Opinion polls suggest that its share of the vote has risen to 10 per cent, from 6 per cent at the 1993 election. It is demanding a 10-year time limit for the settlement of land claims, and also wants a 20 per cent flat tax rate, harsher prison sentences and a clampdown on welfare “scroungers”.While the party is not openly racist in the manner of One Nation, which opposed immigration and Aboriginal land rights, its message has struck a chord with disaffected blue-collar and rural New Zealanders. The totara was felled by the Europeans in 1876 and replaced with a pine, now leaning at a perilous angle after a recent attack on it by chainsaw-wielding Maori activists.
In tactics reminiscent of those employed by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party in Australia last year, ACT has waged an unashamedly populist campaign for votes in tomorrow’s general election. One Tree Hill was the site of a Maori pa (fortified village), and it was once crowned by a totara, a native tree sacred to the Maoris. Thousands of independence supporters protested outside a meeting of a special parliamentary committee, at which the security forces were accused of widespread abuses (Reuters).

SIX WEEKS ago, Richard Prebble, leader of the right-wing ACT New Zealand party, drove to the summit of One Tree Hill, a volcanic peak overlooking Auckland, to call for restrictions on Maori claims to land confiscated by European settlers

The choice of venue was deliberately provocative. Nearly a dozen militant groups are fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, in a rebellion that has killed more than 25,000 people in the last 10 years.t Indonesia’s military chiefs yesterday defended themselves against accusations of brutal treatment of separatists in the rebellious province of Aceh, north-west Sumatra.The military is accused of killing at least 2,000 civilians during its nine-year operation in Aceh. Another soldier and two militants were killed in a battle in the Qazigund area, 40 miles south of Srinagar. No group admittedplanting the device, but police suspected that it was the work of separatist militants.Four militants were killed in another gun battle between separatists and Indian forces at Kulgam village, 20 miles south of Srinagar, police said.

An Indian army spokesman said eight militants were killed yesterday in a battle with security forces in the Sundabrar forest area, 34 miles south of Srinagar, the state’s summer capital.
The army said that six automatic rifles, a grenade launcher, four radio sets and a large quantity of arms and ammunition were recovered. The statement added that a militant and a civilian had also been killed, and three Indian soldiers wounded, in a separate gun battle at Tral in south Kashmir.Three soldiers were killed and three others were wounded when an army vehicle ran over a landmine near Nehalpora Pattan, 16 miles north of Srinagar. TWENTY PEOPLE, including 15 separatist guerrillas, four Indian soldiers and one civilian, were killed in gun battles and a landmine explosion in the restive state of Kashmir, army and police officials said. OPC militants patrolled some streets with machetes and clubs.”This is the first time in my life I have seen someone dragged from their home and killed on the spot.” said one weeping resident of the suburb.Tension has been high since the end of army rule, when the north relinquished the power it held under military and civilian governments since independence from Britain in 1960.Northerners complain Mr Obasanjo has favoured his Yoruba kinsmen in appointments, despite the fact that he did poorly in Yoruba regions during the February election.(Reuters). “When people decide to behave like animals then they must be treated like animals.”The clashes are the latest in a chain of violent inter-tribal incidents since Mr Obasanjo took office in May to end 15 years of debilitating military rule.Ketu residents said fighting broke out between the rivals before midday over control of the sprawling Mile 12 food market.Many Hausa traders – whose origins lie in northern Nigeria – fled, but others armed themselves with knives to protect their homes. Anyone who calls himself OPC should be arrested and if he doesn’t agree he will be shot on sight,” Mr Obasanjo said.”We cannot allow this country to be overtaken by hoodlums and criminals,” he said on television.