Ban on adoption of babies
The French Government, alarmed by reports that criminal gangs are turning cross-border adoptions into a lucrative trade in newborn babies, has banned its citizens from adopting any more Vietnamese children until the two countries have worked out a fail-safe vetting procedure.

Hillary ready to share fame
WELLINGTON (New Zealand), May 4 — Fortyfive years after conquering Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary today said he would be glad to share credit for reaching the summit with George Mallory, who may have made it in 1924.

Nepali Congress leader dead

Indonesian troops mow down 23 protesters

LHOKSEUMAWE (Indonesia) May 4 (AP) — Troops today patrolled towns in a northwestern Indonesian province where separatists are active, one day after soldiers shot and killed as many as 23 villagers.

The shooting yesterday in Pulo Rungkom village was one of the deadliest incidents in recent years in Aceh province, where the military has long been accused of human rights abuses during operations against a small band of pro-independence rebels.

The violence came one month before nationwide parliamentary elections that are viewed as a big test of Indonesia’s transition to democracy following the downfall last year of authoritarian President Suharto.

However, separatists who want an Islamic state in Aceh have urged a boycott of the election. Many residents are bitter toward the central government, which is also perceived as a greedy exploiter of the natural resources of the oil-rich province.

In Pulo Rungkom, the trouble started after hundreds of troops arrived to demand that residents release a soldier who had been abducted over the weekend. They were met by thousands of villagers, some of them armed with sticks.

After tense negotiations, the shooting began. Witnesses and local reporters said soldiers fired on unarmed residents, including women and children.

The soldiers chased the crowds and fired at them from behind. They even fired inside a house where villagers who were trying to escape had run, a witness said by telephone. The witness, a teenage boy, did not give his name out of fear for his safety.

In a statement, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Syamsul Ma’arif disputed those accounts, saying civilians in the crowd fired first and that troops shot back in self-defence.

The military said 18 people died and 81 were injured.

But Dr Mulya, head of the state hospital in nearby Lhokseumawe city, today said 23 people died and that more than 50 injured people had been treated in his hospital alone.

“Many of those who were injured were trampled while trying to run away from the soldiers,” he said. Many also had bullet wounds, he said.

Indonesia’s armed forces commander, Gen Wiranto, promised a thorough investigation of the shootings.

Mandela not for mediation on Kashmir

ISLAMABAD, May 4 (PTI) — South African President, Mr Nelson Mandela, today rejected a Pakistani plea to mediate on the vexed Kashmir issue saying that “we have complete confidence in the leadership of Pakistan and India to resolve this problem themselves”.

Mr Mandela also urged India and Pakistan to work for peace and promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in South Asia.

Speaking at “A tribute to Mandela” function at the Convention Centre here, Mr Mandela clarified to the Pakistani leadership that his country’s stand on the Kashmir issue had always been “consistent” and that it had never modified it.

“Our stand has always been consistent. We have said on countless occasions that we have complete confidence in the leadership of Pakistan and India to resolve the problem (of Kashmir) themselves and we continue to hold this,” Mr Mandela said in an apparent response to an earlier speech by the Pakistani Premier, Mr Nawaz Sharif where he sought the support of South Africa to the Kashmir tangle.

SA Indians can face isolation

JOHANNESBURG, May 4 (PTI) — The 1.2 million-strong Indian community’s apathetic attitude towards South Africa’s second ever multiracial poll on June 2 could end up politically marginalising them, political analysts here have warned.

“This is a critical poll which will define the character of the political system for the next generation. The community has to recognise the value of identifying with the majority. Standing on the sidelines is not a protest vote, it is political suicide,” Kiru Naidoo of the Durban-Westville University said.

He called upon Indians to exercise their franchise lest they end up being isolated from the rest of the country’s body polity. Significantly, in the last poll less than 30 per cent of the community, concentrated mostly in Kwazulu Natal province, had cast their votes.

“If Indians were to isolate themselves on June 2, nobody would care what they thought in 2004. Mbeki is unlikely to get into the Mandela habit of going around assuring Indian people of their future in South Africa. For the masses of Chatworth and Phoenix (where most working class Indians live), now is the time to stand up and be counted.”

Former political activist and Editor of Indian magazine, Indigo said the community cannot afford the stigma of the 1994 polls when about 60 per cent voted for the former apartheid national party. “This poll will be a last opportunity for the Indian community. If they don’t vote they will not be regarded as part of the South African populace.”

“Indians are the first to scream racism but they don’t think about the racial sentiment they may cause against another group. Indians must stop looking at themselves as a minority and should regard themselves as part of the national tapestry,” he said.

Lawyers of Clinton dismiss Paula’s claim

WASHINGTON, May 4 (AP) — Paula Jones’ lawyers recently approached attorneys for the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, to inquire if he would agree to pay $ 3,00,000 to settle a judge’s historic ruling citing him for contempt of court. Presidential lawyers dismissed the idea as “outrageous and greedy,” the Associated Press has learned.

The inquiry comes less than a month after US District Judge Susan Webber Wright concluded that Mr Clinton intentionally gave false testimony during Ms Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit and ordered him to repay her lawyers any reasonable expenses they incurred as a result.

Ms Jones’ lawyers have to submit a reimbursement figure to the court at Little Rock, Arkansas by Friday.

A lawyer familiar with discussions inside Ms Jones’ legal camp, speaking on condition of anonymity, said her lawyers had not yet settled upon a final figure but, given the rejection by Mr Clinton’s lawyers, were discussing the possibility of submitting a figure somewhat below $ 3,00,000.

Now, Wright likely will have to decide if Ms Jones’ reimbursement figure is reasonable and amounts to an adequate penalty for the first President ever to be found in contempt of court case.

Mr Clinton’s lawyer signalled that the President would contest any figure that approached $ 3,00,000.

Any money that Mr Clinton is ordered to reimburse Ms Jones’ legal bills is above and beyond the $ 8,50,000 he paid her earlier this year to settle her charges that he made an unwanted sexual advance during an alleged 1991 incident at a Little Rock hotel. Mr Clinton at that time was Arkansas Governor and Ms Jones was a state worker.

Ban on adoption of babies
From John Henley in Paris

The French Government, alarmed by reports that criminal gangs are turning cross-border adoptions into a lucrative trade in newborn babies, has banned its citizens from adopting any more Vietnamese children until the two countries have worked out a fail-safe vetting procedure.

According to government statistics, French couples adopted 1,328 Vietnamese infants last year - four times the 1994 figure. Children from Vietnam now account for more than a third of all foreign adoptions by French nationals, substantially outnumbering native-born French adoptions.

“There’s been a staggering increase in interest in Vietnam recently, not just because procedures are more relaxed than for adopting a French-born child, but because France has post-colonial links with what used to be a part of French Indo-China,’’ said a spokesman for the International Adoption Mission, the government-sponsored body which advises prospective foster parents.

The French and Vietnamese authorities are worried by the involvement of criminal gangs in international adoption networks. Vietnamese police recently dismantled one such group which is accused of buying 200 children from poor families and selling them to foreigners at a huge profit.

Pending a new law on international adoptions, the government has also asked the French courts - which must rubber-stamp any adoption licence issued by a foreign country - to be particularly strict in approving adoptions from countries such as Korea, Madagascar, Haiti and Ethiopia. All are considered to lack adequate child protection legislation.

— The Guardian

Hillary ready to share fame

WELLINGTON (New Zealand), May 4 (AP) — Fortyfive years after conquering Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary today said he would be glad to share credit for reaching the summit with George Mallory, who may have made it in 1924.

Members of an expedition seeking to determine whether Mallory and fellow Englishmen Andrew Irvine were the first to summit Mount Everest say they have found the body of Mallory near the peak.

They found the body on Saturday but haven’t yet found the camera or evidence to prove they had reached the summit.

The body was found about 600 metres from the windblown 8,848-metre summit.

Hillary today said he doubted Mallory and Irvine, who were not using oxygen, reached the top.

He said that if evidence was found that he reached the summit, it would be very appropriate.’’

He was indeed the man of Everest in those early days, Hillary said.

Mallory’s grandson today said he believed his grandfather was descending when he fell, but had no opinion on whether he had reached the summit.

Nepali Congress leader dead

KATHMANDU, May 4 (UNI) — Former General Secretary of the Nepali Congress and former Minister Mahendra Narayan Nidhi, a veteran Nepali Gandhian, died early this morning following a heart attack at his residence in Janakpurdham, in south-central Nepal.

Mr Nidhi, 79 is survived by wife, two sons — including former Minister Bimalendra Narayan Nidhi, and four daughters.

Jesus’s persecutor
JERUSALEM: An ornate stone burial box believed to have contained the bones of a high priest who plotted Jesus arrest has been sealed shut with glue after overeager Christian pilgrims tried to open it to get a look. Officials at the Israel Museum on Monday revealed that they had taken the step to protect the ossuary, one of the few artefacts linked to the story of Jesus crucifixion. — AP

‘Melons as breasts’
LONDON: A British supermarket chain thinks it has discovered the secret of how women choose melons: they unconsciously compare them to their own breast size and reject the big ones. The Tesco chain has taken advice from psychologists and for the last two months has only been stocking smaller melons, the Times reported on Monday. It quoted a spokesman as saying one million melons had been successfully sold since the downsizing. Sales psychologists told Tesco the smaller bust is in fashion, with British women wishing they could look like the models Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow. — DPA

$ 25 m AIDS grant
NEW YORK: The William H. Gates foundation has given a five year grant amounting to $ 25 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the non-profit scientific organisation announced on Monday, the largest charitable gift in the history of the AIDS pandemic. IAVI will more than double its AIDS vaccine development efforts as a result, the organisation stated. — DPA

Lucky number
TAIPEI (Taiwan): Following in the tradition of vanity license plates and personalised e-mail addresses, Taiwanese will soon be able to bid on mobile phone numbers that are considered lucky, the state-run phone company has said. Dozens of numbers considered especially auspicious according to traditional belief will go on the block later this month, with bidding expected to reach into the tens of thousands of Taiwan dollars. — AP

Child suicides
TOKYO: The number of Tokyo children committing suicide nearly doubled in 1998, reflecting a growing tendency for young people to take their lives lightly, Japan’s largest newspaper said on Tuesday. A total of 74 persons, 18 years old and under, killed themselves in the nation’s capital in 1998, compared to 40 children the previous year, the Yomiuri newspaper said. Last year’s suicides included three elementary school children. — AP