Indian to head Commonwealth

KAMPALA,Saturday, (AFP) - Commonwealth leaders unanimously appointed an Indian as secretary general today, two days after the 53-nation federation suspended New Dehli's arch rival Pakistan. Kamalesh Sharma, currently India's high commissioner in Britain, will take up his post on April 1, 2008. New Zealander Don McKinnon is stepping down next year after the end of his second four-year term, the maximum allowed.

“It will be an honour and a privilege to serve this great international institution,” Sharma said at a news conference outside the Ugandan capital Kampala where the 53-nation grouping is holding its biennial summit. The loose federation of former mostly British colonies or territories represents nearly a third of the world's population from some of its poorest to some of its richest, and from some its smallest countries to its largest.

Sharma is the first secretary general from an Asian Commonwealth country in more than 40 years and comes as India — the largest member state in the grouping — prepares to host the next Commonwealth Games in 2010. On Thursday Commonwealth foreign ministers overcame objections from some members such as Sri Lanka to suspend India's arch rival Pakistan for failing to restore democratic freedoms.

Islamabad reacted angrily to the suspension, describing the decision as “unreasonable and unjustified” and threatening to pull out of the Commonwealth. It was yet to react to Sharma's appointment. Gathered in a retreat just outside Kampala, presidents and prime ministers from most of the Commonwealth's members were meanwhile discussing efforts to combat climate change and to promote global trade.

Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, the group's chairman, said Friday that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Among the major polluting countries at the gathering were Britain, Canada and Australia, the latter one of the few rich nations not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases.

But some Commonwealth members are also in the front line of climate change's effects such as the Maldives and Kiribati, a Pacific island group in acute danger of being washed away by rising sea levels. Gonzi said the Commonwealth should send a “strong message of support” to next month's UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali, a crucial meeting that will see countries discuss a successor to Kyoto.

Britain's Prince Charles, attending his first overseas Commonwealth heads of government summit along with his mother Queen Elizabeth II and a keen environmentalist, did his best on Friday to ensure that the problem was centre stage.“We all of course hold this planet in trust for our children and grandchildren... We are all putting such pressure on (the planet) that climate change has become the greatest challenge facing mankind,” the 59-year-old Prince of Wales said.