Prosecutors dilute sexual charges
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — The trial of sacked Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim took a bizarre turn today when prosecutors suddenly diluted charges relating to the politician’s alleged illegal sexual trysts.

Iraq for talks to end standoff
BAGHDAD, Jan 13 — Iraq, in an apparent shift of policy, said it would prefer a balanced dialogue to solve its impasse with the USA and Britain following their military confrontation.

Clinton settles with Paula
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 — US President Bill Clinton has mailed a cheque for $ 8,50,000 to Ms Paula Jones.

Rebel leader’s ceasefire terms
FREETOWN, Jan 13 — Sierra Leone’s detained rebel leader has set out his conditions for a ceasefire in the battle of Freetown after he was flown to neighbouring Guinea for secret talks, a senior UN officials said.

Envoys meet Gaddafi
TUNIS, Jan 13 — South African and Saudi envoys met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in an attempt to persuade him to extradite two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Prosecutors dilute sexual charges

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 (AP) — The trial of sacked Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim took a bizarre turn today when prosecutors suddenly diluted charges relating to the politician’s alleged illegal sexual trysts.

Overruling loud defence objections, trial judge Augustine Paul allowed the prosecutors to amend the four charges of corruption for which Anwar is being initially tried.

He faces one more count of corruption and five charges of illegal sexual acts; including sodomy. But none of those charges were either dropped or changed.

What the prosecutors appeared to have done was to rewrite the four charges so that they did not have to prove that Anwar indulged in illegal sex in trying to establish he had misused his powers to cover up these alleged acts, defence lawyers explained.

The amended charges were read out to Anwar, who once again pleaded innocent.

Anwar’s attorneys protested the prosecutor’s move, saying their client’s reputation had already been tarnished by the lurid details of alleged sodomy and adultery in nearly three months of hearings.

"The prosecution has continuously been focussing on these allegations of sexual misconduct and sodomy as the pivotal part of their case," said Raja Aziz Addruse, who heads the defence team.

Star prosecution witnesses, Azizan Abu Bakar and Ummi Hafilda Ali, have spent weeks testifying how Anwar allegedly indulged in illegal sex.

White Azizan, a former driver in the Anwar household, alleged he was repeatedly sodomised by the former Malaysian No. 2, Ummi alleged that Anwar was sleeping with her brother’s wife.

"Now you are saying these charges brought by Ummi and Azizan are nothing more than allegations," Raja Aziz told the court today.

Iraq for talks to end standoff

BAGHDAD, Jan 13 (Reuters) — Iraq, in an apparent shift of policy, said it would prefer a balanced dialogue to solve its impasse with the USA and Britain following their military confrontation.

"Iraq sees a need for a balanced dialogue based on good intentions under the umbrella of the Arab nation to find practical solutions to the situations," a spokesman said after President Saddam Hussein met top aides yesterday.

"If solutions are desired in a serious manner that serve the Arab nations’ interest, they should be based on pan-Arab security," the spokesman was quoted as saying by official Iraqi newspapers today.

The statement appeared to tone down some of the rhetoric against some Arab states, although the spokesman still called for Arabs to condemn supporters of US and British strikes.

He said the right solution to the crisis should consider "any aggression from a foreign faction upon any Arab country as an aggression on the Arab nation as a whole".

The spokesman did not specify Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as backers of the US-led strikes although Iraqi media and officials have earlier campaigned against the two Gulf states.

UNITED NATIONS (PTI): In a fresh move to break the Iraqi stalemate, France has proposed a watered-down UN inspections regime under which sanctions be removed gradually in return for access to well-known Iraqi weapons sites.

The proposal, circulated among permanent members of the UN Security Council yesterday, proposes a far less intrusive inspections regime than the present one, which would be linked to the destruction of Iraq’s awesome war machinery.

The five permanent members — the USA, Britain, France, Russia and China — huddled over the plan for over an hour last night to consider the proposal which is expected to be formally presented to the council in a day or two.

The plan, presented at the closed-door meeting by French Ambassador Alain Dejammet, reportedly covers earlier French moves to break the US-Iraq standoff that culminated in last month’s Anglo-US airstrikes on Baghdad.

The USA and Britain, which launched the airstrikes to force Iraq to cooperate with the UNSCOM, were expectedly cool to the proposal, which would drastically curtail controversial UNSCOM chief Richard Butler’s powers.

Besides, Iraq could import goods freely provided they were not military related.

Butler, dubbed a US spy by Iraq, has come under a cloud in recent days following a spate of media allegations that his team, charged with overseeing destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, spied for the USA.

Russia has even called for his replacement.

Although America has so far obdurately stuck to its stand of not allowing any change in the UNSCOM’s composition and reaffirmed its faith in Butler, US diplomats privately said Washington was not averse to other options.

Even Butler has conceded that some different approach might be needed to get the inspections started again. Iraq has ruled out any such possibility and instead demanded that crippling seven-year-old sanctions be removed.

Washington’s diplomatic position weakened after embarrassing details of US agencies using UNSCOM for spying came out, giving credence to the Iraqi charge that several inspectors were US Intelligence agents.

LONDON (AFP):The US-British air strikes on Iraq were not targeted at biological and chemical weapons for fear or releasing toxic substances into the air, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.

The military analysts’ magazine reported on Tuesday that the US Department of Defence was developing munitions intended to incinerate such targets, but field tests were still several months away.

The magazine also said London and Washington had proposed a strike a list of 250 targets for Operation Desert Fox, but this was reduced so the strikes would not continue far into the holy Muslim month of Ramzan.

In the end, said Jane’s, the US and British aircraft attacked 93 targets, destroying 14 and severely damaging another 26.

War love story ends in funeral

from John Hooper in Rome

A FUNERAL in the Peleponnesian city of Patras on Monday brought an infinitely sad ending to a romance born of war and fatefully touched by spite, which nonetheless endured for 58 years.

It is a story that recalls the plot of the bestselling novel by Louis de Bernieres, ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’, for Luigi Surace met and fell in love with Angeliki Stratigou in 1941 while he was serving with the Italian forces in Greece during World War II. After he was posted elsewhere, he continued to write to his fiancée.

Angeliki, who had lost both her parents, lived with her aunt. And whether because of the enmity between Italy and Greece or for other reasons, her aunt disapproved of the liaison.

So, whenever a letter arrived from Luigi, the aunt intercepted and destroyed it.

After several years without a reply, Luigi gave up. He found a wife, had a son, and settled down to married life in the poor southern port of Reggio Calabria.

But it seems that the Greek girl he met in the war remained the love of his life. Three years ago, after the death of his wife, he set about tracing Angeliki.

He wrote to the town hall of Patras. Council officers, with the help of a local journalist, found the woman he had left behind more than a half a century earlier. Believing she had been jilted, she had never married.

The two lovers met. And decided to marry. The journalist Nancy Pavlopoulou was to be Ms Angeliki is maid of honour.

According to a report from Athens from Italian news agency Ansa, Luigi was due in Patras on December 22. But then, as so often happens in ‘star crossed’ love affairs. Luigi fell ill, was taken to hospital and had to postpone his trip.

It was one delay too many, for early last week, Angeliki was herself taken ill, initially with a kidney ailment.

On Saturday she died in hospital of a stroke at the age of 81.

Back at her home, Nancy Pavlopoulou told the news agency that there was a telegram waiting. It had been sent by Luigi on the day his fiancée died.

It said: "I am better. I am coming. Wait for me."

— The Guardian, London.

Clinton settles with Paula

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (AP) — US President Bill Clinton has mailed a cheque for $ 8,50,000 to Ms Paula Jones to settle her sexual harassment allegations, officially ending the sensational legal battle that cast his presidency into crisis.

In the week his senate impeachment trial was to resume, the President drew about $ 3,75,000 from his and Ms Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal funds and got the rest of the settlement, about $ 4,75,000, from an insurance policy, a White House official told the Associated Press yesterday.

This ends it. The cheque is being fed-exed to Mr Bill McMillan, one of Ms Jones’ lawyers, said the official.

The official said the personal funds were drawn from the Clinton’s Blind Trust, which was valued in their financial disclosure statement at between $ 1 million and about $ 5 million. None of the money was drawn from his legal defence fund, which raises money from private citizens to defray his legal bills, the official said.

While the cheque ends the litigation, the fallout from the controversy still haunts the President. Ms Jones’ lawsuit brought to light the President’s affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and set in motion a criminal investigation that resulted in a historic House vote last month to impeach Mr Clinton.

The President files his trial brief today, and House prosecutors tomorrow will begin presenting to the Senate their case that the President obstructed justice in the Jones lawsuit and lied about it before a federal grand jury.

Rebel leader’s ceasefire terms

FREETOWN, Jan 13 (Reuters) — Sierra Leone’s detained rebel leader has set out his conditions for a ceasefire in the battle of Freetown after he was flown to neighbouring Guinea for secret talks, a senior UN officials said.

Special Representative of the UN Francis Okelo said Foday Sankoh, clad in prison uniform during yesterday’s secret talks, said he wanted his freedom and official recognition for his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) before a ceasefire.

Sankoh was flown from war-torn Freetown where he is held by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s government and Ecomog, the Nigerian-led West African force fighting the RUF rebels.

"He is 100 per cent committed to peace, he is willing to order a ceasefire and he recognises the legitimacy of President Kabbah," said Okelo, who attended the three-hour talks between Sankoh and West African foreign ministers.

The embattled Kabbah Government’s Foreign Minister, Sama Banya, took part.

Because of Sankoh’s conditions, no ceasefire was declared to end seven days of fighting in lawless Freetown.

Okelo said he and mediators would next put Sankoh’s terms to Kabbah in Freetown. It was not known when.

Indo Pak N-plans: USA for restraint, not rollback

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (PTI) — The USA is seeking to restrain and not rollback the nuclear weapons and missiles programmes of India and Pakistan, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert Einhorn, has said.

"The USA now realises that it can seek realistically only restraint, not abolition of the nuclear weapons and missiles of India and Pakistan," Mr Einhorn, the Clinton’s key expert on proliferation matters said yesterday.

Mr Einhorn told the seventh Carnegie International Non-proliferation Conference that key Indian and U.S. negotiators, Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Strobe Talbott, had identified the main proliferation issues but were yet to find solutions. "They (solutions) are a long way yet."

Significantly, Pakistan’s Deputy Chief of Mission Shahid Kamal told delegates at the conference that Pakistan seeks nothing less than a ‘balance’ with India in conventional as well as nuclear forces and missiles.

"Rather," Mr Einhorn said, "each seeks capabilities sufficient to meet what it considers to be its unique deterrence needs.

"A key goal of U.S. dialogues with India and Pakistan has been to find out whether such Indian and Pakistani notions of national security can be reconciled with interests of the global non-proliferation regime.

"We hope they can be reconciled, and our hope is based on our belief that India’s and Pakistan’s legitimate security requirements...Can be met..,while accepting limits on their capabilities and joining global nonproliferation regimes Outlining progress made in key areas of US concern following several round of talks with India and Pakistan Mr Einhorn said "significant steps" had been taken in all areas of the dialogue but a lot remains to be done.

"The USA has responded to this progress by lifting some of the sanctions we imposed after the May tests. But we realise we have a significant way to go."

UNI adds: India has defended its efforts to develop a "minimum credible nuclear deterrence" to ensure reasonable security, asserting that this right is "non-negotiable."

Its Deputy Chief of Mission T.P. Sreenivasan who spoke at the Seventh Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference here yesterday. After a Chinese official had lashed out at India’s Nuclear policy, said.

In carrying out the (nuclear) tests in May 1998, India did not violate any international agreement, but merely underscored the point that, if some nuclear powers are here to stay, including those in our immediate neighbourhood, then India has no choice but to maintain its minimal, assured nuclear/missile capabilities.

"Since nuclear weapons are global in scope, we do not accept a contrived so-called south Asian regional non-proliferation regime," he added.

Meanwhile, China has called upon the international community to demand a rollback of the nuclear and missile programmes of India and Pakistan.

China’s representative, Aha Zukang, blamed India for the May nuclear tests. ‘Poor Pakistan had no option but to follow,’ he said.

Earlier Ambassador Sha Zukan, Director-General, Department of Arms Control and Disarmament in China’s Foreign Ministry, said "it is a direct violation of the UN Security Council resolution 1172 (concerning its nuclear tests) to negotiate, or even to discuss, with India on India’s so-called nuclear deterrence capability.’’

Envoys meet Gaddafi

TUNIS, Jan 13 (Reuters) — South African and Saudi envoys met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in an attempt to persuade him to extradite two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But one of the envoys indicated that no breakthrough in the diplomatic impasse over the two was expected from the talks.

Libyan television, monitored in Tunis, carried footage of envoys Jakes Gerwel and Prince Bandar Bin Sultan handing Mr Gaddafi letters from South African President Nelson Mandela and Saudi King Fahd, respectively, yesterday.

"The letters were related to (efforts) by King Fahd and President Mandela to find a solution to the so-called Lockerbie issue," the television said.

Jemima ‘illegally’ exporting tiles

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani customs officials have charged the wife of former cricket hero Imran Khan with illegally exporting antique tiles, officials said on Tuesday. Officials said the case against Jemima Khan, daughter of the late Franco-British tycoon, Sir James Goldsmith, had been registered after the authorities in Lahore intercepted a consignment of hundreds of tiles in December. She has not been arrested. The decorative tiles were destined for her mother Annable Goldsmith in London. — AFP

Senator Bradley

WASHINGTON: Former US Senator Bill Has Bradley formally filed papers to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2000, the second candidate to enter the race. Bradley, who served three terms as Senator from New Jersey after starring with the New York knicks professional basketball team, on Tuesday joined Vice-President Al Gore as the only declared Democratic candidate. During his Senate career, Bradley crafts a reputation as a liberal and independent-minded legislator. — DPA

Murdoch’s friend

SYDNEY: Even a tycoon has to take his new girlfriend home to meet his mother. And Rupert Murdoch’s new Chinese girlfriend, Wendy Deng, was among the guests as the media magnate helped his mother, Dame-Elisabeth Murdoch, celebrate her 90th birthday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Tuesday. Deng, 31, met her beau’s mother during the Melbourne luncheon on Saturday, ahead of her actual birthday in February and also spent time with his children. — AFP

UN plane found

LISBON: The Angolan rebel group, Unita has told the United Nations that it had located a second UN chartered plane that went down on January 2 in an Angolan war zone with nine persons on board, UN officials said. A Unita officials contacted the top UN security coordinator, Benon Sevan, in Paris on Tuesday and told him the rebels were ready to take a UN search and rescue team to the site, the UN officials said. — AP

Clinton’s priority

WASHINGTON: President Bill Clinton plans to push US Senate ratification of an international treaty banning nuclear tests as one of his ‘top priorities’ of 1999, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger has said. He said Clinton is determined to strengthen international controls on weapons of mass destruction and likely would lay out the case for Senate action on the treaty in his state of the union address, set for January 19. — Reuters