UK keeps up pressure on Kosovo peace deal
BRITAIN on Sunday kept up the pressure on Yugoslavia and the Kosovo Albanians to attend peace talks in Paris in a week’s time as Nato moved ahead with military preparations to enforce a deal.

AIDS virus ‘came from chimps’
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 — A chimpanzee named Marilyn has helped confirm that the AIDS virus first passed into people from chimps, researchers have said.

2 UN employees punished
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 — Secretary-General Kofi Annan has decided to fire one UN employee and demote another in a case involving forged documents that nearly derailed his reform programme, UN officials have said.

Primakov not keen on Presidentship
MOSCOW, Feb 1 — Russia’s Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov insisted that he had no interest in running for President, just days after running afoul of President Boris Yeltsin by proposing limits on his powers.

Israelis’ secret visit to USA
JERUSALEM, Feb 1 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon sent two officials on a secret mission to Washington to try convince U.S. officials that Israel was not to blame for the freezing of the Wye land-for-security accord, Israeli media reported today.

Iraq has 1.5 tonnes nerve gas: UN

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (AFP) — The UN inspection team that was forced out of Iraq in December has filed a report on Iraq’s programmes to produce weapons of mass destruction, according to the latest edition of Newsweek.

The UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) overseeing Iraq’s disarmament reported that Iraq had “chemical weapons, including at least 550 mustard-filled artillery shells and 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent,” said the magazine, due on news-stands today.

The magazine also said that Iraq had enough yeast to grow 26,000 litres of anthrax.

The team also found evidence of an ongoing missile project to develop an inter-continental ballistic missile, Newsweek reported.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government was required to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic programme as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the 1991 gulf war.

BAGHDAD (AP): More than 100 Russian experts are working to rehabilitate Iraq’s main power plants in the first aid to the country’s war-damaged electrical system under the UN oil-for-food programme.

The weekly Al-Musawir Al-Arabi reported yesterday that the Russians arrived in the past few weeks. The Industry Ministry confirmed that the foreign engineers already were working on one of the main plants at Al-Nasiriya, 310 km southeast of Baghdad.

Al-Musawir Al-Arabi said a June deadline was set for revamping two of the four turbines at the gas-driven plant which could offer some relief to Iraqis during the summer when temperatures climb to over 50°C (122 Fahrenheit).

The country’s power system was one of the main targets of the US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf war. More than 70 per cent of Iraq’s electricity plants were destroyed or heavily damaged.

Abolish military courts: Pak Bar

ISLAMABAD, Feb 1 (PTI) — The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) has said it is concerned over the Nawaz Sharif Government’s decision to set up military courts throughout the country to check the problems of terrorism and asked it to rescind the move saying it is “detrimental” to the institution of the armed forces.

“The military courts are negation of the constitutional framework in Pakistan. There is no place for any system parallel to the courts established under the constitution,” the PBC said in a resolution passed by a majority vote.

The PBC in its meeting chaired by the Attorney-General and its chairman, Mr Muhammad Farooq, yesterday observed that the breakdown of law and order and spread of terrorism in the country was on account of failure of government and military courts were no solution.

It said the government cannot cover up its failure by taking extra-constitutional measure of setting up of military courts.

The military courts and involvement of armed forces in civilian administration was detrimental to the armed forces and the national interest and was likely to adversely affect their morale and defence capability, the PBC resolution said.

It also condemned the persecution of newspapers at the hands of the government and urged it to desist from further persecution. “The council views it as gross violation of the freedom of press and blatant attempt to muzzle the voice of print media,” it said.

In another resolution the council requested the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice to take remedial measures to improve the image of the superior judiciary and to restore public confidence in it.

It said the UN has been rendered ineffective by the USA and Britain and the two countries had indulged in “inhuman acts” without taking the UN into confidence.

Sanctions ground ‘visit Pak’ plan

ISLAMABAD, Feb 1 (IPS) — Ambitious plans drawn up for boosting tourism earnings in Pakistan have had to be scuttled by a government strapped for cash since the imposition of sanctions for conducting nuclear tests in May last.

“The government was not able to mobilise the additional $ 3 million required for financing the event,” said an official of Pakistan’s Tourism Development Corpo-ration.

Pakistan was all set to celebrate 1999 as ‘visit Pakistan year’ with the permission of the World Tourism Organisation. The idea was conceived at the April, 1997, national tourism conference in Islamabad.

All stops were going to be pulled out to make foreigners feel welcome — a liberalised visa policy, beefed up internal security and publicity material extolling Pakistan as a holiday destination and not a stopover en route to Central Asia.

Two-thirds of the $ 3 million earmarked for publicity was going to be spent abroad on inducing dollar-paying tourists to visit. The plans largely ignored domestic tourists, a negligible number at present.

But a funds crunch brought plans crashing to the ground, much to the relief of some travel operators who were sceptical of the haste with which the campaign was being launched without preparations on the ground being complete.

“It was like they were trying to construct a roof without walls,” said one travel agent.

“To get dollars out of tourists they have to be fed, housed, guided, entertained. An operating network from tour operator to porters and guides, from roadside vendors to a network of hotels is required,” he added.

But this argument is dismissed by officials. One tourism corporation official said, “Our strong points are the adventure and archaeology tourism. And here we have if not the best, then certainly moderate facilities.”

What he is referring to are the Karakoram and Hindukush mountains that offer some of the world’s best trekking and mountaineering and the ruins of Mohenjodaro and Harappa.

N. Korea, USA ‘close to resolving N-row’

TOKYO, Feb 1 (Reuters) — North Korea and the USA are likely to resolve a dispute over Pyongyang’s refusal to allow inspections of a suspected underground nuclear site later this month, a Japanese newspaper reported today.

The Sankei Shimbun, quoting unnamed sources close to negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, reported from Washington that North Korea was likely to agree to allow multiple inspections of an underground facility which the USA believes could be part of a secret nuclear weapons programme.

In return, the USA could pledge to provide the famine-stricken Communist state with large-scale food aid and to partially lift economic sanctions it imposed on Pyongyang following the 1950-53 Korean war, the sources said.

Senior officials from Washington and Pyongyang concluded the third round of meetings in Geneva last month in which the USA said North Korea had taken a constructive approach.

The two sides were expected to meet again in New York in mid-February.

Meanwhile, North Korea today denied a news report that it last year proposed a summit meeting between its leader Kim Jong-Il and US President Bill Clinton.

UK keeps up pressure on Kosovo peace deal
from Ian Black in London and Chris Bird in Belgrade

BRITAIN on Sunday kept up the pressure on Yugoslavia and the Kosovo Albanians to attend peace talks in Paris in a week’s time as Nato moved ahead with military preparations to enforce a deal.

Mr Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, reporting back to other foreign ministers of the international contact group after Saturday’s inconclusive talks with President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and ethnic Albanian leaders in Skopje, Macedonia, said: “I told Milosevic the proposals offered him a way out of a conflict he cannot win.”

The Kosovars were being offered democratic self-government “free from fear of bloodshed”, he added.

Mr Cook is to make a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, as MPs await details of reports that Britain is to commit troops, tanks and armoured cars to help enforce a peace agreement.

Foreign Office sources said the meeting with the Serbian leader had gone as well as expected, despite a “heated exchange” over Nato’s threat to attack if negotiations did not start quickly.

But there had been a more encouraging response from the divided leadership of the Kosovo Albanians, with the influential Adem Demaci, a political representative of the separatist Kasovo Liberation Army (KLA), telling Mr Cook he needed time to respond to Friday’s summons by the six-member contact group — the USA, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

British diplomats said they hoped minds would be concentrated by Saturday’s Nato warning that it was ready to launch air strikes — underlining a readiness to use force more quickly than at the equivalent stage in the Bosnian war.

If the Rambouillet talks take place, the two sides will negotiate a peace plan under which Kosovo would be given autonomy.

Mr Milosevic on Sunday appeared ready to negotiate. But Western envoys said they feared a further upsurge in violence.

Austria’s ambassador to Yugoslavia and the European Union’s chief Kosovo negotiator, told the Guardian on Sunday night.

Western countries threatened Mr Milosevic with Nato air strikes in October last after a summer offensive to crush the KLA left up to 2,000 dead and forced nearly 3,00,000 from their homes.

Despite the offer of wide-ranging autonomy, independence — which ethnic Albanian politicians and guerrillas of all persuasions insist on — is not on the table.

— The Guardian, London.

AIDS virus ‘came from chimps’

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) — A chimpanzee named Marilyn has helped confirm that the AIDS virus first passed into people from chimps, researchers have said.

They said genetic tests show the HIV virus is closely related to a virus that infects chimps but does not make them sick. It would have been first passed to humans when people butchered and ate chimps, as often happens in Africa.

Dr Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama and colleagues made the discovery when analysing blood and tissue samples from a laboratory chimp named Marilyn after she died at the age of 26.

“She had never been used in AIDS research and had not received human blood products after 1969,” Dr Hahn wrote in her report in the science journal Nature. “She died in 1985 after giving birth to still-born twins”.

There have been many competing theories about where HIV comes from. Some groups have even suspected that homosexual men were deliberately infected, but most scientists believed it must have come from apes or monkeys.

Humans are the only creatures that can get HIV, which stands for human immunodeficiency virus. But apes and monkeys get a simian immunodeficiency virus OS SIV.

Nonetheless, only cases of three chimpanzees infected with SIV had been documented.

2 UN employees punished

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 (Reuters) — Secretary-General Kofi Annan has decided to fire one UN employee and demote another in a case involving forged documents that nearly derailed his reform programme, UN officials have said.

The two, an Iraqi man and a Russian woman, were charged with misconduct.

The incident emerged late in 1997 when a letter went out under the name of Marrack Goulding, the former British Political Affairs Undersecretary-General. Investigations and proceedings have continued since then.

Another letter was attributed to Vladimir Grachev, a Russian official in Annan’s office. There were also fake records of meetings chaired by Annan’s Cabinet.

The resulting furore opened the door for ambassadors to tinker with Annan’s reform plans in favour of their pet projects after having agreed to accept his measures for streamlining the bureaucracy as a package.

Primakov not keen on Presidentship

MOSCOW, Feb 1 (AP) — Russia’s Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov insisted that he had no interest in running for President, just days after running afoul of President Boris Yeltsin by proposing limits on his powers.

“It’s laughable to think that I want to strengthen my position to participate in the presidential race,” Mr Primakov said yesterday in an interview on Russia’s Itogi television programme.

Mr Primakov has been careful to avoid any appearance of ambition for the Presidential throne but if he were to run, opinion polls say, he’d be a leading contender. Many Russians respect Mr Primakov for his diplomatic skills, his hardline with the West, and an eloquence rare among Russian politicians.

Russia’s NTV television cited a poll yesterday that said if elections were held today, Mr Primakov would come in second behind Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Israelis’ secret visit to USA

JERUSALEM, Feb 1 (DPA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon sent two officials on a secret mission to Washington to try convince U.S. officials that Israel was not to blame for the freezing of the Wye land-for-security accord, Israeli media reported today.

Mr Netanyahu suspended implementation of the accord in December, charging that the Palestinians were not fulfilling their part of the agreement. Palestinian officials have rejected these charges.

Ma’ariv daily said the Israeli officials’ visit to Washington was timed precede the arrival there of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Mr Arafat is scheduled to meet President Bill Clinton on Thursday. Ma’ariv said the Palestinian leader would demand that Mr Clinton issue a clear statement that Israel had ceased implementing the Wye agreements “without cause”.

Woman shot in Pak
NEW YORK: A New York woman was shot and killed while visiting Pakistan with her husband, a Congressman said on Sunday. Denise Chaudhry, 28, of Deer Park, was shot three times at close range on Thursday night while waiting in a car as her husband, Abdul Chaudhry, and a niece bought ice cream at a shop in Defence, Pakistan, said Rep Peter King. “I told her not to go” on the trip, Denise Chaudhry’s sister, Jamie Stissi, told The Newsday newspaper. Stissi said she had worried about political violence in the area. — AP

MEP to resign
LONDON: A British Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP), caught recently at Heathrow airport with drugs and homosexual pornography, has announced that he intended to resign. Shortly before, the Conservative Party had described the MEP’s actions, which had been reported in the Press, as “a very serious offence”. Tom Spencer, was arrested on January 20 at London’s Heathrow airport on returning from Amsterdam. — AFP

Computer virus
POING (U.S.): to ward off computer viruses, Internet users can now turn to a free virus protection plug-in available on the Internet. The new software is called Virusafe, Manufactured by US Firm Esafe Technologies, it automatically scans downloaded files for possible virus infection. The programme, available at http://www.virusafe.com, can scan programmes, zip archives, and word documents. — DPA

Rebel released
DUBLIN: A former IRA member and prominent opponent of the northern Ireland peace deal was released by a gang of men who abducted him outside a hotel in the Irish republic earlier in the day, the police has said. Paddy Fox, 29, was released after being held for nine hours on Sunday. Fox had served a prison sentence for an attempted IRA bombing in northern Ireland. — AFP

Lawyer’s appointment
JOHANNESBURG: The President’s office has denied a newspaper report that South African President Nelson Mandela had ordered an investigation into the appointment of a disbarred lawyer as Consul-General to Mumbai. The Sunday Times of Johannesburg reported on Sunday that Mr Mandela was having second thoughts about approving the posting of Ramesh Vassen, a lawyer who used to represent anti-apartheid activists. — AP

Ban for gas cylinders
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has issued a new warning to Muslim pilgrims against using gas cylinders at this year’s annual pilgrimage to holy sites in the kingdom. Th Saudi ban on gas cylinders was first issued after a 1997 fire killed 343 persons and gutted more than 70,000 tents. Saudi authorities blamed the blaze on pilgrims who tried to cook a meal on a gas fire inside a tent. — Reuters