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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hijacked!
TURKISH newspapers yesterday published the first details of the covert operation to capture the Kurdish leader Abdallah Ocalan. The arrest of the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) sparked off massive protests on Tuesday by Kurds throughout Europe, who seized Greek embassies and took hostages.The daily Hurriyet said Ocalan was abducted by Turkish commandos dispatched to Nairobi after intelligence officials determined he was hiding in the Kenyan capital. The newspaper said the team stopped Ocalan's car on Monday night after he left the Greek Embassy in Nairobi and bundled him onto a plane belonging to a former Turkish minister and businessman Cavit Caglar. According to reports, Ocalan was handcuffed to his seat and flown to an unidentified military base in Turkey.
Ocalan's capture has focused attention on Turkey's treatment of the Kurds, who are fighting for a separate homeland, with European countries urging Turkey to give the rebel leader a fair trial. The US-based Human Rights Watch said it would send a group of monitors to the trial, but Turkey yesterday refused to allow three of Ocalan's Dutch attorneys to enter the country.
also see RegionNew role
PROMINENT Egyptian activist Amina El-Guindi, secretary-general of the National Council on Motherhood and Childhood, was on Tuesday chosen for a seat on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to help oversee its work of preventing children from becoming the victims of prostitution, war and underage labour.El-Guindi has raised public awareness of the problems faced by marginal sectors of Egyptian society and has stressed the dangers of discrimination against women and female children, particularly in the areas of education, health and social status.
El-Guindi has been elected to a seat on the committee together with representatives from Israel, the Netherlands, Burkina Faso and Finland.
The committee, which meets in Geneva, is responsible for implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989. The convention has been signed by all UN members except Somalia and the US.
