The Tribune...World

	W O R L D	Monday, July 13, 1998
weather n spotlight today's calendar	.......

Fresh violence in N. Ireland
LONDON, July 12 — Three children were killed and three others injured in an arson attack on a house in the Northern Irish town of Ballymoney today...
Check Yeltsin’s power: ex-PM
MOSCOW, July 12 — Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has joined the opposition ranks for their demand of curtailing President Boris Yeltsin’s powers...

Arafat warns of clashes
CAIRO, July 12 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has warned Israel that the failure to implement the peace accord would lead to widespread violence in the region ...

Arctic route to cut
flight time
CROSSING the North Pole will become a routine for travellers as crossing the Atlantic from next year, when Russia throws open its Arctic airspace to long-haul flights by foreign airlines, allowing dramatic savings in journey times from Europe and North America to Asia...

Air Force bombs LTTE target
COLOMBO, July 12 — The Sri Lankan Air Force has bombed a target of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northern Kilinochchi, killing at least 11 rebels...
Charles’ efforts win public acceptance
LONDON, July 12 —Prince Charles’ efforts to win more public acceptance for his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles seem to be bearing fruit, according to a Sunday newspaper poll which welcomed her recent meeting with his son, William...

Fresh violence in N. Ireland
Talks fail to end standoff
LONDON, July 12 (ANI) — Three children were killed and three others injured in an arson attack on a house in the Northern Irish town of Ballymoney today.
Reports reaching here from Belfast quoted the police as saying that three children had died on the spot while three adults, two men and a woman, had been taken to a hospital in the town.
The police said the incident was reported by a neighbour who heard a bang outside the house.
BELFAST (AP): Protestant marchers and their Catholic opponents began indirect talks in hopes of defusing a standoff that has spilled over into gun and bomb attacks on Northern Ireland’s police.
After six bruising nights of violence by Protestants members of the Orange order who were prevented from down Portadown’s Garvaghy road from rural Drumcree church started negotiating through intermediaries with the Catholic residents.
But after the talks adjourned last night with no agreement, Orange men announced they had raised the ante by making a second application to

march down the road today.
Normally, applications must be submitted to the government-appointed Northern Ireland Parades Commission at least seven days in advance.
“If this application is turned down, then the Parades Commission must take full responsibility for any violence at Drumcree,’’ Orange order spokesman David Jones said.
The indirect talks were adjourned to sometime after Sunday.
"No details of the discussions were announced, leaving the police to fear tensions would peak today being the day the annual Protestant celebration of the defeat of Catholic King James ii by King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Streets of normally bustling Belfast began emptying early last afternoon in anticipation of more trouble, and thousands of orange men joined the increasingly impatient ranks behind steel and barbed-wire barricades at Portadown.
The situation outside the Orange men’s rural Anglican church was deteriorating, with protesters using children to cut the wire to get closer to the security forces, Assistant Chief Constable Tom Craig said yesterday.
“They’re trying to get within range where they can kill police officers,’’ he said.
Violence flared around Drumcree as the police came under attack from protesters hurling stones, bricks and fireworks yesterday. The police fired plastic bullets in return.

Arafat warns of clashes
CAIRO, July 12 (PTI) — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has warned Israel that the failure to implement the peace accord would lead to widespread violence in the region amid reports that the negotiations for the proposed Israeli pullout from the West Bank might conclude by July-end.
“We have the longest revolution and the longest intifada (uprising) in the modern history. The collapse of the (peace) accord....Will return the region to the violence,” Arafat told Xinhua in an interview in Gaza City as he leaves for China for a three-day visit, beginning tomorrow.
Arafat criticised Israel for its “unjust blockade” of Palestinian areas and said the situation was heading for starvation in the region.
“The Israeli policy is causing much frustration to Palestinians and leading to misery and grave danger. The situation is approaching starvation and I ring the bells of danger....The explosion will hit everyone,” he said.
The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition that Israeli and American officials expected negotiations on the proposed Israeli pullout from the West Bank to conclude by the end of the month, but were unsure if there would be a new peace settlement.
The USA intends to make “a real push” for a deal in the next 10 days or so, hoping to conclude one by the end of the month, The New York Times

quoted unnamed officials as saying.
LONDON (ANI): Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara has said that peace in West Asia was impossible with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power.
Reports reaching here from Paris quoted Mr Al-Shara as saying: “Today there will be total peace or no peace at all. There is no middle ground. Now, with Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is unobtainable.”
He said the situation in West Asia had been the most dangerous since the 1991 international peace conference in Madrid.
Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would visit France next week. He is likely to discuss Syrian-Israeli peace talks and Israel’s offer of conditional withdrawal from south Lebanon during his visit.
Mr Al-Shara said US President Bill Clinton desired the peace process to proceed but lacked commitment or active interest. He also criticised the Palestinians for not consulting Arab neighbours before concluding the Oslo interim peace accord in 1993. By doing so the Palestinians “neutralised the Arab nations”, he said.
GAZA CITY: Hundreds of followers of the militant Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad, chanted death to Israel and America,” and burned the flags of both countries at a rally in the Gaza Strip.
Leaders of the Islamic Jihad, which opposes peace with Israel and has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks against the Jewish state, made fiery speeches, threatening renewed violence and holy war.

Check Yeltsin’s power: ex-PM
MOSCOW, July 12 (PTI) — Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has joined the opposition ranks for their demand of curtailing President Boris Yeltsin’s powers in view of the growing economic crisis in Russia.
In an interview to NTV in Belgorod, south-west of Moscow, yesterday, Mr Chernomyrdin stressed the need to amend the constitution, which has been specially tailored for Mr Yeltsin, and fair distribution of the state powers among the President, parliament and the government.
“We have lived many years under this constitution and its time to remove black spots which cause instability in the country,” he said.
Mr Chernomyrdin, who was sacked by Mr Yeltsin in March at a short notice, made this statement the next day after the Russian President conceded that plots were being hatched by “extremists” to “grab the state power”.
Mr Yeltsin had warned that he would use force to quell any attempt challenging his constitutional authority and that he was counting on his loyal generals to counter the threat.
“Unlike in October 1993 (parliament bombardment), today Mr Yeltsin cannot even muster three tanks with crews consisting of only officers. The army fed by dog food will not offer him even a .303 rifle,” an influential Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote commenting on his threat.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta owned by media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, earlier last week revealed a plan to oust Mr Yeltsin in the same manner as was unsuccessfully done by communist hardliners against former President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991.
The political movement Derzhava, led by former Russian Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi, now Governor of Kursk region, who claim to have access to the Russian intelligence, sent a copy of a report about the coup to the daily.
The daily published the text of the report, which said about organised campaign to discredit Mr Yeltsin in the backdrop of widespread social protest.
“In 1991 we at least had some hope (which proved fully groundless) to resolve the problems by breaking the USSR, but today we will lose our country,” the daily’s Editor-in-Chief Vitaly Tretyakov cautioned and proposed to set up an interim state council headed by Foreign Minister Primakov to prepare for mid-term poll for parliament and the President within three months.
The daily warned that this decision has to be taken now, since after sometime when whole Russia will be in a turmoil, it would be too late as Kremlin today has no force to deal with mass disorder in the country or to contain a bloodshed.

Arctic route to cut flight time
From James Meek
CROSSING the North Pole will become a routine for travellers as crossing the Atlantic from next year, when Russia throws open its Arctic airspace to long-haul flights by foreign airlines, allowing dramatic savings in journey times from Europe and North America to Asia.
Test flights are being carried out on a range of aerial short cuts that will shave hours off the wearisome sequence of films, meals and cloud-gazing on routes like New York-Bangkok.
In one demonstration on Monday, the first commercial passenger flight to land at the new Hong Kong airport was a Cathay Pacific 747 which had flown non-stop from New York over the Pole. The journey took 15 and-a-half hours as compared with the usual 21.
During the cold war, the Russian Arctic and Far East — frontline defensive areas spiked wit missile sites, naval bases and nuclear early warning stations — were forbidden zones for foreign airlines, as Korean Airlines found to its cost in 1983 when one of its jumbo jets, apparently off-course, was shot down by Soviet fighters killing 269 persons.
Fifteen years later, a less paranoid, much poorer Russia is anxious to open up new routes as fast as possible. Every foreign aircraft that flies over the country showers money in its wake. With each passenger plane paying about 60 pence a mile in transit fees, Russia hopes to earn £400 million a year to invest in its air-traffic control system.
The biggest saving in time, fuel and ticket prices will come on flights between South-east Asia and North America, as airlines switch from trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific to trans-polar routes. But passengers and airlines flying between western Europe and east Asia stand to benefit as well.
On a flat map of the world, the shortest line between Britain and Japan appears to be through Central Asia and northern China. In fact, because the world is a globe, the most direct route goes through the Russian Arctic-across the island of Novaya Zemlya, an old Soviet H-bomb testing site, past the port of Dixon and down through eastern Siberia.
British Airways, which has been working closely with the Russian aviation authorities on the introduction of a new satellite air-traffic control system, Fanstar, for the empty open spaces of the world’s biggest country, plans to fit up to 40 of its 747 with the necessary equipment and to begin flying the Arctic route to Japan in 2000.

Though the time saving from a passenger’s standpoint will in this case be slight, the new route would cut up to half an hour off the London-Tokyo run and save fuel, a British Airways spokesman said.
Today, most Europe-Japan air traffic flies along a single, crowded set of airways through central Siberia. “The planes have to be spaced a long distance apart, like a convoy,” said Mr William Gaillard, a Geneva-based spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, IATA.
The Arctic is not covered by Russian air-traffic control radar and big airlines have been counting on the introduction of Fanstar to guarantee the future of the new air routes.
However, IATA believes a limited number of aircraft will be able to use the new routes-trans-polar for North America, “cross-polar” for Europe even before the satellite system is in place.
Cathay Pacific told Moscow Times newspaper that it planned to start scheduled trans-polar flights in the second half of 1999.
— The Guardian, London

Air Force bombs LTTE target
COLOMBO, July 12 (PTI) — The Sri Lankan Air Force has bombed a target of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northern Kilinochchi, killing at least 11 rebels while four more were killed by troops in separate confrontations elsewhere, the Defence Ministry said today.
The ministry said 11 rebels were killed and 17 injured yesterday when the Air Force blasted an identified LTTE target.
Meanwhile, the censorship on foreign and local media, imposed following escalation of fighting between rebels and government troops, continues to remain in force.

Charles’ efforts win public acceptance
LONDON, July 12 (AFP) —Prince Charles’ efforts to win more public acceptance for his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles seem to be bearing fruit, according to a Sunday newspaper poll which welcomed her recent meeting with his son, William.
However, the survey published in Britain’s Mail on Sunday showed that public opinion remained firmly against Parker Bowles ever marrying the heir to the British throne and reigning as Queen.
Sixtysix per cent of those interviewed supported Charles’s decision to allow the meeting to go ahead, after his elder son, William, the second in line to the throne, decided to drop into St. James’s Palace unexpectedly last month. And 45 per cent like the woman who had been Charles’s mistress on and off for over 20 years and was blamed by Diana for the break-up of her marriage — compared to 28 per cent in the year of the Princess’s divorce in 1996.
But 72 per cent feel that Parker Bowles should never be queen.
Charles, (49), has said he will never re-marry but clearly wants to be able to appear in public with Parker Bowles, (50), if not at his side, at least only a few paces behind.
However, given the unshakeable popularity of Diana, he continues to keep his mistress firmly hidden from public view.
The Sunday Mirror tabloid reported, meanwhile, that Queen Elizabeth II was considering inviting Parker Bowles to a special birthday ball for Charles at Buckingham Palace in November.

Global monitor

Sex abuse: church to pay $ 23.4 m
DALLAS (Texas): The Roman Catholic Diocese here has agreed to pay $ 23.4 million to settle civil charges stemming from a priest’s abuse of boys he met through the church. Rudolph Kos was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of abusing four altar boys. Three others whom he allegedly attacked also filed suit against the church which was settled on Friday with the church agreeing to pays $ 7.25 million, and its insurance companies another 16.15 million. — AFP
82 die in flooding
MOSCOW: Floods in Kyrgyzstan and an Uzbek enclave, caused when a dam on the Shakhimardan river burst, claimed at least 82 lives. Deputy Prime Minister Ismail Dzhurabekov, head of a government relief commission, said on Saturday most of the victims were from Shakhimardan, an Uzbek enclave in Kyrgyzstan of some 10,000 people. The Soviet-era dam burst after heavy rain caused the water level downriver to rise by three to four metres, destroying more than 100 homes. — AFP
Holocaust movie
JERUSALEM: A darkly comic film set in a Nazi concentration camp might be expected to touch a raw nerve in Israel. Italian director-actor Roberto Benigni is being praised and feted as his award-winning film “Life Is Beautiful” had its premiere in Jerusalem. Prior to the screening on Saturday at the Jerusalem Film Festival, Benigni received commendations from Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and the festival organisers. — AP
Cocaine seized
BOGOTA: The police seized seven metric tonnes of cocaine on Friday in what was believed to be the biggest drug bust ever in Colombia’s Caribbean port of Cartagena. The police said on Saturday it found the huge cache of pure cocaine, apparently bound for Europe, in cargo containers in the main shipping terminal of the historic port city. — Reuters
Nuclear radiation
BONN: Nuclear radiation is more dangerous to health than first thought and the scale measuring its effect should be reviewed, three German scientists said in an article published on Sunday. In the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Son-ntagszeitung weekly, Wolf-gang Koehnlein, head of the Nuclear Biology Institute at the University of Muenster, said the current scale dated back to the atomic bombs of 1945. — AFP
‘Wrong’ reporting
NEW YORK: More than half of Americans think news reports are often inaccurate and most believe journalists are under more pressure from owners to get a good story than they were in the past, a poll release said. The poll released on Saturday was taken after a retraction by CNN of a nerve gas story and the firing of writers for the Boston Globe newspaper and the New Republic magazine for fabricating facts. It was conducted by the PEW Research Centre and — published in the Newsweek magazine. — Reuters
‘Godzilla’ premiere
TOKYO: Thousands of Japanese fans crowded into movie theatres on Saturday to see the return of their legendary hero, this time from Hollywood. The US made movie “Godzilla” was premiered at a record 385 theatres on its opening day in the country that first created the monster 44 years ago. In Tokyo’s Yurakucho shopping district, more than 1,000 fans lined up in front of the Nihon Gekijo theatre to be among the first to get inside. The original Japanese Godzilla, holding an American and a Japanese flag in each hand, welcomed the crowd. — AP
Diana fund
LONDON: The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund has set aside another £3 million ($5 million) for its lawyer’s fees, The Sunday Mirror reported. The newspaper, whose sister publication, The Daily Mirror, in January ran a story saying that the fund’s trustees were up in arms after being charged £500,000 in legal fees in just three months. The fund, is reported to have collected more than £ 40 million in donations. — AFP