised Clinton by telling a news conference after their June summit that the door was open to talks with the Dalai Lama as long as he acknowledged Tibet was an inalienable part of China and Taiwan was a province of China.

However, the two do not appear much closer to a breakthrough and Beijing yesterday issued a veiled warning to Clinton not to meet the Dalai Lama. Separately, the official daily accused the Buddhist leader of playing tricks during his nine-day US visit.

In an effort not to ruffle Chinese feathers, Clinton did not schedule a meeting with the Dalai Lama but instead dropped by a meeting that the Tibetan leader had with US first lady Hillary Clinton, spending about 30 minutes with them.

After the meeting, the White House reiterated Clinton’s desire to see China open discussions with the Dalai Lama. (REUTERS)

Under the plan, Russia would purchase food worth 400 million european currency units (480 million dollars) and receive EU humanitarian aid worth ten million to twelve million ECUs (twelve to 14 million dollar), Deputy Prime Minister Gennady Kulik said yesterday, according to Russian news agencies.

The two sides will meet shortly to finalize the deal, he said. EU officials said Monday that a deal was in the works, but have not yet announced any agreement.

"We are ready for talks on the subject," Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov told reporters yesterday."We shall duly assess the European Union proposal, and we are going to offer the maximum transparency in the aid distribution."

The food purchased by the Russian Government would be sold on the Russian market with the profits spent on Government social programmes, Mr Kulik said. Russia wants the humanitarian aid to be targeted primarily toward its frigid Northern regions, he said.

The report comes just four days after Russia and the United States signed a 625 million dollars agreement for 3.1 million tons of US food aid, including wheat, corn, pork and beef.

Russia’s economic crisis, combined with drought and falling food imports, have raised concerns about the country’s food supplies heading into the winter. No serious food shortages have been reported, but the Government wants to ensure that plenty is on hand.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov rounded up several of his top Cabinet ministers and headed to Parliament in a bid to win broad support for his economic recovery programme.

The session was closed, but lawmakers said discussions focused on next year’s budget.

Russia’s economic crisis hit almost three months ago, and Mr Primakov’s Government has moved slowly to put together a response. The Prime Minister has sought to stabilise the shrinking economy and has not taken any drastic steps.

President Boris Yeltsin has receded into the background since the crisis hit and has transferred control over the economy to Mr Primakov, but Kremlin aides insist that the President would step in if conditions grew worse.

"If the President thinks that the Government’s economic decisions have a tinge of fatal error, he will interfere," Mr Yeltsin’s deputy chief of staff, Oleg Sysuyev, said in an interview published yesterday with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said yesterday that the Government would print up to 25 billion roubles (1.7 billion dollars) before the end of the year to cover the budget deficit. The Government had earlier insisted that no more than 15 billion roubles (one billion dollars) would be printed. (AP)

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