SOUTH ASIA

SUSPECT WANTED IN PEARL’S MURDER IS CAPTURED

LAHORE, Pakistan – The fugitive who set up the initial meeting between a Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, and his kidnappers was arrested yesterday in a bus terminal, officials said. Pearl was abducted January 23, 2002, and later beheaded in the southern city of Karachi while he was researching a story.

Hashim Qadeer was captured in the eastern city of Gujranwala, according to officials. Judge Azmatullah Awan granted police permission to hold Mr. Qadeer without a charge for two days to question him, according to a second police official in Lahore. Mr. Qadeer is believed to have arranged a meeting between Ahmed Omar Sheikh and Pearl at a hotel in Rawalpindi, a Karachi-based intelligence official said. The police officials and the intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to make statements to the press.

A Karachi court has convicted four Islamic militants in Pearl’s killing. Two other militants wanted in Pearl’s case were killed in shootouts with security forces last year. Five suspects remain at large.

– Associated Press

DASCHLE CALLS FOR DEMOCRACY IN NEPAL

KATMANDU, Nepal – A former Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, said yesterday he met Nepal’s King Gyanendra and urged him to restore democracy in the Himalayan nation where he took over absolute power earlier this year.

Mr. Daschle would not give details of his meeting Tuesday but said he raised several issues with the king. “And I urge the king to return immediately to constitutional democratic principles,” Mr. Daschle said. “A return to Panchayat-style governance is unacceptable and will only lead to more difficulties for both the nation and the monarchy in the future,” he said.

During the Panchayat system in Nepal that was toppled by a popular movement in 1990, the king had absolute power and ruled with a rubber stamp government and parliament. Political parties were also banned.

King Gyanendra took over absolute power on February 1, saying he would resolve a communist insurgency and control corruption in the next three years. Since then, all major political parties have been protesting against the king’s moves and demanding immediate restoration of democracy in Nepal.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

PALESTINIAN ARAB LEADER CONFIDENT ON GAZA SECURITY

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Arab prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, said yesterday that controlling Gaza after Israel’s planned pullout next month is crucial for Palestinian Arab credibility in the world, and he’s sure his security forces are up to the challenge. On the Israeli side, opponents of the withdrawal said they would try again to disrupt the operation by marching on the territory from a town near Gaza.

In West Bank violence yesterday, a Palestinian Arab was killed and six others wounded when Israeli forces exchanged fire with militants and rock-throwers during an arrest raid in the town of Jenin, Palestinian Arab officials said. The Israeli military said troops shot at Palestinian Arabs who opened fire at them and set off explosives, wounding two soldiers. An Islamic Jihad spokesman said a member was arrested.

Responding to an independent study by an American-based Arab conflict resolution group, Strategic Assessments Initiative, that found Palestinian security forces unwieldy and inefficient, implying they might not be able to handle the mission of overcoming Hamas in Gaza, a Palestinian Arab leader, Ahmed Qureia, said Palestinian forces must come through.

Also yesterday, Israel’s parliament passed a law to severely limit Palestinian Arab suits for damages as a result of Israeli military action. Only two types of cases are allowed: traffic accidents and injury while in prison.

– Associated Press

AMERICA DEMANDS ISRAELI APOLOGY FOR CHINESE ARMS SALES

JERUSALEM – America has demanded a written apology from Israel for selling military equipment to China, an Israeli newspaper reported yesterday.

Until it receives a signed apology from the defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, Washington will not lift military sanctions, which were imposed when the row blew up two months ago, said Haaretz.

Mr. Mofaz has refused and canceled a trip to Washington, where the issue was to be discussed. America had also demanded that Israel impose tighter controls on arms exports. The arms shipment concerned components to upgrade Harpy Killer unmanned drones sold to China in the mid-1990s. The spat reflects the jumpiness in Washington about advances in China’s military capability.

Israel’s defense ministry refused to comment on the reported cancellation of Mr. Mofaz’s visit, but said “dialogue” was continuing.

– The Daily Telegraph

AUSTRALIA

ALTERNATIVE TO KYOTO PROTOCAL ANNOUNCED

CANBERRA, Australia – America will join India, China, and Australia in announcing a new pact to limit greenhouse gases as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, Australia’s environment minister said yesterday.

The agreement was expected to be announced later yesterday by President Bush in Washington and today by officials from signatory countries meeting at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations security forum in Laos.

While 140 countries ratified the 1997 Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Australia and America have refused because developing countries weren’t required to adopt emission targets. Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Canberra and Washington had for the past 12 months been negotiating a new multilateral agreement targeting rapidly developing countries which pump out large amounts of greenhouse gas.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

MONT BLANC SECURITY CHIEF JAILED FOR FIRE

PARIS – The trial of 16 defendants accused of involuntary manslaughter over the fire that killed 39 people in the Mont Blanc tunnel ended yesterday with a prison sentence for a former head of tunnel security.

Gerard Roncoli, 62, was jailed for 30 months. Roncoli was among 12 individuals and four companies facing criminal charges in connection with the 1999 fire, one of the worst road disasters in European history. He was also fined about $15,000 for what the president of the court called an “avoidable catastrophe.”

The spread and severity of the blaze were blamed on a series of safety blunders and procedural neglect, while failures of coordination by French and Italian authorities in responding to the situation were alleged to have led to some of the deaths.

The fire, which took 53 hours to control, broke out in a Belgian Volvo truck loaded with margarine and flour. The driver, Gilbert Degrave, 62, who claimed he was made a scapegoat, received a four-month suspended jail sentence, while Volvo was cleared after a submission that the fire was not caused by faulty design.

– The Daily Telegraph

WEST AFRICA

NIGER AIRLIFTS BEGIN

The first major airlifts of emergency food aid to Niger began yesterday, amid recriminations that international donors woke up only after television pictures of the starving were broadcast last week.

The Save the Children Fund sent an aircraft loaded with 41 tons of supplies including peanut butter and high-protein biscuits to Niger’s capital, Niamey. The shipment is enough to feed 15,000 malnourished children for a month. An Ilyushin-76 aircraft left the U.N. World Food Program response depot in Brindisi, Italy, with another 44 tons of aid, to be sent across 400 miles of desert to the southern region of Maradi, one of the worst hit areas.

It is estimated that 3.6 million people are directly affected by food shortages, with 2.5 million “in urgent need of food aid,” among them 800,000 children.

The WFP thinks it has five weeks at the most to deliver 23,000 tons of food aid before the rains set in, making distribution by road all but impossible. The WFP Niger director, Giancarlo Cirri, said: “We are working flat out to deliver rations and help provide relief for some of the worst hunger I have ever witnessed.”

– The Daily Telegraph

CARIBBEAN

ACTIVIST SAYS DISSIDENTS COULD FACE TRIAL

HAVANA – Three dissidents still held after a police roundup last week could be tried on charges of working to undermine Fidel Castro’s communist government, a veteran activist said yesterday.

The news that dissident attorney Rene Gomez Manzano, independent journalist Oscar Mario Gonzalez, and opposition political activist Julio Cesar Lopez could go to trial came the morning after Mr. Castro lashed out at opponents as “traitors” and “mercenaries” in his annual rebellion day speech.

Elizardo Sanchez of the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation said in a statement that officials told relatives of the three dissidents that the men could be tried under Law 88, or “Law for the Protection of Cuba’s National Independence and Economy.”

The law created in 1999 to rein in the opposition carries sentences of up to 20 years.

– Associated Press