UN official in East Timor quits

UN official in East Timor quits

EAST TIMOR: One of the top United Nations officials running East
Timor has resigned, complaining of poor morale, interference in
management and a lack of senior Asians in the UN administration.

Malaysian N. Parameswaran said on Tuesday he had quit as chief
of staff of the United Nations Transitional Administration in
East Timor (UNTAET) and would leave his post on Sunday.

In his resignation letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,
a copy of which was obtained by AFP, Parameswaran alleges that
interference from UNTAET deputy administrator Dennis McNamara
hampered his efforts to bring home refugees.

He says UNTAET "has become a very much a 'white' mission, an
Eastern mission with a Western face." --AFP

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ATW-SAsia-China-India
China's Zhu to visit India, Bangladesh amid South Asia tension
JP/10/ATW

Zhu to visit India, Bangladesh

CHINA: Premier Zhu Rongji will make a trip to the volatile South
Asian region with visits to India and Bangladesh from Jan. 11 to
18, the foreign ministry in Beijing said on Tuesday.

Zhu's visit to India will take place little more than a week
after he received Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in
Beijing.

Tension between India and Pakistan has been mounting since a
deadly Dec. 13 attack on the New Delhi parliament, which India
blames on Islamic militant groups with links to Pakistan.

China is Pakistan's key ally and Musharraf has visited Beijing
twice in less than a month. --AFP

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ATW-Cuba-US
US lawmakers in Cuba meet Castro, dissidents
JP/10/ATW

U.S. lawmakers meet Castro, dissidents

CUBA: Six members of the U.S. House of Representatives met for
several hours on Monday with Cuban President Fidel Castro, an
official source here said.

Republican Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri and her Democratic
colleagues Hilda Solis (California), William Clay (Missouri),
Victor Snyder (Arkansas) and William Delahunt and Stephen Lynch
of Massachusetts spent six hours overnight Sunday with Castro at
the Palace of the Revolution.

It was the second marathon meeting with U.S. lawmakers in as
many weeks for Castro, who earlier hosted Republican Senators
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee of Nebraska.

After the meeting, Specter expressed confidence that Cuba
would not raise objections to the detention of war prisoners
captured in Afghanistan at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
--AFP

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ATW-Russia-Obit-Prokhorov
Nobel laureate Prokhorov, whose work led to laser, dies at 85
JP/10/ATW

Nobel laureate Prokhorov dies at 85

RUSSIA: Alexander Prokhorov, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1964 for work that led to the development of the laser, has
died. He was 85.

Prokhorov died early Tuesday in his Moscow apartment,
according to a report by the Itar-Tass news agency, which didn't
give a cause of death.

Prokhorov won the Nobel Prize with colleague Nikolai Basov and
Charles Townes of the United States for work in the field of
quantum electronics. The Soviets worked separately from Townes,
but their developments were in parallel.

Townes is credited with developing the first maser -- a beam
of coherent microwave radiation analogous to a laser -- in 1953,
while Prokhorov and Basov produced a similar device the next
year. That development preceded the laser. --AP

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ATW-US-nuclear-tests
US to raise possibility of resuming nuclear tests: report
JP/10/ATW

US to raise possibility of resuming nuclear tests: report

USA: The government plans to raise the possibility that it might
resume underground nuclear testing to help maintain the safety
and reliability of its strategic nuclear arsenal, The Washington
Post reported on Tuesday.

The idea is expected to be raised on Tuesday when the
administration of President George W. Bush lays out its broad
strategic nuclear plans to Congress, the report said.

The highly-classified Nuclear Posture Review will contain the
administration's justification for reducing strategic warheads
over the next decade from roughly 6,000 to the level of 1,700 to
2,100, as proposed by Bush, the paper reported.

But the review will say the United States needs to be able to
resume testing at its Nevada test site quicker than is possible
under present government guidelines. --AFP