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Bashir won’t be
released JAKARTA, Oct 4: Indonesia will not release a Muslim cleric held for suspected terror links to meet the reported demands of an Iraqi group holding .....more Japan may need pre-emptive strike capability-panel TOKYO, Oct 4: Japan should consider steps to alter its purely defensive security policy, including acquiring the .....more S
Korean ports on top SEOUL, Oct 4: South Korea put air and sea ports on maximum alert, giving immigration officials the power to stop .....more Israel
expands raid with GAZA, Oct 4: An Israeli air strike on a northern Gaza refugee camp killed at least four Palestinian militants on Monday, the fifth day of one of Israel’s ......more |
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Cambodian Assembly ratifies Khmer Rouge trial pact PHNOM PENH, Oct 4: The Cambodian Parliament ratified an agreement with the United Nations today on setting up a tribunal to try the surviving .....more Peru
President loses LIMA, PERU, Oct 4: Peru’s President Alejandro Toledo took the rare step of calling a television show on Sunday after it aired a video it said supported .....more Kenya ditches colonial suit in favour of African dress NAIROBI, Oct 4: Kenya is trying to rid itself of one of the last vestiges of colonial rule. More than ....more UK terrorism suspects appeal to highest court LONDON, Oct 4: Nine foreign terrorist suspects held indefinitely without charge in Britain are to begin a challenge in the ...more |
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Bashir won’t be released for Iraq hostages:Jakarta JAKARTA, Oct 4: Indonesia will not release a Muslim cleric held for suspected terror links to meet the reported demands of an Iraqi group holding two Indonesian women, the Attorney General’s office said today. An Iraqi militant group said last week it had kidnapped 10 people, including two Indonesian women, and demanded their company cut contacts with foreign forces in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported. Six Iraqis and two Lebanese were also kidnapped by the Iraqi group, Al-Jazeera said. The Arab station later quoted the group as saying the women would be released if Jakarta freed Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, suspected leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah militant group, blamed for various attacks in southeast Asia. "Because this is an Indonesian legal matter, we will not be influenced by a foreign party," Attorney General Spokesman Kemas Yahya Rachman said. "We will keep detaining him because we have the legal right." Bashir himself was quoted by his lawyers over the weekend as rejecting the Iraq group’s proposal, adding that he doubted Islamist fighters would take women as prisoners. "He suspected that it might be engineered by America. He does not agree with that. It contradicts the value of Islam, he does not want to be released because of that," Achmad Michdan, one of Bashir’s lawyers, told . Jemaah Islamiah is blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people and also a suicide car bomb attack outside the Australian embassy last month that killed nine. Bashir has consistently denied links to both terror and the group. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has been a staunch opponent of the US invasion of Iraq and has criticised the occupation as well. It has repeatedly told its citizens they should stay away from Iraq. A Spokesman for one hardline Indonesian group echoed Bashir’s criticism of the kidnapping. "If the report is true, we are deeply concerned and condemn their action, and particularly how they demand Abu Bakar Bashir’s freedom. Bashir himself has refused to be released over the kidnapping," said Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, Spokesman of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia. As has Bashir, he suggested other forces, not genuine Islamic fighters, might be behind the kidnapping. "We’re worried that an engineered rotten scenario will continuously be carried out to justify accusations of the existence of Jemaah Islamiah or the Islamic soldiers," he said. Masduki Baidlowi, Deputy Secretary-General of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, the moderate 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama, added: "I think we need to clarify its authenticity. We need to be critical in perceiving the situation. "There are a lot of mixed reports over the case. And again we must be careful and critical. This could be another staged incident," Baidlowi said, referring to a video showing a beheaded American that had proved to be a fake. But he added: "Any religion does not tolerate terror acts. If it turned out to be true, this kind of way is a disgrace to Islam." (AGENCIES) |
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Japan may need pre-emptive strike capability-panel TOKYO, Oct 4: Japan should consider steps to alter its purely defensive security policy, including acquiring the capability to carry out pre-emptive strikes, but should not change its ban on the possession of nuclear arms, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said today. Recommendations by the panel of academics and business leaders will serve as a basis for a sweeping defence review that the Government plans to complete by the end of the year. The panel said Japan should study whether to develop the capability to strike at missile bases when it has no other means to counter missile attacks — a position that is likely to anger neighbours North Korea and China in particular. "A comprehensive judgment should be made after carefully verifying the effectiveness of a deterrent from the United States and the credibility of a missile defence system...," it said. The 10-member panel also recommended that Japan relax a decades-old self-imposed ban on arms exports to the United States, and possibly other countries. A review of the ban would be needed if Japan, nervous about North Korea’s nuclear programme, were to produce a missile defence system with the United States. North Korea shocked the world in 1998 when it fired a missile across Japan and experts think it has up to 200 rodong missiles that could reach most of the country, including Tokyo. "We must relax the ban on weapons exports at least to the United States," the panel report said. Japan has been conducting research with Washington on developing a missile defence shield, but has stopped short of moving the project to the development stage for fear of angering China, which sees the system as a way of keeping its military capabilities in check. The report said that the region, home to nuclear powers Russia and China, as well as communist North Korea, has several potential security flashpoints. But the advisers refrained from singling out China as a threat despite earlier media reports that they might. "China, by definition, is not a threat," said a Japanese Government official briefing reporters on the report. The advisers warned against any move to go nuclear, although experts think Japan has the technology to become a nuclear power. "Japan’s own security efforts must work effectively for the defence of Japan and they must not pose a threat to other countries, and Japan must not possess nuclear weapons," the report said. The panel also proposed that Japan review its post-war policy of developing and making weapons strictly on its own, paving the way for joint production of weaponry with other countries. "By keeping ‘core technology’ on top levels, Japan should build truly efficient and competitive bases for defence production and technology," the report said. It also said Japan should make clear whether it would abandon its self-imposed ban on exercising the right of "collective defence" — aiding allies who come under attack — to enable greater military participation in global security. Successive Governments have interpreted the post-war 1947 Constitution as forbidding acts of "collective defence". The panel also called for a review of a Landmark 1976 "basic defence plan" limiting Japan to a "minimum" defence capability so that it could better deal with new threats such as terror attacks using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The panel also urged the Government to discuss an expansion of the overseas role of the military, known as the self-defence forces, to conduct "policing activities" overseas. In the meantime, the Government should consider authorising soldiers to use weapons necessary for missions abroad, it said. Under the current law, Japanese troops on non-combat missions overseas are allowed to carry only small firearms to be used exclusively for self-defence. Japan, one of the United States’ closest allies in Asia, has sent about 550 ground troops to Iraq — with a strictly non-combat remit — to help rebuild the war-torn country, its biggest and riskiest mission since World War 2. Critics say the deployment violates the Pacifist clause of the Constitution, which renounces the right to go to war and prohibits Japan from having a military. The clause has been interpreted as allowing Japan to have forces for self-defence. Japan’s military has more than 250,000 personnel, and the national defence budget is the fourth largest in the world after the United States, Russia and China. (AGENCIES) |
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S Korean ports on top alert for terror threat SEOUL, Oct 4: South Korea put air and sea ports on maximum alert, giving immigration officials the power to stop any suspicious arrival after Osama bin Laden’s deputy purportedly called to resist countries sending troops to the Middle East. "The slightest suspicion could trigger detention and interrogation of a traveller by police and intelligence agents at the airport," said one Justice Ministry official. In a sign of how seriously South Korea was taking the threat, Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young, who heads the National Security Council (NSC) that oversees all security portfolios —including intelligence, defence and foreign affairs — convened an emergency meeting on Saturday. "The level of alert has never been higher," the Justice Ministry official said, adding that it exceeded security for the Soccer World Cup two years ago as well as the 1988 Seoul Olympics. "Now that we have been cited as a terror target, it is no longer a vague threat as it was earlier in the year," he said. In an audio tape attributed to Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman-al-Zawahri, aired by Al-Jazeera television last Friday, Bin Laden’s deputy said resistance should carry on even if Al-Qaeda leaders were killed or arrested and named South Korea among several countries. South Korea completed deployment of more than 2,800 troops for the reconstruction of Iraq this month, making it the third-largest military contingent — after the United States and Britain. Immigration officials have been given maximum powers to pull aside for intensive interrogation any arrivals who they find suspicious, either because of the person’s demeanour or issues linked to their travel documents, officials said. Any sign that travel documents may be forged is automatically associated with the possibility of terror, the ministry official said. ‘’now there is never simple forgery of passports.’’ Senior officials from 16 ministries and Government agencies were due to meet today to review security measures, other officials said. The Foreign Ministry has repeated a Government warning against travel to Iraq, saying the security situation was deteriorating rapidly in the Middle East. Three South Korean civilians have been killed in Iraq in the past year, one an Arabic interpreter and devout Christian with missionary aspirations who was beheaded by Islamic militants in June. The militants who killed interpreter Kim-Sun-il had demanded South Korea withdraw its 600 troops from Iraq and cancel plans to send 3,000 more soldiers. (AGENCIES) |
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Israel expands raid with air strike near Gaza city GAZA, Oct 4: An Israeli air strike on a northern Gaza refugee camp killed at least four Palestinian militants on Monday, the fifth day of one of Israel’s bloodiest offensives in Gaza in four years of conflict. Witnesses and medics said the dead included a senior Hamas field commander. The early morning raid was launched shortly after Israel’s army chief warned that the incursion into Gaza would last "as long as necessary" to halt rocket attacks against Israel. Fifty-nine Palestinians, at least 38 of them militants, have been killed in fighting since Israel launched the offensive five days ago after two Israeli toddlers were killed in a rocket strike on the Israeli border town of Sderot. "Our mission is to remove sderot from rocket fire range," Israeli commander Colonel Eyal Izenburg told Israel radio. At the United Nations, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Israel to halt its raids in Gaza, "which have led to the deaths of scores of Palestinians, among them many civilians". He also called on Palestinian leaders to help curtail rocket fire. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the army would expand a "buffer zone" in northern Gaza to spare Israeli towns rocket fire and ensure that militant groups were crushed ahead of his planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip next year. "Evacuating the Gaza Strip is a plan that will be carried out and all orders have been given to ensure that there will be no fire at the time of the evacuation and I believe not after that either," Sharon said. Sharon needs to halt the rocket strikes to counter rightists who say that evacuating troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza will encourage more attacks. Nearly 200 tanks and armoured vehicles have seized 9 square km of the northern strip and carried out raids deep into teeming Jabalya refugee camp, a militant hotbed. Other armour has encircled the town Beit Hanoun. In the strike before dawn today, an Israeli missile killed four Palestinian militants, including a Hamas field commander, in a strike in Jabalya refugee camp where they were planting bombs. The bodies were blown to pieces. Israel’s military chief Moshe Yaalon told reporters yesterday while visiting troops in Gaza yesterday the raid had been "successful", and Israel had hit seven gangs of militants involved in firing rockets, including one on a donkey cart. "We will continue this operation for as long as necessary," to prevent rocket attacks, he said. "The forces are prepared to carry out this operation not in terms of days, but weeks." Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, suggested the militants might be ready to reconsider firing rockets at Israel, telling reporters they "would seriously study their methods" if Israel halted all military action in Gaza. But other militants were determined to appear to be driving israel out of Gaza, given Sharon’s plan to pull soldiers and settlers out of the land Israel occupied in the 1967 west Asia war. "The Qassam rockets will not stop as long as the occupation exists," Mushir-al-Masri, a spokesman for Hamas, told a rally of 4,000 in Gaza city late yesterday. (AGENCIES) |
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Cambodian Assembly ratifies Khmer Rouge trial pact PHNOM PENH, Oct 4: The Cambodian Parliament ratified an agreement with the United Nations today on setting up a tribunal to try the surviving leaders of the Khmer rouge regime responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people. The ratification of the pact, which took almost six years to thrash out, opens the way for the United Nations to raise the 50 million dollars it estimates will be needed for the tribunal, which will include foreign judges and prosecutors. (AGENCIES) |
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Peru President loses temper on TV after vote video LIMA, PERU, Oct 4: Peru’s President Alejandro Toledo took the rare step of calling a television show on Sunday after it aired a video it said supported allegations of fraud in registering his party for 2000 elections, but swiftly lost his temper and hung up after insulting the presenter. America television’s Cuarto Poder show aired two video clips, one showing Toledo handing documents into the electoral authorities, and another showing him celebrating in a restaurant where he was flanked by his wife and sister. Toledo, who has repeatedly denied allegations that his party falsified signatures to be eligible for the vote, called the station to complain that no one from the show had called him or his staff for their version before airing the video. In the celebration video, Toledo was seen praising the people who "transcribed, entered and rechecked" the signatures, but he said on his call that the lists had to be scrutinized against electoral rolls, saved on disk and checked. An audibly furious Toledo accused the show of peddling manipulative journalism as anchor Carlos Espa tried and failed to get a word in edgeways and both men battled to be heard. Espa lamented at one point: "This isn’t a monologue." Toledo concluded: "A half truth is worse than a lie. That’s enough of trying to stain people’s honor ... I won’t permit it, I haven’t anything more to say. You are a coward," and hung up. The line went dead on air. Allegations from witnesses in recent months alleged that Toledo’s sister Margarita was involved, with the President’s blessing, in running a "forgery factory" falsifying signatures to register his party. She has denied this. Toledo promised a clean break with the corruption that became endemic under the Government of disgraced ex-President Alberto Fujimori, but has himself lost seven ministers to corruption scandals. The signatures scandal itself has drawn comparisons with the forgery of 1 million signatures to register Fujimori’s successful bid for an unprecedented third term in 2000. (AGENCIES) |
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Kenya ditches colonial suit in favour of African dress NAIROBI, Oct 4: Kenya is trying to rid itself of one of the last vestiges of colonial rule. More than 40 years after Independence from Britain, Kenyan designers are leading a campaign to discard the stuffy two-piece suit in favour of a distinctly African national dress. Whistles and cheers greeted Kenyan Vice-President Moody Awori when he took the catwalk to model the new national dress at a launch ceremony in Nairobi in mid-September. The traditional western suit was no where to be seen. Instead, men wore loose fitting African garb, complete with a new-look cape that draped over the shoulder, crossing the chest to the hip. "The British left nothing to chance — members of Parliament, Judges — everyone is dressed in a suit. It’s nothing to do with us," said one of the designers behind the Kenyan Cape, Patricia Mbela. "They did a good job of making us embarrassed to be African," she told . Whether in the bright lights of the capital Nairobi or the unlit depths of rural backwaters, the suit has long been one of the most common forms of attire in a country boasting a colourful heritage of traditional costumes. City businessmen wear it flash, with sharp creases and big, knotted ties, while their poorer country cousins often have to make do with ill-fitting and mismatched versions. After a six-month campaign backed by the Ministry of Culture, Gender and Sport, designers came up with a blueprint for the new national costume. The simple creation was inspired by Kikois, Kangas and Lesos —the everyday pieces of colourful patterned cloth wrapped around the hips or worn over the shoulder favoured by many Kenyans. Designers hope their outfits will foster a new sense of Kenyan-ness by providing a break with the suits familiar from the colonial era, which ended with Independence from Britain in 1963. At the Swish launch the Vice-President, himself often pictured in newspapers wearing shorts with long socks and sandals and a cowboy-style hat reminiscent of a boy scout, commended the new design as a way of marketing Kenya. "We should have an attire that brings the unity we all need in this country, an attire that brings pride to Kenyan people," he said. Promoting African dress is an old theme on a continent that has spent decades trying to escape the legacy of the dark days of colonialism and recover its sense of identity, but the Kenyan campaign adopted a modern twist. Unlike the former Zaire where the late dictator Mobutu Seso Seko imposed African dress, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans voted by email and text message for the outfit that suited them. Buoyed by the response, the designers of the Kenyan Cape hope it will prove as popular as the smart Indian Nehru jacket or the majestic Nigerian Agbada. (AGENCIES) |
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UK terrorism suspects appeal to highest court LONDON, Oct 4: Nine foreign terrorist suspects held indefinitely without charge in Britain are to begin a challenge in the country’s highest court, the law Lords, today against their detention, British media said. The nine are among 11 foreign men held under British emergency anti-terrorism powers enacted after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. In order to enact the legislation, Britain had to declare an emergency and suspend parts of the European convention on human rights, the only country to do so. Nine law lords will decide whether this was legal. The Guardian newspaper described the case as "one of the most important issues to come before the House of Lords". The sitting follows a demonstration by hundreds of human rights campaigners on Sunday outside London’s Belmarsh high security jail where some of the suspects are detained. Critics have described the laws as illegitimate because detainees cannot see secret evidence and discriminatory because the powers apply only to foreigners. "If there is a case against these men, it should be brought to court in the traditional british manner for a jury to decide and the men should be allowed to be legally represented to put their case," a spokesman for rights group liberty said yesterday. Under the emergency law, the authorities must show only that they have "reasonable grounds to suspect" the detainees have links to terrorism, a standard far below the "proof beyond reasonable doubt" needed to convict them of an actual crime. The nine men, who have not been named, are seeking to overturn a court of appeal ruling that backed the Government’s powers. The Government says it needs the emergency laws to figh terrorism. British media reported that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, would head the Government’s legal team in a reflection of the importance of the case. (AGENCIES) Brazil’s ruling party faces Sao Paulo run-off vote SAO PAULO, BRAZIL, Oct 4: President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva’s workers’ Party (PT) won the mayoralty of six state capitals in the municipal vote but was forced into a run-off to defend its hold on the race’s biggest prize, the city of Sao Paulo. With 98 percent of Sao Paulo voting stations counted after yesterday’s polls, opposition candidate Jose Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) had 44 percent of the city’s vote versus 36 percent for Marta suplicy, the incumbent Mayor of Brazil’s financial and industrial heart. The second round vote will be Oct 31. "The message the electorate is sending is we want democracy, we don’t want a sole party regime," Serra, who lost the 2002 Presidential race to Lula, told reporters. Home to more than 10 million people and the nation’s third-largest budget, Sao Paulo is key for both parties as they ready themselves to dispute the presidency of Latin America’s largest country in two years. Across the nation, some 120 million of 180 million Brazilians voted for Mayors and city council members in 5,562 municipalities, from bustling metropolises to sleepy cowtowns. Although most of the campaigns have focused on quotidian issues like public transport, the municipal votes are also seen as a test of how the PT has fared since Lula swept into office two years ago promising more social and economic justice. Nationwide, the PT seeks to more than double the nearly 200 mayoral positions it won in mostly large cities four years ago. With the economy growing at a quick rate and unemployment decreasing, it hopes Lula’s rising popularity will help it expand its electorate from its traditional urban base and make in-roads in Brazil’s vast interior. By early today, 91 percent of the 5,562 municipalities up for grabs had been tallied up, with the PT winning 352 of those mayoralty races, according to the electoral court. Although the count so far was below its target, the PT won two large state capitals, belo horizonte and recife, and four smaller capitals: Macapa, Aracaju, Rio Branco and Palmas. Aside from Sao Paulo, it will head to a run-off in eight other capitals. (AGENCIES) US jets bomb targets in rebel held Falluja FALLUJA, IRAQ, Oct 4: US warplanes struck suspected militant hideouts in Falluja overnight, destroying buildings and killing at least seven people, a doctor in the rebel-held city said today. Statements from the US military said fighter planes carried out two air strikes in the early hours today, the first on a building where "approximately 25 anti-Iraqi forces members" were moving weapons on the outskirts of Falluja. The US military uses the term anti-Iraqi forces to describe insurgents. The second strike, two hours later, hit a house where suspected followers of Jordanian militant Abu-musab-al-Zarqawi, the most hunted man in Iraq, were believed to be meeting. "Each action removed foreign fighters from the streets of Fallujah and strengthens the safety of Iraq," the military said. Neither statement said how many people had been killed, but a doctor in Falluja, Rafea Hayad, said seven people had been killed and 14 wounded, some of them children. The US military has carried out a weeks-long campaign of air strikes on the city in an attempt to weaken Zarqawi’s network, which has claimed responsibility for many of the worst attacks in Iraq, including beheading several hostages. The military has described every attack as a "precision strike" and says it has only struck targets after multiple intelligence sources have confirmed militants are meeting or hiding out there. However, many locals say women and children are killed in the air strikes and accuse the US military of being indiscriminate. News agency footage shot last week showed a young child being pulled from the rubble of a destroyed house. The US military has suggested some scenes are staged and that militants are intimidating some doctors into saying women and children have been killed. (AGENCIES) Seventeen migrants drown off Tunisia, 47 missing TUNIS, Oct 4: Tunisian coastguard has found the bodies of 17 migrants who drowned after a boat carrying them to Italy sank off the Tunisian coast, Government officials said today. "Seventeen bodies were recovered, 11 people rescued and 47 are still missing," a senior official told . The officials said the boat had 75 illegal migrants — 70 Moroccans and five Tunisians — when it sank off the town of Chott Meriem, 170 km southeast of Tunis, a few hours after it left the Tunisian shoreline on Sunday towards Italy. (AGENCIES) Afghanistan’s dostum seeks to re-invent, again SHIBERGHAN, AFGHANISTAN, Oct 4: Ever the master of re-invention, Afghan Presidential hopeful Abdul Rashid Dostum will need all his chameleon skills to survive in a country where warlords and factional leaders are being gradually sidelined. Only die-hard supporters believe Dostum can win the Oct 9 election. His candidacy prompted the most number of objections to the election commission, with accusations of war crimes levelled at the Ethnic Uzbek General from the north. In Shiberghan, the town regarded as Dostum’s fiefdom, the burly, Moustachioed commander is portrayed on giant billboards both as a heroic fighter and as a besuited civilian leader befitting his latest incarnation as democratic champion. "General Dostum’s campaign motto is ‘together for a new Afghanistan’," said his spokesman, Faizullah Zaki. When asked what Dostum would do if he did not beat US-backed Interim President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, Zaki replied: "He will win." The more likely scenario is that he will be forced to jockey for position like other losers among the 18 candidates. Many of the contenders hope no one will emerge with a clear majority in the poll, forcing a second-round runoff in November between the top two candidates in which alliances could play a large part. (AGENCIES) |
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