Discipline market players: G-15
MONTEGO BAY, Feb 12 — Expressing concern over the financial crises facing developing countries, the summit of Group of Fifteen (G-15) today demanded the creation of a consultative mechanism between north and south on reforms in the global financial system and more say for developing nations.

Now Monica tells her story
ONCE it was Madonna. Now, the new darling of Manhattan’s gossiping classes is Monica Lewinsky. Her every banal activity is logged and derided in the databank of celebrity — Monica and her mum have a row in a restaurant; Monica goes shopping; Monica buys a bagel; Monica cowers in her hotel room; Monica goes out with a scarf obscuring her features (though not well enough).

Taliban must expel Laden: USA
WASHINGTON, Feb 12 — The USA today said the restrictions announced by the Taliban on terrorist Osama bin Laden were not enough and they must expel him from Afghanistan to face trial for “murdering hundreds of innocent people”.

Indo-Pak relations
MPs look for path to peace

ISLAMABAD, Feb 12 (AP) — Members of Parliament from India and Pakistan sat across the table today to try to chip away at the years of hostility and lay the foundations of a friendship.

The meeting of legislators is a first in their stormy relationship that has been characterised by war and relentless bickering.

Neither side is expecting to achieve a major breakthrough at the two-day conference, but rather Pakistan's former Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub said "it will break the ice.. we have a shared history, culture (but) we are like oil and water in a barrel."

"As if the disputes inherited from a divisive history is not enough, Pakistan and India are entrapped in both declared and undeclared wars and a most costly arms race which their economies cannot afford, said Mr Imtiaz Alam of the Pakistan's Jang Group of Newspapers, the organisers of the conference.

More than 35 MPs from India and 60 from Pakistan are attending the conference.

While elsewhere in the world military spending has been declining, in south Asia it has increased 12 per cent, said Mr Alam.

He said the two countries are among the biggest consumers of weapons.

It's estimated that more than 400 million people in the two countries live well below the poverty level. The need of the day for the two countries is economic development, said Mr Alam.

"We have not come with any special agenda. . . we have come here to become good neighbours and to live together in peace and tranquillity," said Mr K. Asungba Sangtam, Congress Lok Sabha member.

In his opening remarks, Mr Alam told participants that the subcontinent has two choices: dialogue or war.

Motivation for the conference, he said was in part to "save this beloved subcontinent of ours from nuclear catastrophe."

From the Pakistan side, the MPs said the nagging dispute over Kashmir has to be settled if the relationship between the two countries can be solved.

"Our main problem is the dispute of Kashmir," said Pakistani lawmaker Yasin Wattoo, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. "Without the solution of this problem there cannot be any progress in any other field."

Israel backtracks on peace deal

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (PTI) — Israel has rejected a call by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) for a global meet to discuss Israeli settlements in West Bank and vowed to stall implementation of the Wye Accord unless the Palestinian authority cracks down on terrorist groups in areas under it.

“Can we implement the second stage of the Wye Accord? Regrettably no. Because the Palestinians did not do their part,” Mr Yoav Biran, who is in charge of the peace process at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told the New York Times yesterday.

“They (the Palestinians) have failed to outlaw terrorist organisations. They have not done enough to collect illegal arms, reduce force of their police and to mount a serious fight against terrorism,” Mr Biran said accusing the Palestinian authority of failing to honour the Wye Accord.

“Whenever information is forwarded on impending attacks on Israelis, the Palestinian authorities do something, but, not enough is done to remove the terrorist infrastructure,” he charged.

Under the October accord, negotiated under US auspices, Israel was supposed to have given back another five per cent of West Bank, seized from Jordan in the 1967 war, to the Palestinians by now.

Tel Aviv, has already handed over two per cent of West Bank to the Palestinian authority and allowed opening of the Gaza airport under the first phase of the deal.

In a related development, the Israeli Government has in an announcement in Jerusalem rejected a call by the UNGA for an international conference on April 8 in Geneva to discuss Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The call for the conference was given by 20 Arab nations and some non-aligned nations under the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which bars settlements in occupied territories.

UK House concern over attacks

LONDON, Feb 12 (PTI) — The British House of Commons has expressed concern over the recent attacks on Christians in India and urged the Vajpayee Government to take steps to restore the confidence of the community.

Members cutting across party lines condemned the recent attacks as “disturbing”, in light of the subcontinent’s centuries-old tradition of tolerance, during a discussion on an adjournment motion moved yesterday by ruling party member David Winnick.

Replying to the motion on the state of Christians in the subcontinent, Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Office Tony Lloyd said: “It is particularly disturbing that we are debating intolerance in the subcontinent because Britain still has many ties with it.”

He, however, expressed satisfaction with the steps taken by the Indian Government to bring to book those behind the attacks on Christians, including the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons.

“We are encouraged by these developments and by the determination of the Indian authorities to bear down against the perpetrators of this evil in Indian society. We look forward to the findings of the inquiries instituted into the incidents,” Mr Lloyd said.

Drawing members’ attention to the President and the Prime Minister’s strong condemnation of the attacks and the outrage expressed by ordinary Indians, he said, “Although we must be forthright in our condemnation, we must not stigmatise all of India for the attacks in some parts .. it would not be fair or acceptable to do so.”

Initiating the debate, Mr Winnick, Labour Party member from North Walsall, urged the British Government to let India and Pakistan know of “our deep and continuing concern about the recent attacks on minorities” in the two countries.

“There have been more than 100 reported incidents against Christians in India in the last two years. It is a matter of deep concern that a pogrom-like atmosphere has been building up against the Christian minority, particularly in the past two years,” he charged. 

Significantly, India’s High Commissioner to Britain Lalit Mansingh has already written to Mr Winnick reaffirming New Delhi’s commitment to secular policies enshrined in Constitution and its determination to bring the culprits to book.

12 Eritreans die in bombing

ASMARA, Feb 12 (AFP) — Ethiopian artillery bombarded Eritrean positions around Zala Anbesa on the front line in their border war today, killing 12 civilians and wounding 20 others, an Eritrean Foreign Ministry spokesman told AFP.

Earlier, Eritrea warned Ethiopia against using its air force in their border war, saying it would retaliate with its own aircraft.

It also said that it would consider foreign pilots and technical staff enrolled in the Ethiopian forces as mercenaries who would not be treated as prisoners of war, if captured.

“Eritrea has not conducted any air strike and has not violated the moratorium on air strikes” which was signed in June last year, a communiqué said. “However, it reserves the right to retaliate, if attacked by air.” Today’s shelling followed a two-day lull in the fighting.

Discipline market players: G-15

MONTEGO BAY, Feb 12 (PTI) — Expressing concern over the financial crises facing developing countries, the summit of Group of Fifteen (G-15) today demanded the creation of a consultative mechanism between north and south on reforms in the global financial system and more say for developing nations.

A joint communiqué issued at the end of the three-day summit, called for greater flexibility in the current international monitoring and crisis response regime, to take into account the viability of alternative options depending upon the particular country circumstances.

Backing a proposal by India, the group urged the Rome-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) to launch a comprehensive employment strategy during its governing body meeting in March next.

The strategy, it said, should include the right to work, to promote “respect for internationally recognised fundamental ILO conventions on workers’ rights.”

The G-15 move assumes significance as unemployment has assumed alarming proportions in developing countries facing financial problems.

Expressing serious concern over structural factors, which have led to “significant falls” in prices of commodities, the summit asked all developing nations to join G-15 in international fora to press for remedial measures as part of a comprehensive and integrated approach to restart growth and development.

Noting the “slow pace” of reforms in the international financial system, the summit called for a mechanism and adequate rules to monitor and supervise the operations of large financial market players, including hedge funds and currency speculators.

“These should also provide the government with an international framework of principles to act as an early warning system for the adoption of appropriate policy responses,” the communiqué said.

It stressed on greater coherence between the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund and financial institutions in decision-making procedure to avoid imposition of additional or cross conditionalities.

The declaration demanded the inclusion of social safety net as an integral part of development policies and programmes at both micro and macro levels to ensure that the basic needs of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors were met, besides safeguarding the “human capital of workers” whose jobs were at risk.

The leaders expressed support for the measures taken to increase transparency and accountability, strengthen national financial systems, including prudential supervision, and for improvement of a multilateral approach to monitoring and management of the international financial crisis.

“Opening of the capital account must be carried out in orderly, gradual and well-sequenced manner, at a pace consistent with the strengthening of countries, abilities to manage any unforeseen and unintended consequences” as has happened in case of the East Asian currency meltdown, they said.

They asked the international community to pursue the reforms energetically and demanded institutional reforms making them more democratic, transparent and accountable to its members, and a redesign of the policy frameworks more appropriate to national circumstances.

Now Monica tells her story
from Mike Ellison in New York

ONCE it was Madonna. Now, the new darling of Manhattan’s gossiping classes is Monica Lewinsky. Her every banal activity is logged and derided in the databank of celebrity — Monica and her mum have a row in a restaurant; Monica goes shopping; Monica buys a bagel; Monica cowers in her hotel room; Monica goes out with a scarf obscuring her features (though not well enough).

But what else is this young woman to do with her fame, built as it is on no discernible talents other than for job-seeking and for gaining vacuous notoriety? It was only proximity to power that gave her a place on the world’s stage and now, as Congress puts away its dossiers and tries to remember what it used to do before she happened by, it is time for her to cash in on her one valuable commodity — herself.

St Martin’s Press, which has paid US$625,000 for the honour, is expecting to receive any day the completed manuscript of Monica’s Story, by Andrew Morton. Already, a hardback cover has appeared on the Amazon online bookstore website promising 288 pages at the reduced price of $17.46. Or, if you prefer, the audio cassette version for $12.60.

No release date has been set, though it is expected that the work by the author of Diana: Her True Story will be out later this month, once Ms Lewinsky has been released from the silence imposed upon her by Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor whose investigation into President Clinton’s activities led to impeachment proceedings.

Until then there is the hiss of tittle-tattle to fuel her legend: talk of a Hollywood musical; her mother’s dispute with a bakery shop (she claims they tipped off photographers to her daughter’s presence); the word from her personal trainer that Monica cheats on her diet and wears a gaudy jogging kit.

“You don’t want to be noticed and you’re wearing hot-pink hot pants?” St Martin’s has ordered an initial print run of up to 400,000, and sales will be stimulated by an interview on ABC with telly grand dame Barbara Walters.

Barbara, says an insider at Channel 4, which has paid for its own interview, just wants to make her cry. Barbara could be disappointed. Anyone who saw the cheekily glib psychology major’s performance in Senate testimony a week ago — dressed in the clothes of a woman twice her 25 years — knows they were not watching someone who needs camera aversion therapy.

Ms Lewinsky’s is by no means the only book on the way. First out of the traps after the Morton effort will be All Too Human: A Political Education, by the former White House political adviser, George Stephanopoulos, who has been advanced $3 million by Little Brown. But the public is only human and Laurence Kirshaum of Time Warner Trade Publishing, which owns Little Brown, said: “Sixty to 90 days from now this subject could be a big yawn.”

One Newsweek reporter, Michael Isikoff, must hope not: his Uncovering Clinton is expected out in April.

British soothsayers are represented by No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulation of William Jefferson Clinton, by Christopher Hitchens, and The Joy of Sex: Bill Clinton and the Conquest of Puritanism, by Alexander Cockburn, whose book is planned for a dangerously late May.

“They’re all going to end up as remainders,” said a White House official.

“The last six months have been like chewing on the same piece of gum — the flavour’s all gone.”

What then for Ms Lewinsky? Perhaps the reputed boyfriend who works for an independent film company will still be about. The legal bills certainly will be. So will the 24-hour cable news channels, always eager for “content”, and the rest of the media with anniversary slots to fill.

In a culture where Jimmy Carter is recalled as the genial old buffer who never lost the mark of the peanut farmer and Gerald Ford will be forever the guy who could not walk and chew gum at the same time, perhaps her future role model is Fergie, advertising a diet business on television and hosting little-noticed book signings.
— Guardian News Service

Taliban must expel Laden: USA

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (PTI) — The USA today said the restrictions announced by the Taliban on terrorist Osama bin Laden were not enough and they must expel him from Afghanistan to face trial for “murdering hundreds of innocent people”.

“The Taliban’s announcement does not address the central issue of concern to the world community and the United States,” Deputy State Department Spokesman James Foley said at a department briefing.

“We have repeatedly made clear to the Taliban our view that Osama bin Laden should be expelled from Afghanistan immediately to a place where he could be brought to justice for his crimes,” he asserted.

Pandit Jasraj
TORONTO: Noted Indian vocalist Pandit Jasraj has been honoured by University of Toronto for his outstanding contribution to the field of music. The university’s Faculty of Music Distinguished Visitor Award’ for the year 1999 carries a citation and a medal. The award will be conferred upon Jasraj on April 18, according to David Beach, Dean of the Music Faculty. — PTI

Protest against ruling
ROME: Women lawmakers wore jeans to Parliament on Thursday in protest against an appeals court ruling that it was impossible to rape a woman wearing jeans. “Jeans: an alibi for rape,’’ read the sign held up by five deputies on Thursday. The court overturned on Wednesday a rape conviction against Carmine Cristiano, a driving instructor sentenced in 1996 to two years and eight months in prison for the rape of his 18-year-old student. Cristiano argued that she consented to sex. — AP

Paedophile jailed
SYDNEY: Phillip Bell, extradited from South Africa in January, 1997, to face charges of sexually abusing young boys in his native NP Mrzltao was handed a 10-and-a-half-year prison sentence by a Sydney court on Friday. Bell, a 64-year-old former millionaire, was arrested near port Elizabeth after a worldwide chase by international police agencies through Latin America, Europe and Africa. — DPA

Poland to join NATO
WARSAW: Poland will formally become a member of the NATO defence alliance on March 12, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman. “March 12, “Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek will present ratification documents to the US Secretary of State, this will mark our entry to NATO” the spokesman Pawel Dobrowolski told Reuters on Thursday. — Reuters

8 die in mishap
BRASILIA: At least eight persons died and several were missing, most of them children, after a crowded boat capsized on a turbulent stretch of a river in Brazil’s Amazon, police officials have said. — Reuters