• Clinton raises funds as Vernon deposes

Security alert in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO, Feb 3 — The Sri Lankan military and police went on maximum alert ahead of tomorrow’s independence day celebrations here in Colombo, defence officials said.

Kissinger formula for Palestinian state
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 — Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has proposed creation of a Palestinian state with compromise borders and defence “restrictions”.

Laden ‘planning more attacks’
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 — Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is planning more attacks against US citizens and could strike anywhere at anytime, the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency has said.

Pak help sought on Dawood extradition
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 — India has asked Pakistan to cooperate with New Delhi for extraditing mafia don Dawood Ibrahim who has recently shifted base to Karachi from Dubai, Home Secretary B.P. Singh has said.

Spate of executions in China
BEIJING, Feb 3 — The Chinese authorities have executed another 17 convicted murderers, grave robbers, rapists and smugglers in the run-up to the lunar new year holidays, the state media said today.

Net porno law struck down
WASHINGTON, Feb 3 — A US federal judge has struck down a controversial law designed to protect minors from pornography on the Internet, ruling that it violated constitutional protections of free speech, The Washington Post reported.

Grilling of last witness ends

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (AFP) — Prosecutors of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial completed grilling their final witness today, a day before the Senate was to vote on whether to call live testimony.

Republican House-appointed trial "managers" questioned White House aide Sidney Blumenthal for several house behind closed-door in a Capitol room often used for national security briefings, a prosecution aide said.

Prosecutors hoped Blumenthal’s account of actions to conceal Mr Clinton’s affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky would buttress charges of perjury and obstruction of justice against Mr Clinton.

His testimony, like Tuesday’s interrogation of Mr Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan and Lewinsky’s Monday questioning, was to be videotaped as White House lawyers looked on and a small group of senators ruled out any objections.

Senators are expected to decide tomorrow whether to release all or part of the three recorded depositions or call the principals to testify on the ornate Senate floor.

Earlier, the US House of Representatives’ prosecutors questioned the President’s friend, Mr Vernon Jordan, and drew concessions which they hope will bolster their case for live witnesses at the impeachment trial of Mr Bill Clinton.

Senators also viewed Monica Lewinsky’s videotaped deposition and suggested they were ‘underwhelmed’.

Mr Jordan, a Washington power broker, testified yesterday that Mr Clinton was directly behind his efforts to find Ms Lewinsky a job. Mr Jordan also altered his account of a breakfast meeting with the former intern that prosecutors have highlighted in their obstruction of justice inquiry.

The presidential confidant testified last spring that he never had breakfast with Ms Lewinsky, but the former intern testified she had such a breakfast on December 31, 1997, at a Washington hotel she said she remembered it in part because at that time Mr Jordan suggested she should destroy drafts of her love letters to the President.

Last fall, Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sent to Congress a receipt from the breakfast. Under questioning by the House Prosecutor, Mr Asa Hutchison, yesterday, according to several sources familiar with his testimony, Mr Jordan said his recollection had been refreshed since his earlier grand jury appearance and he conceded the breakfast occurred.

But Mr Jordan remained adamant he never instructed or suggested that Ms Lewinsky destroy any love letters, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Ms Lewinsky has stuck by her testimony that Mr Jordan had told her to go home and make sure ‘they’re not there.’ At the time, the letters were under subpoena.

The Jordan deposition at the Capitol was contentious at times, according to the sources, but White House lawyers asked only two questions at the end. They had asked none of Ms Lewinsky a day earlier.

The same sources said Mr Jordan made clear in his latest testimony that the President was behind his efforts to find a job in New York for Ms Lewinsky and that he gave it attention because he did not want to disappoint Mr Clinton.

House prosecutors are hoping such evolutions or changes in testimony will bolster their case as they make one last-ditch effort to persuade Senators to call witnesses for live testimony in the well of the Senate before the trial ends.

‘It will be our intention to request live witnesses,’ said the Head Prosecutor, Mr Henry Hyde, but none beyond the three who are providing depositions. A White House aide, Mr Sidney Blumenthal, will be questioned today.

Senators got their first chance yesterday to see Ms Lewinsky’s videotaped testimony at four closed Capitol sites and came away suggesting there was little or nothing new, seemingly dimming the chance that she will be called to the Senate floor.

If the Senate’s 45 Democrats oppose live testimony, as expected, only six Republicans would have to join them to move the trial toward beginning closing arguments as early as this weekend. The goal of both parties is to vote on the perjury and obstruction of justice charges by February 12.

Separately, Senators and the White House were talking about a Republican proposal to allow some sort of trial statement that would declare that Mr Clinton had done wrong, but would not remove him from office.

That found no favour among the Clinton defenders.

Clinton raises funds as Vernon deposes

BOSTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) — President Bill Clinton left the heated atmosphere of Washington for the warm embrace of fellow Democrats, who donated $ 1.8 million in the hope of turning the public ire over his impeachment trial into victory for the party next year.

As Ms Monica Lewinsky's videotaped testimony was being shown the Senators and presidential friend Vernon Jordan was giving his sworn deposition for the Senate trial, President Clinton was addressing some 500 party faithful attending a luncheon in downtown Boston that raised more than $ 800,000 for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Last night he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were to attend a 10,000 dollars-a-person fund-raiser in New York that was to generate a minimum of $ 1 million for the DNC.

"There is a lot of energy in our party today because we have a mission for the American people," said President Clinton, who received an enthusiastic welcome from the luncheon crowd, "because we believe in opportunity and responsibility."

"It is now the mandate to fulfil the obligation that we were given by the American people," he said, referring to the 1998 elections that narrowed the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

As some Republicans grumbled it was unseemly for the President to be fund-raising while the Senate pondered Articles of impeachment calling for his removal, the President muted much of the rhetoric usually unleashed at such partisan gatherings.

KLA agrees to attend peace talks

PRISTINA (Yugoslavia), Feb 3 (AP) — Serbia’s hard-line government bore the full weight of international pressure today for Kosovo peace talks, after rebels agreed to negotiations to end the province’s 11-month-old war.

Although calling the proposed peace plan for Kosovo flawed, the main spokesman for the Kosovo Liberation Army said yesterday the rebel leaders accepted the US and European summons to peace talks in Rambouillet, France.

The rebels demanded a lead role on the Albanian negotiating team for their Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA has become Kosovo Albanians’ leading force in their strengthening push for independence from Serbia, the dominant of Yugoslavia’s two remaining republics.

We have some objections to the proposed document but we are certainly ready to go to Rambouillet,” rebel spokesman Jakup Krasniqi said.

NATO has threatened airstrikes if Serbia and the rebels aren’t talking by Saturday and closing a peace deal by February 19 under talks organised by the USA and five European powers.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic deferred Serbia’s decision to tomorrow’s meeting of Parliament. Parliament is dominated by hard-liners and ultranationlists and under Milosevic’s de facto control.

In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin welcomed the KLA acceptance, saying the USA was pleased that the Kosovar Albanian side appears to be coalescing in favour of coming to the negotiations outside of Paris.”

Mr Rubin said the USA was waiting for the Serbs to agree.

Meanwhile, the Serb police seized nearly $ 600,000 worth of weapons, ammunition and uniforms destined for ethnic Albanian rebels, what officials called the biggest weapons find ever inside Kosovo.

The supplies were found under a false floor in a 25-tonne tractor-trailer near Kosovska Mitrovica, 35 km North-West of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina. The police said they found the vehicle abandoned on the side of a road after an anonymous telephonic tip off.

Late yesterday, officials escorted reporters to the local police headquarters, where they displayed rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, machine guns, anti-personnel land mines, fuses, fatigue uniforms, and red and black shoulder patches of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The KLA was to announce its delegates to the peace talks today. Krasniqi said the rebels wanted four spots on the Albanian team, expected to number about 15.

The US-proposed peace plan would give Kosovo greater autonomy for three years. Serbs and Albanians would decide what happens after that.

The KLA will demand that Kosovo be made an international protectorate during the three-year autonomy period, Krasniqi said.

After that, Kosovo’s people should decide its future in a referendum, the rebels said.

Ethnic Albanians are by far the majority among Kosovo’s two million people, and most of them want outright independence.

The government has said any vote on Kosovo’s future should be by all the people of Serbia. It has resisted any moves that might erode its control over the province.

Mr Rubin emphasised the US position that we do not support independence” for Kosovo.

Sick Yeltsin sacks Prosecutor-General

MOSCOW, Feb 3 (UNI) — In a surprise move, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, undergoing treatment for stomach ulcer at a local sanatorium, has dismissed his Prosecutor-General. No explanation was provided for the sacking.

However, ‘Voice of Russia’ indicated that Mr Yevgeni Skrutov had recently suggested that in case the president was incapacitated by a prolonged illness, he must resign. This had irked the mercurial Yeltsin who is known for adopting similar measures against other senior members of the administration.

What made last night’s news flash from The Kremlin interesting was a sentence added by Voice of Russia saying that only Parliament had powers to fire the prosecutor-general.

The delayed arrival of The Kremlin communiqué generated surprise and raised doubts. Was Mr Yeltsin fit enough to make such a drastic move? Were his close associates in the administration taking decisions on his behalf?

A local daily had even hinted about mysterious moves in the palace, connected with forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. The Daily Moskovsky Komsomolets blamed Russia’s financial magnate Boris Berezovsky for power hiccups in The Kremlin.

Now shifted to the office of executive secretary, Commonwealth of independent states, Mr Berezovsky had been rather close to presidential circles and was reported to have financed his 1996 election campaign.

The newspaper speaks of Mr Berezovsky’s designs to push Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov to a point where he will be forced to announce his candidature for presidency in 2000, so that the tycoon can tell Mr Yeltsin that he had been “nurturing a poisonous snake.”

Mr Berezovsky’s short-term task, as enunciated by the nation’s print media, is to put Mr Primakov and the communists at loggerheads and thus severely damage the premier’s chances of winning the presidential elections in 2000.

Another daily Segodnya has directly linked the question of the President’s life with the Russian political elite’s readiness for early elections, which are likely to favour Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

A section of the media has indicated that Mr Primakov’s route to the presidency is hindered by two barriers: Mr Yeltsin’s team and the U.S. Department of State. However, the media admits that even a fresh bout of illness would not prevent Mr Primakov’s chances for presidency or initiate changes in the balance of forces.

Security alert in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Feb 3 (UNI) — The Sri Lankan military and police went on maximum alert ahead of tomorrow’s independence day celebrations here in Colombo, defence officials said.

Army troops intensified checks on vehicles and pedestrians as officials carried out rehearsals for the celebrations marking Sri Lanka’s 51st anniversary of independence from Britain.

The venue of tomorrow’s celebrations, the independence square in Colombo’s fashionable Cinnamon Garden’s area was sealed off as President Chandrika Kumaratunga is due to attend the main freedom day celebrations there.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Government has warned the US and other Colombo-based diplomats against commenting on a local election which President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s ruling party won amid charges of rigging.

The stern warning by the Foreign Ministry came as a US Embassy spokesman expressed concern over charges of violence and electoral fraud and said they were awaiting a final report from a panel of independent poll monitors.

The Foreign Ministry told all heads of diplomatic missions, the United Nations Office and other specialised agencies that any reactions to the January 25 north-western province (NWP) elections will be considered an interference in the island’s internal affairs.

World leaders rush to S. Africa

CAPE TOWN, Feb 3 (AFP) — A number of world leaders and heads of state and government are lining up to visit President Nelson Mandela before he steps down from office later this year, government officials have said.

Already in the country is Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao, who had talks with Mandela here yesterday, the third day of his five-day visit to South Africa.

Due in South Africa today is Australian Chancellor Viktor Klima, who will pay a three-day official visit at the invitation of South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.

Klima is due to hold talks with Mandela on Thursday, the day before the South African leader makes his final state of the nation address when he opens Parliament for the last time.

Hot on the heels of Klima will be Spanish King Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia, who will be in South Africa from February 14 to 21.

Two other leaders will arrive during their visit, Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, due from February 15 to 18, and US Vice-President Al Gore, expected from February 17 to 19, according to foreign affairs officials.

Numerous other visits are also being planned, the officials said, but none has been confirmed.

In mid-March, it will be Mandela’s turn to travel and state visits to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are already confirmed, Mandela’s office said.

Kissinger formula for Palestinian state

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (PTI) — Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has proposed creation of a Palestinian state with compromise borders and defence “restrictions”.

Suggesting newly drawn borders, Mr Kissinger wrote in The Washington Post yesterday the Palestinians have to recognise that Israel cannot return to the 1967 borders, while Tel Aviv has to agree to the “greatest possible contiguity” for the Palestinian state and not try to turn it into a checkerboard.

Once Israel conceded self-governing authority for the Palestinians, it lost the capacity to prevent its eventual transformation into a Palestinian state, he said.

Mr Kissinger, back home from a recent trip to Tel Aviv, proposed restrictions on the Palestinian state’s defence equipment citing short distance between it and Israel’s populous points.

The Kissinger formula suggests Jerusalem as common capital with Israel keeping the present city and the Palestinians setting up their capital in an adjoining suburb that will be attached to the city so that it will be called Jerusalem.

The Arab and Christian holy places will have a special status, he wrote.

Laden ‘planning more attacks’

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (DPA) — Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is planning more attacks against US citizens and could strike anywhere at anytime, the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said.

Testifying before a Senate committee, the CIA director, Mr George Tenet, said yesterday, ‘There is not the slightest doubt’ that bin Laden and his allies are ‘planning further attacks against the USA’. He said the agency has noted activities similar to those spotted before the August last attacks against US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He did not give details.

Bin Laden, a renegade Saudi businessman-turned-terrorist leader, has been indicted by a US court on charges of orchestrating the bombings. Washington has offered a reward of $ 5 million for information leading to bin Laden’s capture.

Mr Tenet said bin Laden’s network stretches world-wide, ‘including inside the United States’ and has tried to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

‘And he has stated unequivocally that all Americans are targets,’ Mr Tenet added.

Pak help sought on Dawood extradition

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (PTI) — India has asked Pakistan to cooperate with New Delhi for extraditing mafia don Dawood Ibrahim who has recently shifted base to Karachi from Dubai, Home Secretary B.P. Singh has said.

Mr Singh told reporters here yesterday that he had pointed out to his Pakistani counterpart that Ibrahim and his associates have moved to Karachi and were under police protection there.

Islamabad has been told that it should cooperate with New Delhi to extradite Ibrahim who is wanted in India on several charges, including masterminding the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Mr Singh said.

Spate of executions in China

BEIJING, Feb 3 (Reuters) — The Chinese authorities have executed another 17 convicted murderers, grave robbers, rapists and smugglers in the run-up to the lunar new year holidays, the state media said today.

Media reports over the last week show at least 55 people have been executed in a crackdown aimed at ensuring the holiday season, which starts on February 16, is not marred by crime.

The Morning Post said eight people were executed in Beijing on Monday for murder, rape and robbery.

In south-eastern Fujian province, five were executed by firing squad last month for smuggling, burglary and stealing cars, The People’s Court News said.

Two peasants were put to death in Jingzhou city in Hubei province last month for robbing 2,000-year-old graves, a newspaper said. China is cracking down on smuggling of relics.

The Shanghai railway court executed one and jailed 12 others last month for trafficking drugs, the daily said.

Human sperm from rats!

TOKYO, Feb 3 (AFP) — A Greek doctor has claimed a medical breakthrough with rats and mice that produce human sperm.

Assistant Professor Nikolas Sofikitis, who works in Japan, said he implanted the human cells responsible for producing sperm — spermatogonia — into rat and mice testes in August 1998. Five months later human sperm was detected in the animals, he told AFP.

Prof Sofikitis, who works at the Urology Department of Tottori University in western Japan, said the key to success was the use of the animals own eye cells in operation.

Previous attempts to grow human spermatogonia in rats and mice in Japan and the USA had failed due to the animals’ white blood cells attacking the human transplant within the testes.

But when some of the animals’ own eye cells were implanted in the testes they killed off the white blood cells and allowed the human spermatogonia to grow and eventually produce sperm.

The spermatogonia were taken from 18 infertile human patients and used in 10 rats and eight mice, Prof Sofikitis said.

There was much work ahead before it could be applied to humans, said the researcher, describing the experiment as a breakthrough.

Beijing: Chinese men have reacted swiftly to an appeal broadcast via Internet for donations to a sperm bank in Shanghai, reports said on Wednesday. Xinhua said more than 100 men had already replied and 10 volunteers had come to make a donation since the clinic started a website two months ago.

Net porno law struck down

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (DPA) — A US federal judge has struck down a controversial law designed to protect minors from pornography on the Internet, ruling that it violated constitutional protections of free speech, The Washington Post reported.

Monday’s ruling by District Judge Lowell A. Reed in Philadelphia prevented the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) from taking effect. The US Justice Department must now decide whether to defend the law, appealed Reed’s ruling.

COPA would have required sites on the Internet’s world wide web to take steps - such as requiring credit card numbers for entry - to prevent minors from viewing sexually explicit materials, or face stiff fines.

Gender dilemma
BRUSSELS: A Belgian who became a woman after a sex-change operation has lost an appeal to have her sex changed to female on her birth certificate. Priscilla Van Sandt, 48, has been recognised as a female on her national identity card since June 1, 1998. But her birth certificate still indicates she is Ronny Van Sandt and male. Priscilla’s request to have the document modified was rejected yesterday by a court in Antwerp on the grounds that she has not divorced the woman she married before her sex change. — AFP

Fighting HIV
NEW YORK: UN scientists have said that a simple, relatively inexpensive drug treatment can significantly reduce mother-to-infant transmission of the AIDS virus. The UN researchers said on Tuesday that a large study in Africa found that administering two Glaxo Wellcome PLC drugs, AZT and 3TC, to pregnant women at the time of birth, and to the mother and baby after birth, can reduce transmission of the virus, HIV, by 37 per cent, compared to women who received a placebo, the Wall Street Journal reported. — Reuters

CIS defence pact
TASHKENT: Uzbekistan will not extend its membership in the collective security treaty of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the foreign minister’s press secretary has said. “Uzbekistan is not prepared in the future to take part in the treaty on collective security of the CIS. Uzbekistan has informed the corresponding CIS structures of this well in advance,” Bakhodyr Umarov told Reuters by telephone. — Reuters

Secret talks
LONDON: Secret talks on handing over the two men accused of the Lockerbie bombing are underway in Libya, amid a warning from the Americans that their patience is running out, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Guardian said Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar Ibn Sultan had travelled to Tripoli to try and secure a deal over the affair. — AFP

Camera captures ‘ghost’
LONDON: Security cameras outside a former country mansion in England, recorded ghostly apparitions one night last Christmas, including one that seemed to be a woman in Victorian dress, The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. Staff at the Belgrave Hall Museum, in Leicester, Central England, have sent the video footage to a laboratory and contacted paranormal investigators to clear up the mystery of the two spectral shapes. — AFP