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| Blair knew Iraq had no WMD before war: Cook LONDON, Oct 5: British Prime Minister Tony Blair today faced fresh controversy over Iraq after it was revealed that he.....more Nepalese
king hints KATHMANDU, Oct 5: Hinting at forming a Nepalese Government based on popular representation, King Gyanendra......more Chechens
vote Putin TSENTOROI, RUSSIA, Oct 5: Rebel Chechnya voted for a new President today in polls denounced by separatists as a.....more Human shield around RAMALLAH, Oct 5: Foreign and Israeli peace activists formed a human shield around Yasser Arafat at his headquarters ....more |
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Arab anger over Israel’s strike
deep inside Syria CAIRO, Oct 5: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned an Israeli strike deep inside Syria today, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder .....more Anna
Barlett suffered LONDON, Oct 5: Twentyfive-year-old Anna Barlett, a British woman whose body was found in a river in Manali in Himachal Pradesh last week, had....more Slightly stronger looking pope makes more saints VATICAN CITY, Oct 5: Amid African singing and dancing, a slightly stronger-looking pope John Paul extended his ......more Visit
of ICTY’s chief ZAGREB, Oct 5: The upcoming visit of Carla Del Ponte, chief ....more |
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Blair knew Iraq had no WMD before war: Cook LONDON, Oct 5: British Prime Minister Tony Blair today faced fresh controversy over Iraq after it was revealed that he had privately conceded two weeks before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein did not have any usable Weapons of Mass Destruction. Stating this, Robin Cook, who resigned shortly before the invasion of Iraq as leader of the commons, said John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee(JIC) also "assented" that Saddam had no such weapons. His revelations, taken from a diary that he kept as a senior minister during the months leading up to war, are published today in the ‘Sunday Times.’ they shatter the case for war put forward by the Government that Iraq presented "a real and present danger" to Britain. Cook revealed there was a near mutiny in the cabinet, triggered by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, when it first discussed military action against Iraq. The Prime Minister ignored the "large number of ministers who spoke up against the war", Cook said. According to Cook: "The most revealing exchange came when we (Blair and Cook) talked about Saddam’s arsenal. I told him, `it’s clear from the private briefing I have had that Saddam had no Weapons of Mass Destruction in a sense of weapons that could strike at strategic cities.’ but he probably does have several thousand battlefield chemical munitions. Do you never worry that he might use them against British troops?" Blair replied: "Yes, but all the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use." Blair also "deliberately crafted a suggestive phrasing" to mislead the public into thinking there was a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, and he did not want the United Nations weapons inspections to be successful, Cook stated. According to Cook, the Government misled the house of commons and asked MPs to vote for war on a "false prospectus". He stated that Blair earlier gave President Bill Clinton a private assurance that he would support him in military action in Iraq, if action in the UN failed and it would certainly have been in line with his previous practice if he had given President Bush a private assurance of British support. Cook’s long-awaited diaries, published in book form as point of departure, are the first memoir of any member of Blair’s cabinet. His disclosures are likely to lead to renewed calls for a judicial inquiry into the legitimacy of the war. The hutton inquiry into the death of David Kelly has dealt only with the question of what the Government believed ahead of publication of its Iraq dossier in September 2002 and whether downing street hardened intelligence reports to make the threat from Saddam seem more compelling. According to ‘The Mail on Sunday,’ a senior Whitehall (Government) source told the tabloid that doubts about the nature of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons were raised before British troops were sent into action in March - but were ignored by downing street (Prime Minister’s office). (PTI) |
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Nepalese king
hints at forming Govt based KATHMANDU, Oct 5: Hinting at forming a Nepalese Government based on popular representation, King Gyanendra today called for peace, an end to the seven-year-old Maoist insurgency and resumption of development activities in the country. "To activate soon a form of governance based on popular representatives, it is essential that all the countrymen unite, with patriotism as the focal point," he said in a Vijay Dashmi message broadcast by radio Nepal. "The country is in the grip of violence, terror and destruction for the past few years and every Nepali desires to see an end to this situation," he said, adding an end must be put to mutual recrimination and mistrust for the greater interest of the country. In a separate message to the nation on the same occasion, Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa also stressed the need to hold Parliamentary elections to end the current political impasse. "Since elections to the House of Representatives for the installation of Parliament is the appropriate political way out acceptable to all at present, it becomes the responsibility of all of US to create the minimum environment of security to prepare the country for elections," he said. He also urged all political parties to move ahead in spirit of cooperation setting aside all obstinacies. The king’s message to form a Government based on political representatives is a positive one, said Nepali Congress leader Ramchandra Poudyal. (PTI) |
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Chechens vote Putin sees step to stability TSENTOROI, RUSSIA, Oct 5: Rebel Chechnya voted for a new President today in polls denounced by separatists as a sham but seen by President Vladimir Putin as a major step in anchoring the war-devastated region in Russia. Many observers, and much of Russia’s press, question the value of the election since there is no serious challenger to Kremlin-backed candidate Akhmad Kadyrov. Putin built his power to a great extent on the launch of a second invasion of the mountainous region four years ago. He faces Russian Presidential polls next year with a pro-Moscow Government installed in the capital Grozny but rebellion still simmering. Guerrilla attacks in the Russian heartland, including Moscow, and the appearance of suicide bombers could turn Chechnya into a major issue for Putin if he stands again. "There will be no second round," Kadyrov said after voting at a school in his native village in foothills south of Chechnya’s regional capital Grozny. Kadyrov needs more than 50 percent of the vote to win in the first round. "My first act will be a decree to set up a Commission to investigate all the criminal acts which have taken place in the Chechen-ingush republic." Kadyrov, using the Soviet-era name for the region which then included adjacent ingushetia, did not elaborate. But he was probably referring to Moscow’s accusations that rebels intimidate and attack civilians and to accusations by human rights groups of abuses by Russian soldiers against civilians. Tsentoroi was bustling as villagers headed for the school and work proceeded on construction of red brick homes. Women casting ballots were subject to tough security checks — an acknowledgement of the use of female rebel suicide bombers. Kadyrov, appointed by the Kremlin to run local Government in 2000 after Russia sent troops back into Chechnya, is seen as an easy winner after two chief rivals were declared out of the race. A decade of violence has left much of Chechnya in ruins. All 426 polling stations in the region nestled in the Caucasus range opened at 8 AM under the close watch of 10,000 local policemen and 3,500 Russian servicemen. There were no reports of violence overnight and brilliant sunshine and warm autumn weather were forecast. Kadyrov, wearing a traditional sheepskin hat and suit, and accompanied by his son and two grandsons, fought with rebels in the first separatist war, but later changed sides. He said he regretted international organisations had sent no observers. "They would have been able to see how calm things are and no one could say that the elections were being held to the barrel of a gun," he said. Tens of thousands have died inside and outside Chechnya since Moscow first dispatched its forces in December 1994 to crush a Secessionist movement. Troops were withdrawn in 1996 and three years of De Facto Independence ensued, but Russian forces were dispatched back to the region in 1999. The insurgents, including fugitive Aslan Maskhadov who was elected President in 1997 but is now regarded as a "terrorist" by Russia, say the poll will make no difference to their campaign to push Russian troops out of their homeland. Putin was elected to the Kremlin in 2000 after talking tough on wiping out the rebels and would dearly like to see some calm restored to Chechnya before he seeks re-election next March. He was shaken a year ago when rebels seized hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theatre in an episode that ended with 129 hostages being killed. Rebels have staged suicide attacks in Chechnya and Moscow. But he has refused calls from the west and Russian liberals to negotiate with Maskhadov. (AGENCIES) |
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Human shield around Arafat as Israel warns clock is ticking RAMALLAH, Oct 5: Foreign and Israeli peace activists formed a human shield around Yasser Arafat at his headquarters today as Israel warned the clock was ticking towards the Palestinian leader’s removal after a suicide attack in Haifa. Eight activists from Israel and around 20 more from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) had gathered at Arafat’s offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah, pledging to defend the veteran leader come what may. Israeli activist Uri Avnery, from the radical pacifist movement Gush Shalom, said that the group was under no illusions about the Israeli intentions after its recent decision to "remove" Arafat, with one minister suggesting that his assassination was an option. "We came here because we realised the suicide bombing in Haifa with its many casualties would provide an ideal pretext for (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon to do what he wants to do for a long time — to kill Arafat," Avnery told AFP. "We rushed here from Gush Shalom to provide a human shield and perhaps be able to prevent the israeli army from executing its plans." "We will stay here as long as we feel there is a danger," he added. Among the ISM activists were US, Canadian and Italian nationals. There was no sign of Arafat at his headquarters amid claims that he has still not fully recovered from a recent illness. Israel ruled out an immediately move against Arafat today after yesterday’s suicide attack at a restaurant in Haifa which left 19 people dead as well as the female Islamic Jihad bomber. Instead it launched an attack against Islamic activists in the Gaza Strip and an air strike on a training camp said to have been used by Islamic Jihad and Hamas deep inside Syria. "When the time comes he will be expelled. The clock is already ticking," a senior Israeli official told AFP. The official said that the international community, including Israel’s arch ally the United States, had still not fully appreciated that Arafat was the main hurdle to peace in the region. "The Americans and the Europeans do not understand yet that Yasser Arafat is an arch-terrorist and represents the principle obstacle to all negotiations ... But this will happen one day." (AFP) |
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Arab anger over Israel’s strike deep inside Syria CAIRO, Oct 5: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned an Israeli strike deep inside Syria today, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it complicated regional peace efforts. Jordan argued the action could spread violence across the region. Damascus itself said israel had targeted a civilian site and marked a "grave escalation" of tensions in West Asia. It urged the United Nations Security Council to meet immediately. The Israeli Army said it had attacked a base near damascus used by militant groups including Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 19 people in a restaurant in the northern port city of Haifa yesterday. Several other Arab countries condemned the raid, the first deep inside Syria since the 1973 West Asia war, but there was no immediate comment from Washington — the main power broker in the region and driving force behind a battered "roadmap" peace plan to end three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence. "We condemn what happened today concerning the aggression against a brotherly state under the pretext that some organisations exist there," Mubarak said in a joint news conference in Cairo with Germany’s schroeder. Schroeder said regional peace efforts "become more complicated when...The sovereignty of a country is violated. This is why the action in Syria is not acceptable". In Jordan — along with Egypt the only other Arab state to have signed a peace treaty with Israel — the Foreign Minister tempered condemnation of Israel with apparent criticism of Palestinian suicide bombings. "An attack on a brotherly Arab country...Would push the entire region into a continuous cycle of violence," Foreign Minister Marwan Al-Muasher told state-owned television. "The time has come to review these Israeli operations...And the time has come to review the acts that are also done by some organisations including yesterday’s act," Muasher said, in an apparent reference to yesterday’s bombing in Haifa. Pro-western Jordan has important political and economic ties with the United States, Israel’s closest ally, but the public is pro-Palestinian. Qatar said Israel’s action would increase regional tensions. "such actions are a dangerous threat to peace in West Asia and take the region back into an atmosphere of war, violence and tension," a Foreign Ministry official told the state news agency QNA. Britain, a key US ally, said Israel was entitled to defend itself, though it also called for restraint. "Israel is of course entitled to take steps to protect itself from terrorist attack, but these steps should be within international law," a foreign office spokesman told Reuters. The spokesman declined to say whether the British Government considered today’s strike to be within international law. "We have already urged and will continue to urge all sides to exercise restraint," he said. In Washington, both the White House and the State Department said they had no immediate comment on Israel’s action. President George W Bush, did not answer a reporter’s question on the strike as he was leaving a church service. (AGENCIES) |
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Anna Barlett suffered from depression LONDON, Oct 5: Twentyfive-year-old Anna Barlett, a British woman whose body was found in a river in Manali in Himachal Pradesh last week, had suffered from depression and had tried to commit suicide earlier, her family has said. "She was deeply upset by something that happened to her while travelling. She has suffered from depression and has tried to commit suicide," her family said. Barlett, who was released from jail in Dubai, where she was convicted of drug trafficking, has been found dead in Manali. Police believe bartlett was severely beaten before being thrown into a stream. A witness has told police that Bartlett was seen smoking hashish in the days before her death. When officers searched her room in a guesthouse, they said they found a drug used by vets as an anaesthetic and believe she was "into serious substance abuse". Bartlett’s troubles began five years ago when she travelled to Goa during her gap year, having secured a college place at Brighton. There she met a man who persuaded her to become a drugs runner. He paid Bartlett, daughter of a retired school teacher and Library Assistant from Southend, Essex, 1,000 pounds to swallow bags of cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis and carry them to Dubai. She was caught and given a 25-year sentence, but was pardoned in June this year after serving two and a half years. On her return home she spoke of her hopes for the future. "I put my family through hell," she said. "I will spend years trying to make this up to them." But she could not settle in the UK and set off back to India. Reports here quoting Indian police said Bartlett checked into an inexpensive guesthouse in the village of Vashisht, near Manali on September 25. She is said to have been seen smoking hashish and drinking with two young European men in a guesthouse in Manali’s old town. Her shirtless body was found in the Beas river two days later. An autopsy revealed she had died of a head injury. There has also been a swelling on her face and injuries to her nose and forehead. Police registered a case of murder as the autopsy clearly suggested she was probably beaten before her body was thrown into the stream leading to the river. Police have already arrested a local drug addict in connection with the death. He said she spent the night with one of the Europeans, who found her dead next morning. The man summoned the others and they hid the body before throwing it into the stream, the guardian daily reported quoting police officials. (PTI) |
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Slightly stronger looking pope makes more saints VATICAN CITY, Oct 5: Amid African singing and dancing, a slightly stronger-looking pope John Paul extended his saint-making record today by canonising three men who worked as missionaries in the 19th century. Although he looked better than yesterday, the pope, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, read only the Italian part of his homily while a cardinal read the German part. This was apparently to help the 83-year-old pope, bedecked in gold vestments, conserve his strength for the rest of the ceremony for tens of thousands of people in an overcast St Peter’s square. There have been growing fears recently for the health of the Roman Catholic leader, who can no longer walk without assistance and has struggled to speak at some public appearances. But his words were much clearer today than they were on yesterday when he appeared particularly tired during a meeting with the new archbishop of canterbury, Rowan Williams. At the end of the two-and-a-half hour ceremony, the pope said that "god willing" he would make a planned trip on Tuesday to a shrine in the southern city of Pompeii. His chair was then placed on an open "Popemobile" and driven through the crowd. Sunday’s ceremony brought to 476 the number of people the pope has canonised, more than all of his predecessors combined since the current saint-making process began in the 16th century, according to Vatican figures. The pope used the occasion, where African women in animal skin tribal dress danced on the steps of Christendom’s largest church, to make another appeal for Africa. "Even today, how can we not turn our gaze with affection and worry (to Africa) which continues to be marked by so many difficulties and problems," he said, reading in slow Italian. "May the international community actively help her to build a future of hope." The three new saints, an Italian, a German and an Austrian, were instrumental in the evangelisation of Africa and China. The most famous was Daniele Comboni, who worked as a missionary in Sudan before founding the order of priests that carries his name and now works in many countries around the world. Comboni, who abhorred the slave trade and whose motto to help Africans was "Africa or death", died in Khartoum in 1881 at the age of 50. There are about 4,000 Comboni missionaries around the world today. The church credits Comboni with a miracle cure of a Muslim Sudanese woman whose haemorrhage stopped after a nun put a picture of Comboni under her pillow. Another new saint is Arnold Janssen, who was born in the lower Rhineland in 1837. When anti-catholic laws in Germany led to the expulsion of many priests and bishops, he moved to the Netherlands and began the divine word missionaries, which now work in 63 countries. The third is Josef Freinademetz, born in 1852 in the South Tyrol, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire which was given to Italy after world war one. He joined the divine word missionaries and worked most of his life in China, where he died in 1907. Catholics in China prayed to him recently to protect them from the SARS virus. (AGENCIES) |
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Visit of ICTY’s chief prosecutor may bury Crotia’s ambitions of joining EU ZAGREB, Oct 5: The upcoming visit of Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), to Croatia is widely regarded in Zagreb as a turning point which might bury the country’s ambitions of joining the European Union in 2007. Carla Del Ponte is set to arrive in Zagreb tomorrow for talks with Prime Minister Ivica Racan on the country’s cooperation with the ICTY. She is also expected to meet with President Stipe Mesic. The Chief Prosecutor is expected to demand the immediate extradition of Army General Ante Gotovina, whom the ICTY charged with war crimes more than two years ago. He remains at large. Two years ago, the ICTY issued an indictment against the general for war crimes allegedly committed in 1995 when the Croatian Army regained territory that had been occupied by rebel Serbs in an operation called "storm". The ICTY blames the croatian Army, in which Gotovina was then a commander, for committing war crimes against Serb civilians while retaking the area - almost one-third of the country’s territory. Gotovina disappeared when his indictment was unsealed in the summer of 2001. However, the Croatian Government insists that the fugitive war crimes suspect is not in Croatia and that Zagreb cannot arrest him, since he is not in its area of jurisdiction. But Del Ponte says that Gotovina is in Croatia and is expected to exert more pressure on the country to find and arrest him. On October 9, Del Ponte will submit a report to the United Nations Security Council on Croatia’s progress in cooperating with the ICTY. If her report is negative, and Croatian media speculate it will be, the country fears it might not get a green light for European Union membership which Zagreb applied for last February in Athens. The President of the European Parliament Pat Cox, who officially visited Croatia earlier this week, told Zagreb to do its best to convince Del Ponte that it would cooperate fully with the ICTY. "I call on you to do everything that is possible to persuade del Ponte that Croatia does cooperate with the Hague tribunal," Cox said said in an address to the Croatian Parliament last Monday. Cox indicated that the EU would observe Del Ponte’s report to the UN carefully. "It is unthinkable that the EU ignores the opinion of the UN’s Security Council," Cox said. EU membership is the country’s most important foreign policy objective and support for it is overwhelming. Croatia hopes to become an EU member in 2007 when Romania and Bulgaria are expected to join. However, unlike Croatia, the other two nations do not have unresolved war crimes issues from the past. Croatian officials, primarily Racan and Mesic, are expected to use all their diplomatic skills to persuade Del Ponte that Zagreb really does cooperate with the ICTY and that Gotovina’s case is the only contentious issue. Apart from that, Croatia feels that it has done everything that the Hague has demanded such as sending important documents. Political analysts say Racan may even "threaten" Del Ponte with the destabilisation of Croatia, if her report is negative. Racan, a social democrat, said earlier this week that if Croatia faces a debacle in its approach to the EU, this could bring right-wing parties to power in parliamentary elections scheduled for November 23. Those parties, according to Racan, are not democratic and would not be interested in cooperating with the ICTY and may lead the country into isolation. Racan’s centre-left Government is Croatia’s first pro-European administration and has made efforts to bring democracy to the country after a decade of authoritarian nationalism under the late President Franjo Tudjman. Analysts feel a negative report may destabilise the rest of former Yugoslavia. If croatia cannot access the EU (it is considered to be the prime EU hopeful ahead of Serbia, Bosnia or Macedonia in terms of economy and democracy), the rest would have even less of a chance. Government officials also said that a negative report might discourage foreign investors and weaken Croatia’s economy, if the country did not join the EU in 2007. (DPA) Iraqis enduring bad conditions in US camp, says former inmate BAGHDAD/CAIRO, Oct 5: Some members of the former Iraqi regime held in a US detention camp at Baghdad airport are in poor health because of bad living conditions, according to former inmates. An Iraqi man recently released from the camp told Deutsche Presse- Agentur DPA today that former house speaker Saadoun Hammadeh was very ill and had to be taken to hospital for treatment. The young man, who asked not to be identified, spent two weeks in the airport detention camp along with hundreds of others, including high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s former regime. He later spent two weeks in Abu Ghareeb Prison, West Baghdad, before being released. The man said he was arrested by coalition forces following a brawl and put in a tent with 25 other people. He said his fellow inmates included former Industry Minister Adnan Abdel-Majid Al-Aani, members of the special security units and some members of the paramilitary "Fidayeen". "I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the sorry state they were in. They had long beards, white hair and dirty clothes as a result of being in detention for so long," he added. Hammadeh was staying in an adjacent tent and appeared to be in a terrible state, he said. "I also saw Saddam’s nephews and a few other officials", he added. Each tent held 40 detainees and were given food and water and allowed to use the toilet, but they had to sleep on the ground. The detention centre is guarded by tanks and artillery and is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence illuminated by the lights of surveillance towers. Detainees include both men and women. "Hundreds are brought in and a similar number taken out to other detention camps in Um-Qasr, Abu Ghareeb, Tikrit, Mosul and Nasiriyah," he said. (DPA) 2 women retain seats in Oman’s new consultative council DUBAI, Oct 5: Two women were re-elected to the 83-member consultative council or Majlis Al Shura in Oman in an election that gave the right to all citizens to vote, the Omani Interior Ministry announced today. The preliminary results of yesterday’s poll showed that Lujainah Bint Muhsen Bin Haidar Al Zaabei and Rahilah Bint Amer Bin Sultan Bin Qassem Al Riyami kept their seats on the Council. The 13 other women among the 506 candidates who contested the election failed to win. Al Zaabei and Al Riyami contested in the capital Muscat. The Interior Ministry Under-Secretary and Chairman of the main Elections Committee Mohammed Bin Sultan Al Busaeedi said in a press release that the poll saw several new people elected. Al Busaeedi said the turnout was very high in most of the 59 districts and that results of the elections will remain preliminary for five days until the end of the contestation period. This is the period during which anyone who has any objection to any candidate in the elections can submit a contestation. The Consultative Council does not have legislative powers and was established by Sultan Qabus of Oman in 1991 to widen citizens representation in the country. In the past elections, the Government handpicked the 25 per cent of the population it wanted to vote for the council. However, this time all men and women over 21 years are able to vote. Some 262,000 people were expected to cast their votes in yesterday’s election. Observers have seen in the elections a step towards a more open and democratic society in Oman, a small and rich sultanate in the south of the Arabian Peninsula which has a population of 2.8 million inhabitants. The decision to allow women to vote and be elected in Oman’s democratic polls is seen also as a step to enhance women’s participation in society. Among conservative monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula only Bahrain and Kuwait have an elected Parliament, but in Kuwait women are not allowed vote. (DPA) Egypt, Germany criticise Israeli strike in Syria CAIRO, Oct 5: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned an Israeli strike inside Syrian territory today, and visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it was "not acceptable". "We condemn what happened today concerning the aggression against a brotherly state under the pretext that some organisations exist there," Mubarak said in a joint news conference with Schroeder. Israel said the operation targeted a training camp in Syria used by Palestinian militants. Schroeder said regional peace efforts "become more complicated when...The sovereignty of a country is violated. This is why the action in Syria is not acceptable". (AGENCIES) Syria to ask for Security Council meet: Diplomat DAMASCUS, Oct 5: Syria plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to hold a special session to discuss the attack by Israeli warplanes on an alleged Palestinian training camp near Damascus, a diplomatic source said today. "They want the Security Council to hold a session to discuss the attack," the source told Reuters. "I think they will make an official complaint," he said. Syrian officials did not have an immediate comment. Israeli security sources and Palestinian sources in Beirut said Israeli warplanes carried out an attack near Damascus earlier today after a suicide bomber killed 19 people in an Israeli restaurant on yesterday. (AGENCIES) |
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