Megawati’s party wins Indonesian poll
JAKARTA, July 16 —Indonesia’s Opposition grouping won a majority in the first free parliamentary elections in 44 years, trouncing the ruling Golkar party which underpinned decades of authoritarian rule, election officials said today.


Clinton, Barak vow new push for peace
WASHINGTON, July 16 — US President Bill Clinton and new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak vowed to put momentum into the West Asia peace talks and slipped quickly into an easy relationship that has been absent in recent years.

House approves Clinton’s salary
WASHINGTON, July 16 — Members of the House of Representatives have voted to give the US President his first raise since 1969, doubling his yearly salary to $ 400,000 (over Rs 1.7 crore) and to give themselves a 3.4 per cent pay raise.

Mitchell called to save pact
BELFAST, July 16 — Former US Senator George Mitchell was today called back into service to pick up pieces of the collapsed Northern Ireland Good Friday peace agreement that he helped to negotiate.

Protest against Pak brutalities
WASHINGTON, July 16 — A group of Indian Americans have staged a demonstration at the Pakistani Embassy in protest against the “brutal mutilation” of the bodies of six Indian soldiers before they were returned to the Indian authorities during the Kargil conflict.

Golkar chief concedes defeat
Megawati’s party wins Indonesian poll

JAKARTA, July 16 (AP) —Indonesia’s Opposition grouping won a majority in the first free parliamentary elections in 44 years, trouncing the ruling Golkar party which underpinned decades of authoritarian rule, election officials said today.

Led by Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia’s founding president, the Democratic Party of Struggle won 33.74 per cent of the vote in the June 7 ballot, the Golkar placed second with 22.44 per cent, according to unofficial results.

Two other parties loosely allied with Megawati, the National Awakening Party and the National Mandate Party won 12.61 and 7.12 per cent of the vote respectively.

“Vote counting has essentially been completed,” Mr Barna Sumandri, a member of the National Election Committee (PPI), said. “I do not think the official results will be any different from what the PPI has counted.”

Golkar Chairman Akbar Tanjung conceded defeat today and congratulated Megawati’s party.

While the long-delayed final tally will not be available until next week, the outcome has confirmed Megawati as the frontrunner in next November’s presidential vote.

According to Indonesia’s complex electoral regulations, the new head of state will be chosen by electoral college consistig of deputies in the new, 500-member Parliament and 200 regional representatives.

The Golkar hopes to keep its candidate, President B.J. Habibie, in office by persuading enough smaller parties to support him. Mr Habibie took over after the ouster last year of his political mentor, President Suharto, amid massive public protests against his autocratic rule.

Meanwhile, the ruling Golkar party said today it would stick with President B.J. Habibie despite a dramatic collapse in its vote in the first truly democratic poll in two generations.

Under the previous stage-managed elections of President Suharto, ousted in May 1998, the Golkar was guaranteed a landslide over two officially sanctioned opponents with about two thirds of the vote.

But Golkar Chairman Akbar Tandjung said the party would not dump the unpopular Habibie as its candidate for a November presidential poll shaping up as a showdown with the hugely popular Megawati.

Mr Habibie’s opinion poll rating languishes in single figures, his image tarnished by his close links to his mentor, Mr Suharto. The pair are close friends, Mr Habibie served as a Suharto minister and the two families have extensive joint business interests.

The-500 member of Parliament will join 200 provincial and community appointees in November to choose the President and Vice-President.

A total of 462 parliamentary seats are directly elected and the remaining 38 are reserved for the armed forces (ABRI).

With the PDI-P and the Golkar well short of control of Parliament, both are seeking alliances with some of the more than 20 parties that have won seats to try to form a majority ahead of the presidential selection.

But calculations by local newspapers of the number of seats each party has shown both leading parties face an uphill battle in forming a coalition with enough seats to control Parliament.

This could give the balance of power to the armed forces, which automatically controls about eight per cent of the seats.

The official allocation of seats is expected next Wednesday.

Newspaper estimates published today give the PDI-P up to 158 seats and the Golkar up to 120, well short of the 251 needed to win a parliamentary majority.

The Jakarta Post estimates Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid’s Nation Awakening Party won 51 seats and the Muslim scholar Amien Rais’ National Mandate Party 35.

Mr Wahid and Mr Rais formed a loose, informal alliance with Megawati ahead of the election, but there has been little coalition building since polling day.

The Muslim-oriented United Development Party (PPP) has won an estimated 39 seats and a bloc of eight Islamic parties, including the PPP, will share about 40 seats under the complicated voting system that allows vote sharing.

Despite the possibility of a parliamentary alliance with Megawati, both Mr Rais and Mr Wahid have said she might not be acceptable as a presidential candidate.

The powerful armed forces would back Megawati as President if she picks ABRI Chief General Wiranto as her vice-presidential running mate, senior military sources say.

But in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper this week, Mr Habibie said it was misleading to assume the party with the most votes from the election would automatically win the presidency.

Clinton, Barak vow new push for peace

WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) — US President Bill Clinton and new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak vowed to put momentum into the West Asia peace talks and slipped quickly into an easy relationship that has been absent in recent years.

“I came here as a messenger of the people of Israel who have called for change and renewal. And I am determined to bring about change and renewal,” Mr Barak told a gathering of US and Israeli reporters yesterday in the White House Rose Garden shortly before he and Mr Clinton went into private talks.

“It is our intention to inject new momentum into the peace process and to put it back on all tracks. For this we need American leadership and support all along the way,” he said.

Mr Barak’s comments were music to the ears of Mr Clinton, who had an uneasy relationship with Mr Barak’s predecessor, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Mr Barak defeated in Israeli elections in May with the help of some of the same US political consultants Mr Clinton relied on in his presidential campaigns.

Mr Clinton put former soldier Barak in the same peacemaking category as the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 weeks after signing a West Bank accord with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Mr Clinton at the White House.

“Mr Prime Minister, if your mentor Yitzhak Rabin were here today, I believe he would be very gratified seeing the leadership of his cherished nation in your most capable hands,” Mr Clinton told him.

Despite the goodwill and optimism, Mr Barak may have left himself at odds with US negotiators over the implementation of the land-for-security agreement that Mr Clinton painstakingly negotiated with Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat last fall at the Wye plantation in Maryland.

The USA has said it preferred Israel and the Palestinians to carry out the agreement without any changes, before moving to talks on a comprehensive final agreement with the Palestinians on borders and the future of Jerusalem.

Mr Barak said: “There is need to combine the implementation of Wye with the moving forward of the permanent status agreement.”

Mr Clinton put it in this order: “America will help as you move forward, as you put implementation of the Wye river agreement back on course, as you work for a final status agreement... .”

The USA played down expectations of any dramatic decisions during Mr Barak’s six-day visit, his first to the USA since he won the Israeli elections in May. Aides said Mr Clinton wanted to exchange ideas on the peace process and deepen their personal relationship.

The US side could hardly be more welcoming to Mr Barak, (57), compared to Mr Netanyahu, who was not always guaranteed a meeting with Mr Clinton when he came to the USA.

Mr Clinton took no offence when Mr Barak repeated that he believed the USA should return to the role of honest broker and facilitator in the peace process rather than “policeman, judge and arbitrator at the same time” as occurred during Mr Netanyahu’s era.

Mr Barak professed a willingness to meet Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad on their differences over the Golan Heights.

“When the time comes I hope we’ll be able to meet. It takes two to tango,’’ he said.

‘Next target is Banihal tunnel’

ISLAMABAD, July 16 (UNI) — Confirming Pakistan’s control over Islamic militants, a so-called Mujahedeen commander has claimed that whenever Pakistan gives a green signal the militants can cut off Jammu from Srinagar and India from Jammu.

Speaking to Jamaat-i-Islami Urdu daily Jasarat in Kargil last week, Mr Samsher Khan, a Pakistani national, said militants’ next target after Kargil is the Banihal tunnel which links Jammu with Srinagar.

I organised Hizbul Mujahedeen in Banihal during 1997-98... (and now) our most experienced, expert and committed force is in Banihal. Similarly in Jammu there is only one highway which we can cutt off at will... But we are waiting for a signal from Pakistan, he said.

Hizbul Mujahedeen is Jamaat-i-Islami’s militant wing which is engaged in subversive activities in Kashmir. It is very critical of the Nawaz Sharif government for its call for talks with India but is proud of the Pakistani army performance in Kargil. He admits the militants fought the jehad in Kashmir for 10 to 11 years with the help and support of the Pakistani people.

Thousands of Pakistani youths participated in this “jehad” and hundreds of them were killed.

This interview was taken four days after Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif’s joint statement with US President Bill Clinton.

House approves Clinton’s salary

WASHINGTON, July 16 (AFP) — Members of the House of Representatives have voted to give the US President his first raise since 1969, doubling his yearly salary to $ 400,000 (over Rs 1.7 crore) and to give themselves a 3.4 per cent pay raise.

The votes came yesterday during the debate for a Bill funding the Treasury Department and Postal Service. The Bill, including the pay raises, has yet to be voted on in full.

After a heated debate, lawmakers voted 334 to 82 to strike down an amendment that would have prevented a presidential pay raise.

One lawmaker said that $ 400,000 was a lot of money, while another noted that the country’s first President, George Washington, was paid $ 25,000 a year, which today would be equivalent to some $ 4.6 million.

The House also voted 276 to 147 to give themselves a 3.4 per cent pay increase, equivalent to $ 4,600 (approx Rs 2 lakh).

Mitchell called to save pact

BELFAST, July 16 (Reuters) — Former US Senator George Mitchell was today called back into service to pick up pieces of the collapsed Northern Ireland Good Friday peace agreement that he helped to negotiate.

As worries surfaced about major violence reviving between Protestants and Roman Catholics because of a likely months-long breakdown, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called in Mr Mitchell to take part in efforts to get the pact back on track.

Britain has put the plan into recess for a ‘’review’’ until the end of the summer in about September.

“The chief worry is that, during the period of review, the parties will re-trench their positions and paramilitaries will seek to exploit the failure to secure political agreement,” The Belfast Telegraph warned in a front page article.

The latest unsuccessful bid for peace in the centuries-old conflict foundered on Protestant demands Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas should give up weapons before political ally Sinn Fein can sit in an all-party government.

In the first step towards reviving last year’s much-praised Good Friday agreement, Mr Blair announced he would meet Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in London next Tuesday.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, deeply involved in efforts to end a conflict that killed more than 3,000 over the past three decades, said when he learned of the peace breakdown it was a “particularly difficult day’’ for him.

Protest against Pak brutalities

WASHINGTON, July 16 (UNI) — A group of Indian Americans have staged a demonstration at the Pakistani Embassy in protest against the “brutal mutilation” of the bodies of six Indian soldiers before they were returned to the Indian authorities during the Kargil conflict.

The demonstrators yesterday wanted to present a memorandum to Pakistani Ambassador Riaz Khokhar addressed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif urging action against those responsible for the inhuman act which was in gross violation of the Geneva Convention.

But, according to organisers, the embassy refused to accept the document which they later decided to mail to the Ambassador.

Palace intruder held
LONDON: A 40-year-old man has been arrested after scaling the front gates of Queen Elizabeth’s London home. Buckingham Palace, and making a sprint for the door, the police said. The police said the man was detained on the forecourt of the palace on Wednesday. Several persons have climbed over the garden walls of the palace in central London over the years. — Reuters

7 killed in clashes
KATHMANDU: At least seven persons have been killed in clashes between Maoist guerrillas and the police in different parts of Nepal, the police said on Thursday. Since the Maoists launched a ‘people’s war’ in 1996, 880 persons have died, Home Ministry spokesman Gopendra Bahadur Pandey said. — AFP

13 peasants massacred
BOGOTA: Right-wing Colom-bian death squads massacred at least 13 peasants and torched 15 homes in two separate attacks following a weekend offensive by Marxist rebels, authorities said. The surge in violence by the guerrillas and their Rightist paramilitary foes came just days before peace talks were due to resume on July 19 between the Government and rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). — Reuters