Jakarta, April 22
Leaders from over 100 countries gathered here today, half a century after the first ever Asian African Conference, with host Indonesia calling for building strategic partnership across the Indian Ocean based on the principles laid down at the historic Bandung meet.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will represent India at the two-day summit which marks the Golden Jubilee of the 1955 Asian African Conference in Bandung. India had played a key role at the meet under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The historic summit has brought together over 100 Asian and African countries with 42 represented by heads of state or government.

Unlike their founding fathers who initiated the conference in Bandung, 100 km from Jakarta in 1955, to take a stand against colonialism, the current leaders will trade ideas and initiatives to address myriad problems facing two-thirds of the world's population living in the two continents ranging from poverty to poor medical care.

Inaugurating the summit, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono noted that "the sad fact of history is that while the Bandung spirit lived on after 1955, the Asia-Africa process stumbled.

"The last time we heard of the 'Asia-Africa' conference was in 1965 when the attempt to reconvene the second Asian African summit in Algiers faltered.

Asserting that the case for Asia-Africa solidarity was even more compelling today than it was 50 years ago, the Indonesia leader underlined the need for strategic partnership between the nations of the two continents.

"Across the Atlantic ocean there is the formal alliance between Europe and North America. Across the Pacific Ocean there is the formal linkage between Asia and the Americas, through APEC and ASEAN Regional Forum.

"But across the Indian ocean none exists between Asia and Africa despite the success story of the first Asia Africa summit in 1955."

He said the real challenge today of Asia Africa was not about developing the power to confront but the power to connect.

"Let us build a strategic partnership that will bind our two continents in a vibrant pragmatic and forward looking way. It should cover three areas — political solidarity, economic cooperation and socio cultural relations," he said.

If the Bandung spirit is adapted in our hearts and we make the partnership work the "story of Asia Africa in the 21st century can be very different from its 20th century past," he told the opening session.

The summit will adopt the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP) declaration, a broad visionary document outlining a programme for closer cooperation in political, economic and social and cultural relations. — PTI

Islamabad, April 22
Pakistan has proposed the schedule for the second round of the composite dialogue with India, from the last week of May till the end of August, a leading Pakistani daily said today.

The talks will focus on the six issues, including Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation project, terrorism and drug trafficking, promotion of friendly and cultural relations and economic and trade cooperation, Daily Times quoted sources as saying.

Under the proposed schedule, talks on Siachen will be held on May 24-25 and on Sir Creek on May 26 in Islamabad.

Talks on Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation project will be held on June 15-16 and on terrorism and drug smuggling on July 5-6 in New Delhi.

It has been proposed to hold talks on friendly and cultural exchanges on July 26-27 in Islamabad while talks on economic and trade cooperation should take place on August 9-10 in New Delhi.

The Foreign Secretaries will meet again on August 30-31 in Islamabad on Kashmir as well as peace and security issues to review the outcome of the second round of talks. — UNI

Kathmandu, April 22
The Maoists in Nepal continued their attacks on educational institutions, bombing a school and torching its bus, even as six children were injured in a blast triggered by suspected rebels.

The rebels yesterday bombed Small Heaven Boarding School at Kalyanpur in Chitawan district that belongs to the president of the Private and Boarding Schools Association of Nepal (PABSON), Mr Umesh Lal Shrestha.

Five men entered the school, bombed the five-story building after overpowering the security guards and torched the school bus.

The explosion caused damage worth Rs 3 million, according to the school sources.

In another incident, six children and an adult were injured in an explosion triggered by the Maoists in Tanahun district in western Nepal yesterday, according to The Himalayan Times. The bomb exploded when children played with it mistaking it for a toy, the daily said. — PTI

Munich, April 22
Pope Benedict XVI's past membership in a Nazi youth organisation has sparked a faceoff between British and German newspapers that has highlighted the deep sensitivities that run in Germany about World War II and the role of its now-aging citizens in that war.

‘‘English Insult German Pope,’’ yelled the front-page headline on Germany's largest daily newspaper, Bild, on Thursday in response to a slew of uncomplimentary British headlines the day before that referred to Benedict as ‘‘God's Rottweiler’’ and ‘‘Hitler Youth.’’

‘‘The British press should think about themselves and how they're always talking about Nazis and how this influences their own youths and you end up getting Prince Harry with a swastika on his arm,’’ said Winfried Rohmel, spokesman for the archdiocese of Munich, who became then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger's spokesman in 1977.

Harry (20) sparked an uproar in January when he was photographed wearing a swastika to a costume party.

This week's controversy seemed more like an airing of lingering resentments between the two wartime foes than an argument based on the facts of Benedict's time in the Hitler Youth movement as a teenager.

But it has prompted some examination of the history of Germany -- and Ratzinger -- in that troubled period. Jewish leaders have made only positive public statements about Benedict, who as an aide to Pope John Paul II was instrumental in promoting reconciliation between Jews and the Catholic Church. But some of Ratzinger's past statements about his involvement in the Hitler Youth have raised questions that some people, even in his hometown of Traunstein, feel he should answer.

‘‘Pope Ratzinger should answer these questions himself,’’ Traunstein town archivist and historian Franz Haselbeck said in an interview in his town hall office. ‘‘He should be asked. He is the only person who can answer these questions.’’

In 1997, when asked if he had been in the Hitler Youth, Ratzinger told an interviewer: ‘‘At first we weren't, but when the compulsory Hitler Youth was introduced in 1941, my brother was obliged to join. I was still too young, but later, as a seminarian, I was registered in the Hitler Youth.’’

In fact, it was on March 25, 1939 -- not in 1941 -- that membership became obligatory for Germans between 10 and 18. Ratzinger's 10th birthday was in April 1937, so he was obliged to join from the day the Nazi decree was passed.

Rohmel said he believed that Ratzinger did not have to join the Hitler Youth because he was at a Catholic boarding school, but he did not know for sure. Ratzinger's use of the passive to describe being ‘‘registered’’ in the movement implies he did not personally sign up to join the group.

But according to Volker Dahm, head of research into National Socialism (Nazism) at Munich's Institute for Contemporary History, every individual had to sign his name on a form to join the organisation.

As a member of the Hitler Youth, Ratzinger would have worn the brown-shirted uniform and a red and white swastika armband, Dahm said. He would have been subjected to the Nazi Party's anti-Semitic propaganda and would have had to take part in harmless activities like camping.

Some of the details may be lost to time and the murkiness of old men's memories and recountings, but in spite of the British newspapers there seems to be no one who seriously believes Ratzinger was ever a true Nazi sympathiser.

— By arrangement with the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post

Kathmandu, April 22
Former Nepalese Deputy Prime Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari, placed under house arrest since King Gyanendra sacked his government and assumed absolute power, was among the 61 political detainees released by the authorities in the kingdom, the police said today.

The announcement of their release came a day after the Amnesty International claimed that over 3,000 persons had been detained in Nepal since the February 1 royal takeover.

Security guards were withdrawn from the residence of Adhikari, who was the Deputy Prime Minister in the sacked Sher Bahadur Deuba government, last night after he was kept under house arrest for 81 days, the police said.

After he was set free, Adhikari, also the standing committee member of the Nepal Communist Party-UML, told mediapersons that the royal government’s act of detaining a politician without any reason for such a long time was a “gross violation” of the Constitution.

The government released 60 other political prisoners, including Nepali Congress leader Trailokya Pratap Sen, from various districts, the police said. — PTI

Washington, April 22
A major Internet drug ring, allegedly headed by two Indian nationals, has been busted and 20 persons arrested in the USA and four other countries, the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has announced.

Over the past 48 hours, there were 20 arrests in eight US cities and four foreign countries. The arrests occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ft. Lauderdale and Sarasota, Florida, Abilene and Tyler, Texas, Greenville, SC and New York. Arrests were also made in San Jose, Costa Rica, New Delhi, Agra, and Mumbai.

The arrests were the results of “Operation Cyber Chase”, a year-long Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation that targeted international Internet pharmaceutical traffickers operating in the USA, India, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.

The operation began after the DEA identified an international Internet drug trafficking organisation, allegedly headed by Indian nationals Brij Bhusan Bansal and Akhil Bansal. — PTI