Muslim cleric wins Indonesian presidency

JAKARTA, Oct 20: Ailing Moslem leader Abdurrahman Wahid today became Indonesia’s first elected President, beating the people’s favourite Megawati Sukarnoputri in a vote by the country’s supreme legislature.

Mr Wahid said after his election that he and Ms Megawati, who had appeared early in the campaign to be a near certainty to win the presidency, would go out onto the streets to head off unrest.

Political analysts fear an eruption of violence countrywide if frustrated Megawati supporters vent their anger. A bomb blast earlier in the day wounded four Megawati supporters here.

"I will travel with Megawati to cool the people," Mr Wahid said immediately after winning the vote 373 votes to 313.

Thousands of Megawati supporters, waving banners and wearing red party colours, had rallied in the capital, anticipating she would win Indonesia’s first contested presidential election.

Jakarta stocks plunged after Mr Wahid’s victory. In late trading the composite index was down 1.3 per cent after earlier gaining 10 per cent on expectations of a Megawati win.

The Rupiah was quoted at round 7,400 to the dollar after hitting a high of about 7,000.

Mr Wahid snatched victory when the former ruling Golkar Party, which came to second to Ms Megawati’s party in Parliamentary elections in June, switched its support to him.

Ms Megawati’s party won a Parliamentary election in June but its 153 seats were not enough to ensure she won the presidency. Her apparent aloofness during the horse-trading that followed the June poll was said to have cost her support from other parties.

The Assembly comprises the 500 members of Parliament and 200 appointed officials.

Ms Megawati, daughter of Indonesia’s late founding President Sukarno, has huge grass-roots support in Jakarta and among the urban poor countrywide. She was also favourite among investors.

But some Muslim-leaning parties disliked the prospect of a woman as President.

Ms Megawati was removed in the mid-1960s by Mr Suharto, Mr Habibie’s strongman predecessor. Mr Suharto was forced to resign in May 1998 by massive rioting over the collapse of the economy.

"If Mega’ isn’t President then we won’t leave here," vowed one supporter, Komari, a labourer from one of Jakarta’s industrial satellite suburbs, said at a rally in central Jakarta.

A bomb exploded amongst the crowd, injuring at least four Megawati supporters.

"This is sabotage," shouted one Megawati backer. "Someone has done this on purpose to make the situation unsafe."

Eleventh-hour candidate Yusril Isra Mahendra, another Muslim figure, pulled out of the Presidential race at the last minute.(Reuters)

Ousted Pak PM accused of graft

ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: Pakistani police, carrying out a cleanup of high-level corruption for the country’s new Army rulers, have accused ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of graft worth 100 million, newspapers reported today.

"According to official sources, Nawaz has been charged with money laundering to the tune of 40 million dollars, tax evasion of over 60 million, forgery of 10 million dollars and misuse of public funds and his office for personal benefit," the nationwide English-language daily, the nation, said.

It said the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had submitted a report to the Army rulers who ousted Mr Sharif on October 12 as part of a vast crackdown on top-level corruption for which Pakistan has become notorious.

The FIA declined to comment.

Mr Sharif has been held in protective custody since the bloodless takeover brought the Army back into power pledging to clean up the country’s institutions and return "real democracy" after interim rule by civilian/military bodies.

The military has so far resisted Western pressure to lay out a timetable for return to civilian rule or for when it would name a cabinet, saying it did not want to be rushed into the decisions.

British and Turkish newspapers have quoted new military ruler Pervez Musharraf as saying a cabinet would be named in three or four days.

The United States and the European Union have called for a quick return to democracy, threatening strong action otherwise, including the possible blocking of loans from the International Monetary Fund. Widespread support

Diplomats said there was widespread popular support for gen Musharraf’s clean-up campaign tinged with scepticism that a legal system which has signally failed to make the elite accountable so far might finally prove effective.

Every Government since 1985 has taken power pledging to clean up graft and to get the rich and powerful to pay tax in a nation of 135 million where less than two percent of people pay any income tax at all.

The Urdu-language Jang daily, the country’s largest circulation newspaper, wrote in its editorial: "The people want that the accountability of the corrupt should be meaningful and impartial."

Pakistani newspapers again carried large advertisements from banks urging the nation’s elite to meet a november 16 Army deadline for repayment of bad debt worth more than 200 billion rupees (four billion dollars).

"Pay your loans before the hand of the law forces you to do so with a penalty. Settle your debt before time runs out," said one quarter-page insertion by the state-run Habib Bank.

Allegations of corruption by Mr Sharif are not new, but during his rule the Government brushed them aside as lies fabricated by opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and focused its own graft probe on her financial dealings.

Bhutto denial

Ms Bhutto was convicted this year, with husband Asif Zardari, of massive graft but repeated her denials in a BBC interview and said she would be cleared by any independent probe.

But she still faces re-arrest on return from exile in London, where she was on a visit when she was convicted for taking kickbacks from a swiss-based company employed to counter tax evasion.

Ms Bhutto has said she was trying to contact the military, but there has been no public response from the military who put her name on a list of politicians whose bank accounts were frozen.

Charges made against Mr Sharif include non-payment of tax on several luxury flats in London’s exclusive mayfair area, defaulting on massive loans made to the family’s Ittefaq business group and profiting from sugar sales to neighbouring India.

Various members of Mr Sharif’s cabinet, including his anti-corruption officer, Senator Saifur Rehman, face allegations that they used their power to avoid import taxes and to get huge Government contracts at bloated rates.

Irshad Ahmed Haqqani, former Information Minister in the caretaker Government set up in December 1996 after the ouster of Benazir Bhutto, and also a well-known columnist, wrote in Jang newspaper:

"The accountability of corrupt should be quick, ruthless but transparent... A slow, ineffective, accountability setup would not meet people’s expectations nor fulfill national needs." (REUTERS)

UN urges fight against global terrorism

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20: UN Security Council has strongly condemned international terrorism and urged memeber states to cooperate in fighting the menace.

However, the resolution which was passed unanimously yesterday, does not call for any specific action and is symbolic in nature.

But Council diplomats feel it sends a strong message to terrorists to end their activities or face the world’s wrath.

It asks states to implement the global anti-terrorist conventions and stresses the world body’s role in the fight against the growing danger.

The resolution was adopted at the initiative of Russia, who is this month’s president of the council, and blames Islamic fundamentalist terrorists for the recent bombing of residential complexes in the country.

It reinforces world-wide concern against cross-border terrorism, a menace which india is facing, especially in Jammu and Kashmir.

The UN’s tough stand comes within a week of the Council threatening Taliban in Afghanistan with sanctions if they fail to hand over Osama Bin Laden for trial and stop aiding terrorists. (PTI)

Odds and Ends

LOS ANGELES, Oct 20: An angry Animal Rights Group demanded that criminal charges be pressed against the promoter of a wrestling match between a man and a bear, saying it was cruel to the bear even though the man was soundly beaten.

"This is yet another example of human beings attempting to profit at the expense of animals," said Ava Park, founder of Orange county people for animals.

Dominic Menaldi, the 131.5 kg wrestler who lost to the 363 kg Alaskan grizzly named "Dakota," said people should not feel sorry for the bear. Menaldi said Dakota "beat the crap" out of him and loved it.

Menaldi said Dakota was nervous when he first entered the ring. But then, he said, "I had an 800-pound bear pounding on me and everybody was rooting for the bear." -x-BOGOTA: A Colombian couple’s golden wedding anniversary was tarnished when their daughter packed the suitcases for a celebration family holiday in Miami with 370,000 dollars worth of heroin.

The woman, Ana Beatriz Corredor, her son, brother and his daughter, who were all accompanying the elderly pair on vacation, were arrested at Bogota’s El Dorado airport, a spokesman for the State Security Police Das said.

Das agents found almost 3.5 kg of heroin packed in 35 pieces of luggage belonging to the group. Corredor admitted she had packed all the bags and that her relatives knew nothing of her scheme, the Das said. The elderly couple were not detained.

SAO PAULO : Armed criminals trying to hold up a car at gunpoint in Sao Paulo backed down on discovering that Pele was sitting in the back seat, an aide to the player said.

Pele’s car had stopped at traffic lights in a prosperous neighbourhood when the two would-be thieves approached the driver, pointed a gun and told him to open the window, his personal secretary Jose Fornos Rodrigues said.

"When Pele took off his cap the thieves looked at him, gave him the thumbs-up sign, apologised and walked off," said Rodrigues, speaking by telephone from Santos. -x-SANTIAGO : When Mozart’s opera "cosi fan tutte" opens on a Chilean stage on October 28, the orchestra and the choir may be missing, but the show will go on, the theatre management said.

Artists and technicians at the Santiago Municipal Theatre are in their 18th day of a pay strike.

"The opera will be presented as is — without the orchestra or the choir — with a group of international singers that was contracted and that will accompany only a piano," Paz Maria Ricard, spokeswoman for the Theatre administration, told Reuters.

CHICAGO : The entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, a 32-volume set that sells for 1,250 dollars in book form, has been placed on the internet free of charge, the publishers of the 231-year-old reference work announced.

"Now everyone with access to the internet can use Britannica.Com as they wish, not only for the encyclopedia, but for the top-quality information and services we offer," said Don Yannias, Chief Executive of Britannica.Com inc.

In addition to the full text of Britannica, the site carries news feeds from newspapers and news wires round the world selected articles from more than 70 popular magazines and a searchable directory of the web’s best sites, chosen by Britannica’s editors.

Britannica’s first edition was issued in 100 parts from 1768 to 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the brainchild of three Scotsmen. It calls itself the "oldest continuously published reference work in the English language." (REUTERS)

| home | state | national | business | editorial | advertisement | sports
| international | weather | mailbag | suggestions | search | subscribe | send mail |