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Police seize valuables from CAIRO, Oct 21: Israeli police claimed to have seized dozens of....more US
ready to work with WASHINGTON, Oct 21: United States, which is seeking extradition of ....more India
for blueprint to UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21: India has urged the international community to ..more Lahore
peace process WASHINGTON, Oct 21: The Clinton administration will pursue with Pakistan ...more |
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Ousted Pakistan party ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: Leaders of Pakistan’s former ruling party met today to discuss whether to work with the generals who ended its 31-month rule in a military coup this month.....more Post-2000
consensus BONN, Oct 21: Crucial talks begin here next week to hammer out a world-wide consensus on reducing the output of ‘greenhouse’ gases, generally agreed to be the cause of global warming....more UN
envoy in UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21: United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi is suspending his efforts to end fighting in the country but promises to step in again if various factions assures him cooperation.....more Sharif’s
son appeals WASHINGTON, Oct 21: Hasan Sharif, the 22-year-old son of deposed ....more |
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Police seize valuables from Netanyahu’s apartment CAIRO, Oct 21: Israeli police claimed to have seized dozens of valuable pictures, gold and silver utensils from the apartment and office of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, which reportedly are the property of the government. Police said in Jerusalem that they suspected Netanyahu of illegally taking the objects when he left office after losing the May general elections. Dozens of valuables, including pictures and utensils made of gold and silver were seized during searches of Netanyahu’s office and apartment, a police statement said. According to Israeli law, presents received by Prime Minister becomes the property of the State. Reports quoting police said the searches were in connection with a probe into allegations that Netanyahu accepted illegal favours from a contractor while in office, which the former Premier Netanyahu described as politically motivated. Netanyahu have been questioned about a bill for 100,000 dollars submitted by a contractor, Avner Amedi, for work he did for former premier and his wife living in the official Prime Minister’s residence at the time. Reports from Jerusalem said police suspected the contractor’s work for Netanyahus was in the form of a bribe, since he was not paid. he submitted the bill for 440,000 shekels (110,000 dollars) to the Prime Minister’s office after Netanyahu lost elections. (PTI) |
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US ready to work with Taliban to end terrorist networks WASHINGTON, Oct 21: United States, which is seeking extradition of international terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden from Afghanistan, has said it is prepared to work with the Taliban militia to end terrorist networks in the war-torn country. We are prepared to work with the Taliban to end Afghanistan’s terrorist networks, assistant secretary of state Karl Inderfurth said at a bereuter subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee yesterday. Enumerating how us would cooperate with Taliban, Inderfurth said Washington would be willing to make arrangements at the border to take charge of Osama Bin Laden to have him tried. The US would also help in installing a broad-based Government, pursue other concerns such as the militia’s appalling human rights policies, especially the treatment of women and girls, And check the cultivation of opium on a large scale and narcotics trafficking. After a welter of charges and countercharges and denials that the US at any time backed the Islamic militia, Inderfurth finally admitted that in an early stage, the Clinton administration had a lack of understanding about the goals of the Taliban movement. It came out of nowhere, he said and, given the fighting and chaos in Afghanistan, the question arose: might this be an answer to instability? However, Inderfurth said, the administration soon realized that the Taliban was not the answer. He added: The international community has sent a clear message: the choice between cooperation and isolation lies with the Taliban. Meanwhile, Taliban militia yesterday ruled out extradition of Bin Laden to the US despite the threat of UN sanctions. Afghanistan won its freedom thanks to fighters like Osama Bin Laden. That’s why a handover of Bin Laden to America would amount to a betrayal of Islamic principles, Taliban’s Foreign Ministry said. And that’s why we can’t do it, at any price, it said, in a statement to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a copy of which was released by the Taliban’s Embassy in Abu Dhabi. (PTI) |
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India for blueprint to fight terrorism UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21: India has urged the international community to prepare a global convention and blueprint to fight, destroy, prevent and punish terrorism and to facilitate extradition. Addressing the General Assembly yesterday, Indian delegate Dr L M Singhvi asked the Security Council to demonstrate the political will to combat terrorism, pointing out that often there is thin line between troops of states sponsoring it and terrorist, intruders, infiltrators, saboteurs and mercenaries who are used unsucrupulously. He did not name any country but was obviously referring to Pakistan whose regular troops had mingled with militants and mercenaries who had recently intruded into the Kargil area and were thrown out by the Indian forces. The purpose of state sponsored terrorism, he said, is to destablise other countries and Governments in Wanton violation the comity and conventions of international law on friendly relations between sovereign nations. It endangers international peace and security, Singhvi, who is a member of Parliament, told the 188-member Assembly. Congratulating the Council on adopting a resolution condemning terrorism earlier this week, he emphasised that organised terrorism as an instrument of policy by certain states and terrorism perpetrated by stray individuals and groups pose a clear and present danger to international peace and security. Terrorists are financed, funded, trained, encouraged, assisted, and used by Governments which nurture terrorist groups and individuals and give them their protection, patronage under cloak and dagger tactics and safe haven. Such state sponsored terrorism has absolutely no place in contemporary international relations, Singhvi said. He agreed with the argument put forward in the council that the international community must not be dissuaded by phoney arguments about just causes and claims about the supposedly political character of acts of terrorism. Let us hope that we will now move in the direction of a global regime to effectively outlaw terrorism, whatever its pretensions and excuses may be, he remarked. Singhvi, who was intervening in the debate on the report of the Security Council, stressed the need to give representation to developing countries among its permanent members to make it more representative, relevant and vibrant. India with its tremendous contribution to the United Nations huge economy and one sixth of the world’s population has a strong case for being included among permanent members as and when the Council is expanded. An expanded membership, Singhvi said, would make it more effective by bringing to the Council’s action the support of a much broader spectrum of international community. Stressing that restructuring the council is a moral imperative and a practical necessity, he said, we are dismayed to find there is pointless delay in translating the basic ideas of restructuring into a reality. The delay, he warned, might the make the system less relevant, less effectual and somewhat moribund. (PTI) |
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Lahore peace process WASHINGTON, Oct 21: The Clinton administration will pursue with Pakistan India’s demand for ending cross-border terrorism as part of the United States’ on-going efforts to ensure resumption of the Lahore peace process which broke down in the wake of the Kargil conflict. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl K. Inderfurth made this observation while replying to question at a hearing on "immediate challenges to U.S policy in South Asia" in the house of representatives’ panel on Asia and the pacific. India on Tuesday rejected Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s offer of de-escalating tension on the border, asserting that Islamabad continues to sponsor cross-border terrorism along with attempts to transgress the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. Mr Inderfurth also made it clear that the Clinton administration had neither any plan nor intention to use its proposed authority to waive the Pressler or the Glenn. amendments to re-establish arms supply relations with Pakistan. Mr Inderfurth made this categorical statement in response to a query by democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman, thus setting at rest apprehensions, voiced through press statements by Congressmen friendly to India, about the possibility of the U.S arms supply to Pakistan. He also indicated that President Clinton could consider lifting sanctions of India, but cannot resume "business as usual" with Pakistan until democracy is restored there. The two countries attracted these curbs after their May 1998 nuclear tests. The one-year authority which Congress gave to the President to waive sanctions expires today. But a new law, awaiting his signatures grants him powers to waive sanctions indefinitely. Ms Arona Butcher, who heads the country and regional analysis division in the U.S International Trade Commission, told the Committee that the likely impact of reimposition US sanctions on India and Pakistan was "relatively small." Ms Butcher said US companies had complained that "the main impact of these sanctions is increasing the perception that US companies could be unreliable suppliers." Mr Inderfurth also address US relations with India’s newly formed Government. "With the new Government in place, we are hopeful that India will return to a firm course towards liberalisation," he said. He said the Clinton administration would like to see both India and Pakistan become more engaged with the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), with a view towards restraining their production of nuclear weapons and missiles, and strengthening export controls on nuclear materials. "We will also focus intensely on the future of the Indo-American relations. President Clinton is acutely aware that, as the first American president elected since the end of the cold war, he has an unprecedented opportunity to put our relations with India on a substantively different footing," the assistant secretary said. Mr Inderfurth said, "no longer do New Delhi and Washington find themselves at cross-purposes because of cold war constraints. In the words of Prime Minister Vajpayee, we are "natural allies." "To define that new relationship and to invest it with the broadest and deepest possible meaning, we have toaddress the complex set of issues that surfaced with the Indian nuclear weapons tests in May 1998, from our perspective and from India’s, "he added. He said, "our ability to move forward and the extent of our future co-operation will be influenced by the progresswe make, particularly in the non- proliferation area." Turning to Afghanistan and the Taliban, who persisted "in defying international opinion by sheltering Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists, he said the U.S. was prepared to work with the Taliban to rid Afghanistan of terrorist networks. (UNI) |
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Ousted Pakistan party eyes post-coup future ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: Leaders of Pakistan’s former ruling party met today to discuss whether to work with the generals who ended its 31-month rule in a military coup this month. Places in a cabinet of technocrats could be at stake for the leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) whose torchbearer, Nawaz Sharif, was deposed as Prime Minister and detained pending an investigation into allegations of corruption. With most members of Mr Sharif’s ousted cabinet under house arrest and silent, the party talks grouped top figures who had escaped an anti-corruption drive by the ten-day-old military regime of coup leader General Pervez Musharraf. Some key PML members, including former Religious Affairs Minister and senior vice-president Ejaz-ul-Haq, have already publicly distanced themselves from Mr Sharif, thought to be under house arrest in his native Lahore or near Islamabad. But party officials said the informal Islamabad gathering would not discuss dropping Mr Sharif from the PML. It would review the military’s national agenda, spelt out by Gen Musharraf in a Sunday night broadcast, and plot its next step. Cabinet of technocrats The PML talks followed a meeting today in Lahore of the grand democratic alliance, a 19-party opposition umbrella which clamoured for Mr Sharif to step down for "incompetence" in the weeks that preceded Gen Musharraf’s October 12 takeover. The alliance endorsed the ouster of Mr Sharif and said it would also support the seven-point agenda of political and economic reforms announced by Gen Musharraf. Gen Musharraf has pledged an eventual return to democratic rule with no time frame and is reported by aides to be selecting figures for a National Security Council to run the country with a cabinet of technocrats to function alongside it. He promised to induct clean professionals, chosen on merit, to work in the council and the cabinet and to set up a think tank to assist the new rulers. Gen Musharraf also pledged a crackdown on corruption which has seeped into almost every aspect of Pakistani life. Investigations against several former ruling party members have been initiated though no formal charges have been laid. Human rights group amnesty international today urged Gen Musharraf to charge and give fair trials to members of the ousted Government or immediately release them. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a separate statement asked the military authorities to ensure that Mr Sharif, his brother and other members of the former Government were not being harassed and had access to lawyers and family. (REUTERS) |
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Post-2000 consensus needed on global warming BONN, Oct 21: Crucial talks begin here next week to hammer out a world-wide consensus on reducing the output of ‘greenhouse’ gases, generally agreed to be the cause of global warming. About 5,000 Government officials, representatives of the international business community and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) will attend the ten-day conference, known as the fifth session of the Conference of Parties (CoP), which starts October 25. Delegates face the sombre backdrop of continuously increasing temperatures across the globe and must agree in cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, says Michael Zammit Cutajar, executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change. In fact emissions from industrial countries are expected to increase 18 per cent above 1990 levels by the year 2010, unless effective action is taken, Zammit Cutajar says. An agreed plan for taking such action is set out in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that emerged after intensive discussions from a previous cop gathering. Once it comes into force and becomes legally binding, the Protocol will commit the so-called ‘annex one’ developed countries to individual emissions targets for the period 2008-2012. The desired result would be a reduction of more than five per cent in the emissions of heat-trapping gases from developed countries, compared to 1990 levels. By arresting and reversing the upward trend in greenhouse gas emissions that started in these countries 150 years ago, the Protocol promises to move the international community one step closer to achieving the objective of the convention emerging from the earth summit in Rio De Janeiro in June 1992. In the Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries commit themselves to reducing their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases by at least five per cent. This group target will be achieved through cuts of eight per cent by Switzerland, most central and East European states, and the European Union (EU) which intends meeting its target by distributing different rates among its members. The Protocol also commits the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by seven per cent and Canada by six per cent Hungary, Japan, and Poland. Russia, New Zealand, and Ukraine must stabilise their emissions, while Norway may increase emissions by up to one per cent, Australia by up to eight percent, and Iceland ten per cent. However, the Protocol will only enter into force and become legally binding when it has been ratified by at least 55 countries- including developed countries that account for at least 55 per cent of emissions from industrial nations. To date, only 15 countries - all from the developing world - have ratified the Protocol. The list does not include China and India, which have large emissions although still below those of the industrial states. Developed countries in general and the United States in particular, until now, have been reluctant to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. They continue to argue over the economic implications of a rapid transition to a lower-emissions economy - including the potential impact on trade competitiveness, both among themselves and vis-a-vis those developing countries now in the process of industrialising. Against this backdrop, the Bonn Conference must define the rules by which developed countries can lower the costs of meeting their targets by reducing emissions in other countries through the so-called flexibility mechanisms, Zammit Cutajar says. A related issue will be determining the consequences for a country of failing to comply with the Protocol targets. "The talks may also open the way for key developing countries to become more involved in addressing climate change in the future," says Zammit Cutajar, in a reference to China and India whose coming on board has been made a pre-condition by the US Senate for ratifying the Protocol. All negotiations are scheduled to be completed at the final conference on climate change, due to take place in the Hague, the Netherlands in November 2000 - the same month as US presidential elections. Because of this clash of dates, the Hague meeting may be postponed until the spring of 2001, according to some observers. But whatever date, the ‘crunch’ will come in the Hague, said the UNFCC executive secretary, adding: ‘the final results will have to satisfy the major industrial countries, trigger their ratification of the Protocol, and offer incentives to developing countries to take further action in the future." Zammit Cutajar said the Bonn conference must build confidence in a successful outcome at the Hague by adopting important technical decisions, sending positive signals to business and industry, and engaging ministers fully in the task of focusing and speeding up the negotiations.’’ (IPS) |
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UN envoy in Afghanistan suspends his activities UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21: United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi is suspending his efforts to end fighting in the country but promises to step in again if various factions assures him cooperation. Brahimi, a former Algerian Foreign Minister, told reporters he hoped his action would be seen by the parties to the conflict as also neighbouring nations as a plea for seriousness and be heeded. He was especially harsh on Taliban as he pleaded all for taking the talks seriously and stop making mockery of them. The United Nations staff in Afghanistan, he said, still faced security problem not so much with Taliban but with those whom they call guests but over whom they have little control. He pointedly mentioned young Pakistani militants flooding the streets during the July fighting who, he said, were against international aid workers. Replying to questions, he said after he ceases his activities, the six member UN Special Mission in Afghanistan (UNSMA) could take over his responsibilities also. Officials at the United Nations said the Brahimi still continues to be the special envoy even though he is suspending his activities. He had informed the Secretary General as also the Security Council of his decision, they said. Speaking out of apparent frustration, Brahimi said if things change next week, I will be very happy to come back. If they change in 10 years, I will be dead. On a question, he said he has tried everything but achieved nothing much. (PTI) |
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Sharif’s son appeals to United States WASHINGTON, Oct 21: Hasan Sharif, the 22-year-old son of deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has appealed to the United States to help bring international pressure to obtain the release of his father and other members of his family. "The silence is terrifying," he said in a statement from London that was delivered to the house of representatives international relations subcommittee on Asia and the pacific during its hearing yesterday on "immediate challenge to U.S. policy in South Asia." He said, "I write this statement to urge you, as elected officials in a democratic system, to ask the coup leaders in Pakistan to release the Prime Minister and his family from illegal detention in which they have found themselves." He wanted the U.S. to join the Commonwealth Ministers in a demand to meet the Pakistani Prime Minister and immediate release of the unlawful and illegal detention of the Prime Minister and his family. "It is with great fear and trepidation that I submit this statement for inclusion in the record," he said adding, "I take this step with faith in the committee members to focus attention on the personal safety and security of my father and the members of our family." Hasan Sharif said there had been no word on the whereabouts of Mr Sharif, who was put under house arrest in the early hours of the October 12 coup. Mr Sharif’s son-in-law was also arrested at his home and documents detailing family businesses were seized. "Communication between family members has been terminated. I myself have been unable, in spite of repeated attempts, to contact any of my family members in Pakistan," he added. He said, "the last whereabouts of the Prime Minister are unknown, with conflicting reports about his location. Most recent press articles state he is being held in a jail in attack, North-West Pakistan. These actions taken against the Prime Minister and members of his family, violate basic human rights." He said there had been on charges filed against Prime Minister Sharif or the family and he had not had an opportunity to speak on his own behalf. (UNI) |
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