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Sunday,
December 30, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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21 Maoists killed in Nepal encounters Laden in Afghanistan, Al-Qaida men tell FBI CHOGM ignores Pakistan |
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Pak evacuates
border villages Protesters storm Congress building
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Palestine wants US envoy to return Oppn alleges fraud in presidential poll
New York area under 6 ft of snow
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21 Maoists killed in Nepal encounters Kathmandu, December 29 Security forces killed 14 Maoists in separate encounters and arrested 56 rebels, the Defence Ministry said. Three government vehicles were also destroyed in explosions set off by the Maoists in Lalitpur district yesterday, the ministry said. Four terrorists were shot dead during an encounter between the rebels and security forces in a forest near Birenchowk of Gorkha district yesterday. One terrorist each died in Lohjara of Saptari district and Budhagaun of Rolpa district in separate encounters, the ministry said. Following an attack launched by Maoist insurgents on a police post in Jumla, about 450 km north-west of the capital, officials said the bodies of 13 rebels were recovered yesterday. The Maoists were attempting to overrun district police headquarters at Jumla but were repulsed jointly by the police and the army on Thursday night. According to the police, four policemen were injured in the fight. In another incident, six Maoists, including a woman, died at the scene when soldiers returned fire during a rebel attack on an army patrol yesterday in Dadeldhura district, about 525 km west of the capital, the Defence Ministry said. An insurgent died and two were injured yesterday when security forces for the first time in more than a month of search, cordon and destroy operations clashed with rebels at a secret arms manufacturing plant in Sarlahi, about 180 km south-west of the capital, and destroyed the factory, the Defence Ministry said. Fourteen Maoists were arrested at the site and weapons and spare parts recovered. Meanwhile, two Russian made MI-17 helicopters purchased by the government for combat purposes have arrived in Kathmandu, according to Home Ministry sources. The 40-seater helicopters with night vision facilities would be used for launching operation against the terrorists, the sources said. At least 350 Maoists were confirmed killed in military operations since November 26, but fatalities could be as high as 500, Communications Minister Jayaprakash Prasad Gupta said yesterday. Also killed during the period were 31 soldiers, 64 policemen, four armed police personnel, two government officials and 36 civilians, he said. According to the minister, nearly 7,800 people professing to be Maoists surrendered to local authorities during the period.
DPA, PTI |
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Laden in Afghanistan, Al-Qaida men tell FBI Islamabad, December 29 The FBI team will submit the findings to its headquarters in the USA for a final action against the terrorist organisations all over the world, The Dawn said today. “They (the Al-Qaida men) will be the only source to tell the USA what plans Bin Laden had in his mind before and after the September 11 terror attacks,” the source confided to the newspaper. So far they had only been able to know that Bin Laden was alive. The FBI team comes to Kohat by a C-130 army plane every night and after collecting information from a batch of 25 members of the Al-Qaida, leaves for Islamabad in the same plane, the newspaper said. Earlier, a team from Islamabad had interviewed the Al-Qaida men and prepared a report and another report is being prepared by another agency to tally both of them before a final assessment. The source quoted the Al-Qaida men as telling the FBI team that Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were still alive, inside Afghanistan and safe. “Till their (Al-Qaida men’s) arrest last week both (Osama and Omar) were alive and survived the heavy US bombing in the Tora Bora area,’’ the Al-Qaida men said. They also told the FBI team that there were still 6,000 to 7,000 Al-Qaida members inside Afghanistan or on the long border. The source said that all Al-Qaida men will be sent to their native countries for trial once the FBI got the required information about their links with the September 11 attacks.
UNI |
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CHOGM ignores Pakistan Sydney, December 29 Special Adviser to Common-wealth Secretariat’s Political Affairs Division Syed Sharifuddin said the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) has not changed its stand on Pakistan’s suspension from the Councils of the Commonwealth in accordance with the Millbrook Action Programme and the Commonwealth Harare principles.’’ “There is no chance of Pakistan being invited to the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting in Coolum in March, 2002,” Mr Sharifuddin said. The confirmation has put to rest the speculations that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who supported the US and Britain-led coalition against terrorism after the September 11 attack in the US, will be invited to attend CHOGM 2002. Sources said the CMAG had decided to lift Fiji’s suspension in its last week’s meeting in London, briefly discussed and reviewed the situation in Pakistan and “reaffirmed its support for the restoration of democracy in keeping with the Pakistan Government’s roadmap.’’ However, the group, that is empowered to lift the suspension, will meet last time before CHOGM on January 30 in London and may discuss the matter again. Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth following the overthrow of its democratically elected government on October 12, 1999. The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting will be held from March 1 to 5 at Brisbane, the capital of Australia’s sunshine state Queensland.
UNI |
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Pak evacuates border villages Muzaffarabad (Pakistan), Dec 29 The tension along the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border has been rising since the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blames on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants. “A number of villages in southern districts of Rawalakot and Bagh are being evacuated,” he said. Residents of Polus and Throti villages in Rawalakot had already been moved further back to safer locations, a police officer said. “This is being done as a precautionary measure,” he added.
Reuters |
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Protesters storm Congress building
Buenos aires (Argentina), December 29 Less than a week after interim President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa took power, a top government adviser accused of corruption in a previous job quit after Argentina’s decaying middle class took to the streets and demanded his departure plus the repeal of unpopular banking curbs. The resignation of Carlos Grosso, Chief Adviser to the Cabinet, but widely suspected of illegal activity during a stint last decade as Mayor of Buenos Aires, was accepted, a government spokesman told Reuters. But a very short honeymoon appeared to be over for Rodriguez Saa, appointed by Congress last Sunday as a caretaker President, but sparked anger with his proposal for a new floating currency that some fear could quickly become worthless. “These gangsters have got to go?” yelled one woman on television as she jumped up and down and beat pots and pans, a symbolic way to express anger in Argentina.
Reuters
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Palestine wants US envoy to return Jerusalem, December 29 The call came last night after a meeting chaired by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the same day, Israel lifted its blockade of the West Bank town of Bethlehem and another armed group conditionally signed on to Mr Arafat’s ceasefire call. Even so, deadly violence continued in the Palestinian territories. An armed man belonging to the radical group Islamic Jihad was shot dead overnight by an Israeli patrol in the northern Gaza Strip, the army said. The gunman, apparently setting out for a suicide attack may have attempted the first violation of Jihad’s recent promises to halt attacks against Israeli targets. His body was recovered on a road leading to the nearby settlement of Netzarim. He had been carrying an anti-tank rocket, a Kalashnikov rifle and a belt of explosives. Five Palestinians were shot at and wounded during clashes in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Following a march to protest the Israeli blockade of Ramallah, they and others had begun throwing stones at an army roadblock, and soldiers responded by firing rubber bullets. The statement by the Palestinian leadership, called for a “quick return of Zinni and his team to proceed to the application of the Mitchell plan and the Tenet memorandum.” The internationally backed Mitchell plan calls for an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence and the implementation of confidence-building measures, before a return to peace talks. The Tenet memorandum is a blueprint for implementing a ceasefire. An opinion poll published yesterday showed that nearly two out of three Israelis back a rough framework of a peace plan by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that was leaked to the media on December 23. A poll released by a Palestinian think tank showed that 71 per cent of Palestinians wanted to return to talks with Israel, with 60 per cent backing Arafat’s call for an end to armed attacks against Israel. But hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared to dash hopes for the Peres plan. “Nothing will come of this plan. It no longer exists. The fact it was presented to the public sealed its burial,” Mr Sharon was quoted in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper yesterday as saying. WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Colin Powell had telephone conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a State Department spokesman said. “He had phone calls with Mr Sharon and Mr Arafat,” spokesman Philip Reeker said yesterday, without giving details of the conversations.
AFP |
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Oppn alleges fraud in presidential poll Lusaka, December 29 The latest results from the electoral commission, for 35 of 150 constituencies, gave 148,225 votes to the ruling party candidate, Mr Levy Mwanawasa, President Frederick Chiluba’s chosen heir, against 138,273 votes for Mazoka, a wealthy businessman. “The (ruling) movement for multiparty democracy are designing chaos. I will not accept an election fraud and the people of Zambia will not accept it,’’ he told a news conference. Mr Mazoka said observers from the European Union had given him a 36 per cent victory against Mwanawasa’s 23 per cent. There was no immediate comment from the EU team. He said the electoral commission and Zambia’s security forces must prevail on the government “to uphold the constitution.” Zambia went to the polls on Thursday to choose between 11 candidates vying for the presidency in the copper-mining southern Africa state.
Reuters |
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New York area under 6 ft of snow Buffalo (N.Y.), December 29 Main roads and highways were shut, Buffalo’s Niagara International Airport was closed as it has been periodically throughout the week, and city officials were using dump trucks to remove snow because snowploughs were no longer effective. “We are at a point now where there are no other places to push the snow,” said Matt Brown, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony Masiello. “Hey, we’re Buffalo. We do snow,” he said. A man was killed when the roof of his mobile home collapsed under the weight of the fallen snow in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, said Brown. Since Christmas Eve, 82.3 inches (209.0 cms) have fallen on the area, he said, nearly as much as in an entire winter on an average. Sitting on the banks of Lake Erie in western New York, Buffalo receives an average of about 90 inches (230 cm) of snow each winter, due largely to the “lake effect” in which cold air blowing across the warmer lake dumps snow on the eastern shores. Most schools were already closed because of the holiday break. A snowfall of 35.4 inches (89.9 cm) from 6 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday was the second greatest for a 24-hour period, the weather service said.
Reuters |
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