Bush considering tougher sanctions on Syria: Officials

WASHINGTON, Oct 16: The Bush administration is considering tightening US economic sanctions on Syria to put pressure on Damascus to pull its troops out of Lebanon and crack down on terrorism, an administration official said yesterday.

"The application of additional sanctions under the Syrian accountability act is an option," a senior Bush administration official said. "No final decision has been made."

The official declined to discuss the timing or scope of the additional sanctions.

In May, President George W Bush imposed a series of sanctions on Syria, including a ban on US exports other than food and medicine.

He accused damascus of supporting terrorism, pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction and failing to stop anti-US guerrillas from entering Iraq.

Some lawmakers said Bush did not go far enough and are pressing him to go a step further. They pointed to a report earlier this month by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said Syria had failed to meet a Security Council demand it pull its troops out of Lebanon.

Lebanon also indicated it would spurn a council call for it to disband militias on its soil, including the Hizbollah guerrilla organization and Palestinian militant groups.

Republican rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who chairs the house international relations subcommittee on Middle East affairs, sent Bush a letter last week urging him to act quickly.

"We ask that you take concrete action against this puppet Government by using your authority to freeze whatever assets these individuals may have in the United States," she said in the letter, also signed by democratic rep Eliot Engel of New York. "The time has come to further deny the Syrian regime, a state-sponsor of terrorism, the assistance and support it receives from the Lebanese Government," they wrote.

The Bush administration is already pursuing action in the United Nations. On Thursday, the United States and France introduced a draft Security Council resolution aimed at putting fresh pressure on Syria over its troops.

The draft would ask Annan to report every three months on the issue as a follow-up to a Sept 2 Council resolution that demanded all foreign troops leave Lebanon.

The Syrian Government has maintained political control over Lebanon since it intervened in 1976, at Beirut’s request, to quell a civil war.

In may, Bush labeled Syria "an unusual and extraordinary threat" and imposed the ban on exports. He also severed banking relations with the Commercial Bank of Syria, froze assets of Syrians and Syrian entities suspected of involvement terrorism or WMD development, and prohibited Syrian flights to and from the United States. The sanctions were chosen from the Syria accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which the President signed into law last December. (AGENCIES)

Well-wishers of India gather in Hanoi

HANOI, Oct 16: Friends and admirers of India and its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru have gathered here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between the late Indian leader and Vietnam’s hero Ho Chi Minh.

External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Dzy Nien will attend a seminar organised by the institute for international relations, of Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry, tomorrow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the landmark meeting between Nehru and Ho Chi Minh.

Nehru had arrived in Hanoi on October 17, 1954 exactly seven days after the liberation of Vietnam. His visit cemented the long and traditional friendship between the two countries.

The External Affairs Minister, during his three-day official visit to Vietnam, will also head the joint comission meeting between the two countries on Monday.

Senior officials from both the countries met over the last two days to review and plan ways to further increase cooperation and trade between New Delhi and Hanoi. They discussed the entire Gamut of trade ties, including further scope of cooperation in agriculture, science and technology and it.

During former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to Vietnam, India had extended a grant of Rs 100 million for setting up the advanced resources centre in it in Hanoi.

"The project is starting now and Vietnam has agreed to provide the building while India will train their faculty," an official told PTI.

Another grant by India of Rs 122 million has been utilised by Vietnam to set up human resource development in it. They have identified six major institutions and India is set to provide advanced training, the official said.

Trade between the two countries has been on an upward swing. In 2003, bilateral trade touched 528 million dollars with India accounting for 316 million dollars in its exports to Vietnam.

Major Indian exports to Vietnam include pharmaceuticals, plastic material, seafood, iron and steel, machine and equipment, chemicals and pesticides.

The trade imbalace on Vietnam’s account is because most of the items for export are similar between the two countries, the official said.

India and Vietnam are cooperating in several fields, including a joint venture between ONGC-VL and petro Vietnam in natural gas exploitation in Nam Con Son Gas Project.

India also provides Vietnam with the highest number of scholarships under the Indian technical and economic cooperation. A total of 110 scholarships are given annually to Vietnam while 20 scholarships are given for long term courses, the official said.

The two sides are also contemplating working on a commercial air agreement which could see direct flights between the two countries if there was a viability. (PTI)

Kerry says Bush out of touch with Americans

SHEBOYGAN, Oct 16: Democratic Sen John Kerry accused President George W Bush of being "out of ideas, out of touch and unwilling to change" as he kicked off the closing phase of his White House bid yesterday.

Speaking at a Milwaukee rally, Kerry said Bush’s botched leadership made the economy lackluster, hurt Americans’ living standards and made the republican the first President in 72 years to fail to create a single job while in office.

"As President Reagan once said, facts are stubborn things," Kerry told a packed auditorium. "The President has proven ... That he’s out of touch, out of ideas, and unwilling to change course. He can spin until he’s dizzy, but ... Who does he think the American people are going to believe — George Bush or their own eyes?"

Bush, he said, "either doesn’t understand what’s happening to the average family in America or, he understands and he just doesn’t care."

The senator from Massachusetts said a Bush victory in the Nov 2 election would mean four more years of Americans losing jobs, losing health care and suffering from falling incomes while the Government deficit spirals ever higher.

"If this is what he is proud of, I would hate to see what he is ashamed of," Kerry said.

Focusing on pocketbook issues in a state that has lost a large portion of its manufacturing jobs in recent years, Kerry lambasted Bush for not stemming the outsourcing of US jobs overseas and for giving tax breaks to millionaires and large companies at the expense of working Americans.

As Kerry spoke, his wife, Ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry, released part of her 2003 tax return, which showed that she paid more than 798,000 dollar in federal and state income taxes on gross taxable income of 2.3 million dollar, primarily from dividends and interest from Heinz family trusts.

She also earned 2.78 million in interest from tax-free bonds.

Al-Gore won Wisconsin’s 10 electoral college votes in 2000 by a margin of 6,000 votes and with just 18 days to election day it remains one of less than a dozen battleground states in the campaign. Bush also campaigned in Wisconsin on Friday.

Kerry spent the day traveling through wisconsin on a bus. At one stop, Olympic gold medal winners Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach of the US women’s soccer team endorsed him. After being almost mobbed by dozens of squealing teenagers, Kerry Awkwardly kicked a ball about before answering questions from the girls like, "do you have a dog?" and "do you love Wisconsin?"

At an early evening rally in Sheboygan, Kerry again indicted Bush for failing on domestic issues but also repeated a mantra of his campaign lately — that Bush rushed to war in Iraq unnecessarily, diverting troops from Afghanistan.

Responding to Kerry’s latest criticisms by citing a two-decade congressional record of voting for certain tax increases, the Bush campaign used the same words as Kerry, calling him "out of touch" with ordinary Americans.

Kerry also suggested that a second term for Bush could bring the return of the military draft - something that deeply divided Americans during the Vietnam war.

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of the draft," Kerry said in an interview in Iowa’s Des Moines register newspaper.

The Bush campaign said Kerry’s comments were "fear-mongering" and showed him as "willing to do or say anything to score political points."

Buoyed by strong performances in three Presidential debates against Bush, Kerry has become more energized. Whereas a few months ago he delivered his stump speech in a rambling, almost somnolent tone, he now seems livelier.

Bush opened a 4-point — 48 percent to 44 percent — lead over Kerry in the latest Zogby poll, released yesterday. The poll has a 2.9 percentage point margin of error. (AGENCIES)

Bush aide Karl Rove testifies in CIA leak probe

WASHINGTON, Oct 16: President George W Bush’s top political aide, Karl Rove, testified yesterday to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative’s name, the White House said.

"He’s doing his part to cooperate," said White House spokesman Scott Mcclellan, traveling with Bush on campaign visits to Iowa and Wisconsin.

Rove was questioned by the grand jury investigating the leak to the news media of the identity of Valerie plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Her identity was published by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in the summer of 2003 after Wilson wrote a newspaper column that questioned Bush’s assertion in his state of the union address that year that Iraq sought to get uranium from Africa.

That assertion was part of Bush’s justification for why Iraq needed to be disarmed of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which were never found.

Disclosing the identity of a clandestine intelligence officer is a federal crime as is leaking classified information to the media.

Mcclellan would not comment on the timing of Rove’s summons to the grand jury, coming little more than two weeks before the Nov 2, election.

White House aides would not give any other details about the proceedings, which are secret.

Bush was interviewed by the lead US attorney in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, in June other administration officials have also been questioned.

The campaign of sen John Kerry, Bush’s democratic Presidential challenger, accused Bush of "foot dragging" in the investigation.

"George Bush should direct Karl Rove and anyone else involved to go to the White House briefing room and come clean about their role in this insidious act," Kerry campaign senior adviser Joe Lockhart said in a statement.

"If the President sincerely wanted to get to the bottom of this potential crime, he’d stop the White House foot dragging and fully cooperate with this investigation," he added.

Mcclellan criticized democrats for trying to make political hay out of the issue and insisted Bush has instructed his staff to fully cooperate with the probe.

"I think it is highly unfortunate that some are trying to politicize an ongoing investigation for partisan gain," Mcclellan said.

He said Bush wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked plame’s identity.

"No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than the President. That’s why he directed the White House to cooperate fully. The leak of classified information is a very serious matter," Mcclellan said. (AGENCIES)

US designates Zarqawi group as foreign terrorist organisation

WASHINGTON, Oct 16: Stepping up its fight against terrorism, the US has designated the Iraqi insurgent group of Abu-musab-al-Zarqawi, which claimed responsibility for several deadly bombings, as a foreign terrorist organisation.

Jordanian-born Zarqawi’s group Jama’at-al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad, along with its aliases the monotheism and Jihad group, was designated as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’ under the immigration and nationality act.

The designation makes it illegal under the US law for persons in the US to provide material support to the group; It blocks all property and interest in property of the organisation and its members; And provides a basis for the US to deny visas to representatives and members of the group.

Secretary of State Colin Powell took this action in consultation with the Attorney General, the secretary of the treasury, and the department of homeland security.

"We hope these designations will continue to draw the attention of Governments across the world and will encourage those Governments to take action, as we have, to isolate these terrorist organisations, to choke off their sources of financial support, and to prevent their members’ movement across international borders," Boucher said.

The US list of designated foreign terrorist organisations now numbers 39.

The Jama’at-al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad is a radical Islamist terrorist organisation led by Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head and who has been designated and listed for international sanctions by the UN 1267 committee for his ties to Al-Qaida.

The designation of Zarqawi’s group as a foreign terrorist organisation came a day after the outfit claimed responsibility for the bombings at Iraq’s heavily-guarded green zone which left at least five people dead. The attack had followed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s warning to the rebel city of Fallujah to surrender Zarqawi.

The Zarqawi group’s operatives have been responsible for the assassinations of the former Iraqi Governing Council president, the Governor of Mosul, and US diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan in 2002.

Hundreds of innocent Iraqis died and many hundreds injured last year in the group’s targeted bombings throughout Iraq - in Mosul, Baqouba, Falujah, Ramadi, Najaf and Baghdad.

The group was also responsible for the UN headquarters bombing in Baghdad which killed UN special representative of the Secretary General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira De Mello.

As this group and its leader have links to Al-Qaida, the US and others yesterday asked the UN 1267 sanctions committee to include Jama’at-al-Tawhid Wa’al-Jihad and its aliases on its consolidated list of individuals and entities subject to international sanctions pursuant to UN Security Council resolutions.

Once names are listed, all UN member states are obligated to impose sanctions — asset freezes, travel bans and arms embargoes — and prohibit their nationals and persons in their territories from making available to the group’s members any funds or other resources. (PTI)

| home | state | national | business | editorial | advertisement | sports
| international | weather | mailbag | suggestions | search | subscribe | send mail |