'Elizabeth' nominated for Oscar
BEVERLY HILLS, (California), Feb 9 — Renowned Indian film maker Shekhar Kapur’s "Elizabeth" and Steven Speilberg’s epic war drama "Saving Private Ryan" landed on the list of Oscar nominees for best film of 1998 today along with romantic comedy "Shakespeare in Love."

Power struggle in Russia
MOSCOW, Feb 9 — An intense power struggle has broken out in Russia against the backdrop of a crumbling economy and an ailing and increasingly ineffective President, casting its shadow over the continuance in office of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

Iran opposes visa to Rushdie
DUBAI, Feb 9 — The Iranian Press continued its attack on India for issuing a visa to Salman Rushdie, who spent nearly a decade in hiding after the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death decree against him in 1989 for allegedly blaspheming Islam in the novel “The Satanic Verses”.

Jailed for ‘strange punishment’
LONDON, Feb 9 — A Spanish teacher, who made a 14-year-old pupil lie on a carpet of drawing pins to punish him for his mistakes, has been given a three-month jail sentence, half of it suspended.

US team plans to unearth child labour
NEW DELHI, Feb 9 — India and the USA are engaged in a “war of nerves” over the visit of customs officials from Washington to check prevalence of forced child labour in the textiles industry.

• Protest over attacks

'Elizabeth' nominated for Oscar

BEVERLY HILLS, (California), Feb 9 (Reuters) — Renowned Indian film maker Shekhar Kapur’s "Elizabeth" and Steven Speilberg’s epic war drama "Saving Private Ryan" landed on the list of Oscar nominees for best film of 1998 today along with romantic comedy "Shakespeare in Love."

The list of five nominees also include "Life is Beautiful" by Italian film-maker Robert Benigni and "The Thin Red Line" by legendary director Terrence Malick.

Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks topped the list of Oscar nominees for best actor for his role in "Saving Private Ryan" along with veteran actor Sir Ian McKellen for "Gods and Monsters".

The nomination list includes Italian writer, director and actor Roberto Benigni for his work in "Life is Beautiful", Nick Nolte for playing a man nearing mental collapse in "Affliction" and Edward Norton for his portrayal of a skinhead racist in "American History X".

Shakespeare’s sweatheart Gwyneth Paltrow received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her starring role in the romantic comedy "Shakespeare in Love."

Paltrow was joined on the list of nominees by Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro for the critical favourite "Central Station," Australian actress Cate Blanchett for "Elizabeth," previous Oscar winner Meryl Streep for "One True Thing" and Emily Watson for "Hilary and Jackie."

Steven Spielberg stormed the list of Oscar nominees as best director for his epic Second World War Drama "Saving Private Ryan" along with Peter Weir for "The Truman Show".

The list of five nominees also includes John Madden for the romantic comedy "Shakespeare in Love," Italian film maker Roberto Benigni for "Life is Beautiful" and legendary director Terrence Malick for another war drama "The Thin Red Line."

Brazilian film "Central Station," about a motherless boy’s search for his father with the help of a retired teacher, was nominated for this year’s Oscar as best foreign language film.

Also nominated were "Life is Beautiful," a wartime drama from Italy set amid the Nazi death camps, the Iranian film "Children of Heaven," "The Grandfather" from Spain, and "Tango from Argentina.

The Oscars, given out this year on March 21 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are the film industry’s most prestigious awards.

Power struggle in Russia

MOSCOW, Feb 9 (UNI) — An intense power struggle has broken out in Russia against the backdrop of a crumbling economy and an ailing and increasingly ineffective President, casting its shadow over the continuance in office of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

Speculations of Mr Primakov’s ouster were sparked off once it became known that Mr Yeltsin had rebuked his Deputy for trying to take over his powers.

Mr Yeltsin is known for sacking Deputies on the slightest hint that they are after his powers. And soon after returning to Kremlin from his sick bed a few days ago, Mr Yeltsin reportedly accused Mr Primakov of trying to usurp his powers.

This followed rumours that Mr Primakov is angling for the presidential post, keeping in mind Mr Yeltsin’s continuing illness.

Analysts say that the current tremors in the political circles may end up with the President axing Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov, Agriculture Minister Gennady Kulik, First Deputy Premiers Yuri Maslyukov and Vladimir Putin, and may be even Mr Primakov.

However, this was denied in a statement issued on behalf of Mr Yeltsin by Deputy Chief of the Presidential Administration Oleg Sysuyev yesterday before the President left for Jordan to attend the funeral of the late King Hussein.

In the statement, Mr Yeltsin said all rumours of the Primakov Cabinet being fired by him were circulated by “dishonest politicians”, and clarified that a systematic campaign was being carried on in a section of the media about the President planning to fire some of the close aides of the Prime Minister.

The Deputy Chief of Presidential Administration also told reporters that Mr Yeltsin had expressed his support to the Prime Minister. “As a matter of fact, I had forwarded his candidature to the Duma as a man enjoying the support of all segments of society, which has been proved to be correct by the political developments of the last few months”, Mr Yeltsin’s statement, broadcast by Moscow Radio, said.

However, several leading observers have been sceptical of the president agreeing to get his wings clipped and feel that he might, nevertheless, overthrow the Primakov Cabinet.

Federation Council Chairman Yegor Stroyev said on Saturday that Russia would be thrown into “chaos” if Mr Primakov were to be sacked.

Echoing his views, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned Russians about “somebody prodding Mr Yeltsin to sack Mr Primakov”.

G-15 summit opens today
Wide acceptance to India’s offer

MONTEGO BAY (Jamaica), Feb 9 (PTI) — India’s offer to host a preparatory meeting in New Delhi to formulate a common stand for the developing countries before the WTO ministerial conference in the USA has found wide acceptance at the G-15 Trade Ministers Conference here.

Indicating this, Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde told the trade ministers meeting that India would provide a platform for developing countries to exchange their views on various issues likely to come up at the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle USA later this year.

The meeting noted with appreciation that the G-15 symposium on special and differential treatment provisions held in New Delhi in December last year had led to a better understanding of these provisions of the WTO agreements.

Referring to the multilateral trade agenda, Mr Hegde told the meeting there was a need for concerted action by developing countries to respond to the “new protectionism” being witnessed in several developed countries.

The ministerial meeting at Seattle is expected to see an interesting turn of events as USA is keen on having short round of trade negotiations instead of the seven-year-long Uruguay trade negotiations that led to the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and establishment of the WTO.

At the second WTO ministerial meet at Geneva last year, the USA had mooted the idea of a short millennium round of negotiations to sort new issues but France and Japan had preferred a continuation of the Uruguay round.

India and other developing countries have been insisting that implementation of GATT be reviewed and no fresh issue be brought on to the WTO agenda like labour standards or the OECD-mooted multilateral agreement on investments.

The G-15 initiative regarding special and differential treatment provisions for developing countries needed to be followed up in the WTO process by all developing countries to ensure their implementation.

Mr Hegde said similar coordination of approaches in the agenda was necessary to protect and further the interests of developing countries. Developing countries were not in a position to undertake new commitments for liberalisation, especially in the context of the adverse impact on many of them of the ongoing financial crises. He urged that the call by some developed countries for a new comprehensive round of negotiations should be resisted.

Mr Hegde felt that the East Asian financial crisis had deep implications on the global financial system which the world could ignore only at its peril. The crisis has thrown up the urgent need for a total overhaul of the global financial architecture which had been unable to prevent the crisis or manage it efficiently.

The net result, Mr Hegde said was that the fruits of hard work of several decades in many developing countries had been wiped out in the space of a few weeks. He reiterated India’s call for a new global financial architecture within a six-point conceptual framework.

One of the major issues facing them is to coordinate their position regarding the review conference of World Trade Organisation (WTO) scheduled for later this year.

The formal opening ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow morning and the plenary session would be held later in the afternoon.

Another plenary session is scheduled for Friday morning. But officials attach more importance to bilateral discussions which will help the group to increase areas of consensus.

The heads of states, government and vice-presidents attending the conference would go into retreat on Thursday for informal one-on-one discussions.

Iran opposes visa to Rushdie

DUBAI, Feb 9 (PTI) — The Iranian Press continued its attack on India for issuing a visa to Salman Rushdie, who spent nearly a decade in hiding after the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death decree against him in 1989 for allegedly blaspheming Islam in the novel “The Satanic Verses”.

Saying the Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid had asked Muslims to sacrifice their lives to protest any visit by Rushdie to India, Tehran’s English daily “Kayhan International” said, “whether Rushdie gets killed in India or returns to Britain unscathed, India will be the real loser either ways”.

The BJP-led government “will have to pay a dear price for ignoring the religious sentiments of more than one billion Muslims,” the official Iranian News Agency IRNA quoted the newspaper as saying in an article yesterday.

It said most Indian Muslims were always prepared to defend their religious beliefs.

“In this light, the call of India’s prominent Muslim religious leader Naib Abdullah Bukhari made on Friday from Delhi’s Jama Masjid asking Muslims to ‘sacrifice their lives for Islam’ to protest Rushdie’s visit cannot be treated as hollow words,” it said.

The daily alleged the Indian government was “notorious for provoking Hindu nationalists and has been accused of fanning hatred against religious minorities”, and said its decision did not seem to be “politically sound”.

The newspaper said assertions of External Minister Jaswant Singh that granting of a visa to Rushdie was evidence of the Vajpayee government’s commitment to secularism and democracy did not carry weight.

“However, if the BJP had set right the wrong done to the Muslim minority in case of the Babri Masjid these claims would have been acceptable,” IRNA quoted the daily as saying.

NEW YORK: Indian-born author Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” led to an Iranian call for his death 10 years ago this week, writes in the New Yorker magazine that the damage to him is “as a spear in the stomach which somehow doesn’t kill but turns and twists.”

As recently as Saturday, a conservative Iranian newspaper, the English-language Teheran Times, said Rushdie was likely to be assassinated during a forthcoming visit to India.

Jailed for ‘strange punishment’

LONDON, Feb 9 (AFP) — A Spanish teacher, who made a 14-year-old pupil lie on a carpet of drawing pins to punish him for his mistakes, has been given a three-month jail sentence, half of it suspended.

Kevin Hawkins (40), a teacher at a private school in southwest England, told magistrates yesterday at Stroud that he must have suffered a moment of madness.

Magistrate Yvonne Cant told him, “You were in a position of trust and authority. At your instruction, a pupil who, at the age of 14 must be considered vulnerable, was subjected to a completely unprovoked assault.”

Hawkins’ lawyer Conrad Sheward said, “Teaching can be a very fulfilling occupation but sometimes it can distort the development of the teacher. If you spend most of your hours with school children, sometimes you behave like a child.”

Hawkins, a teacher for 17 years, had told the pupil, who had not done his homework, to come to his house to conjugate Spanish verbs.

Furious at the repeated errors, the teacher made the boy lie on drawing pins and walk on them barefoot, before putting ice cubes on his chest. He resigned after the incident.

US team plans to unearth child labour

NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (PTI) — India and the USA are engaged in a “war of nerves” over the visit of customs officials from Washington to check prevalence of forced child labour in the textiles industry.

The US Customs team is scheduled to visit India towards the end of this month to find out if “indentured” child labour exists in India following the passing of the US Customs Appropriation Bill sometime back, official sources said yesterday.

The customs appropriation bills bans imports of products made by “indentured” child labour, which means children made to work by force or not paid for the work they do, they said.

The US team is reported to be keen on visiting a few areas, especially with regard to carpet making, but India is opposed to such visits.

Textile Ministry officials, when contacted, said the visit had been cleared by the External Affairs Ministry and the entire issue was being handled by the Commerce Ministry.

The team from Washington would primarily interact with Indian customs officials and the Textile Ministry authorities, the officials said.

Commerce Ministry officials also said the US team would be holding talks with Indian customs authorities.

Official sources said India had made it clear to the USA that its (US) customs officials could not “browbeat” Indian authorities to take them to any specified area.

The US team would, however, visit some of the areas associated with carpet manufacture.

While clearing the visit, India had also told the USA that trade and labour issues could not be linked.

The government had also told them (the US team) that child labour was against the law and there were enough legal provisions to curb such acts, sources said.

However, the government’s concern is that in certain fields like handloom and handicraft, an entire family, including children, are often engaged in these occupations.

In such cases, where an entire family is involved, children are seldom paid till they attain the proper age to take independent decisions and such complex issues would have to be understood by the US team, they said.

As such, sources said agencies like Rugmark had been set up to check that no child labour was involved in producing carpets meant for exports.

The government had pointed out this fact to the USA and it hoped that the US custom team’s visit would not lead to any unsavoury developments, sources added.

Protest over attacks

COLOMBO, Feb 9 (UNI) — Hundreds of Christians in Sri Lanka took out a peace march through the streets of Colombo last evening to protest against the atrocities being committed on members of their community in India.

Crash kills 20
MEXICO CITY: Twenty persons were killed when a pick-up truck and a bus crashed on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, the police has said. The accident, between Chetumal and Cancun, north of Carrillo Puerto, happened when the pick-up truck tried to overtake a lorry in early morning fog on Monday. Most of those killed were construction workers, travelling in the pick-up truck. — DPA

Joining NATO
WASHINGTON: Of the nine central European countries that have applied to join NATO, Slovenia is the most qualified to become the next member, a Congressional survey concluded. The report by Congressional Research Service, made public on Monday by Senator William Roth also suggested Lithuania and Slovakia may be next in line. — AP

Shia-Sunni feud
MULTAN: Renewed bloodletting between rival Islamic sects in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province left five persons dead on Monday, the police said. — AP

Novelist dead
LONDON: One of the greatest British novelists of the 20th century, Iris Murdoch, has died at the age of 79, according to her husband. Murdoch, who had been suffering from Alzheimers’s disease for the past five years, died on Monday at a nursing home in Oxford. — Reuters