W O R L D	Tuesday, July 7, 1998
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Envoys monitor situation Diplomats accredited to Belgrade began a monitoring mission in the restive Serbian province of Kosovo today as part of the international efforts to end fighting in the region... Rainsy to contest July 26 poll Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy has said despite misgivings about violence and unfair electoral conditions, he would contest the July 26 election... Scientists clone mouse, calves A team of US scientists has cloned a mouse from the cells of an adult animal, the first time since the creation of the cloned sheep, Dolly, two years ago that such an experiment was conducted successfully...

Rift over West Bank pullout: Netanyahu Israel and the Palestinians remain far apart on a military withdrawal from more of the West Bank, military radio reported today.In a telephone conversation... Sharif’s envoy to visit Dhaka A special envoy of the Pakistan Prime Minister Mr Nawaz Sharif is due to arrive here on Wednesday to deliver a message to his Bangladeshi counterpart... Australian doubt on Pak N-strike claim Australian officials cast doubt today on the claims that Pakistan had planned a pre-emptive nuclear strike against India before both countries resumed nuclear testing in May...

Envoys monitor situation PRISTINA (Yugoslavia), July 6 — Diplomats accredited to Belgrade began a monitoring mission in the restive Serbian province of Kosovo today as part of the international efforts to end fighting in the region. Ambassadors and senior diplomats from the six-nation contact group and countries representing the eu and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce) began a tour throughout the central part of the province. Today’s mission, headed by us Charge d’affaires in Belgrade Richard Miles and Russian ambassador Vuri Kotov, will travel to the eastern part of the central Drenica region, scene of recent clashes between Serbian security forces and ethinic Albanian separatist. The principle of continued diplomatic presence in Kosovo was agreed at a June 16 meeting between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow. Details of this mission were spelt out by the us and Russian envoys Richard Holbrooke and Nikolai Afanasevsky, during their meetings this weekend with Mr Milosevic and Kosovo Albanian leaders headed by Mr Ibrahim Rugova.The diplomatic convoy, travelling without police escort, was accompanied by dozens of reporters.BELGRADE: US envoy Richard Holbrooke left Belgrade today after three days of talks aimed at resolving conflict in the restive Kosovo province, saying that international efforts for the solution of the crisis “will continue.”He said he was returning to Washington to report to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and President Bill Clinton.He remarked that he could not report progress, but would “not give up” the search for a negotiated settlement in the Serbian province.Mr Holbrooke arrived in the region hoping to promote a ceasefire in Kosovo and prompt talks between the Serbian authorities and ethnic Albanians on the future of the province, whose mainly Albanian population is seeking independence.Accompanied by US Ambassador for Macedonia Christopher Hill, Mr Holbrooke held several rounds of talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo Albanian leaders headed by Mr Ibrahim Rugova.“I am not going to say that this mission is making progress, but it is certainly not a failure. The mission continues...and we will not give up,” Mr Holbrooke said.He said both Mr Milosevic and Mr Rugova supported “shuttle diplomacy of this form of indirect negotiations.”.

Rainsy to contestJuly 26 poll PHNOM PENH, July 6 (ANI) — Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy has said despite misgivings about violence and unfair electoral conditions, he would contest the July 26 election. Rainsy along with his ally Son Soubert, leader of the Son Sann party, said the Cambodian people were speaking out and supporting them with bravery and loyalty and added the support gives them hope that the people may yet win a peaceful future. They also said the pre-election violence and intimidation were being engineered by supporters of Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).Opposition parties yesterday denounced Prime Minister Hun Sen’s takeover a year ago and said justice for those killed in two days of battles is yet to be done.The United Nations is coordinating about 450 international observers for the election.Earlier, UN human rights investigators said almost 100 persons, most of them opposition supporters, had been killed since Hun Sen toppled the Ranariddh government in July last year.However, last week Hun Sen dismissed reports of violence, saying opposition parties attributed political motives to ordinary crimes. He also had made repeated calls for a fair and peaceful vote.Cambodia’s aid donors and neighbours were hoping the election will bring an end to the country’s latest chapter of violence.

Rift over West Bank pullout: Netanyahu Jerusalem, July 6 — Israel and the Palestinians remain far apart on a military withdrawal from more of the West Bank, military radio reported today.In a telephone conversation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright that a wide gap remains between the two sides, the radio said.The Israeli Prime Minister reportedly said the differences mainly concern a failure by the Palestinians to respect commitments made in autonomy accords.He said Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian authority had notably refused to call a meeting of the more than 600-member Palestine National Council to ratify the removal of clauses in the plo charter calling for the destruction of Israel.Netanyahu is also seeking the extradition of some 30 Palestinians wanted for anti-Israeli attacks and a cut in the size of the Palestinian police force to the numbers specified in the autonomy agreements, it said.Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s diplomatic adviser, said “significant progress” had been made in talks between Israel and the U.S.A. on the scope of a further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.“We’ve received nothing concrete from the Palestinian side, however,” Arad added.

Sharif’s envoy to visit Dhaka Dhaka, July 6 — A special envoy of the Pakistan Prime Minister Mr Nawaz Sharif is due to arrive here on Wednesday to deliver a message to his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina.The contents of the message to be delivered by Muhammad Akram Zaki, chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, could not be known immediately.However, a source indicated that Mr Zaki was arriving in the backdrop of former Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral’s visit to Dhaka last week which was preceded by a Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Bangladesh on bilateral and regional issues.“The special envoy, apart from delivering Mr Sharif’s message, is likely to brief Bangladeshi leaders on Islamabad’s perception of security in South-Asia following nuclear tests by India and Pakistan’s response to correct the balance of power in the area,” a Pakistan High Commission press note said here. At the Foreign Secretary-level talks on June 29, New Delhi reiterated its position against any thirdparty mediation on Indo-Pakistan matters even as Dhaka appealed to the two countries to resolve their disputes through dialogue and defuse the tension.

Australian doubt on Pak N-strike claim CANBERRA, July 6 — Australian officials cast doubt today on the claims that Pakistan had planned a pre-emptive nuclear strike against India before both countries resumed nuclear testing in May.The allegation was made last week by a man claiming to work for Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission in support of his demand for asylum in the USA.But Australian officials supported Pakistan’s claim that the man’s allegations did not make sense.If there was such a plan, it hasn’t been a plan for a very long time,” a Department of Foreign Affairs official told reproters, speaking under the customary department rule of anonymity.Because it’s very clear Pakistan’s testing was in response to India’s.Australia imposed tough sanctions on both countries in response to the testing, and senior Australian officials will head to London tomorrow for a conference designed to keep up the pressure on India and Pakistan.“One of the principal motivations, it’s generally agreed, for these tests was to jump start them into the big league, the major league of global powers,” an official said.“It’s a sort of anachronistic 1950s way of doing it and we’re keep for them to realise that it hasn’t worked”.

Scientists clone mouse, calves LONDON, July 6 — A team of US scientists has cloned a mouse from the cells of an adult animal, the first time since the creation of the cloned sheep, Dolly, two years ago that such an experiment was conducted successfully, a British newspaper reported yesterday.Biologist Ryuzo Yanagimachi of the University of Hawaii and his team were expected to make a formal announcement within weeks, The Sunday Times said.Mr Yanagimachi gave the first hint of the existence of his cloned mouse when — referring to Dolly — he said after a recent lecture that the sheep was not alone, the newspaper said.The scientists were believed to have used a technique slightly different from the method used by Dolly’s Scottish creators to produce a genetically identical copy of an animal, the newspaper said.But like their Scottish counterparts at the Roslin Institute, Mr Yanagimachi was believed to have extracted genetic material from an adult and then transplanted it into an egg, the newspaper said.Mr Yanagimachi so far has declined to give details on the experiment. A detailed report is expected to be published in scientific journal Nature later this month.The leader of the Roslin team, Ian Wilmut, said the Hawaiian scientists had no contact with his institute in their work.Some scientists have voiced hopes that cloning could become a useful technique in growing replacement organs and in finding cures for genetic diseases.But several governments, including Britain’s, have banned such research because of fears that cloned humans could also be created.TOKYO (AP): Two calves born on Sunday are the first clones from cells from an adult cow, Japanese scientists said.The so far unnamed twins were born exactly two years after Dolly made history by becoming the first clone of an adult animal.The two calves are the second adult-animal clones, and were produced by a similar technique, said Toyokazu Morita, an official of the Ishikawa Prefectural Livestock Research Centre.“We have succeeded in producing calves from adult-animal clones, meaning that we can produce calves exactly similar to adult cows,’” said Mr Morita.He said the new technique would be used to breed better cattle strains with higher-quality beef or greater milk capacity.Jointly with a Kinki University Animal Husbandry Research Group, the centre took somatic cells from an adult cow and placed them in unfertilised eggs whose own nuclei had been removed.Then two artificially cultivated embryos each were placed into the wombs of five cows last November, Mr Morita said.All five cows became pregnant and one of them gave birth to the twins yesterday, although all were expected on August 13, Mr Morita said.The centre is 295 km northwest of Tokyo.

Global monitor 2 new planets discovered MARSEILLE: Astronomers at a French observatory here announced on Monday that they had found two new planets millions of miles away from our solar system. They both circle stars, the observatory’s international team of astronomers in southern France said. One of the planets rotates around the star 14 Herculis, in the Hercules constellation, and is 2.5 times further away from it than the earth is from the sun. The other planet circles Gliese 876 in the Aquarius constellatin. It is relatively close to its star, a “red dwarf” only one-fifths the size of the sun, and has a year equivalent to 60 earth-days. — AFP S. Korean missions SEOUL: Cash-strapped South Korea is to close 20 overseas embassies and consulates and cut 50 diplomatic posts as part of a drive aimed at whitling down expenses, officials said on Monday. The Foreign Ministry said it would shut the low-priority missions by the end of this year to save an unspecified amount of money. “We will shut down these missions gradually until the end of the year or thereabouts,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Other officials said the streamlining was “in line with government efforts to beat the economic crisis.” — AFP Paintings recovered ROME: Three major paintings by the impressionist masters Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne stolen from Rome’s Modern Art Museum in May have been recovered. Two of the paintings were recovered in Rome, the third in Turin, during arrests of eight persons in the two cities, the Italy’s police art protection squad said on Monday. — AFP Royal train LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II, as part of a drive to cut down on the royals’ $ 28.5 million annual travel costs, is to hire out the royal train, but only to “appropriate” people, Buckingham Palace has said. “There will be the opportunity for appropriate organisations to use the royal train,” said a palace spokeswoman. “Each case will be treated on its own merits”, the spokesman added. — AP Appeal on CTBT WASHINGTON: Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed Elbardei has called for an “invigorated crusade” to halt the spread of nuclear weapons in the wake of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. “It must start with getting India and Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), subscribe to a no-first use pact and vow not to arm missiles with nuclear warheads,” he told the Washington Post. — PTI General’s son flees NEW YORK: An Iranian who claims to be the son of a former revolutionary guard commander, Maj-General Mohsen Rezai has fled to the USA and has been granted refugee status, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday. Mr Ahmad Rezai, 21, left Iran to protest the government’s policies including its support of the extremists’ groups and use of terrorist tactics abroad, the newspaper quoted him as saying. — PTI New airport HONG KONG: A Cathay Pacific airliner touched down at Hong Kong’s new airport at Check Lap Kok on Monday, hours after the lights went out at the old, overcrowded Kai Tak runway. Flight CX 889 from New York arrived at the sprawling $ 20 billion facility on reclaimed land off Lantau Island at 6.20 a.m. local time (10.20 pm GMT on Sunday). — Reuters Veto power CASTRIES (St. Lucia): South African President Nelson Mandela urged developing countries to demand that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council give up their veto power. Speaking on Saturday night before a summit of the Caribbean community trade bloc on the island of St. Lucia, Mr Mandela called for the “democratisation” of the United Nations and said it is unfair that China, France, Russia, the USA and Britain can override decisions by the 10 rotating members of the Council. — AP Pope’s lecture VATICAN CITY: A tired-looking Pope John Paul II has sternly reminded Catholics to obey the Third Commandment and go to church on the Lord’s day. “For many, Sundays have come to be felt and lived only as a weekend”, John Paul said on Sunday during his weekly address from his window over St Peter’s Square. “Sunday is something much different. It is the weekly day in which the church celebrates the resurrection of Christ,” he said. — AP

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