Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
Sports National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplement «

Tamil Tiger rebels on Thursday refused to meet with a Sri Lankan delegation invited to Oslo for talks by peace broker Norway amid violence surged on the island with at least 19 people reported killed, the officials said.
   Two separate mine blasts killed an army officer and two civilians, defence officials said.
   The military blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for killing the officer while the Tigers blamed the military for the second blast in which two construction workers were killed.
   Defence officials said Tiger rebels had also clashed with a breakaway faction in the northeastern district of Trincomalee, leaving at least 15 guerrillas dead. Another man was shot dead in the same district at noon Thursday, the police said.
   Lanka’s government said in a statement issued here that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam refused to meet with them to discuss the safety of Scandinavians monitoring a collapsing truce in the island nation.
   ‘The Sri Lankan delegation was informed by the Norwegians that the LTTE had declined to meet the Government of Sri Lanka delegation,’ the statement said.
   ‘The Norwegian government representatives themselves expressed complete surprise at the stance taken by the LTTE despite all the background preparations made by the Norwegian facilitators.’
   The Norwegians also informed Colombo that the Tigers were opposed to nationals from Denmark, Finland and Sweden—all European Union member states—monitoring Sri Lanka’s ceasefire following last week’s EU ban on the rebels.
   Officials said that the LTTE did not want to negotiate with a four-member Sri Lanka delegation led by the government’s top official coordinating the peace process, Palitha Kohona, arguing they had no political authority.
   Colombo rejected the Tiger stance, saying the guerrillas had been fully aware of the composition of the Sri Lankan delegation, which had been named last week, when they travelled to Oslo.
   ‘The LTTE left Sri Lanka bound for Oslo having full knowledge of this position,’ the government statement said.
   
   Pakistan asked for swift
   military assistance
   Sri Lanka is looking to Pakistan for help to bolster its military capabilities, specialist publication Jane’s Defence Weekly said Thursday.
   Sri Lanka has asked Pakistan to facilitate the purchase of military equipment worth around 60 million dollars (47 million euros), according to high-level discussions detailed in documents seen by the defence magazine.
   Jane’s Defence Weekly said Sri Lanka had asked that their requests be treated with the ‘utmost priority’ given the deteriorating security situation.
   According to the magazine, the Sri Lankan army’s shopping list has a combined value of 20 million dollars, while the air force’s requirements are worth a further 38.1 million dollars.
   The weekly said that Sri Lanka was looking to build up its military capacity and had also issued a plea to Pakistan to provide swift technical assistance for its T-55 main battle tanks and C-130 transport aircraft.
   In a document dated March 1, Sri Lanka wrote: ‘It would be greatly appreciated if arrangement could be made to invite a technical team to Colombo to carry out an immediate survey of T-55 main battle tanks and C-130 aircraft.’
   It added: ‘Since a number of MBTs and C-130s are in need of urgent technical repairs it is earnestly requested that this be given utmost priority and a suitable technical repair team be arranged to carry out immediate inspection.’
   The Sri Lankan army’s extensive wish list includes ten Baktar Shikan anti-tank guided missile weapon systems, 300 standard/tandem warheads and two training simulators, respectively worth 1.5 million dollars, 4.5 million dollars and 120,000 dollars.

Nepal’s rebel leader Prachanda piled more pressure on the country’s new government Thursday, claiming the political parties who came back into power in April were ignoring Maoist demands.
   The Himalayan state’s parliament was reinstated in April, ending 14 months of direct rule by King Gyanendra. Weeks of mass protests organized by the parties and the rebels in concert forced the royal climbdown.
   ‘The parties are trying to ignore us when we are ready to stay at the talks table for agreement,’ Prachanda told Kantipur, a Nepali language daily.
   The rebels and new government have observed a ceasefire for more than a month and have had a day of preliminary peace talks.
   The new government has met a key rebel demand by promising an election to appoint a body to redraft Nepal’s constitution.
   But the rebels have been calling for the dissolution of the new parliament, and the formation of a new interim government, containing Maoists.
   ‘There will be bloodshed in the country if the seven parties attempt to move ahead alone by declaring the House of Representatives all-powerful,’ the rebel leader told the newspaper.
   A longer interview with Prachanda is due to be televised on Kantipur television Thursday, marking the first time local media would have shown the elusive rebel leader.
   Until the recent thaw with the new government Prachanda was branded a terrorist and barred from appearing in the local media.
   An editorial in the Himalayan Times, an English language daily, called on the rebels to tone down their demands.
   ‘The Maoists would do themselves a mountain of good if they followed a practical line and be accommodating at a time when so much is at stake,’ the paper said.
   Earlier this week, Prachanda told a meeting in eastern Nepal that the rebels would return to violence unless the country was made a republic after elections to a body to redraft the constitution.
   The rebels have been fighting a ‘people’s war’ for the last decade that has left at least 12,500 people dead.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a hardline Kashmiri separatist leader, has been charged with sedition by an Indian court in the troubled Himalayan region and ordered into police custody five years after an arrest warrant was issued.
   The police said 77-year-old Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of a breakaway faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an alliance of separatist parties, was arrested on Wednesday on arriving in Poonch, a town 144 km northwest of Kashmir’s winter capital, Jammu.
   ‘Soon after he checked in Hotel Star in Poonch town, our police party immediately took him into custody,’ a senior police official said.
   A local magistrate ordered Geelani, who says he requires constant medical attention due to heart problems, into police custody until June 29.
   Geelani’s supporters staged protests in Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar on Thursday, and his party called for a strike on Friday.
   ‘Geelani is the most influential and trusted leader in Kashmir. His arrest is an undemocratic act and demonstrates the high handedness of authorities,’ said a party statement.
   A warrant for Geelani’s arrest was issued in Poonch in 2001 on charges of inciting people against the Indian state during a series of speeches.
   Kashmir is at the heart of 60 years of animosity between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in full and have fought two wars over the territory.
   Geelani’s faction supports joining Pakistan and is backed by most of the militants groups still fighting in Indian Kashmir.

Japan must play a leading role in Asian diplomacy to secure regional stability and steady energy supplies, the European Commission’s top local representative said Thursday.
   ‘I remain convinced that Japan should and must play a key role in this region as a political actor,’ said Bernhard Zepter, ambassador and head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Japan.
   Zepter said Tokyo should focus on areas of common interest with its neighbours such as energy.
   ‘I would recommend (Japan) to very much focus on that issue,’ he told foreign correspondents. Security was another important issue, he said.
   ‘I would be extremely concerned to be surrounded by so many nuclear powers and potential nuclear powers. This is an important issue which needs to be addressed,’ he said.
   He raised the issue of North Korea’s nuclear programme as an area of particular concern to the European Union. Japan is a key player in the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
   Tokyo also needs to create a ‘sense of community’ with Asian neighbours but aim for realistic progress in the current climate, he said.
   Japan and China are also locked in a territorial dispute about potentially lucrative gas fields in the East China Sea.

East Timor’s embattled prime minister Mari Alkatiri will not meet a protesters’ demand to resign, his acting spokesman said Thursday, as the first unrest outside the capital since foreign troops arrived two weeks ago was reported.
   More than 1,000 protesters converged on Dili Tuesday to demand Alkatiri step down. Many East Timorese have blamed him for unrest that followed his sacking in April of 600 soldiers, nearly half the tiny nation’s army, after they complained of discrimination because they came from the country’s west.
   ‘As far as I know it is not the intention of the prime minister to resign,’ Miguel Sarmento said.
   Twenty-one people died last month as sporadic battles between rival soldiers, and between soldiers and police, descended into gang clashes and led the government to appeal for foreign help.
   More than 2,000 combat-ready peacekeepers are deployed in Dili.
   Major Alfredo Reinado, who says he is in command of the 600 sacked soldiers, is holed up in the mountain town of Maubisse. Another rebel officer, major Agusto ‘Tara’ Araujo, is based in Gleno and led Tuesday’s protest.
   A statement issued by the demonstrators gave president Xanana Gusmao until Thursday to dissolve parliament and Alkatiri’s government.
   ‘They don’t know the constitution because to do that, 48 hours is not enough... They have to convene the parliament,’ Sarmento said.
   The head of the parliament, Fransisco Guterres, told a news conference that unless the prime minister resigns, he can only be constitutionally removed from office if he dies or is incapacitated, or there is a majority vote in the legislature to remove him.

India’s opposition Hindu nationalist party is reeling from a drink and drugs scandal that has tarnished its image as a guardian of public morality, analysts say.
   In the scandal that has gripped the country, a son of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s late top strategist has been jailed after overdosing on drugs during a late-night party during which an aide also died.
   India’s media has given reams of coverage to the scandal which broke barely a month after the BJP mourned the death of strategist Pramod Mahajan, touted as a future prime minister, who was gunned down by his brother in an apparent jealous rage.
   The latest events have ‘brought into the open the decadent underbelly’ of the BJP which ‘claimed to be the repository of ethical politics,’ said Mumbai Daily News columnist Swapan Dasgupta who frequently writes on the BJP.
   Rahul Mahajan, 31, was raced unconscious to hospital last Thursday after snorting heroin and quaffing champagne in an impromptu party at his father’s home in New Delhi, police have said.
   His father’s personal secretary, Bibek Maitra, was dead on arrival at hospital after ingesting the same lethal cocktail, the police have said.
   Mahajan and Maitra had been due to travel the next day to Assam to immerse his father’s ashes in the holy Brahmaputra River as part of Hindu death rites.
   The police now say mobile phone records suggest Maitra was a regular drug user. And as the scandal deepens, the police have arrested a key BJP official on accusations of destroying evidence.
   Rahul, who dabbled in film-making, had been tipped as a political heir to his charismatic father, renowned for his oratorical and organisational talents. Now he stands charged with consumption and possession of narcotics.
   Plans were afoot to make him a youth wing leader as the BJP—which has been floundering since its 2004 defeat by the Congress party—sought to capitalise on the legacy of his father who had also been the BJP’s leading fundraiser, reports said.
   ‘He is a very hardworking and able boy. He will go far,’ BJP president Rajnath Singh said before the scandal.
   The public spotlight fell on Rahul, who has denied wrongdoing, after the death of his father gunned down by his resentful brother. The police have said the brother had accused his wellknown sibling of shutting him out of his life and humiliating him.

Malaysia’s government and business leaders on Thursday rallied to the defence of prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after a blistering attack from former premier Mahathir Mohamad who handed him the job.
   A row between the two exploded on Wednesday when Mahathir accused his successor of breaking his promises and damaging the country by rolling back the veteran leader’s initiatives.
   Mahathir said he had a habit of ‘choosing the wrong people’ and that he had been ‘stabbed in the back’.
   ‘I chose him and I expected a certain degree of gratefulness,’ he said of Abdullah who was appointed three years ago.

Thailand has begun three days of solemn religious services to honor King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 60th year on the throne, leading up to celebrations next week with royalty from 25 nations.
   The services will take place in a throne hall at the Grand Palace, a sprawling complex of gilded temples and palaces that is one of Bangkok’s most recognisable landmarks.
   The king, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, and his family will pay homage to deceased members of the royal family in a private ceremony to be broadcast live around the country.
   Religious services will run through Saturday. Royals from around the world arrive at the weekend for more celebrations Monday and Tuesday, including fireworks and a parade of carved and gilded barges through the capital on the Chao Phraya River.

Indonesia’s most dangerous volcano spewed a spectacular roiling cloud of hot gas and ash down its southern slope Thursday, sending more than 15,000 villagers fleeing to safety, scientists said.
   Mount Merapi has been venting steam and ash for weeks, but the Thursday morning burst was the largest yet, with billowing, dark gray clouds avalanching 3 1/2 miles down its slopes, said Sugiono, an Indonesian vulcanologist who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
   Some scientists say a powerful May 27 earthquake that killed more than 5,700 people in an area just 25 miles south of Mount Merapi may have contributed to the volcano’s volatility in recent weeks.
   The rumbling mountain’s lava dome has swelled, raising concerns that it could suddenly collapse and send scalding clouds of fast-moving gas that have yet to be evacuated.

India’s federal government will hold fresh talks with representatives of a powerful northeastern rebel group aimed at ending three decades of bloodshed, an official said Thursday.
   Interior minister Shivraj Patil will lead the talks with 11 peace emissaries of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom, which has been fighting for an independent homeland for Assam since 1979, the government official said.
   The talks will be held on June 22 in the Indian capital.
   ‘The agenda is primarily to pave the way for signing a bilateral ceasefire agreement and then beginning direct negotiations with the rebel leadership,’ said the official, declining to give his name.
   Previous rounds of talks between the government and ULFA representatives were held in October and February.
   Peace representatives said the talks may pave the way for direct negotiations with the rebels.
   ‘The June 22 talks would be crucial as several important issues that could ultimately lead to direct negotiations between the ULFA leadership and the government would be discussed,’ said Assamese writer Indira Goswami, one of the peace members.
   The rebels are demanding the release of at least five senior jailed ULFA leaders before beginning direct talks with New Delhi.

Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, a former ambassador to France and one of the first women to practice law in Bahrain, will be elected president of the UN General Assembly Thursday, a spokeswoman for the assembly said Wednesday.
   Khalifa is to succeed Jan Eliasson, who is also Sweden’s foreign minister. She will become the third woman to preside over the 191-member assembly after Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India in 1953 and Angie E Brooks of Liberia in 1969.
   Her choice was approved by the assembly’s Asian bloc, which under a regional rotation system, is tasked with choosing the next president, spokeswoman Pragato Pascale said.
   A lawyer by training, Khalifa, 53, was one of the first two women to practice law in Bahrain and she defended women before Islamic Sharia courts. She is currently legal adviser to the Royal Court in Bahrain.

The Taiwan president, Chen Shui-bian, Thursday lashed out at the opposition’s bid to oust him through a referendum, saying it was an attempt at revenge over his reelection victory.
   ‘Recently somebody said that pushing for a recall and no-confidence vote would step up the probe into the scandals (involving my family). But this is blatant interfering with judicial operations with political powers,’ Chen said in a letter posted on his website.
   Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday announced his party would launch a bid to recall the president amid corruption scandals involving Chen’s wife, son-in-law and some top aides.
   But Ma also urged the president to resign voluntarily.
   ‘We would like to terminate the corrupted and rotten government and build an honest and clean system for the people,’ Ma said. Chen said the recall bid smacked of revenge.
   ‘We do not agree with some politicians who take advantage of judicial investigations to engage in power struggles... they must not use ‘fairness and justice’ as excuses,’ the president said.
   ‘Today the so-called ‘judicial justice’ has been twistedly applied, that when one person commits a crime the whole extended family must pay the price. It comes from hatred... and an act of revenge.’

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Thursday rejected any negotiation on the kind of nuclear technology Iran wants to use, after the international community put up an offer for Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment.
   ‘We will negotiate about common concerns and for clearing up misunderstandings in the international atmosphere but we will never negotiate about what kind of technology we want to use,’ Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television.
   ‘You should know that the Iranian nation will never negotiate about its definite rights with anyone,’ the president said.
   His speech came as the international community was awaiting Tehran’s response to an offer of incentives submitted by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Tuesday to Iranian officials.
   So far, Iranian officials have neither rejected nor signalled any acceptance of the package, which asks Iran to stop enrichment of uranium for continuation of the talks.
   ‘If they think they can hold a stick above the head of Iranian people and threaten them, and on the other side talk about negotiations, they must know that the Iranian nation will certainly reject such an attitude and there will be no chance for negotiations,’ Ahmadinejad warned.
   ‘It’s time for them to be either fair and just and give up the arrogant attitude and make positive steps alongside other nations to work on peace and security,’ he said.
   ‘Or they should know they will be faced with a firm slap of the nations who are rising up.’
   Tehran has repeatedly insisted it will not stop sensitive nuclear fuel cycle work.

Bombs struck a busy outdoor market and a police patrol in a mostly Shia area of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 40, police said.
   The first explosion targeted a police patrol in the New Baghdad area in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and four civilians and wounding 11 people, police lieutenant Ali Abbas said.
   Thirteen people were killed and 39 wounded when the bomb detonated at the entrance of the market, severely damaging several shops, police colonel Ahmed Abod said.
   Also Thursday, Iraq’s parliament approved new ministers of defence, interior and national security, ending a three-week stalemate among Iraq’s religious and ethnic groups over the crucial posts.
   The three men were sworn in after Nouri al-Maliki announced the death of al-Zarqawi.

China, US look to improve military ties
China and the United States held high-level talks here Thursday aimed at improving military ties, as Beijing announced it would send observers to US-led war games in the Pacific Ocean. Assistant secretary of defense Peter Rodman held one day of meetings with senior Chinese military officials as part of regular defense talks between the two nations, a US embassy spokeswoman said, without giving details. Zhang Qinsheng, assistant chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, headed the Chinese delegation at the talks, which are held each year, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Five cops killed in south Thailand bomb
At least five policemen were killed and two seriously injured Thursday when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in restive southern Thailand, the police said. The 15-kilo bomb exploded at the foot of a bridge in Rue So village in Narathiwat, the most violent of the Muslim-majority provinces along the southern border with Malaysia. The police were riding a pick-up as part of an advance security team protecting teachers who were returning home from school Thursday afternoon. Five of them died, while two were seriously injured, colonel Banlue Chuvet said. The bomb was hidden in a fire extinguisher and placed on the road, he said.

Two S Korean pilots dead in jet crash
South Korea’s Air Force confirmed Thursday two of its pilots were killed when a US-made F-15K fighter jet crashed in the sea off the southeast coast the previous day. Body parts were recovered in the sea hours after the rescue team found wreckage of the jet and oil slicks, the Air Force said. An altar was set up to mourn for the two at a southern Air Force base. Air Force spokesman Kwon Oh-Song said investigators were looking into the exact cause of the crash as the search was still under way. The F-15K disappeared from Air Force radar screens during a night-time interception exercise some 350 kilometers southeast of Seoul in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) on Wednesday.

Suharto celebrates 85th birthday
Eighty-five horses-and-carts clicked along the streets of the Indonesian capital Thursday as well-wishers sent bouquets to the home of former dictator Suharto to celebrate his 85th birthday. A personal aide said a party for 300 was planned for the ex-president, who has escaped trial for massive corruption due to ill health, at his home in Jakarta’s leafy residential area of Menteng. Suharto received birthday kisses from his children and grandchildren but would meet guests from outside his family Thursday night for ‘a low-key festivity’, the aide, who declined to be named, said. ‘Suharto will be using a wheelchair to meet the guests,’ he said. Absent—at least earlier in the day—was youngest son Hutomo ‘Tommy’ Mandala Putra.
— AFP

Brown will replace Blair well before election: Straw
The British prime minister, Tony Blair, will quit and hand over to Gordon Brown ‘well before’ the next general election in 2009 or 2010, Leader of the Commons Jack Straw said in an interview to be published Thursday. ‘Everybody knows that Tony will go, go well before the next election; that unless something astonishing happens, that I’m not anticipating, that Gordon is his successor,’ Straw told the Spectator magazine. Straw, who was moved from the Foreign Office in last month’s Cabinet reshuffle, said he would be ‘astonished’ if Brown was not elected unopposed by the party when Blair stands
down.
— AFP

Annan rejects US plea that he repudiate
his deputy
The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, refused on Wednesday a US demand that he repudiate his deputy for accusing Washington of relying on the United Nations but failing to defend it against domestic critics. An outraged US ambassador John Bolton, while not demanding the resignation of the UN deputy secretary-general, Mark Malloch, Brown, called his remarks ‘a very grave mistake.’ ‘Even though the target of the speech was the United States, the victim, I fear, will be the United Nations,’ Bolton told reporters after speaking with Annan. Malloch Brown, a Briton named deputy secretary-general in March after serving as Annan’s chief of staff and head of the UN development programme, delivered on Tuesday what he called a ‘sincere and constructive critique of US policy towards the UN by a friend and admirer.’ ‘The prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable,’ Malloch Brown told a New York political conference.
— Reuters

Last women-only Oxford college
to go mixed
The last bastion of all-female education at Britain’s elite Oxford University is to come to an end after teaching staff voted on Wednesday to admit men for the first time in 113 years. Two rounds of voting by members of St Hilda’s governing body saw a two-thirds majority secured to pass a motion to admit male students, the college said in a statement. ‘We are proud of our heritage as women’s college but plan to build on that with a new focus for the 21st century, now that women can go to every college in Oxford.
— AFP