Hearing on Suharto case in Sept
JAKARTA, July 12 — Legal proceedings in a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit involving Indonesia’s former President Suharto and Time magazine are to start in September, a Jakarta court said today.

Time to get angry, exhorts Greer
SAFFRON WALDON, England, July 12 — Germaine Greer is angry. Thirty years after she wrote her landmark treatise, “The Female Eunuch”, she feels women are still trivialised and degraded.

Hunt for Gandhi look-alike on
JOHANNESBURG, July 12 — Organisers of the Anglo-Boer war centenary commemorations in South Africa are looking for a Mahatma Gandhi look-alike to re-enact his role in assisting wounded British and Boer soldiers.

Central America quake: 1 killed
GUATEMALA CITY, July 12 — At least one person was killed and 27 others were injured when a powerful earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale rocked Central America early yesterday, felling power lines and damaging houses.

Kargil crisis
Clinton unwilling to get involved

WASHINGTON, July 12 (PTI) — U.S. President Bill Clinton, who successfully prevailed upon Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif to withdraw troops from the Indian side of the Line of Control in Kashmir recently, is unwilling to get any more involved in Kashmir, media reports said here today.

“President Clinton does not want to get any more involved in the Kashmir mess,” Newsweek reported in its latest issue referring to Mr Sharif’s claim that after withdrawal of Pakistani troops from Kargil Mr Clinton was committed to mediating with India on Kashmir.

Quoting US officials, Newsweek said Mr Clinton rejected Mr Sharif’s request to mediate with India over Kashmir during their Blair House meeting, insisting instead that Islamabad withdraw without delay from Kargil to defuse tension with New Delhi.

The weekly said Mr Clinton also asked Mr Sharif to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) and resume diplomatic talks set in motion by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during his historic Delhi-Lahore bus ride in February.

It quoted a senior Clinton Administration official saying that when Mr Clinton received Mr Sharif in Blair House in response to a call from Mr Sharif “begging” Mr Clinton for a meeting he found “a President who was very very clear that there was not going to be any reward for what he had done.

“What he got was, ‘here is what you need to do’ demand: pull the invaders out of Indian territory,” the official said.

The Americans, said the weekly, “didn’t offer Mr Sharif much in return for his peace deal. They told him that he must not only withdraw the intruders but also resume diplomatic talks begun by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s historic Delhi-Lahore bus ride in February.”

In return, said U.S. officials, Mr Clinton “vaguely promised to visit” Pakistan if the withdrawal goes ahead and Islamabad signs the CTBT. “But he offered no mediation, rebuffing Pakistan’s effort to counterbalance India’s military strength by internationalising the search for a solution,” the magazine said.

The weekly noted that Mr Sharif sought a meeting with Mr Clinton when he got no support for his cause from China.

US officials, the weekly reported, said pressure from China was critical. “They were not going to stand behind (Sharif) as he precipitated a broadscale conventional — or worse — conflict,” said a US official.

“Nawaz,” said the senior Clinton Administration official, “has created a mess for himself. I hope that what he heard — not only from here (Washington) but also from the Chinese and British — is that of the no good options, persevering with this (trying to hold the hills the Pakistanis seized) is the worst.”

Rejecting Pakistan’s official line that the infiltrators were “freedom fighters” from Kashmir, the weekly said some 2,000 men, Mainly Pakistani troops mixed with a few hundred Kashmiri fighters, were involved in the infiltration.

China to stick to one-child policy

BEIJING, July 12 (PTI) — China, the world’s most populous country and home to 22 per cent of the globe’s population, will stick to its one child per family policy to curb population explosion, an official newspaper reported today.

China, whose population has reached 1.25 billion, reiterated that it would continue to adhere to its present policy and contribute towards stabilising world population growth, an official from the state Family Planning Commission told The China Daily.

The Chinese resolve to curb population growth, which had a crippling affect on its economy, came on the occasion of World Population Day, which was observed yesterday.

Chinese demographers say the country’s population will stabilise and then decrease over the next two to three decades.

Like most developing countries, China is confronted with many problems as a result of rapid population growth, experts say.

The increase of population in China has placed considerable pressure on the economy, social development, natural resources, the environment, education, health care, housing, employment and social welfare, the report said quoting senior officials.

Chinese leaders recently ruled out relaxation of China’s one-child family planning policy and urged planners to concentrate on the vast rural areas to further curb population growth.

Recently, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said population control dealt with a wide range of difficult issues and must not be relaxed.

Urging for strengthened family planning work, Mr Jiang, also general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, said education, legal, economic and administrative measures should be adopted to ensure effective population control work.

China should further improve its population macro-control, family planning management and social insurance systems in accordance with the development needs of socialist market economy, he said.

Panel to probe PTV failure

ISLAMABAD, July 12 (PTI) — Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed displeasure over the state-run media’s failure to win the media war against India during the Kargil crisis and set up a Cabinet committee to probe lapses on its part, media reports here said today.

Mr Sharif decided to set a committee to probe PTV’s dismal performance during the Kargil crisis after several Cabinet members criticised the government’s media and information policy during Saturday’s crucial Cabinet meeting, leading daily ‘The News’ reported.

During the meeting, Mr Sharif expressed dissatisfaction with the media policy totally under Information Minister Mushahid Hussain’s control during the two-and-half-year rule of the government. He even referred to some of PTV’s follies, the report said quoting insiders.

It said two senior ministers made a special reference to PTV’s failure to properly project Pakistan’s position in the face of an onslaught from private Indian channels, leaving Mr Mushahid in an embarrassing position during the meeting. Mr Mushahid, however, did not utter a single word in his defence.

The eight-member committee, including Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz and Deputy Muhammad Siddiqui Kanju, will be headed by journalist-turned-politician Hussain. It has been charged with the responsibility of creating awareness about the Washington agreement, boosting the nation’s morale and allowing private channels in Pakistan.

The report quoted Mr Hussain’s friends as saying that this was a ploy by some ministers to force him to call it a day.

Earlier, media reports had also said some senior ministers in Mr Sharif’s Cabinet were unhappy with Mr Hussain for projecting himself too much on official media.

The ministers also criticised PTV for failing to live up to the task and losing the battle again the round-the-clock onslaught of Indian TV channels, several of them private, during the Cabinet meeting.

Hillary Senate run better story: Bill

WASHINGTON, July 12 (AP) — President Bill Clinton says while issues like healthcare reform are important, his wife’s likely run for the Senate from New York is a better story.

“She’s a better story,” Mr Clinton said in an interview with New York Times columnist Bob Herbert.

The President made his remarks during his recent trip to California to promote his ideas for changing medicare, a federal health care programme for the elderly.

The President also said he’d be happy to live in New York after he leaves the White House.

“I’m going to divide my time between New York and Arkansas no matter what happens,” Mr Clinton said.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton is seriously considering seeking the seat that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat of New York, will vacate when he retires in 2000.

Hearing on Suharto case in Sept

JAKARTA, July 12 (AP) — Legal proceedings in a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit involving Indonesia’s former President Suharto and Time magazine are to start in September, a Jakarta court said today.

Mr Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for 32 years before being forced to quit last year, has sued Time over a report claiming that his family had accumulated $ 15 billion in assets.

In a cover story in its Asian edition in May, Time claimed Mr Suharto’s family transferred $ 9 billion from Switzerland to Austria just before he quit amid riots and protests against his authoritarian rule.

Mr Suharto is seeking up to $ 27 billion in damages from the New York-based news magazine. It is the biggest lawsuit ever filed in Indonesian courts.

“The hearing will open on September 9”, said a court officer who identified herself only as Zulis.

Teaching English brings big bucks

LONDON, July 12 (ANI) — Teaching English to foreigners is claimed to be one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and is set to expand even further, as people all over the world turn to English as the medium of international communication.

Not surprisingly, the business is biggest in Britain. The number of students who come here each year to learn to speak English is estimated to have passed the 7,00,000 mark and is increasing every year. They have a choice of 1,500 schools, which jointly earn a billion pounds of foreign currency every year. They face competition from schools in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, but six out of 10 students world-wide come to Britain.

Europe accounts for more than half the students who come here, Italy being the largest European source, with 12 per cent of the total. But the largest single source world-wide is Japan, with 16 per cent. Countries where English is traditionally a second language, such as Holland and Norway, send few students, and even fewer come from Commonwealth countries, such as India, where English is taught widely because it is the language of administration and commerce.

As the language of instruction is English in most of the schools — although many of the teachers are at least bilingual — most students must have a basic knowledge of it before attending a course. The range of courses is enormous, many lasting only three weeks, others going on for a year. The average period for which students remain in the country is 42 days, at a cost, including tuition and accommodation, of £ 1360.

Some courses prepare students for entry into a British University. Many combine learning English with vocational subjects and leisure activities. Others specialise in English for specific professional purposes, such as banking or marketing. General English is the most popular option, but many students, with an eye on their careers, opt for courses which carry an examination qualification.

Anyone in Britain can set up an English language school, as the industry is not regulated by the Government. But there is an efficient inspection scheme to ensure that accredited schools offer a satisfactory standard of teaching. This is run jointly by the British Council, which promotes British culture, the British Association of Schools of English Language Teaching (BASELT), which represents state colleges and some universities, and the Association of Recognised English Language Services (ARELS), which represents the private sector.

Altogether only 350 of the total of 1,500 English language schools are accredited under this scheme. This does not necessarily mean that the remainders are sub-standard, but students from abroad are advised either to follow a personal recommendation, or to choose a school that is “English in Britian” accredited.

Last month the government launched a scheme to attract more university and higher education students to Britain from abroad, and the performance of English language schools is important to achieve this aim.

The English language is proving to be one of Britain’s greatest assets. Is there any easier way for Koreans to talk to Swedes, or Germans to Japanese, or Thais to Italians ? For India, it must be regarded as one of the most important assets inherited from the British Raj.

Time to get angry, exhorts Greer

SAFFRON WALDON, England, July 12 (AP) — Germaine Greer is angry.

Thirty years after she wrote her landmark treatise, “The Female Eunuch”, she feels women are still trivialised and degraded.

Millions of women are slaving in Asian sweatshops for almost nothing an hour. She says, they are also raising families alone and mutilating their bodies to conform to male ideals of feminine beauty.

Irked by the ‘lifestyle feminists” who claim today’s women can “have it all”, the feisty Greer has penned the book she swore “I would never write”. Titled “The Whole Woman”, it is a major stock-taking of the state of women’s liberation.

Instead of being liberated to lead valued, joyous lives, Greer argues in the book women have been sold a dud ideal of equality that dictates they become like men in order to succeed.

“It is time to get angry again”, the book says.

Hunt for Gandhi look-alike on

JOHANNESBURG, July 12 (PTI) — Organisers of the Anglo-Boer war centenary commemorations in South Africa are looking for a Mahatma Gandhi look-alike to re-enact his role in assisting wounded British and Boer soldiers.

A member of the centenary committee and the Education Superintendent, Dr Isri Bedassai.

“He must be slim in stature, but he must necessarily be bald. We can create the baldness, but he must display Gandhi’s spirit of humanity,” said Dr Bedassai.

Central America quake: 1 killed

GUATEMALA CITY, July 12 (AFP) — At least one person was killed and 27 others were injured when a powerful earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale rocked Central America early yesterday, felling power lines and damaging houses.

Tremors were also felt in Honduras, El Salvador and Belize, but no major damage was reported in those countries, officials said.

Puerto Barrios, 295 km North-east of here, received the most damage and several people were injured by fallen walls and shattered windows, rescue official Jairo Arrego said.

The quake’s epicentre was located north of Puerto Barrios, under the Caribbean 29.3 km deep.

TAIPEI (AP): An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 rattled northern Taiwan before dawn today shaking buildings in Taipei and elsewhere, although there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The epicentre was located 19.3 km south of the city of Ilan on Taiwan’s quake-prone East Coast and 45 km south of Taipei, the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Centre reported.

4 Maoists killed
KATHMANDU: Five persons, including, four alleged Maoists were killed on Saturday, in two separate incidents in Sindhuli district, about 100 km east of Kathmandu, the English language daily Kathmandu Post reported on Monday. The newspaper quoting the Chief District Officer, Mr Sitaram Pokharel, as saying that four Maoists were killed by the police gunfire at Ratanchura village, about 12 km from the district headquarters of Sindhulimadi. — DPA

2 monkeys detained
DHAKA: Two monkeys and three persons were detained by the police for alleged drug dealing in the Bangladeshi capital, newspapers reported here on Monday. Two monkeys, Munni and Hamid, were trained by drug dealers in Dhaka’s Mugdapara area to help them in the business, but the police on Sunday took the animals and the peddlers to a local police station. As the three men faced the court, the monkeys were sent straight to Dhaka’s zoo, the reports said. — AFP

Judge against abortion
LA PAZ: An 11-year-old Bolivian girl, pregnant after being abused by her step-father, will not undergo an abortion, a Juvenile Court Judge has ruled, press reports said. In the eastern city of Santa Cruz, Judge Gaby Suarez, ruled against the procedure after Santa Cruz Medical College opposed the measure “for reasons of medical ethics” as well as what it said were “the risks of hospitalising her,” the La Prensa daily reported on Sunday. — AFP

4 killed in crash
WINNIPEG (Canada): Three passengers and the pilot, of a small private plane were killed when the aircraft crashed nose first, into the front yard of a home in a residential neighbourhood. No one living in the home was hurt, nor was the house damaged in the crash on Sunday, said Constable Tracy McGonigal of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. — AFP

Scribes’s challenge
HARARE: Two senior Zimbabwean journalists, who were tortured by the state security interrogators in January, are challenging attempts by President Robert Mugabe’s Government to prosecute them for “causing alarm and despondency” with an allegedly false report. Lawyers for Mr Mark Chavunduka, Editor of the weekly Independent Standard newspaper, and Mr Ray Choto, his chief reporter, confirmed on Sunday that they had filed papers to appeal to the Supreme Court to abolish sections of the Law and Order Maintenance Act under which they face trial on August 2. — DPA

Elephants in captivity
JOHANNESBURG: About 5,000 protesters have demonstrated outside a game merchant’s ranch, forcing him to open a gate and are demanding the release of 14 baby elephants still in the care of a man reprimanded by a court, last year for cruel animal treatment. The demonstrators on Sunday were responding to televised images last week, of young elephants being beaten on the trunk and hind quarters. — AP

Saddam invited
BAGHDAD: The President, Mr Saddam Hussein, who has not left Iraq since 1990, has received an invitation to go to Venezuela for an OPEC summit, the official INA news agency said. The invitation, from the Venezuelan President, Mr Hugo Chavez, was given to Mr Saddam by a Venezuelan envoy in Baghdad on Sunday. — AFP