UN mission to Angola halted
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 27 — The Security Council has unanimously voted to end its peacekeeping mission in Angola following the breakdown of a U N-brokered peace accord between government and the Unita rebels.

US report indicts BJP, allies

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (UNI) — The US State Department’s annual human rights report has identified the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates for their role in the violence against the Christian communities and the Christian missionaries in the country last year.

The organisations include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal. The report, released here yesterday, described the RSS as a Hindu extremist organisation and the VHP, as a Hindu religious organisation affiliated with the RSS.

It said there were several attacks by “violent Hindu extremists” on the Christian communities and the Christian missionaries during 1998.

The report, quoted a member of the National Minorities Commission as having said that “we have got many more complaints regarding attacks on the Christian community and encroachment on church properties. There is a definite trend.’’

The report mentioned that such attacks occurred in several states including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

According to Indian Human Rights Organisations, there were over 90 incidents, primarily of mob violence that took the form of destruction of churches and religious property and violent attacks on Christian pilgrims and leaders.

It quoted the Secretary General of the VHP as having publicly warned the Christian missionaries to leave India. Local police and officials abetted the violence in several instances, it added.

In Gujarat, the state government threatened to cease giving aid to educational institutions that closed to observe the protest. However, there were no reports that the state government carried out this threat, it added.

It also noted that the Hindu Dalits lost their minority status upon conversion to Christianity, but not upon conversion to Buddhism or Sikhism.

Dealing with religious minorities, the report said fear of political violence drove most Hindus in the Kashmir valley (pandits) to seek refuge in camps in Jammu or with relatives in New Delhi or elsewhere.

Throughout the year, separatist militants in Jammu and Kashmir targeted members of the state’s remaining Hindu community with violence, it added.

The State Department document said that there continued to be “significant” human rights abuses, despite extensive constitutional and statutory safeguards. “Many of these abuses are generated by intense social tensions, violent secessionist movements and the authorities’ attempt to repress them, and deficient police methods of training,’’ it added.

It said, “these problems are acute in Jammu and Kashmir, where judicial tolerance of the government’s heavy-handed anti-militant tactics, the refusal of security forces to obey court orders and terrorist threats have disrupted the judicial system.”

“Separatist insurgent violence in the North-Eastern states continued along with reported incidents of security force abuses,’’ it added.

Dhaka summit
Top Muslim leaders missing

DHAKA, Feb 27 (AFP) — Leaders of a group of Muslim nations known as developing eight (D-8) begin meeting here on Monday, but without a number of key players kept at home due to domestic concerns.

A last-minute cancellation by Nigeria and low-level representations from Egypt, Indonesia and Iran appear to have stolen some of the momentum of the two-day summit, the second since the grouping’s inception in 1997, informed sources here said.

The D-8, launched in 1997 in Istanbul, comprises Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

Nigeria, facing its first elections after 15 years of military rule, has failed to send any delegation to the Dhaka summit, while the Presidents of Iran, Egypt and Indonesia are represented by senior ministers because of domestic preoccupations, the sources said.

Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are due to arrive tomorrow to join Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed for the Dhaka summit, officials said.

The eight populous nations from Asia and Africa want to combine their efforts to face the challenges of the new millennium and foster growth through the exchange of ideas and expertise.

An official-level preparatory meeting of D-8 was held today to finalise the agenda for their leaders ahead of Monday’s formal opening by the Bangladesh premier, the Muslim group’s sole female head of government.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shartaz Aziz was the first high-level official to arrive on Thursday, followed by Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.

“We will be able to face the challenges only by arming ourselves with the latest technologies and by improving the quality of our products”, said Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad, setting the tone for the summit.

He said the main objective was to combine the human and financial resources of the eight nations which shared a common cultural heritage.

“We will share each other’s experience”, said Pakistan’s Aziz on his arrival, adding that “economy and technology are the main areas of cooperation”.

India, Pak in arms race: USA

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (PTI) — The US President, Mr Bill Clinton, viewed India and Pakistan as being in an arms race that could lead to a nuclear war.

“There is still the potential for major regional wars that would threaten our security. The arms race between India and Pakistan reminds us that the next big war could still be nuclear,” Mr Clinton told civic leaders, legislators and other leaders in San Francisco yesterday.

Justifying his Kosovo policy, which analysts view has so far been a fiasco with neither the Serbs nor the Kosovians accepting the formula which the US threatened to impose by force, Mr Clinton said “Kosovo is not an easy problem. But if we don’t stop the conflict now, it clearly will spread. And then we will not be able to stop it, except at a far greater cost and risk.”

“A second challenge we face,” he said “is to bring our former adversaries, Russia and China, into the international system as open, prosperous, stable nations. The way both countries develop in the coming century will have a lot to do with the future of our planet.”

“China,” he said, “has made incredible progress in lifting people out of poverty and building a new economy. But now its rate of economic growth is declining, as it is needed to create jobs for a growing and more mobile population.

The dimensions of Russia’s problem, he said, are truly enormous. “The Russian people will decide their own future. But we must work with them for the best possible outcome, with realism and with patience,” Mr Clinton added.

“If Russia does what it must to make its economy work, I am ready to do everything I can to mobilise adequate international support for them,” Mr Clinton said.

“With the right framework, we will also encourage foreign investment in its factories, its energy fields, its people. We will increase our support for small business and for the independent media. We will work to continue cutting our two nations nuclear arsenals, and help Russia prevent both its weapons and its expertise from falling into the wrong hands,” Mr Clinton said.

“Most of China’s economy is still stifled by state control. We can see in China the kinds of problems a society faces when it is moving away from the rule of fear, but is not yet rooted in the rule of law,” he said.

“I believe, sooner or later, China will have to come to understand that a society, in the world we are living in a country as great and old and rich and full of potential as China simply cannot purchase stability at the expense of freedom,” the US President added.

Mr Clinton has also urged the Yugoslav President Mr Slobodan Milosevic to show restraint on Kosovo or face NATO military action.

In what was billed as a major foreign policy address here yesterday, Mr Clinton said: “The President, Mr Milosevic, should understand that this is a time for restraint, not repression.”

“And if he does not, NATO is prepared to act”.

The US military officials said on Thursday that Belgrade had massed some 4,500 troops backed by 60 tanks, 50 armoured personnel carriers and 60 artillery pieces on the border with Kosovo.

The show of force followed inconclusive peace talks in France on Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, where fighting between Serbian security forces and pro-independence ethnic Albanians has claimed more than 2,000 lives during the past year.

Serb officials yesterday denied preparing an offensive in Kosovo ahead of the resumption of peace talks scheduled for March 15.

“I intend to use the time I have remaining in this office to push for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to reach a just and final settlement and to stand by our friends for peace such as Jordan,” the President said yesterday in a foreign policy address before California business and political leaders.

Kiev destroys missiles

KIEV, Feb 27 (AFP) — Ukraine destroyed the last of its Soviet-era SS-19 strategic nuclear missiles with the help of the USA, the US embassy said here yesterday.

Kiev, promised to abolish its nuclear arsenal in a tripartite agreement signed with Washington and Moscow in January 1994.

Ukraine, then had the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world with 1,400 nuclear warheads and 176 strategic missiles capable of reaching western Europe or the USA.

It handed over all its nuclear warheads to Russia in 1996 to be destroyed and sold to Moscow 19 of its SS-19 missiles.

UN mission to Angola halted

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 27 (PTI) — The Security Council has unanimously voted to end its peacekeeping mission in Angola following the breakdown of a U N-brokered peace accord between government and the Unita rebels.

The 15-member Council yesterday voted in favour of withdrawing by March 20 its 1,000-strong U N observer force charged with the task of monitoring the implementation of the 1994 peace accord.

The 20-year civil war resumed in December after Unita rebels failed to hand over areas under its control to the government and refused to surrender arms under the terms of the accord.

Flower power in Grammy
LONDON: Madonna sailed to Grammy success in Los Angeles with a song written almost 30 years ago by a British “flower power” singer Dave Curtiss. The song, originally called “Sepheryn,” was first released in 1971 by Curtiss and his late musical partner Clive Maldoon. Maldoon’s niece resurrected the song and worked on it with British producer William Orbit who first played it to Madonna. — Reuters

Cinema house torched
QUETTA (Pakistan): Hundreds of demonstrators from a Pakistani fundamentalist party torched a cinema theatre here on Friday as they staged a protest against moral corruption, witnesses said. The activists of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), which has close links with the Taliban militia, held a public meeting after Friday prayers before raiding the theatre. — AFP

Colombian swallows heroin
EL PASO (Texas): A Colombian man was arrested this week as he entered Texas from Mexico after swallowing 104 heroin-filled condoms, officials said. The heroin weighed in at three pounds (1.3 kg) and was bound for New York, where another suspect has been arrested. “This had got to be among the bigger amounts we’ve found in someone’s digestive tract”, said US customs spokesman Roger Maier. — Reuters

149 bodies found in grave
NIAMEY (Niger): A mass grave containing the remains of 149 old men, women and children has been found in eastern Niger, a former rebel leader told a private radio station. Lamine Issa, head of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) that signed a peace agreement last year with the government, told shortwave radio Anfani on Friday that the remains bore evidence of gunshot wounds. — AP

Awarded after 47 years
SEOUL: A retired American soldier with a chest full of ribbons and medals got another award this week-a Purple Heart earned 47 years ago in the Korean War. Fred O.Simpson, 69, of Kansas City, Kansas, was given the medal on Wednesday by Air Force Maj Gen Michael V.Hayden, Deputy Chief Commander of US Forces in Korea. “I feel very proud and honoured,” Simpson said. “I’m glad that I finally received the medal.” On November 12, 1951, Simpson, then a 19-year-old Staff Sergeant, was injured when a bunker collapsed because of enemy artillery fire near Sehyon-Ni in Southern North Korea. — AP

Forgery workshop found
MOSCOW: The police has found a fully equipped forgery workshop in the villa of a senior ministry official outside Moscow, Russian news agencies reported. The workshop was set up to print dollar bills, tax stamps and even thank you letters in the name of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The villa’s owner was not named. The police searching the building on Thursday night seized some 12 million forged tobacco and alcohol tax seals with a face value of around $ 2 million and a large number of forged dollar notes. Two guards were arrested at the villa. Investigators were put on the trail of the forgers when one of the guards offered to sell forged tax stamps to a police undercover agent. — DPA

Fake euros seized
PALERMO: The Italian police on Friday raided the first Mafia factory known to produce counterfeit euros and arrested seven persons, Italian television reported. Total of 17 persons were suspected of being involved in criminal activity in the factory in Sicily. The police confiscated the plates used to print the counterfeit euros as well as counterfeit Italian notes to the amount of two billion lire. International security experts acknowledge the Italian mafia might already have printed millions of counterfeit euros. — DPA

5 arrested in China
HONG KONG: Five members of a gang suspected of killing a village Communist Party chief in China have been arrested in the restive Muslim-dominated region of Xinjiang. Reports reaching here from Beijing quoted Chinese police officials as saying that Wufuer Aiyiti, a former imam of a mosque, was arrested on suspicion of masterminding the October 29 killing of Ailiqiong Pazili, Communist Party boss of Awatiailike village. — ANI