No hand in stir: Anwar’s wife
KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Wife of jailed Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim said today that supporters of her husband were being falsely blamed for the violence during anti-government protests.

Israel seizes Lebanon village
BEIRUT, April 16 — Israel has seized the South Lebanon village of Arnoun, effectively incorporating it into its military occupation zone.

Bouteflika elected with 74 pc vote
Algeria’s first civilian head in 30 years

ALGIERS, April 16 (AP) — Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who became the lone candidate in Algeria’s presidential race when the other six pulled out to protest voting fraud, was elected with 73.8 per cent of the vote. The Interior Ministry announced today.

Mr Bouteflika (64), a former Foreign Minister, was widely seen as the choice of the powerful military. For months, he had been considered the likely winner of yesterday’s election.

With Mr Bouteflika assured of victory since Wednesday, the only remaining questions had been whether he would accept the post as Alegeria’s first civilian President in more than three decades and whether critics would quietly submit.

Mr Bouteflika had said he would not take the job without a massive turnout and a large majority.

The six candidates who pulled out, while calling for calm last night, said in a joint statement that they reserved the possibility of taking any initiative to bring about a “true” democracy.

The Front for Socialist Forces, the party of Mr Hocine Ait-Ahmed, one of the candidates who withdrew, called for protest marches today in the capital and around Algeria. The marches were not authorised.

The Interior Ministry set the participation rate at 60.3 per cent, below the 75 per cent turnout in the 1995 presidential race, but still high for an election whose drawing card had been the board choice of candidates.

In what amounted to a surreal atmosphere for voters, the candidates who pulled out had remained on the ballot with their pictures lined up beside Mr Bouteflika’s.

Interior Minister Abdelmalek Sellal announced that official turnout was 60 per cent.

Tallies were also compiled of votes for the candidates who stood down. Mr Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, who had pledged during the campaign to rehabilitate the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), led with 12.53 per cent.

Mr Bouteflika, who enjoys wide backing within Algeria’s military establishment, won a five-year term of office.

The Interior Minister also announced that 3.95 per cent of votes were picked up by Mr Abdallah Djaballah, founder of the new Islah Movement; 3.17 per cent for Hocine Ait-Ahmed, head of the Opposition Socialist Forces Front (FFS), 3 per cent for former Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche, 2.24 per cent for former Prime Minister Mokdad Sifi and 1.22 per cent for Youcef Khatib, an independence war hero. Ballots for all seven candidates were provided at polling stations despite the six candidates’ standdown.

NATO strikes Montenegro

BELGRADE, April 16 (AP) — In the strongest attack on Montenegro in two weeks. NATO planes pounded military targets in the Yugoslav republic overnight and hit several key sites around Belgrade early today.

In Washington, Pentagon leaders expressed regret yesterday that civilians were killed in a mistaken allied attack on a refugee convoy in southern Kosovo that the Yugoslav authorities said left 75 dead and several injured.

After weeks of backing off Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in the Yugoslav federation, NATO jets hit military targets late yesterday, including the military airfield and airport just outside the provincial capital Podgorica. They also struck at a subterranean military base and targeted a port where the Yugoslav navy was anchored, local media reported.

The Yugoslav navy returned the fire.

Montenegro’s Vice Premier, Dragisa Burzan, speaking to state television, accused the Yugoslavs of provoking the attack on the pro-western republic.

In Belgrade, too, air raid sirens were sounded after dark. Hours later, state-run media said the capital’s main airport had been targeted. The southern Belgrade district of Rakovica was targeted for the second consecutive night. Planes were heard over the capital as well as anti-aircraft fire.

The ethnically mixed city of Subotica, near the border with Hungary, was targeted for the first time late yesterday. The city’s Mayor Jozef Kasa told Beta that two missiles exploded between two barracks in a densely populated area, damaging civilian houses and knocking out power.

Tanjug said a settlement area of refugees in Paracin in central Serbia from the wars in Bosnia and Croatia was hit early today.

WASHINGTON (UNI): The USA proposes to call up as many as 33,000 reservists and national guard to significantly widen its contribution to the three-week-old NATO air attack against Yugoslavia.

In the first major speech after the commencement of the air campaign on March 24, Mr Clinton offered a rationale for American involvement that, like the activation of the reserves, signalled a long effort.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP): A top US official has denied reports that Washington had rejected a German peace initiative for Kosovo but said it could only be helpful if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic pulls out of the Serb province.

Russia’s hardline-parliament voted overwhelmingly today in favour of a resolution that supports Yogoslavia’s bid to join a Slavic union that already includes Russia and Belarus, an AP report said.

Benazir puts off return

ISLAMABAD, April 16 (PTI) — Former Premier Benazir Bhutto has apparently postponed her immediate return to Pakistan amidst reports that the Nawaz Sharif Government is making preparations to arrest her as soon as she lands here.

The Opposition leader has decided to stay in London for “some time” and won’t return immediately, a source in her Pakistan People’s Party said here today. Even as other party leaders are engaged in hectic consultations with lawyers to get relief from the Supreme Court against her conviction.

The Lahore High Court yesterday sentenced Benazir and her jailed husband Asif Ali Zardari, to five years in jail and fined them $ 8.6 million after it found them guilty of taking bribe for granting of a government contract to a Swiss firm during her rule. The court also disqualified them from public office and ordered confiscation of their property.

The PPP has constituted a team of leading lawyers of the country who are busy studying the court’s short order against the couple. The appeal before the Supreme Court is expected to be filed in a day or two, sources said.

On the other hand, the Accountability Bureau, headed by Premier Nawar Sharif’s close friend, Saifur Rehman, is busy in completing formalities to arrest Benazir on her return home as well as get the official announcement of disqualification of both Benazir and Zardari for their parliamentary seats by the Chief Election Commissioner.

When asked whether an arrest warrant had been issued against Benazir, Mr Rehman said they were waiting for the detailed judgement and “as soon as we get it, the arrest warrant would be issued”.

The PPP Secretary-General, Choudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, told reporters: “Benazir will return to Pakistan after completing her engagements abroad”.

Ms Benazir Bhutto who left Karachi on April 5, is on a 12-day tour of USA, UK, Canada and Portugal to deliver lectures and according to original schedule she was to return this weekend.

AP adds: While Ms Benazir Bhutto labelled her conviction on draft charges and jail sentence “a gross miscarriage of justice”, her party workers held emergency meeting today to plot their response.

It’s expected that Ms Bhutto’s party executive will mobilise party faithfuls to demonstrate in major cities throughout Pakistan.

In her hometown of Karachi, Ms Bhutto’s supporters set fire to effigies of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Ms Bhutto’s arch-enemy. They shouted slogans condemning the government and vowed to support their embattled leader.

“The charges against me were based from the outset on fabricated charges and forged documents created by the Nawaz regime to politically frame me and ultimately undermine the Pakistan People’s Party”, Ms Bhutto said in a statement from London.

She has asked international human rights groups to study the documents.

No abortion pills in health kit: UNFPA

UNITED NATIONS, April 16 (PTI) — Head of the UN population agency has angrily denounced reports that emergency reproductive health kits sent to Albania to aid refugee women from Kosovo contained abortion pills.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Dr Nafis Sadik, denied that health kits contained RU-486 pill, which is often used for abortion.

They contain only emergency contraception — or the morning after pill — which is an elevated doze of birth control pill, she said.

If taken within 72 hours, it prevents pregnancy, she added.

The agency also blasted Vatican for condemning the provision of emergency contraception to refugees fleeing Kosovo and said it showed an insensitivity to the suffering of the women there.

Dr Sadik said emergency contraception for rape victims was on a small part of the kit which included equipment for safe deliveries and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. The kit had been developed to address the reproductive health needs of female refugees, something that has been lacking in previous emergency situations.

No hand in stir: Anwar’s wife

KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 (AP) — Wife of jailed Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim said today that supporters of her husband were being falsely blamed for the violence during anti-government protests.

Azizah Ismail, who heads the Parti Keadilan Nasional, or National Justice Party, said she suspected that some people were deliberately planted amid the protesters to incite violence.

“It doesn’t mean that because someone holds the Keadilan flag or the party banner, he is a member of the party,” she told reporters.

Protests continued here today for the third day since a Judge on Wednesday handed down a harsh, six-year sentence that virtually barred the ousted Deputy Prime Minister from active politics for at least a decade.

A group of about 200 persons shouted slogans after Friday prayers in a downtown mosque and taunting police officers. Another protest was scheduled for later today in front of a police station.

Anwar had repeatedly denied the charges of corruption and illegal sex against him and accused Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad of plotting a conspiracy to crush the challenge to his 18-year leadership.

On Wednesday and yesterday, helmeted riot police repeatedly broke up demonstrations across the capital, shouting “Reformasi, reformasi,” the Malay world for reform and Mr Anwar’s rally cry. Mostly student protesters have burned flags of the governing coalition and hurled stones at police officers.

Israel seizes Lebanon village

BEIRUT, April 16 (Reuters) — Israel has seized the South Lebanon village of Arnoun, effectively incorporating it into its military occupation zone.

Eyewitnesses and security sources said an armoured unit with about 20 Israeli soldiers descended on Arnoun yesterday from their position in the nearby crusader castle of Beaufort and threw up a barricade of sand, blocking the road into the village.

The soldiers set up barbed wire around Arnoun and detained 19 civilians who were driving up to the nearby village of Yahmur in their cars, the sources added.

Arnoun was first sealed off by Israel earlier this year. The Jewish state alleged the village had been used by Lebanese fighters as a base to attack Israeli troops.

The village was subsequently freed by Lebanese civilians who mounted a protest march there in February.

Mudslides kill 26
BOGOTA (Colombia): Two mudslides killed at least 26 persons, many of them rescue workers, in a mountainous western town soaked by days of rain. At least 12 more were missing and feared dead after Thursday’s slides, said Monica Yamhure, the Federal Director for Disaster Response. After weeks of torrential rains, two earth avalanches plowed under several blocks in a poor district of Argelia, 240 km west of the capital Bogota. — AP

Drought hits 2 lakh
HANOI (Vietnam): Ongoing drought has left 2,07,000 persons short of food in the northern province of Hoa Binh, 80 km east of Hanoi, a local official said. About 80,000 i.e 10 per cent of the province’s population need immediate food relief, said the official from the Provincial Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs. The official said on Thursday that there had been no showers in Hoa Binh since October until early this week. Many people are short of clean water. — AP

Card’s 76-year journey
HAMBURG: Germany may be known for its efficiency, but it took 76 years and 10 days for a postcard from the northern city of Hamburg to reach Rostock, 150 km to the Northeast. The card, dated April 2, 1923, was a niece’s message to her widowed aunt in Rostock to say she had arrived safe and well in Hamburg. It arrived at the Ernst-Alban-Gesellschaft company in Rostock and project manager Peter Jakubowski thought it was a joke. After investigating, however, it was found out that a woman matching the addressee had actually lived there before she died 40 years ago. — DPA

‘Dragon’ babies
BANGKOK: Couples in Thailand have shown little interest in conceiving babies at the start of the new millennium, but many are holding out for “golden dragom” offspring under the Chinese zodiac instead, a news report said. Doctor Wiwat Chinpilart, Deputy Managing Director of the Nawaburt Infertile Medical Centre, told The Nation newspaper on Thursday so far no-one had asked the centre for advice on how to maximise their chance of giving birth on January 1, 2000 — DPA

Mandela’s mansion
MAPUTO: South African President Nelson Mandela and his Mozambican wife, Graca Machel, are building a mansion for themselves in Maputo, Graca confirmed in an interview to Radio Mozambique. Graca, who is the widow of Mozambique’s first President Samora Machela, said on Thursday that she was currently living in a house which belonged to the late Machel and did not intend to use it for her new marriage. — AFP

Pilots’ union fined
WASHINGTON: A US district judge has imposed a fine of $ 45.51 million on the Pilots Union of American Airlines for disobeying his order to go back to work promptly. Judge Joe Kendall on Thursday imposed fine on the pilots for disobeying his earlier delivered order declaring the strike illegal. — PTI