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No Proof of N-activities in Iraq: UN Inspectors

          NEW YORK:  Iraq still needs to provide evidence to support its claims that it does not possess banned weapons, Hans Blix, chief UN arms inspector, told the Security Council on Friday. "The issues of anthrax, the nerve agent VX and long-range missiles [are]... perhaps the most important problem we are facing", he said while ... (Contd)

Saddam Bans Import, Manufacture of WMDs

          BAGHDAD: President Saddam Hussein has ordered a ban on importing or manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, thus fulfilling a key requirement placed before him by the arms inspectors. He did so on Friday hours before the top UN inspectors submitted a report to the Security Council that could influence the chance or timing of any war. He also reaffirmed that Iraq was free of any such weapons, a claim the US rejects. The decree is at least a symbolic gesture by Hussein to meet one of the demands that Hans Blix and Mohamed el-Baradei (Director of IAEA) made when they visited Baghdad in mid-January.

Bush Cautions UN (Go To Top)

          WASHINGTON: In a rare categorical statement, President George Bush has said that the UN must help the US confront President Saddam Hussein or "fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant, debating society". While he issued a call for unity, the administration said Americans should be prepared for "a fairly long-term commitment" in Iraq if the US went to war.

           Meanwhile, secretary of state Colin Powell told the House budget committee, "I would hope that it would be a short conflict and that it would be directed at the leadership, not the society," Powell added, that Iraq had an effective bureaucracy, rich oil resources and a developed middle class. The flurry of events preceded the UN weapons inspectors' report to the UN Security Council on Friday.

We Have To Find Solutions Ourselves: Bangla Foreign Minister (Go To Top)

          NEW DELHI: Bangladesh's foreign minister, seeking to defuse a bitter row with India over illegal migrants, appealed on Friday for settlement of differences through talks. "We (India and Bangladesh) have over 4,000 km of common border. Many people say that Bangladesh is neither land-locked, nor water-locked, but India-locked. But many others say that almost one-fifth India is also Bangladesh-locked. Under the given circumstances, it is only obvious and natural that we are destined to work together," Morshed Khan told a gathering of industrialists here.

          Tensions between India and Bangladesh, whose border troops occasionally clash, have been stoked by a vow last month by New Delhi to "throw out" 20 million Bangladeshis who it says are living illegally in India. Dhaka says no illegal Bangladeshi migrants are in India.

           Khan is to meet Yashwant Sinha, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Friday and Saturday for talks that will tackle immigration, security and economic issues.

Sena Ignored, Valentine's Day Celebrated (Go To Top)

          NEW DELHI: Youngsters in India cold-shouldered a Hindu hardline group's threat on Friday to bask in the warmth of love on Valentine's Day. Greeting card shops in New Delhi did brisk business as both young and old queued up to buy catchy snippets of love messages on fancy paper for their sweethearts. Flowers, balloons, chocolates and other gift items sold like hot cakes. The Shiv Sena had earlier issued a routine threat against anyone celebrating the day and party activists ransacked a card shop in the Capital in protest on Thursday.

           The Sena and some other Hindu hardline groups are against celebrations of Valentine's Day as it is alien to Indian culture. But many youngsters in Delhi said the Shiv Sena had no right to act as moral policemen. For most of Delhi's college students, it was a special day for letting the hair down with the beloved. In Lucknow, Capital of UP, people thronged shops selling greeting cards and music shops looking for the right love note and ignoring the Shiv Sena ban.

          Valentine's Day is celebrated across the world by couples in love. The day marks the martyrdom of a third century Christian saint St Valentine who worked and died in what is now Italy.

Vajpayee to Campaign in Himachal Pradesh for Two Days (Go To Top)

          NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will tour Himachal Pradesh for two days from February 20 to campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Party general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Friday that Vajpayee would be campaigning in Mandi, Shimla, Palampur and Hamirpur, while Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani would address meetings on February 23 and 24. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will address election meetings on February 18. Union ministers Shatrughan Sinha and Vinod Khanna, both Bollywood actors, would, along with flim star Hema Malini, also campaign for the BJP in the State.

Osama's Eldest Son Seen in Iran: Report (Go To Top)

          RIYADH: Osama bin Laden's eldest son, Saad, who was with his father during the US-led air campaign against Afghanistan in 2001, is currently in Iran, a Saudi-owned newspaper has reported. "Saad, the eldest son of Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaeda network, was spotted in Iran," Al-Sharq Al-Awsat said, citing a diplomatic source. But it added that bin Laden himself "is not in Iran." Asharq Al-Awsat reported last July that Saad had taken over the command of Al-Qaeda since the US offensive against the outfit's bases in Afghanistan.

Ben, J-Lo Wedding Shelved(Go To Top)

          LONDON: 'Daredevil' hero Ben Affleck has quashed all rumours about his marriage with fiancee Jennifer Lopez. Affleck hinted that the relentless publicity surrounding them had put the pair off the wedding. He revealed that the duo will not tie the knot now or at any time in the near future, as rumoured, according to a report in the Sun.

          It had been earlier suggested the couple would wed as soon as J-Lo's divorce from Cris Judd was finalised at the end of January. And when Ben gave the singer a two-million pound engagement ring late last year, the big day looked certain. According to friends, the couple want to wait a little longer before getting hitched - preferably when the spotlight has shifted away from them.

           Ben, who plays a martial arts super-hero in the new film, 'Daredevil', was quoted by the paper as saying: "I would like to set the record straight - I'm not getting married any time in the near future. I'm not even abreast of all the rumours. But I'm hopeful that all the heat on me will go away and I'd like to work without being in the middle of a tornado."

It's 'Lionboy' Versus Harry Potter's Magic (Go To Top)

          LONDON: Harry Potter faces competition. Impatient young readers waiting until June for JK Rowling's fifth Harry Potter novel, can also start looking forward to the publication of Lionboy, the first fantasy adventure by another single mother, Louisa Young, who has signed what is said to be a one million pound book deal with Puffin. Lionboy is to be published in October and looks set to be big. Several publishers joined in the auction for the trilogy, half of which is unwritten, about a boy who was scratched by a leopard as a baby and so can "speak cat", both the wild and domestic dialects. Puffin won the day and now the bidding has begun for the film rights, says a report in the Age.

           Not only do the books bring another single mother into the spotlight, and introduce a new hero in Charlie, whose dreadlocks may soon be as recognisable as Harry Potter's glasses, they also mark the debut of a new literary figure: Isabel Adomakoh Young, Louisa's 10-year-old daughter and co-writer. Isabel must be one of the youngest literary earners since another English writer, Daisy Ashford, had a book she wrote as a nine- year-old, the Young Visitors, published in 1919. Rather than burden the books' spines with the names of both mother and daughter, they have written under the name Zizou Corder - borrowed from Isabel's pet lizard.

           Ever since she can remember, she and Isabel have added to the population of their west London home by inventing characters. Make-believe is their way of passing time; one story she remembers was about a lonely eyelash - "a way of getting Isabel to shut her eyes" - and another about a dugong, "a wonderful animal, like a manatee". Six years ago, they began devising elaborate stories about Charlie Ashanti, the boy who talks to lions, when Louisa found herself stuck with the plot for one of her novels. "Why don't you write our stories down?" suggested Isabel. So she did, complete with maps and diagrams that should delight the eight to 13-year-olds at whom the books will be aimed.

No Proof of N-activities in Iraq: Blix, El-Baradei (Go To Top)

          (Contd) ... presenting his crucial report on the subject. Blix added that inspections had been carried out without problems, but he said that compliance with UN resolution 1441 meant "more than opening doors". Papers handed over by Iraq suggested some biological and chemical materials could have been disposed of but this had not been verified, it was further submitted.

           According to him, said private interviews with Iraqi scientists on 8 and 9 February had "proved informative", but no interviews had taken place since then on the UN's terms. Other observations that Blix made were (a) that it was a matter of great concern that many banned weapons were unaccounted for, including IK tons of chemicals agents; (b) two variants of Al-Samound missile with range over UN limit were found; (c) Iraq admitted to illegal import of 380 engines for Al-Samound II missiles. He also said that Baghdad recently handed over papers, a more cooperative approach.

          ' The inspectors have found no evidence of prohibited nuclear activities in Iraq but Baghdad was urged to cooperate fully and actively to speed up the inspection process. "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei said in his report to the UN Security Council. But a number of issues are still under investigation, he added.

          El-Baradei said the agency may never be able to reach a final conclusion on 32 tons of the high-explosive HMX, which Iraq said was for use in quarrying. He also said documents on Iraq's post-1998 nuclear programme which Iraqi officials handed over last week contained no new information that would help clarify inspectors' questions related to Iraqi nuclear weapons design. But IAEA is considering if Iraq is using aluminium tubes with enriched uranium, he added. El-Baradei further stated that a wide range of samples for signature of nuclear activities have been collected. He added that more work needs to be done on levels of radiation at some sites. The focus, according to him, has moved from reconnaissance to investigative phase. Baghdad's ban on import and making of WMDs is a step in the right direction, El-Baradei remarked.

 -ANI