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India (Jammu/Kashmir): Impunity for Special Operations Group unacceptable

IRAQ: U.N. Report Projects 34 Million Civilians Would Be Imperiled By War

A religious group obtained and a Cambridge University Web site posted a U.N.
report marked "strictly confidential" on the looming humanitarian crisis should the United States invade Iraq, the Washington Post reports today. The 13-page document, dated Dec. 10, foresees in the event of war 10 million Iraqi civilians in need of immediate aid and 24 million imperiled by disruptions to the U.N.-supervised food supply network currently in place.

The senior U.N. task force that prepared the plan warned that Iraq's electrical power system would falter and that the population would suffer "epidemic if not pandemic" outbreaks of cholera and dysentery in the wake of an armed conflict. The document suggested that U.S.-blocked transportation routes could make delivering aid all but impossible. It also noted that the humanitarian crisis would be worse than the one that followed the 1991 Gulf War because a decade of sanctions have made the Iraqi people heavily reliant on the government for food and other necessities.

"The bulk of the population is now totally dependent on the government of Iraq for a majority, if not all, of their basic needs. Unlike the situation in 1991, they have no way of coping if they cannot access them: the sanctions regime, if anything, has served to increase dependence on the government as almost the sole provider," the report said (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Jan. 7).

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has prohibited U.N. agencies from planning for a humanitarian crisis, lest the U.N. appear to accept war in Iraq as inevitable (Robert Collier, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 5). In that vein, the confidential document advises developing a "plan B" in case "conflict is avoided."

On the other hand, U.N. officials express the desire to be prepared for any eventuality. One unnamed source said, "We have had a lot of experiences in the past where we were accused of not being ready. If something does happen, nobody can say they weren't given a lot of notice" (Lynch, Washington Post). (keralamonitor.com)

7 January 2003

India (Jammu/Kashmir): Impunity for Special Operations Group unacceptable

Amnesty International is disturbed by recent press reports that the government of Jammu and Kashmir is to break the promise made in its recently published Common Minimum Program to investigate all reported cases of custodial killings and violations of human rights and to identify and punish appropriately those found responsible.

In an address to new trainee police recruits on 5th January, Chief Minister Mohammad Sayeed reportedly stated that members of the Special Operations Group, a division of the police dealing with armed insurgency which has been accused of human rights violations, would simply be 'reoriented', implying that wide scale allegations of human rights violations made against them in the past would not necessarily be investigated. He reportedly went on to say that an amnesty would be available to those who have perpetrated abuses.

Amnesty International wrote to Chief Minister Sayeed in December 2002 welcoming the Common Minimum Program as an opportunity for the new government to strengthen the people's trust in the rule of law and their commitment to uphold the human rights of the population in Jammu and Kashmir. The organization is disappointed that the government may be retreating from its commitment to uphold human rights.

Kerala to present Martial Arts in Republic Day Parade.

"Prisoners and hostages were being forced to eat their own ears, big toes and other body parts," Sikulu told IRIN from Beni. He said that pygmies were particularly affected by "these unimaginable atrocities". Quoting reports by internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had fled to areas near Beni, he said: "The invaders - that is the fighters of Jean-Pierre Bemba and those of Roger Lumbala - eat pygmies."

NORTH KOREA: IAEA Says Country Has Enough Plutonium For A "Dirty Bomb"

North Korea is in possession of enough plutonium to create a radiological "dirty bomb," the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday.

The announcement came in the form of a document released in Vienna, at an emergency meeting of the agency's 35-country board of governors that was convened to discuss Pyongyang's alleged defiance of international nuclear safeguards.

Since North Korea removed seals from its facilities late last month, the country may have obtained enough material to create a "dirty bomb," but not a nuclear bomb, the IAEA document indicates. According to the agency, after North Korea reopened its nuclear facilities, it gained access to a "small amount" of plutonium and plutonium acidic powder that had been stored inside a disposal tank at a laboratory used for nuclear reprocessing.

The agency said North Korea probably also has access to 20 damaged fuel rods that were in storage and about 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, from which plutonium could be extracted (Kyodo News/BBC Monitoring, Jan. 7).

The agency yesterday gave North Korea one last chance to abandon efforts to build nuclear weapons, declining for the time being to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

As expected, delegates including Russia and China yesterday approved a resolution deploring North Korea's "unilateral acts" -- expelling IAEA inspectors and reactivating an inactive nuclear complex. Rejecting Pyongyang's attempts to present the crisis as a conflict with the United States, the board called on North Korea to "urgently" resume compliance with its international obligations and warned that there will be no negotiation with the regime of Kim Jong-il until the country stops engaging in "nuclear brinkmanship."

"Compliance and not defiance is the way toward a solution," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said at a press conference after the meeting. "The international community is not ready to negotiate under blackmail, under threat. ... I hope (North Korea) will seize this opportunity."

If the matter is sent to the Security Council, North Korea could face punitive sanctions. According to the Washington Post, yesterday's move reflects countries' uncertainty about how to respond to North Korea, which is more capable than Iraq of inflicting massive destruction on its neighbors.

"It would not be prudent to push them into a corner or to put a noose around their necks," said a senior U.N. official.

The United States welcomed yesterday's resolution. Russia and China, although they voiced support for the text, urged Washington and Pyongyang to engage in dialogue to resolve the crisis. "Aggressive rhetoric and threats, and especially efforts to isolate (North Korea), could only lead to further escalation of tensions," said Russian envoy in Vienna Grigory Berdennikov (Peter Finn, Washington Post, Jan. 7).

North Korea remains defiant. Responding today in a statement released through the official Korean Central News Agency, the country said "sanctions mean a war" and warned that the United States "will not escape its (own) destruction" if Washington uses nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

U.N. Confirms Dispatch Of Special Envoy

The United Nations confirmed yesterday that it is sending University of Peace Council President Maurice Strong, a special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, to the region to try to defuse the crisis. The Canadian diplomat and businessman is expected to outline humanitarian assistance North Korea could receive if it dropped its nuclear weapons program. Strong is ready to listen to anything Pyongyang has to say about its program, U.N. spokeswoman Hua Jiang said.

According to the United Nations, the outside world is prepared to negotiate with North Korea about economic assistance and security, but not if North Korea continues to practice what one senior U.N. official called nuclear "blackmail." If North Korea decides to comply with its obligations, then "all doors [are] open," according to ElBaradei (Jeff Sallot, Globe and Mail, Jan. 7).

Click here for a Globe and Mail story on life in the demilitarized zone between South and North Korea.

IRAQ: No Sign Of Nuclear Program Yet, Says IAEA Chief

 INDO-UK TIES: UK KEEN TO COOPERATE ON WTO ISSUES

PATRICIA HEWITT MEETS SHOURIE

New Delhi- January 8, 2002, Ms. Patricia Hewitt, the British Secretary for Trade & Industry, accompanied by a business delegation from the United Kingdom (UK) met Arun Shourie, Minister for Disinvestment and Commerce & Industry, here this afternoon and during the discussions underlined that the UK was keen to cooperate with India, notably on issues pertaining to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) so as to carry forward the Doha agenda. She emphasised in particular the need to find a way out of the current stalemate on the issue of TRIPs and Public Health, because "if we allow this to fail, we won’t make progress on a whole range of other issues". "The West cannot preach free trade and keep practising protectionism", she said.

Shourie said that substantial progress would have to be made on issues of real substance from the timetable that was set at Doha, particularly on implementation issues, special & differential treatment, market access and the issue of access to medicines. India would work in consultation with like-minded countries including China, Brazil and the Africa group on the issue of TRIPs and Public Health, he said. He agreed with Ms. Hewitt on the importance of sharing knowledge and experience in the area of trade policy both at the government and non-governmental levels in order to build up the expertise required for taking advantage of the multilateral trading system. Dipak Chatterjee, Commerce Secretary; V. Govindarajan, Secretary (Industrial Policy & Promotion) and S.N. Menon, Additional Secretary, Department of Commerce, were present at the meeting.

Apart from WTO matters, the UK side also raised some specific bilateral issues, such as lowering of tariff on imported whisky, the issue of certification for allowing imports of roughs in the context of conflict diamonds and a proposal for increasing the capacity of UK-India air services by way of additional flights in order to address the additional requirements of trade and industry. The UK side also highlighted the scope for joint venture cooperation between the two countries in the food sector, while pointing out the rationalisation of tariffs in the wake of the removal of QRs would in fact lead to increase in revenue by curtailing grey market operations.

The UK today is the second largest trading partner of India and the largest in the European Union. Indo-UK bilateral trade in the year 2000-01 exceeded US $ 5 billion. The UK is the largest cumulative foreign investor in India and the third largest since 1991. Total FDI approvals from the UK during the period 1991 to April 2002 amounted to US $ 5.65 billion, which is a little over 9% of the global FDI approvals during the same period. (keralamonitor.com)

IRAQ: No Sign Of Nuclear Program Yet, Says IAEA Chief

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday that U.N. inspectors have yet to uncover evidence that Iraq has resumed its nuclear program but added that it is still too early to come to a conclusion on the matter.

"We are not certain of Iraq's (nuclear) capability," ElBaradei said at an IAEA meeting in Vienna. Although he refused to speculate on whether Iraq poses more of a nuclear threat than North Korea, he added that North Korea has a more advanced program, since Iraqi efforts were neutralized in 1998.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming echoed ElBaradei's comments, saying inspectors have found "no smoking gun" so far but that "it's too early to draw sweeping or final conclusions." She cited air and soil tests that produced "nothing significant" in terms of evidence of a renewed Iraqi nuclear program (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Jan. 6).

U.N. inspectors took to the skies today for the first time during the current round of inspections, making a return visit to the Akashat uranium mine, 260 miles from the Syrian border. The inspectors made a previous trip by road to the mine Dec. 11. Other sites visited today included the al-Mutasim missile plant and the University of Mosul.

The inspection team covered six sites yesterday, including a veterinary drug factory, a pesticide plant and an Iraqi army base, where inspectors began the task of tagging all of Iraq's ground-to-ground al-Fatah rockets (CNN.com, Jan. 7).

U.N. Envoy To Visit Iraq, Kuwait

Yuli Vorontsov, the U.N. coordinator for the return of Kuwaiti nationals and property missing since the Iraqi invasion in 1990, plans to visit the Middle East this month, the United Nations announced yesterday. Vorontsov is slated to meet with Iraqi officials Jan. 18-19 to discuss the repatriation of Kuwaitis and Kuwaiti property seized during the invasion. He is then scheduled to travel to Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His itinerary includes meetings with the heads of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The visit to Iraq will be his first since his appointment in 2000 (U.N. release, Jan. 6).

  PRESIDENT TO INAUGURATE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY

The 2nd International Congress of Plant Physiology is being organized here from tomorrow. The Congress will be inaugurated by the President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Union Agriculture Minister Shri Ajit Singh will preside over the inaugural function.

The main theme of the Congress is ‘Sustainable Plant Productivity under changing environment’. Eminent scientists from USA, UK, Japan, Australia and Europe will deliver plenary lectures. The deliberations spread over five days will cover a wide range of topics through fourteen scientific sessions on crop physiology, biotechnology, global climate change, flowering and abiotic stress etc. The Congress is being attended by more than 60 scientists from about 20 countries and 800 Indian delegates.

The Congress being organized by the Indian Society for Plant Physiology (ISPP) and the International Association for Plant Physiology at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) is supported by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Department of Science & Technology, CSIR, Planning Commission, Bhabha Atomatic Research Centre and several other organizations. It is being held in India after a gap of 15 years. The first International Congress of Plant Physiology was organized in the year 1988 at New Delhi. The Congress aims to address and evolve appropriate long term and sustainable strategies to overcome the emerging challenges in the agricultural sector to sustain plant productivity under changing environmental conditions.

On this occasion the ISPP awards, i.e. Prof. J.J. Chinoy award, Prof. R.D. Asana award and Academy for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences award for the year 2002 will be given by the President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to the deserving plant Physiologists. Two ISPP publications i.e. directories of the Indian Plant Physiologists and Fellows of the Society will also be released during the inaugural function.

NEC Computers Appoints Universe Computers as Authorised Reseller for Kuwait

NEC Computers International, Europe's fifth largest manufacturer of personal computers, supplying the professional market with the NEC brand and the consumer market with the Packard Bell brand, has appointed Universe Computers Co. W.L.L. as an Authorised Reseller in Kuwait for NEC computers.

Universe Computers Co. WLL was established in 1984 and has, over the course of its 19 year history, successfully met the demands of its customers in both the public as well as the private sector. UC represents a number of global leaders in Information Technology and supplies computer hardware, software, office automation equipment and network and communication systems.

Besides technical supremacy, Universe Computers has expertise in management, cost control, procurement, sales and marketing and can boast a team of customer dedicated personnel who are qualified and trained to satisfy the client requirements.

On a service and support level, Universe Computers has a fully equipped workshop and a high profile product-certified technical team that is available in-house to meet the client's hardware and software maintenance requirements.

The appointment of Universe Computers as NEC Computers Authorised Reseller for Kuwait has been announced by interFRONTIERS Services Ltd, the Regional Business Development Unit for NEC and Packard Bell. The management team of interFRONTIERS will be responsible for overseeing the development of the resellers operation, marketing and events in Kuwait.

interFRONTIERS Managing Director Lenia Iacovides said, "We are delighted to have arranged the appointment of Universe Computers as the NEC Authorised Reseller for Kuwait. We are confident it will operate very successfully in the Kuwait market."

Michel de Bievre, Executive Director - International Division - NEC CI, said, "We are certain that with interFRONTIERS expertise, and the overall standing of Universe Computers in the IT business, we will achieve the highest possible penetration in Kuwait and a significant increase in our market share."

interFRONTIERS manages regional sales of: · NEC server and storage, desktop and notebook solutions to large account, SMB and SoHo organisations. Packard Bell home solutions from high-end PCs to notebooks and PDAs for end-users.

NEC server, storage and desktop solutions are designed and produced in Europe, in NEC CI plants in Angers and in Livingstone, Scotland. NEC's notebook production with CTO and testing capabilities is also performed in Europe. The yearly production capacity is about 3.1 million units and the company employs 3,000 people worldwide.