Saturday, January 3, 1998 |
Saturday, January 3, 1998 |
Kaunda tells court Chiluba on trial LUSAKA -- Zambian former president Kenneth Kaunda, detained for suspected involvement in a coup bid, yesterday defied a condition for his release from jail into house arrest by attacking his successor in court. Mr Kaunda, who was in the Lusaka High Court, told backers in a packed courtroom: "It's not Kenneth Kaunda who is on trial, it's President Frederick Chiluba who is on trial." However, the hearing was later adjourned until next Tuesday without any ruling either on formally charging Mr Kaunda or releasing him altogether. One of the terms for Mr Kaunda's restriction at his Lusaka home, ordered by Mr Chiluba who freed him on Wednesday from a maximum security prison, was a ban on active participation in politics and giving press interviews. "Bitter men are known to do bitter things," Mr Kaunda stated, in an apparent reference to Mr Chiluba. The veteran former head of state, 73, also ignored a senior police officer in charge on the premises, who told him not to address people in court. "Don't talk to people here," the policeman said, but Mr Kaunda pretended not to hear him as he continued addressing the public gallery. The first leader of independent Zambia, which won independence from Britain in 1964, spoke as he entered the court just before the resumption of his habeas corpus hearing, which had been adjourned from Monday. He was arrested on December 25, three days after returning to Zambia from abroad, and accused of involvement in an October coup bid by junior officers but not formally charged. "This is my business, we have a good case. Let us fight it peacefully, we are bound to win, victory is certain," said Mr Kaunda, stressing he was not bitter. Appearing relaxed, Mr Kaunda spoke freely to journalists during a brief procedural adjournment, and complained that conditions at his Kalundu home in the Lusaka region were strict. "I cannot see my children and my grandchildren, the conditions are harsh," he said, adding that he had only been allowed to talk with his wife Betty and son, Kaweche, since his transfer from the notorious Mukobeko prison, about 100 kilometres from the capital. Police did not stop two foreign television crews as they filmed Mr Kaunda inside the court and as he was being led away through the back entrance. After hours of deliberations -- as the defence applied to amend its original affidavit in light of the removal of Mr Kaunda from jail and his subsequent placement at home -- the court adjourned to Tuesday for a ruling on the application. His lawyers expressed concern at the nature of Mr Kaunda's house arrest conditions --his phone has been cut off and he is allowed two visitors a week. "His liberty is not dependent on whether tonight he rests his head on the pillow, but (his right) to see his family and friends when and if he wishes," argued Mwangala Zalamis, one of Kaunda's seven lawyers. Hundreds of supporters outside the court chanted songs in praise of Mr Kaunda. -- Sapa-AFP Frank Muir dies LONDON -- Veteran comedy writer and broadcaster Frank Muir died yesterday at the age of 77. Born in Ramsgate, Kent, he worked for 25 years with Denis Norden. Together they produced the classics Take It From Here, The Glums, My Word! and My Music. In the 1960s, he was involved in producing some of the best TV series of the time, including Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part He wrote some 30 books and documentaries. -- Sapa-AFP Resistance factor PARIS -- French researchers have discovered a hereditary genetic mutation that appears to provide resistance to the deadly Aids virus, French media reported yesterday. The findings were announced in today's edition of the British medical journal Lancet and reported by French television and the daily Le Monde. Various US and European researchers have been pursuing the possible existence of molecular processes that would naturally provide protection against Aids. Dr Alberto Beretta of St Joseph's Hospital in Paris and Dr Luc Montagnier of the prestigious Pasteur Institute took blood samples from 18 men at high risk for Aids but who over time did not contract the virus. According to the French researchers, people with natural protection have cells that do not synthesise a molecule needed for the Aids virus to attach to cells of the CCR5 molecule. This was already known in 1996, but the latest research shows that a genetic mutation of the molecule -- known as delta 32 and m303 -- can prevent or slow the spread of the virus. The researchers described the case of one man, with the two genetic mutations of the CCR5 molecule, who had been exposed to the Aids virus, but who naturally appeared to have cells that were resistant to infection. The man's parents also had cells resistant to infection because they had the same genetic configuration. The man was not named. Dr Beretta and Dr Montagnier note in their article that only a small number of people appear to have such protection due to the molecular structure of their cells. But it is possible that in the future, such molecules could be artificially produced and perhaps used to help provide resistance to people already infected with Aids. The two researchers went on to investigate blood samples from 209 other men and found three among them who had genetic mutations that provided protection from the Aids virus. Since the researchers did not have the ethnic background of the donors available, they were unable to determine which ethnic groups would be naturally protected against the virus. The Pasteur Institute did not return telephone calls for more information about the Lancet article. Dr Montagnier, co-discoverer of the Aids virus, is France's premier researcher into the disease. -- Sapa-AP New Year cheered in amid violence PARIS -- Revellers from New York to New Zealand cheered in the New Year, but the raucous celebrations were muted by a massacre in Algeria, violence in Northern Ireland, and the return of the Kennedy curse. There was a double celebration in New York, where more than 600000 people in Times Square braved freezing temperatures as they cheered and tossed confetti to welcome the New Year and mark the Big Apple's 100th anniversary. On January 1, 1898, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx were officially joined together to form the five-borough metropolis. Similar scenes of mass celebration were played out around the world, but as in previous years, the cheers all too often turned to tears as violence, excess and accidents took a grisly toll. In Algeria, 78 civilians were killed and 68 others wounded in three attacks on villagers in the western region of Relizane. The latest massacres, which coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, raises to more than 400 the number of people killed in the last 10 days in Algeria. Europe was also rocked by violence, with the worst incident in Belfast, where suspected Protestant gunmen sprayed a Catholic bar with bullets, killing one man and wounding five. The incident, believed to be retaliation for the murder of a Protestant loyalist extremist by republicans in a Belfast jail last week, threatened to derail the Northern Ireland peace process. In the eastern French city of Strasbourg, disaffected rioting youths burned more than 20 vehicles and injured two riot policemen in tense, poor suburbs. But in Paris around half-a-million people crammed the Champs-Elysées to see in 1998 in the usual cacophony of car horns and popping champagne corks. In London, tens of thousands of people, many of them tourists, packed Trafalgar Square, while the Scottish city of Edinburgh, which laid on a sumptuous fireworks display against the towering backdrop of medieval Edinburgh Castle, drew a crowd of 200000. In Poland, one man was beaten to death in a brawl which erupted during street parties in Radom, south of Warsaw, while another was stabbed to death in the southwestern city of Nowa Sol. Another 212 people were injured nationwide, mainly in fireworks accidents. Police in the southwestern town of Glucholazy detained 20 people after fights broke out and stores were looted. Car accidents throughout Europe also claimed lives on New Year's Eve, including four teenagers in the Czech Republic and 14 people, mainly youths, in Italy. Celebrants struggled to make the most of a welcome, if temporary, break from anxieties over the region's mounting financial turmoil. In Japan a spectacular firework display lit up the venue of the forthcoming Winter Olympics in Nagano, but newspapers warned the country's economic miracle was over. There was more gloom in South Korea where president-elect Kim Dae-Jung warned the country was facing its most difficult time since the Korean War. He said 1998 would determine whether South Korea was on the brink of a "national catastrophe or rejuvenation". Hong Kong's first New Year under Chinese rule failed to go off with a bang -- the noonday gun failed to fire to mark midnight after being loaded with dud ammunition. In Australia, a fireman was killed and five were badly burned fighting bushfires in New South Wales and Victoria. Hundreds of holiday-makers had to be evacuated as the fires were fanned by scorching winds. Meanwhile, it was a dismal New Year for the tragedy-tainted Kennedy clan in the United States, as Mr Michael Kennedy, a son of slain US senator Robert Kennedy, slammed into a tree while skiing in Colorado and was killed. But hours before the new year, Brazilians were relieved to see police storm the Sorocaba prison to rescue some 600 hostages, including 200 children, to end a 72-hour prison uprising near Sao Paulo. In Rio de Janeiro nearly 1,5 million people crowded the famed Copacabana Beach to cheer in the New Year with fireworks and rituals honouring Yemanja, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of the sea. As in the past four years, Zapatista National Liberation Army fighters and their supporters in Mexico's impoverished state of Chiapas held a moment of silence. But this year they also honoured 45 indigenous Maya massacred in the town of Acteal on December 22. In Cuba, the celebrations coincided with the 39th anniversary of President Fidel Castro's defeat of the Batista dictatorship but there were no parades or other public celebrations. A total of 147 people died in New Year's Eve celebrations across Colombia, most of them young people who drank too much and became violent, police said. In El Salvador, 38 people died and 295 were injured in New Year festivities, emergency services officials said. From Tokyo it is reported that six Japanese choked to death and nine others were rushed to hospital on New Year's Day after they ate traditional glutinous "mochi" rice cakes, officials said yesterday. The Tokyo Fire Department said the victims, aged between 45 and 95 and living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, died of suffocation after eating ozouni soup, which contains the rice cakes. Nine people were rushed to hospital after rice cakes became stuck in their throats. Two of them were in serious condition, the officials said. Mochi is made by pounding cooked rice into a sticky paste and cutting it into pieces to be eaten on New Year's and for decorations. Last year, two elderly Japanese choked to death on the first two days of the New Year in Tokyo after eating ozouni soup. -- Sapa-AFP
ABOVE: Muscovites celebrate the incoming New Year on Moscow's Red Square with champagne a few seconds after midnight. BELOW: Tens of thousands of people gather on the Champs-Elysées in Paris to see in the New Year. (AP)
Netanyahu engulfed in budget crisis JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was battling yesterday to hammer out a compromise on his austerity budget to end the political crisis engulfing his government and keep his fragile grip on power. He has until Monday afternoon to reach a budget plan and persuade Foreign Minister David Levy not to carry out his threat to resign, in the latest blow to his fractious coalition. Mr Levy's threat has paralysed the government just days ahead of a visit to the region by US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross on a new mission to rescue the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But Israel has now asked the United States to delay Mr Ross's arrival, which had been expected on Monday, "by a day or two", Mr Netanyahu's office said. Mr Ross is due to hold talks with Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian president Yasser Arafat to prepare for separate meetings later this month between the two leaders and US President Bill Clinton. Mr Netanyahu was forced on Thursday night to delay until Monday afternoon the vital parliament vote on his controversial 1998 budget, the first time in Israel's history such a vote has been put back. "I am doing everything possible to satisfy Mr Levy's demands and implement the commitments I have made," Mr Netanyahu said yesterday, as the country entered its second day without a budget. Mr Levy, whose Gesher party has five of the coalition's 66 seats in the 120-member Parliament, said on Thursday he planned to resign in protest over social-spending cuts. "I am going to vote against the budget, and this will mean my resignation," Mr Levy told a news conference in which he delivered a scathing attack on the prime minister, accusing him of breaking promises on his budget plans. However Mr Levy, 60, had left the door open for possible bargaining by saying his resignation would only come into effect after the budget vote. Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman got his top officials together yesterday to examine the possibility of modifying the budget to take Mr Levy's complaints into account. But Mr Neeman himself has expressed his displeasure over the budget, and Israeli radio suggested his resignation was also a possibility. The dovish Mr Levy also slammed Mr Netanyahu's policy on the peace process as "a flight to nowhere". The US has been pushing Mr Netanyahu to come up with a credible plan for troop withdrawals from the West Bank in line with US-backed peace accords with the Palestinians. Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai has pleaded with Mr Levy to remain in the government. "I will do anything so that he will stay in his post because he is essential to the peace process," he said. Mr Mordechai and Mr Levy head the government's moderate wing and have stressed the importance of respecting commitments to the Palestinians on the troop withdrawals, already months overdue. Peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis have been deadlocked since mid-March, largely over Israel's settlement policies and failure to carry out the troop withdrawals, and suicide bombings by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem. A long-time rival of Mr Netanyahu's, Mr Levy has repeatedly threatened to resign in various showdowns since the government came to office in June 1996. "No matter how this crisis ends, it is a heavy blow for the prime minister, said Mr Rubi Rivlin, a deputy in Mr Netanyahu's Likud party. The departure of Mr Levy, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, would leave Mr Netanyahu's cabinet even more dominated by right-wing and religious parties reluctant to pursue the peace process. Meanwhile, a poll published yesterday showed that three out of four Israelis are in favour of early elections, which are not due until 2000 or the creation of a national unity government with Labour. Only 23 percent were in favour of keeping the current coalition, said the poll by Maariv newspaper. The poll also put Labour leader Ehud Barak ahead if elections were held now with 41 percent of the vote compared with 33 percent for Mr Netanyahu. -- Sapa-AFP 150 civilians die in Hutu retreat BUJUMBURA -- Hundreds of Hutu rebels launched an attack on an army base outside the capital on Thursday in a burst of fighting that left at least 150 civilians dead, officials said. After battling for several hours with heavy artillery fire, the army beat back the Hutu rebels, but not before at least 30 rebels and two soldiers had been killed, Lieutenant Colonel Mamert Sinarinzi told Burundian radio. The rebels, estimated at 1000-strong, then retreated north through Gitaramu, where at least 150 civilians, also Hutus, were killed, Mr Jean-Luc Ndiziye, Burundi's ambassador to Britain, said. In the past, Hutu rebels have killed Hutu civilians who they allege have failed to support them in their rebellion. But most of those attacks have been organised strikes on specific locations; in this case, it appeared that the civilians happened to be in the path of the Hutu rebels' retreat. Burundi's majority Hutus and its minority Tutsi-led military government have been locked in battle for more than four years, ever since the 1993 killing of Burundi's first Hutu president by Tutsi paratroopers. More than 150000 people, mostly civilians, have been slain. A retired Tutsi major, Mr Pierre Buyoya, seized power in a July 1996 coup, promising an end to the country's ethnic strife. He held talks with the Hutu rebel National Council for the Defence of Democracy, CNDD, earlier this year, but the killings and army reprisals have continued unabated. African countries slapped a regional boycott on Burundi to penalise it for Mr Buyoya's coup. The sanctions have been gradually eased in recent months, but the country is still in a deep economic mess. Although rebels regularly strike in northwestern and southern Burundi, Thursday's bloodshed was the first rebel attack on a military target near the capital in two years. Some of the rebels killed had documents showing they were members of Rwanda's defeated Hutu army, Mr Ndiziye said. That indicates Burundian Hutu rebel leader Leonard Nyangoma, a former interior minister, may have succeeded in his efforts to forge alliances with Rwandan Hutu rebels and former Zaire government troops. Burundian rebels have bases in the northwest of their country, but apparently lost a foothold across the border in eastern Congo when a sympathetic government was overthrown last year. The Tutsi-dominated armies of Rwanda and Burundi helped Laurent Kabila's forces topple late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in the former Zaire last May. In the aftermath, the border region has been tightly controlled in an effort to prevent crossborder attacks by Hutu rebels. Tutsis comprise 14 percent of Burundi's population, but have controlled the country, and its 85 percent Hutu majority, for all but four months since Burundi's independence of 1962. Rwanda shares the same ethnic makeup and also has been plagued by ethnic killing. -- Sapa-AP More girls named Di LONDON -- There was a significant increase in the number of babies named Diana in the weeks following the death of the Princess of Wales, the Office of National Statistics revealed yesterday. For most of 1996, an average of three babies a month were named Diana, but in September, 29 girls became namesakes of the princess. Diana remained outside the top 50 girls' names for 1997, however. Tops was Chloe, followed by Emily, Sophie, Jessica and Megan. With boys, Jack remains a firm favourite as the most popular name for the third year running. James, Thomas, Daniel and Joshua followed in the ranking. -- Sapa-DPA Bookie refuses death date bet LONDON -- A bookmaker in betting-crazy Britain drew the line when a man tried to place a bet that his wife would die on March 25, 2007. The bookmaker, Mr Graham Sharp, said: "There is always a danger that if you accept such a bet the people will go out and try to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy." -- Sapa-AFP Young
behind LONDON -- Children aged between 10 and 16 are responsible for 40 percent of cases of pickpocketing in London and one third of car thefts and burglaries, The Guardian reported yesterday. The paper quoted Metropolitan Police statistics supplied to a project aimed at analysing the links between criminality and an absence of education. Out of more than 500 juvenile delinquents questioned, 21 percent could not write their own name and address correctly, and half had problems telling the time or giving the days of the week and months of the year in the correct order. Most offences carried out by the descendants of Charles Dickens' Artful Dodger were carried out in school hours, the paper said. -- Sapa-AFP Ruins from Nero's times found CAIRO -- Archaeologists have unearthed the ruins of a Roman town built during Emperor Nero's reign in southern Egypt, an antiquities official said yesterday. A four-year excavation by Canadian and Egyptian archaeologists has revealed homes as high as two storeys, said Mohammed el-Saghir, the director-general for southern Egyptian antiquities. The town lies in an area called Esment el-Kharab, near the Dakhla Oasis, 550 kilometres southwest of Cairo, Mr el-Saghir said. The buildings, erected during Nero's reign (54-68 A.D.) were "in good condition", he said. Also unearthed were the remains of a temple dedicated to Tutu, a local god. Its walls, about one metre high, bore the name of Tutu in hieroglyphics. The team is continuing to work on the site and is transla-ting hieroglyphics carved in stone, he said. The town is believed to have been inhabited by Egyptians, who supplied wheat and fruit to Rome. The main Roman city in the area at that time was in the Dakhla Oasis, which stood on a major African trade route. -- Sapa-AP Aussie
fire fighters SYDNEY -- Thousands of fire fighters battled severe fires across three states of Australia yesterday. Rural Fire Services Commissioner Phil Koperberg said the fires were the worst he has experienced in his 30 years as a fire fighter. "Unfortunately as we continue to fly across the state, we're finding more and more fires as a result of lightning storms in recent days. And that pattern will clearly continue until the lightning stops," Mr Koperberg said. In New South Wales, more than 50 fires continued to burn, while in Victoria 30000 hectares of bushland were expected to be destroyed. The Rural Fire Service also reported fires burning out of control in Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. One fire fighter was killed and seven left amazed to be alive after a sudden change in weather conditions sent a fire storm rushing at them as they fought a remote blaze in New South Wales. David Quinlivan, 45, was burned alive when he courageously turned the team's fire truck around to protect his colleagues. Michael Young, 31, was praised for his heroism in ignoring severe burns to 30 percent of his body to revive a colleague lying unconscious after the fire storm hit. -- Sapa-DPA |
