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| Israeli postmen deliver letters to God JERUSALEM, Oct 3: Thinking of writing a letter to God?.....more Lanka
rebels begin to KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Oct 3: The first transit centre to return Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers’ "baby brigade" to civilian life opened today, but doubts remained over whether the rebels are sincere about giving up their child soldiers.......more Chalabi
promises UNITED NATION, Oct 3: The US-appointed Iraqi governing council, in its first formal appearance at the UN general.....more US weapons
Inspectors WASHINGTON, Oct 3: An American weapons Inspector heading a team to Iraq has reported to the US Congress that they....more |
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Islamist warns Pakistan of fallout from Al-Qaeda operation ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: A top Islamic leader in Pakistan today said a military operation that killed eight Al-Qaeda militants.....more US says
LTTE is WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The United States has determined that Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)....more Russian
space ship MOSCOW, Oct 3: An unmanned Russian space ship plunged into the pacific as planned today after taking food and fuel to......more EU
scientists legalise BRUSSELS, Oct 3: EU scientists agreed today to legalise the controversial herbicide....more |
Israeli postmen deliver letters to God JERUSALEM, Oct 3: Thinking of writing a letter to God? The address, according to those who regularly write to the almighty, is "God, Jerusalem, Israel". Alternatively you could try: "God, the wailing wall", a reference to the Jewish holy site known as the western wall. Either address will ensure your letter ends up in the sorting room of the Israeli post office’s dead letters department where it will be collected, placed in a velvet bag and posted to God through the cracks of the western wall. Hundreds of people every year jot down their prayers, wishes or problems and mail their notes to the holy city where the creed of the dead letter department’s postmen is to ensure that every piece of mail reaches its destination — rain or shine. "We are going through a peak period at the moment," said Harried dead letters department manager, Avi Yaniv. The usual trickle of letters to God has become a torrent before Yom Kippur, the holiday where Jews atone for their sins. "Dear God...Once a long time ago I stole ashtrays from hotels and glasses with advertising logos. At the time I didn’t think much about it," wrote one woman. "Now I would like to ask for your forgiveness." letters to Jesus and a greeting card celebrating the Jewish new year addressed to "the angels in heaven" are also delivered to the western wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, where Jews traditionally insert notes with prayers and wishes. "We squeeze the letters in between the gaps," said Yaniv. The deliveries to the western wall have been going on for years since the dead letters postmen decided that since there was no way to return the letters to the unknown senders, they might as well be delivered to the recipient - God. The latest letters collected in a plush bag, normally used to store Jewish prayer shawls, come from as far as Australia, India, Ghana, France, Nigeria and the United States. "Some people go to a shrink or a rabbi and others write it down, put it in an envelope, slap on a stamp and write ‘to God, Jerusalem, Israel’," said Yitzhak Rabihiya, spokesman for the Israeli postal department. Some of the writers ask God for help sticking to a diet, beg for assistance holding a troubled marriage together, or fighting off the ravages of cancer. Others are just plain avaricious. "Dear God, please grant me the millionaires life," wrote one person. Darryl from tennessee had a slightly more humble request. "I will be happy if you employ me as one of your (bull)dozer operators in your company," he wrote in his missive, in which he also requested "a nice job and a good wife". The dead letters department workers were once so moved by a letter in which the author listed a litany of personal problems that they collected 4,300 shekels (1,000 dollar) of the 5,000 shekels (1,200 dollar) he requested from God in his letter and sent it to him. "Two months later they received another letter from the same man written to God," said Rabihiya. "They thought he was probably sending his thanks. But at the end of the letter he wrote: ‘Thank you for the money but please next time don’t send it through the postal service. Those thieves stole 700 shekels" (AGENCIES) |
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Lanka rebels begin to send baby brigade home KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Oct 3: The first transit centre to return Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers’ "baby brigade" to civilian life opened today, but doubts remained over whether the rebels are sincere about giving up their child soldiers. The 49 children the Tigers released to the newly built cement block dormitories in the rebel-held north will give up training for war to return to their homes, part of a peace process to end two decades of civil war. "I was badly beaten by the military and joined the movement so they would educate me," said one 16-year-old boy hiding his eyes under the brim of his baseball cap. The Tigers tightly controlled reporters’ access to the children — who under UNICEF’s rules cannot be identified by name — and the boy’s comments echoed the rebels’ position that child soldiers were not forcibly recruited, but joined the movement because of military persecution or poverty. The mustard coloured dormitories on the edge of war-scarred Kilinochchi town are part of a 14 million dollar action plan drawn up by the Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to help 50,000 war-affected children in the North and East. The Centre, opened by the UN Children’s Fund and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), is the first formalised effort to return home children who joined the LTTE or were forcibly recruited during the war that killed 64,000 people. "These children released have now taken the first step out of a military environment towards a normal life," said UNICEF country representative Ted Chaiban. Similar halfway houses are being built in Batticaloa and Trincomalee on the East coast. Each Centre will be able to house 150 children at a time, with a maximum stay of three months. But the opening comes amid criticism the Tamil Tigers —notorious for using children as young as 10 in their fight for a separate state — have not eased up on recruiting child soldiers since signing a ceasefire 19 months ago. "There are worries they have been recruiting child soldiers just to release them, that they are putting on a face with this," said one official close to the peace process in Colombo. Children are thought to comprise more than 20 per cent of the rebels’ fighting force, but figures on recruitment — which UNICEF says is continuing despite the ceasefire — vary widely. "UNICEF is still receiving cases of child recruitment in all districts of the Northeast and it has to be understood that, if the reintegration of child soldiers is to be successful, the new recruitment of children has to stop," said Chaiban. Sinhala nationalists and some of the media in Colombo have been sharply critical of UNICEF for dealing with the TRO, a rehabilitation body controlled by the Tigers. But it is the first time such a large number of child soldiers have been publicly released by the Tigers, who only admitted last year they had used children. The issue of child soldiers is considered a litmus test of the sincerity of the rebels, whose leader Velupillai Prabhakaran dropped out of school at 16 to spearhead the fight for a separate Tamil state. Several other top-ranking cadres joined as children, including Soosai, the head of the Tigers’ navy wing, who joined the movement when he was 13. (AGENCIES) |
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Chalabi promises democratic set-up for Iraq UNITED NATION, Oct 3: The US-appointed Iraqi governing council, in its first formal appearance at the UN general assembly, has promised a democratic set-up in the war-ravaged country based on law and justice and at peace with its neighbours. Addressing the United Nations general assembly on the last day of the high-level debate yesterday, Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the council, said the new Iraq would be based upon "dignity, freedom, justice and peace" and would respect and uphold all human rights, beginning with those contained in the universal declaration of human rights. He said Iraqis had suffered humiliation and pain for more than three decades and sharply attacked those who criticise US President George W Bush for war. "The liberation of Iraq, and what happened indeed is liberation, could not have been achieved without the determination of President George W Bush and the commitment of coalition," he said. The delegation sent by the governing council occupied the Iraq seat in the assembly which for sometime was manned by diplomats appointed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Under the rules, the delegates submit their credentials to the credentials committee which takes several months to process them. But credentials of any delegation could be challenged in which case the committee meets immediately to decide the matter. In case of governing council’s delegation, no objection was raised. Chalabi avoided the issue of timetable for granting all authority to the Iraqis, a issue which has being hotly debated in the Security Council. (PTI) |
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US weapons Inspectors find no WMDs in Iraq WASHINGTON, Oct 3: An American weapons Inspector heading a team to Iraq has reported to the US Congress that they have not found any Weapons of Mass Destruction in that country, dealing a blow to the US administration’s hopes of substantiating its claim that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. However, Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay in his report to the US Congress yesterday said his team of 1,200 experts is still in the middle of an intensive hunt and that there was "substantial evidence" to suggest that Iraq had the intent of producing Weapons of Mass Destruction. "We have not found at this point actual weapons," Kay said, adding, "we have found substantial evidence of an intent of senior level Iraqi officials, including Saddam, to continue production at some future point in time of Weapons of Mass Destruction." Kay said his team had found "dozens of WMD-related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002." On the issue of whether Saddam had been in the process of reviving efforts to develop a nuclear weapons programme, another ground advanced by bush for going to war without un backing, Kay said investigators had found no evidence beyond a possible tentative restart "at the very most rudimentary level." "It clearly does not look like a massive resurgent programme," Kay said on capitol hill after briefing lawmakers in private. There was evidence, however, that Iraq was carrying out "a very full-scale programme" to extend the range of its missiles beyond the permitted distance, Kay said. Although the team has not found any WMDs, "we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone," Kay said. On another specific item, mobile trailers that were found after the war and cited as possible evidence of a biological weapons programme, Kay said it is still unclear what they were used for. He cited biological weapons and helium weather balloons as two possibilities. On how much time the search would take, Kay said the Inspectors needed at least nine more months. Bush has meanwhile asked the Congress for 600 million dollars for the inspection. Over 300 million dollars have already been spent on the search. Kay’s report had been keenly awaited as six months of postwar searching passed without any announced findings that would validate most of Bush’s assertions about Iraq’s weapons programmes and ties to terrorism. Already the administration has started saying that regardless of why Bush went to war, Saddam was an evil man who had to be removed. Critics have contended that either the CIA and other agencies that make up the US intelligence community made serious errors in their analysis or the Bush administration exaggerated what intelligence information it did have to persuade a skeptical world to support an invasion. (PTI) |
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Islamist warns Pakistan of fallout from Al-Qaeda operation ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: A top Islamic leader in Pakistan today said a military operation that killed eight Al-Qaeda militants in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan could direct Arab hatred for the United States towards Pakistan. Maulana Fazlur Rehman said tribesmen in the two frontier provinces ruled by his six-party Islamic alliance were "unhappy" with the Army operation, conducted in south Waziristan bordering the troubled Afghan province Paktika. Rehman questioned the Pakistan Army’s claim the local population and the provincial Government approved of the assault on the Islamic Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters said to be hiding in the area. Major General Shaukat Sultan of the military’s information office, however, said the "foreign elements" were a "nuisance" to the local tribesmen. Up to 40 Al-Qaeda militants, hiding in six compounds, resisted the Pakistan Army’s assault, killing two and wounding two soldiers, the Army said. Eight Al-Qaeda fighters were killed and 18 captured in the day-long clash. Local tribesmen and journalists, however, claimed more than 30 people, including some tribals, and three soldiers were killed, according to the newspaper the news. South Waziristan territory is one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal regions of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan. Yesterday’s operation was the largest conducted against Al-Qaeda and targeted an area bordering Afghanistan’s Paktika province, where US and allied Afghan forces had recently battled a resurgent Taliban militia and Al-Qaeda fighters. Pakistan’s Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Islamic alliance gained in the North-West frontier and Balochistan provinces in last year’s general elections, riding an anti-American wave that swept Pakistan after the US-led war on terror devastated the radical Islamic Taliban, and its largely Arab Al-Qaeda comrades in Afghanistan. (DPA) |
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US says LTTE is continuing terrorist activities WASHINGTON, Oct 3: The United States has determined that Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), although engaged in a peace process with the Sri Lankan Government, continues to engage in terrorist activities and will, therefore, be subject to US sanctions under the Immigration and Nationality Act. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage recently told visiting Sri Lankan Minister Milinda Moragoda that the US Government can revoke LTTE’s designation as a foreign terrorist organisation and is prepared to deal with the group as a legitimate political entity as soon as it "renounces terrorism and ceases terrorist acts". The United States today re-designated the LTTE as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) pursuant under the Immigration and Nationality Act, making it illegal for anyone in the US to provide material support to the organisation. Armitage told Moragoda that the US would consider revoking the LTTE designation as an FTO and will be prepared to deal with the group as a legitimate political entity in Sri Lanka only after the organisation renounces terrorism and ceases terrorist acts. The United States looks forward to a timely resumption of peace talks in Sri Lanka and hopes that proposals by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for an interim administration in the North and East of the country will be reasonable and practical enough to form the basis for resuming talks, the statement said. (UNI) |
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Russian space ship ends supply run, splashes down MOSCOW, Oct 3: An unmanned Russian space ship plunged into the pacific as planned today after taking food and fuel to a two-man crew on board the orbiting international space station, a Mission Control spokesman said. The progress M1-10, which went up to the 16-nation station in June, splashed into the water at 1212 gmt after controllers had initiated its descent. The space cargo ship had been in orbit since September 4 when it uncoupled from the station manned by an American and a Russian. "Everything went as planned. Progress M1-10 has finished its work and no longer exists," the spokesman said. "It entered the atmosphere and started burning and then at 1612 (1212 gmt) whatever was left of it hit the water." A new crew is scheduled to blast off in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan to the orbiting platform on October 18 to replace the present team who have been in space since April. Russia has launched all rockets to the space station since February when the United States grounded its shuttles after its Columbia craft disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronauts on board. Moscow has asked Washington for more funding to help with the cost of launches to the ISS while the US shuttles are out of action, but US officials complain russia failed to carry out all agreed launches last year and should make up the shortfall. (AGENCIES) |
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EU scientists legalise controversial herbicide BRUSSELS, Oct 3: EU scientists agreed today to legalise the controversial herbicide paraquat, to the fury of environmentalists who insist the chemical is acutely toxic for both humans and animals. "There was a vote and it was passed, so the European Commission can now adopt it (as a regulation). The nordic states voted against...But there will be a lot of conditions," said an official at the EU’s Executive Commission. Paraquat became widely known when it was sprayed on Latin American Marijuana Fields in the 1970s as a defoliant. It is currently authorised as a weedkiller in 10 eu member states but Friday’s ruling makes its use legal across the bloc. Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Austria — all of which have banned paraquat for many years — voted against the proposal, and were joined by Luxembourg. The Netherlands abstained. Critics say it is impossible to handle paraquat safely and claim the chemical harms the lungs, skin and eyes of workers handling it. Paraquat producers deny these charges. It was not immediately clear what kind of conditions would be attached to using and selling paraquat, but commission officials have previously said the herbicide is unlikely to be put on sale to the general public. The EU’s debate over paraquat has been running for years, with a vote on bloc-wide legalisation postponed four times due to bitter differences between the 15 member states. Environmentalists were outraged by the decision as they have long campaigned for paraquat’s total removal from EU markets. "The...Approval of paraquat for the EU-wide marketing is irresponsible," said John Hontelez, Secretary-General of the European Environmental Bureau Lobby Group. "We urgently need a general reform of Europe’s chemical policy, which prevents serious or long-term damage to human health and environment by forcing the substitution of such unacceptable chemicals with safer alternatives." In a statement co-signed by friends of the earth and pesticides action network Europe, hontelez said paraquat’s legalisation would lead to more use of the chemical and perhaps bring it back onto markets of countries where it was now banned. (AGENCIES) Austrian doctors separate day-old conjoined twins VIENNA, Oct 3: Doctors said today they had successfully separated conjoined twin girls just one day after their birth by Caesarian section in Vienna. The twins, Michaela and Melanie, were born joined at the intestines — a condition recorded only 20 times worldwide in the last 100 years. Doctors at Vienna’s General Hospital operated on the girls for seven hours yesterday without complications. "The children have been separated, which was important for their survival," Dr Ernst Horcher, who led the operation, told reporters. Both girls were in stable condition. "They would not have been able to live for very long if they had stayed together," he said. (AGENCIES) More records sought in leak of CIA officer’s name WASHINGTON, Oct 3: Investigators sent a new request for information to the White House and asked the State and Defense Departments to preserve their records as they try to figure out who leaked an undercover CIA operative’s name, administration officials said today. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it had received on Thursday night a new Justice Department request for materials connected with the investigation into who disclosed the identity of a cia officer whose husband challenged President George W Bush’s claims about Iraq’s weapons threat. The investigation stemmed from the disclosure in July that the wife of a former US Envoy in Iraq and Gabon, Joseph Wilson, was an undercover CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. Wilson has charged that Bush administration officials made public his wife’s name, Valerie Plame — blowing her cover and damaging her career — in an act of retribution after he accused the white house of exaggerating the weapons threat from Iraq, Washington’s main justification for going to war. McClellan did detail what material had been requested but said the letter followed up on a previous Justice Department request earlier this week and that the administration would comply fully with the latest request. The State Department and the Pentagon confirmed they had received similar requests on Thursday night. "We have been asked to take a look at our calendars and documents to see if we have any information that is relevant to this inquiry. And we obviously will cooperate fully with the Department of Justice in getting the answers that they seek," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters on Friday. The Justice Department says the requests are standard. A similar one was sent to the CIA earlier this week. (AGENCIES) Philips says new technology boosts DVD capacity AMSTERDAM, Oct 3: Dutch Philips Electronics said on Friday it had developed a new technology with Japan’s Mitsubishi Kagaku media that nearly doubles the storage capacity of data on recordable DVD discs. Philips, Europe’s largest maker of consumer electronics and lighting, said its new dual-layer technology raised the capacity of recordable dvds (DVD"r) to 8.5 gigabytes from 4.7 gigabytes for single-layer DVD discs. The company said in a statement users would be able to record four hours of DVD-quality video or 16 hours of VHS-quality video, without the need to turn over the discs. Philips said it would demonstrate the new technology at the Ceatec Japan 2003 industry show, which will be held from October 7 to 11 in Makuhari, near tokyo. Mitsubishi Kagaku media is a unit of Mitsubishi chemical corporation, Japan’s largest chemical firm. (AGENCIES) Majority of Americans disapprove Bush’s leadership: Poll NEW YORK, Oct 3: Public confidence in US President George W Bush’s handling of both foreign affairs and the economy has declined sharply, returning to the levels at which he entered office in January 2001, a New York Times/CBS public opinion poll said today. The poll found that just 45 per cent of Americans now have confidence in Bush’s leadership in foreign affairs, down from 66 per cent in April, and half of those interviewed said they were uneasy with his approach to international crises. Nearly nine in 10 Americans believe that the war in Iraq is still on going, and six in 10 do not think the United States should spend as much to back up Bush’s efforts in Iraq. The Times said that a "solid majority" of Americans believe that their country is on the "wrong track" under Bush, and about half approve his overall job performance. Bush is running for re-election in 13 months. The poll showed, however, that six in 10 Americans believe Bush has strong leadership qualities, and half of Americans think he has more honesty and integrity than other public officials. It said that six in 10 believe that bush has made the country safer from terrorist attacks. On the domestic economy, just 40 per cent expressed confidence in Bush’s ability to make the right decisions. The poll also said that 56 per cent of Americans are uneasy about the economy, up from 42 per cent in April. The Times said that the poll was conducted in telephone interviews with 981 adults from Sunday to Wednesday, when the Justice Department announced an investigation of accusations that White House officials leaked the name of a CIA agent. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points. (DPA) |
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