Gusmao urges grassroots democracy

Gusmao urges grassroots democracy

EAST TIMOR: President Xanana Gusmao took stock of his new nation
on Friday in a speech marking 100 days of independence, calling
for greater grassroots democracy to check potential abuse of
power.

Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo marked another
anniversary -- three years since the vote to break away from
Indonesia -- with a plea for an international tribunal for
offenders in the 1999 violence which surrounded the vote.

Gusmao, responding to recent anti-government protests, hit
back at those who "want to create a crisis" and urged people to
give the government time.

A public holiday commemorated the UN-organized referendum, in
which almost 80 percent voted to break away from Indonesia
despite a terror campaign by Indonesian-backed local militias.
--AFP

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ATW-Sweden-plane
Swede tries to hijack plane
JP/12/ATW

Swede tries to hijack plane

SWEDEN: Swedish police said on Friday they have arrested a Swede
of Tunisian origin on charges of plotting to hijack a plane bound
for Britain after a handgun was found in his luggage.

The 29-year-old man was arrested at Vaesteraas airport in
eastern Sweden on Thursday afternoon after the gun was found
during security checks ahead of a flight to London and
Birmingham, in central England.

The incident came just days ahead of the first anniversary of
the Sept. 11 attacks, in which four airliners were hijacked and
crashed into targets in the United States.

Police immediately questioned and searched the other
passengers on the Ryanair flight, while bomb squads combed the
Boeing 737 and the luggage on board. --AFP

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Schoolboy jailed for 20 years
JP/12/ATW

Schoolboy jailed for 20 years

AUSTRALIA: A 15-year-old boy who murdered a toddler when he was
only 13 was sentenced by an Australian court Friday to 20 years
in jail, including 10 years without parole.

The boy, one of Australia's youngest ever killers, had pleaded
guilty in February to charges of kidnap and murder, which he said
he committed after breaking into the toddler's home at night to
steal computer games.

But police said he told them he had decided instead to kidnap
her for ransom and after taking the toddler from her bed, he
stabbed her in the heart outside her home on the New South Wales
central coast.

He had blocked her nose and mouth until she stopped crying and
struggling, then threw her body up a nearby embankment, covered
it with long grass and went home. --AFP

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Bhutto candidacy rejected
JP/12/ATW

Bhutto candidacy rejected

PAKISTAN: Election officials on Friday rejected a bid by former
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to run in parliamentary elections,
a setback for the twice-deposed leader's efforts to return to
power in a new civilian government.

Officials in Ratto Dero, a community in Bhutto's home city of
Larkana in southern Pakistan, rejected Bhutto's petition for a
general seat in the National Assembly, saying she is prohibited
from running under new laws that ban candidates convicted of a
crime in absentia.

The laws were enacted recently by President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, who is trying to prevent Bhutto's return.

Bhutto, who lives in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai,
was convicted last month of corruption and sentenced to three
years in jail. --AP