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Lanka President may LONDON, Dec 30: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga today said she had probably lost her right eye which was injured in the LTTE ....more
Indo-Bangla ties improved DHAKA, Dec 30: The year gone by saw steady improvement in bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh....more Diplomats huddle in airport
KANDAHAR, Dec 30: A crowd of diplomats is crammed into a small ...more
Japan to inform on Y2K situation worldwide TOKYO, Dec 30: Japan will provide updates on worldwide......more |
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EU
expresses dismay LONDON, Dec 30: The 15-member European Union has expressed profound dismay at the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane and called for concerted action from all sides involved for immediate release of the hostages......more Pak Govt assures people ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: In a bid to prevent any panic in Pakistan’s financial market in view of the Supreme Court judgement declaring interest as un-Islamic, the Army regime has assured people that all existing laws relating to financial transactions would be valid till June 2001........more
Laden left Kandahar after hijacked plane landed ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: Alleged terrorist Osama Bin Laden left Kandahar shortly after the hijacked Indian Airlines plane landed in the Southern Afghan city on Christmas Day, a Pakistani daily reported today......more Over 300 killed in violence AMBON, INDONESIA, Dec 30: In the bloodiest religious clashes in Indonesia in Decades, more than 300 people have been killed in five days of fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands. .....more |
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Lanka President may have lost her eye LONDON, Dec 30: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga today said she had probably lost her right eye which was injured in the LTTE suicide bomb attack on her on December 18 during a campaign for presidential election in Colombo. I am not screaming. I am not hysterical. Probably I have lost my right eye, she told BBC World’s Asia today programme. Kumaratunga said according to her doctors she had probably lost sight in her right eye, But I feel I was saved by a triple miracle. I feel that the fact that I have been saved in this way. I am the only leader in Sri Lanka — Tamil, Sinhalese — or abroad because the tigers got Rajiv Gandhi of India, who has lived to tell the tale. And I feel that there is something special that somebody somewhere wants me to do, she said. Despite the attack, Kumaratunga said, she was still willing to sit down with the Tamil Tigers and talk peace and all issues barring separation from the country. She said the bomb attack on her happened exactly seven days before the birth of the prince of peace (Christ) - seven days before Christmas. I have been seared with the weapons of hatred and terror but somehow I have been spared to live to talk of love and compassion and forgiveness, she said. And I think this is a moment for all of us to emerge at that highpoint of human spirituality where nothing else matters more than the advancement of man through the use of man’s most noblest possession, his mind and heart, Kumaratunga said in what she described as her message for her compatriots and perhaps for the world. If he (LTTE leader Prabhakaran) is willing to give up his devilish ways: if he is willing to give up the only weapon he knows, which is that of terror and hatred. If he is willing to come into the democratic process and sit down and talk, apart from separating the country I am willing to talk about anything else, she said. Kumaratunga, who won another six years’ mandate in the presidential polls defeating opposition United National Party (UNP) candidate Ranil Wickramasinghe, said her Government had solved all other major problems in the country that it faced when she first assumed power. This (the ethnic problem) is the only one left and I think for the sake of my country and my people, who I love very much, we have to negotiate with Prabhakaran, she said. (PTI) |
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Indo-Bangla ties improved in 1999 despite irritants DHAKA, Dec 30: The year gone by saw steady improvement in bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh despite a couple of irritants like the illegal migrants’ issue and the huge trade gap between the two neighbours. The year also saw the start of direct bus service between Calcutta and Dhaka, heralding the beginning of a new chapter in Indo-Bangla ties which have seen an upswing since the Awami League Government came to power here. The bus service, launched on June 19 in the presence of the Prime Ministers of the two countries. Also marked a new beginning of people-to-people contact with the aim to promote goodwill and understanding between the neighbours. The June summit meeting between Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka was followed by an agreement to work for strengthening economic cooperation and restoration of multi-model communication links between India and Bangladesh. Hopes of more routes for direct communication have been raised with negotiations which are now on between for introduction of rail service between the two countries. Hasina, who made several friends in the international stage, especially with India with agreements on river water sharing and return of Chakma refugees from Tripura, faced at home mounting attacks from her arch rival Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which is opposed to Dhaka’s warming relations with New Delhi. The BNP and its allies, including anti-Indian fundamentalist parties, interpreted the Hasina Government’s decision on transhipment of Indian goods through Bangladesh territory by Bangladeshi carriers as giving transit facility to New Delhi and an attempt to jeopardise the country’s sovereignty and security. The BNP-led opposition alliance called several strikes almost immediately after the Hasina cabinet, in a major policy decision, decided in principle to discuss the Indian proposal to allow movement of Indian goods from one point in India to another through Bangladesh territory by Bangladeshi carriers. The opposition says the scheme could be used by New Delhi to send troops across Bangladesh to supress insurgency in the North-East but the Hasina Government says only bangladeshi trucks would be allowed to transport goods and claims the plan could bring in some 20 billion Taka annually and create 250,000 jobs in Bangladesh. The whole question of granting transhipment facility to India is now under examination by a specially constituted task force and the present Government has committed to take action after examination of the whole matter. Bangladesh’s business community has supported the plan and urged the Government to ensure that in return Dhaka is granted duty-free access from India for 25 products and transhipment facilities with Nepal and Bhutan. (PTI) |
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Diplomats huddle in airport lounge wait for end to hijack KANDAHAR, Dec 30: A crowd of diplomats is crammed into a small VIP lodge at Kandahar airport in Southern Afghanistan, waiting and hoping for the release of 154 hostages held here on an Indian Airlines jet. There is little they can do. Indian negotiators together with senior officials from the ruling Afghan taliban militia are in touch with hijackers by radio throughout the day. But progress has been slow. Most of the passengers on board the Airbus A300, hijacked on Christmas eve, are Indians but among them are thought to be eight Nepalese, four Spaniards, four Swiss, two French nationals, an Italian, a Canadian, a Belgian, an Australian and one Japanese man. Each of the countries has at least one diplomat at the airport, reporting back to their Embassies daily in Islamabad. By day they monitor the frustratingly slow negotiations with the five or six armed hijackers and are given briefings by Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel. We are not involved in the process of negotiations or anything like that. We are just here to monitor their welfare. This is an Indian plane and we have left it to the Indians, said one Western diplomat. He said the diplomats had not been able to talk to their citizens on board the jet. Little is known about our people’s condition inside the plane, but we are sure they are sharing the same ordeal with the other folks, The diplomat said. (AFP) |
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Japan to inform on Y2K situation worldwide TOKYO, Dec 30: Japan will provide updates on worldwide Y2K situation and distruptions, if any, moments after the millennium midnight. The Government would be the first to tell the people about Japan’s survival of the Y2K and its possible effect on the vitals of Japanese industries like electricity, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said. One third of power supply in the country comes from nuclear generators. Foreign office yesterday said the Government had created a web site - http://www.Mofa.Go.Jp/policy/gaiko/economy/2000 -on which people in any country can get information on the Y2K happenings around the world. Http://www.Mofa.Go.Jp/policy/economy/y2k - the site in English - will provide information on possible problems within Japan. Both sites are visitable by foreign countries, specially those where millennium midnight would come later than in Japan. The foreign office said it would also set up year 2000 emergency management headquarters’ which would operate from tonight. Japanese Government has said Y2K will not cause any havoc. But, simultaneously it has urged people to stock essential supplies like candles, oils, and water, besides food, for any emergency situation. (PTI) |
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EU expresses dismay at
hijacking, LONDON, Dec 30: The 15-member European Union has expressed profound dismay at the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane and called for concerted action from all sides involved for immediate release of the hostages. In a strongly-worded statement, the presidency of the European Union condemned this terrorist act and expressed deep concern for the safety of the passengers in the hijacked plane. The EU reiterated its unequivocal support to the combat against terrorism in all forms, whatever its motives and origin. Terrorism constitutes a threat to internal and international security, to peaceful relations between states and to the development and functioning of democratic institutions throughout the world, the statement said. Instead of each member states issuing separate statements condemning the hijacking, it was decided to issue a single statement on behalf of the EU presidency. Britain played a major role in drafting the statement, sources here said. (PTI) |
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Pak Govt assures people as court rules interest ‘un-Islamic’ ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: In a bid to prevent any panic in Pakistan’s financial market in view of the Supreme Court judgement declaring interest as un-Islamic, the Army regime has assured people that all existing laws relating to financial transactions would be valid till June 2001. In its first detailed reaction to the historic judgement delivered by the court’s Shariat appellate bench last week, the army regime said last night, the Government of Pakistan is carefully considering the order and claimed that there is no cause for any concern in the minds of the people. The court, in its judgement on December 23, ruled that any form of interest — Any amount - big or small - charged over the principal in a contract of loan or debt — was un-Islamic, and directed the Government to introduce an interest-free economy by June 2001. The order by the four-member bench thus upheld an eight-year-old judgement by the court which had first declared interest un-Islamic in 1991, though none of the three subsequent Governments could enforce it due to practical problems and preferred to await the outcome of the appeal. The order, however, has put the one-and-a-half-month-old military regime of General Pervez Musharraf in an extremely difficult position as it was already in the process of finalising rescheduling of Pakistan’s various foreign debts promising different countries to pay the debt and the interest after two years when it is supposed to completely abolish interest from the economy. (PTI) |
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Laden left Kandahar after hijacked plane landed ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: Alleged terrorist Osama Bin Laden left Kandahar shortly after the hijacked Indian Airlines plane landed in the Southern Afghan city on Christmas Day, a Pakistani daily reported today. The Frontier Post, quoting a source close to the wealthy Saudi dissident, also claimed Bin Laden had denied any links to the hijacking of the plane. The source branded any allegations to the contrary as Indian propaganda and a pack of lies. Bin Laden had not been aware of the hijacking nor had he any relationship with the hijackers, the source told the daily. It has become a fashion for certain countries to blame Bin Laden for crimes he never committed, the source told the paper, published from the Northwestern city of Peshawar near the Afghanistan border. Bin Laden has been charged in the United States with the bombings of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August last year in which 224 people died. Earlier this month the US issued fresh warnings to its citizens about possible attacks against US interests during the christmas and new year’s celebrations. Washington wants Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia to hand over Bin Laden, who is on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list and has lived as a guest of the militia since 1996. (AFP) |
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Over 300 killed in violence in Spice Islands AMBON, INDONESIA, Dec 30: In the bloodiest religious clashes in Indonesia in Decades, more than 300 people have been killed in five days of fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands. About 250 people died in several days of clashes on the island of Halmahera in North Maluku province, said Lt Col Iwa Budiman, spokesman for the local military command. Budiman said fighting in North Maluku, some 2,700 km northeast of Jakarta, had been going on since Tuesday, when 400 Christians attacked a Muslim village. In the adjoining region of Maluku, 68 people have been killed in sectarian clashes that broke out on Sunday, local media reported. Fighting in both areas abated today, although tensions remained high throughout the scores of islands that make up the two provinces. The combined death toll is the highest in a year of savage fighting between Christians and Muslims in the two provinces that were known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial rule. Christians in the region today urged the international community to intervene and prevent a full-scale religious war. Fighting in Maluku’s capital of Ambon eased overnight, although snipers remained active today along the demarcation line in the commercial district of this port city. Gunmen were seen sniping from the shore at ships ferrying passengers to airport. Yesterday, the Indonesian Army assumed control over all security forces in the province. (AP) |
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