OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 30 October — The Palestinian Parliament yesterday approved Yasser Arafat’s new Cabinet. Arafat’s old foe, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, faced a battle to save his coalition government in Parliament today.

Legislators voted 56 to 18 to ratify the Palestinian president’s ministerial roster in what was at times a stormy session at which critics accused Arafat of failing to make any real changes to a government they view as tainted by corruption.

It was a new Cabinet Arafat had pledged would overhaul his Palestinian Authority but which was packed mostly with old faces.

But the vote in the Palestinian Legislative Council marked a victory for Arafat after his warning that a "no" would cause a collapse of the Palestinian Authority and with it hopes for statehood.

There are five new faces in the Cabinet, which has been reduced from 21 to 19 members. In a move likely to raise eyebrows in Washington, Arafat replaced his interior minister, Abdel-Razzak Al-Yahya, regarded as a US favorite. Yahya had been in charge of reforming security services. Yahya was replaced by Hani Al-Hassan, a Fatah member.

"I do not think it is a reform government or a qualitative shift in performance," reformist legislator Hanan Ashrawi said. Arafat reacted fiercely when legislator Abdel Jawad Salah, an independent, accused his Palestinian Authority of corruption.

"I will not allow you to humiliate us," Arafat snapped.

The new Cabinet will serve until presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 20.

An Israeli government spokeswoman expressed cautious hope for a "good security performance" from the new leadership.

Sending a mixed message to Israel from his headquarters in Ramallah, Arafat said he was extending an "olive branch" of peace. But he also accused the Israeli government of using the issue of reform to try to topple his Palestinian Authority.

Arafat’s address coincided with a political battle in Israel that has brought Sharon’s broad-based coalition close to collapse in a dispute with his main partner, the center-left Labour Party.

Labour, led by Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, plans to defy the right-wing Sharon and oppose the 2003 state budget in the Knesset (Parliament) today over funds allocated to Jewish settlements in occupied territories. Labour has demanded some of the funds earmarked for settlements be reallocated to the poor and the elderly.

Sharon, riding high in opinion polls, vowed to eject Labour from his 19-month-old coalition if it voted against the budget, a move that would leave him without a parliamentary majority and possibly lead him to declare new elections for January. The loss of Labour’s 25 seats in the 120-member Parliament would leave Sharon in control of only 55 votes.

Sharon accused Ben-Eliezer of flip-flopping on his original support for the budget and using the settlement issue to try to beat back a challenge from dovish candidates in Labour leadership elections due on Nov. 19.

RIYADH, 30 October — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf yesterday held wide-ranging talks in separate meetings here with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard.

A Pakistani Embassy spokesman said the "very cordial" talks covered the Middle East, India-Pakistan relations and bilateral ties.

The Saudi leaders expressed full solidarity with Pakistan and assured President Musharraf that the Kingdom "will continue to play a brotherly role in the development of Pakistan."

The spokesman said Prince Abdullah congratulated Gen. Musharraf on Pakistan’s recent national elections and expressed hope that the elected representatives will not only serve the interests of Pakistan but also the cause of Islam.

The Pakistani leader arrived in Riyadh earlier in the day on two-day visit during which he will also perform Umrah.

He was greeted at the Riyadh air base by Riyadh Governor Prince Salman.

The Pakistani leader’s trip had originally been due to start on Monday. No reason was given for the delay. Musharraf visited Saudi Arabia in June for talks with Prince Abdullah when military tensions between arch-rivals Pakistan and India soared to dangerous levels.

  UN vote on Iraq may be delayed
By Muhammad Sadik, Arab News Staff

WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 30 October — As the key Security Council members remained deadlocked over the wording of a UN resolution on disarming Iraq yesterday, a vote seemed unlikely this week.

A senior US State Department official, who declined to be named, said the UN Security Council would probably not end debate and vote on a US-authored resolution on Iraq until after the Nov. 5 US midterm elections.

"It looks like we’re getting pretty close," said the official. "It doesn’t look like there will be a vote until at least next week or the week after. The earliest would be next week after the election."

"There is no hard deadline, but to state the obvious the United Nations realizes that it’s approaching decision-making time," said Ari Fleischer, chief spokesman for US President George W. Bush.

Fleischer, who said he would not rule out a UN vote next week, warned that the United Nations was near a loose deadline Bush set in mid-September at the UN General Assembly in which he warned that the world body had "days and weeks, not months" before Washington confronted Iraq.

"It is approaching the point now where the president says days and weeks not months. It’s approaching the point where it’s months," he said as the United Nations Security Council debated a US-authored resolution on Iraq.

Yesterday, Iraq called for independent monitoring of any UN arms inspectors, saying it feared that Washington would otherwise use the inspections as a pretext for war. Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan made clear that Baghdad did not trust the United States or the inspectors. "America doesn’t want the return of inspectors. It wants to issue a (UN) resolution with a formula in order to be rejected by Iraq and give it a pretext to commit aggression against Iraq," Ramadan said in remarks published by Baghdad newspapers. Putting forward the idea for independent media and individuals to accompany the UN inspection teams, he said: "We will not allow the inspectors to be the sole source (of information) because we don’t trust them."

The White House brushed off the Iraqi call. "Once again Iraq is attaching conditions to something in which they should have no say," said Fleischer.

France, widely seen as the key to any deal on an Iraq resolution, signaled it was still resisting US pressure for an automatic trigger for force if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein impeded UN inspectors.

  Moscow siege gas was ‘opium-based’
By Charles Arthur & Chris Gray

MOSCOW, 30 October — Doctors who examined victims of the Moscow theater siege believe they were knocked out by an opiate rather than nerve gas, American officials said yesterday.

Officials at the US Embassy in Moscow said the doctors said the effects of the gas appeared consistent with an opiate such as a heroin derivative. Such substances not only kill pain and dull the senses but can also cause coma and death by shutting down breathing and circulation.

But as the Russian military continued to refuse to confirm the components of the gas used to end the weekend siege, despite repeated formal requests, other doctors remained mystified by the effects.

"It remains a puzzle," said Dr. Thomas Zilker, a toxicology professor at Munich University Clinic in Germany, who is treating two former hostages. He said the gas did not appear to be a known chemical weapon and could be a secret formula developed by Russia.

The Russian government will not reveal the type of gas because it may face similar attacks in the future, according to Alexei Arbatov, a member of Russia’s lower house of the Parliament. He described the substance as a "police gas" used to incapacitate the rebels. "In order to be able to use such gas again, the secret could not be disclosed," he said.

Police arrested dozens of people suspected of involvement in the three-day standoff that left 117 hostages and 50 Chechen militants dead, almost all of them gassed. Officials said that 41 of the Chechen hostage-takers had been shot dead during the rescue operation. Many of them were unconscious at the time from the effects of the gas, according to members of the special forces who led the assault.

A member of the special forces told Kommersant newspaper that the Russians had shot dead those Chechens who had explosives strapped to their bodies even though they were already knocked out by the gas, to avoid them triggering their human bombs.

Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said several dozen people believed to have participated in the theater siege had been arrested. A Chechen lawmaker complained that Chechens in the Russian capital were being harassed, searched and taken in for photos and fingerprinting.

A Russian helicopter attempting to land near the military’s main base in Chechnya was shot down by a missile, killing all four aboard in the latest of a series of helicopters apparently downed by rebels in the breakaway region. The Mi-8 helicopter was 30 meters (100 feet) off the ground when it was hit, caught fire and fell in an explosion near Moscow’s main military base in the region at Khankala, said Alexander Lemeshev, an official at the Emergency Situations Ministry’s southern Russia branch.

According to preliminary information, three crew members were aboard with one passenger, an officer who was accompanying some cargo, Lemeshev said.

Russia has ruled out all talks with Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, who said Monday that more attacks like the Moscow hostage taking were inevitable unless Putin sought a peace settlement. He firmly denied any involvement in the audacious attack on the Russian capital, however. (The Independent & Agencies)

Libya seeks Arab League meeting
By Arab News Staff Writer

CAIRO, 30 October — Libya, which is threatening to withdraw from the Arab League, has requested an emergency meeting of the pan-Arab organization to discuss its complaints, a League official said yesterday. In a telephone call to League Secretary-general Amr Moussa, African Unity Minister Ali Abdul Salam Triki requested the "holding of an urgent summit to debate the situation in the Arab world," said the official. Libya has expressed anger at the League’s failure to do more to address Israeli attacks on the Palestinians and US threats against Iraq, but has apparently agreed to put its withdrawal threat on hold. Moussa told Triki during the telephone call that an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from the League’s 22 members would be held soon and could address Libya’s concerns. The meeting could be held as soon as Nov. 10 at the League’s headquarters in Cairo, the official said, adding that contacts were under way to set the date. Moussa had pulled out all the stops in his bid to convince Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi not to leave the group, promising the League would listen to his concerns more attentively but also warning him of the seriousness of a pullout.

Southern Iraqi marshlands ablaze
By a Staff Writer

TEHRAN, 30 October — Iraq’s southeastern marshlands have been set ablaze and huge clouds of smoke have drifted over to Iran, officials said yesterday, with some pointing the finger at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A spokesman for an Iranian provincial environmental protection office near the Iraqi border said a blanket of choking smoke has hit the frontier cities of Abadan, Ahvaz and Khoramshahr.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the blaze may have been started on orders of the Iraqi president to "prevent his regimes’ opposition from hiding".

Iranian-based Iraqi opposition groups are known to be active in the area and with mounting US pressure on his regime, Saddam has allegedly stepped up operations against Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north.

The official said the fires, which have been burning for around a month, had led to a surge in respiratory problems and media reports yesterday said drivers in the area were forced to use their vehicle headlights in daylight.

"We have made films and reports and protested against their acts which violate environmental regulations. But Saddam does not pay attention to UN resolutions on disarmament, so how can we expect him to care about environmental matters," the official complained.

Reports in the Iranian media also pointed the finger at the Iraqi armed forces.

But an official from the Iranian-based Iraqi opposition group, Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said he did not believe Baghdad was behind the blaze, at least not this time.

"The marshlands have been burned before by Saddam Hussein. But Saddam has also drained the marshes to force the population out, so they are very dry, and all indications point to the current fires being natural," SCIRI official Sami Mahdi told AFP.

"But we do know that there is a lot of tension in the area. Three weeks ago there were some clashes between locals and Iraqi troops just north of the intersection of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers," Mahdi said.

After decades of Iraqi government actions against the so-called Marsh Arabs, most of them have abandoned their traditional lifestyle in the marshes and now live in cities or as refugees in Iran.

Qatar denies coup rumors
By a Staff Writer

DOHA, 30 October — Qatari officials yesterday denied rumors on financial markets of a coup attempt in the state, seen as a possible launchpad for any US attack on Iraq.

"This is rubbish," said an official at the emir’s court. A Foreign Ministry official said the rumor was "nonsense".

Qatar has the world’s third largest natural gas reserves.

Gulf-based diplomats said they had no information of any coup attempt in Qatar, whose Al-Udeid base is home to some 3,000 US troops and which analysts say might be used for any military attack against Iraq.

Residents said all appeared normal in the country, which US Middle East envoy William Burns visited yesterday as part of a regional tour. Burns held talks with Crown Prince Sheikh Jassim ibn Hamad Al-Thani.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al-Thani — who overthrew his father in a bloodless palace coup in 1995 — is touring North Africa with Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad ibn Jassim ibn Jabr Al-Thani.

Pakistan's deadlocked parties to hold joint talks

Almost three weeks since elections whose declared aim was the transfer of power from the military to civilians, the country of 145 million people remains in limbo as to who will rule and when parliament will sit.

No individual party won enough seats on its own in October 10 general elections to form a government, and each coalition pairing is fraught with compromise on respective parties' key platforms, relating mostly to foreign policy and President Pervez Musharraf's constitutional amendments. With marathon rounds of inter-party negotiations in the capital's drawing rooms failing to come up with a coalition, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Islamic party alliance has invited the four other main seat winners to its Islamabad headquarters to thrash out who will share power and who will sit in opposition.

The MMA landed the balance of power after surprising gains in the polls, winning 45 of the national assembly's 272 general seats, and is the potential kingmaker.

Spokesman Shahid Shamsi said the MMA was seeking agreement among the parties on Musharraf's 29 constitutional amendments. "We think there are some amendments which are essential, but they should be approved by the parliament, while two of them should be withdrawn," Shamsi told AFP, naming the civilian-military National Security Council (NSC) tasked with overseeing government, and presidential elections.

Compromising on the restoration of presidential powers to sack elected parliaments, one of the most controversial amendments, would be debated, Shamsi added. "We haven't decided as yet whether we will be in opposition or a government coalition. It all depends on agreement on the points we have raised.

"Sovereignty of parliament and the constitution is the main issue. Parliament must be the supreme authority, not the NSC." The pro-government Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), which won the most seats in October 10 general elections but fell short of a majority, has been wooing the MMA, but negotiations have hit a snag over the MMA's insistence that it gets the prime ministership. "The MMA is not ready to withdraw its nominee for prime minister," PML-Q parliamentary leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was quoted as saying by The News daily.

"We told them that the PML-Q, being a majority party, has every democratic right to have its prime minister elected." The second-largest seat winner, the opposition Pakistani People's Party (PPP) has also been courting the MMA, as both had pledged to throw out key constitutional changes.

Musharraf had promised to hand over power to the new prime minister by November 1. But still no date has been announced for the convening of parliament or its election of the prime minister. - AFP

N. Korea rejects call to give up nuclear weapons: Japan

"Japan expressed grave concern on nuclear issues and we also referred to the statement issued last week by Japan, the United States and South Korea. To put it in one sentence North Korea's response was they do not accept it at all," said the official. The statement by the three countries, issued on Saturday, demanded the North immediately give up its quest for nuclear weapons. The Japanese official said the response came from the head of North Korea's delegation to the talks in the Malaysian capital, Pyongyang's roving ambassador Jong Thae-Hwa, who "went on to say America's hostile stance toward North Korea is to blame". North Korea has admitted violating a 1994 deal with the United States in which it agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program and has said it would seek a negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue only on certain conditions.

These are that Washington recognizes the North's sovereignty, assures its security, and does nothing to arrest its economic development.

The Japanese official gave no more details, as the talks continued at the Japanese embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Japan has warned that the normalization process will be broken off if Pyongyang refuses to scrap its nuclear weapons program. The statement referred to by the Japanese official was issued in Los Cabos in Mexico by the leaders of the US, Japan, and South Korea on the sidelines of the annual summit of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. It warned North Korea it must scrap its nuclear arms program "in a prompt and verifiable manner", and pointed to the normalization talks with Japan as an important channel for the North's response.

"North Korea's relations with the international community now rest on North Korea's prompt and visible actions to dismantle its program to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons," they said. The statement was released after US President George W. Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung. The statement gave no specific indication of what consequences North Korea would face if it refused. But "the three leaders called upon North Korea to dismantle this program in a prompt and verifiable manner and to come into full compliance with all its international commitments," according to the statement.

"The three leaders agreed that South-North dialogue and the opening of Japan-DPRK normalization talks can serve as important channels to call upon the North to respond quickly and convincingly to the international community's demands for a denuclearized Korean peninsula," they said. - AFP

No more arrests of Muslim leaders: Indonesian leader

"This should not happen again, otherwise we will not stay silent," Maarif, who is known for his moderate Islamic views, was quoted by the official Antara news agency as saying.

"I'm sure Bashir has been made a victim to satisfy...the United States," he said in Surabaya, the country's second largest city in the province of East Java.

On Monday police forcibly transferred Bashir from a hospital in the central Java city of Solo to a police hospital in the Indonesian capital. He was formally detained on October 20. Indonesia has been under intense international pressure to crack down on radical Islamic groups following the October 12 bombing on the resort island of Bali, which killed more than 190 people, mostly foreigners.

Bashir is accused by neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia of being the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network, which is alleged to have links to Al Qaeda. - AFP

Australia deported Al Qaeda man to S.Arabia-media

The Sydney Morning Herald and its Melbourne stablemate The Age said a Saudi who fought in Chechnya and arrived on a false passport was quietly handed over last November to the secret police in Saudi Arabia, where he was wanted by the authorities. The man was expelled from Australia after being convicted of assaulting and threatening Australian Muslims who refused to contribute to the Chechen campaign.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said Ahmad Al Joufi was deported in late 2001 "on character issues". "It is on the public record that he had been convicted for assault charges and had received a suspended jail sentence for that, so any attempt he had at getting a visa, it was cancelled," the spokesman told Reuters. He declined to comment on the alleged Al Qaeda link and said he could not confirm whether the man was handed over to Saudi police.

Quoting intelligence sources, the newspapers said Al Joufi arrived in Australia in March 1999 on a false Saudi passport on a mission to recruit fighters for a "holy war" against Russia.

"Although 27 when deported, intelligence sources said the Saudi-born recruiter and fund raiser for Chechen Islamic fighters had been an Osama bin Laden loyalist for at least 10 years," the Sydney Morning Herald wrote. Saudi-born militant bin Laden is blamed for masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States through his Al Qaeda network. No one was immediately available at the Attorney General's office to comment on the deportation two months after the September 11 attacks. The government has previously said there were Al Qaeda sympathisers among Australia's small Muslim community, but no "network". According to officials in the Philippines, the Al Qaeda affiliated Southeast Asian Islamic movement, Jemaah Islamiah, had a cell covering the Indonesian province of Papua and Australia and included parts of northern Australia in its vision of a pan-Islamic "superstate" stretching across Southeast Asia.

Officials and defence analysts say the claim that Jemaah Islamiah included northern Australia in its aims seems unlikely. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age said the deported man's two years in Australia were troublesome. They said he was accused by Muslim leaders in Melbourne of using violence or threatening violence against those who refused to contribute to the Chechen rebels and was arrested and handed a nine-month suspended jail term for assault and "riotous affray".

He was refused a visa two days after being sentenced and was flown to Riyadh under escort, the newspapers said. They said the man had fought as a volunteer in Chechnya during the mid-1990s, reaching the rank of unit commander before suffering a severe leg wound.

At least two Australians -- one a convert to Islam -- have been linked to Islamic militants. Both are held at a US naval base in Cuba after being detained during the US-led war against Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban, or in neighbouring Pakistan. - Reuters