The Hindu : Rebels demand President's exit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 16, 2003

International

International

Rebels demand President's exit

AKOSOMBO (Ghana): Liberian rebels at peace talks in Ghana insisted that the embattled Liberian President, Charles Taylor, step down as part of any formal cease-fire. A Liberian Government official dismissed the proposal as a ``total absurdity.'' Envoys from Liberia's two insurgent groups said on Saturday that Mr. Taylor must agree to leave his office within 10 days of the signing of a truce, and that U.S.-led peacekeepers should come to the war-ravaged Western African nation to oversee a treaty. The main rebel group, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, also attended talks with international mediators in this riverside town 120 km northeast of Ghana's capital, Accra. The larger group recently launched its most aggressive campaign in its three-year effort to oust Mr. Taylor, battling Government forces on the outskirts of the Liberian capital, Monrovia. — AP

Thousands marooned in floods

DHAKA: Heavy rains inundated northern Bangladesh, where nearly 150,000 people have been stranded in their flooded homes, officials said on Sunday. Some 3,000 people fled their homes and took shelter on mud embankments in the hardest-hit Moulvibazar district, relief officials said on condition of anonymity. The flooding has hit about 100,000 villagers in Moulvibazar, a farming district 160 km northeast of the capital, Dhaka. Many of the victims have lost rice crops and livestock, and were confined to their homes. The overflowing Khowai, Dhalai, Monu and Teesta rivers flooded dozens of new villages in Sylhet, Habiganj and Lalmonirhat districts, where up to 50,000 people have been marooned, officials said. . — AP

Anti-Europe step

HAVANA: Fidel Castro's communist government took its first major step in its anti-Europe campaign, taking control of the Spanish Embassy's cultural centre — a showcase of Iberian tradition Havana says was used to nurture the Opposition. The Foreign Ministry announcement came two days after Mr. Castro led hundreds of thousands of people on marches outside the Spanish and Italian embassies in the capital to protest European alignment with U.S. policies supporting pro-democracy dissidents. Havana was responding to the 15-member European Union's announcement last week that it would review its relations with the island after a crackdown on the Opposition and the firing-squad executions of three men who tried to hijack a ferry to South Florida. A government statement said Cuba was cancelling its agreement with the Spanish embassy, first signed in 1995 and renewed in September, to operate the cultural centre in a renovated historic building facing the ocean in the capital's Old Havana district. — AP

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