Civilians ‘pushed’ for N-tests in Pak
WASHINGTON, Feb 14 — Pakistan’s senior retired military officers were not unanimous in supporting its government’s tit-for-tat response to India’s nuclear tests in May last year, says a new report.

Death sentence on Rushdie ‘to be carried out’
TEHERAN, Feb 14 — The leader of an Iranian political and religious foundation, which has put a price on the head of British writer Salman Rushdie, said today that the “fatwa” against him would “definitely be carried out.”

Volga fire toll rises to 51
MOSCOW, Feb 14 — The death toll in one of the deadliest fires to ravage Russia reached 51 today as rescuers pulled out more bodies from a gutted police station in Samara on the banks of the Volga, Itar-Tass reported.

Benazir-led march baton-charged
ISLAMABAD, Feb 14 — The Pakistani riot police fired teargas and baton-charged thousands of Opposition workers at an anti-government rally led by former premier Benazir Bhutto, witnesses said.

15 LTTE rebels killed

Laden headed for Iraq?

KABUL, Feb 14 (Reuters) — The whereabouts of Islamic militant Osama bin Laden remained unclear today after his Taliban protectors said the man with a key to better relations with the West had “gone missing’’.

Regional media reports said the man accused of masterminding the bombings of US embassies in East Africa last August had been sighted on Afghanistan’s border with Iran and there was also speculation he might have gone to Iraq.

There was no word from the gaunt, bearded Saudi dissident himself or from a network of supporters and contacts across the Muslim and western world.

The Taliban, who have steadfastly refused to hand over their “guest’’ to face US indictments, said only that a team set up to monitor his movements to assuage western criticism had lost track of the USA’s public enemy number one.

“Yes, our guest has gone missing,” a Taliban spokesman in Laden’s last known retreat, Kandahar, told Reuters. “We had not told him to leave and we do not know where he has gone to or whether he has left the country,” he added.

Laden’s reported departure removed one deeply contentious issue from a list dividing the Islamic militia and western critics who have denied it full official recognition since it swept to power two years ago.

If proved true, it would also absolve the Taliban, who are on a mission to create the world’s purest Islamic state, from any suggestion that they had driven out the man idolised by Islam’s most extreme elements as a powerful enemy of US “imperialism.”

The first reaction from Washington, which last week reserved the right to bomb Afghanistan again if Laden did not leave the country, was guarded and suggested that the vexed issue of recognition was still a long way from being solved.

TEHERAN: Iran categorically denied today Pakistani reports that Washington’s public enemy No. 1 — Osama bin Laden — was headed for Iran.

Claims by a Pakistani intelligence officer that Laden had been seen on the Iranian border after his reported disappearance from his Afghan hideout were “irresponsible” and “regrettable,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The reports were aimed at “confusing public opinion,” the spokesman told official news agency Irna.

Laden’s continued residence in Kandahar has raised fears of new US military action and hindered the Taliban’s efforts to be recognised as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.

Analysts said the Taliban might have moved to isolate Bin Laden to win international favour.

London: British Foreign Office Minister Derek Fatchett on Sunday said he doubted that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia had no idea of Saudi Islamic terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts.

“I don’t think that Laden can suddenly disappear from under the nose of the Taliban. I don’t think Afghanistan is in such condition for him to be able to do that,” he told the BBC.

India, China to resume talks

BEIJING, Feb 14 (PTI) — India and China are all set to resume dialogue later this month in an effort to normalise bilateral relations which had turned sour in May last year, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and a senior Indian diplomat said here today.

Official-level talks would be held here later this month, the Indian diplomat said, hoping that the dialogue would pave the way for more substantial talks on a number of key issues concerning the two nations.

Commenting on the upcoming talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhang Qiyue said Beijing attached importance to the upcoming talks between the two countries and hoped it would achieve positive results through joint efforts.

Beijing publicly expressed willingness to resume dialogue last Sunday when Chinese Ambassador to India Zhou Gang asserted in New Delhi that China never viewed India as its enemy and wanted to resume dialogue.

The forthcoming talks would be the first one in almost seven months between New Delhi and Beijing.

“It will be a good occasion for us to take up a broad range of issues of concern to both sides,” the Indian diplomat said while expressing the hope that both sides would agree on a possible date for convening the 11th round of the joint working group (JWG) on the Sino-Indian border issue.

The Indian diplomat expressed the hope that China would realise the changed international public opinion on India’s nuclear tests in May last year and come to terms with New Delhi’s stand on signing the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) and nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

India has conducted extensive dialogue with key interlocutors including four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and other major countries like Japan.

“We always wanted to have a dialogue with China and there has been no attempt from our part not to have talks with China,” the diplomat said.

However, he noted that China had tried to isolate India at various international fora by urging other permanent members not to engage in talks with India on New Delhi’s insistence on maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrent capability.

“This is not acceptable to a country as big as India,” he said, adding that New Delhi hoped that Beijing would change its rigid stand on the nuclear issue.

“Beijing should realise that a roll back of India’s nuclear capability is not going to work,” he stressed.

India for closer ties with Morocco

RABAT, Feb 14 (PTI) — India today offered to further develop a stable, long-term and multi-faceted partnership with Morocco in political, economic and other sectors for mutual benefit.

“We are ready to develop a substantive partnership based on goodwill and mutual understanding and cooperation for mutual benefit,” the visiting Prime Minister Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, said at a banquet, hosted in his honour by his Moroccon counterpart Abderrahmane El Youssofi here.

Stating that India and Morocco could meaningfully contribute to a peaceful and equitable world order and fruitful South-South cooperation, Mr Vajpayee, on a two-day visit to Morocco after attending G-15 summit in Jamaica, said the multi-faceted relationship between the two countries was built on strong foundations, and the “future is full of promise.”

“It is of prime necessity that we set up appropriate mechanisms in view of forging a global cooperation between our two countries,” Mr Youssoufi said, adding that Mr Vajpayee’s visit would contribute to “further tighten the existing legal framework governing our relations.”

Referring to the joint efforts in various sectors, Mr Youssoufi said, “We have signed the joint agreements on promotion and protection of investment, tourism and information. Additional agreements are expected to be signed in the near future concerning merchant shipping, air transportation and agriculture.”

He said the forthcoming visit to India of the crown Prince Sidi Mohammed would be another point in “our bilateral relations.”

Morocco has appreciated India’s joining the nuclear club after the May Pokhran tests and expressed confidence that its nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes.

Mr Vajpayee said, “We are meeting at a time when the international scene is undergoing changes of far-reaching consequences. In the post-cold war phase, both nations can meaningfully contribute to fashioning a peaceful and equitable world order and fruitful South-South cooperation.”

Recalling India’s multifaceted relationship with Morocco, the Prime Minister said relations between the two nations had been built on strong foundations and the future was full of promise.

Earlier, Mr Vajpayee met the Moroccan Head of State, King Hassan II, at his palace at Marrakesh and discussed matters of mutual interest.

Civilians ‘pushed’ for N-tests in Pak

WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (UNI) — Pakistan’s senior retired military officers were not unanimous in supporting its government’s tit-for-tat response to India’s nuclear tests in May last year, says a new report.

The document, prepared by Pakistani security analyst Nazir Kamal and sponsored by the USA’s Cooperative Monitoring Centre, however, noted there seemed to be more civilian hawks than military hawks among the influential opinion makers in Pakistan.

Among civilians, the strongest pressure came from the Jammat-i-Islamai. The report quotes its chief, Mr Qazi Hussain, as saying, “If the government fails to (conduct tests) under any American pressure, it will remain a surrender of our sovereignty and enslaving the country to the United States and India’s hegemonic designs will receive a boost in the region.”

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also supported an early response, claiming that India may risk a war with Pakistan over Kashmir, as failure to test would imply that Pakistan did not possess a credible nuclear deterrent.

In the situation preceding the Pakistani tests, the report points out, the hardliners far outweighed the pacifists but the situation also galvanised the latter to articulate their position more forcefully than at any other time in the past.

Thus, a coalition of regional political parties and certain human rights organisations urged the government to unilaterally renounce nuclear weapons and resist pressure from “across the political and religious spectrum in Pakistan (who) are clamouring for giving a fitting reply to India.”

Death sentence on Rushdie ‘to be carried out’

TEHERAN, Feb 14 (AFP) — The leader of an Iranian political and religious foundation, which has put a price on the head of British writer Salman Rushdie, said today that the “fatwa” against him would “definitely be carried out.”

In a statement published in the daily Jomhuri-Eslami, Ayatollah Hassan Sanei, president of the 15-Khordad Foundation, upheld the “validity” of the religious decree exactly 10 years ago on February 14, 1989, by Iran’s late spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini.

Khomeini sentenced Rushdie to death, saying he was guilty of blasphemy against Islam in his book “The satanic verses.”

The 15-Khordad Foundation has offered a reward of $ 2.8 million for Rushdie’s murder.

“Iran is serious in defending this historic “fatwa” and wants to see it applied,” Sanei said, stressing that “the idea of Rushdie’s annihilation is more alive than ever.”

Yesterday, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Force said in a statement that the death sentence on Rushdie was “irrevocable.”

The statement, carried by the Irna news agency, said Khomeini’s verdict was “based on Islam” and could not be retracted.

“The apostate Salman Rushdie will eventually be burnt in the fire of Muslims’ wrath,” the elite force said.

The statement blasted certain countries and false advocates of freedom of thought and human rights for a two-year “disinformation campaign to make people and Muslims believe that Iran has backed down from its stances towards the apostate author Salman Rushdie.”

Last September Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said the new moderate government would do nothing to implement the death sentence and distanced the Khatami administration from any reward offered for Rushdie’s murder.

As a result of the improved climate after this statement, London and Teheran announced that they would raise their relations to Ambassadorial level, from that of charge d’affairs. That agreement has not yet been implemented.

In India, activists of various Muslim organisations have held demonstrations in New Delhi and other cities protesting the government’s decision to grant a visa to Salman Rushdie, embroiled in a major controversy ever since the publication of his book “The Satanic Verses.”

Volga fire toll rises to 51

MOSCOW, Feb 14 (AFP) — The death toll in one of the deadliest fires to ravage Russia reached 51 today as rescuers pulled out more bodies from a gutted police station in Samara on the banks of the Volga, Itar-Tass reported.

Another 18 people remained unaccounted for while 121 people were reported injured.

The devastating blaze broke out Wednesday evening and instantly engulfed a five-storey Interior Ministry building in the central Russian city, sending several people jumping out of windows to their deaths. Some 230 fire fighters spent 12 hours battling the flames.

About 70,000 people turned out yesterday for the funeral of 20 of the victims, most of them police officers and crime detectives.

Russian Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin, master cellist Mstislav Rsotropovich and musician Galina Vishnevskaya, attended the funeral services held in a city stadium.

The police opened an inquiry amid strong suspicions of arson. Residents have said they heard two explosions shortly before the blaze erupted.

Benazir-led march baton-charged

ISLAMABAD, Feb 14 (AFP) — The Pakistani riot police fired teargas and baton-charged thousands of Opposition workers at an anti-government rally led by former premier Benazir Bhutto, witnesses said.

The police swung into action as the demonstrators marching behind a truck carrying Ms Bhutto and other leaders of the main opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) reached a barricade near Parliament.

The policemen attacked the crowd as the slogan-shouting political workers prepared to hear an address by the Opposition leader, who was rescued and escorted by partymen from the melee.

15 LTTE rebels killed

COLOMBO, Feb 14 (PTI) — Fifteen LTTE rebels were killed and six others injured in two different clashes between Sri Lankan troops and the guerrillas in the northern Vanni region, according to Defence Ministry sources here today.

Twelve rebels were killed and six others wounded in an encounter between troops and the LTTE near northern Vannivilankulam in the Vanni region, a defence press release said, adding that troops recovered a number of arms from them.

2 activists held
BEIJING: Two Chinese activists were detained on Saturday in central Wuhan city in an ongoing crackdown on the outlawed Chinese Democracy Party (CDP), a Hong Kong-based rights group said. Mr Chen Zhonghe, Chairman of the CDP branch in central Hubei province was detained together with another party member Xiao Shichang, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said in a statement faxed here. Mr Xiao’s wife, Ms Ai Tingjiao, said she was out when security agents came to their small shop and took away her husband. — AFP

Gay parade
AUCKLAND: This year’s gay and lesbian hero parade in Auckland attracted the biggest crowd in its nine-year history, with an estimated 200,000 persons flocking to the event, organisers said here. More than 50 floats moved down Auckland’s hip gay epicentre on Ponsonby Road, featuring everything from a chorus of male Marilyn Monroe lookalikes to garden displays.— AFP

Michael Jackson
LONDON: Michael Jackson may donate up to £ 75 million ($ 122 million) to establish four African universities which could be named after him, a British newspaper reported on Sunday. The US pop star is negotiating with a consortium led by a Malaysian entrepreneur, Mr Abdul Rahman, and the multinational Kvaerner, which plans to spend £ 300 million on the project, said The Independent on Sunday. — AFP

Charles & Camilla
LONDON: Prince Charles and his long-time companion Camilla Parker Bowles made a second public appearance together on Saturday when they took part in a fox hunt. The couple were spotted on horseback, riding next to each other through the snow-covered fields in Yorkshire, northern England, with more than 50 members of the Middleton hunt. A small number of anit-hunt demonstrators were present but were moved on by the police. — AP

Germ warfare tests
LONDON: The British Army is carrying out germ warfare trials using live E. coli and other bacteria, which scientists fear are drifting into residential areas, The Independent said on Sunday. The revelations have prompted calls from MPs for an inquiry into the tests, said the newspaper. The trials, which were being conducted since the 1980s, were classified, and it was not known how many bacteria had been released and how close the test sites were to residential areas, it added. — AFP

Janet separates
LOS ANGELES: Janet Jackson’s musical question, “What have you done for me lately?” may have finally hit home: she and her long-time romantic interest have split up. The 32-year-old singer and Rene Elizondo jr. have separated, according to a statement released on Friday by the pop diva’s publicist, Lindsay Scott Management. — AP