Washington – Edmund Muskie, former Secretary of State under President Carter, died yesterday at 81 after a heart attack. He was briefly a contender for the presidential nomination in 1972 Reuter

Obituary, page 16. TERESA POOLE

Taipei
In central Taipei yesterday afternoon workmen were clinging perilously to the side of the Chinese Bank building, disrobing it of a billowing 10-storey-high election portrait of President Lee Teng-hui.Four days after Taiwan’s presidential polls, the bunting has come down, Peking has stopped lambasting Mr Lee as a traitor to the motherland and one of two US aircraft-carriers in the region, the Independence, is preparing to move away. The meeting could start in a day or two.The council of the clerics, from 15 Taliban-held provinces and other parts of the country, has the authority to decide whether to pursue war or negotiate peace with Mr Rabbani.. Yesterday’s attacks came amid rumours that the government would soon launch an offensive to drive the Taliban out of artillery range of the capital.Taliban sources said 300 clerics invited to a meeting to discuss making a peace offer to Kabul had reached the southern town of Kandahar, the militia’s headquarters.

There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Earlier, a Pakistan-based Afghan news service said forces loyal to President Burhanuddin Rabbani also directed artillery fire at Charasyab.The Taliban reoccupied Charasyab in October, six months after losing it to government forces, and have frequently shelled Kabul from hills to the south and west of the city. They are also alarmed by the new anti-subversion law, fearing that it will be used against them.. Kabul (Reuter) – Afghan government jets bombed rebel positions outside the capital yesterday, killing up to 50 people, the Defence Ministry said. An official said 20 people were also wounded as the jets hit Charasyab, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Kabul, where commanders of the Taliban Islamic militia were meeting to discuss plans for their war against the government. Last night the treaty, which was approved by the Hungarian parliament last summer, was ratified by Slovak MPs by 119 to 1.Under the Basic Treaty, Hungary accepts the inviolability of its border with Slovakia in return for guarantees concerning the rights of Slovakia’s 600,000 ethnic Hungarian minority.Both Bratislava and Budapest hope that the agreement shows the two countries have put old animosities aside and will thereby strengthen their bids to join the European Union and Nato.While welcoming the Basic Treaty, representatives of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia remain extremely mistrustful of the government in Bratislava.Ethnic Hungarian leaders say that a law passed late last year enshrining Slovak as the only official language clearly goes against the spirit of the treaty. Western diplomats, some of whom in the past have openly questioned Slovakia’s progress towards democracy, have also sought clarification of the new legislation.The Law on the Protection of the Republic is one of a package of tough new laws believed to be part of a deal agreed between the Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar, and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), a junior partner in his ruling coalition.In return for Mr Meciar’s agreement to introduce the new measures, nationalist MPs agreed to support his attempt to win parliamentary backing for a Basic Treaty with Hungary agreed in principle just over a year ago.

Peter Weiss, leader of the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), said the law would limit freedom of expression, assembly and information and promised to challenge it in the constitutional court.Other speakers compared some of the law’s provisions with a similar “anti- subversion” measure passed in 1948 by the Communist government of the then Czechoslovakia.Under the law, technically an amendment to the criminal code, Slovak citizens could face two years’ imprisonment if found guilty of “disseminating false information abroad damaging to the interests of the republic”.Other clauses point to stiff penalties for organisers of public rallies judged to be aimed at subverting the constitutional system, territorial integrity or defence capability of the country.The government insists that the law complies with accepted international norms, but critics say the vagueness of its wording leaves it open to a wide variety of interpretation and that, in the wrong hands, it could be used to silence opposition. ADRIAN BRIDGE

Bratislava
Amid furious accusations of a revival of Communist repression, the Slovak parliament yesterday ratified a controversial new law aimed at protecting the state against subversion.The debate on the so-called Law on the Protection of the Republic provoked uproar on opposition benches, where speakers denounced it as a throwback to the legislation of the Communist era and a further blow to Slovakia’s already tarnished international image.Opposition deputies banged their desks and jeered as news came through that the law had been approved by a margin of 77 to 57. The packed chamber also rose from their seats at the end of the address.Later the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh renewed their friendship with Poland’s former president, Lech Walesa, who was their guest at Buckingham Palace and Windsor in 1991.. “The Poles who stayed in Britain founded a community which has given much to our national life. But their freedom was not reflected in their own country.”So we rejoiced all the more so at Poland’s recovery of full sovereignty and at your decision to seek membership of European and Western institutions.”We strongly support the enlargement of the European Union and Nato, we are in sympathy with your aim to join these bodies, and we are determined that that aim cannot be subject to a veto by any other country.”The Queen received a standing ovation, part-way through her speech, when she quoted four words in Polish from a 1980s protest song, by Jan Pietrzak, against martial law in Poland – “Zeby Polska byla Polska” (May Poland be Poland). If Poland had not stood with us in those days, who knows – the candle of freedom might have been snuffed out?”The war had joined Britain and Poland but later divided the two nations “for 1945 did not bring liberty to all”, the Queen said.

But so much that seemed fantastic in those years has become reality.”Referring to Anglo-Polish co-operation during the War, she said: “As our two countries fought together against tyranny, I remember the Polish national anthem being played each week on the BBC along with those of our other gallant allies.”And we will never forget, in my country, the courage of the Polish pilots, part of the `Few’, to whom Churchill rightly said so much was owed. She said Britain was in sympathy with the Poles’ desire to join, “. and we are determined that that aim cannot be subject to a veto by any other country” She added: “Poland needs Europe. The speech to the Polish Parliament in Warsaw was, however, well received by Poland’s political leaders who gave the Queen two standing ovations.The Queen warned that Britain would not allow Russia to veto Poland’s entry into the European Union and Nato. The Queen said: “During the years of Europe’s division, the idea that a British sovereign should address a freely-elected Polish Parliament would have seemed fantastic. But Europe also needs Poland.”Although she did not mention Russia by name, the Queen’s strong warning, backed by the Foreign Office, is a clear reference to recent posturing by Boris Yeltsin’s regime. The Queen had fully intended to read the sentence but it was missed out because of a typographical error – and it was not properly checked.”The Queen should have said: “Nor can we ever forget the suffering of the Polish people under Nazi occupation, nor the terrible fate of Polish Jews.”The slip is particularly unfortunate after recent controversy over the decision that the Queen should not visit Auschwitz during her historic state visit to Poland.Instead, a ceremony at Warsaw’s Umschlagplatz Jewish memorial was arranged at the last minute to commemorate the suffering of Polish Jews during the Second World War.In a speech on Monday night, the Queen paid tribute to the courage and heroism of the people of Poland and Polish Jews, and it was intended that she should repeat the same sentiments yesterday.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said “it was purely a mistake for which the Queen’s advisers take full responsibility”.
He added: “The reference was omitted entirely by mistake. The Queen’s copy of her keynote address omitted a vital paragraph commemorating the suffering of Polish Jews under Nazi occupation. “He picked out the image of the accused as the person who attempted to abduct him in 1990,” Mr Tedeschi said.After Milat’s arrest in May 1994, police searched his house and those of two of his brothers in Sydney’s south-western suburbs. Mr Tedeschi told the jury that they found a bolt, trigger mechanism, spring and two magazines from a Ruger rifle in a wall cavity at Ivan Milat’s house.