Kathmandu, Apr, 9 (NNN) : Demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, lakhs of workers of opposition parties in Nepal took to the streets in Kathmandu on Sunday.
The opposition parties in the country are baying for Koiralas blood over corruption allegations involving a deal to lease an aircraft from LaudaAir of Austria.
Led by the United Marxist-Leninist party, the protestors, also angered by last weeks killings of 70 police officers by Maoist rebels, staged a series of demonstrations and rallies, called to mark the 11th anniversary of the countrys transition to democracy.
Shouting slogans like "Stop political killings", "Stop terrorism" and "Let us protect the democracy, maintain law and order," the protestors warned of intensification of their agitation.
The protests came even as the government reiterated its offer to hold peace talks with the rebels - a day after they issued a similar statement.
The rebels said their party was ready for talks with "all parties" to help form an interim government and prepare a new constitution.
But Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel said the outbreak of violence had proved that the rebels were not serious about holding a dialogue.
Spy plane impasse Long term Sino-US ties at risk Washington, April 9 (NNN) : Top American officials on Sunday warned China that long-term relations with Beijing were at risk due to the continued impasse over the US spy plane currently in possession of communist authorities even as Vice-President, Dick Cheney and Secretary of State, Colin L.
Powell again rejected demand that Washington apologise for the collision of a US Navy surveillance plane and its fighter jet on Sunday last.
While issuing warning, Cheney made it clear that Washington had no plans whatsoever to apologise for the mid-air collision between the spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet a week ago in which a Chinese pilot is missing and presumed dead.
"Every day that goes by without having it resolved raises the risks to the long-term relationship," Cheney said on NBCs "Meet the Press." Powell added on CBSs "Face the Nation": "The relationship is being damaged.
The damage can be undone, but in order for the damage to be undone and no further damage to occur, weve got to bring this matter to a close as soon as possible." Cheney further said: "The longer this goes on without resolution, clearly the more difficult it becomes to manage the relationship and avoid risk to the long-term relationship with China, but we are making progress." The US, which has regretted for the incident and for the death of pilot, is still trying to secure the release of the spy planes 24 crew members, held on Hainan island in southern China since last Sunday.
In private, administration officials said they are concerned that the standoff could continue for several more days, if not longer.
On Saturday, a letter from Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen to Powell stated that U.S.
expressions of regret were not enough to end the stalemate.
Negotiations for the release of plane and the crew continued to be handled mainly by Powell, his deputy Richard L.
Armitage and the U.S.
ambassador to Beijing, Joseph W.
Prueher was expected to meet with a Chinese foreign ministry official today, but no definite meeting was set, a senior State Department official said.
Throughout the day, Bush administration officials stuck firmly to their position that surveillance flights near the coast of China were legitimate and important activities, and that therefore there was no need to apologize for the EP-3E Aries IIs mission.
"Weve made it very clear we dont think an apologys in order," Cheney said on ABCs "This Week," and added: "We absolutely have to continue to exercise our rights, and it is a right to be in international airspace for whatever purpose, and if that includes collection of intelligence, thats appropriate." Cheney called the crew members "detainees." "Weve had access to them, theyve been in touch with their families through e-mail, so its the kind of situation where we think it will be resolved shortly and appropriately, and its very important .
on both sides to avoid hot-button words that would inflame the situation and make it more difficult to get a resolution," he said.
While refusing to apologise for the collision, which could be interpreted as an admission of wrongdoing, the Bush administration made new efforts to assuage Chinese anger about the collision.
It is reported here that President George W.
Bush is writing to the widow of the Chinese pilot killed in the mid-air collision after the widow, Ruan Guoquin, had herself written to Bush, blaming the Americans for the collision and demanding an apology.
Secretary of State Powell, who also warned that "serious damage is now starting to be done to the relationship" with China, called the presidents letter a "humanitarian gesture" to a woman who had lost her husband.
Bushs national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the US President was "simply responding to the expression of grief in the widows letter and to nothing else".
A White House spokeswoman, Mary Ellen Countryman, disclosed that Bush had not yet sent the letter, but was expected to soon.
Last week Bush expressed "regret" over the incident, but China appeared to be willing to accept nothing less than a full US apology.
In Washington, the Republican head of the House International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, described the US crew as "hostages".
According to observers in Washington the United States impatience is clearly growing.
They said that Republicans in particular are taking an increasingly tough line, arguing that a link should be made between Chinas actions and two key bilateral issues - the question of new US arms sales to Taiwan and the status of Chinas trade relations with Washington.
Meanwhile, reports from China said the public anger there was still running high.
The Peoples Liberation Army Daily newspaper condemned what it called hostile US spy flights off the Chinese coast.
"Frequent military surveillance activities along Chinas coast do not have a good and peaceful objective, rather they are clearly hostile in nature," it said in an editorial.
The newspaper also called on US to take responsibility, apologise to the Chinese Government and people, stop similar surveillance flights and pay compensation.
The daily published an editorial saying that Beijing has the right to "fully and thoroughly investigate this entire incident, including the people in charge of the American military aircraft." The state-run newspaper repeated Chinas demand for a U.S.
It also revived a demand made by Chinese President Jiang Zemin last week, but which has since gone unmentioned, for the United States to stop military surveillance activities off the Chinese coast.
On Sunday, the Defence Minister, General Chi Haotian, paid his respects to the pilots widow saying the US had an "unshirkable" responsibility for the collision.
According to observers in China Beijings generals seemed to be using the expression of grief on television to stir up anti-US passions.
The renewed verbal exchanges come after earlier optimism over efforts to secure the release of the crew.
US and Chinese officials are understood to be working on a joint statement on how the collision occurred.
Meanwhile, in Haikou, capital of Chinas Hainan Island, where the 24 Americans are detained, there were no signs that tensions had eased.
Chinese officials ignored a U.S.
proposal to allow twice-daily visits, and let American diplomats see only eight of the crew members early yesterday.
SC ruling hailed Benazir rules out immediate return to Pak Washington, Apr 9 (NNN): The former Pakistan Premier, Benazir Bhutto, who has expressed pleasure over the Supreme Courts verdict in which it has set aside her conviction in a corruption case, on Sunday said she does not intend to return to Pakistan in the immediate future.
In an interview to the Voice of America (VOA) Benazir, in an answer to a question about her return to Pakistan, said: "We are monitoring the situation; we will have to see as to what decision the military government will take about Asif Ali Zardari.
He has completed his jail term." She further said: "The SC has set aside the conviction.
Now we will have to see whether they respect the law or resort to victimisation.
The military government will have to review its policies.
The government has 18 months to hold elections.
They cannot convict me in 18 months." On the verdict itself, Benazir said : "I am very happy over the judgment.
The Supreme Court has upheld my appeal and set aside the conviction.
I am happy for myself but happier for my nation.
For the first time, the Supreme Court has acquitted or suspended the conviction of a former prime minister when the country is under martial law.
I think this is an important day in the nations history." The former Premier, who is currently living in self-exile, said that a meeting of the Pakistan Peoples Party was likely to be held this month.
Earlier, we had been planning to let the local elections complete.
The last phase was scheduled to be held in May.
The court had set aside the generals allegation that the former prime minister was corrupt.
So far as the people were concerned they had also rejected the decision in their court through votes.
A large number of her Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) supporters had won the elections.
It showed that the people of Pakistan wanted restoration of democracy and stability in the country.
The economy could not be revived without stability, she observed.
Benazir said she might return to Pakistan after local governments polls.
"We have not announced any dates.
The return is not possible before May.
But anything can happen in Pakistan.
I can return early if the generals end victimization," she added.
The former Premier demanded that NAB laws must be repealed and political prisoners released.
"The NAB laws have been introduced for political motives to oust the two prime ministers.
One former prime minister is still in the field.
It seems very difficult to punish a person in 18 months.
The detailed judgment will take some time.
A review petition is likely to be filed." Referring to a question about her opponents in the army, the former prime minister said those who wanted to remove the PPP leadership were opposing the party.
"They are in fact opposing the masses.
This opposition is creating instability in the country." In reply to a question about her arrest on her return to Pakistan, she said: "So far as the issue of my arrest is concerned, only the generals could answer it.
My return home is linked with a democratic movement.
It is up to the generals whether or not they arrest me at that time.
So far as fighting the cases in Pakistan is concerned, its reason is that I remained in Pakistan for three years and went to every court.
They used to send me to different cities." Asked about giving a call to the masses to come to streets against the government, Ms Bhutto said the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy had to take such a decision.
"On my own behalf and on behalf of my party, I have said that Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf should hold talks with the ARD so that an interim government could be set up which could hold free elections for transfer of powers." SC ruling spoils Musharrafs carefully scripled plans: Post Washington, Apr 9 (NNN): The last weeks judgement of the Pakistans Supreme Court, setting aside the convictions of Benazir Bhutto and her jailed husband, Asif Zardari in a corruption case against the couple, has thrown out of window the General Pervaiz Musharraf governments "carefully scripted" plans to build a new system of "sanitised grass-roots democracy under military tutelage" in the Islamic nation.
The verdict has also suddenly opened the way for the political homecoming of Benazir Bhutto, though not immediately, at some later stage.
The Washington Posts South Asia correspondent has expressed these views in a dispatch published in the papers Sunday edition.
Noting that the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) also held elections two weeks ago, Post correspondent, Pamela Constable, believed that the court verdict in Bhuttos favour now means that both the countrys major political parties have acquired new life and relevance.
She says the military regime may now be planning to forming an interim set-up in conjunction with the Muslim League before the court-mandated election deadline of October 2002.
The following are excerpts from the interview: "Eighteen months after the army seized power in Pakistan, banning all political activity and vowing to build a new system of sanitized grass-roots democracy under military tutelage, its carefully scripted scenario has suddenly changed.
"Benazir Bhutto, the two-time former prime minister who has lived in exile for years to avoid being jailed after being convicted on corruption charges, received an unexpected reprieve Friday when the countrys Supreme Court set aside her conviction and ordered a retrial.
"The decision elated her followers in the Pakistan Peoples Party, who danced and shared sweets outside party offices.
It also raised the sudden prospect of a political comeback for Bhutto, who now lives in London but immediately began consulting with party leaders about when and whether she should risk returning to Pakistan.
"This will create a huge challenge to the regimes agenda.
It makes her look both morally clean and politically resurgent, said Rifaat Hussain, a political scientist in Islamabad, the capital, and a former diplomatic aide in Bhuttos government in the early 1990s.
It has given a whole new twist to the political climate in Pakistan.
"At the same time, Pakistans other major political party, the Pakistan Muslim League, held elections two weeks ago and chose Mian Azhar, a reformist politician from Lahore, as its new president, reportedly with the tacit approval of the military government.
"Before the vote, the Muslim League had been mired in bickering and confusion.
Its standard-bearer, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Bhuttos longtime rival, was overthrown in the military coup of October 1999, imprisoned for months and then sent into exile in Saudi Arabia last December.
"Both parties are still weak and discredited after two decades of disappointing leadership by Bhutto and Sharif, who were each elected twice as prime minister and then driven from office.
But after 18 months of enforced dormancy, both parties have been given new life and relevance.
"Gen Pervaiz Musharraf, Pakistans military ruler, has also been acting increasingly like a politician instead of a general.
Last month, he announced he would not retire from the army as planned this fall, and in interviews and news conferences since then he has hinted that he might want to become president.
"Without wanting to sound haughty or arrogant, I have a feeling that I have a role to play in ensuring continuity and sustainability...Therefore, I cannot retire, Musharraf said in a magazine interview last week.
The government is examining all aspects of my becoming the president in 2002.
"In one way, the courts decision on Bhutto reflects well on the Musharraf government, because it shows the judiciary to be independent of military influence.
But in another way, it injects a wild card into the governments careful script for a controlled political transition.
"Musharraf and his aides have been counting on the continued absence of Bhutto and Sharif, the countrys two leading politicians.
"Sharif is out of the picture, unable to return for 10 years under his exile agreement.
But Bhuttos unexpected legal reprieve has opened the door for her political homecoming." Megawati sets terms for running for president JAKARTA, Apr 9 (REUTERS): Indonesias Megawati Sukarnoputri has set three conditions for running to replace embattled president Abudrrahman Wahid, including guarantees she wont be challenged before her term ends, a newspaper said today.
Vice-president Megawati, who has so far been guarded on her own ambitions, set the conditions during talks with political leaders working to topple Wahid, the media Indonesia daily quoted an unnamed source close to the vice-president saying.
She is also demanding the vice-presidency be left vacant and that annual sessions of the top legislature which has the power to sack and appoint presidents be abandoned.
The source said leading politicians, who were not named, had agreed to two of the conditions.
"But regarding the issue that vice-presidency should be left vacant, its tough.
No one can guarantee that," he said.
Calls for the near-blind president to resign have increased since parliament censured him in February over two graft scandals.
Wahid has rejected the censure as baseless".
Wahid and several other political leaders last week rejected a suggestion that one way out of the mounting political crisis would be to change the constitution to allow Megawati to run government and turn his job into a largely ceremonial role.
Fears are growing that as the political temperature rises, wahids sometimes fanatical supporters could turn violent.
Parliament is due to meet at the end of april to consider its response to wahids reply to the censure.
A second formal reprimand, which could pave the way for an impeachment hearing by the top legislature, is considered almost inevitable.
But the source said Megawati and her Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P) would even back away from the second censure if she did not win agreement that she could rule without a deputy if she replaces wahid.
From the very beginning, Megawati doesnt want any vice-president," the source said.
Wahid last week proposed peace talks with Megawati and the heads of both legislatures to strike a compromise to end the political tensions crippling government and driving the stock market and Rupiah to two-year lows.
New treatment could save cancer patients limbs LONDON, Apr 9 (DPA) : A pioneering cancer treatment that prevents patients from losing limbs to the disease has been developed by British scientists, reports said.
The new technique, developed at Londons Royal Marsden hospital, involves cutting off the blood supply to legs or other limbs where tumours are sited and blasting them with massive doses of a powerful new drug.
It means that patients with inoperable tumours who previously would have had the affected limb amputated will not have to go under the knife.
Led by surgical oncologist Joseph Meirion Thomas, the Marsden team has now treated 12 patients using the process.
It has had an 80 per cent success rate in treating Melanoma, a form of skin cancer, and is now being used on soft tissue tumours called sarcomas, of which there are 1,300 new cases every year in Britain.
The size and position of tumours in the legs of some cancer patients can mean it is impossible to operate to remove them and amputation has been the only answer.
Now, the Royal Marsden team has developed a technique called isolated limb perfusion, where the blood supply to the affected limb is cut off by clamping the main arteries.
Fresh blood is circulated around the limb via a bypass machine, normally used in heart surgery, to give it a separate blood supply.
The limb is then heated to 39 degree celsius, the most effective temperature for drug treatment.
A powerful new drug called TNF Alpha which breaks down the vessels supplying blood to cancerous tumours is then injected into the bloodstream of the limb.
Up to 10 times the normal dose of the drug can be injected into the limb using the cut off technique.
George Harrison to sell mansion near London LONDON, Apr 9 (DPA) : Former Beatle lead guitarist George Harrison is to sell his 120-room mansion at Henley west of London, as he no longer feels safe there after an intruder attacked him and his wife there in December 1999, The Mail reported.
Harrison has told friends he no longer feels safe in Friar park, the gothic pile set in large grounds near Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire, which he bought in 1970 for 135,000 pounds.
He now expects to get 15 million pounds (more than 40 million dollars) for the rambling house built in 1889 in the French flamboyant style.
Harrison, 57, suffered a punctured lung when he confronted Michael Abram on the night of December 30, 1999.
His wife Olivia, 52, managed to hit Abram with a heavy table lamp and a poker.
Abram, 34, a heroin addict, has been put in a psychiatric hospital indefinitely.
He apparently believed Harrison was a witch who had to be killed.
Harrison has spent the last six months at a hillside retreat on the great barrier reef off the Australian coast.
Nepali twins fine as separation surgery enters 4th day SINGAPORE, Apr 9 (REUTERS) : Complex surgery to separate a pair of Nepali twins who were born conjoined at the head entered a fourth day in Singapore today, with doctors working around the clock to try to give the 11-month-old girls a normal life.
Theyre still alive.
Theyre doing well, a Singapore general hospital spokeswoman told Reuters.
The marathon operation started late on Friday afternoon, with doctors originally expecting it to last up to 36 hours.
But separating the myriad veins joining their two brains both contained within one skull proved more difficult than was first thought.
There are so many veins.
Thats the part that you cannot estimate and thats why the operation is dragging on, the hospital spokeswoman said.
Teams of specialists relying on a battery of high-tech tools to guide them have been taking short breaks and working in shifts as the rare operation stretches to a fourth day.
Doctors now expect the operation to be completed on Monday evening, bringing the total surgical procedure to almost 75 hours.
Doctors say splitting Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha is essential if they are to survive and have a chance at a normal life.
The Nepali twins, along with their impoverished grandfather and parents, have been in Singapore since October.
Doctors have volunteered their services for free and hospital costs are being covered by a flood of public donations.
We are very worried.
The operations not finished, Arjun Dev Shrestha, the twins maternal grandfather, told Reuters on Sunday.
The mother is crying, crying.
Conjoined twins fused at the head are rare, occurring only once in about two million live births.
Successful separations, while not unprecedented, are even more uncommon.
Last October, Australian doctors split twins Tay-Lah and Monique Armstrong who were joined at the back of the head.
The royal womens hospital in Brisbane is preparing for the birth of its second pair of joined twins in 12 months and will assess the chances of separating them once they are born.
The twin girls, joined at the side of the head and facing the same direction, are due in May to a Brisbane woman who has not been identified.
In 1997, surgeons successfully split twins in South Africa who shared the same skull cavity, Keith Goh, the paediatric neurosurgeon heading the Singapore team, told Reuters.
Chinas giant pandas face relentless human threats WASHINGTON, Apr 9 (REUTERS) : Chinas giant Panda may be able to escape extinction, experts say, despite the human onslaught on their mountainous habitat and lack of data on how many of the beloved black-and-white creatures remain in the wild.
If you look at the big picture, this is a time for guarded optimism, more so than ever before, about the giant Pandas future, said Karen Baragona, the world wildlife funds giant Panda conservation program manager.
A study released last Thursday by researchers at Michigan State University and Collaborators in China cast doubt on the effectiveness of efforts to protect the endangered giant pandas, detailing the ongoing destruction of prime habitat in wolong nature reserve.
It is the largest protected area for the conservation of the giant panda, whose range now consists of only half a dozen mountain ranges in China.
But the study found that the human population within the reserve had grown by 70 percent since wolong was created in 1975, and that downing of trees for fuel wood, farming, tourism and other human activities had eradicated prime panda habitat.
Its a dire situation, but I think this is a major opportunity to be involved with pandas and try to work with the Chinese in getting some things turned around, said Don Lindberg, who heads the giant panda team at the San Diego Zoo.
We always have to hope.
None of us will settle for extinction of the wild population and just a few living in zoos left for future generations.
That is completely unacceptable.
Baragona said she has reason to be hopeful, noting that the number of reserves for pandas has more than doubled since 1993, currently standing at 32.
That is "a very significant milestone for the Chinese government, she said.
Baragona also said that since 1998 there has been a complete moratorium on commercial logging in the entire range of the giant panda, which provides the opportunity to protect and restore panda habitat even outside the reserves.
She said more technical and financial support than ever before is flowing into China from international organizations and zoos.
Efforts are intensifying.
The Chinese government has elevated giant Panda conservation to a higher level than ever before.
I think conservationists are working harder than ever before.
The quality of reserve management is improving.
Things wont just stay the same.
Things are improving, she said.
Giant pandas are perhaps the most unusual of the worlds eight species of bears.
Their diet consists almost entirely of various bamboo species found in high-mountain areas.
No precise numbers exist for how many live in the wild.
The last official estimate was made in the 1980s, placing the population at somewhere around 1,000.
Chinese survey teams have been in the field since 1999 carrying out a panda census.
Results are due in the middle of next year, the WWF said.
There may be more pandas than weve been led to believe, Lindberg said.
On the other hand, the worry is that there will be substantially fewer when the census numbers come out next year.
International groups such as the WWF and Zoos around the world are helping to bankroll conservation efforts in China.
Baragona said the WWF provides about 1 million in support annually in the form of training and support in the reserves.
Zoos with pandas on loan from China are chipping in.
Lindberg said his zoo gives China 1 million dollars annually for two adult Pandas and 600,000 dollars annually for a cub born a year and a half ago, with the money earmarked for Panda conservation.
Zoos in Washington and Atlanta have similar arrangements.
Jianguo Liu, who led the Nichigan state study, said good intentions on the part of the Chinese government have not always yielded good results.
Everybody loves Pandas, Liu said.
To be fair, the government has spent a lot of time, a lot of attention and a lot of money to protect the habitat for the pandas.
But even so, the results are not exciting.
So there are some ways that we could do better.
For example, he said the government could reverse the growing human population within the reserves by providing better educational opportunities, allowing young people to attend technical schools and colleges and obtain jobs outside the reserve.
Britains monarchy stirs new debate on its future LONDON, Apr 9 (REUTERS) : The future of Britains monarchy was being hotly debated today after a newspapers sting operation forced Queen Elizabeths daughter-in-law Sophie Rhys-Jones to quit as head of a public relations company.
Off with her head, declared the mass-selling mirror tabloid as Rhys-Jones or the countess of Wessex as she is formally known paid the price for making disparaging remarks about British politicians and the royal family to a reporter posing as an Arab Sheikh.
The revelations rocked Buckingham Palace just as it was starting to feel it may have recovered from the scandal-plagued years of the 1990s when it had to squirm over the Late Princess Dianas squidgy tape conversations with an infatuated male admirer and the Duchess of York was pictured cavorting topless by the pool with her financial adviser.
Several newspapers joined some members of prime minister Tony Blairs labour party in calling for a shake-up of the royal familys role, size and conduct, training their guns on so-called junior royals like Rhys-Jones.
Blair, however, said he was 100 percent behind the monarchy.
Queen elizabeth, standing by her youngest son Prince Edward and his wife, stepped in quickly to try to minimise damage to the royal family after Sundays news of the world tabloid splashed the countesss indiscreet comments across 10 pages.
The queen slammed the press for waging a campaign of entrapment, subterfuge, innuendo and untruths against the couple but acknowledged that new guidelines were needed on the way royals with careers combined business life with public duty.
Britains top-selling Sun tabloid said the monarchy would not last another generation in its present form and suggested that heir-to-the-throne prince charles was hoping a scaled down royal family would save the crown.
Our guess is that it may for one generation at most.
After that, all bets are off, The Sun said in an editorial.
This is our country.
Why do they have a right to be heads of it? Under the headline a hollow crown, the Financial Times said there were obviously potential conflicts of interest between running a public relations firm and the public duties of royalty.
The best, and least likely, outcome would be that the countess and other sprigs of the royal family decided their careers were worth pursuing, and abandoned their public role and privileges, the newspaper said.
At least their Sunday mornings would then be a lot more relaxing, it added.
Tony Wright, chairman of a Parliamentary Public Administration select committee, was prominent among labour voices raised in favour of a review of the monarchys future.
If we dont have something like a select committee, or a Commission on the monarchy, it will be the end anyway, Wright said.
Blair, preparing to hold a possible general election in two months time, was keen to keep his distance from the Wrights of his party.
A spokesman for Blair said the prime minister remained a 100 percent supporter of the monarchy.
Despite a long series of bruising revelations about the royal family over the past few years, opinion polls show a majority of britons still support the monarchy.
Rhys-Jones said in a statement she regretted the embarrassment she had caused after being taken in by the news of the worlds sting.
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