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Clinton's
visit
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22 (PTI) — A decision on US
President Bill Clinton's proposed visit to India,
Pakistan and possibly Bangladesh may be taken by the end
of this month, a top US official said. "We've not
made a decision on a visit. I think we'll have to
evaluate as we get towards the end of the month,"
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said at a press
briefing in Clinton's meeting with Pakistani Premier
Nawaz Sharif.Iran
quake
TEHERAN, Sept 22 (DPA) — An earthquake jolted the
southwestern Iranian city of Yasuj today, the official
Iranian news agency IRNA reported. The quake, measuring
5.4 on the Richter scale, was felt in Yasuj in
Kohkiluyeh-Boyer-Ahmad province.
China warns USA
BEIJING, Sept 22 (AFP) — China warned the USA and
Japan today against pushing a missile defence system to
counter future threats from North Korea. "The
parties concerned should exercise restraint and refrain
from doing anything that may cause tensions in the region
and spark a new arms race in the region," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.
Islamic scholars
KABUL, Sept 22 (AFP) — Islamic scholars met here
today to consider a response to border tensions with Iran
as the ruling Taliban militia and the opposition traded
accusations over deadly rocket attacks on the Capital.
Mawlawi Abdurrahman Hotak, the Taliban Deputy Minister of
Information, said the scholars would mobilise the public
against "threats from foreigners" amid reports
the militia had deployed missiles on Afghanistan’s
western borders.
SC stays arrest of
Laloo
NEW DELHI, Sept 22 (PTI) —The Supreme Court today
extended till Friday the stay on the arrest of former
Chief Ministers of Bihar Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath
Mishra and seven others accused in cases relating to the
Rs 950-crore fodder scam. A three-judge bench comprising
Mr Justice M.K. Mukherjee, Mr Justice S.P. Kurdukar and
Mr Justice K.T. Thomas extended the stay on their arrest
while posting hearing on their special leave petitions
challenging court orders, rejecting their anticipatory
bail pleas to Friday. The trial court on July 2, while
taking cognisance of the CBI chargesheet, had directed Mr
Laloo to surrender on or before July 27.
Japanese Empress
TOKYO, Sept 22 (PTI) — Japanese Empress Michiko has
cancelled her trip to India on the government’s
advice to attend an international congress on "peace
through children’s books", in view of New
Delhi’s nuclear tests, the Foreign Ministry said
here today. She was instead advised by the Japanese
Government to send a video recording of her keynote
speech on the occasion of the 26th congress of the
"International Board on Books for Young People"
(IBBY) in New Delhi yesterday.
Ex-PM quits
MOSCOW, Sept
22 (Reuters) — Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin, who lost a bruising battle to be
reconfirmed in the Poat earlier this month, today
abandoned a bid for a seat in Parliament. In a
bitterly-worded televised statement, Mr Chernomyrdin, who
was widely ridiculed by deputies during a failed
confirmation debate in the state Duma last month, said he
would not contest a Sunday byelection in Siberia’s
vast, sparsely-populated Yamalo Nanets region.
Zardari indicted
LAHORE, Sept
22 (AFP) — An accountability court here today
indicted Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of former Premier
Benazir Bhutto, of corruption, court sources said. He was
charged by a two-Judge accountability Bench of the Lahore
High Court with possessing assets
"disproportionate" to his known sources of
income inside and outside Pakistan.
Malaysian PM
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 22 (Reuters) — Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohammad detailed for the world media
today what he said were sexual acts that led him to sack
his deputy and likened their effect on Malaysia to the
White House sex scandal. In extraordinarily explicit
comments, Mr Mahathir said he had incontrovertible proof
that sacked Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim had committed
sodomy, a crime in Malaysia.
Prakash Yadav
NEW DELHI, Sept 22 (PTI) — Prakash Yadav, son of
former Union Fertiliser Minister Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav,
facing trial in the Rs 133 crore urea import scam, today
challenged the CBI charges against him saying "there
is no basis for his implication". Mr Yadav’s
counsel Ashok Arora asked Special Judge V.B. Gupta, who
is hearing the case, that "as the CBI has not been
able to find anything against the former minister, how
can they implicate his son merely on the basis of certain
phone calls allegedly made from the minister’s
official residence".
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