• Witness in Anwar’s trial jailed

US concern over arrests in Pak
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 — The USA has expressed concern over the weekend arrests of hundreds of would-be anti-government demonstrators in Pakistan, saying that the action seemed aimed at suppressing the freedom of speech and assembly.

Russian swoop on ‘terrorists’
From Elizabeth Piper

MOSCOW, Sept 28 — Russian warplanes bombed the breakaway region of Chechnya for the sixth consecutive day on today, prompting many thousands of civilians to pack their bags and flee to neighbouring North Caucasus provinces.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said by telephone the strikes targeted “precise sites’’, which Moscow believes are being used by Islamic rebels it blames for incursions and disastrous bomb blasts. Chechnya denies harbouring militants.

Interfax news agency said oil and energy installations in the region, which has been out of Russia’s control since an ill-fated 1994-96 war, were under fire.

Eight persons were killed when Russian warplanes hit civilian targets in the village of Staraya Sunzha today just to the east of Chechnya’s capital Grozny, AFP reported quoting Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov’s office as saying.

The rocket strikes partially destroyed a school and 15 buildings, the news agency reported.

In the meantime, senior Russian commanders said in Moscow that government forces were ready for a full-scale ground operation against the republic.

Despite recent statements by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that there were no plans to send large army forces against Chechnya, there were clear indications that the Russian military was gearing up for the eventuality.

Russia had “more than enough” resources available for a ground war, army commander general Anatoly Sitnov said at a televised press conference today, naming an array of military fighter planes and combat helicopters readied for deployment.

Deputy head of the Russian Border Service, Nikolai Reznichenko, said also that beyond simply stepping up security at the border with Chechnya, “a front should be opened up there”.

Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo met President Boris Yeltsin to report on an anti-terror operation, saying the police were still on high alert in the capital, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg in the Urals.

“Operation Whirlwind’’, launched after three Russian cities were rocked by bombs killing almost 300 people, had uncovered 521 tonnes of explosives and led to the arrest of 101 people, Interfax quoted Mr Rushailo as saying.

The minister said the police had identified the “terrorists’’ who had masterminded the bomb attacks in Moscow, Vologodonsk and Dagestan’s Buinaksk and had made some arrests.

“Seventeen warlords in Chechnya have been declared wanted and Interpol has been informed,’’ Itar-Tass quoted him as saying.

Warplanes flew 15 sorties overnight, destroying an oil refinery, an oil storage tanker and an electricity sub-station near Grozny, Interfax quoted officials as saying.

It said the army’s general staff in the North Caucasus had described the oil refinery and depots as being in the control of Chechen militant leaders who spend the profits from the sale of petrol on weapons and ammunition.

Russian officials have also blamed “international terrorists’’ for training and equipping the rebels, whom Moscow accuses of making incursions into neighbouring Dagestan to try to establish an independent Islamic state.

The Chechen authorities, as well as one Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, have denied any responsibility for the blasts in Russian cities.

Russia’s air raids have spread fear throughout Grozny, leaving in their wake burning oil storage tankers, from which plumes of thick, black smoke billow skywards.

Yesterday, seven people in a northeastern district, two of them infants, died when bombs fell on a courtyard.

Reuters television showed the bodies, some badly burned and with limbs missing, placed on a piece of board. Distraught family members and friends prayed nearby.

Neighbouring Ingushetia has appealed for UN aid to deal with the refugees. One official said the number of people who have fled already exceeded 60,000. — Reuters

Mahathir’s crackdown on Oppn leaders?

BANGKOK, Sept 28 (DPA) — Malaysia has launched an “intimidation” campaign against leaders of Opposition parties in an effort to keep them off the streets and out of the next election, two recently arrested Malaysian politicians said here today.

Mr Tian Chua, Vice-President of Malaysia’s leading Opposition National Justice Party, and Mr Sivarasa Rasiah, a well-known Malaysian human rights lawyer, flew to Bangkok today to sound the alarm bells in the neighbouring country about what they termed a government crackdown on Opposition politicians.

Mr Tian claimed that the National Justice Party (Keadilan), led by the wife of former Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim, was the primary target in the crackdown.

Both men were arrested on September 20 and charged with “unlawful assembly”. They were later released on bail, allowing them to travel to Bangkok, but face sentences of one year imprisonment and disqualification from the upcoming election expected in November, if found guilty.

Mr Sivarasa told a press conference held at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) that at least four more National Justice leaders were arrested yesterday and the Malaysian police have threatened to arrest another 40 politicians belonging to the four main opposition parties.

“Basically this is an exercise in intimidation,” said Mr Sivarasa. “at one level the motive is to intimidate public and political leaders, and secondly, to try to neutralise as many people (as possible) from political office.”

Mr Tian said the crackdown had been prompted by signs that Malaysia’s four Opposition parties had consolidated their position against the ruling Umno Party led by Mr Mahathir Mohammed, and had agreed to name Anwar their Prime Minister should they win the upcoming election.

Witness in Anwar’s trial jailed

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28 (DPA) — The star witness in Malaysian former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial was jailed today for three months by an Islamic court after he was found in a bedroom with a woman whom he has since married.

The court in southern Malacca state sent both Azizan Abu Bakar, 39, and his wife, Norhayati Saad, 22, to three months’ jail each after they pleaded guilty to contravening Islamic laws which forbid unrelated couples of the opposite sex from being alone together.

Reuters: Meanwhile a Malaysian judge on Tuesday adjourned Anwar Ibrahim’s sex trial after a defence lawyer said the former Finance Minister had suffered severe headaches and high blood pressure.

MNF raids militia stronghold: 15 held

DILI, Sept 28 (Agencies) — Peacekeepers in East Timor went on successful sorties against militias today as aid workers in Dili braced for a flood of refugees returning to the burned-out capital.

The Multinational Force for East Timor raided a militia stronghold in Com, arresting 15 gunmen and confiscating a cache of weapons.

It was near Com at the weekend that seven people, five of them church workers, were found murdered. All were East Timorese except Sister Erminia Cazzanig, 69, an Italian Nun.

The deaths brought to nine the number of confirmed killings of church workers.

As Interfet went after the pro-Jakarta militias that have ravaged the province since last month’s vote for independence from Indonesia, the UN Mission in Dili said humanitarian assistance worth $ 135 million would be needed over the next six months to stave off an impending catastrophe.

The improving security situation in Dili, the base for the international force of 3,800 troops, has prompted residents to return from hideouts in the hills.

Mr Ross Mountain, the head of UN humanitarian efforts in East Timor, said he expected between 30,000 and 70,000 refugees to return to Dili in the next few days.

“Our main concern is not health — we are stocked (with medicines) — but water. We are particularly concerned about water,’’ he said.

More than 200,000 are now over the border in West Timor, crowded into makeshift refugee camps and cowed by gun-toting militiamen.

A UN refugee mission team wanting to visit the camps in West Timor has been denied security guarantees necessary for the inspections to go ahead.

Militia leader Joao Da Silva Tavares has demanded that Jakarta provide funds so that loyalists can continue their attempt to thwart the outcome of a UN-run referendum in which 78.5 per cent of voters opted for freedom.

Jakarta newspapers report that militias are massing on the border for strikes against the Australian-led international force. “They are equipped with heavy arms, including anti-tank rockets and surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles,” the Jakarta Post reported, quoting an unnamed Indonesian military officer.

The prospect of clashes on the border between foreign peacekeepers and militias armed and backed by Jakarta has prompted the USA to send its Defence Secretary William Cohen on a sweep through the region. Mr Cohen, who will visit Australia before going on to Jakarta, will turn up the international pressure on Jakarta to curb the militias.

KUPANG: Hundreds of armed militiamen operating under the auspices of the Indonesian military were patrolling the streets of Kupang, hunting down pro-independence East Timor refugees and intimidating the town’s few remaining westerners, officials and eyewitnesses said today.

The only international staffer of a United Nations agency in Kupang, Piet Vochten of the World Food Programme, has been harassed by the increasingly aggressive operations of the Aitarak (Thorn) militia.

After militia occupied premises just across the road from the WFP world food programme residence in Kupang, Vochten described his situation as ‘’extremely stressful’’.

Once more or less confined to the East Timor capital, Dili, the Aitarak militia network led by Eurico Gutterres has now extended its reach to 41 checkpoints and posts in West Timor and operational bases used for hunting down pro-independence east Timorese. The militia has also set up bases on the Indonesian islands of Alor and Flores.

ATAMBUA (W. Timor): East Timor’s pro-Jakarta militia said on Tuesday they were giving a UN intervention force a three week deadline to stop ‘‘acts of violence’’ against their forces.

The deadline was announced by Eurico Guterres, Deputy Commander of the umbrella command of the pro-integration struggle (PPI).

BEIJING: China today said that a United Nations international inquiry to determine who was to blame for months of violence in East Timor was inappropriate and would not solve the region’s problems.

Quayle drops out of race

PHOENIX, Sept 28 (Reuters) Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle quit the race for the Republican presidential nomination yesterday — low on cash, far behind in the polls and unable to shake a national reputation as the man who could not spell the word ‘’potato.’

“There is a time to stay and there is a time to fold,’ Mr Quayle said. He added that a major reason for his withdrawal from the race was the staggering war chest compiled by front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, under whose father Quayle served as Vice-President from 1989 to 1992.

“I was facing a campaign where the front-runner would have up to 100 million dollars to spend and an unprecedented frontloading of the primary system made the task for me of winning the nomination of my party virtually impossible,’ Mr Quayle said referring to the 18 primaries that follow in a matter of weeks next year’s New Hampshire primary.

US concern over arrests in Pak

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (AFP) — The USA has expressed concern over the weekend arrests of hundreds of would-be anti-government demonstrators in Pakistan, saying that the action seemed aimed at suppressing the freedom of speech and assembly.

This appears to have been an attempt to suppress a peaceful protest against the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,” State Department spokesman James Rubin said.

“We support the strengthening of democracy in Pakistan and call upon Prime Minister Sharif and his government to carry out their responsibility to preserve the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, Mr Rubin said.

Oldest Moroccan dead
RABAT: Morocco’s oldest citizen, Mohammed Ben Hammadi, popularly known as Hammadi Sahrawi, died here last week at the age of 155, media reports said. He died at Fez town, 180 km east of the capital, and lived under the reign of eight Kings. During his long innings, Sahrawi’s hair changed colour three times and teeth twice. — PTI

26 tourists killed
LYDENBURG: A bus carrying British tourists overturned when its brakes apparently failed on a steep hill on Monday, killing at least 26 people and injuring 11, police said. The bus was travelling downhill on a road called Long Tom Pass heading into this provincial town about 220 km east of Johannesburg when it went out of control and overturned, said Lydenburg police inspector Gerrit Smit. — AP

Liberians get asylum
WASHINGTON: Thousands of Liberians who gained temporary asylum in the USA during their homeland’s civil war were granted exemptions from deportation on Monday, President Bill Clinton said. “Although the civil war in Liberia ended in 1996 and conditions have improved such that a further extension of temporary protected status is no longer warranted, the political and economic situation continues to be fragile,” Mr Clinton said. — DPA

High-level protest
WASHINGTON: A lone protester has scaled the World Bank headquarters here in a demonstration against an African oil pipeline the bank plans to help finance. Harold Linde of San Francisco used cables forming part of the facade of the glass-fronted building to climb up nine storeys on Monday. — AFP