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| Japan PM rebuffs Russia over disputed islands TOKYO, Aug 31: Tokyo and Moscow are at Loggerheads over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s plan to view four......more Nepalese
hostages DUBAI, Aug 31: Twelve Nepalese taken hostage in Iraq by the Islamist Army of Ansar-al-Sunna group have been be....more New
Chechen leader GROZNY, RUSSIA, Aug 31: Chechnya’s new leader vowed to rebuild the shattered region and crush extremists, after......more Republican
convention NEW YORK, Aug 31: The Centre-right Republican party’s convention launched yesterday with a focus on terrorism and......more |
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Sharon sets Gaza exit timetable despite party flak JERUSALEM, Aug 31: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted today a planned withdrawal from occupied Gaza.....more Australia
police CANBERRA, Aug 31: Australian police acting as part of an international "cyber cop" network will be able to trap paedophiles......more Sharon
wants to JERUSALEM, Aug 31: Israel could begin withdrawing from occupied Gaza early next year under an accelerated timetable.....more Airport
incident KATHMANDU, Aug 31: Nepali Congress has said that the Saturday’s incident of the royal Nepalese army......more |
Japan PM rebuffs Russia over disputed islands TOKYO, Aug 31: Tokyo and Moscow are at Loggerheads over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s plan to view four disputed islands later this week, with Koizumi rebuffing Russian criticism on Tuesday and saying the islands belong to Japan. Koizumi is set to view the Russian-held islands from a Japanese coast guard patrol boat outside Russia’s territorial waters on Thursday, but will not actually set foot on them, officials have said. The row over the islands, which lie just north of Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido and were seized by the Soviet Union in the final days of world war two, has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from signing a peace treaty. "The northern territories are Japan’s inherent territory," Koizumi told reporters on Tuesday, adding that Moscow should understand Tokyo’s position. The islands are known in Japan as the northern territories and in Russia as the southern Kuriles. "Unless the issue of the northern territories is resolved, there will be no peace treaty," Koizumi added. Russia denounced Koizumi’s plans yesterday, saying the trip would complicate rather than improve prospects for making progress on a peace treaty. Japanese media said Koizumi had originally hoped to land on the islands but decided to view them from offshore to avoid upsetting Moscow, especially ahead of an expected visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin early next year. Two of Koizumi’s predecessors have viewed islands from the air, including Yoshiro Mori, who did so in 2001. Analysts said that while the trip was sure to upset Moscow it would also send a strong message that unless the islands issue is resolved there will be no peace treaty or any economic aid to the islands from Japan. "It’s a double-edged sword. It would agitate Russia, but it would be a message that Japan is serious about the territorial dispute," said Shigeki Hakamada, a professor at Tokyo’s Aoyama Gakuin university. Hakamada, a Russia expert, said there were perceptions in Moscow that Tokyo was willing to put aside the territorial row and move ahead with deepening economic ties, including cooperation on energy projects. "It’s significant as it would be a signal that Japan will not put aside the territorial dispute," Hakamada said. But analysts say tokyo has little to gain other than national pride from winning back the islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) north of Tokyo. Some believe the islands harbour rich mineral deposits, a tempting possibility for resource-poor Japan, and they would also allow Tokyo to extend its fishing grounds, a plus for one of the world’s great fish-eating nations. But such potential gains are far outweighed by the costs Japan would face if the islands were returned, including the cost of raising the standard of living there to levels elsewhere in the country and the task of dealing with Russians residents. An estimated 14,000 Russians now live on the islands, which were inhabited by 17,000 Japanese when the Soviet Union invaded in 1945, forcing them to leave. For Koizumi, the territorial row provides a chance to win points on diplomacy, which he has used effectively to boost his popularity, analysts said. His two summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang improved his support ratings, but in the absence of progress in talks with North Korea recently, Koizumi needs something new, they said. Hakamada said: "One of the objectives is to make a fresh appeal to the public, apart from North Korea." (AGENCIES) |
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Nepalese hostages beheaded in Iraq: Islamist website DUBAI, Aug 31: Twelve Nepalese taken hostage in Iraq by the Islamist Army of Ansar-al-Sunna group have been beheaded, according to a statement posted on an Islamist website today. The statement by the Al-Qaeda linked group was accompanied by pictures of what was claimed to be the bodies of the hostages, one of whom was apprently beheaded while the rest had their throats cut. The 12 were last shown in a videotape on Saturday reading a statement saying they had been misled into working in Iraq by "American lies". Nepal was not part of the US-led coalition in the war-torn country. (AFP) |
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New Chechen leader vows peace, poll criticised GROZNY, RUSSIA, Aug 31: Chechnya’s new leader vowed to rebuild the shattered region and crush extremists, after winning an election condemned by rights groups as a stage-managed show and by Washington as seriously flawed. Alu Alkhanov, the former Chechnya Interior Minister who was handpicked for the job by Russian President Vladimir Putin, won 73.48 percent of Sunday’s vote according to preliminary results, the Election Commission said yestrday. The tall, Moustachioed Alkhanov said his administration would focus on reviving Chechnya’s economy, shattered by war, and creating 150,000 new jobs in the next five years. "We are one team and together we will solve all pressing problems... Come here (Chechnya) at the end of 2005 and you will see that a lot is fresh, a lot is new," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying at his first news conference as President. "We will not forget about the fighters. They have, and still are forming criminal gangs that must be fought until they are wiped out," he told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. But Alkhanov, 47, faces a battle to garner some of the standing enjoyed by his hard-nosed predecessor Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May, and to bring stability to a region where separatists are becoming more audacious in their attacks. The poll took place against a backdrop of heavy fighting in Chechnya and two near-simultaneous plane crashes last week that killed 90 people elsewhere in Russia. Investigators said both were brought down by bombs and many russians blamed Chechen rebels. Moderate separatists denied any link to the crashes. A US State Department spokesman said the Chechen vote "did not meet international standards for a democratic election". "There were serious flaws in the electoral process there, especially the earlier disqualification of a leading candidate on a mere technicality," Richard Boucher told reporters, apparently referring to wealthy businessman Malik Saidullayev. "We call on him (Alkhanov) and others to address themselves to those fundamental tasks which remain unresolved by this election. We also call for an end to human rights abuses in Chechnya by all parties, and urge that those who committed such abuses be held accountable." The international Helsinki federation rights group said the election had been neither free nor fair. "The brutal Chechnya conflict is crying out for a political solution. Yet manipulating democracy to produce a predetermined outcome is neither fair nor a solution," said Aaron Rhodes, Executive Director of the IHF. Tanya Lokshina of the Moscow Helsinki group said the poll was a repeat of Kadyrov’s election, also criticised by western rights groups for being neither free nor fair. "This second episode of the show ‘election for President in the Chechen republic’ is nothing but a bitter Deja Vu. The lessons of the Kadyrov experiment have clearly not been learned," she said in a statement. The European Union Presidency — the Dutch Government —expressed regret that security concerns had made it impossible to organise an international observer mission. Russian election officials said the poll was free and fair. Tens of thousands were killed in the first Chechen conflict from 1994 to 1996. Putin sent troops back into the mainly Muslim territory on Russia’s southern fringes in 1999 to cement his image as a strong leader ahead of his own election. But victory over the rebels has eluded Putin and the killing of Kadyrov was a major blow. He was the third of the region’s post-Soviet leaders to be killed. Rebels have promised to dole out the same fate to alkhanov. "Like last time, the authorities will be signing the death warrant of the man they pick. Neither elections, nor Russia’s current politics in Chechnya will bring the desired results," rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev said in a recent statement. (AGENCIES) |
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Republican convention opens with strong 9/11 message NEW YORK, Aug 31: The Centre-right Republican party’s convention launched yesterday with a focus on terrorism and the wartime leadership of US President George W Bush, with post-9/11 New York at Centre stage. Amid unprecedented security for a party convention, the meeting of more than 4,850 delegates was gaveled into order, against the backdrop of the city where the September 11 suicide hijackings killed more than 2,600 people nearly three years ago. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani became world renowned for leading the city’s response to the terrorist strikes. "It was here in 2001 in lower Manhattan that President George W Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center and said to the barbaric terrorists who attacked us, ‘they will hear from us. They have heard from us’," he told the convention. "They heard from us in Afghanistan, and we removed the Taliban. They heard from us in Iraq, and we ended Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror. They heard from us in Libya, and without firing a shot Gaddafi abandoned Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are hearing from us in nations that are now more reluctant to sponsor terrorists. "So long as George Bush is President, is there any doubt they will continue to hear from us until we defeat global terrorism?" US senator John Mccain of Arizona, a Maverick republican who has had sharp differences with the President, praised the party’s ticket of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their moral courage and firm resolve against terrorism. In a television interview yesterday, Bush talked about the military actions he has ordered since 9/11, including the US-led ouster of regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he conceded the elusiveness of victory in the broader war on terrorism. "I don’t think you can win it," Bush told NBC television. "But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world." A Presidential spokesman, later trying to clarify the comment, pointed out that Bush has often described the battle against terrorism as a new kind of war against an unconventional enemy, without an opposing Government to force into surrender. John Edwards, Vice Presidential running mate of Democratic Party nominee John Kerry, quickly pounced on Bush’s statement. "After months of listening to the republican’s base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the President now says we can’t win the war on terrorism," said Edwards. "This is no time to declare defeat. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick, but we have a comprehensive long-term plan to make America safer. And that’s a difference." The convention will conclude Thursday after Bush accepts renomination by the governing party. He and Kerry, the major Centre-Left opposition candidate, are locked in a neck-and-neck battle heading into the November 2 elections, opinion polls show. Bush faces opposition over the war in Iraq and criticism over the economy, while Kerry, a US senator from Massachusetts, has had to defend his voting record on military policy and taxes. Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, attended Monday evening’s speeches, along with Bush’s father, former US President George Bush. Bush remained on the campaign trail, traveling monday in new hampshire and other closely contested states. On opening day, New York itself was at centre stage. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a liberal republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, welcomed delegates to what he called "everybody’s New York". He recalled the nationwide response when the city was stricken by the 2001 attacks. "In our greatest hour of need, you, all our fellow americans, were there for us," Bloomberg said. "This convention is our chance to say thank you, and its why we’re making our town your town." The convention programme shows a clear attempt to emphasize the Republican party’s most Centrist elements. In addition to the two liberal mayors, New York State Governor George Pataki will introduce Bush on Thursday. Bush, speaking at a campaign rally in new Hampshire, said Giuliani and Mccain would kick off the convention with positive speeches. "This is going to be a positive experience for the people of this country to see what we believe," Bush said. Tuesday’s prime-time speakers include California’s liberal Governor, actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, and US senator Zell Miller of Georgia, a conservative democrat who is the only member of Congress this year to endorse the opposing party’s Presidential candidate. The current mayor was himself introduced yesterday by Ed Koch, New York Mayor in the 1980s and a liberal democrat who endorsed Bloomberg’s 2001 campaign and on Monday endorsed Bush. Amid concerns about both foreign and domestic terrorism leading up to the November 2 election, security is extremely tight in New York. (DPA) |
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Sharon sets Gaza exit timetable despite party flak JERUSALEM, Aug 31: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted today a planned withdrawal from occupied Gaza would be swift despite opposition in his right-wing camp that has destabilised his ruling coalition. "The disengagement plan will be carried out. Period," Sharon said, signalling his resolve to win a showdown with hardliners bent on stopping any retreat from lands where palestinians have been in revolt since 2000. Sharon is counting on majority support in opinion polls to see through his unilateral plan. It supersedes a US-backed "road map" to a Palestinian state that has been all but torn to pieces by persistent violence on both sides. The Prime Minister told lawmakers of his Likud Party a draft bill authorising the evacuation of settlers and soldiers from Gaza would be put to his ministers by Sept. 26 and he would seek cabinet approval for it by Oct. 24. That would pave the way for the bill’s first reading on Nov. 3 in Parliament, which is deeply split over Sharon’s move to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians by uprooting all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank. A Likud spokesman said Sharon told the lawmakers the process would be quick, even if it was phased, and pro-settler nationalists could not count on nipping it in the bud. Political sources close to Sharon said he intended to bring forward a cabinet vote authorising a start to actual evacuations to January from late February or March. "Sharon’s intention is to finish all the legislative and security preparations by the end of this year, and put withdrawal to a cabinet vote early next year," one confidant said. "The act of evacuating could begin shortly thereafter." removing settlers who did not leave voluntarily — many are considered likely to resist — had originally been expected to begin in Sept. 2005 and be over by the end of the year. "There is no intention of stretching this process out into periods of months if there is no need to do so (from a security standpoint)," Sharon told the sceptical legislators. "No one should get the feeling that we could have a first stage and then suddenly stop the whole process to indulge in long periods of long deliberations." The Likud spokesman said Sharon did not set a date for a cabinet vote setting in motion the withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from 21 Gaza enclaves. Sharon said Israel’s army had been ordered to present within 30 days a security plan for "disengagement", which Washington has endorsed hoping it might kickstart the "road map". But in a sign of his difficulties, hawks in Sharon’s security cabinet on Monday spurned his call to evacuate the Gaza enclaves all at once, not in four stages as his cabinet had agreed in June and only after arm-twisting by the Prime Minister. Sharon may still have to revamp his Government to guarantee a majority both in his cabinet and in Parliament. His ruling coalition has wobbled since June when far-right partners who opposed "disengagement" resigned or were sacked, leaving him one vote short of a majority in Parliament. Last month, Likud’s mutinous executive shot down Sharon’s attempt to form a bloc with the dovish opposition Labour party to assure a stable majority in votes on moves to a pullout. Sharon’s plan would preserve Israeli control over an arc of larger settlements in the West Bank that he considers a bulwark of the Jewish state. But rightists oppose any pullback, saying it would "reward Palestinian terrorism". Palestinians welcome any Israeli withdrawal but say the West Bank element of Sharon’s plan is intended to deny them land they want for a viable sovereign state — an outcome Israel’s right including the Prime Minister have historically opposed. (AGENCIES) |
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Australia police to trap cyberspace paedophiles CANBERRA, Aug 31: Australian police acting as part of an international "cyber cop" network will be able to trap paedophiles who use the internet to "groom" or lure children for sex, under new laws passed by Parliament today. Justice Minister Chris Ellison said it was important that children were better protected from online sexual deviants and that the internet did not become a pipeline of depravity. "The grooming offences will enable the Australian federal police to interact with and arrest internet predators before they abuse children and before they use internet chatrooms to expand their evil web," Ellison said in a statement. Australian police are forming a global taskforce with crime squads from Britain, the United States and Canada to patrol internet chatrooms in a crackdown on paedophile rings as the problem grows. Under the new Australian laws, adults caught using the internet to procure children younger than 16 for sex face up to 15 years in jail, while people using the internet to access or transmit child pornography face up to 10 years prison. "It is vital that as our children become more technically adept, they are protected from those who use the internet and mobile phones for predatory and abusive ends," Ellison said. Around 80 percent of child pornography seized by police in Australia is distributed over the internet. Last year, microsoft’s Msn web portal shut down chatrooms in nearly every country where it operated, saying they had become a haven for paedophiles and spam-peddlers. (AGENCIES) |
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Sharon wants to speed up Gaza pullout: Sources JERUSALEM, Aug 31: Israel could begin withdrawing from occupied Gaza early next year under an accelerated timetable that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to present to lawmakers of his Likud party today, political sources said. Sharon wants to move up a cabinet vote authorising a start to evacuations of 8,000 Jewish settlers, to January from late February or March, and a "yes" vote would mean the actual pullout could begin shortly afterward, they said. Originally, the process was expected to begin in the second half of 2005 and be completed by the end of next year. "Sharon’s intention is to finish all the legislative and security preparations by the end of this year, and put withdrawal to a cabinet vote early next year," a political source close to the Premier said. "The act of evacuating could begin shortly thereafter." The sources acknowledged Sharon must still overcome rightist resistance in his coalition to his plan for "disengaging" from conflict with Palestinians in territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, but he was determined to see it through. He has sought to bring dovish, pro-withdrawal voices into his coalition to guarantee a majority in favour of his US-backed plan. He lost his ruling majority in June when far right partners who opposed "disengagement" quit or were sacked. (AGENCIES) |
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Airport incident was planned: Nepali Congress KATHMANDU, Aug 31: Nepali Congress has said that the Saturday’s incident of the royal Nepalese army barring its President and former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala from entering the airport was a preplanned and serious move to demean the importance of the senior political figure and an example of militarisation in the country. The party meeting held in Kathmandu yesterday also decided to continue its Sunday’s demonstration throughout the country and reaffirmed commitment to uphold democracy and stop further militarisation, the Himalayan Times reported today. Sunday’s strike was called by Nepali Congress affiliated youth wings Tarun Dal and Nepal students union paralysed Kathmandu valley. Demonstrations of the Nepali Congress continued in Kathmandu and other parts of the country in which the party leaders strongly denounced the Army and the Government. The Government has formed a five member committee to probe into the incident. Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist), one of the partners of the Government, other political parties and former Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa have also condemned the incident. (UNI) 378 persons disappeared last year in Nepal KATHMANDU, Aug 31: Amnesty International (AI) has said that it received reports of a total of 378 disappearance cases in Nepal in the last year, which accounts for more cases than in the previous five years put together. Expressing concern over the alarming rise in disappearance cases, the global human right watchdog described what it called a growing culture of impunity in which security forces regularly obstructed investigations into disappearances by Nepal’s courts and National Human Rights Commission. "The dramatic escalation in ‘disappearances’ is not only causing massive suffering to the victims and their families but is also undermining the rule of law as well as the trust of ordinary nepalis in their security forces and Government," London-based human right watchdog said in a statement on the occasion of international day of the disappeared yesterday. AI said that since 1998, it had received reports of 622 cases of disappearances, hundreds of cases of extra-judicial killings, thousands of arbitrary arrests and widespread torture by security forces. Similarly, AI mentioned that it had also received numerous reports on abductions, torture and killings by the Maoists. AI in the statement once again called on both the Government and Maoists sides to end human rights abuses and abide by international humanitarian law as per their commitments. (UNI) Rice grain-sized atomic clock demonstrated in US WASHINGTON, Aug 31: Scientists at the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are demonstrating the design of a new miniscule atomic clock that could be used for precise timekeeping in portable, battery-powered devices for secure wireless communications and more precise navigation. The clock, described in the August 30 issue of applied physics letters, may be 100 times smaller than any other atomic clock. Its inner workings are about the size of a grain of rice and consume less than 75 thousandths of a watt, allowing the clock to run on batteries. NIST and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supported the work. The new clock is based on the same general idea as that of other atomic clocks such as the NIST-F1 fountain clock — measuring time by the natural vibrations of cesium atoms, at 9.2 billion "ticks" per second — but uses a different design. In wireless communication devices, these clocks could improve network synchronisation and channel selection to enhance security and anti-jamming capabilities. In global positioning system receivers, small clocks could improve the precision of satellite-based navigation systems such as those used in commercial and military vehicles and emergency response networks. As atomic clocks get smaller and cheaper and use less power, they could replace quartz crystal oscillators in many common products such as computers, offering better time keeping by several orders of magnitude. (UNI) China starts taking back illegal
Chinese TAIPEI, Aug 31: China resumed operations today to take back 178 illegal Chinese immigrants repatriated by Taiwan after stopping the act for more than five months due to strained cross-strait relations. Taiwanese officials said of the 178, 95 were female, including a baby girl born in Taiwan, while the rest were male. "We appreciate what the mainland red cross did to help arrange for picking up the illegal immigrants," said Hau Loong-Pin, secretary-general of Taiwan’s Red Cross society. Representatives from the Red Cross on both sides have acted go-betweens since the two sides signed a repatriation agreement in 1991. China, a rival of Taiwan since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949, has stopped taking back those people since early march, resulting in some 2,800 illegal immigrants being stranded at three taiwan detention centres. The mainland side cited ship maintenance and bad weather as the reasons for not being able to take back the illegal immigrants. But last week it expressed the desire take them back out of humanitarian concerns so they could rejoin their families to celebrate the mid-autumn festival next month. Each year, at least 3,000 Chinese sneak into Taiwan to work illegally. Most of the women work as prostitutes on the island. (DPA) Nuclear test ban monitor to be built on Christmas island WELLINGTON, Aug 31: The New Zealand national radiation laboratory is to build a nuclear test ban monitoring station on remote Christmas island in the Pacific Ocean, the Dominion Post newspaper reported today. The laboratory, based in the south island city of Christchurch, will build the station under contract to the comprehensive test ban treaty organisation. National radiation laboratory scientist Martin Gledhill says getting the site up and running will not be as easy as other stations the organisation has worked on. He says everything will need to be pre-assembled in containers and shipped through other Pacific islands, probably Fiji and Kiribati. The laboratory has already built one monitoring station in Mauritania and is working on another in Fiji. (DPA) |
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