Pakistanis welcome talks
PESHAWAR, Feb 21 —Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘bus diplomacy’ is the talk of this tribal heartland where people in general have welcomed the initiative. Except for the odd sticker at Lahore International Airport asking India to quit Kashmir, the general refrain is one of optimism.

Sex allegations plague campus
DHAKA, Feb 21— Dhaka University is Bangladesh’s premier institute of higher learning and, some say, a hotbed of sexual harassment. Accusations that a professor sexually abused two women students have polarised a campus already notorious for violent clashes between rival student political groups.

Palestine may become state on May 4
CAIRO (Egypt), Feb 21 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may ignore international warnings and unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said yesterday.

Kosovo peace plan extended till tomorrow
RAMBOUILLET, France, Feb 21 — The major powers extended the deadline for a Kosovo peace accord till Tuesday after Serbs and ethnic Albanians neared a political deal but Belgrade continued to oppose a NATO role in policing it.

78 pc for Hillary as Senator
WASHINGTON, Feb 21 — Hillary Rodham Clinton is the choice over New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a hypothetical New York state election for the US Senate, and 78 per cent of Americans think she would be at least somewhat effective as a Senator, according to polls released yesterday.

Pakistanis welcome talks
From Amardeep Bhattal
Tribune News Service

PESHAWAR, Feb 21 —Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘bus diplomacy’ is the talk of this tribal heartland where people in general have welcomed the initiative.

Except for the odd sticker at Lahore International Airport asking India to quit Kashmir, the general refrain is one of optimism. Travelling from Lahore to Peshawar on board a Fokker, I could sense the mood of the co-passengers.

Mr Khalid Khan, a businessman dealing in surgical and electro-medical equipment in Shobha Chowk, Khyber Bazar, said he had earnestly looked forward to Mr Vajpayee’s visit. "I hope the grand reception in his honour will mark the beginning of a new era," he said on arriving at Peshawar on Friday night.

With the India-Pakistan third hockey test starting later today I had hoped to grab some sleep after the long journey. But the rat-a-tat of automatic fire possibly AK-47s, shattered the tranquillity of the early morning hour. It was preceded by the ‘Azaan’ from nearby mosques calling the faithful to prayer.

"Hotel receptionist Ram Das, a Rajput later told me that the firing of guns is a routine affair here. On the slightest pretext guns are welded in defiance of the civil authority," he said.

According to him, ammunition of all type manufactured at Darra Adam Khel and Darra Khyber is readily available in Peshawar. "One only needs to show the gun to the ammunition dealers, who, after examining it, manufacture ammunition as per its calibre," he said.

Driving from Saddar Road to Gurdwara Joga Singh my taxi-driver, Mr Mohammed Shafi, eagerly inquired about Mr Vajpayee’s visit. I pray and hope that the differences between the two countries are buried. We always flourished while working together. Those were really good old days. Even now Sikhs and Muslims live in complete harmony here. It is my heartfelt desire that the border restrictions are lifted," said the old man who accompanied me to the historic gurdwara.

Syed Shahanshah Jilani, a salesman at the Kashmir furniture shop on Saddar Road and Mr Amin, the owner, echoed similar sentiments. As manufacturers of quality furniture whose polished goods reach every corner of the world, Mr Amin laments the absence of business ties with India. With the two prime ministers coming together, "we hope normal ties are resumed", he said.

Mr Hazrat Jaan, owner of a wayside restaurant on Railway Road near the historic Balahisar Fort now serving as the headquarters of the Frontier Scouts, said "Khuda kare koi samjhauta ho jai."

The local press has also given wide coverage to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore. Peshawar’s premier daily ‘The Frontier Post’ gave a banner headline on the landmark summit. The Khyber Mail also front-paged the story prominently. The local Urdu press namely, The Mashriq Aaj and ‘The Daily Maidan’ have also given wide coverage to the meeting.

Sex allegations plague campus

DHAKA, Feb 21 (Reuters) — Dhaka University is Bangladesh’s premier institute of higher learning and, some say, a hotbed of sexual harassment.

Accusations that a professor sexually abused two women students have polarised a campus already notorious for violent clashes between rival student political groups.

Women students and parents have applauded the authorities’ announcement that it was considering administrative action against the professor, saying the campus crawls with sexually predatory faculty members.

"I am not labelling blame on every teacher but it is true that every department now has one or two teachers who indulge in such heinous sex activities," said a student who declined to be identified.

"Beasts entice students on promises of help with examinations," said Momena Begum, a mother, adding offended teachers then threatened students with failure in examinations if they were not granted sexual favours.

An organisation "Conscious students" attacked rallies organised by the students protesting sexual harassment (SPSH) in December, injuring several and evoking memories of clashes between rival student factions in which 20 were killed and hundreds injured over the past 10 years.

The SPSH was formed in wake of the sex allegations and has organised several rallies and presented a memorandum outlining its concerns to university vice-chancellor A.K. Azad Chowdhury.

"This (the sex abuse case) has added a black chapter to the university’s 78-year history," said Abeda Gulrukh Rumu, one of the group’s founders.

"We will fight it to the last and try to ensure that womanhood does not bleed on this campus," said Rumu, a law student.

University officials say the Dhaka University Syndicate, the school’s governing body, is also probing several other cases of alleged sex offences that have popped up since the current uproar began.

But the SPSH challenged by supporters of the accused and others who believe too much negative publicity will add further hurt to the university’s reputation.

The Ganotantrik Chhatra Oikkya (Democratic Students Unity) an alliance of five Left-wing student groups, and The University Teachers Association also accuse the SPSH of tarnishing the image of the university and its faculty.

University authorities say they have formed a committee to suggest necessary changes in its anachronistic laws to face offences on the campus especially sexual harassment.

The committee has not yet come up with its report.

Women activists of the university say they are determined to carry on their struggle to curb sexual crimes but most students expect no dramatic improvement in campus conditions soon.

Some conservative teachers say it is not sex-hungry professors who are to blame but changing attitudes toward women’s modesty in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation.

"Now they move around the campus date with friends at nearby parks and often stay late out of their dormitories, inviting danger," one teacher said.

But women’s rights activists counter that it is conservative attitudes toward the role of women which should bear much of the blame.

Although Bangladesh has been ruled by two women since 1991, Women’s groups say society views them as a commodity and many sexual offenders capitalise on this.

Many rape victims do not report the attacks to police or university officials, fearing they will be socially ostracised women’s groups say.

The women involved in the latest sexual harassment charge against a professor have opted not to press criminal charges.

As a result, the professor will probably only face administrative discipline, which could mean sacking.

The activists said sexual assault or harassment also stemmed from growing access to satellite communications which allow X-rated films and videos to be viewed.

Regardless of the cause, sex crimes in the country were steadily rising, women’s rights activists said.

Another Bangladeshi college, Jahangirnagar university, is also facing sexual misconduct allegations against both student and teachers.

The school’s governing body expelled five students for sexually assaulting girls.

Palestine may become state on May 4

CAIRO (Egypt), Feb 21 (AP) — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may ignore international warnings and unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said yesterday.

Mr Arafat has said in the past that he would declare a state on May 4, the deadline for the completion of negotiations under the Oslo accords, but has since given contradictory statements under international pressure not to do so.

Asked whether he thought Mr Arafat was determined to go ahead with his declaration, Mr Moussa said, "I believe so."

He added, however, that the possibility of postponement "is open to discussion."

Mr Moussa made the comments after attending an hour-long meeting between Mr Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which focused on the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Mr Arafat later left for the Gaza Strip without speaking to reporters.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said hours later in Gaza city that May 4 would be the day.

We are moving forward in our preparations for the day, May 4, the date of the declaration of the Palestinian State, Shaath told reporters after a Palestinian Cabinet meeting chaired by Mr Arafat.

Several countries, Egypt included, have been pressuring Mr Arafat to at least postpone the declaration, particularly since many believe it could influence the outcome of the Israeli elections.

The United States of America says Palestinian statehood should be negotiated in the final-status peace talks with Israel.

The peace process has stalled over difficulties in implementing the U.S.-brokered WYE agreement, in which Israel pledged to a 13 per cent further troop withdrawal from the West Bank.

Israel has failed to do so, charging that the Palestinians have not fulfilled security pledges.

Kosovo peace plan extended till tomorrow

RAMBOUILLET, France, Feb 21 (Reuters) — The major powers extended the deadline for a Kosovo peace accord till Tuesday after Serbs and ethnic Albanians neared a political deal but Belgrade continued to oppose a NATO role in policing it.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albgright warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that he should not misinterpret the three-day reprieve as a sign of weakness, stressing that NATO planning for military action against Serbia would continue.

In talks that ran many hours past the original deadline of 2.30 p.m. IST yesterday, both delegations fell short of full agreement on a plan to establish ethnic Albanian autonomy for three years in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told a news conference that both sides now had till 7.30 p.m. IST on Tuesday to agree to the peace plan. NATO is threatening air strikes against Yugoslav targets if Belgrade blocks a deal.

Mr Vedrine said the deadline was extended because "very substantial progress" had been made on political issue.

But the Yugoslav side was putting up the biggest resistance by objecting to the west’s demand for a NATO peacekeeping force to implement a peace accord on the ground.

Ms Albright told reporters that Belgrade had taken every opportunity for ‘evasion and delay’, and ‘the lion’s share’ of the blame. But Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Bini, said "it would be wrong to blame only the Serbs."

78 pc for Hillary as Senator

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton is the choice over New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani in a hypothetical New York state election for the US Senate, and 78 per cent of Americans think she would be at least somewhat effective as a Senator, according to polls released yesterday.

In a Time/CNN poll of registered voters in New York state, 52 per cent said they would vote for Mrs Clinton, 43 per cent said they’d vote for Giuliani if the election were held now.

Newsweek Magazine found in a national poll that 41 per cent of respondents said Mrs Clinton would be very effective if elected to the Senate, 37 per cent said she’d be somewhat effective, nine per cent said she would be not too effective and seven per cent said she would be not at all effective.

The Newsweek poll interviewed 502 persons aged 18 and older on February 19. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus five percentage points. The Time/CNN poll queried 819 registered voters of New York state on February 17-18 and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Men too can bear babies: expert

LONDON, Feb 21 (AFP) — Advances in medical technology mean men could now bear children, according to one of Britain’s leading fertility experts, the Sunday Times reported.

The paper, citing a forthcoming book by Lord Winston, says doctors could use modern techniques to implant an embryo into a man’s abdomen, allowing him to carry it to full term and give birth by caesarean section.

Prof Robert Winston, who was ennobled three years ago, is head of the Fertility Clinic at a leading London hospital.

"Male pregnancy would certainly be possible, and would be the same as when a woman has an ectopic pregnancy — outside the uterus —although to sustain it, you’d have to give the man lots of female hormones", the paper quoted him as saying.

He outlines the concept in a book due to be published in April.

Winston said such foetuses could be implanted inside the abdomen with the placenta, through which the baby is fed, attached to an internal organ, such as the bowel.

He acknowledges it would be dangerous because of the risk of bleeding from the placenta, and hormone treatment could leave the man with larger breasts.

If it did prove possible, it could benefit homosexual couples and heterosexual couples where the woman could not physically carry a baby, the paper added.

Jimmy Carter’s son refused visa

TEHERAN (Iran): Iran has refused a visa to the son of former US President Jimmy Carter who ordered the severing of diplomatic ties with Iran in 1979, the official Islamic republic news agency reported on Saturday. James E. Chip Carter III was to lead a group of Americans to Iran in May. Carter was quoted by an Iranian newspaper, Sobh-e-Emrouz, as saying that the delegation does not represent the government and has a "tourist agenda". The news agency, however, quoted an unnamed source as saying that Carter was refused a visa in view of his "past record." It did not elaborate.
— AP

Berlin Film Festival

BERLIN: The Berlin Film Festival awarded the annual Peace Prize to the Turkish film "Journey to the Sun," which examines Kurdish-Turkish relations. The jury said the film by 38-year-old director Yesim Ustaoglu looked closely at the 15-year guerrilla war for an autonomous Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey without taking an ideological position.
— AP

Women engineers

BOSTON: Hoping to add more women to an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession, Smith College officials on Saturday voted to open the nation’s first engineering programme at a women’s college. Smith officials said women represented about one in six college engineering students and less than one in 10 professional engineers nationwide. Classes are expected to start this fall, and the first engineering majors would graduate in 2004. — AP

Python in trouble

LONDON: Fangs, the python, is in deep trouble. Not content with swallowing its owner’s puppy in one tasty gulp, it also fractured her jaw, nearly choked her and then tried to tuck into her pet rabbit. But Terri McEntee is fighting for custody of the snake after ruing her snap decision to hand it to her local zoo, the British tabloid news of the world reported on Saturday. McEntee had been keeping the 4.5-metre python at her home in Glasgow when things began to go wrong. — AFP

Abode in Hong Kong

HONG KONG: Hundreds of mainland Chinese fighting for the right of abode in Hong Kong have been granted temporary immunity from arrest and deportation following a landmark court ruling, reports said on Sunday. The Immigration Department on Saturday issued special registration cards to 382 mainlanders who have overstayed their visas and were protesting daily to be allowed to stay following last month’s ruling, which caused tension with Beijing. — AFP

Pak Navy show

KARACHI: The Pakistan Navy is to hold an international naval show aimed at providing a launch pad for local industry, officials said. The display here opening on Sunday will highlight local opportunities for construction and component sub-contracting for new surface warships, submarines and coastal vessels, they said on Saturday. — AFP

First hip replacement

HAVANA: A team of Cuban surgeons have performed a ground-breaking operation to replace a young girl’s hip, Granam newspaper reported. The four-and-a-half hour operation was performed on a 17-year-old girl suffering from an irreversible hip injury affecting 80 per cent of her right hip, said the newspaper on Saturday, the official organ of Cuba’s communist party. Surgeons at the Frank Pais Orthopaedic Hospital said the operation was world-first, Granam said. — AFP

Mystery disease

UNITED NATIONS: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has decided to send two epidemiologists to investigate a mystery disease in northeast Afghanistan which has claimed nearly 150 lives, UN sources here said. Officials from Geneva will travel to Dushanbe, capital of neighbouring Tajikistan, and then fly by helicopters to the four affected villages of Badakhshan province in the remote region on the Afghan-Tajik border, the sources said. — PTI