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India’s ties with
Israel DAMASCUS, Nov 15: Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today sought to allay fears of the Arab world over India’s increasing military ties with Israel, ....more Bush
vows to stay WASHINGTON, Nov 15: President George W Bush promised the United States would stay in Iraq until it was free and peaceful as ....more Singapore
says to SINGAPORE, Nov 15: Singapore will not pull out its troops from Iraq despite a ...more China launches satellite, plans 10 more by end-2004 BEIJING, Nov 15: China put a communications satellite into orbit on Saturday, the first of nearly a dozen orbiters the .......more |
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Child prostitution RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, Nov 15: The problem of child prostitution and sexual exploitation in Brazil is worse than in ....more Riyadh
concerned WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The Saudi Arabian Government is concerned about the possibility of weapons being ....more US
has no evidence WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The Bush administration said it had no evidence ....more US wants Iraqi transition government by summer-ABC WASHINGTON, Nov 15: US Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer has told Iraqi leaders ....more |
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India’s ties with Israel not to dilute relations with Arabs DAMASCUS, Nov 15: Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today sought to allay fears of the Arab world over India’s increasing military ties with Israel, saying India’s cooperation with Tel Aviv will not not dilute its relations with the Arab countries. "Our friends in the Arab world should rest assured in this regard. The important point is India has not diluted and will not dilute any aspect of its relationship with the Arab countries," Vajpayee said in a wide ranging interview with the Damascus English daily `Syria Times.’ "We do have good relations (with Israel) in the field of defence, we have similar cooperative defence ties with other nations in the region as well. I think our record speaks for itself," Vajpayee, who is on a three-nation visit to Syria, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 15 years, said. He pointed out that India had a long history of friendly relations with all Arab countries. India also has established diplomatic relations with Israel as have a number or other Arab nations, he said. Referring to the increasing unipolarism in the world today, he said the United Nations must play a vital role in evolving a consensual system of international relations though recent developments have affected the prestige of the world body. "There is a strengthening consensus that the structures of the UN need to be more representative of contemporary world realities so that they can respnd more effectively to modern day challenges," he said. "We need to restructure and reform the UN institutions so that the UN once again regains its role as the universal forum of the comity of nations," Vajpayee said adding India believed that in the post coldwar situation of globalisation, enlightened multilateralism has to seek a multipolar world order. "The political economic and security challenges facing the world can only be tackled by multilateral effort since their reach and impact extend well beyond national boundaries. All major powers agreed on this," he said. Vajpayee said he believed that a fair and durable solution can be found to the Palestine problem without bloodshed and that India was distressed at the continuing spiral of violence and counter violence over the issue. "We believe that a comprehensive and a just solution should be found through peaceful negotiations on the basis of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the `land for peace’ principle," he said. Vajpayee said India saw Syria as an important partner in west Asia and the visit would give the two countries an opportunity to exchange views on the current situation in the region. The two countries need to work harder to bolster the economic base of bilateral relationship, he added. Vajpayee said the two-way economic ties are being raised to the level of joint commission co-chaired by senior ministers but it was vital for entrepreneurs in both countries to seize the initiatives for a vibrant economic relationship to actually develop. The Prime Minister, who visited Syria 24 years ago when he was the Foreign Minister, was received last night at the airport by the Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Al-Otari and his team of cabinet ministers in a symbolic demonstration of the importance Damascus attached to the visit. Vajpayee’s visit comes at a time when Syria is facing increasing isolation in the west and more sanctions from Washington. A slew of agreements are to be initialed later today paving the way to lift bilateral trade turnover currently languishing at dollars 130 million. The visit is the first substantive contact by India after the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad came to power three years ago.(PTI) |
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Bush vows to stay in Iraq until it ‘free, peaceful’ WASHINGTON, Nov 15: President George W Bush promised the United States would stay in Iraq until it was free and peaceful as he sought to allay concerns from Congress he was trying to get out of Iraq too rapidly. Bush met Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi two days after 18 Italians were killed in southern Iraq in a suicide bombing that caused Italy’s worst military losses since World War II. Bush yesterday reacted to concerns from democratic and republican lawmakers that the administration’s shift in strategy to speed up the transfer of authority to Iraqis could lead to a premature withdrawal of US forces and leave the country open to more guerrilla attacks and thwart the Budding democratic movement. "Look, we will stay until the job is done, and the job is for Iraq to be free and peaceful. A free and peaceful Iraq will have historic consequences," Bush said. His National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in a television interview that "the worst thing that we can do is to try to put an artificial time limit on really getting this job done." The concerns of a too-rapid pullout were voiced by, among others, senate democratic leader Tom Daschle of south Dakota, who said, "cutting and running is a very apt description of what we could be accused of doing if we do it too quickly or do it without adequate thought to what happens once we’re gone." "I think we have to be very concerned about creating a vacuum. The President has created a quagmire, he wants to get out of it, but I think to do it prematurely would be exactly the wrong thing to do," he told CNN. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week 43,000 reserve and national guard troops and nearly 70,000 regular marine and army soldiers were being notified for duty in an Iraq rotation plan that would reduce US forces there to 105,000 by mid-2004 from 132,000 now. Rice said no decisions have been made about future troop levels. While the United States is accelerating the training of Iraqis to provide their own security, she said: "We will, of course, be there and will be there in large numbers to be a part of that activity." Senior US officials have been discussing with Iraqi leaders the formation of a temporary Government in the first half of next year to give Iraqis more control and experience with democratic institutions and help prepare them for writing a Constitution to precede a permanent Government. Rice derided those behind daily attacks on US forces as "an insurgency of dead-end people from the old regime" who, she said, "have no future in a new Iraq." As two more US soldiers were reported killed in Iraq, Bush signed a proclamation honoring employers who had supported members of the national guard and reservists, part-time soldiers who left their jobs for extended assignments in Iraq and are worried their jobs will be gone when they get back. "America needs the guard and reserves more today than we have had in decades. We’re at war," Bush said. White House officials deny the Bush administration, faced with mounting casualties as bush seeks re-election next year, is letting the US political calendar dictate strategy. Bush said during a picture-taking session with Ciampi "we will stay there until the job is done, and then we’ll leave." He also suggested the United States would not leave Iraq until ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was found. "We’ll find Saddam Hussein," he said. (AGENCIES) |
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Singapore says to keep troops in iraq SINGAPORE, Nov 15: Singapore will not pull out its troops from Iraq despite a string of deadly attacks against foreign forces, today’s Straits Times newspaper quoted a top Government official as saying. Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan said the 192 navy and air force personnel were prepared for the dangerous mission in Iraq. He said a pullout of coalition forces in Iraq would only embolden terrorists and would pose a greater threat for Singapore and the region. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday as Tokyo showed signs of going back on a promise to send troops to Iraq until the security situation improved. Japan made the move after a suicide bomber killed 16 Italian paramilitary police officers, two Italian civilians and nine Iraqis on Wednesday in the southern city of Nassiriya. (AGENCIES) |
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China launches satellite, plans 10 more by end-2004 BEIJING, Nov 15: China put a communications satellite into orbit on Saturday, the first of nearly a dozen orbiters the country plans to launch by the end of next year, state media today said. The Zhongxing 20, the fourth launch since China’s first manned space flight last month, blasted off atop a long March 3A rocket from the Xichang satellite launch centre in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Xinhua News Agency said. The fast pace of launches was due in part to an improved testing procedure that had more than halved the time needed between launches at a given centre to less than 30 days, the China daily quoted Zhang Qingwei, deputy chief commander of the manned space programme, as saying. "The active space programme reflects our experience and expertise, especially our confidence in the quality and reliability of Chinese launch vehicles and spacecraft," Zhang was quoted as saying. The next satellite, a "Geospace exploration" device, would go up in December, he added. China would launch an average of 10 satellites a year from 2006 to 2010, double the pace of the planned 2001 to 2006 launch schedule, Zhang said. "To serve national economic growth, defence and scientific research purposes, the country will send up to nine satellites into space next year alone," he added. Zhang also confirmed earlier reports that a second manned mission would take place in 2005, and said the number of astronauts for that flight would be decided after analysing data from the debut flight. Last month, China became the third nation after the United States and the former Soviet Union, now Russia, to put a person into space. A single astronaut in the Shenzhou V craft orbited the earth 14 times in a mission lasting just under one day. (AGENCIES) |
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Child prostitution alarming in brazil - UN envoy RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, Nov 15: The problem of child prostitution and sexual exploitation in Brazil is worse than in most other countries because of poverty, crime and tourism, a special UN envoy has said. Although there no firm figures, Juan Miguel Petit said yesterday that representatives of nongovernmental organizations he met during a two-week stay in Brazil had reported a growing number of cases. He said there were an estimated 240 routes, both national and international, used by sex industry traffickers in Brazil to transport prostitutes from their homes to the big cities. Petit said nongovernmental organizations estimated the number of child prostitutes at between 100,000 and 500,000. The country has a population of 175 million. Petit, who is the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, visited Brazil at the Government’s invitation and will report to the UN in April. "Brazil is easily accessible by tourists, it has an enormous population of young people, the authorities are not present in the slums and the country’s sheer size makes it hard to control," Petit said. "and there is growing drug trafficking." "All this makes the situation in Brazil more worrying and more explosive," he said. "We know it’s bad, we know it’s high risk, and there is a lot to be done." He urged social groups to do more to combat the problem, not least because younger and younger children are becoming involved in Brazil’s spiral of crime. However, Petit said some progress was being made, as society was becoming increasingly aware of the problem and the Government was taking more notice, while Congress had opened a probe into the issue. Nanko Buuren, Executive Director for the Brazilian Institute of Social Health Innovation, said three million children are living on Brazil’s streets, where they are targets for crime and sexual exploitation. "From the point of view of foreigners the situation is really alarming in Brazil, but if you see it from the point of view of Brazilian sexual culture it’s a slightly different story," said Buuren. He said that sexual standards are generally very relaxed in Brazil, especially among the poor. (AGENCIES) |
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Riyadh concerned about weapons coming from Iraq WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The Saudi Arabian Government is concerned about the possibility of weapons being smuggled from Iraq into the kingdom but there are no indications so far that weapons have flowed across the border, a top Saudi official has said. Adel al-Jubeir, the Foreign Policy Adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, said yesterday in Washington that the Government was worried about weapons and munitions coming into the country that has been hit by two terrorist attacks this year. "Fortunately, we haven’t seen much (smuggling) yet," he told reporters at the Saudi embassy. "We continue to work with the US Government on this area, and hopefully, we can ensure that we have no problems from the border with Iraq." Terrorists attacked a compound Sunday in Riyadh, killing 17 people and wounding more than 122. The compound housed mostly Arab families. The capital was the scene of another deadly attack in May on another compound housing foreign business personnel. The Al-Qaeda terrorist network was suspected of carrying out both attacks, and the Saudi Government said it believes they were designed to destabilize the royal family. Al-Jubeir said "It may very well be the case" that the terrorist believed the compound in Sunday’s bombing also housed foreigners. "The compound used to house employees from boeing corp. Up until, I believe, five years ago," he said. "Most of these employees hailed from many different countries, including Europe and the United States and Arab countries. "I don’t know what the mindset of the terrorists was or if they made a mistake or not." He said terrorists will not succeed in destabilizing the Saudi Government, which is disliked by Al-Qaeda because of its close relationship with Washington. "We are united as a country ... In terms of weeding out this evil or rooting it out from our society," he said. Meanwhile, the US embassy in Riyadh, closed since Sunday as a security precaution, was due to reopen today. "We believe that given what information we have and given the security measures that we’ve taken, it is safe to open the embassies to the public," US State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. (DPA) |
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US has no evidence Iraq hid banned arms in Syria WASHINGTON, Nov 15: The Bush administration said it had no evidence that any of Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction had been hidden in neighboring Syria. In an interview with WTVT-TV in Tampa, Florida, White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice yesterday defended Prewar intelligence on Iraq that Washington used to justify the invasion. Despite US assertions that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological arms, none has been found. "The American people can be certain that we went to war on solid information, on information that had been gathered over 12 years, on a history of use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that we are finding confirmation that this was somebody who hid his activities from the United Nations and intended to continue those programs," Rice said. A US team hunting for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was investigating multiple reports from Iraqis that banned weapons or weapons-related substances were moved across borders into Syria, Iran, and Jordan. "I’ve seen reports, as everyone has," Rice said. But she added: "We don’t have any evidence at this point that that’s what happened." Washington has accused damascus of turning a blind eye to militants crossing into Iraq. Syria has long been on the US state department’s list of states that support terrorism, and Washington accuses it of seeking Weapons of Mass Destruction. (AGENCIES) |
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US wants Iraqi transition government by summer-ABC WASHINGTON, Nov 15: US Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer has told Iraqi leaders that Washington wants a new national assembly to meet next spring to elect a transitional Government to take over governing power from the United States by next summer, ABC News reported. ABC news White House correspondent Terry Moran, reporting from Baghdad, said yesterday Bremer met with Iraqi leaders on Friday in Baghdad and told them Washington wants the Iraqi governing council to quickly draft a bill of rights for the Iraqi people and a timetable for national elections. ABC news did not identify its sources, or name the leaders with whom Bremer had met. It said Bremer had proposed to the Iraqis that tribal elders and other leaders from Iraq’s 18 provinces meet next spring to choose delegates for a new national assembly, which would in turn elect a transitional Government by next summer. The United States would hand over power to this body, according to the US plan, ABC reported. The writing of a new Iraqi constitution and full national elections would follow the election of the transitional Government within the next two years, it said. Members of the Governing Council reacted positively to the US proposal, the ABC report said, quoting IGC member Mahmoud Othman as saying: "I don’t think they need a weak partner. They (the United States) should look for a strong partner." President George W Bush directed Bremer on Wednesday to speed up the transfer of postwar authority to the Iraqi people, bringing Washington’s policy closer to that of its skeptical European allies and the United Nations. The accelerated timetable for transfer of power comes amid an escalating violent guerrilla campaign against the US-led occupation forces and growing frustration among American officials with the apparent inaction of the governing council. (AGENCIES) |
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Handwritten Lennon lyrics to be auctioned in NYC NEW YORK, Nov 15: A range of entertainment industry Memorabilia — including John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for "nowhere man" — will be auctioned next week, auction organizers have said. Christie’s spokeswoman Margaret Barrett said the lyrics were expected to fetch between 80,000 and 100,000 dollars at the auction in New York city on Tuesday. Online auctioneers itsonlyrocknroll.Com said yesterday they would put a fiberglass yellow submarine, displayed at the 1968 Los Angeles Premier of the Beatles movie of the same name, on sale on Tuesday along with an unreleased, 26-minute Christmas message taped for fan clubs in 1965. Christie’s sale also includes the best director Oscar won by Michael Curtiz for "Casablanca", which is expected to sell for between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars. The online auction, with items being previewed at New York’s pier 94 antique show, closes on December 9. Bids on the six-foot (two-metre) long mock submarine will start at 15,000 dollars, while the beatles Christmas tape is expected to sell for about 25,000 dollars. Also featured in the sale are Grammy Awards for best pop vocal performance won by Frank Sinatra for "strangers in the night," and Paul Simon for "still crazy after all these years." (AGENCIES) Rumsfeld reassures japan over any N Korea deal TOKYO, Nov 15: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised the Japanese today that any security guarantees the United States might give North Korea to end a nuclear crisis would not weaken US commitments to Japan. North Korea wants the United States to give it a guarantee that its security will not be threatened if it agrees to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. The prospect of a deal has worried some Japanese, suspicious of North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998, but Rumsfeld moved to soothe their concerns. "The United States Government is not going to make any arrangement with any other country that would in any way undermine our security agreement with Japan," he told a joint news conference with Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba during a visit to Tokyo. There are 58,500 American troops stationed in Japan as part of a security alliance between the two countries. Asked whether North Korea, which has already broken a 1994 agreement to halt its nuclear programme, could be trusted, Rumsfeld said: "I’ve always kind of agreed with former President Reagan: trust but verify." He did not elaborate on how any deal would be monitored. (AGENCIES) Death toll from Istanbul blasts 15 — Turk minister ISTANBUL, Nov 15: Turkish Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said the death toll in two blasts which ripped through two Istanbul Synagogues today stood at 15, but police officers at the scene said as many as 24 had died. Aksu also said in televised comments that 146 people had been injured in the blasts. (AGENCIES) Israel denounces blasts at Istanbul synagogues JERUSALEM, Nov 15: Israel denounced the blasts that ripped through two Istanbul Synagogues today, killing at least 15 people, as "criminal terror attacks". "Terror is terror whether it targets Jews or non-Jews," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry also said it had offered aid to Turkey. The Jewish agency, which deals with Jewish diaspora affairs, was sending a delegation to Turkey. A radical Turkish Islamist group known as IBDA/C claimed responsibility for the two blasts in which police officers at the scene said as many as 24 people were killed. The Turkish Interior Ministry put the death toll at 15, with 146 injured. (AGENCIES) |
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