The
Sunday Times International
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Pakistan
cautiously welcomes Indian PM's peace offer
ISLAMABAD,
Saturday (AFP) - Pakistan has welcomed a call by the Indian premier
for a friendship treaty as a positive step, but insisted that the
divided region of Kashmir remains the core issue between the nuclear
rivals. "We believe the speech reflects many positive sentiments and a strong acknowledgement of the need to move forward on Jammu and Kashmir and other issues," foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. She said Islamabad had always emphasised the need for building confidence with New Delhi, "especially the Jammu and Kashmir dispute which has been at the heart of conflict, mistrust and hostility and which has bedeviled relations between the two countries for such a long time," she said. But Aslam's insistence that Kashmir remains central to a two-year-old peace process between India and Pakistan was at odds with Singh's assertion that the situation could move forward independently of the issue. The Indian premier, speaking at the opening of a new cross-border bus service, said it would be a "mistake to link normalisation of other relations with finding a solution to Jammu and Kashmir." Singh also said it was possible to reach a "meaningful" deal on issues including the disputed Siachen Glacier in Kashmir and a row over the Sir Creek marsh linking western India with southern Pakistan. Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly said that normalisation
cannot move forward unless the core issue of Kashmir is resolved. "We also need sincerity and flexibility in order to overcome the legacy of the past." India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, the Himalayan state divided between them and claimed in full by both. The nuclear-armed neighbours launched a peace bid two years ago which has so far yielded increased transport links but has not yet made headway on the key issue of Kashmir. ETA
ceasefire offer: Good gain for Spain Wednesday's ceasefire announcement, delivered by three hooded figures and broadcast on Basque television, has raised hopes that after four decades of assassinations, kidnappings and extortion, peace can come to a region racked by violence. An opinion poll released by the private Cadena Ser radio station said around 68 percent consider the ceasefire "good news for Spanish society". The ceasefire officially began at midnight (2300 GMT Thursday) hours after ETA had urged the government and local people to support the peace process after Wednesday announcing it was ending its violent campaign for an independent state in the northern Basque region and parts of southwestern France. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero who struck a cautious tone at an EU summit in Brussels, said that "if the (ceasefire) verification conditions I have just explained are met, I will go before parliament in the summer" to ask for parliament's assent in opening a dialogue with Basque radicals.
Russia
denies it spied for Saddam on US invasion "It
is not the first time that such unfounded accusations have been
made against Russian intelligence," SVR spokesman Boris Labussov
told AFP. One of the documents, a report from the foreign ministry to Saddam dated April 2, 2003, contained information passed on by the Russian ambassador, Vladimir Titorenko. Titorenko escaped injury from US weapons fire as he was traveling to Syria with several other diplomats. Four people, including the ambassador's driver, were wounded in the incident. The
ITAR-TASS news agency said Titorenko is now based in Algiers. Infant
snoring may harm cognitive development The link between sleep-disordered breathing and cognitive functioning in preschool and school-aged children “now has been established clearly,” Drs. Hawley E. Montgomery-Downs, of West Virginia University, Morgantown, and David Gozal of the University of Louisville in Kentucky say in their report in Pediatrics. Belarus
opposition calls mass protest as EU, US vow sanctions Main opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich, who is contesting the results of last Sunday's presidential vote which Lukashenko officially won, said that if the downtown October Square rally was blocked, "we will meet somewhere else." The demonstration coincides with an unofficial Freedom Day, celebrating a short-lived declaration of independence from Russia in 1918. In a pre-dawn swoop in the early hours of Friday, Belarussian riot police cleared October Square in central Minsk of several hundred protestors who had been staging an unprecedented show of defiance against Lukashenko. The tactics brought swift condemnation from the European Union and United States. At a Brussels summit, EU leaders agreed to widen a list of senior Belarussian officials subject to a visa ban and said they were also considering financial sanctions. Polish
Foreign Minister Stefan Meller said the measures would take effect
around April 10 and may involve more than a dozen people. "It's
a penalty for (Lukashenko's) sins. This is a fight of good against
evil," he added. "We
strongly condemn the actions by Belarussian security services in
the early morning hours of March 24," White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said. He
accused authorities of using "the language of repression"
after police closed down the protest camp. About 100 black-helmeted
riot police swooped on the square in the dead of night and herded
protestors, spending their fourth consecutive night there, into
green trucks with barred windows. Ales Bilatski, an expert with the Viasna human rights group, said that as many as 274 sentences were handed out Friday in courts all over Minsk, which "means that at least 300, or maybe 350 people were arrested tonight on October Square." The opposition youth group Zubr (Bison), which helped organise the tent camp protest, said 45 minors had been caught on the square. US
to discuss Iraq situation with Iran: Rice “Those meetings will take place at an appropriate time,” Rice told reporters at a news conference. Washington has charged Tehran with meddling in the sectarian strife in Iraq, an accusation Iran denies. In response to an overture by Washington last November, Iran said last week it was open to talks on the issue with the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. But until Rice's comments, U.S. officials had refused to say if the ambassador would hold the meeting. They also had emphasized U.S. skepticism over the Iranian decision by suggesting it was timed to distract from its nuclear programs standoff with the West. “I'm quite certain that at some point they will meet,” Rice said of the planned talks. While U.S. talks with Iran are unusual because the two countries have no diplomatic ties, Rice noted Khalilzad -- in his former role as U.S. envoy to Afghanistan -- had held meetings with Iranian officials about that country. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Iran was moving faster than expected toward enriching uranium and could manufacture enough of it to build a bomb within three years. Citing unnamed diplomats who have been briefed on the program, the newspaper said new information about Iran's program came from diplomats representing countries on the UN Security Council, who were briefed by senior staff of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear work appeared to be faltering in the face of distrust among powerful Security Council members and disagreements over the best strategy, the report said. “We're getting conflicting signals from the United States; it now appears they want to escalate the situation,” the paper quoted a senior diplomat in Vienna as saying. “The Russians see that as a slippery slope.” Iran is on the verge of feeding uranium gas into centrifuges, the first step toward enrichment, the paper said. That move is in keeping with Iran's experience level and its previous statements. According to one non-Western official who closely follows Iran's progress, engineers at a pilot plant in Natanz are likely to start crucial testing in the next couple of days to ensure that the centrifuges and the pipes connecting them are properly vacuum sealed, The Times said. Armless
man caught speeding in NZ The 32-year-old had passengers in the car when he was stopped on a highway near Papamoa in the Bay of Plenty area. Police fined the unemployed man NZ$170 (£60) and banned him from driving, local media reported. The
driver, whose name has not been published, was going well over the
speed limit of 100 km/h (60 mph) when he was stopped by police on
Thursday. Mr Gray told colleagues he thought the man had an "attitude", then noticed the driver had no arms. "He (Mr Gray) was pretty shocked by that, as you would be," acting Senior Sgt Deirdre Lack was quoted as telling local newspaper the Bay of Plenty Times. The
driver told police he had never held a driving licence. "Obviously, driving at a speed like that, arms or not, you're just waiting for an accident," she said. The man was well above the legal speed limit when he was stopped.-BBC Chinese
Gangmaster guilty of 21 drowning deaths Lin Liangren, 29, was convicted by a jury at Preston Crown Court over the illegal immigrants' deaths in Morecambe Bay, northwest England, where they were trapped by its notorious fast-rising tides and quicksands. The disaster cast a spotlight on the plight of Chinese and other foreign migrant workers, many of them in Britain illegally, and the gangmasters who hire them on low wages to do manual labour. The
doomed workers -- all from Fujian and Liaoning provinces in eastern
China and aged between 18 and 45 -- had been picking cockles when
they were stranded in treacherous conditions after sunset on February
5, 2004. "He has been very difficult to deal with. He lied from the very moment the tragedy occurred," he told reporters outside the court. "He tried to get people to change evidence, destroy evidence, and he's been very callous and despicable in blaming some of the deceased people for what happened." Gradwell said the Chinese cockle pickers had endured an unacceptable existence in Britain, living in cramped conditions and toiling for long hours. Iraqi
forces to take charge of borders by July: general "There's 3,631 kilometers of borders," said Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey. "And by this summer -- July -- Iraq security forces will be responsible for security along that entire front." A
Pentagon spokesman said Iraqi security forces already were in charge
of much of the 2,256 miles of border and the handover was nearing
completion. The handover is part of a broader effort to put Iraqi security forces in charge so that the 133,000-strong US force can be reduced and shift to a supporting role. Dempsey, who is in charge of training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, said two Iraqi army divisions, 13 brigades and 49 battalions currently have their own "battlespace." So do two national police brigades and six battalions, he said. Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, said last week he expects 75 percent of the country to be under Iraqi security forces by the end of the summer. Dempsey, who briefed Washington reporters via video link from Iraq, acknowledged that analysts who say that much of it is empty desert or uncontested territory have a "valid point." "But
that point begins to lose its validity as we continue to hand over
space," he said. "And 75 percent of Iraq certainly will
include more than a few parts of it that are both heavily populated
and very contested." British
press poke French fun at Chirac walkout Several dailies used sprinklings of French to liven up their editorials but The Times went as far as to write its entire column in a wackily comic French and franglais under the English headline: "Diplomatic Language." "The traitor provoked your immediate walkout with your ministers. Bravo! All of us countrymen must repel this monstrous anglophone wave and give the French language back its legitimate place within the European Union," The Times wrote. However,
caricaturing a haughty Frenchman, the Conservative daily warned
that foreign diplomats would end up conversing in franglais, a confusing
mix of French and English, because they do not understand the "langue
de Racine." For The Guardian there was much more than met the eye when Chirac protested the speech by Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, who heads Europe's employers federation UNICE. "Jacques
Chirac has a knack of making headlines and raising slightly embarrassed
laughs that relieve the choreographed monotony of EU summits, but
there are often very serious issues behind them," The Guardian
wrote. "Both
are closely linked to the wider issues of protectionism and economic
nationalism that are casting a cloud over the union's once grand
ambitions to perform more competitively in a globalised world,"
the liberal daily said. It
blamed France for erecting barriers but said it was not alone in
Europe. When
Seilliere started his speech to the EU's 25 leaders,Chirac interrupted
and asked why he was speaking in English, according to a French
official. Raising eyebrows among his EU counterparts, Chirac stood up and left the session with Finance Minister Thierry Breton and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy in tow. Chirac,
73, and his ministers returned only after Seilliere finished his
address. It's editorial was titled: "Parlez-vous anglais? Chirac's Maginot mentality ignores France's language strengths." In a column humorously sprinkled with expressions like "Zut alors!," the Financial Times said "French companies have expanded across the globe, acquiring businesses outside la francophonie in countries such as the UK and the US. "Some of the biggest have chosen to adopt English in their boardrooms, since most anglo-saxons are monoglots - incapable of holding their own in French," it said. And even though the French president is often seen rushing to the defense of his native language, it also said "M. Chirac has campaigned for Europeans to learn two foreign languages, to equip them for globalisation." |
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