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Sri Lankan government, Tamil rebels to discuss power sharing in Berlin
January 30, 2003 | adminSri Lanka’s government and Tamil Tiger rebels will discuss how to share power when they meet next week in Berlin for the fifth round of peace talks, the top government negotiator said Wednesday. The rebels say they have given up their demand for an independent homeland and are willing to settle for autonomy within Sri Lanka. Both sides have agreed to work on a federal structure of power sharing but the details are still to be worked out. “Now we are in a position to talk about specific issues and discuss how to make progress with these matters in the next few months,” government negotiator Gamini Peiris said. The two sides halted 19 years of fighting last February and have since held four rounds of peace talks to end the war, which has left 65,000 people dead. Full Story
Russia: Unaware of Iraq Links with Al Qaeda
January 30, 2003 | adminRussia has no knowledge of links between Iraq and al Qaeda extremists, blamed by Washington for the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said during a visit to Bulgaria on Thursday. “So far, neither Russia nor any other country has information about Iraq’s ties with al Qaeda. Nobody has provided us with such information…,” he told a news conference. President Bush said this week that Washington would provide evidence of banned Iraqi weapons and of links to terrorist groups at the U.N. Security Council next week. Ivanov said: “If we receive such information we will analyze it. Statements made so far are not backed by concrete documents and concrete facts.” Britain on Wednesday linked Iraq with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, but said the extent of the ties was unclear. Full Story
Insurgents in Nepal Announce Cease-Fire
January 30, 2003 | adminMaoist rebels in Nepal announced a cease-fire tonight and said they would enter into peace talks with the government, raising hopes for an end to a six-year conflict that has claimed more than 7,000 lives. In a statement faxed to news organizations in the capital of Katmandu, the rebels’ leader, who goes by the name of Prachanda, said he ordered an immediate halt to military operations against government forces in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom. In return, the statement said, the government had agreed to stop calling the rebels terrorists and to drop reward offers for the arrest of Prachanda and other rebel leaders. Full Story
U.S. Links Indonesian Troops to Deaths of 2 Americans
January 30, 2003 | adminBush administration officials have determined that Indonesian soldiers carried out a deadly ambush that killed two American teachers returning from a picnic in a remote area of Indonesia last August, senior administration officials say. The conclusion, which follows a preliminary investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is likely to muddy relations between Washington and Jakarta. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and the Bush administration has been trying to persuade its president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, to take a more aggressive stand against terrorism and to support Washington’s policy on Iraq. Full Story
Colombia Rebels Plan Handoff of US, UK Journalists
January 30, 2003 | adminMarxist Colombian rebels called on Wednesday for an official commission to receive a U.S. photographer and British reporter kidnapped last week in a violent stretch of eastern Colombia, and reiterated plans to release the journalists “safe and sound.” “We are requesting a commission from the public prosecutor’s office and the (government’s) human rights office … to receive the journalists,” the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, or ELN, said in a statement obtained by Reuters. British reporter Ruth Morris and U.S. photographer Scott Dalton were abducted while traveling on freelance assignment for the Los Angeles Times along a rural road on Jan. 21 in the province of Arauca, where U.S. Special Forces this month started training local troops in counterinsurgency techniques. Full Story
Colombian Rebels Free TV Crew
January 30, 2003 | adminJournalists are released in the province where a photographer and writer on assignment for The Times are being held by other rebels. Guerrillas on Tuesday freed a five-person television crew kidnapped last weekend in the same area of northeastern Colombia where a reporter and photographer on assignment for the Los Angeles Times are being held. The members of the crew, who were working for Colombia’s RCN network, were seized Sunday by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The news team had gone to Arauca province to cover the kidnapping of freelance reporter Ruth Morris and freelance photographer Scott Dalton. Full Story
US advice adds to England's Zimbabwe fears
January 30, 2003 | adminThe England players’ representative Richard Bevan said the team’s World Cup opener in Harare must be moved to South Africa after the US State Department urged Americans to consider leaving the country. The US advice came after the England players issued a statement on Monday saying they wanted their match against Zimbabwe in Harare on February 13 moved to main World Cup hosts South Africa on safety grounds. The State Department said: “Zimbabwe is in the midst of political, economic and humanitarian crises with serious implications for the security situation in the country. “All US citizens in Zimbabwe are urged to take those measures they deem appropriate to ensure their well being, including consideration of departure.” Full Story
South African 'truth' row resolved
January 30, 2003 | adminThe last obstacle to the publication of the final report of South Africa’s Truth an Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been removed. In an out-of-court settlement in Cape Town, the TRC has agreed to amend a number of sections which blamed the mainly-Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party for human rights abuses during the final years of apartheid. The TRC, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was set up to investigate human rights violations under apartheid, to advance reconciliation and the reconstruction of a new South Africa. The final report is now set to be published in the first half of this year, opening the way for thousands of victims of the apartheid era to receive compensation. Doctor Mangosutho Buthelezi and his Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had questioned the findings of the report and a court case was due to begin on Wednesday to challenge 37 entries directly accusing both the IFP and Doctor Buthelezi of human rights abuses. Full Story
Ivory Coast Army Rejects Power-Sharing Deal With Rebels
January 30, 2003 | adminA French-brokered peace accord aimed at ending a brutal four-month-long civil war in this country seemed to teeter this evening, as the army rejected key elements of a power-sharing deal with rebel groups and aligned itself with supporters of Ivory Coast’s elected government. The military made its position clear in a letter to Ivory Coast’s president, Laurent Gbagbo, rejecting calls for demobilization. Full Story
France 'ready' to evacuate Ivory Coast
January 30, 2003 | adminFrench Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has said France is ready to evacuate its nationals from Ivory Coast, after violent protests sparked by a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s four-month-old civil war. The deal, signed in France on Saturday, stipulates that supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo should share power with rebels within a unity government. But in a letter to the president, the army says it will not accept the rebels taking over the defence and interior ministries, which the rebels say has been agreed. Mr Gbagbo has yet to address the nation to explain the deal, which sparked fresh anti-French protests on Tuesday. Both the commercial capital, Abidjan, and Agboville, the scene of ethnic clashes on Tuesday, are now reported to be calm. Full Story