Marriage made profitable
ABU DHABI, Sept 29 — It pays to get married in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Indonesia agrees to probe into killings

JAKARTA, Sept 29 (Reuters) — The United Nations was preparing on Wednesday to take up civilian duties in East Timor before it formally takes control of the bloodied territory, now under guard of a multinational peacekeeping force.

Indonesia had given the go-ahead for this role, UN representative Jamsheed Marker told reporters late on Tuesday at the United Nations.

“We have to start making arrangements for that. They (Indonesia) have agreed,” Mr Marker said after meetings with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Portugal.

Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto meantime today gave tacit support for an inquiry into rights abuses in East Timor, where militias are believed to have killed thousands since the territory voted for independence.

In the Dili suburb of Tasi Tolu, a Reuters television team found 10 charred bodies in a pickup truck. A witness, Alberto A.C. Pereira, 38, said he saw Indonesian police and militiamen execute the 10 with machetes about two weeks ago and set the truck and bodies on fire after dousing them with petrol.

US Defence Secretary William Cohen warned Indonesia it could suffer diplomatic and economic penalties if it did not shackle its military and make democratic reforms. “There must be civilian control over the military and the world is watching,” he said in an interview on Australia’s Channel Nine television.

A UN official in Australia said airdrops to thousands of east Timorese refugees would be suspended after today because of technical problems and because improving security meant aid could be better distributed by road.

“Now that we are getting more access by land, we can start to switch operations and try to send aid by trucks,” Afia Ali said.

Also, Amnesty International said it had unconfirmed but reliable reports that East Timorese refugees in West Timor were being denied food by the militia and were still being shipped to other parts of Indonesia.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Jakarta was in charge of the civilian administration in East Timor and its deputy governor had returned to the territory.

He suggested some school teachers, doctors, judges and other Indonesian professionals who fled the violence would return to help get the territory working again. But he said Jakarta was willing to be practical because “This extraordinary situation needs to be pragmatically resolved.”

Alatas also said his government had agreed to let the UN refugee agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross visit West Timor, where nearly 200,000 East Timorese fled the violence or were forcibly driven over the border.

Alatas said the UN High Commissioner for refugees would ascertain if the East Timorese wanted to return home, stay in West Timor or move elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago.

General Wiranto, asked in Jakarta if Indonesia welcomed an inquiry, replied: “If there is an international intervention (inquiry), go ahead, but we are the host country.”

“Don’t assume all human rights abuses have been committed by the national police and the Indonesian military. All parties have committed abuses,” Gen Wiranto said. “Therefore, I support a push for us to disclose human rights abuses from any parties.”

DARWIN (Australia): The USA is boosting its participation in the East Timor multinational Force to more than 400 troops and sending a warship with four cargo helicopters to the area, US Defence Secretary William Cohen said today.

He said the Pentagon would soon send an army communications team of 130 troops from Fort Huachucha, Arizona, to Darwin and Dili, and also add a small number of planners to the 260 US support troops already committed to the Australian-led force.

In addition, he told a press conference, the navy helicopter carrier USS Belleau Wood will leave Okinawa this week to be stationed off East Timor with four CH-53 helicopters capable of carrying vehicles and other heavy equipment ashore for the UN force.

The US part of the international force, which will soon total more than 7,500 troops, will be only in a support capacity and is still very small.

Russia to hold talks with Chechen leaders

MOSCOW, Sept 29 (DPA) — Russia today was expected to make its first contact with the leadership of Chechnya after several weeks of bombing raids against the republic and threats of further retaliation for attacks on Russia by guerrilla bands based there.

At the initiative of the Russian Government, talks were due to be held today in the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt between Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and the head of the Moscow-loyal republic of Dagestan, Magomed Magomedov, news agencies reported.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that the talks should not be interpreted as a prelude to any meeting between Mr Maskhadov and Russian President Boris Yeltsin to discuss the Chechen problem.

Mr Putin said Moscow would only enter into direct negotiations under certain conditions.

“We expect the leadership of Chechnya to at last clearly and unambiguously condemn terrorism and express its readiness to hand over wanted criminals’’. Interfax quoted Mr Putin as saying today during a visit to the Volga city of Cheboksary.

Reports from Dagestan at midday today said locals in the Novolaksoye border region - at the centre of recent fighting between rebels and Russian forces - had blocked the road to Khasavyurt from Chechnya ahead of the talks.

They were said to be angered at Mr Maskhadov’s lack of action against Chechen rebel forces and his late attempts to smooth relations with Dagestan.

Meanwhile Russian planes and long-range artillery air strikes continued against industrial objects in Chechnya, including suburbs of the capital Grozny which has been hit repeatedly in the past week.

According to the Chechen authorities, at least ten people were killed by Russian bombs this morning.

Russian military sources said that raids since yesterday had destroyed ten underground oil storage plants, two large ammunition and arms depots, and that planes dropped mines on 15 km of roads to hinder the movement of rebel forces.

61 US lawmakers for mediation on J-K

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (AFP) — More than 60 US lawmakers have pressed President Bill Clinton to appoint a special envoy to mediate the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

Calling the region the “most dangerous nuclear flash point in the world today,” 15 Senators and 46 Representatives told Clinton in a letter yesterday that it was imperative Washington take a leadership role in quickly and peacefully ending the dispute over the region’s status.

“The United States should help break the stalemate over Kashmir to reduce the risk of nuclear war in the Asian subcontinent,’’ the lawmakers, including powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, said.

In addition to appointing a US special envoy, the lawmakers urged President Clinton to propose bolstering the UN military observers group to monitor the Line of Control that separates Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan.

The proposal is also supported by Americans for Peace and Justice in South Asia, a newly formed umbrella group for nine Pakistani — and Kashmiri-American organisations.

Speaking to reporters while presenting the letter, conservative Representative Dan Burton and Liberal Representative David Bonior said because both India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over Kashmir, now possessed nuclear weapons, the situation demanded US mediation.

“This is a national security issue,” Mr Bonior said. “It is a humanitarian issue. It is something that we can no longer ignore because Kashmir has become a flashpoint whose potential consequences are very, very grave.’’

There was no immediate comment on the proposal from either the White House or the State Department but in the past the Clinton Administration has been cool to calls for it to actively mediate the dispute.

Washington has said repeatedly that it would be willing to get involved but only if both India and Pakistan ask it to — something India has steadfastly opposed.

In a related development,US House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman last night urged President Bill Clinton to reject the demand made by some Congressmen, seeking the appointment of a special envoy for Kashmir. Mr Gilman, (Republican), backed by Mr Sam Gejdenson (Democrat), also opposed their plea for strengthening of the UN Military Observers’ Group for India and Pakistan to monitor the line of control (LoC) in Kashmir.

Pak begins MBT production

LONDON, Sept 29 (PTI) — Pakistan has begun initial production of the MBT 2000 main battle tank for its Army with Chinese collaboration, the Jane’s Defence Weekly has said.

The production follows the signing of a formal agreement between China’s North Industries Corporation (Norinco) and Pakistan’s Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) in the first week of August. HIT plans to produce up to 50 per cent of the MBT in the initial stages.

“Commencement of the production of MBT 2000 (Al-Khalid) constitutes a significant breakthrough in Pakistan’s quest for self-sufficiency in the vital field of military production, along with expanding the base for indigenisation in the critical sphere,’’ said a Pakistani official in Islamabad, according to the weekly.

On October 1, 1998 it was announced that Pakistan would manufacture a new MBT with the assistance of China and a development contract was signed with Norinco in 1990.

Ban ‘sexy’ South Indian dancer

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 (AP) — A consumer group wants a South Indian actress and dancer banned from performing at a free concert because she is too sexy, news reports said today.

“Vichitra is known as an actress and dancer who is fond of playing sexy roles,” Mr N.V. Subbarow was reported as saying in The New Straits Times daily. “It will encourage low morals among the youth.”

He displayed posters of Vichitra exposing her midriff and wearing skintight clothes at a media briefing. She’s “never properly attired,” Mr Subbarow said.

Marriage made profitable

ABU DHABI, Sept 29 (Pool-Gna) — It pays to get married in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

About 500 couples, who will be tying the knot at a collective wedding here on December two, will get 75,000 dirhams as their wedding gift from a fund set up for the purpose by UAE President Sheikh Zaved bin Sultan al Nahvan.

Couples from all the seven emirates of the UAE will be participating in the wedding, which will coincide with the celebrations of their union into a nation, fund director Jamal bin Obeid Al-Beh was quoted as saying by the UAE news agency WAM.

Top cop fails exam
TIRANA: An Albanian police chief lauded for hunting down many of the Balkan country’s most wanted criminals has been ordered back to school for failing in a police academy examination, a local newspaper said. Edmond Koseni, whose unorthodox methods as police commander of Elbasan include parading criminals handcuffed through the streets, failed in the second-year exam as his “heroic pursuits” had left him no time for revision, the daily Gazeta Shqiptare, said on Tuesday. — Reuters

Ex-First Lady
CAPE TOWN: Former South African First Lady Graca Machel has been elected Chancellor of University of Cape Town (UCT), the university has announced here. The university’s electoral college met on Saturday to find a replacement for diamond magnate Harry Oppenheimer, a UCT press not said on Tuesday. Oppenheimer was Chancellor from 1967 to 1996, but the post has been vacant for three years. —AFP

Humanitarian prize
NEW YORK: The world’s largest humanitarian prize of $ 1 million has been awarded to an organisation whose accomplishments include bringing health care to the Maasai and Turkana, two of Africa’s nomadic tribes. The Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize was awarded to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) on Tuesday. — AP

Laden’s trial
NEW YORK: A federal judge has set a target date of September 5, 2000, for the trial of fugitive Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and some of his followers charged with planning to kill U.S. nationals abroad. U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand said on Tuesday that the trial would not take place before the Tuesday after Labour Day of the next year in the Manhattan Federal Court. — Reuters

Arrest of gays
KAMPALA: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ordered the arrest of homosexuals for carrying out “abominable acts”, local newspapers said. “I have told the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) to look for homosexuals, lock them up and charge them,” the state-owned newspaper, New Vision quoted him as saying on Monday at the opening of a meeting on reproductive health. — Reuters