USA to cut off safe havens to Laden
WASHINGTON, Nov 3 — The USA is trying to cut off avenues of escape for Osama bin Laden into Chechnya or Iraq, but it remains unclear whether he will leave Afghanistan before a UN deadline, a State Department official has said.

Referendum move draws PML flak
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 — The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and its allies in the suspended National Assembly have criticised the proposal of the Chief Executive, Gen Musharraf to hold a referendum in the country to bring about amendments in the constitution.

Colombian rebels free pressmen
BOGOTA, Nov 3 — A Marxist guerrilla group yesterday released seven journalists unharmed four days after seizing them in a war-torn zone of northern Colombia, colleagues said.

Tigers ‘capture’ 2 towns, 138 killed
LTTE ‘captures’ another town

COLOMBO, Nov 3 (PTI) — Tamil Tigers tonight claimed they had re-captured a second key strategic town and inflicted heavy casualties on the Sri Lankan army, even as defence officials here confirmed that 73 rebels and 65 soldiers had been killed in the latest fighting.

Heavy fighting was reported also at the Kangarayankulam army base where, army officials said, six soldiers were killed and over 280 injured when the LTTE mortar and artillery fire struck a number of field hospitals in the area.

A press note issued from the London office of the LTTE claimed its rebels today took control of a military complex at Nedunkerni, 20 km southwest of Oddusuddan, a small town which was captured by the rebels yesterday.

The LTTE said 40 of its cadre had been killed and over 1,000 government troops dead or wounded in the fighting.

The clandestine LTTE Radio monitored in the north said, without mentioning the number of casualties, that people in the areas under its control were mourning the dead, indicating that the guerrillas too suffered heavy casualties.

Earlier, the Defence Ministry had admitted the death of 59 soldiers, and on the basis of LTTE wireless intercepts said 63 rebels had also been killed. Ten more rebels were killed in other encounters, the army said.

The army, in a press note, said heavy fighting was on also near Oddusuddan after army reinforcements reached the scene of the battle.

No freezing of settlements: Barak
Accord on comments broken

JERUSALEM, Nov 3 (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ruled out any freeze of Jewish settlements despite Palestinian demands at the Oslo summit with us president Bill Clinton, according to media reports here today.

Mr Barak rejected an explicit request by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a halt in construction of settlements on occupied land during their negotiations aimed at reaching a final peace deal in September 2000, according to a senior Israeli official quoted by the press.

“Barak explained that as long as there is no permanent agreement that determines the future of the settlements, the government will continue to act according to Israeli law,” the respected Hebrew newspaper Haaretz said.

The statement came despite Mr Clinton’s announcement in Oslo that both sides agreed to avoid public comments or actions which would cause “enormous difficulty” for the other side as they work towards a peace agreement to be drawn up by February.

The Palestinians consider Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as the key obstacle to a peace agreement, and the USA has also warned of its effect on the negotiations.

There are currently around 140 settlements on Israeli occupied land in the 1967 war, excluding around 40 unauthorised outposts set up in the West Bank over the past year.

OSLO: The West Asia summit between the leaders of Israel, Palestine and the USA ended here yesterday without any of the hoped-for announcements of a breakthrough in the regional peace process.

Presidents Bill Clinton (USA) and Yasser Arafat (Palestinian National Authority) as well as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed that the summit had been fruitful after a long standstill in the peace process and that regular Israeli-Palestinian top-level meetings will take place.

They also agreed to refrain from issuing public statements that might slow down or halt the peace process.

“Nobody who has seen photographs of President Arafat and (late) Prime Minister (Yitzhak) Rabin on the steps of the White House can doubt that West Asia has changed during your presidency,’’ Norwegian King Harald said on Monday at a luncheon.

King Harald has reason to argue that the peace process has taken quite a few steps forward in the 1990s, but the process is far from over yet. Mr Clinton is running out of time if he wants to become the first US President to accomplish a breakthrough in the peace process.

On the other hand Mr Arafat, the ageing Palestinian leader, is also in a hurry to establish a Palestinian state, something he has been fighting for in the past 50 years.

Accused by many of leading a ‘bantustan’ (puppet state in the model of apartheid-era South Africa), Mr Arafat reiterated in Oslo that Palestinians expect Israel to withdraw from lands occupied in 1967 and to dismantle Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories, as mandated by the United Nations Security Council.

In addition to Mr Arafat, Mr Barak and Mr Clinton the participants at the Oslo summit included Finland’s President Martti Ahtisaari, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and Jordanian and Moroccan ministers of Foreign Affairs, Abdel Elah Khatib and Mohammed Benaissa.

The official reason for the gathering was a ceremony to honour the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by a nationalist Jew on November 4, 1995.

Rabin’s widow, Leah Rabin, took the initiative to hold the commemoration ceremony.

Pak aiding ultras in Kashmir: USA

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (PTI) — The Clinton Administration’s top counter-terrorism official, Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan, has rejected Pakistan’s claim that it is providing “only moral and diplomatic support” to terrorists operating in Kashmir and said that the USA had continuing reports of “Pakistani material support for some of these militants.”

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee here yesterday, the coordinator for counter-terrorism in the State Department, who recently visited New Delhi for talks with the Indian leadership on the issue, accused Pakistan of becoming a base for terrorist attacks on India.

This is the first time that any top US official has bluntly accused Pakistan of aiding terrorists in Kashmir.

After the hearing in the subcommittee, headed by Senator Sam Brownback, Mr Sheehan told reporters that Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, had made one or two good statements but the USA would go by the results, not by words.

He told the subcommittee “within Pakistan, there are numerous Kashmiri separatist groups and sectarian groups involved in terrorism which use Pakistan as a base. Pakistan has frequently acknowledged what it calls ‘moral and diplomatic support’ for militants in Kashmir who employ violence and terrorism against India.

“One such group, the Harakat Ul-Mujahidin (HUM), was involved in the still-unresolved July, 1995, kidnapping of four Westerners, including one American, in Kashmir. In February, 1998, the HUM’s leader co-signed Osama bin Laden’s anti-American fatwa. The HUM has openly promised to kill Americans ‘everywhere in the world.’

“In addition, the HUM cooperates with Bin Laden and receives his assistance in maintaining its training facilities in Afghanistan. The HUM is also tied to the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, a militant sectarian group, believed responsible for the attempted assassination of the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in January, 1999. Other groups, such as the Lashkar-i-Toiba, the Harkat Ul-Jihad-i-Islami, and the Hizbul Mujahideen, operate freely in Pakistan and support terrorist attacks in Kashmir.”

USA to cut off safe havens to Laden

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) — The USA is trying to cut off avenues of escape for Osama bin Laden into Chechnya or Iraq, but it remains unclear whether he will leave Afghanistan before a UN deadline, a State Department official has said.

The UN Security Council has told Afghanistan’s ruling taliban movement to expel Bin Laden to a country willing to see that he faces trial. UN sanctions would go into effect if the Taliban fail to comply by November 14.

“We’ve heard a lot of things but I haven’t seen anything definitive at this point,’’ said Mr Michael Sheehan, Counterterrorism Coordinator at the State Department yesterday.

“Right now there are increasing reports of him (Bin Laden) potentially leaving, reports of him writing letters to Taliban leadership offering to leave,’’ Mr Sheehan told a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing.

“There are a couple of options out there for him. Iraq has been mentioned, I’ve heard Chechnya and other areas. They all (pose) ... Difficulties for him,’’ Mr Sheehan said.

The USA is working with various governments to try and shut down any opportunities for Bin Laden to seek safe haven outside Afghanistan, he said.

“We’re working hard ... To try to figure out where he may be headed for, based on our intelligence reports, and trying to shut off those avenues,’’ Mr Sheehan said.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmain told Afghan Islamic Press that expelling Bin Laden would offend Afghans and undermine the Taliban.

Bin Laden allegedly finances his activities through the narcotics trade, which is “growing significantly’’ in Afghanistan, Mr Sheehan said. And it has also become “fairly evident’’ that money from the Gulf states is filtering back to Bin Laden, he said.

Meanwhile in a survey conducted by a daily in North-West Frontier Province, a majority of Afghans are opposed to the extradition of Osama bin Laden to the USA as they feel it will damage Afghanistan’s age-old honour and dignity.

The survey conducted by a Pushto daily Wahdat showed that most Afghan refugees thought that the Taliban should not force him out of the country as it would be against the tenets of Islam.

Mr Habib Parashan, Haji Tila Muhammad, Mulla Zaiwar Gul, Mulla Nazar Akhund and Mr Qari Ahsan said Bin Laden was a hero of Islam and Muslims should not hand him over to non-Muslims.

They said Bin Laden was a proud symbol for Afghans and “we have to protect him as a guest”. However, they said if Bin Laden wanted to go to any other country to continue his mission he should take a decision on his own.

Prof Ghulam Sakhi said Bin Laden was not a terrorist but a mujaheed who had fought along with Afghans against the former Soviet Union.

Referendum move draws PML flak

ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 (UNI) — The Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and its allies in the suspended National Assembly have criticised the proposal of the Chief Executive, Gen Musharraf to hold a referendum in the country to bring about amendments in the constitution.

Talking to reporters in Islamabad, leaders of the PML’s Central Working Committee demanded that instead of a military trial the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must have an open trial in the Supreme Court, the highest court of the country. Demanding that Mr Sharif must be allowed to meet his lawyers, they said no one could doubt his integrity.

Commenting on the Chief Executives proposal to hold a referendum in the country to bring about constitutional amendments. The PML leaders said. “There is already a provision in the constitution to hold referendum on certain issues but there was no provision to hold referendum on bringing constitutional amendments.

Speaking about the proposed amendments in the election laws, the PML leaders said. “Ever since the rule of Field Marshal Ayub Khan a large number of amendments have been made in the election laws.’’

Former Law Minister Khalid Anwar said the party planned to go to court to defend Mr Sharif and a high-level legal committee had been set up for the purpose. This committee will meet in Islamabad on November five, they said.

Regretting that the military government was not allowing any body to see the arrested people, the PML leaders said that all those arrested and detained by the government must be allowed to see their lawyers and relatives.

The statement of General Parvez Musharraf that he was considering holding a referendum on how to restore democracy in the country has evoked mixed reaction from the leaders of the non-PML parties in Pakistan.

The chief of Jamaat Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmad, while commenting on General Musharraf’s statement, said the aim of the proposed referendum was unclear. He, however, said that such a referendum should not be like one which the Gen Zia-ul-Haq had held after he which he had claimed he was elected as president for another term of five years.

Colombian rebels free pressmen

BOGOTA, Nov 3 (Reuters) — A Marxist guerrilla group yesterday released seven journalists unharmed four days after seizing them in a war-torn zone of northern Colombia, colleagues said.

The seven, a newspaperman and six local television reporters and cameramen were freed a short distance from the main oil refining town of Barrancabermeja.

They were taken away on Friday by revolutionary armed forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels who initially said they intended to take the journalists to document abuses committed by a rival right-wing paramilitary gang.

Another journalist, photographer Henry Romero who works regularly for Reuters, was still being held yesterday exactly a week after his kidnap by the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) in mountains near the south-west city of Cali.

“They were freed 40 minutes from Barrancabermeja. They could not go to the zone FARC wanted to take them to because of the presence of paramilitary groups,’’ said Mr Ricardo Galan, Deputy Director of the CM television news show.

‘Blasphemous’ play
TEHERAN: Iran’s press court has sentenced three persons to jail for up to three years for their role in the production of a satirical play that insulted a Muslim holy figure, state radio has said. The radio said on Tuesday a fourth person was acquitted. It did not identify any of the defendants. Under Iranian law, insulting one of the holy Imams can be punishable by death but lesser slights usually carry modest prison sentences. — Reuters

Rubin may quit
WASHINGTON: US State Department spokesman James Rubin may resign early next year to be closer to his expectant wife, he New York Times said. Although Rubin, 39, has not given Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a precise date for his departure, he did suggest it could come next spring, Administration officials and friends of Rubin told the daily on Wednesday. His wife, CNN’s London correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, is expecting a baby in May. — AFP

Now Gay Scouts
TORONTO: The Canadian Scouting Association has established a new troop in Toronto for gay youth between the ages of 18 and 26. It is believed to be the first of its kind in North America. — Reuters