UN official denies allegations
UN official denies allegations
EAST TIMOR: The deputy head of the United Nations mission in East
Timor on Thursday strongly rejected criticism of his work from a
fellow senior staffer, describing the complaints as "completely
unfounded."
"The allegations by Mr Parameswaran are completely unfounded
and without any merit as far as I'm concerned," said Dennis
McNamara, the deputy administrator of the United Nations
Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).
N. Parameswaran, a Malaysian, said on Tuesday that he had quit
as UNTAET's Chief of Staff and would leave his post on Sunday.
In his resignation letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,
Parameswaran complained of poor morale, interference in
management and a lack of senior Asians in the UN administration.
Parameswaran also alleged that his efforts to promote refugee
returns and reconciliation were hampered by McNamara and others.
--AFP
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ATW-Australia-bullet
Australian girl carries bullet in arm for 10 days
JP/9/ATW
Aussie girl carries bullet in arm
AUSTRALIA: A wounded nine-year-old Australian girl hit by a stray
bullet during a Sydney New Year's Eve fireworks display
unknowingly carried it for 10 days.
The girl suffered an apparent fireworks wound in her right arm
while she watched the display with her family in the Sydney
suburb of Belfield, police said.
Police said it appeared a gun had probably been fired in the
air during New Year's Eve celebrations and the girl, whose name
has not been released, was hit by the bullet on its way down.
While common in some countries, firing guns into the air
during celebrations and other public events is virtually unheard
of in Australia. --Reuters
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ATW-India-Maoists
Police kill five Maoist insurgents in eastern India
JP/9/ATW
Police kill five Maoist insurgents
INDIA: Police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar shot dead five
Maoists in an encounter on Thursday, the United News of India
reported.
The agency said quoting state police chief R.R. Prasad as
saying that a large quantity of arms and ammunition and police
uniforms were seized from the insurgents after the encounter in
Kyambari Prasadi village of Arwal district.
Police said the Maoists belonged to the People's War Group
(PWG), one of the most radical leftwing militias operating in the
country.
Prasad said a police party raided the village on receiving a
tipoff that armed insurgents were hiding there.
The extremists on seeing the police opened fire. In the
ensuing encounter five Maoists were killed and two policemen were
seriously injured, he said. --DPA
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ATW-US-Terror-entertain
TV film planned on Sept. 11 hijacking
JP/9/ATW
TV film planned on Sep. 11 hijacking
USA: A television network is planning a movie about the Sept. 11
hijacking and crash of United Airlines Flight 93, the Hollywood
Reporter in Los Angeles said on Wednesday.
CBS, one of the four major television networks in the United
States, plans to make The Real Story of Flight 93. The film would
be produced from the point of view not of passengers but their
families and rescue workers.
The flight, with 43 people on board, took off from Newark, New
Jersey, for San Francisco and crashed near Pittsburgh in western
Pennsylvania.
U.S. security officials suspect that hijackers planned to
crash the jet into the White House or the U.S. Capitol building
in Washington. Passengers apparently stopped the terrorists after
learning via cellphone of similar airliner attacks on the World
Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon near Washington.
--DPA