Barak elected PM with 12 pc win
TEL AVIV, May 18 — After winning a decisive election victory over hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak today promised to forge a secure peace with the Palestinians and heal the divisions among Israelis.

3 Oppn leaders join hands against Habibie
JAKARTA, May 18 — Indonesia’s three top Opposition leaders today agreed to join forces to prevent a comeback by the ruling Golkar Party in the June 7 elections — the first since the fall of former President Suharto.

Najam Sethi in solitary confinement
ISLAMABAD, May 18 — Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi has been kept in solitary confinement by the ISI since his arrest 10 days ago.

Italian plan to end Kosovo war
BELGRADE, May 18 — NATO raids on Yugoslavia picked up overnight after being hindered for two days by cloudy weather as the Western alliance, Russia and an ethnic Albanian leader all searched for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

1st Asian minister in British Govt
LONDON, May 18 — The death of former Foreign Officer Minister Derek Fatchett prompted British Prime Minister Tony Blair to appoint Britain’s first-ever Asian government minister yesterday.

Jackson’s concert for kids
SEOUL, May 18 — Michael Jackson will hold the world’s largest charity concert for North Korean and other children in South Korea next month to mark the 49th anniversary of the start of the Korean war, promoters said today.

Netanyahu quits as Likud leader
Barak elected PM with 12 pc win

TEL AVIV, May 18 (AP) — After winning a decisive election victory over hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak today promised to forge a secure peace with the Palestinians and heal the divisions among Israelis.

After three years at Israel’s helm, a tearful Netanyahu, 49, conceded defeat yesterday and said he also would step down as leader of the Likud Party.

Barak addressed tens of thousands of supporters who streamed into Rabin Square, the plaza in Tel Aviv where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down in 1995, promising to continue on Rabin’s path of peace.

"I came here, to Rabin Square, to this place where our hearts were broken,’’ Barak said, raising both hands in triumph. "I came to swear to you, citizens of Israel ... that this is, indeed is the dawn of a new day.’’

Barak, 57, has modelled himself after Rabin, a tough soldier-turned-peacemaker who signed historic peace accords with Jordan and the Palestinians.

In the parallel general elections yesterday, Barak’s Labour Party-led One Israel Alliance won 20 seats in the 120-member Knesset, a sharp drop from the 32 in the 1996 polls, while the Right-wing Likud’s share dropped from a high of 32 to 20.

The ultra-orthodox Shas emerged as a powerful bloc increasing its tally from 10 to 17.

Barak, who secured the highest mandate ever by an Isreali leader in recent polls, has the thankless job of cobbling together a coalition of Left, Arab and secular parties that have 67 deputies in Parliament, within 45 days.

Hailing Barak’s victory, world leaders including U.S. President Bill Clinton urged him to pursue land-for-peace accords with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon to usher in an era of peace in the troubled West Asia.

French President Jacques Chirac said Barak’s victory brought "much hope for peace." And a smiling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said he hoped Barak would push the peace process forward.

With 92 per cent of the vote counted, Barak led with 56.1 per cent to 43.8 per cent for Netanyahu. Parties aligned with Barak would have 51 seats in the 120-member Parliament, while Netanyahu’s allies would total 53, with the remaining seats belonging to centrist parties that could go either way.

Final unofficial results were expected this morning after paper ballots from more than 7,000 polling stations have been counted by hand. Some 79 per cent of the 4.29 million eligible voters cast their ballot yesterday.

Netanyahu will remain caretaker Prime Minister until Barak forms a government.

Barak has 45 days to form a coalition and submit it to the Knesset. If he is able to form a stable coalition, something that eluded Netanyahu in his three years of rule, then he will be able to move more confidently in peace negotiations. The 15th Knesset is scheduled to convene for the first time on June 7.

With Netanyahu stepping down as head of his party, Barak could invite Likud into his coalition government.

The five-month campaign highlighted the country’s bitter internal divisions, such as growing animosity between the secular and religious, Jews and Arabs, immigrants and veterans, and Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews.

Barak won with campaign messages stressing his illustrious military career, a search for national reconciliation and Netanyahu’s failure to make peace with Israel’s neighbours or bring prosperity to the country.

JERUSALEM: On the heels of an election victory by her husband’s protege, Leah Rabin said on Tuesday that the trauma begun when a Jewish ultra-nationalist gunned down Yitzhak Rabin has finally come to an end.

Long past midnight, Israelis celebrated Barak’s sweeping victory over Netanyahu as a return to the peace process cut short by the bullets that killed Rabin.

“For three years, we’ve walked around in a fog, in a terrible trauma,’’ Leah Rabin told Israel TV, referring to Netanyahu’s term as Prime Minister. “We still haven’t recovered from the shock, the horror, that it was possible to murder a man like this, to call him all those terrible names that in the end led to his murder.’’

Netanyahu narrowly beat Rabin’s peace partner, Nobel Peace Laureate Shimon Peres, in the May 1996, elections under the shadow of a spate of terrorist attacks by Palestinian militants.

Leah Rabin said her husband and Barak shared the same values. “I think that tonight, or more accurately tomorrow morning, the heavens will open up for us again, with Ehud Barak, in whom I believe,”

3 Oppn leaders join hands against Habibie

JAKARTA, May 18 (AFP) — Indonesia’s three top Opposition leaders today agreed to join forces to prevent a comeback by the ruling Golkar Party in the June 7 elections — the first since the fall of former President Suharto.

National Mandate Party (PAN) leader Amien Rais, National Awakening Party (PKB) founder Abdur Rahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, and chairperson of the Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI) Megawati Sukarnoputri signed the five-point communique that was issued here shortly after midnight.

“We declare that we are uniting to continue the reforms and stall anti-reform forces”. The statement, issued after the signing, said.

The statement said “forces” were still at work trying to maintain the status quo — the conditions under Suharto prior to the reforms. Those forces did not want to allow change, it added.

“We remind all Indonesians that the process of reform is not yet over, the status quo forces, that is, against changes is still trying to stall our forces,” the communique said, calling for public support for democracy.

The statement did not name the Golkar Party, the political vehicle for Suharto during his 32 years in power, as the “forces” the three had united against. But the trio earlier accused that party headed by President Habibie of trying to maintain the status quo.

Zardari attempts suicide: police

KARACHI, May 18 (AP) — Asif Ali Zardari, the jailed husband of Benazir Bhutto, was in hospital today after trying to commit suicide, police officials said.

However, Bhutto’s party workers alleged that Zardari was tortured in police custody.

They accused the police of fabricating the attempted suicide to cover up the torture.

“He has been rushed to some unknown hospital and a case of attempted suicide has been registered against him by the police,’’ said Munawar Shurewardy, Information Secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party.

In Pakistan it is a criminal offence to attempt suicide.

There was no immediate information about the condition of Zardari.

“We know that they tortured him... that is how he has been injured,’’ said Shurewardy.

Zardari, who has been in jail since 1996 on corruption charges, was being interrogated by Pakistan’s Crime Investigation Agency in the southern port city of Karachi, said police officials

He was being questioned in connection with the Justice Nisam Ahmed. Zardari was connected to the killing by a co-accused.

Zardari also faces another charge of murder in connection with the killing of Bhutto’s estranged brother Murtaza. He has been convicted, along with Bhutto, on a charge of corruption, sentenced to five years in jail and fined $ 8.6 million.

In an interview with the Associated Press in Karachi today Zardari’s sister Fauzia said she feared for her brother’s life.

“They have brought in the Punjab police to torture my brother. ... we are afraid for his life,’’ she said.

DUBAI (AFP): Meanwhile, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto today accused the Pakistan police of attempting to murder her jailed husband.

“She’s really worried about his life. They have tried to kill him”, said a friend of the family speaking on behalf of Ms Bhutto, who arrived in Dubai on April 28 from Britain.

Najam Sethi in solitary confinement

ISLAMABAD, May 18 (PTI) — Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi has been kept in solitary confinement by the ISI since his arrest 10 days ago.

These revelations came to light when Sethi, for the first time, was allowed to meet his wife and children along with their lawyer yesterday as per the directives of the Supreme Court.

Dr Khalid Ranjha, counsel for Sethi’s wife Jugnu Mohsin, who was also present during the meeting, said Sethi was brought to combined military hospital by the ISI authorities for seeing his family members last evening.

Sethi told his family members that he had not been tortured by the ISI but had been kept in solitary confinement and "he has not seen the day light since his arrest owing to which he has lost his sense of timing," Dr Ranjha said.

Italian plan to end Kosovo war

BELGRADE, May 18 (Reuters) — NATO raids on Yugoslavia picked up overnight after being hindered for two days by cloudy weather as the Western alliance, Russia and an ethnic Albanian leader all searched for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder put forward a new proposal to try to defuse the Kosovo crisis.

Mr D’Alema said they had agreed today that the U.N. Security Council should draft a resolution based on a plan by the group of eight nations.

“We undertook to arrive at a resolution of the U.N. Security Council,” he told a news conference after talks with Mr Schroeder in the southern Italian city of Bari. The basis for the resolution should be the G-8 plan because it had the backing of major Western nations as well as Russia.

Mr Schroeder said it would be “unthinkable” to launch a NATO ground offensive to try to end the war.

“Germany believes that sending in ground troops is unthinkable. This is our position and it would not change in the future,” he said at the news conference.

In Brussels, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic met European Union Foreign Ministers separately yesterday.

Meanwhile, NATO cut part of Yugoslavia’s main motorway and bombed towns from the far north to south, stepping up the tempo of air strikes as they entered their 56th day today, Serbian media said.

Taking advantage of clearing weather, NATO planes blasted several fuel depots, killing one person who was driving by one of the targeted dumps, on Monday and then zeroed in on central and southern targets overnight.

In the 27th NATO raid on Nis, the third largest Serbian city and key industrial hub, since air strikes began on March 24, missiles brought down the Trupalske Sume overpass of the motorway just north of the town, state television (RTS) said.

The motorway crosses Yugoslavia’s main republic Serbia and is the main overland trade and transport link between Central and South-Eastern Europe.

The attack by “NATO aggressor aviation” occurred at 11.03 pm (GMT) on Monday and cluster bombs also crashed into the vicinity of Nis airport around the same time. There were no immediate details on damage or possible casualties.

NATO missiles have pummelled much of Yugoslavia’s industry and infrastructure in a campaign to immobilise the Yugoslav military and reverse the mass expulsion of separatist-minded ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

NATO has been striking increasingly at troops and tanks in Kosovo itself but has been less successful there because of its foe’s skill at hiding forces in the wooded, mountainous countryside and timing military operations between rounds of air raids.

NATO also resumed missile attacks on Kosovo, targeting Djakovica and Prizren in the west, Srbica, Donje Obriljen and Likovac in the central Drenica area, and the southern outskirt of provincial capital Pristina.

1st Asian minister in British Govt

LONDON, May 18 (AFP) — The death of former Foreign Officer Minister Derek Fatchett prompted British Prime Minister Tony Blair to appoint Britain’s first-ever Asian government minister yesterday.

Fatchett’s death eight days ago at the age of 53 from an apparent heart attack saw his position filled by Geoff Hoon.

Hoon, currently at the Lord Chancellor’s department, the government’s legal office, will be replaced by Keith Vaz, who as parliamentary Under-Secretary to the department becomes the country’s first Asian Minister.

Vaz, 42, is MP for Leicester East, which has a large Pakistani and Indian community. He is an outspoken campaigner against racism and has been an MP since 1987.

Although a Roman Catholic, he led 5,000 angry banner-waving Muslims in a march through Leicester in 1989, protesting against the sale of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”, and is decried as blasphemous by Muslims worldwide.

Jackson’s concert for kids

SEOUL, May 18 (AFP) — Michael Jackson will hold the world’s largest charity concert for North Korean and other children in South Korea next month to mark the 49th anniversary of the start of the Korean war, promoters said today.

In a video message Jackson said he would hold “a benefit concert here on June 25 for the needy children in North Korea, Kosovo, Africa and elsewhere in the world.”

“I’ve wanted to help these suffering children for a very, very long time. These innocent children are in such pain because of the greed and political disagreements of adults,” he said.

Om Puri at Cannes
LONDON: “East is East’ a British rip-roaring comedy about Asian immigrant life in the United Kingdom starring famous Indian cine star Om Puri, is making sensations in the ongoing Cannes International Film Festival. The film, adapted from Pakistani-origin writer Ayub Khan-Din’s play, has already been snapped up by Miramax, who pushed “Shakespeare in love” to Oscar. Om Puri plays the central role in the movie. — PTI

Richest prize
DUBLIN: British writer Andrew Miller on Monday won the world’s richest prize for a single work of fiction — Ireland’s 1,00,000 Irish pound ($ 1,35,300) Impac international literary award. Miller, 39, won the prize for his first novel, “Ingenious Pain,” about an 18th century man unable to feel pain, the organisers of the award said in a statement. — Reuters

Templeton Prize
MOSCOW: United States nuclear physicist and theologian Ian Barbour has been awarded the $ 1.24 million Templeton Prize for progress in religion at a ceremony held recently in the Kremlin. The 75-year-old Barbour, who holds a theology degree and a Ph. D. in nuclear physics, won the prize in March. The Templeton Prize is the world’s richest annual prize for achievement in any field. — AP

Peaks scaled
KATHMANDU: Two separate expeditions, one from the USA, the other from the Czech republic, have scaled two of Nepal’s tallest mountains, the Tourism Ministry announced on Monday. Josef Simunek, 35, from Prague, and Sona Vamockova, 28, from Podebrady scaled the world’s fourth tallest peak, the 8, 516-metre high Mt Lhotse together with Nepalese guide Lhaka Dorjee Sherpa, 37. — AFP

Jail for spy
HELSINKI: A Finnish diplomat received a 16-month suspended sentence on Monday after being convicted of spying for Russia. The court in Helsinki heard that Olli Mattila, a Foreign Ministry official, handed several classified documents to Russian intelligence agents in 1998. Under Finnish law, espionage is punished by imprisonment between one and 10 years — DPA