Osama Bin Laden

US takes note of Taliban
warning but is unmoved

WASHINGTON, Nov 10: US officials have taken note of a Taliban warning......more

Abdurrahman Wahid

Indonesia Parliament
opposes Aceh referendum

JAKARTA, Nov 10: Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid today....more

Mexican DC-9 crashes, killing all 18 on board

MEXICO CITY, Nov 10: All 18 people on board were killed when a DC-9...more

New Zealand closes
door to AIDS victims

WELLINGTON, Nov 10: The New Zealand Government has closed the door ....more

Malaysian Parliament to be dissolved today, fresh polls

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10: Prime Minister Mahathir....more

US House Panel
condemns Pak coup,
hails Indian democracy

WASHINGTON, Nov 10: The US House International...more

Pope John Paul II

Pope returns to Rome
after India, Georgia trip

ROME, Nov 10: Pope John Paul has returned here after....more

IMF chief Camdessus announces resignation

WASHINGTON, Nov 10: International Monetary....more

US takes note of Taliban warning but is unmoved

WASHINGTON, Nov 10: US officials have taken note of a Taliban warning of storms and earthquakes if the United Nations imposes sanctions but said the United States was unmoved in its quest to bring Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden to trial.

The Taliban movement, which controls about 90 per cent of Afghanistan, has until Sunday to hand over Bin Laden, blamed by the US for orchestrating the bombings of two US embassies in Africa last year that killed more than 200 people.

So far, US officials say they have not seen any signs of movement by the Taliban to turn Bin Laden over to stand trial for the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. If Bin Laden is not expelled from Afghanistan, a UN Security Council resolution would impose sanctions barring Afghan Airline Ariana from foreign airports.

The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, advised the American people in a message to bring pressure on their Government to end "hostility" toward the movement.

"If you do not take a step in this direction ... Once again you will face earthquakes and storms from god’s side, and then you will be surprised ... What is coming to you, and you will not be able to do anything about it," Muullah Omar said.

The message noted that the US had suffered an earthquake and two devastating storms after Washington ignored a similar Taliban letter sent in September.

Pentagon spokesman sees "opportunity"

"I would see this as an opportunity for the Taliban to meet their obligations under (UN) Security Council resolutions," Pentagon spokesman P J Crowley said.

"We have concerns about the Taliban. Do we think that that is a particular threat? I don’t necessarily see it that way," he said yesterday .

"They are clearly trying to convey a somewhat ominous tone. It’s hard to tell how much of it is rhetoric and how much is something else," a US intelligence official said.

"We always take these things seriously," said the official. "It’s certainly not a friendly note."

A State Department official said: "We’ve seen the letter, and its threatening tone is provocative. We in the international community will not be deflected from our common goal of bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice.

"The letter seriously mischaracterises the US approach to Afghanistan, the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden," the State Department official said.

"The purpose of the UN Security Council sanctions is not to victimise the people of Afghanistan nor to attack the Taliban. It ... Calls for Osama Bin Laden to be expelled from Afghanistan to a place where he can be brought to justice." (REUTERS)

Indonesia Parliament opposes Aceh referendum

JAKARTA, Nov 10: Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid today met top officials to discuss action to defuse growing separatist pressure in Aceh, as Parliament’s Speaker said the House did not back a referendum there on independence.

Wahid ordered Human Rights Minister Hasballah Saad to visit Aceh on Saturday, and will speed up legislation giving provinces more autonomy and a greater share of the proceeds from their natural resources, General Wiranto, Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, told reporters.

"He has ordered the minister of human rights, who is acehnese, to hold a dialogue with local figureheads to learn the aspirations of the acehnese," Wiranto said.

Wahid met Wiranto, Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Amien Rais, Speaker of Indonesia’s highest legislative body, after cutting short a foreign trip partly due to tension in Aceh.

Wahid said yesterday he supported the idea of a referendum on independence in resource-rich aceh.

"If we can hold a referendum in East Timor, why not in Aceh," he told a news conference in Manila, his last stop on a tour of Southeast Asian nations. "The consequences of a referendum, whatever the outcome, we will accept."

But Wahid added: "If I am not wrong, if I know the Acehnese people well, they won’t separate from Indonesia."

At least half a million people swept into the provincial capital of Banda Aceh on Monday demanding the right to vote on whether to break from Jakarta rule in the largest protest of its kind in Indonesian history.

Government officials say privately that Wahid’s comments on a referendum are unlikely to be backed up with concrete action, and are mainly designed to placate disgruntled Acehnese.

And Parliament Speaker Akbar Tandjung said legislators were not in favour of allowing aceh to vote on its future.

"If I can say so, the spirit from all of the Dpr (Parliament) members is they don’t want to give a referendum which leads to a separation from the territory of the republic of Indonesia," the official Antara news agency quoted Tandjung as saying. (AP)

Mexican DC-9 crashes, killing all 18 on board

MEXICO CITY, Nov 10: All 18 people on board were killed when a DC-9 passenger aircraft on a domestic flight crashed minutes after take-off from an airport in Central Mexico yesterday, local Government officials said.

The plane, a 29-year-old twin-engine jet, was flying from Uruapan, about 300 km West of Mexico City, to the capital on a scheduled flight operated by private Mexican Airline Transportes Aereos Ejecutivos (TAESA).

Local residents told media they heard an explosion before the plane fell suddenly near Uruapan. Televisa network said the plane was totally destroyed.

"A bang was heard, the engines broke and the plane nose-dived," Uruapan Red Cross Director Alejandro Moreno told radio formula.

"It was flight 725, carrying 13 passengers and five crew. Unfortunately they all died," Michoacan State Press Spokesman Ricardo Saldana told Reuters.

"The flight came from Tijuana, landed in Uruapan, unloaded passengers and took off en route to Mexico city. A few minutes after taking off it dived into a somewhat inaccessible area," Saldana said.

"Two minutes after (take off) it declared an emergency without giving the causes, (and) lost contact," the Transport Ministry said in a statement.

The crash occurred four miles 7 km South of Uruapan, the ministry said.

TAESA officials declined to confirm whether 13 passengers and five crew on board the plane had died.

"The fate of the crew and passengers, 18 in total, is as yet unknown," TAESA Chief Advisor Eduardo Cacho told a news conference. "But coordination continues with the authorities to investigate the cause of the accident."

Televisa network showed rescue workers probing among wreckage strewn over a radius of 300 yards (metres) in an Avocado Orchard in a wooded, mountainous zone.

"The plane fell and was totally destroyed," Televisa said. "Unfortunately, body parts have begun to be found."

It was the worst plane crash in Mexico since 27 crew and pilgrims were killed when a Fokker F-27 in 1990 while on their way to see visiting Pope John Paul.

In Seattle, a spokeswoman for Boeing Co, Susan Davis, said that Mexican authorities had requested that the company send a representative to help the investigation, which boeing would do.

Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, the successor to Douglas Corporation, the company that built the DC-9 between 1965 and 1982. The DC-9 is a plane which carries about 100 passengers on mostly short-haul flights.

The plane that crashed in Mexico yesterday was delivered in 1970 and had been through several operators, before being operated for about the last year by TAESA, Davis said. It had logged 58,000 flight hours on 59,000 flights.

TAESA’s Cacho said he could give no cause for the accident, because the aircraft had reported no mechanical problems before take off.

The accident could have been far worse, because the aircraft had originally taken off with 91 passengers in Tijuana, which borders San Diego, California. Most disembarked in the Western City of Guadalajara, then Uruapan. (REUTERS)

IMF chief Camdessus announces resignation

WASHINGTON, Nov 10: International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Michel Camdessus, foreseeing an improved global economy, announced here he was resigning for personal reasons.

Camdessus said in a statement yesterday read to some 300 IMF staff members that he would step down by mid-February 2000 after the IMF executive board names a successor. His current mandate was to end in 2002.

Personal reasons, of which I did not even want to hear, particularly as long as we were in the midst of the Asian crisis, lead me to this decision, Camdessus said.

In his nearly 13-year tenure, the 66-year-old Camdessus guided the IMF through two major financial crises - Mexico in 1994, and three years later in Asia - while overseeing significant changes in the fund’s operation.

Camdessus was named IMF head in January 1987, and in May 1996 was unanimously selected by the Executive Board to serve a third-five year term beginning January 16, 1997.

I didn’t for one second want to consider (leaving) while the Asian crisis was there and while I hadn’t succeeded in making the fund adopt very important decisions, that we took recently, such as debt reduction and in placing the fight against poverty at the heart of our strategy, he told radio France International in an interview. All that is now done. Therefore, I think that the moment has come to ask to be replaced. In large part because I have the impression that the next months, the new year, the next 18 months are going to be a period of relative calm and of positive development in the world economy.

It’s a good moment to find a successor to me, so that he starts work and learns the ropes in this organization.

In a later statement to IMF Executive Board members, Camdessus said he did not interpret his appointment to a third term as an expression of your wish to see me serve for 15 years.

That would be inappropriate in a world in permanent need of renewal of its institutions.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and two top European Union officials quickly offered high praise for Camdessus.

From our perspective, we believe that Michel Camdessus made a tremendous contribution to the financial stability of the whole economic system, Albright said.

We appreciate the strong leadership at the IMF that he has given during what has clearly been a crucial period, she told a news conference following the biannual joint US-EU ministerial meeting at the State Department. (AFP)