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Friday,
October 19, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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PM, Bush to discuss terrorism
Washington, October 18 Mr Bush has invited Mr Vajpayee to pay an “official working visit” to Washington on November 9 “to reaffirm the US interest in building a broad-based partnership with India and to promote closer cooperation on a range of security and economic issues that advance common objectives,” a White House statement said. “The visit is an important opportunity,” it said. Mr Vajpayee’s visit was announced yesterday in New Delhi by visiting Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said he had extended Mr Bush’s invitation to Mr Vajpayee when he called on the Prime Minister, and it had been accepted. Indian officials interpreted the invitation as reflecting Washington’s continued keenness to maintain relationship with India at the highest level and to assure New Delhi that its recent overtures to Pakistan would not be at the cost of India. Mr Vajpayee will visit Washington on his way from Moscow, where he will have talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. From Washington he will visit New York, where he will address the UN General Assembly on November 10. The Indian Prime Minister was to visit the UN in September, but it was put off after the terrorist attacks in New York.
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Anthrax: $ 1 m reward for culprits Washington, October 18 FBI Director Robert Mueller said his agency and the US Postal Service were combining to offer the reward, part of a huge probe into the scare, in which news anchors, politicians and journalists have been mailed anthrax through the post. Mr Mueller announced “a reward of up to $ 1 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for terrorist acts of mailing anthrax”. Meanwhile, a report from New York said fears of bio-terrorism threat in the USA grew as spores of anthrax were reported in the Manhattan office of the New York Governor George Pataki as House of Representatives in Washington was shut down for five days for the first time after exposure of at least 31 persons to the infection found in a letter sent to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. Mr Pataki said he was taking antibiotics as a precautionary measure as the staff was being tested for the exposure. Initial tests showed anthrax sent to the NBC headquarters in New York and a tabloid company in Florida was the same strain and possibly laboratory grown. That gave rise to fears that the same group might be trying to create panic in the country. For the first time, experts were raising the possibility of some foreign government being involved in the attacks as they say the process involved in culturing and sending them requires a degree of sophistication which might be available with Osama bin Laden. Across the country emergency crews answered dozens of hoax calls but did not find anthrax and the authorities warned pranksters that they could face jail term and a hefty fine. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the preliminary analysis shows that “the strain in New York appears to match the strain in Florida.” One person had died of the infection and another is seriously ill in Florida after contracting disease at the office of the tabloid after a letter containing its spores was opened. Officials said it is naturally occurring strain which responds to all antibiotics that normally treat anthrax. But reports said it would have been grown in a laboratory as it is almost impossible to acquire it from natural sources.
AFP, PTI |
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