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| Britain may move troops nearer Baghdad: Reports LONDON, Oct 17: UK troops in southern Iraq may be moved to more dangerous areas near Baghdad, media reports.....more Christians
talk of leaving BAGHDAD, Oct 17: Explosions that damaged five Churches in Baghdad yesterday have prompted some Christians to.....more ‘World
is less menacing HANOI, Oct 17: Observing that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and late Vietnamese President Ho-chi-......more Hungarian
ruling BUDAPEST, Oct 17: Hungary’s ruling socialists picked Culture Minister Istvan Hiller as new party Chairman, a symbolic......more |
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Cameroon vote lacked credibility Common Wealth YAOUNDE, Oct 17: This week’s Presidential election in cameroon, won by incumbent Paul Biya with a landslide, lacked......more Powell to
Japan TOKYO, Oct 17: US Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Tokyo for two days next weekend to discuss security and......more Pierre
Salinger, WASHINGTON, Oct l7: Pierre Salinger, who was Press Secretary to Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson,....more Snap
election looms BELGRADE, Oct 17: Serbian President Boris Tadic dared opponents yesterday to risk a snap general election, saying....more |
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Britain may move troops nearer Baghdad: Reports LONDON, Oct 17: UK troops in southern Iraq may be moved to more dangerous areas near Baghdad, media reports said, a politically charged move military analysts said would mean raising Britain’s profile in Iraq significantly. Up to 650 troops may be moved north to cover for US units battling insurgents in the rebel-held city of Falluja and elsewhere, according to the reports. Any prospect of a sharp rise in British casualties would be acutely uncomfortable for Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose unpopular decision to join US President George W Bush in the March 2003 invasion has hit his ratings and divided his party. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is preparing to make a statement to Parliament tomorrow, newspapers said yesterday. The Sunday telegraph reported that the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Walker, was resisting the northward deployment. A Defence Ministry Spokesman in London confirmed discussions had taken place with American commanders but said no decision had been taken. "There are always ongoing discussions with our coalition partners," he added. British troops have until now operated only in the relatively quiet Basra area of southern Iraq, where some 8,000 British soldiers are stationed. The media reports said any northern deployment would last only a few weeks and might involve the black watch regiment. In Basra, a British military Spokesman said requests for help from other areas were not unusual. But, asked if 650 troops might be involved, he said: "That is not the sort of request we get on a regular basis". Military analysts said such a request for help underlined the scale of the problems facing the Americans. "It probably points to the difficulty of the United States in getting enough troops over to Iraq — we’re up against the limits of US military power," said military analyst Charles Heyman of Janes world armies. "There’s no doubt it would be an escalation in the profile of British troops in Iraq." Since the Iraq war began, 68 British soldiers have died, compared with over 1,000 American troops. Nicholas Soames, Defence Spokesman for the opposition conservative party, demanded more clarity from the Defence Ministry on the role of British troops in Iraq. If British soldiers did more in Iraq, they should take a bigger role in planning operations and there must be careful coordination with US forces and clear rules of engagement, he told BBC radio. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the BBC: "The real risk of sending a British battalion into the US sector is that our troops could become associated in Iraqi minds with US methods." (AGENCIES) |
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Christians talk of leaving Iraq after Church bombs BAGHDAD, Oct 17: Explosions that damaged five Churches in Baghdad yesterday have prompted some Christians to wonder whether it’s time to leave their ancient homeland. "If they don’t want us in Iraq, let them say it and we will leave," said Samir Hermiz, 40, standing next to a Church that was reduced to ashes. "I’m really thinking of leaving Iraq." The series of explosions which began at 4 a.m. O630 hrs ist caused no casualties but they further unnerved Christians already shaken by coordinated Church bombings that killed 11 people in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul in August. There was no immediate word on the identity or motives of the assailants who struck five Churches, including a Roman Catholic Church in Karrada that was gutted in the attack. Iraq’s Christians had little power under Saddam Hussein’s rule but they did not feel threatened by sectarian violence. Now Christians feel they have no protection in a country where the interim Government is struggling to quell the bloody chaos of suicide bombings, shootings and kidnappings. Like others in his community, store keeper Nabil Khawam believes "Christians are the true Iraqis", but he fears they can no longer risk staying. "We are a minority and we have no power. We are peaceful people. If attacks continue our numbers will decline," he said. The US military has accused Jordanian militant Abu Musab-al-Zarqawi of masterminding sectarian attacks designed to spark civil war in Iraq. Iraq’s 650,000 Christians, about three percent of the population, have always kept a low profile, hoping to avoid being sucked into tensions among Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds. Now Christians, who are mostly Chaldeans, Assyrians and Catholics, can only wonder when the next bomb will explode. "They are infidels...Infidels... They have no faith," Kamil Shabo, a 40-year-old labourer, said of the bombers. "It is a religious sanctuary, how could they attack a religious place?" If he gets the chance to work abroad, Shabo said he will leave Iraq and never return. After Independence in 1932, the Iraqi military massacred assyrian Christians in villages around Mosul for what was seen as their collaboration with former colonial power Britain. Some Christians, like former deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, a Chaldean, rose to prominence under Saddam. After the latest bombings, Christians fear they may no longer be welcome in the land they believe their ancestors inhabited for about 2,000 years. Housewife Khamina Nanno, 24, was always proud of her faith, studied the bible every friday at the now-ruined Catholic Church in Karrada, as well as attending weekly mass. "They want to create a sectarian war and unrest between Islam and Christianity," she said, wiping away tears as she surveyed the destruction. "I will come tomorrow for the mass. I don’t care if I die. At least I will die in a place of worship and go to paradise." (AGENCIES) |
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‘World is less menacing
place because HANOI, Oct 17: Observing that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and late Vietnamese President Ho-chi-Minh continue to inspire millions of people, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh today said the world is "a less menacing place" because of their dedication to peace, development and goodwill. "The world is a less menacing place because of their dedication to peace, development and goodwill. Both continue to inspire millions of people within and beyond their countries," Singh told a special seminar here to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic meeting between the two charismatic leaders. Nehru visited Hanoi on October 17, 1954, just a week after the liberation of Vietnam, to meet the legendary Ho-chi-Minh. Nehru was the first foreign head of Government to visit Hanoi after the liberation, thus endearing him immensely to the Vietnamese people. Singh noted that Nehru and Ho-chi-Minh had laid the foundation for economic development, building of state institutions and system of socio-economic justice for their peoples. "It is thanks to their foresight that today both India and Vietnam can look at their achiievements with a sense of pride. For this we owe our heartfelt gratitude to these outstanding leaders." "The vision, the forethought and the sincerity of Nehru and Ho-chi-Minh helped craft and weave a durable fabric of our relationship that retains its shine and substance even after five eventful decades," he noted. Singh said the two leaders had also laid the foundations for the respective foreign policies of the two countries. "These ideas were based on their profound understanding of the global situation, of their respective national interest. Whether it was the principles of non-alignment or panchsheel, they had the ability to rise and focus on priorities for safeguarding not only their own national interest but also the developing world as a whole," he said. "India’s look east police of the last two decades is a continuation of that thesis and Vietnam’s membership of Asean gives us yet another framework for converting Asia into a model of creative economic development which gives precedence to the needs of the needy," the minister told the appreciative audience, adding that the people mattered and not special interests. "Their (the two leaders’) actions had an ethical underpinning which uplifted the tone and content of the international dialogue." Singh explained to the audience that there was a criterion behind calling people great men. Nehru and Ho-chi-Minh were very great men and "my criteria is - did the life and actions of a leader influence and shape the lives of a large number of human beings in a noble and positive manner? This test Ho-chi-Minh and Nehru pass with flying colours," Singh said. The seminar, also attended by the Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien, was organised by the Institute for International Relations. The Vietnamese Foreign Minister and several other speakers paid moving tributes to the two leaders recalling the close bonding between them. (PTI) |
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Hungarian ruling party picks PM ally as Chairman BUDAPEST, Oct 17: Hungary’s ruling socialists picked Culture Minister Istvan Hiller as new party Chairman, a symbolic victory for Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany just two weeks after he took up the job. Hiller’s appointment—expected once most rivals withdrew before the vote—solidifies the Novice Premier’s position and lends support to his calls for more dynamic leadership and party renewal. The party yesterday picked the 40-year-old ally of the Prime Minister after current Chairman Laszlo Kovacs, set to become the European Union’s new energy commissioner, chose not to seek a new term. The socialists, who govern with the much smaller liberal free democrats, are heirs to the former communists. Kovacs was high up in the old Communist party and Hiller is the first party Chairman who was not. Although the next election in not due until May 2006, the socialists dumped previous Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy two months ago after the Government’s popularity sank to new lows. In a speech to party delegates on Saturday, Hiller stressed the Government’s role in distributing social and financial burdens more equally—echoing Gyurcsany’s themes. (AGENCIES) |
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Cameroon vote lacked credibility Common Wealth YAOUNDE, Oct 17: This week’s Presidential election in cameroon, won by incumbent Paul Biya with a landslide, lacked credibility in key areas, observers from the Common Wealth said. They said yesterday Biya’s Victory accurately reflected the wishes of those who voted in Monday’s election but many who wanted to cast ballots found their names were not on the electoral register. "On the basis of our observations we believe that in a number of key areas, the electoral process lacked the necessary credibility," said a preliminary report by the observer mission led by former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark. "In particular, we are concerned that many people who wished to vote were not on the voters’ register, so were denied the right to vote," the 16-strong mission added. Biya received more than 75 percent of the vote, according to almost complete results published by the Government on Thursday. The victory will allow 71-year-old Biya, in power since 1982, to extend his tenure to 29 years. Other observer missions have said the voting was generally satisfactory, while Biya’s opponents have denounced the election as fraudulent and called for the results to be annulled. The international organisation of French-speaking countries and a group of former US Congressmen said the election was well organised and smooth, although there were shortcomings. Political analysts said that Biya would provide stability for the country of 17 million people but he was unlikely to tackle such problems such as a lack of transparency in Government, unemployment, human rights abuses and corruption. The observers from the Common Wealth, which groups Britain and many of its former colonies, said an independent Commission should take over the organisation of elections from the Government. Cameroon was part of a German protectorate from 1884. The territory was later divided into French- and British-ruled areas. (AGENCIES) |
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Powell to Japan US troops, N Korea on agenda TOKYO, Oct 17: US Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Tokyo for two days next weekend to discuss security and trade as well as stalled talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Japanese officials said today. Powell’s visit was expected to focus on the planned realignment of US forces in Japan, imports of US beef and the six-party talks, including Japan and the United States, on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes. US President George W Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed last month to accelerate talks on ways to ease the US military presence in Japan, particularly on Okinawa, home to most US forces in Japan. Japanese and US authorities are discussing the impact of a global realignment of US forces to cope with new threats such as terrorism. Many people in Okinawa resent bearing what they see as an unfair burden for the US-Japan military alliance and they hope one result of a realignment of US forces will be fewer US military personnel on their island. Japan’s 10-month-old ban on imports of US beef, imposed 10 months ago after a case of mad cow disease was detected in Washington state, will also be high on the agenda. Powell arrives in Japan on Saturday. He will visit South Korea and China after Japan, the foreign ministry officials said. (AGENCIES) |
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Pierre Salinger, JFK Press Secretary, dead: Post WASHINGTON, Oct l7: Pierre Salinger, who was Press Secretary to Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, died of a heart attack yesterday at a hospital near his home in Le Thor, France, his wife told the Washington Post. Salinger, who was also chief foreign Correspondent for ABC news, rose from a newspaper reporter in San Francisco to a top position at the White House before he was 40, the post reported in Sunday editions. He was an appointed senator from California for five months, wrote books and became ABC’s Paris Bureau Chief. Salinger won a number of prestigious journalism prizes, including a George Polk Award for his 1981 scoop that the US Government was secretly negotiating to free the Americans held hostage by Iran. Salinger had been ill, his fourth wife, Nicole, told the post in a telephone interview from their home. They moved there four years ago from London and Washington. "He was very upset with the electoral system in the states," she told the newspaper. "he said, ‘if George Bush is elected President, I will leave the country,’ and we did." Salinger worked for both John and Robert Kennedy on their Presidential campaigns, and for George Mcgovern in 1972. He was White House Press Secretary from 1961 to 1964 and ran the first live televised Presidential news conference in 1961. He was born in San Francisco to a French-born mother and a father who was a mining engineer, the post reported. Salinger enlisted in the navy at 17 during World War Two, finished his degree at the university of San Francisco and then began work at the San Francisco Chronicle. He worked for collier’s magazine in the mid-1950s before becoming an investigator with Robert Kennedy on the senate anti-racketeering committee from 1957 to 1959, when he went to work for sen John F Kennedy, according to the newspaper. In the 1990s, he insisted the public stories on two major airline crashes were wrong. He said the 1988 crash of Pan am flight 103 over lockerbie, Scotland, was a drug enforcement agency operation that went wrong. He also said twa flight 800 was shot down near long island by a stray navy missile in 1996. (AGENCIES) |
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Snap election looms in paralysed Serbia BELGRADE, Oct 17: Serbian President Boris Tadic dared opponents yesterday to risk a snap general election, saying he was confident his opposition democratic party would defeat the ruling coalition if a vote were held this year. The prospect of an election has loomed since pro-western Tadic signalled 10 days ago he was ready for a showdown with Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica over how far to bend to western wishes on Kosovo and war crimes justice. Tadic, elected in June, enjoys western support. But he has denied any appetite for a snap election, knowing serb voters are fed up after eight trips to the polls in two years. Analysts say a new vote is inevitable given the Gulf between Tadic and Kostunica, whose four-year mandate only began in March, and even imperative in order to end Serbia’s political paralysis. Finally broaching the subject he has avoided for the past weeks, 46-year-old Tadic told the executive of his Democratic Party (DS) that it "might wind up this year with new Parliamentary elections", Tanjug news agency reported. "We would win tomorrow and have more seats than all the ruling coalition parties combined," he added. Kostunica heads a minority coalition of four centrist parties whose 109 members rely on the opposition socialists’ 22 seats for a slim majority in the 250-seat legislature. The opposition radicals have 82 seats and Tadic’s party controls 37. The split between the two camps, which were united in 2000 in successful opposition to Milosevic’s autocratic socialist regime, has steadily widened over the pace and direction of reform under western pressure. The EU and the United States can block Serbia’s European Union and NATO membership aspirations and access to foreign credits until they judge it is fit to join their clubs. Cooperating means surrendering to the hague fugitives indicted for war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo from 1992 to 1999, and acting constructively on Kosovo, the Serbian province ruled by the United Nations where ethnic Albanians demand independence. (AGENCIES) China satellite part returns to earth with a bang BEIJING, Oct 17: The retrievable chamber of China’s 20th recoverable satellite returned to earth with a bang, crashing through the roof of a house, the Beijing news said today. "The capsule returned back to earth safely on Friday, but unfortunately it hit a four-storey civilian house," the newspaper said, showing a photograph of a house in Penglai in southwestern Sichuan province that looked as if it had been all but destroyed, with wooden rafters, bricks and tiles scattered around. No one was injured. The newspaper gave no details but China regularly sends research satellites into orbit and last October became the third nation successfully to put a man in space when a single astronaut orbited the earth 14 times. In August, China launched a satellite that carried out land and mapping surveys for several days before returning to earth. (AGENCIES) German police say Jewish graves desecrated BERLIN, Oct 17: German police said a Jewish cemetery in the western town of Juelich had been desecrated by vandals who painted Swastikas and other outlawed symbols on several gravestones. A police spokesman in Juelich, near Cologne, said yesterday they had no information about any suspects and said the cemetery near the centre of town had not been the target of attacks in the past. Neo-Nazi attacks on Jewish cemeteries and foreigners have plagued Germany from time to time since reunification in 1990, although violence has ebbed slightly. (AGENCIES) US troops battle rebels in Iraq’s Falluja FALLUJA, IRAQ, Oct 17: US forces battled rebels in Iraq’s western city of Falluja today, witnesses said. They said US tanks pounded insurgent positions on the eastern edge of the city, where loud explosions could be heard and plumes of smoke were rising. Rebels fired back with mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, they said. It was not clear if anyone was hurt. Iraq’s US-backed interim Government has warned that it will launch a major offensive in Falluja if the city does not hand over jordanian militant Abu-Musab-al-Zarqawi and his followers. Falluja representatives and some Iraqi insurgents in the city say they have seen no evidence that Zarqawi is holed up there. The US military has carried out frequent air strikes on targets in Falluja in an effort to smash Zarqawi’s suspected network. Residents say civilians are the main casualties. (AGENCIES) S Korea to extend troop deployment in Iraq: Yonhap SEOUL, Oct 17: South Korean troops will stay on in Iraq for an extra year, to the end of 2005, to give them time to carry out their duty, Yonhap news agency reported today. About 2,800 South Korean soldiers have been sent to Iraq’s Kurdish region and began their mission early this month, with 800 more expected to arrive in November on a tour focused on aid and reconstruction. The Government had decided in February that the troops would come home by the end of this year, but that plan had been changed, Yonhap cited a defence official as saying. "The deployment had been delayed due to controversies regarding the troops dispatch, and it is necessary for us to extend the period in order to carry out the duty properly," the Defence Ministry official was quoted as saying. The extended tour had been approved by military authorities on Thursday, Yonhap said. The Defence Ministry declined to confirm the report. South Korea has faced anti-war demonstrations and increasing opposition to the deployment, which began in August. (AGENCIES) |
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