Chronology of hijack

KABUL, Dec 27: Russia has asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the hijacking of Indian Airliner IC-814 to Southern Afghanistan.

The five hijackers, who killed one passenger and are now holding 155 hostages, demand the release of an Islamic cleric from prison in Kashmir.

Following is a chronology of the hijack.

Dec 24

1055 GMT (4.25 p.m local)- flight IC-814, an airbus A-300, takes off for New Delhi from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, about two hours behind schedule. It carries 189 people - 178 passengers and 11 crew.

The passengers were 154 Indians, eight Nepalese, four Swiss, four Spaniards, two French citizens, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Belgian, an Australian, an Italian and an American.

1125 - Plane hijacked as it enters Indian Air Space. Later reports say five hijackers are armed with a pistol, a hand grenade and a knife.

1335 - Refused permission to land in Lahore, and almost out of fuel, aircraft lands in Amritsar, 50 km to the East.

1410 - Hijackers say they have started killing passengers. Subsequent developments show an Indian passenger was stabbed to death.

1421 - Plane takes off from Amritsar without refuelling, circles over Lahore.

1441 - Pakistan, at India’s request, lets plane lands at Lahore.

1713 - Refuelled plane takes off. Afghanistan forbids night landing at Kabul.

2005 - Airliner lands at United Arab Emirates military base outside Dubai.

Dec 25

0046 - After negotiations with UAE, hijackers release 27 passengers, mostly women and children, and the body of a passenger stabbed to death.

0101 - Plane leaves UAE.

0309 - Plane lands in Afghan city of Kandahar

1625 - Hijackers’ demands made public for the first time. They offer to free all hostages in exchange for Mohammed Azhar Masood, a Pakistani Islamic religious leader held by India since 1994 for encouraging separatist revolt in Kashmir.

1011 - Hijackers release a diabetic passenger. (AGENCIES)

Hasina for early start to India, Bangla train service

DHAKA, Dec 27: Bangladeshi Premier Sheikh Hasina today expressed the hope that train communication between India and her country would be soon established and said her Government wanted closer communication between the people of the two neighbours.

We want a closer communication between neighbours in the region, she told Dhaka-based foreign correspondents yesterday about such a possibility in the light of resumption of Dhaka-Calcutta bus service recently.

When pointed out that India’s Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee was keen for early introduction of Indo-Bangladesh train service and that New Delhi had completed rehabilitation work on tracks upto petrapole, Hasina said there would be a train service between the two countries since the Asian highway was also in the offing in the near future.

When there are air links between the two countries and also the bus services, rail links would also be established, she said.

Hasina said Bangladesh wanted duty-free export of some Bangladeshi products to India. The Indian Prime Minister had assured us in this regard. We hope it will come through soon, she added. (PTI)

US systems Y2K ready

WASHINGTON, Dec 27: United States officials today dabbed caution to an overdose of confidence as they tried to allay public fears of computer breakdowns and terrorist attacks on the new year’s weekend.

Officials said hospitals, power plants, airports, prisons, and armed forces were prepared for the Y2K and that people need not make more preparations than they would usually do for an extended weekend of weather emergency.

Our goal has been to avoid overreaction, US President Bill Clinton’s Y2K aide John Kosikinen said while appearing on ABC news telecast this week. He said that he would like to see people to be prepared for a long midwinter weekend although he thought it was all unnecessary.

Y2K fears arise from the premise that unprepared computers on new year’s eve may incorrectly read the last two digits of 2000 as 1900 and lead to chain reactions shutting down or causing malfunction of various civic and other systems.

But as the officials tried to calm people from rushing to stores and stocking up on large quantities of groceries and other provisions, they appeared to be more worried about potential attacks by terrorists at large new year’s eve gatherings in some major cities of the country and on American congregations abroad.

Mr Kosikinen said that the authorities had no information that anyone’s planning that (attacks), but everyone will be on alert that weekend and prepared to respond immediately.

The US Government has heightened security at airport and border posts after an Algerian man accused of trying to smuggle explosives into the country was arrested earlier this month in the North-Western state of Washington. Later, a Canadian women and an Algerian man travelling with her were arrested in vermont, along the canadian border, for alleged links to a terrorist network. Postal authorities too tightened security, and especially began scrutinising all mail arriving from Frankfurt following reports that some of them may carry bombs.

Mr Kosikinen also sought to play down fears of prison breakouts and power plant disruption stating that they have been tested and found to be Y2K compliant.

Meanwhile, American Hospital Association Chairman Fred Brown, who also appeared on the ABC telecast, said hospitals were ready for the Y2K and that people can feel confident if they had to avail hospital service.

Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey said she expects no problem on domestic flights, adding that if a problems did arise, they would be corrected by air controllers. All systems are Y2K compliant. We have tested them from end to end, she was quoted as saying.

Mr John J Hamre, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said there have been a number of developments that make the US authorities concerned, but reassured the public saying, Americans should feel confident that we will be able to defend the country. During the ABC’s programme, Mr Hamre explained how American and Russian teams would work together during new year’s eve keeping a tab on the satellite early warning system against missile attacks.

He said he did not foresee anything happening since all the computers guiding the missiles and the satellites were year 2000 ready. He also said that he was no longer afraid about an accidental launching of a missile from Russia because the United States has helped it prepare for Y2K. (UNI)

Govt’s return to Berlin, Kohl’s scandal
main features of ’99

BERLIN, Dec 27: Germany witnessed a chain of historic moments during 1999 ranging from participation of its troops in combat for the first time since the second World War and the return of the seat of Government to Berlin to the landmark overhaul of the tax policy and massive 16-billion-dollar Government spending cuts.

The year also saw the reputation of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who ruled Germany for 16 years, getting clouded on a party donation scandal that stunned Germans, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s ruling Social Democrats facing six embarrassing straight defeats in regional elections.

A historic five-billion-dollar deal to compensate former Nazi-Era slaves and bonded labourers was also sealed in the year which witnessed the liberalisation of Germany’s archaic citizenship laws and the dramatic resignation of Oskar Lafontaine as the Finance Minister and Chairman of the ruling party.

While the German Government’s return to Berlin from Bonn after five decades was completed without any hitch in what was described as the move of the century, alarm bells rung in the mainstream political parties when an extreme right Neo-Nazi party got the mandate for the first time to enter the State Parliament of the economically depressed Eastern State of Brandenburg.

The party, known by its German Acronym Dku saw a sharp rise in its support and repeated its dramatic showing in Brandenburg elections like in last year’s saxony-anhalt polls.

During the year, a major controversy rocked Germany over whether the high-powered Federal Security Council had approved shipment of arms and spare parts to the Pakistan Army. The German Government has since denied any arms deal with Pakistan.

Germany successfully steered the group of seven industrialised countries and Russia (G-8) and the 15-nation European Union (EU) after it assumed the chairmanship during 1999 and rotating presidency for the first half of the year respectively.

Germany was among the countries instrumental in formulating G-8 and EU’s favourable positions towards India and in giving diplomatic backing to New Delhi during the Kargil conflict.

The return of the German Parliament to its historic seat at the 105-year-old reichstag building in Berlin, the rise in support to the erstwhile German communists in state elections, the election of popular Social Democrate leader Johannes Rau as the country’s ninth post-war President and novelist Gunter Grass getting the nobel prize for literature were the other highlights of the last year of the 20th century. (PTI)

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