Gilman for Pak retreat
WASHINGTON, June 30 — A top US Congressman and Chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee has demanded “immediate” withdrawal of Pakistani regulars and Pak-supported forces from the Kargil area.

• No withdrawal, says Pak army

Lovers’ quarrel: 4 Indians killed
JOHANNESBURG, June 30 — A farming family of Indian origin in the Kwazulu-Natal province of South Africa has suffered a devastating blow with four family members slain in a suspected lovers’ quarrel the police said here yesterday.

Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, are greeted at the entrance of a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Tuesday. Both Presidents are in Rio after participating in the Latin America Caribbean and Euopean Union Summit. — AP/PTI

Paper’s authenticity doubted
NUREMBERG, June 30 — A German historian has expressed doubts about the authenticity of a document claimed to be the Nuremberg Laws which has been discovered in the USA.

Christ spent 16 years in India?
MOSCOW, June 30 — Was India ever part of Jesus Christ’s sojourn? Russian orientologist Prof Sergei Alexeyev believes that the “Son of God” spent almost 16 years in India and Tibet, citing as evidence travelogues of 19th century Russian newsman and researcher Nikolai Wotovich.

EU to take Latin America as partner
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 30 — Nearly 50 nations from the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean have signed a declaration of Rio agreeing to a “strategic partnership” and to liberalise trade between their two regions.

Nepal ministry expanded
KATHMANDU, June 30 — In a keenly awaited development, Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai today expanded and reshuffled his month-old Council of Ministers doubling its strength to 32 in an attempt to lend it wider representation, both regionally as well as community-wise.

Antiguan leader Vere V. Bird Sr dead
ST JOHN’S (Antigua), June 30 — Vere V. Bird Sr., who rose from childhood poverty and overcame a lack of formal education to bring independence to Antigua and found a family dynasty that still rules the Caribbean nation, died on Monday.

Bosnian refugees to return today
SARAJEVO, June 30 — The UN refugee agency has said it is set to start the organised return from Bosnia of some 40,000 ethnic Albanian and Muslim Slav Refugees from tomorrow.

She killed 8 of her children
NEW YORK, June 30 — A 70-year old woman who admitted smothering to death eight of her 10 babies was sentenced to five years home confinement and given 20 years probation, CNN reported.

Gilman for Pak retreat

WASHINGTON, June 30 (PTI) — A top US Congressman and Chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee has demanded “immediate” withdrawal of Pakistani regulars and Pak-supported forces from the Kargil area.

Mr Benjamin Gilman, who introduced a resolution in the House stating the demand, has also urged the reestablishment of and future respect for the Line of Control (LoC) and encouragement to all sides to end the fighting and exercise restraint.

It should be the policy of the USA, it says, to “oppose the Government of Pakistan’s support for an armed incursion into Jammu and Kashmir”.

Commending the resolution, he pointed out, “The Government of Pakistan has long supported terrorism in India. However, this latest incident is far beyond the usual murder of innocent civilians on a train or at a wedding party.”

“The Pakistani army, intelligence service and Government have moved thousands of men and materials up to the Pakistani side of the LoC and sent hundreds of army regulars across the line. The Pakistani army is laying down artillery fire in support of the Pakistani invaders,” he added.

“For many years,” the Republican Congressman said, “India has been suffering from Muslim extremist attacks originating from Afghanistan and Pakistan which are supported by the Pakistani Government. Last year, Americans received a bitter taste of what India experiences on a regular basis in Kashmir when those same terrorist groups killed our diplomats in two of our embassies in Africa.”

“The Government of Pakistan gives political, material and moral support for terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The Pakistani Government supports training camps for terrorists that operate around the world. Many Americans have died as a result of these attacks.”

The resolution points out that India “have been forced into action to defend the territory on the Indian side of the LoC, and push the terrorists and Pakistani military forces out.”

Pakistan’s actions, the resolution stresses, “are contrary to the Lahore Declaration, an agreement between India and Pakistan to promote regional stability, peace and security in South Asia.”

The forces that Pakistan has sent to the Indian side of the LoC, it notes, “include well-trained and heavily-armed Afghans and Pakistanis associated with Osama Bin Laden, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Government of Pakistan.”

The resolution also takes note of the fact that the Group of Eight — the USA, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Japan, Canada and Russia — have called for an immediate end to hostilities, restoration of the LoC and full support for the LoC and resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan in the spirit of the Lahore Declaration.

TOKYO: Refusing to toe the line of close ally USA, which has blamed Pakistan for the incursion across the LoC in Kashmir, Japan said on Tuesday it would like to see the LoC restored but refused to blame Islamabad for the intrusion.

“Japan wanted restoration of the LoC and that it be respected,” chief Japanese spokesman Sadaaki Numata told reporters at a Foreign Office briefing here, parrying a question on whether Japan was working with the USA to exert pressure on Pakistan to withdraw from Indian territory.

No withdrawal, says Pak army

ISLAMABAD, June 30 (PTI) — Asserting that Pakistan is “fully prepared for an all-out war” with India, the Pakistan army has vowed it will not withdraw from the strategic posts in the Kargil-Dras area and continue to defend them irrespective of whatever strength India applies to get them vacated.Disclosing the resolve of the Pakistan army, the Director-General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Brig Rashid Qureshi, told newsmen here yesterday that there was a possibility of India trying to cross the Line of Control.

“We will continue to hold these positions and defend them regardless of the strength India employs to attack to get them vacated”, the ISPR chief said.

When his attention was drawn to the statement of the Army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, a few days ago that Islamabad would not withdraw unilaterally, he clarified that what the Army chief meant to say was that, “Pakistan would stop returning fire on Indian positions if India stops firing. Pakistan can’t do it unilaterally, it is India which has to stop fire first and de-escalate the situation”.

He asserted that the Pakistan army had “neither attacked nor captured any Indian post or position on or across the LoC”.When asked whether the Pakistan army was apprehending a major attack from the Indian side, he said: “We do see a possibility of crossing of the LoC (by India)”.But he also said: “We are not Iraq or Yugoslavia, we are fully prepared for an all-out war”.

Lovers’ quarrel: 4 Indians killed

JOHANNESBURG, June 30 (PTI) — A farming family of Indian origin in the Kwazulu-Natal province of South Africa has suffered a devastating blow with four family members slain in a suspected lovers’ quarrel the police said here yesterday.

Four women members of the family were slain by hooded gunmen late on Sunday night at Kwadukuza, 80 km from Durban, police media officer Bala Naidoo told PTI.

Those slain were Sheriza Singh, (25) her mother Shanitha Singh, (40) grandmother Sabkree Singh, (73) and sister-in-law Melissa Naicker, (18). The family’s only son, Vijen, (21) was shot and is now lying in a critical condition in hospital.

The murders followed an incident on Saturday night when Sheriza attended a night club in the town with her new boyfriend, who was shot dead by her ex-boyfriend, an Indian, following an altercation.

The killer has been arrested and is due to appear in court, Naidoo said.

Hours after this incident, six hooded men descended on the home of the Singhs and shot the four women.

“We are investigating all leads to track down the killers,” Mr Naidoo said.

Paper’s authenticity doubted

NUREMBERG, June 30 (DPA) — A German historian has expressed doubts about the authenticity of a document claimed to be the Nuremberg Laws which has been discovered in the USA.The Nuremberg Laws, drawn up in 1935 during the Third Reich, spelled out the terms of racial discrimination against Jews in Germany.

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi German Chancellor from 1933 to 1945, tabled the laws to a session of the German Parliament which convened in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg in 1935.

Historian Hans-Christian Taeubrich said on Monday that a copy of the document which had been corrected by hand by Adolf Hitler was held by the state archives in Nuremberg.

This week, a document said to be an original was due to go on show at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, reports said. The document is said to have been given to the Huntingdon Library in Pasadena, California, by US Gen George Patton in 1945. It is said to have been there ever since — until now.

The document in the Nuremberg archives is written by typewriter and bears the signature of Hitler as well as those of several of his ministers.

According to a forensic examination in 1966, there is no doubt about its authenticity.

Christ spent 16 years in India?

MOSCOW, June 3o (UNI) — Was India ever part of Jesus Christ’s sojourn? Russian orientologist Prof Sergei Alexeyev believes that the “Son of God” spent almost 16 years in India and Tibet, citing as evidence travelogues of 19th century Russian newsman and researcher Nikolai Wotovich.

Prof Alexeyev, in a Voice of Russia broadcast last weekend, said Christ reached Tibet with a caravan. He Learned local languages of the region and studied Budhhist scriptures.

Some Buddhist Lamas believed that Christ was a “Bharatiya Rishi” (Indian hermit), while others regarded him as an “angel”, he said.

After spending some years in Tibet, Christ toured northern cities of India, including Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi and Rishikesh, Prof Alexeyev claimed.

Also, the orientologist says the founder of Christianity made an in-depth study of sacred Hindu texts during his tour of the country.

Russian correspondent from Odessa town, Wotovich, visited a Ladakh monastery and was shown two manuscripts containing “valuable material” on this period of Christ’s life, Prof Alexeyev claimed.

Wotovich wrote his monographs based on his “findings” and asked for the blessings of the Vatican. But one of the cardinals dismissed his claims about unravelling the unknown pages of Christ’s life.”

It is believed that young Christ left his birth place when he was 10 and returned at the age of 30. After that he lived on the earth for just three years during which the Gospel was written down by his disciples.

EU to take Latin America as partner

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 30 (DPA) — Nearly 50 nations from the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean have signed a declaration of Rio agreeing to a “strategic partnership” and to liberalise trade between their two regions.

The declaration, signed at the end of a two-day summit of the EU and Latin American Heads of State and Government in Rio yesterday, aims at “increasing prosperity and combat the destabilising effects of volatile international financial flows”.

In his opening statement, summit host Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said that globalisation had to apply to all. “It cannot be a gift for the rich and a hardship for the poor.”

Nepal ministry expanded

KATHMANDU, June 30 (UNI) — In a keenly awaited development, Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai today expanded and reshuffled his month-old Council of Ministers doubling its strength to 32 in an attempt to lend it wider representation, both regionally as well as community-wise.

The Bhattarai ministerial council now comprises 19 Cabinet-rank ministers, eight Ministers of State — three holding independent charge — and five Assistant Ministers who represent all five development regions and 14 administrative zones of the Hindu Himalayan kingdom.

In redressing a month-old grievance about not having given representation to more than half of the country’s populace, Prime Minister Bhattarai also appointed his lone woman minister — Mrs Kamala Devi Pant. She was made Minister of State for Women and Social Welfare.

Antiguan leader Vere V. Bird Sr dead

ST JOHN’S (Antigua), June 30 (AP) — Vere V. Bird Sr., who rose from childhood poverty and overcame a lack of formal education to bring independence to Antigua and found a family dynasty that still rules the Caribbean nation, died on Monday. He was 89.

Bird died on a life support system at St. John’s Holberton Hospital, according to reports on Antigua and Barbuda’s government-controlled radio stations.

He was a revolutionary union leader who defied British colonisers in the 1950s to demand higher wages for Antiguan cane cutters.

Bird led his country to independence from Britain in 1981 and still is revered by many as a saviour, despite the many scandals that have tainted the family name and left the country hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.

Under Bird, Antigua emerged from a poverty-stricken British colonialism through rapid development, but in more recent years, the nation also became known as one of the most corrupt in the Caribbean.

Bosnian refugees to return today

SARAJEVO, June 30 (Reuters) — The UN refugee agency has said it is set to start the organised return from Bosnia of some 40,000 ethnic Albanian and Muslim Slav Refugees from tomorrow.

“The programme of assisted voluntary repatriation is scheduled to begin from Thursday,” UNHCR spokeswoman Wendy Rappeport told reporters yesterday.

The UNHCR does not have independent confirmation of the number of refugees who have crossed the border with Yugoslavia on their own, according to a report, but its estimates range between 4,000 and 7,000.

Some 5,70,000 Kosovo Albanians out of about a million who fled or were expelled since the start of fighting in March, 1998, still remain outside the province, according to UNHCR statistics.

She killed 8 of her children

NEW YORK, June 30 (AFP) — A 70-year old woman who admitted smothering to death eight of her 10 babies was sentenced to five years home confinement and given 20 years probation, CNN reported.

The Philadelphia woman, who maintained for decades that her babies died from sudden infant death syndrome, or cot death, will also receive mental health treatment, according to CNN.

Human eggs
CAIRO: Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s top religious authority, has stated that the storage of human eggs is not forbidden by Islam, the government press has reported. “Sharia (Islamic law) does not ban the freezing of human eggs if they are subsequently fertilised by the husband’s sperm in order to guarantee the paternity of the child,” Ali Merei dean of the Al-Azhar’s Islamic Law Faculty said on Tuesday. — (AFP)

French sub for Pak
LONDON: The French government on Tuesday announced that it would deliver a fully-built Agosta-Khalid submarine to Pakistan on July 8 and provide the parts and technology for Islamabad to build two more. Reports reaching here from Paris quoted a spokesman of the stateowned DCN shipyards as saying that parts of the second submarine due to be assembled in Karachi in 2002 are now being constructed in Cherbourg, and a third vessel was on order and would be assembled in the Pakistani port in 2004. — (ANI)

SAM tested
LONDON: The Singapore Air Force (SAF) has conducted its first live firing test of its Russian-made Iqla low-altitude surface-to-air missile (SAM) at South Africa’s Overberg Toetsbaan Range, the Jane’s Defence Weekly reported quoting officials. This was the first live firing test of the Iqla SAM after Singapore announced the purchase of several missiles in October 1997, A Singapore Defence Ministry statement said. — (ANI)

Forced sterilisation
LONDON: Thousands of victims of forced sterilisation in Sweden will be compensated by the government, officials have said. More than 63,000 persons mostly women, were sterilised between 1936 and 1976 in Sweden because they were considered racially or socially inferior. Nordic countries, pursuing the pseudo-science of eugiencs in the 1920s, used sterilisation to weed out those considered “inferior” or of “poor or mixed racial quality”. — (ANI)

Love boxes
LONDON: Cuddling in the back row of the movies will never be the same again, according to the Times of London. Kerry Packer, said to be the richest man in Australia, plans to introduce “love boxes” to British cinema houses for a fee of around $ 20. Around 15 British cinemas houses will be installing “love boxes” in the next 18 months. — (DPA)

Dy PM resigns
CANBERRA: Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Tim Fischer announced his resignation on Wednesday citing “certain political and certain private reasons”. He would also give up his post as parliamentary leader of the rural-based National Party on July 20, he said. The National Party is the junior partner in the conservative coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard. — (DPA)

Rain claims 23 lives
TOKYO: Death toll from heavy rain in western Japan on Wednesday rose to 23 after the police and rescuers recovered 11 bodies during an all-night search. Of the victims 10 were found in Hiroshima prefecture in western Japan. — (DPA)

John Woolf dead
LONDON: Sir John Woolf, the British Film producer behind the musical Oliver and the political thriller “The Day of The Jackal” has died aged 85, his family announced on Tuesday. — (DPA)