China stole N-secrets: US Congress
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) — China stole US nuclear weapon design secrets over 20 years through espionage at government laboratories and will use the information to upgrade its own arsenal, a congressional report has said.

Yeltsin talks to Jaswant Singh
MOSCOW, May 25 — Russia today amply demonstrated the importance it attached to India when President Boris Yeltsin called up visiting External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in a rare gesture and held "important, constructive and substantial talks".

Ethiopia beats back Eritrean attack
ADDIS ABABA, May 24 — Ethiopian troops repulsed a major Eritrean attack today on the western front of their border war, killing more than 400 Eritrean soldiers and wounding more than 1,500, the Addis Ababa Government announced.

USA denied second term to me: Ghali
NEW YORK, May 25 — Former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali has strongly attacked the Clinton Administration, particularly Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, for denying him a second term.

Zadornov is First Dy PM of Russia

MOSCOW, May 25 (Reuters) — President Boris Yeltsin named Mikhail Zadornov First Deputy Prime Minister in Russia’s new government and also confirmed him as Finance Minister, the post he held in the past two cabinets, a government source said today.

Mr Alexander Zhukov, the moderate who had been expected to take the top economy post, will continue his work in Parliament, Interfax news agency quoted Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin as saying after talks with Mr Yeltsin.

The government source said Mr Alexander Pochinok, a moderate who was the previous government’s head of monetary and credit policy, would become Tax Minister. Mr Pochinok had held a similar post in a previous government.

Mr Zadornov’s promotion will put him in charge of talks with the International Monetary Fund as well as foreign creditors.

AP, DPA add: Mr Yeltsin also re-appointed Valentina Matviyenko to her post as Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Social Affairs. Vladimir Shcherbak, a Deputy Agriculture Minister, was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Agricultural Affairs.

Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin flew to the Black Sea resort of Sochi to get Mr Yeltsin’s final approval on the government’s makeup. He had proposed Mr Zadornov as Finance Minister and wanted to see Mr Zhukov as First Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Yeltsin, who has final say in the makeup of the government, went to Sochi last Friday.

Mr Zadornov’s appointment as First Deputy Premier solved one of the sticking points of the formation of a new government following the dismissal of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov by Mr Yeltsin on May 12.

The choice of First Deputy Prime Minister, a crucial post in the country’s drive for economic reforms, was regarded as the most contentious issue.

Mr Yeltsin had already named Railways Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko as a First Deputy to Stepashin. Mr Syonenko is regarded as having close ties with controversial financial magnate Boris Berezovsky, who in turn is said to have extensive influence within the Kremlin and the Yeltsin family.

China stole N-secrets: US Congress

WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) — China stole US nuclear weapon design secrets over 20 years through espionage at government laboratories and will use the information to upgrade its own arsenal, a congressional report has said.

A special House panel chaired by representative Christopher Cox, a California Republican, was today scheduled to make public a declassified version of a report detailing alleged Chinese espionage and illegal acquisition of US technology.

It began as an investigation into whether China obtained US technology through commercial ventures in which US firms used Chinese rockets to launch satellites. But that led to a discovery of alleged Chinese espionage at US nuclear labs.

China has vehemently denied it stole nuclear US secrets.

Republicans in Congress called the report “scary” and said it showed a major breach of national security.

The Cox report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said that China stole some of the most closely-held US weapon secrets from nuclear research laboratories as early as the 1970s and as recently as the mid-1990s.

The report said China had undertaken a “sustained espionage effort” targeting US nuclear weapon facilities. “The successful penetration by (China) of our nuclear weapons laboratories has taken place over the past several decades and almost certainly continues to the present,” it said.

Classified information on seven US nuclear warheads and design information for the neutron bomb were among the stolen information, the report said.

The seven warheads were the W-88 miniaturised nuclear warhead, the W-87, W-78, W-76, W-70, W-62 and W-56 and included every currently deployed nuclear warhead in the US ballistic missile arsenal. The New York Times first reported the allegations that China had stolen W-88 information.

China focused its information-gathering efforts on four US nuclear research labs — Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge and Sandia — according to the report.

A scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Wen Ho Lee, was fired in March on suspicion of passing classified information to China. He has not been charged with any crime.

The USA in 1995 became aware of the theft of W-8 information. The warhead is carried on the Trident submarine and described in the report as “the most sophisticated nuclear weapon the USA has ever built.”

A Chinese citizen in 1995 approached the CIA outside China and turned over a number of documents, including a classified Chinese document that included stolen U.S. design information on the W-88 nuclear warhead and technical information on some other warheads, the report said.

The CIA later determined that the individual who turned over the documents was secretly under the direction of Chinese intelligence services. The CIA nevertheless concluded the document contained U.S. warhead design information.

China is currently developing three mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles — two land-based and one submarine-launched — which could strike the USA and require small warhead designs, the report said.

China could test one of those new mobile missiles, the DF-31. Later this year and it could be ready for deployment in 2002, the report said.

In the vortex of the Chinese espionage allegations, the Energy Department which overseas the nuclear research labs has been criticised for lax security and has since installed a number of measures aimed at tightening security.

“I do disagree with the premise in the report that there is still a security problem at the labs. I totally reject that.” Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said on Monday.

“It’s a good report. It’s scary, but it’s important not to panic, not overdramatise”, he said in a telephone interview.

PTI adds: Meanwhile, China on Tuesday rejected a congressional report as “groundless” which said Beijing stole US nuclear weapon design secrets for over 20 years even as Sino-US relations entered a new low in the recent times.

“It is groundless,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao told reporters when asked to comment on the report by US representative Christopher Cox.

While dismissing the report, he alleged the USA had “ulterior motives”.

Amid increasing acrimony over Chinese espionage of US nuclear secrets, Sino-US relations entered into a new low in recent times, analysts said.

Pointing to the deep chill in Sino-US relations since the NATO bombing of its Embassy, the analysts said both countries were bound to enter a collision course sooner or later more since the two did not address each other on many aspects such as human rights and America’s role as a world cop.

“Though top leaders of China and the USA have repeatedly pledged to take Sino-US relations to a strategic level, this is highly unlikely,” the sources said while commenting on China’s scathing criticism of NATO on the bombing incident.

USA slammed on air strikes

WASHINGTON, May 25 (PTI) — The USA cannot justify Nato’s air strikes against Yugoslavia under the existing international law, the prestigious US Congressional Research Service (CRS) has said.

“The USA can intervene in any country militarily, if it feels that human rights are being violated”, said the CRS, which advises members of Congress on policy issues, in a report.

The implications of NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia for international law depended to a great degree on assumptions regarding the current state of international law, the report said.

If, for instance, one assumed that the principles of sovereignty of states over their internal affairs remained an absolute pillar of international law, “NATO’s actions are clearly violative, even though they appear consistent with the North Atlantic Treaty.

“However, minus these assumptions, NATO’s actions may find legal justification in the emerging doctrine of humanitarian intervention”, it said.

The report said “the argument that NATO’s actions in Yugoslavia constitute a form of anticipatory self-defence has been used”.

A final legal justification for overriding the principles of non-intervention emerged from the modern development of the international law of human rights based on the basis of the tenets of human rights recognised by the tribunals at Nuremberg at Tokyo after World War II, the CRS report said.

The report admitted “The doctrine of humanitarian intervention may, at least in some form, provide a possible justification under international law for NATO’s intervention in Kosovo and Yugoslavia.”

It conceded: The doctrine of humanitarian intervention is of relatively recent vintage in international law and several controversies still attend to its invocation.”

The report, therefore, called it an “emerging doctrine” or “a still developing doctrine”, and argued that NATO’s actions “both reflect and shape international law.”

Pak SC reserves right to review emergency

ISLAMABAD, May 25 (PTI) — Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ruled that it reserved the right to review the continuation of emergency in the country if it is so challenged.

Nearly a year after the Nawaz Sharif Government imposed a state of emergency following its nuclear tests, a three-member Bench of the apex court, while disposing of three identical petitions challenging the imposition of emergency in the country, declared that the petitioners could file separate petitions against the emergency provisions.

Dismissing the petitions as “infructuous”, Chief Justice Ajmal Mian observed that the Supreme Court had rendered a judgement on emergency in which it was held that documents produced before the court warranted the imposition of emergency in the country. He also said “it is now up to the government to decide when to lift emergency”.

The apex court reserved the power to review the continuation of emergency and said it would see in the light of the material produced in the petition whether reasons existed to discontinue the state of emergency.

Yeltsin talks to Jaswant Singh

MOSCOW, May 25 (PTI) — Russia today amply demonstrated the importance it attached to India when President Boris Yeltsin called up visiting External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in a rare gesture and held "important, constructive and substantial talks".

As per the practice, Russian Presidents do not meet visiting Foreign Ministers of other countries. The last time when a Russian President has held conversation with a visiting Foreign Minister was in November 1990 between Mikhail Gorbachev and Madhavsinh Solanki.

"There was an important, constructive and substantial telephonic conversation between Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and President Yeltsin," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said addressing a press conference with Mr Jaswant Singh after two-and-a-half hour discussions between him and Mr Jaswant Singh.

Sources said President Yeltsin, who is resting at a Black Sea resort because of some illness, rang up Mr Jaswant Singh when he was holding talks with Ivanov and held the conversation for nearly 15 minutes.

The development shows the importance Russia attaches to relations with India. Sources said a meeting between Mr Jaswant Singh and President Yeltsin was earlier scheduled but could not materialise as President Yeltsin left for the Black Sea resort due to illness.

Mr Jaswant Singh also had a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who is here in connection with his negotiations with Viktor Chernomyrdin, special envoy of President Yeltsin, on Kosovo crisis.

Ethiopia beats back Eritrean attack

ADDIS ABABA, May 24 (AFP) — Ethiopian troops repulsed a major Eritrean attack today on the western front of their border war, killing more than 400 Eritrean soldiers and wounding more than 1,500, the Addis Ababa Government announced.

No immediate response to the claim was available from Asmara, where Eritreans were celebrating the eighth anniversary of the capture of the capital at the end of their 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia.

The attack by four Eritrean brigades took place near the Mereb river, an Ethiopian Government statement said.

“The Ethiopian defence forces successfully repelled the attack,” it said, adding that the Ethiopian forces had captured “heavy and light armaments.”

Ethiopian warplanes took part in the action, it added.

The two Horn of Africa neighbours first went to war over the ill-defined border in May last year. Fighting — characterised by intense battles interspersed with long lulls — has continued since. All diplomatic efforts to end the crisis have proved fruitless.

USA denied second term to me: Ghali

NEW YORK, May 25 (PTI) — Former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali has strongly attacked the Clinton Administration, particularly Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, for denying him a second term.

Ms Albright was the American UN Ambassador at the time Mr Boutros Ghali, an Egyptian, failed to win another term. The post was eventually won by Mr Kofi Annan.

The no-holds-barred book, the New York Times says Ms Albright comes in for the harshest treatment, not only for diplomatic “double face” but also for what Mr Boutros Ghali sees as her “lack of diplomatic skills”.

Judge re-elected
UNITED NATIONS: P. Chandrasekhara Rao, a former Law Secretary of India, has been re-elected judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of Sea for a nine-year term beginning October 1. Rao (63) secured the highest number of votes among the seven judges elected at a meeting of the state parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea held on Monday — PTI

Call girls
COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan police has cracked down on an international prostitution ring involving Russian, Thai and Taiwanese women using Colombo as their main base. Two girls who were arrested last week were from the former Soviet Union and inquiries have revealed that they were among a group of 10 girls who arrived in Colombo recently. The police said the international call girls were operating from casinos and gambling parlours which have mushroomed in the city, with some of them even styling themselves as Board of Investment approved ventures. — UNI

Gul slams govt
ISLAMABAD: Former ISI chief Gen Hameed Gul has slammed the Nawaz Sharif Government for taking “blind measures” against “national criminals” like Mr Asif Ali Zardari and Najam Sethi. Warning that the government would face “serious consequences” if it continued to follow its “foolish” advisers on issues of national importance, General Gul, who now heads a political party, termed such aides as “misguided missiles” who were acting without proper consultations on national issues. — PTI

B’desh navy chief
DHAKA: Bangladesh has named Commodore Abu Taher as the new navy chief to replace retiring Rear Admiral Nurul Islam, Defence Ministry officials said here on Tuesday. Commodore Taher will be promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral on June 4, the day he takes over from Mr Islam, they added. — AFP