Sharif party MPs oppose army use
ISLAMABAD, April 28 — An apparent revolt is brewing within Premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League against the army’s deployment in the power sector following startling revelations that a large number of ruling party legislators were involved in power theft.

U.S. warning to Czech Republic
WASHINGTON, April 28 — the USA has warned the Czech Republic against concluding any nuclear deals with Iran and has received assurances from Prague that no such cooperation will be authorised, media reports said here today.

Peace offer to LTTE renewed
COLOMBO, April 28 — Sri Lanka has offered conditional talks with Tamil guerrillas in a bid to end the country’s drawn-out separatist war that has killed more than 55,000 persons, a state-run daily said today.

20 die in NATO attack on Serb town

BELGRADE, April 28 (AFP) — The NATO air blitz on Yugoslavia continued unabated today after a day in which at least 20 civilians were reported to have died in an attack on a southern Serbian town.

Bombs struck three districts of Belgrade overnight, including two where barracks of the Yugoslav Army and elite Guards Corps are located, the private “Studio B” radio said.

A series of powerful explosions were heard between 1.15 a.m. and 1.20 a.m. (4.50 a.m. IST) soon after air-raid sirens sent Belgrade residents scuttling into shelters.

In an attack yesterday on the town of Surdulica, about 250 km south of Belgrade, several NATO missiles were reported to have fallen on the town centre, killing many civilians and leaving a trail of destruction.

Official Serbian RTS Television said at least 20 civilians were killed.

In Brussels a NATO spokesman admitted that it had targeted an “Army barracks” at Surdulica and could “not exclude” civilian deaths in the attack.

“NATO aircraft carried out a successful attack against an Army barracks” in Surdulica, a NATO spokesman here said.

“Any claim that NATO targets civilians is totally false. We take every possible precaution to prevent harm to civilians.

The Serbian media variously put the death toll at 10 or 20 civilians dead at the least and many more injured. A NATO official, who declined to be identified, was not able to confirm the RTS toll. RTS said that 11 missiles hit the exclusively civilian installations in the town centre.

UNITED NATIONS: The Security Council has failed to issue any substantial statement on Kosovo following sharp division of opinion among its member states on the crisis.

The division surfaced as Russia and China objected to an attempt by Malaysia and Bahrain to circulate a resolution on the Kosovo humanitarian situation during a briefing on the crisis by a top United Nations humanitarian official last night.

WASHINGTON: A key congressional panel has unanimously voted down a resolution declaring war on Yugoslavia and also beat back a second measure recalling US troops from the Yugoslav theatre.

All 49 members of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee defeated the resolution yesterday. The measure recalling soldiers was rejected 30-19. The resolutions will be taken up by the full House today.

Sharif party MPs oppose army use

ISLAMABAD, April 28 (PTI) — An apparent revolt is brewing within Premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) against the army’s deployment in the power sector following startling revelations that a large number of ruling party legislators were involved in power theft.

Several PML legislators, whose names figure in the list of 49 lawmakers accused of either stealing power or defaulting on bills, have initiated moves to impress upon Sharif that they had been “wrongly implicated” and that the army should be sent back to the barracks, media reports here said.

The irate MPs were trying to convince Sharif that the embarrassing disclosures before the Senate had earned a bad name for the party, the reports said.

“It is the unanimous view of all that disclosures made in the Senate by Water and Power Minister Gohar Ayub Khan has brought a bad name to the ruling party as well as the government,” an influential minister was quoted as saying by Nation newspaper.

Gohar Ayub had placed before Senate a list of 49 legislators, mostly from the PML, caught by the army for stealing power to the great embarrassment of the government. The Opposition quickly seized the opportunity to demand that the members immediately resign from Parliament.

The list also included names of two Cabinet ministers — Interior Minister Choudhury Shujaat Hussain and Population Welfare Minister and Deputy Speaker of National Assembly Syeda Abida Hussain. Hussain resigned from cabinet a few days before the disclosures when her name was leaked to the press.

Meanwhile, courts to try terrorism-related cases, with the job of handing out quick justice, have been established in Pakistan through a Presidential Ordinance, the News Network International news agency reported today.

These courts are to replace military courts established last year by the government, but ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

In the ordinance announced late yesterday, the government has ordered the provisional governments to set up these courts.

These courts will be empowered to try cases ranging from murder to extortion to kidnapping. The ordinance does not specify the length of time allowed for each case before the anti-terrorist court.

The ordinance adds a new offence called “creation of civil commotion.” This means anyone who calls an “illegal” strike or work slow down. This could seriously affect Opposition protests.

241 Chinese activists still in jails: Amnesty

BEIJING, April 28 (AP) — At least 241 persons are still in prison or on parole after being convicted in unfair trials for participating in the Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations a decade ago, Amnesty International said in a report today.

The London-based human rights group released a list with information about the 241 persons sentenced to long terms, ranging up to life in prison and said they were a “mere fraction” of the number convicted nationwide after the demonstrations that rocked the country in the spring of 1989.

The prisoners included labourers, several students and teachers, a few professionals and many whose occupations were unknown. They were from Beijing, Shanghai and other provinces.

Amnesty urged the government to review the crackdown, re-examine the conviction sentence of those still in prison and offer compensation to the families of those slain. It also called for bringing those responsible for the assault to justice.

Meanwhile, a Chinese dissident has been sentenced to three-year “education through labour” for writing to a foreign news organisation seeking aid in overthrowing the government, official documents revealed today.

Evidence against Che Honging (40), of Jinan, Shandong Province, was found in two letters he sent to The Voice of America office in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong-based information centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.

Benazir to stay in UK till SC decision

LONDON April 28 (PTI) — Former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto has discounted reports that she has sought political asylum in Britain, saying that she planned to go home as soon as the Supreme Court stays arrest warrants issued against her.

Benazir, convicted in a graft case along with husband Asif Zardari, also rebutted reports that she would move to Dubai soon to co-ordinate her court case from nearer home, local media quoting sources close to the family said.

The British Home Office has also confirmed that it had not received any application for asylum from Benazir.

The Home Office was reacting to media ‘enquiries prompted by reports in The Sunday Telegraph that Benazir could become “another headache” for them like General Pinochet.

The Telegraph had reported that Benazir might seek asylum in Britain if the apex court rejects her appeal for stay of the Lahore High Court judgement sentencing the former ruling couple to five years in prison.

The Telegraph also reported that if Benazir’s appeal is turned down by the court, Pakistani authorities might seek her extradition from the United Kingdom. Britain and Pakistan presently do not have an extradition treaty.

IANS adds from Islamabad: The Pakistani Government has initiated the legal process to bring back the money deposited in Swiss banks by Benazir and her husband.

Law and Justice Minister Khalid Anwar said the government has sent a copy of the Lahore High Court’s Ehtesab (Accountability) Bench judgement convicting Bhutto and Zardari of corruption to the Swiss authorities.

He said 200 cases had been “framed” by Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) against current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when she was in power, but it failed to prove any of the charges.

Anwar claimed the judgement would have come much sooner had it not been for the “delaying tactics” adopted by Benazir and her defence team. He claimed she had first sought a change in the court trying her and then questioned the credibility and impartiality of the court.

U.S. warning to Czech Republic

WASHINGTON, April 28 (PTI) — the USA has warned the Czech Republic against concluding any nuclear deals with Iran and has received assurances from Prague that no such cooperation will be authorised, media reports said here today.

The state department has lodged several protests with the Czechs over their nuclear dealings with Iran and received assurances that no such cooperation will be authorised, but the CIA is watching, the Washington times said today.

US officials in Prague conveyed American concerns over possible nuclear deals between Czech companies and Iran for the sale of equipment and consulting services to Teheran’s Bushehr nuclear power project being built by Russia.

“We have had diplomatic exchanges with the Czechs, as we have with many other nuclear supplier governments, about cooperation with Iran. Czech officials have assured us that no such cooperation would be authorised,” one official said.

Despite the assurances, “US Intelligence agencies are closely monitoring construction of the Bushehr facility to see if the Czechs go ahead with supplying expertise or equipment,” another official was quoted as saying.

2 Sukhoi planes ready for India

Moscow, April 28 — The first two of the Sukhoi SU-30K jet fighters, bought from Russia by India under a $1.8 billion deal, are ready for despatch, according to sources at the Irkutsk Aircraft Production Amalgamation (IAPA).

Under a defence deal signed in November 1996, Russia is to supply a total of 40 of the super class jet fighters to India. The deal is considered unprecedented by military experts here as no other country has succeeded in procuring the aircraft from Moscow in spite of rigorous lobbying.

Even the Russian Air Force does not have such combat aircraft at its disposal, defence specialists here claim. China, Moscow’s latest strategic partner, despite its intense lobbying, has not been able to persuade the Russian Government to sell the planes to Beijing and has had to be content with the SU-27, an old version of the Sukhoi class planes.

“India succeeded in clinching the deal with Moscow because of its long traditional friendship and strategic relations with Russia,” well informed sources said.

—IANS

Peace offer to LTTE renewed

COLOMBO, April 28 (AFP) — Sri Lanka has offered conditional talks with Tamil guerrillas in a bid to end the country’s drawn-out separatist war that has killed more than 55,000 persons, a state-run daily said today.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga renewed the peace talks offer during a meeting on Monday with religious leaders who had recently visited areas held by the LTTE, the daily news said.

“The government is prepared to start talks with the LTTE any moment if it is agreeable to shelve its demand for a separate state and conclude talks within a given time-frame,” the daily reported the president as saying.

Strike hits Chittagong
DHAKA: Life in Bangladesh’s Chittagong port city came to a grinding halt on Wednesday following an eight-hour strike call given by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party. The strike call was given by the party in protest against the death of its leader Moulana, Delwar Hossein. He was killed by unidentified gunmen on Saturday night. Sources said that seventy ships, including 14 carrying foodgrains, were stranded at the port. — ANI

170 Shias faint
MULTAN: Shias drank contaminated milk causing 170 persons to faint and leaving 35 persons in hospital in serious condition, said the police on Wednesday. No one took responsibility for poisoning the milk, which was distributed among mourning Shias in Jaranwala during Muharram functions, some 60 km from Lahore. — AP

Dinosaur fossils found
WASHINGTION: Two 100 million year-old dinosaur fossils of an unknown species have been discovered in Utah, paleontologists said. Part of the Ankylosaur family, the two dinosaurs could be the largest examples of armoured dinosaurs ever unearthed. One of the two was about 10-metre long, said James Kirkland of The University of Utah. — AFP

Author booed
SCHWERIN (Germany): A prize-winning African author has called off her book tour after youths in an East German island resort town shouted racist insults and tossed a beer bottle at her during her first public reading, the police said. Neither Amma Darko, recipient of this year’s Ghana Book Award, nor her travelling companion from Namibia were hurt during the incident Saturday in Sassnitz, a town on the island of Reuegen in the Baltic Sea, the police said on Tuesday. — AP

Infected cranberries
MOSCOW: Cranberries have been found by health inspectors in Moscow markets, apparently infected by lingering radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, The Moscow Times has reported. A total of 660 kg of cranberries were confiscated and destroyed after inspectors said they contained highly radioactive cesium, the report said on Tuesday. Contaminated berries looked and tasted like normal fruit. — AP

Pencil award
WASHINGTON: First Lady Janet Nuseveni of Uganda picked up an award here for her country’s success at converting debt relief into educational gains for Ugandan children. “Progress on universal primary education is the most important legacy for any government in the developing world”, Nuseveni said on receiving the Pencil Award from Oxfam’s Education Now Programme. — AFP