18 more die in Indonesian violence
JAKARTA, Jan 22 — At least 40 persons have died in religious clashes in Indonesia’s Spice Islands capital in the country’s most deadly violence since former President Suharto was ousted from power in May, church sources said today.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY: (TOP) The Air-India Boeing 747 is standing at the Frankfurt Rhein-Main-Airport on Thursday. The Boeing miscalculated its approach while coming for a landing in fog on Wednesday night and hit several lights and an antenna on the runway. (BOTTOM) Workers clear the skid marks on the runway. — AP/PTI

Genetic weapons may not be far off
LONDON, Jan 22 — Biological and genetic weapons designed to kill specific ethnic or racial groups are no longer the stuff of fiction, British researchers have warned.

Two held for bid on Sharif’s life
LAHORE, Jan 22 — Two suspected militants have been arrested for engineering an attempt to kill Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, official sources said here today.

Serbia backs down on expulsion
BELGRADE, Jan 22 — Yugoslavia has backed down in the face of a new NATO build-up of strike aircraft against it, “freezing” the expulsion of the head of the OSCE Observer Mission in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

UN presence in Angola favoured
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 — The Security Council has called for continued presence of the United Nations in Angola despite Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommending complete shutdown of the peacekeeping operations in that country.

Amnesty pleads for Pinochet’s extradition
LONDON, Jan 22 — Amnesty International returned to the House of Lords to restate its case for the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to answer charges of crimes against humanity.

Lift sanctions sans compliance: Talbott

WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (PTI) — US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott has mooted the lifting of economic sanctions against India without insisting on full compliance with the earlier American demand on signing the CTBT and banning missile tests.

Mr Talbott said it might backfire if the USA paid heed only to quite a few experts who suggested strict action against India and Pakistan for conducting nuclear tests.

They advocated “we should hold India and Pakistan’s feet to the fire, insisting on adherence to the non-proliferation treaty as a non-weapon state and on a missile-flight-test ban before we grant any significant sanctions relief,” he said addressing a conference at Stanford University recently.

“But we believe following that stern advice would make the best the enemy of the good,” Mr Talbott said.

He regretted India and Pakistan exercised the nuclear option and became party to global proliferation. But hoped “they can, in 1999, if they so choose, move back in the direction of being part of the solution — and they can do so while enhancing their own security at the same time.”

Referring to Washington’s dialogues with Delhi and Islamabad in the aftermath of last year’s nuclear tests, Mr Talbott said though the USA made no claim to having a formal mandate or proxy from any other country or international grouping, there was a “political and moral obligation to make sure that our position and proposals are consistent with various communiqués issued by those bodies....”

Meanwhile, the USA has said it will focus on evolving a new partnership with India while simultaneously seeking to harmonise Delhi’s security needs with global non-proliferation goals.

“We will continue to remain engaged and optimistic that we will, over time, be able to reach an understanding on non-proliferation issues.... and build upon the extraordinary but little known record of cooperative science,” Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Karl F. Inderfurth said yesterday.

Underlining India’s importance in South Asia, he said “it is no accident that much of our time, attention and focus is on India. The USA recognises that India is the largest, strongest and indeed the dominant player in the subcontinent, and as such it commands a corresponding level of thought and care.”

“I do not mean to suggest that we deal with India to the exclusion or at the expense of the other countries in the region, but that we simply recognise the reality, India’s size and influence on the global scene, in international fora, as a leader and spokesman of the developing world, and as an emerging market,” he said in a speech carefully crafted to avoid ruffling Pakistan’s feathers.

“The horizons before India and the USA are boundless. We can realistically target increases in trade and investment over the next 10-20 years to reach levels that we enjoy with China.... we should pursue a full agenda of collaborative research, especially in life-threatening diseases such as AIDS, plant biotechnology, civilian space applications, and advanced information technology,” Mr Inderfurth said.

“We can undertake to develop an agenda for cooperation on environmental protection and remediation, with a major investment of time and resources in the production and deployment of clean technologies in-India,” he said in a speech reflective of the Clinton Administration’s desire to increase cooperation with India.

“In short, I could easily identify several examples of cooperative activities and actions between India and the USA, all of which we hope will define our new partnership for the 21st century.

“Moreover, it is also illustrative of the approach we envision for South Asia as a region. With our long-standing friend Pakistan, with an emerging Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.”

Significantly, the USA, which blacklisted a number of Indian firms after the May nuclear tests, has denied Delhi access to sensitive American high-technology, especially nuclear technology and supercomputers, ever since India’s first test in 1974.

18 more die in Indonesian violence

JAKARTA, Jan 22 (Reuters) — At least 40 persons have died in religious clashes in Indonesia’s Spice Islands capital in the country’s most deadly violence since former President Suharto was ousted from power in May, church sources said today.

“I saw 20 dead bodies in my neighbourhood this morning. The death toll has risen to more than 40 and I don’t think we can stick to the figures issued by the police anymore,” Reverend Frans Luthermas said from the Island of Ambon 2,300 km east of Jakarta.

The police said 24 persons were killed in the clashes between Muslims and Christians in Ambon which started on Tuesday, the first day of the Id ul-Fitr celebration.

“The burning (of buildings by rioters) was still going on last night, but I didn’t hear of any fresh clashes today. Ambon is very tense, and on the street you can see people brandishing spears and daggers,” the Reverend said.

The police said more than 100 persons were injured, with 88 homes, three mosques and three churches torched in Ambon during the rioting. Thousands have fled to military barracks for safety.

A military officer in Ambon said a curfew had been imposed and the situation was now under control with an extra 2,500 soldiers and the police sent in to keep the peace.

Iraqi Mirages ‘enter’ no-fly zones

WASHINGTON Jan 22 (Agencies) — Iraqi Mirage and MiG fighters have breached no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq again, a Pentagon official has said.

“The northern no-fly zone was pierced by two F-1 Mirage fighters that darted in and out again yesterday,” said Col Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman. A pair of MiG-23 fighters crossed into the no-fly zone in the South, he said.

The violations came during what the Pentagon described as a pause of several days in US and British flights enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

“There have been a combination of circumstances — primarily bad weather and the end of Ramzan — that has caused a slight pause in the flying, but this pause is not unusual”, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

The pause followed a week of intense Iraqi challenges to US and British warplanes enforcing the no-fly zones, which extend north from the 36th Parallel to Turkey and south of the 33rd Parallel to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

UNITED NATIONS: Pressured by France and Russia, the USA has approved 43 contracts worth $ 11.7 million for spare parts to the Iraqi oil industry to help it upgrade its infrastructure to sell more oil.

The US decision to lift hold on some of the contracts comes in the wake of its own promise last week to help Iraq sell more oil by lifting objections to contracts for the spare parts and is widely seen as a move to soften the radical moves to lift sanctions on Iraq by France and Russia.

The contracts are approved by a sanctions committee in which all members of the Security Council are represented, but unless all five permanent members agree, no contract can be approved.

Washington had put several contracts for spare parts on hold, arguing that Iraq could use the enhanced capacity to smuggle oil and use the money for building its arms arsenal.

Under the “oil-for-food” programme, Iraq is allowed to sell $ 5,265 billion worth of oil over a six month period to finance purchase of food, medicines and essential commodities.

So far it has not been able to sell more that $ 3 billion worth of oil over any six-month period. The whole operation, the sale of oil and the purchase of essential commodities, is done under strict United Nations monitoring.

Arguments over from Clinton’s side

WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) — President Bill Clinton’s defence has presented its final arguments before the Senate, saying the impeachment case against him was based on myths and was a danger to the constitutional system.

Clinton’s personal lawyer David Kendall yesterday first used a lawyerly attack on the charges and then former Senator Dale Bumpers, an Arkansas Democrat, ended with a rhetorical flourish warning of an impeachment process run amok.

"The President did not commit perjury, he did not obstruct justice, and there are no grounds to remove him from office," Kendall said in closing his argument.

Bumpers, proudly trumpeting his 25-year friendship with Clinton, said he did not return to the chamber where he served four terms to defend the President’s "terrible moral lapse" but to warn against the danger to the US political system.

As the defence drew to a close, several Democrat Senators sought an early vote on whether to convict Clinton because they said they sensed a change among some Republicans who now want the trial to end.

A two-thirds vote would be needed to oust Clinton from office, something few believe could happen at this time. Therefore, some Democrats argue, why not vote and get it over with rather than drag the process out.

For three days the White House has presented its case on two articles of impeachment passed by the House of Representatives last month, charging Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice in trying to conceal his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

With Clinton’s defence over, the Senate will move into uncharted waters in only the second presidential impeachment trial in history. Senators will be given 16 hours, beginning today, to present Clinton’s lawyers and House prosecutors with written queries submitted through US Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

"There are a lot of myths about what the evidence is in this case," Kendall said. "Some of them are misunderstandings based upon erroneous media reports. Some spring from confusion in the evidence itself, and some are the result of concerted partisan distortion."

He made a point-by-point rebuttal of the obstruction of justice case, claiming it was based on circumstantial evidence which many witnesses, including Lewinsky, disputed under oath.

"Ms Lewinsky has repeatedly and forcefully denied any and all suggestions that the President ever asked her to lie," Kendall said. Her "testimony is credible and she has the motive to tell the truth because of her immunity with the independent counsel," he said.

House prosecutors, who presented their case last week, said they hoped to respond during the question-and-answer period.

"We’re anxious for a rebuttal opportunity so we can respond to the arguments of the President’s counsel," said representative Asa Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican who was one of the 13 House prosecutors.

The Senators’ questioning will take up today and tomorrow, next week, the Senate is likely to take up the questions of whether to dismiss the case altogether and if not, whether witnesses should be called to testify.

Two held for bid on Sharif’s life

LAHORE, Jan 22 (AFP) — Two suspected militants have been arrested for engineering an attempt to kill Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, official sources said here today.

The suspects, both Pakistanis, admitted they planted a powerful bomb that blew up a bridge on the road to Mr Sharif’s farmhouse at Raiwind on January 3, the sources said.

Mr Sharif was the target of the bomb, but it exploded prematurely before it could be set off by a remote control, the suspects told interrogators after being arrested here on Monday, the sources said.

The two were identified as Nur Gul, an ethnic Pashtun from the North-West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, and Sarfraz Ahmed, an ethnic Punjabi.

According to the sources, they were veterans of the liberation war in Afghanistan during the 1979-89 military occupation of the country by the then Soviet Union.

They returned home after the Red Army’s defeat and joined the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an offshoot of the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a militant organisation sympathetic to the Afghan Taliban Militia, the sources said.

According to the two, the group ordered the bombing to avenge the killing of several of its activists by the police and the death sentences to eight others handed down by an anti-terrorism court for sectarian murders.

Serbia backs down on expulsion

BELGRADE, Jan 22 (AFP, Reuters) — Yugoslavia has backed down in the face of a new NATO build-up of strike aircraft against it, “freezing” the expulsion of the head of the OSCE Observer Mission in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

The decision to expel Mr William Walker “remains valid but will be frozen for as long as the consequences of his behaviour have not totally become clear,” a statement published by Tanjug news agency said last night.

The US State Department immediately replied that the measure was “necessary but insufficient,” while a White House official said “any conditionality is outrageous.”

Mr Walker had been ordered to leave the country by around 0030 hrs (IST) today in retaliation for his allegations that the Serbian police had massacred 45 ethnic Albanians in Racak village, Southern Kosovo, on January 15.

The statement said the government decision followed talks between Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic and the chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek.

Belgrade had taken into account the views of Russian President Boris Yeltsin contained in a message to Yugoslav President Lobodan Milosevic, it added. The government had also considered an appeal from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had spoken to Mr Jovanovic yesterday, it said.

In Washington, a White House official said Mr Vollebaek had informed the USA that Mr Walker would be able to stay and carry on with his duties. But the same source said the USA would reject any attempt by Belgrade to attach conditions to its decision.

Mr Walker, however, stayed put in Kosovo, defying the expulsion order while Western diplomats converged on Belgrade to tell an “inflexible” President Milosevic that he must be allowed to stay.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared that Mr Walker must stay and the West had to be prepared to use force against Milosevic “because force is the only language he appears to understand”.

Genetic weapons may not be far off

LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) — Biological and genetic weapons designed to kill specific ethnic or racial groups are no longer the stuff of fiction, British researchers have warned.

A designer plague that would only kill Serbs or a toxin engineered to affect Israelis or Kurds does not exist yet but advances in biotechnology and the mapping of all human genes could be misused to develop lethal weapons within five to 10 years.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of health policy research at the British Medical Association (BMA), said yesterday that genetic information was already being used to enhance biological weapons.

“It would be a tragedy if in 10 y- ears the world faces the reality of genetically-engineered and possibly genetically-targeted weapons,” she told a news conference to launch a new book entitled, “Biotechnology weapons and humanity.”

The book by Prof Malcolm Dando of the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in Northern England, paints a terrifying picture of the power of biological weapons. The release of 100 kg of anthrax spores from canisters planted in a major city could wiped out up to three million people.

UN presence in Angola favoured

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 (PTI) — The Security Council has called for continued presence of the United Nations in Angola despite Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommending complete shutdown of the peacekeeping operations in that country.

The Council statement also comes in the wake of intensified fighting between Angolan Government forces and Unita rebels — both of whom resent the UN presence.

The Council appealed to the Angolan Government, in a presidential statement, to allow the United Nations presence to continue as diplomats say without the agreement of the government, it would be impossible to keep United Nations personnel in the country.The Council, which has to adopt a resolution before February 26 when the mandate of the present operation “monua”, with a strength of 1000 personnel, is due to end, is likely to replace it with a new one which will have strength of only about 100, not counting the humanitarian personnel in the country, UN officials said.In a statement, drafted by the “troika”, comprising the USA, Russia and Portugal, overseeing the peace operations in Angola envisages “a continued multi-disciplinary presence of the United Nations under the directive of the special representative of the Secretary-General.”

Amnesty pleads for Pinochet’s extradition

LONDON, Jan 22 (AFP) — Amnesty International returned to the House of Lords to restate its case for the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to answer charges of crimes against humanity.

Seven law lords have been in session since Monday re-hearing arguments for and against Pinochet’s claim of sovereign immunity to prosecution for crimes committed during the time he was in office — 1973-1990. His claim of immunity was rejected on November 25.

Lawyers representing Chile and Pinochet (83) had not yet been heard yesterday and it appeared likely the proceedings would extend into the next week.

For Amnesty, Prof Ian Brownlie yesterday said in the absence of realistic prospect of Pinochet, being tried in Chile or any international tribunal, Spain’s extradition request was “the only vehicle for the emplacement of the rule of law in these matters”.

28 die in air crash
MANAGUA (Nicaragua): A Nicaraguan army transport plane has crashed into a hillside on the country’s eastern coast, killing all 28 abroad, army officials said. The Soviet-made AN-26 was carrying 13 officers and 15 of their civilian relatives when it crashed into the hill, 6 km from the Caribbean coast town of Bluefields, its final destination on Thursday. — Reuters

Russian prisoners
MOSCOW: One Russian in 100, about 1.5 million persons is currently in jail, accounting for more than half of Europe’s prisoners, a member of President Boris Yeltsin’s Committee for Criminal Pardons has said. About one-third of the prisoners are in overpopulated facilities. Russia’s prison population is about 10 times higher than those in France, Britain and Spain, Mr Anatoli Pristavkin, head of the committee, said on Thursday. — AFP

Tigers kill keeper
BANGKOK: Four tigers, left hungry by their owner, killed their zoo keeper in Northern Thailand, the police has said. Ya Fu, keeper at the zoo-restaurant in Phrae province, 500 km north of Bangkok, was attacked while feeding the tigers in their cage on Wednesday. The tigers had not been amply fed because the restaurant had not been doing well in the past few months. — AP

Planes collide
EVERTON (England): Four persons, including a Royal Air Force instructor and an Italian trainee, were killed when a tornado plane collided with a civilian light aircraft in mid-air, the police said. Witnesses said the low-flying two-man Gr-1 tornado warplane on Thursday sliced through the Cessna single-engined plane, which was carrying two persons. — AFP

Stripper acquitted
CINCINNATI: A male stripper who offered to perform at a party in return for groceries has been cleared of charges accusing him of misusing government vouchers for buying food. Benford Clay, a substitute teacher in Dayton, attracted the attention of the authorities with posters advertising his “dance” service. He offered to dance at birthday parties and family reunions, all of which is not illegal. But he also offered to accept food stamps as payment which are a form of government assistance for low-income Americans to buy food. — AP

Top distinction
PARIS: Capitalising on the World Cup, France kept its place as the world’s most popular tourist destination in 1998, drawing some 70 million foreign visitors during the year, French Tourism officials have said. France attracted 3 million more tourists in 1998 than during the previous year, according to Tourism Minister Michelle Demissine on Thursday. — AP

Tonga to join UN
UNITED NATIONS: The tiny South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga, one of the first places where the new millennium will dawn, is expected to become the 186th member of the UN following a meeting this week between its monarch and Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “We are applying for membership... these things are going to be formalised,” Elent Aho, Private secretary of King Taufa’s Ahau Tupou IV, said on Thursday. No Ambassador had yet been designated, but a UN mission would be opened here. — Reuters