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Monday,
December 24, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Palestinians
reject Peres peace plan
Bid to
blow up US plane: West Asian held
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Argentine interim President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa (R) receives the presidential sash from Ramon Puerta, former chairman of the Argentine Senate and President of the country for 24 hours, at the Casa Rosada government house in Buenos
Aires on Sunday. Rodriquez Saa assumes the presidency, filling the power vacuum left by Fernando de la Rua's resignation on December 20, until fresh elections are held on March 3, 2002.
— Reuters photo Bin
Laden in disguise, let off the hook? Hunt for
Al-Qaida’s armada of death on Extremists
join hands in anti-Islamic drive NY Mayor
fears another attack Cold
claims 7 lives in B’desh
3 Maoist hideouts destroyed
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Palestinians reject Peres peace plan
Jerusalem, December 23 “Any agreement that does not promise from the beginning... A full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories that were conquered in (the) 1967 (Middle East war), will be only a misleading agreement,’’ Ziad Abu Ziad told Israel army radio. Under the Peres’ plan, reported in the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily today, Israel would recognise an independent Palestinian state, in those parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip which are currently under full or partial Palestinian autonomous control, within eight weeks of reaching a ceasefire with the Palestinians. Mr Peres himself declined to confirm or deny the newspaper report, but confirmed the existence of negotiations. “We are holding negotiations under fire to stop the fire,’’ he told the radio. Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath denied the Palestinian Authority (PA) was holding negotiations with Israel. At the same time, however, he called the proposal “nothing new which is serious. There is no room now for another interim agreement,’’ he said. Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon also rejected the plan, a statement issued earlier by Mr Sharon’s office said. “The state of Israel will not conduct diplomatic negotiations as long as’’ the PA does not arrest militants, confiscate illegal weapons and hand them over to the USA, dismantle militant organisations and end anti-Israeli incitement, the statement said. It called the report’s appearance “astonishing, imaginary and without any foundation’’, adding it “causes severe damage to Israel’’. Yediot, which printed a typed copy of the plan on its front page, said the proposal was worked out with the knowledge of Mr Sharon, a claim vehemently denied by latter’s office. Israel’s biggest newspaper reported on Sunday that Mr Peres had drafted an interim peace plan establishing a Palestinian state on 42 per cent of the West Bank and most the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, in an interview with the Berlin newspaper Die Ziet, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying he was prepared to negotiate a peace settlement with the Palestinians if his country’s security was assured. “We will at some stage reach a point when we can begin political negotiations and make peace. As I have said often, I am ready to go far, and make painful compromises if it means lasting peace,’’ he told the newspaper. Gaza City: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, under virtual house arrest in the West Bank town of Ramallah, reaffirmed his intentions to make his annual trip to Bethlehem for Christmas eve mass, Palestinian radio reported. “It is my duty, and I will see to it that I fulfil it,” he said on Voice of Palestine. “I will go there even if I have to go on foot.” Israel radio quoted the Israeli Embassy in Washington as saying that the USA warned Israel it would be forced to speak out publicly against the Jewish state, if it barred Arafat from attending tomorrow night’s mass at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. The Israeli Cabinet decided in a telephone vote last night not to allow Arafat to use a Jordanian helicopter to leave his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah and travel of Bethlehem. Only a handful of ministers — including Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Defence Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Finance Minister Silvan Shalom — opposed the decision. The Cabinet decided Arafat could not attend because the Palestinian Authority had not met Israel’s demand to immediately begin dismantling militant organisations and arrest the assassins of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze’evi, who was killed on October 17 in
Jerusalem. DPA, Reuters, AFP. |
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Bid to blow up US plane: West Asian held
Boston, December 23 Officials are determining whether it was a terrorist attempt to instill fear in people two days before Christmas. Investigators believe it could be a terrorist act as the passenger, reportedly of Middle-Eastern origin and aged 28 years, was travelling without luggage. Officials said he was carrying a British passport issued three weeks earlier which identified him as Richard Reid. They, however, said it could be fake. A flight attendant became suspicious when she smelt sulfur from a lit match as the man, seated in the middle of the plane tried to light a fuse wire coming out of his shoes. The man, confronted by the attendant, became violent and bit her hand. Another flight attendant who tried to help her was also injured but soon the youth was overpowered with the help of other passengers. Officials said the explosives were enough to damage the plane. The suspect was being questioned by the FBI and other agencies. Experts said it was not difficult to obtain plastic explosives as these are available with construction companies and it requires only a little knowledge to mould them to fit into the shoes. Following the incident, two F-15 fighters jets escorted the plane after it entered the American airspace and diverted it to the Logan airport in Boston.
PTI |
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Japan fires at ‘spy’
ship: 3 die Beijing, December 23 Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said China had kept a close eye on the saga which began on Friday afternoon, when the 100-tonne ship was first spotted by a Japanese aircraft inside Japan’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, which mainly covers fishing rights. The ship’s nationality has not been established, but Japanese Government sources were quoted saying they suspected it was a North Korean spy ship. Japanese ships fired warning shots after the vessel ignored orders to stop. Two crewmen on the mystery ship opened fire from its deck with automatic weapons, wounding two Japanese coast guards, Japanese officials said. The ship eventually caught fire and sank after trading shots with 25 Japanese patrol vessels pursuing it, a coast guard spokesman said. Japan’s coastguard said today they had found three bodies believed to be crew members.
Reuters |
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Saa voted interim Argentine head
Buenos Aires (Argentina), December 23 A joint session of Congress approved Rodriguez Saa’s appointment with 169 votes in favour and 138 votes against following an all-night debate. He was sworn in shortly after. Fernando de la Rua quit as President on Thursday, in the middle of his four-year term, after two days of riots against the government’s austerity policies and a four-year recession left hundreds of shops and supermarkets ransacked. Meanwhile, the new president in one of his first announcements said he was suspending payments on its huge public foreign debt after months of struggling to meet its debt commitments. “I announce that the Argentine state will suspend the payment of foreign debt. This is not a rejection of foreign debt ... but rather the first move by a rational government to deal with the foreign debt correctly,” Mr Saa told reporters after his swearing in. “International markets will react well because we will negotiate with them.” He said he will not devalue the peso nor dollarise the economy — for months considered by economists to be the two viable options to pull Argentina out of its four-year recession.
Reuters |
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Bin Laden in disguise, let off the hook? London/Peshawar/New York, Dec 23 It was a promise the tribal forces could not make, so the fighter pulled out the pin and blew himself to pieces. Many of the Al-Qaida warriors in Tora Bora held a deep fear of falling into American hands. It was not torture or death they feared as is evident from the number of suicides. Western defence officials believe they were afraid they would be forced to reveal the answer to the biggest secret on earth — whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Death was the best way to keep silent. After weeks of relentless bombing, hundreds of deaths and conquering of a country, the secret has died along with the Al-Qaida fighters. The trail for bin Laden has gone cold. Yesterday, General Tommy Franks, speaking in Kabul, admitted that the USA had no clear idea where he was. Like a mysterious evil genie, he has simply vanished. Reliable Afghan sources claim he was in Tora Bora until about four days after the siege of the mountain hideout began. He had moved there from Kabul on November 6. But other reports have described him fleeing into Pakistan more than two weeks ago from the area around Jalalabad. The Afghan Islamic press, which was close to the ousted Taliban, claimed he left Tora Bora on November 25 or 26. This report goes with an account described to The Observer last week by mining prospectors in the Afghan mountains. On November 26, they had spotted nine horse-riders, with a man thought to be Bin Laden in the middle, heading north towards the snowy passes that lead into Kashmir and China. There are reports that Bin Laden has already killed himself or that his body lies under rubble at the bottom of a smashed Tora Bora cave. The rumours will be investigated, and on Friday, more than 500 US troops were ordered to Tora Bora to scour the caves. There are many sympathisers among the Pashtun population in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and an ‘underground railway’ can take fighters out of the country and to safety. Bin Laden may be moved rapidly across Pakistan towards the sea and from there he may go to Yemen, Sudan or Somalia. But as the prospectors might have seen Bin Laden could also have made it to Kashmir or the Muslim regions of eastern China. Both areas have terrorist groups with possible Al-Qaida links. Another possibility is the north of Afghanistan. A well-worn route used by drug traffickers passes through the mountains near Baghran and into Turkmenistan. From there it would be possible to head for Caucasus, even Chechnya. Even the possibility of plastic surgery is being taken seriously by US officials. After an Iranian newspaper claimed a team of surgeons had given Bin Laden a new face, US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CNN that he could ‘take plastic surgery, disguise himself as a woman, and hide somewhere in the mountains of Chechnya’. The USA has sought DNA samples from Bin Laden’s family to ensure a positive identification. British and US special forces are conducting cave-to-cave searches. They are backed up by eavesdropping equipment on the ground and in the air. Among these are Delta Force snipers equipped with 0.50 calibre rifles. Bin Laden still holds trump cards. He has been demonised so much that for him survival is victory. With a world to hide in, that might be all too easy. Many analysts believe, that it won’t be the US tactics that catch him out but Bin Laden making a mistake.
The Observer, London |
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Hunt for Al-Qaida’s armada of death on
London, December 23 Security and shipping sources said the British, US and European intelligence services had been desperately searching for Bin Laden’s `phantom fleet’ amid fears the vessels could be carrying poisons, explosives or weapons. The ships were identified at least three months ago as a result of a joint intelligence operation thought to be led by the Norwegian security service and America’s CIA with the help of international shipping registries. The search has been hampered by the controversial `flags of convenience’ system, under which many ships are registered as Panamanian, Liberian or Cypriot to avoid stringent checks on their crews and cargoes. News of the hunt broke as British anti-terrorist officers continue to search the London-bound MV Nisha, seized off the south coast of England on Friday in a dramatic raid by Royal Navy units, including the Special Boat Service (SBS). The ship, which lay off Sandown Bay in the Isle of Wight last night , was flying the flag of St Vincent and the Grenadines, in the West Indies. The boat was initially thought to be the first of the 20 ships to be boarded. No explosives or ammunition had been found by last night. The vessel was carrying raw sugar to a Tate and Lyle refinery on the Thames when an intelligence tip-off warned British authorities that it could be carrying `terrorist material’. The dawn raid on the ship by the SBS and the Metropolitan Police Special Branch came after the tip off from a foreign intelligence service that a ship like the Nisha, carrying explosives, was due to dock in London. Shipping unions last night said the system of controls for the international merchant shipping fleet was ripe for abuse by terrorists.
The Observer, London |
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Extremists
join hands in anti-Islamic drive London, December 23 The campaign involves the distribution of thousands of CDs, tapes and leaflets claiming that Islam poses a threat to Britain. Sikh activists in Southall, west London, have passed hundreds of addresses of Sikh and Hindu community leaders to BNP activists who want their support. The CD includes an informal discussion between BNP leader Nick Griffin and a Sikh. It is likely that much of the content of the recording will become illegal when new anti-incitement legislation becomes law. Labelled as a joint statement from the BNP, Sikhs and Hindus, the recording consists of Mr Griffin reading and analysing the Koran, followed by a discussion with Midlands-based Sikh activist Rajinder Singh. The language is inflammatory and anti-Islamic. “Islam is the biggest threat Britain has ever faced,” Mr Griffin says. In the introduction, an unnamed BNP member says: “This is our country and you (Muslims) will never take it from us.” The campaign has been condemned by all leading Hindu and Sikh organisations. “The BNP are trying to divide ethnic minorities. In any community there are bound to be a few individuals who are willing to side with anyone, the devil included,” said Mr Indarjit Singh, head of the Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations. But a handful of Sikhs and Hindus have joined forces with the BNP. The party, which wants Britain’s ethnic minorities voluntarily repatriated, has established contact with Sikhs in London, Reading and Northampton, and with Hindus in London, Leeds and Bradford. Mr Ammo Singh, 30, an accountant from west London, said he represented nearly 100 young Sikhs and Hindus who had collaborated in the making and distribution of the BNP recording. He said this was “just the first stage” of cooperation with the BNP. “We are not joining the BNP, we are just working with them. We have a very friendly relationship,” he said. Mr Rajinder Singh, a part-time teacher from Wellingborough, said he intended to set up an Asian friends of the BNP group to act as a supporting body and conduit for funds for people sympathetic to the party’s anti-Islamic stance. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, but came to Britain in 1967. He is openly anti-Muslim, but believes the BNP can be persuaded to accept Sikhs as British. Muslim leaders said all religious faiths were united against the BNP and only a handful of individuals would sympathise with them.
The Observer, London |
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NY Mayor fears another attack London, December 23 “I anticipate another attack and try as much as I can to figure out what it will be — where it will be, are we prepared for it, are we doing all the things that we can do to prepare for it,’’ Mr Giuliani said. “So after the attack, we...continue to try to anticipate new things’’ he told BBC Television. After two terms at the helm in New York, Mr Giuliani steps down on December 31, when billionaire Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg takes over.
Reuters |
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Cold claims 7 lives in B’desh Dhaka, December 23 The victims, aged between 70 and 90, were residents of Bangladesh’s Panchagarh district bordering the Himalayas near India and Nepal, the Daily Ittefaq reported, quoting medical sources. It said many children and elderly people have also been hospitalised for cold-related infections. Temperatures dipped to 10 degrees in Panchagarh yesterday, and weather officials said the cold may sweep the rest of Bangladesh’s northern districts by the end of the month.
AFP |
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3 Maoist hideouts destroyed Kathmandu, December 23 The hideouts were destroyed in an operation that began yesterday in the hilly and forest areas of the Himalayan kingdom, a Nepalese Ministry of Defence press note said today. Dolakha is a stronghold of the Maoist terrorists in central Nepal. Meanwhile, in search and cordon operations, the security forces have arrested 21 persons from various parts of the country and seized arms and ammunition. Three “tul bombs” (banner bombs) were defused at Iti Tole of Lalitpur in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, people living near Agrigaun of Surkhet district gathered in protest against the kidnapping of village head and pledged joint action against the terrorists, the press note said. At an all party meeting today, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba requested all political parties to extend full cooperation to the government in safeguarding the rights of the people and consolidating democracy at this crucial juncture.
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