King’s murder “was part of plot”
MEMPHIS, Dec 9 — Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was shot and killed in 1968 as a result of a conspiracy and not by a gunman simply acting alone, a civil jury has found.

Cuban boy’s issue
No room for politics, says Clinton
WASHINGTON, Dec 9 — As tensions rose between Cuba and the USA over the custody of a six-year-old boy who was rescued from the waters off Florida, President Bill Clinton has said the issue should not involve politics.

‘Breakthrough’ in AIDS research
SEOUL, Dec 9 — A team of South Korean scientists has claimed a breakthrough in developing DNA vaccines to protect human beings against the virus that leads to AIDS.

Japan halts work on rocket
TOKYO, Dec 9 — Japan’s ambitious space programme today suffered a major setback as the government announced halting of work on its H-II rocket and postponed the scheduled launch of an H-IIA rocket for a year in a move to thoroughly review its space projects.

Nuclear Russia warns USA

BEIJING, Dec 9 (PTI) — Boosted by Chinese support to Moscow’s offensive in Chechnya, Russian President Boris Yeltsin today strongly warned his US counterpart Bill Clinton against interfering in the ongoing campaign against Chechnya, asking him not to dictate terms as “Russia is a great power” and still possessed a nuclear arsenal.

“Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to exert pressure on Russia. He, it seems, for a few seconds forgot, what Russia is. Russia possesses a whole arsenal of nuclear weapons,” Mr Yeltsin said here after getting full backing from Chinese President Jiang Zemin to Moscow’s offensive against terrorism and extremism in the breakaway republic.

“I want to tell Clinton: he should not forget in which world he is living. It never was and never will be, that he could dictate to the people how they should live, work or enjoy,” Mr Yeltsin, who left hospital on Monday after a week battling pneumonia, told newspersons before meeting the Chairman of Chinese Parliament Mr Li Peng.

Speaking loudly and animatedly, he asserted that “A multi-polar world is the universal foundation. It will be this, as we agreed with Jiang Zemin. It will be we who would dictate how to live but not he (Clinton).”

Mr Clinton had warned Russia, which is facing international outrage for its offensive in Chechnya, that it would “pay a heavy price” for its actions. He had said the Russian campaign was “intensifying extremism” and diminishing Moscow’s standing in the world.

Mr Li said China understood “the very special circumstances” under which Yeltsin came to Beijing and “we admire your spirit”.

Mr Jiang, during his meeting with President Yeltsin, supported Moscow’s “actions in combating terrorism and extremism in Chechnya,” Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said.

The US, Canada and European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have strongly criticised Russia’s intensified military action against separatists in Chechnya, particularly after Moscow issued an ultimatum to the people of the Chechen capital, Grozny, to leave by Saturday or face death.

In the talks with Mr Jiang, which kicked off his informal two-day visit, Mr Yeltsin said he supported China’s stance on Taiwan, a Russian Embassy spokesman said.

Mr Jiang led a pale-looking Yeltsin by the arm into a plush Diaoyutai guest house hall where they attended a signing ceremony for three agreements enhancing cooperation along their shared 4000 km long border.

USA to expel Russian diplomat

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters, AFDH) — A Russian diplomat was detained and accused of spying yesterday after a listening device was found planted in a high-level conference room at the State Department, U.S. officials said.

The diplomat, who will be expelled from the USA shortly, was caught outside the State Department, apparently monitoring transmissions from the device, which was “in a place of some sensitivity,” a U.S. official said.

“It’s something that they’ve known about for a while,” the official said. “They waited until they could catch him in the act.”

The diplomat, who was not identified, was detained for several hours but claimed diplomatic immunity and was turned over to the Russian Embassy, the officials said.

“We are under no illusion that there is still interest on the part of foreign governments to spy on the USA,” said another U.S. official. “There are still countries that have an interest in learning more about what we do and how we do it.’’

The listening device was planted in a high-level conference room at the State Department, but it was unclear what sensitive discussions might have been monitored, officials said.

The officials also said they were uncertain at this point how the device was planted.

The officials did not disclose if the diplomat was responsible for planting the listening device or monitoring it.

Last week, Russia took steps to deport a U.S. diplomat who, Moscow said, was caught in the act of espionage. The diplomat was identified by local Russian media as Cheri Leberknight, and television stations played footage of her being detained in a park in eastern Moscow.

The State Department has not identified the woman, but confirmed that a U.S. diplomat had been asked to leave Russia and that she would depart within the allotted 10 days.

On November 29, the U.S. navy said it had charged an enlisted man who had access to highly classified data with passing secrets to Russia in 1994.

Petty officer first class Daniel King, 40, was taken into military custody on November 5 and had confessed to disclosing classified information to Russia, the officials said.

A Justice Department official had no comment on the latest case, saying it was an ongoing investigation. Officials at the FBI and the State Department also declined comment.

The White House had no immediate comment, but said senior officials had been briefed.

No comment was immediately available from the Russian Embassy.

The Times did not identify the suspect, said to be an intelligence officer working at the Russian Embassy, but Boris Labusov, a spokesman for the Russian secret services named him as Stanislav Gusev, according to Itar-Tass.

Russians close in on Chechen heartland

SHALAZHI (Russia) Dec 9 (Reuters) — Russia was close to winning control of Chechnya’s northern and central heartland today as its forces began an operation to take the last major separatist-held town apart from the besieged capital Grozny.

Interfax news agency quoted the Russian command as saying an operation to take Shali, 20 km south-east of Grozny, was launched after residents told the military that the town was free of rebels and invited them to move in.

Ria news agency later clarified the report, saying the troops had approached the town and were negotiating with the locals, but had not yet entered in case there were still rebels on the outskirts preparing an ambush.

The announcement followed the fall of the town of Urus-Martan yesterday and gives Russia effective control of nearly the entire broad, fertile valley south of Grozny, where most Chechens live.

Russia has vowed to drive guerrillas into the mountains to the South, pursue them there and crush them.

Interfax also said Russian paratroopers had landed overnight in an area West of Shali to take control of two key bridges on roads leading to the rebel-held villages of Atagi and Shatoi in the mountainous south.

But the latest battlefield successes have been accompanied by increasingly angry criticism from the West, especially after the Army ordered the residents of Grozny to leave the city or die.

At the village of Shalazhi in Western Chechnya, Russian Uragan rockets could be heard pounding the area around Urus-Martan overnight and orange bursts of anti-aircraft fire lit up the sky, a sign some rebels might still be there.

But the rebels said they pulled out of the town yesterday and Russian television showed its troops rolling into the town.

Interfax also quoted the Chechen command as saying Russian troops had started an advance towards the mountains.

Clintons to live separately

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (AFP) — President Bill Clinton has confirmed he will live separately from his wife Hillary for the next year while he serves out his presidential term and she campaigns to be elected Senator for New York.

‘‘I’m happy for her,’’ Mr Clinton said yesterday at a press conference when asked about the First Lady’s decision to run for election as one of the two Senators for New York state.

‘‘She was encouraged to run by many people and she decided she wanted to do it. And if she’s going to do it, she’s got to spend a lot of time in New York,’’ he said

The First Lady recently mentioned that she was ready to move out of the White House to take up residence in a New York suburb in a matter of weeks.

‘‘It’s not the best arrangement in the world but it’s something that we can live with for a year,’’ Mr Clinton said. ‘‘I’ve got a job to do and she now has a campaign to run, and so we’ll have to be apart more than I wish we were’’, he added.

‘‘We always make it a habit to talk at least once if not more every day,’’ he said, adding that as he would visit his wife in New York and she would come down to Washington. ‘‘We’ll be together as much as we can’’, he added.

King’s murder “was part of plot”

MEMPHIS, Dec 9 (DPA) — Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was shot and killed in 1968 as a result of a conspiracy and not by a gunman simply acting alone, a civil jury has found.

The verdict was reached in a wrongful death suit the King family filed against a retired Memphis businessman, who had earlier claimed there was a conspiracy and that he had paid a man other than James Earl Ray to do the killing.

Lloyd Jowers, the businessman, was ordered yesterday to pay $100 in damages to the King family, which had not specified the amount of damages wanted. The family instead had said it merely wanted a guilty verdict as ammunition in its call for a new investigation into the murder.

King was shot and killed at Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Ray, a petty thief, captured later in Europe, confessed to the killing and was convicted, but he later recanted.

The Kings’ lawyer, William Pepper, had told the court that Jowers was part of a conspiracy involving the mafia and U.S. military and federal agents.

King, he said, was targeted because he opposed the Vietnam war.

Ray died in prison last year of liver cancer. He had maintained his innocence to the end and at one point convinced the King family of it.

Jowers (73) was ill during the civil trial and did not testify in regard to his statements, made in a 1993 television interview.

A U.S. congressional committee in 1978 found Ray was the killer, but might have received help by unknown persons. On eight occasions, state and federal courts upheld the 99-year sentence imposed on Ray.

Cuban boy’s issue
No room for politics, says Clinton

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) — As tensions rose between Cuba and the USA over the custody of a six-year-old boy who was rescued from the waters off Florida, President Bill Clinton has said the issue should not involve politics.

Elian’s Gonzalez was plucked from the waters between Cuba and the USA on November 25, after a boat carrying illegal Cuban migrants capsized, killing his mother and 10 other persons. Arguments over the boy’s future have caused an international dispute and protests in Cuba.

Elian’s father, who lives in Cuba, has demanded the child’s return. The Cuban Government has also said the boy, who is staying with relatives in Miami, should be sent back to the island and the Communist Party has organised anti-American protests there.

The State Department said US rules recognised the right of a parent to assert custody rights and said it would contact the father to work towards a resolution.

Mr Clinton was asked if, as a father, he sympathised with the father’s demand for the boy’s return.

‘‘Well, of course, I think all fathers would be sympathetic. The question is — and I think the most important thing is — what would be the best for the child. And there is a legal process for determining that,’’ Mr Clinton told a news conference.

Mr Clinton said the only concern should be for the law to be followed. ‘‘I don’t think that politics or threats should have anything to do with it and if I have my way, it won’t,’’ he said.

Spending Nobel’s money seems easy

NEW YORK, Dec 9 (DPA) — The King of Sweden on Friday will award a cheque for $ 1 million and a gold medal to 1999 Nobel Prize economic science winner Robert Alexander Mundell. Mr Mundell plans to spend part of the money to renovate his Palazzo in Tuscany.

All winners of Nobel Prizes, the most acclaimed awards for academic excellence in the world, walk away with about a million dollars each for their achievements in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature, peace and economics.

How those lucky laureates spend their prizes has become a matter of public knowledge. Economics prize winners have not been shy in revealing their intentions to spend the prizes.

But peace, literature and other prize winners have been more reticent about their plans, particularly when they have to share.

Mr Mundell (67) plans also to buy a pony for his 2-year-old son and put the remaining in a Euro (the European Union currency) Bank account after paying a hefty tax of 50 per cent of his cheque to the U.S. Government. The Canadian-born U.S. economist teachers at Columbia University.

Why a Euro account? Mr Mundell developed the economic theory that created the Euro and was a defender of supply-side economics, the foundation for President Ronald Reagan’s economic policies in the 1980.

The Nobel Prizes are awarded each year on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1886 of Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish chemical engineer who invented dynamite. He bequeathed an original sum of $ 9.2 million that was invested by the Nobel Foundation, from which the annual prizes are drawn.

Thanks to the deft investment by the foundation, Nobel Prizes have gone up in value. In 1970 when American economist Paul Samuelson won the prize for economic science, he received a-cheque for $ 77,000.

By 1976, the economics prize went up to $ 180,000, won by another Aerican Milton Friedman, who bought an apartment for himself in San Francisco.

The economics winner in 1998, Indian-born Amartya Sen, put nearly half of his winning of $ 940,000 to set up charitable foundations in India and Bangladesh. Mr Sen, who developed economic theories on social welfare and ways to fight poverty, famine and human rights, believed that his prize should go to areas he cared for the most.

The New York Times, which maintains a record on how Nobel winners spend their money, quoted the American film maker and actor Woody Allen as saying of the Nobel Prizes, “Apart from everything else, the prize carries an interesting amount of cash.”

It quoted Assar Lindback, a Swedish member of Nobel Prize committee, as saying, “People say that the money does not matter, but they are just being politically correct.”

If the instant cash will help Mr Mundell and many other Nobel laureates, it once killed one of them because of the stress and demands that come with the award.

American William Vickrey, who won the 1996 economic prize, died of cardiac arrest three days after receiving the news. He was 82 and apparently was unable to withstand the stress of instant fame.

Nobel Prizes are surpassed only by the Templeton Prize for progress in religion, which this year amounted to $ 1.24 million and was awarded to American physicist Ian Barbour for advancing the dialogue between science and religion.

But the Templeton Prize is given each year to one person while Novel Prizes in all categories could be given to five or more persons. Some of them share the award.

Mr Robert Lucas, a U.S. national, who won the economics prize in 1995, had to give half his million dollars to his wife in a divorce case. Mr Gary Becker, a U.S. national, who won in 1992, saw his prize of $ 1.2 million shrink by 25 per cent because of a Swedish currency crisis before he could collect it.

Also, the U.S. Government, which takes at least half of Novel cheques in taxes from Americans, has become a beneficiary of the Nobel Foundation.

‘Breakthrough’ in AIDS research

SEOUL, Dec 9 (AFP) — A team of South Korean scientists has claimed a breakthrough in developing DNA vaccines to protect human beings against the virus that leads to AIDS.

A spokesman of the team said that Jean Marie Andrieu of Laennec Hospital in Paris planned to visit here early next year to discuss human trials of the vaccination in France along with a South Korean pharmaceutical company.

Other scientists here conceded that the vaccine might represent a major breakthrough in the fight against AIDS, caused by HIV.

But they cautioned that it was too early to say whether the vaccine could be applicable to humans.

By using genes from an HIV-like virus found only in monkeys, the research team at Pohang University of Science and Technology here developed a vaccine, which “protected completely” monkeys against the virus, called SIV-239.

“It marked the first time that apes have been protected after being challenged by SIV-239,” the team leader, Prof Sung Young-Chul, told AFP yesterday by phone from the southeastern city of Pohang.

“It is generally admitted among scientists that should a vaccine protect monkeys against SIV-239, it would be highly possible for the vaccine to protect human beings against HIV.

Japan halts work on rocket

TOKYO, Dec 9 (PTI) — Japan’s ambitious space programme today suffered a major setback as the government announced halting of work on its H-II rocket and postponed the scheduled launch of an H-IIA rocket for a year in a move to thoroughly review its space projects.

The announcement from the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) came in the wake of failed launch of an H-II rocket last month. One previous attempt to launch the rocket earlier in the year had also failed.

Killed for bananas
PHNOM PENH: A Cambodian man has admitted to slitting the throat of a five-year-old boy after the child kept pestering him to share his bag of bananas, a local report has said. The police arrested Mea Ken (20) after the slaying last Thursday following a brief chase, during which he was shot in the leg, according to the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper. He later admitted to killing the boy with a knife and dumping his body in a forest near their village in Kompong Cham, eastern Cambodia. The victim still had half a banana in his mouth. — DPA

Rogue protein
PARIS: Alzheimer’s disease, the terrifying disease which ravages the human brain, is caused by a rogue protein that splits, according to research reported in Nature, the British scientific weekly. Alzheimer’s manifested by progressive forgetfulness and finally dementia, is a disease in which brain cells are decimated by fibrous tangles, called tau, that clump together. What causes the clumping is a process called hosphorylation, triggered by enzymes. US scientists have now found that a protein, known by its number as P35, is to blame. — AFP

UFO lands in dam ?
SYDNEY: Is it a UFO, space junk, a meteorite or simply frozen sewage? Whatever it turns out to be, a mysterious flying object has landed in an Australian country dam, leaving a large crater, and sunk beneath the mud. Air tests around the dam found no radioactivity, but water supplies from the dam to the nearby town of Guyra have been cut. The police has also erected a 2 km no-go zone around the dam as curious locals and scores of media descend on the sleepy town of Guyra, 400 km north of Sydney. — Reuters

Statue sparks fury
LONDON: A statue portraying Princess Diana as the Virgin Mary has sparked fury at an art exhibition exploring the idea that royal, sports and showbusiness stars have replaced religion. Diana, killed in a Paris car crash two years ago, is shown as the Madonna in the sculpture by Luigi Baggi being shown at Tate Gallery in the northern English city of Liverpool. Pop singer and Christian campaigner Cliff Richard said, “When it comes to artistic taste, I’m beginning to realise there is a huge gulf between self-styled pundits and the public.” — Reuters

Battling for foetus
GIJON (Spain): Doctors in a northern Spanish hospital are battling to keep a foetus alive in the womb of a woman who has been clinically dead for the past three weeks, news reports said. The team of doctors at Cabuenes Hospital in Gijon hope to keep the foetus alive for another seven weeks so that with 33 weeks it may be able to survive outside the womb. The medical team was pumping air into the woman’s lungs and maintaining an artificial heart beat with drugs. — AP