UN council seeks meeting on Angola
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 1 — The Security Council called an emergency meeting to demand the Angolan government and particularly UNITA rebels let a U.N. team reach the site of a downed U.N.-chartered plane.

Iraqi missiles elude US jets
WASHINGTON, Jan 1 — Iraq is frequently moving anti-aircraft batteries to keep U.S. and British pilots guessing about where the next enemy missile might be launched as western warplanes patrol “no-fly” zones over the country, US defence officials say.

Indo-Pak talks after US team’s visit

ISLAMABAD, Jan 1(IANS) — Dates for the New Delhi round of secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan would be finalised after a visit by a high-level U.S. delegation to South Asia, sources in the Foreign Ministry said.

The sources said the U.S. delegation led by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott is likely to visit Islamabad by the end of January. The team is coming to India and Pakistan to hold talks on nuclear and other issues.

After this visit, a team of Indian experts would come to Islamabad to discuss security, peace and nuclear safety issues. The dates for the next round of talks between foreign secretaries of the two countries would be set after the experts’ meeting, the officials told IANS.

They hoped the talks would take place in New Delhi by the end of February as discussed in the previous round here. This would be in continuation of the Islamabad round held from October 19 to 21.

Talks were resumed after a meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session in September last year.

The two leaders had, in a joint statement issued on September 23, agreed that an environment of durable peace and security was in the interest of both countries. They also agreed that resolution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir, was essential for this purpose.

A Foreign Ministry official said Pakistan was ready to go for the “second round of talks with all sincerity to establish peace in the South Asian region.” The official, who participated in the previous round, told IANS while requesting anonymity, “We hope that the Indians would also come to the table with a same gesture.”

Asked about the previous round in Islamabad, the official described it as “barren,” accusing India of lacking in sincerity. “We had initiated talks with an open mind and a constructive attitude. But the Indian side was not willing to reciprocate. It was a barren round,” the official claimed.

He said it was difficult for Pakistan to go ahead in establishing good relations with India without solving the Kashmir issue.

Pakistani experts are not pinning much hope on the next secretary-level talks. Jawwad Jehangir, a fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies here, said: “The two sides are simply engaged in talks about talks. There is little of substance that has been achieved to bring peace to South Asia.”

Arafat bent on separate state

GAZA CITY (GAZA STRIP), Jan 1 (AP) — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called upon the Israeli people to work together for peace and renewed his pledge to build a Palestinian state.

“I call upon every member of every Israeli family... let’s work together for peace,’’ Mr Arafat said in a statement released yesterday by Wafah, the Palestinian news agency, in honour of the 34th anniversary of his Fatah movement.

“At a rally in Gaza yesterday, Mr Arafat also called upon supporters not to give up until we achieve a Palestinian state with its capital in holy Jerusalem.’’

He did not say when such a state would be established.

Mr Arafat has made contradictory statements in recent months about whether he would unilaterally declare a state on May 4, the deadline for reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to walk away from the peace talks and annex parts of the West Bank if Mr Arafat goes ahead with a unilateral declaration of statehood.

Israeli elections are scheduled for May 17, and it is believed that a Palestinian declaration of statehood on May 4 would give a boost to Mr Netanyahu over his dovish challengers.

Yesterday’s statement was apparently designed to reach above the heads of Israeli leaders and reassure the Israeli voting public.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath suggested earlier on Thursday that the Palestinians might be willing to hold off for a while on declaring a state.

“The sovereign state of Palestine will be declared in 1999, I have no doubt,” Mr Shaath told Israel army radio.

“But I still say that our preference is that we will finish together the permanent status negotiations,” he added, saying that he did not want the declaration of a Palestinian state to become the source of problems between the two people.

The Haaretz newspaper reported yesterday that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak asked Mr Arafat during recent talks to delay a declaration of a state so as not to interfere in the Israeli elections.

B’desh to return Amartya’s land
from Ershadul Huq

DHAKA, Jan 1 — The Bangladesh Government is trying to trace the ancestral property of Amartya Sen with the intention of handing it over to him even though the Nobel economics laureate has not asked for it sources in the Land Ministry said.

State Minister for Land Rashed Mosharraf indicated this was being done as a gesture towards Sen, who “is now one of the Bangladeshis”.

Sen was given honorary citizenship of Bangladesh during his recent visit to this country. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed handed him a certificate of honorary citizenship and a Bangladeshi passport, saying “you are ours”.

Mr Mosharraf said he had instructed the deputy commissioner of Manikganj to gather information about the latest position of the Sen property.

Mr Shamshuddin Ahmed, a lawyer specialising in property matters, said under the existing law, it would not be possible to return the property to Amartya Sen. “It will be only possible if there is a top-level decision,” he said.

But in this case, there is clearly a top-level push to return the property to the Nobel-winning welfare economist.

The sources said the government is working on identifying the Sen property address and returning it to him. The economist’s father Ashutosh Sen’s ancestral home was in the Patal village. He migrated to West Bengal before partition in 1947 and the property was brought under enemy property, now vested property, after the 1965 India-Pakistan war. Currently five families are said to be living in that residential plot.

Mr Ahmed explained that plots owned by those Hindus who left the former eastern wing of Pakistan between September 6 and February 15, 1969 were declared enemy property.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee on land has decided to repeal the Vested Property Act. At a meeting, the members constituted a sub-committee to put down a framework for return of vested property to the original owners. — IANS

UN council seeks meeting on Angola

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 1 (AP) — The Security Council called an emergency meeting to demand the Angolan government and particularly UNITA rebels let a U.N. team reach the site of a downed U.N.-chartered plane.

The council yesterday adopted a resolution condemning inaction on both sides in trying to determine the fate of the 14 people on board the C-130 cargo plane, which crashed on Saturday over the central highlands of the former Portuguese colony.

After repeated appeals, the Angolan Government yesterday offered the United Nations full cooperation in trying to reach the crash site, which is in contested territory, according to a letter received by the council.

The Portuguese-drafted resolution makes a vague threat of taking further action by January 11 if such cooperation isn’t forthcoming from both sides, but doesn’t provide explicitly for any military intervention.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, however, has warned that the 1,000-member U.N. observer mission in Angola could be withdrawn by February if fighting in the southwestern African nation doesn’t stop.

The meeting came as the United Nations began evacuating staff from Huambo, Angola’s second-largest city, after a rebel artillery barrage that killed at least eight people and wounded at least 20 civilians. The plane went down near Huambo, 500 km southeast of Luanda.

The United Nations mediated Angola’s 1994 peace accord, which ended a two-decade civil war. Since 1997, U.N. observers have been overseeing its implementation.

The resolution asks both UNITA and the government to “clarify the circumstances of this tragedy and to permit the prompt dispatch of a United Nations search and rescue mission.”

It demands in particular that UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi immediately give the U.N. team safety guarantees to search the site.

And it expresses its concern at the increase in such incidents since fighting in the onetime cold war battle zone resumed.

Based on Angola’s offer of cooperation, council member Brazil another former Portuguese colony, urged the resolution come down harder on UNITA rather than the government, but was unsuccessful, council diplomats said.

Iraqi missiles elude US jets

WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (AP) — Iraq is frequently moving anti-aircraft batteries to keep U.S. and British pilots guessing about where the next enemy missile might be launched as western warplanes patrol “no-fly” zones over the country, US defence officials say.

Iraq’s estimated 60 surface-to-air missile, or SAM, batteries have proved hard to find and hard to hit. “They are moving their batteries around quite heavily” now from one launch site to another, the official said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The increased shifting in the missile sites comes as Iraq twice this week tried to shoot down U.S. and British aircraft patrolling “no-fly” zones in southern and northern Iraq.

A Desert Fox battle damage assessment released by the Pentagon indicated US and British attackers struck 65 percent of Iraqi surface-to-air missile sites and batteries targeted, or 22 out of 34. That compares to a 95 per cent success rate — or 63 hits out of 66 attempts — for other targets, including suspected weapons sites, command and control installations, airfields and Saddam’s Republican Guard.

“A concrete building is obviously easier to plan for and to hit than something that is mobile,” said Lt. Col. Mark Samisch, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.

It also is more difficult to approach and hit a target that can strike back.

With Saddam’s military grounded by no-fly zones over two-thirds of Iraq, Baghdad is resorting to its only useful weapon against U.S. and British planes - the Russian-made missiles that are threats in the former Yugoslavia and other parts of the world, too. No-fly zones began in 1991 and 1992 to protect Kurds and Shiite Muslim rebels.

UNITED NATIONS: Iraq wants US and British citizens employed by the UN removed from the UN’s humanitarian programme in the country, diplomats have said. UN officials declined to comment.

The Iraqis had told UN officials that the American and British staff members should be transferred out of the country.

KUWAIT CITY: The USA will cut its Kuwait-based forces which were beefed up during the recent crisis with Iraq, a US Army spokesperson has said.

Some of the troops have been alerted that they will be re-deployed in the USA the spokesperson said on Thursday, without elaborating on specific numbers.

World welcomes 1999 with hope

LONDON, Jan 1 (AP) — The world offered a high-spirited welcome to the last year of the second millennium, with fireworks in Scotland, pilgrimages to shrines and temples in Asia, and throngs of revellers in New York’s Times Square.

Pope John Paul II reminded Roman Catholics to prepare for Christianity’s millennium jubilee only a year away, and in many countries, leaders spoke to their countrymen and women of hope for a better future.

Fireworks soared above the cheering crowds in Moscow’s Red Square, where lights played on the Kremlin and the famous onion domes of St. Basil’s cathedral, and Russians and foreign visitors welcomed 1999 to the accompaniment of popping champagne corks.

At Times Square, New York’s own traditional gathering place, crowds waited to see the final midnight descent of the old new year’s eve ball down one Times Square. It is replaced next December.

Thousands of Parisians thronged the Champs Elysees under trees decked with white lights.

In Edinburgh, Scotland, where New Year’s is called Hogmany, the biggest celebration of the year, bands played in the park and fireworks filled the sky over Edinburgh Castle with coloured lights.

In London, tens of thousands of revellers jammed Trafalgar Square and cheered wildly as Big Ben rang out 1998.

In most Arab countries, New Year celebrations were subdued this year because the event coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - a period when governments close night-clubs and impose strict rules on serving alcohol.

In Cairo, the big hotels adorned the faces of their buildings with lights strung in the shape of a Ramadan lantern. Pleasure boats decked with gaudy lights cruised the Nile, their speakers blaring out Arab songs. But this had more to do with yesterday being the end of the week than with New Year’s.

In Iran, the big hotels adorned the faces of their buildings President Mohammad Khatami sent a traditional greeting to the Christian world.

Mr Khatami said people everywhere should interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ “with emphasis on compassion for fellow human beings, respecting others, dialogue with the opposition, tolerance and détente towards others,” the official Islamic News Agency reported.

Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin called on Russians to meet 1999 with optimism and pride in their country.

Yemen kidnapping owned up

SANA’A, Jan 1 (Reuters) — Western hostages, who survived a shootout in Yemen in which four westerners were killed, flew out of Sana’a today on their way home, a British diplomat said.

“Ten British tourists, one Australian and two British tour guides left on Yemen Airways flight bound for Paris,” the diplomat told newsmen.

The diplomat said an American, who was also taken captive by Yemeni tribesmen, would leave for Frankfurt later in the day. Another American who was wounded was still in hospital in Aden, she said.

A British Embassy official here said yesterday the bodies of three Britons and one Australian who were killed in Tuesday’s rescue operation were still in Aden and would be flown home at a later date.

A little-known guerrilla group calling itself the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and blamed Yemen for the hostage deaths.

Diplomats said the exact circumstances of the raid remained unclear.

Nuns face as much abuse as others

WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (PTI) — Nuns in the USA have suffered as much sexual abuse as other women in the country, four in ten of whom reported such experience, according to a survey undertaken here with the support of many Catholic orders.

Even during their religious life, the researchers found, nearly 30 per cent of the nation’s 85,000 nuns experienced some kind of “sexual trauma” ranging from harassment to exploitation to rape, and 40 per cent reported at least one such experience in a lifetime.

“The main reason for doing the study,” said one of the authors, John t Chibnail, a psychologist at St. Louis university, a Jesuit-founded school, “is that it had never been done before. By doing this, we wanted to build trust in the church.”

Some nuns said that their orders have long provided care and counselling for members with such trauma, but the public disclosure is a new development.

Gore enters fray

WASHINGTON, Jan1 (PTI) — US Vice-President Albert Gore has filed papers to become the first official candidate for presidentship in 2000.

Mr Gore will now be officially a nominee to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for President when Mr Bill Clinton’s term ends — assuming he will complete it despite the impeachment proceeding. (If Mr Clinton is removed from the office or is forced to resign, Mr Gore automatically becomes President.

Mr Gore, who filed documents with the Federal Election Commission yesterday would be eligible to formally create the Gore-2000 committee to allow him to raise maney, hire staff and campaign across the country.

Congo fighting
BRAZZAVILLE: The Congolese Army was reported to be preparing a further assault against rebels southwest of the capital following fighting that President Denis Sassou Nguesso said had left hundreds dead. “The army has concentrated its troops at Nganga-Lingolo in readiness for an offensive against the Ninjas who are in the hills close to Linzolo, a military source said on Thursday on condition he not be named. The self-styled Ninjas are armed bands who fought for ex-Premier Bernard Kolelas, who was ousted together with President Pascal Lissouba by General Sassou Nguesso in October 1997 after a five-month-old civil war. — AFP

Duma Speaker
MOSCOW: Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyev has declared that he will run for re-election next year, Itar-Tass news agency reported. “I plan to run for the state Duma next year and win,” the Lower House of Parliament Deputy told the VGTRK television company on Thursday. The influential Speaker had earlier said that he might run for the post of President in the year 2000. — AFP

Libyan request
TUNIS: Libya wants the USA to hand over nine officials of the Reagan Administration, one of them dead, to face charges in connection with US air raids on Libya in 1986, the official Libyan news agency, Jana, said. The agency quoted the Libyan Attorney-General as saying that warrants would be sent to the USA, requesting the men’s arrest and extradition to face charges in Tripoli. The report, however, did not make it a condition for the handover of two Libyans accused by Washington and London of killing 270 persons in the bombing of an airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie 10 years ago. — Reuters

Hollywood profits
LOS ANGELES: Hollywood will ring in New Year after recording close to $ 7 billion in profits for 1998, a 10 per cent hike over 1997, Daily Variety said. The movie industry owes a lot to the growing secondary video movie market which was expected to earn more than $ 1.1 billion in the north American market and another $ 1 billion internationally, Daily Variety said on Thursday. Overall, theatre ticket sales in the USA and Canada were up by 5 per cent, to 1.38 billion tickets — the highest number of sales since 1966. — AFP

458 hurt in mishaps
HONG KONG: At least 458 people were injured in several firecracker and gunfire accidents during New Year’s celebrations in the Philippines. The police said all the injured persons had been rushed to hospital in Manila. None of them however was reported to be serious. But hospital sources said the limbs of as many as 16 people had to be amputated because of injuries. — ANI