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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 09:07 AM
Chances of a peace agreement now seem remote
Maoist rebels fighting Nepal's constitutional monarchy have attacked two key police posts in the west of the country, killing dozens of officers.
The raids in Dang district left at least 55 police officers and 12 rebels dead while six civilians were also killed in an attack on a bus, officials said.
The BBC's Daniel Lak in the capital Kathmandu says the casualty figure is likely to go up.
Both raids targeted the main east-west highway, one hitting a police station and the other a unit that guards a house belonging to the Interior Security Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka.
Our correspondent says the attacks will be particularly disturbing to the authorities as they appear to mark a return by the the Maoists to targetting security forces.
Guerrilla tactics
The Maoists had recently concentrated on attacking electric power plants, local government offices and other parts of Nepal's infrastructure.
The rebels are adept at surprise attacks in remote regions
But the latest attacks and the high number of casualties show they are still adept at using darkness and terrain to strike hard at security forces.
Thousands of rebels were involved, emerging at night from the thickly forested foothills of the Himalayas.
The interior security minister was not present when the rebels struck Satbariya, killing at least 35 policemen belonging to a special new unit set up specifically to combat the rebels.
Bad weather prevented the army sending in reinforcements by helicopter and some reports suggest that as many as 100 policemen actually died there.
In the nearby town of Lamahi, the rebels killed at least 13 police and attacked a bus, killing six passengers to death.
They also bombed two banks and the local electricity supply house, cutting power and communication in the area.
No mood to surrender
The Dang raids were the biggest since late February, when 34 policemen were killed in Sitalpati while, in all, about 3,000 people have died since the start of the rebels' war in 1996.
King Gyanendra has imposed a state of emergency
King Gyanendra imposed a state of emergency on 26 November and gave the army sweeping powers after the rebels withdrew from peace talks.
Now the conflict seems only to be getting worse.
European Union diplomats accused the rebels earlier this week of merely adding to poverty in the region.
Both sides admit dialogue is the only way to end the fighting, our correspondent says, but the government wants a Maoist surrender first.
As these latest attacks show, laying down arms seems to be the furthest thing from the minds of an emboldened rebel leadership.
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 09:10 AM
World Court Treaty Ratified
UNITED NATIONS, April 12, 2002
Despite vehement U.S. opposition, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal will become a reality on July 1 with support from U.S. allies and nations from every continent.
Ten nations’ ratifications brought the total number of countries to ratify the 1998 treaty establishing the International Criminal Court to 66 - six more than needed to bring the treaty into force on July 1.
“The required number of 60 ratifications for the entry into force of the Rome statute has been reached,” said Chief U.N. legal counsel Hans Corell. “A page in the history of humankind is being turned.”
The 10 nations - Bosnia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Ireland, Jordan, Mongolia, Niger, Romania and Slovakia - deposited papers all at the same time so the honor of being the 60th state did not go to one country.
The tribunal is expected to go into operation next year in The Hague, the Netherlands. The new court can try individuals for the world's most serious atrocities: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other gross human rights abuses.
The court will step in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves. It will have jurisdiction only over crimes committed after the treaty enters into force.
Philippe Kirsch, chairman of the commission preparing for the court's operation and Canada's ambassador to Sweden, said he expects the court to become operational soon after the states that have ratified the treaty meet in early 2003 to select a prosecutor and judges. Cases can come to the court through a state that has ratified the treaty, the U.N. Security Council, or the court's prosecutor, who must get the approval of a three-judge panel.
Kirsch said he believes that, once the court shows it will act in “a very judicial and nonpolitical way,” there will be less opposition.
“In my view, given the United States' tradition of commitment to international justice, it is a matter of time before there is some form of cooperation developing between the United States and an institution of this importance,” he said.
The court will fill a gap first recognized by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 following the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials for World War II's German and Japanese war criminals, respectively. Since then, laws and treaties have outlawed genocide, poison gas and chemical weapons, among other things, but no mechanism has held individuals criminally responsible.
For the Bush administration, however, the court is an unwelcome addition to the international legal establishment. Even though then President Clinton signed the treaty, the United States has refused to ratify it, fearing its citizens would be subject to frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions.
Two weeks ago the Bush administration said it was considering “unsigning” the treaty.
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 09:41 AM
Saturday, April 6, 2002 (Berlin):
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat threatened to commit suicide in front of Israeli soldiers who came face to face with him.
German weekly magazine Focus, due on Monday, quotes an Israeli soldier who said he was part of a group of soldiers surrounding Arafat's headquarters who found themselves by mistake facing Arafat.
Arafat pointed a gun to his head and threatened to pull the trigger if the soldiers approached any further.
The PLO chief reaffirmed this week that he would only leave his headquarters as a martyr, in response to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's offer of a one-way ticket out of the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli army launched its large-scale military sweep, "Operation Defensive Wall", in the West Bank on March 29.
The army first reoccupied Ramallah, trapping Arafat in his West Bank headquarters, before moving on to seize five other cities and arrest at least 1,100 Palestinians.
Israel rejects request
Israel rejected a request by top Palestinian officials today to meet with the besieged Palestinian chief.
The Palestinian leadership, which includes the Palestinian cabinet and the executive of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), had wanted to meet with Arafat in connection with his contacts with US peace envoy Anthony Zinni aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the 18-month-old conflict.
Zinni's meeting with Arafat covered ways to implement the Tenet plan for a ceasefire and the Mitchell plan to relaunch the peace process.
Hamas vows revenge
The armed wing of radical Islamic militant group Hamas has vowed an unprecedented revenge against Israel after six of its fighters were killed in an Israeli missile strike.
"It will be a new kind of punishment this time, of an unaccustomed type that will shake their entity and destroy its pillars," the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
Six Hamas members were killed yesterday in an Israeli helicopter strike, including Qais Idwan, said to have masterminded the deaths of 26 people in a suicide attack last week now called the "Passover Massacre." Idwan was a top chief in the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.
Also killed in the missile strike was Said Abu Awad, the militant who conceived and helped the group build its home-made Katyusha-style Qassam-2 rockets.
Emergency meet
In Cairo, foreign ministers of the pro-palestinian, Arab league are holding an emergency meeting to work out a deal that will ensure an Israeli pullout.
"This emergency extraordinary meeting is being held at the urgent request of the Palestinians. The Palestinian land is being subjected to continued offensives from the Israel and due to escalating violence," said Amr Moussa, Secretary General, Arab League.
The Arab League is hopeful of a solution once US Secretary of State Colin Powell comes to the region on Sunday. But there may be some hurdles as top Palestinian officials say they will meet Powell only after he meets with Arafat. (With PTI inputs)
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 10:09 AM
KATHMANDU, April 12 (Xinhuanet) -- India has agreed to provide a
grant assistance of about 840 million Indian Rupees (about 12
million U.S. dollars) to Nepal for building an Optical Fibre
Cable Network along the highway in the country.
According to an agreement signed here Friday, the optical
fibre cable will cover about 1,000 kilometers along the east-west
highway from Bhadrapur in Jhapa district in the east to Nepalgunj
in Banke district in the west.
The project, which will be executed by Telecommunications
Consultants India Ltd, will be completed over a period of two
years, Bimal Koirala, Secretary of the Nepali Finance Ministry,
told reporters after signing the agreement on behalf of the Nepali
government.
"About 81 towns and villages along the east-west highway of
Nepal will be connected to the telecommunication networks,"
Koirala said.
He also noted that the project will greatly strengthen the
capabilities of Nepal's telecommunication corporations in
expanding their networks of information.
The cooperation in the development of telecommunication sector
between India and Nepal has been a long period of time. The radio
telephone link was established between Kathmandu and New Delhi in
1950. Enditem
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 10:18 AM
¡¡¡¡NEW DELHI, April 11 (Xinhuanet) -- North India's Uttar Pradesh (UP)police handed over eight Nepalese militants arrested from different private nursing homes to Nepal police, a UP Home Department spokesman said Thursday.
¡¡¡¡The militants were arrested by the Special Task force of the Uttar Pradesh police a couple of days ago while they were undergoing treatment at different nursing homes, the Press Trust of India reported.
¡¡¡¡All the militants, including some important anti-government leaders were handed over to Nepal police at the border town of Rupehdeen Wednesday, the spokesman said.
¡¡¡¡The militants who apparently suffered injuries during police encounters in Nepal had come to India for treatment, he added. Enditem
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 11:48 AM
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Nepal's Maoists Kill at Least 50 in Battles
Last Updated: April 12, 2002 08:09 AM ET
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By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Maoist rebels using rocket launchers and bombs killed more than 50 people, many of them policemen, in a string of attacks on police posts in western Nepal, the government said on Friday.
The attacks late on Thursday were the deadliest against security forces since February.
A witness said the rebels attacked the police posts in three villages in Dang district, 280 miles west of Kathmandu.
"We were all terrified, we had no sleep," Goti Buddha, a local journalist in Satbariya village, told Reuters by telephone.
Some buildings were still smoldering in Satbariya after being torched by the rebels. The guerrillas also looted two state banks in nearby Lamahi village and cut power lines in the area, he said.
"The death toll now is 54," said junior home (interior) minister Devendra Raj Kandel.
Soldiers were sent to area but rebels blocked roads with logs, police said.
The victims included 35 policemen in Satbariya and 13 in Lamahi as well as six passengers of a bus set alight by the rebels. There were no casualties in Bhaluwang village.
It was the deadliest attack by the insurgents since February 22 when they killed 34 policemen.
The number of casualties suffered by the rebels was unknown because they normally take their dead with them after an assault.
The rebels are fighting to overthrow Nepal's constitutional monarchy and to set up a one-party communist republic in the impoverished Himalayan country.
They launched their campaign in 1996 and stepped up their attacks after walking out of peace talks last year.
Nepal has imposed a state of emergency to quell the revolt and given the army sweeping powers to crack down on the rebels.
BOLSTERED DRIVE
The country bolstered its counter-insurgency drive after 167 people, mainly soldiers, police and rebels, died in a massive guerrilla offensive in Nepal in mid-February.
The revolt has claimed more than 3,000 lives since 1996 and badly hit the economy of the tourist-dependent nation that draws thousands of backbackers and mountain climbers a year.
It has also forced heavily aid-reliant Nepal to divert development money into the anti-rebel fight.
Nepal has been racked by turmoil since a palace bloodbath last June when most of the royal family, including popular King Birendra, were murdered by the crown prince.
Late last year, Nepal mobilized its army for the first time against the guerrillas, a job previously done by poorly trained police.
But Nepal's mountain terrain has hampered the army's fight to flush out the rebels from their hideouts.
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| MAINA |
Posted
on 12-Apr-02 11:55 AM
Arafat-Linked Group Claims Jerusalem Blast -Hizbollah
Last Updated: April 12, 2002 11:12 AM ET
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BEIRUT (Reuters) - A militant Palestinian group linked to Yasser Arafat claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem on Friday, Lebanon's Hizbollah al-Manar television said.
"The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in Jerusalem. A female martyr carried out the suicide bombing," al-Manar announced in an urgent item.
An editor at the television station told Reuters it received the claim in a call but had no further details.
Israeli police said a young Palestinian woman mingled into a crowd of Jerusalem shoppers on Friday and detonated a large bomb which killed at least six people.
The militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, have carried out repeated suicide bombings since a Palestinian uprising began 18 months ago.
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