Korea's amnesty to millionsSEOUL: President Kim Dae-Jung, once himself a prisoner of conscience, granted amnesty today to some 5 million South Koreans. The sweeping amnesty involved mostly traffic offenders and petty criminals, but also freed 2,304 prison inmates being held on more serious charges, including 74 political prisoners.It was not immediately clear whether the releases would include a man believed to be the world's longest-serving political prisoner. Woo Yong-Gak, 70, has been held in solitary confinement for 40 years and is said to be partly paralysed from a stroke and missing all his teeth because of years of torture, poor food and inadequate medical treatment.PoK warningISLAMABAD: Various political parties in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) have jointly warned the Nawaz Sharif government to desist from its reported plans to merge Gilgit and Baltistan areas with Pakistan and have demanded that these area along with the rest of the occupied territory be made oneadministrative unit.The Pakistan Government has reportedly proposed a constitutional package which envisages the merger of northern areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) with Pakistan to counter allegations of denying constitutional rights to the local people for the past 50 years. For the past so many years Pakistan has kept these areas separate from the rest of POK. People in the northern areas say they do not have even those rights which they enjoyed during the Dogra rule 50 years ago.Benazir's petitionISLAMABAD: Pakistani chief election commissioner Justice Abdul Qadeer Choudhry has reserved his ruling on petition filed by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto seeking mr Nawaz Sharif's disqualification both as Prime Minister and member of the national assembly.Benazir accused Sharif and 13 of his party members including some ministers, of willfully hiding facts at the time of filing the nomination papers during ellections. The petition accused Sharif of hiding names of foreign firms he allegedlyin the USA and ``illegally rescheduling his bank loans.Yeltsin ill againMOSCOW: Russian President Boris Yeltsin canceled his meetings today after doctors said he was suffering from an acute respiratory infection, officials said. The Kremlin press service said Yeltsin was suffering from a sore throat because of the infection and was being treated with antibiotics.
