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Lankan peace talks get under way
Russian N-proposal not acceptable
to Iran
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Bird flu toll rises to 20 in Indonesia
Manmohan’s daughter fighting for Iraqi prisoners
Indian American in race for Ohio Attorney-General
OIC denounces fatwa
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Lankan peace talks get under way
Geneva, February 22 The island’s Tamil-dominated North and East has been calm since the two sides agreed to meet, but if the Geneva talks collapse, many fear the end of a fragile 2002 truce and a return to a civil war which has killed over 64,000 persons. ‘’There is little confidence ... between the two sides. Confidence can only increase, but it starts at a low level,’’ Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim, who brokered the meeting, told journalists as talks got under way at a chateau outside Geneva. The Tigers today accused government forces of attacking one of their posts, saying that the talks would decide if there was peace or a new civil war. Diplomats say the talks, the first direct contact between the two sides since 2003, may see little more than the restating of known positions. Diplomats hope the talks will reduce tension that peaked in late January after a string of suspected rebel attacks on the military. The rebels denied the attacks.
— Reuters |
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Russian N-proposal not acceptable to Iran
Moscow, February 22 The two countries’ negotiators yesterday completed two days of inconclusive talks in Moscow on a Russian offer to enrich uranium for Tehran to avert suspicions that the Iranians could divert the nuclear fuel for atomic weapons. The Vedomosti daily quoted an official close to the Iranian delegation as saying that Iran insisted on the right to conduct its own enrichment activities. “There are no reasons at this stage to resume dialogue,” said the official, whom the newspaper did not identify. An Iranian diplomat cited by the Vremya Novostei daily said the Middle-East country wanted Russia to produce large-scale enriched uranium for it but needed a domestic uranium enrichment programme to create “the basis for independence in the nuclear sphere.” The diplomat also was not identified. Tehran’s top negotiator, Ali Hosseinitash, labelled the Moscow meeting “positive and constructive,” but some Russians voiced concern that Iran was using the proposed Kremlin compromise to stall for time and avert international sanctions.
— AP |
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Bird flu toll rises to 20 in Indonesia
Kuala Lumpur, February 22 Local tests have shown that a 27-year-old woman, who died in Jakarta this week, had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, a health ministry official said. So far, 19 persons have been killed in Indonesia due to bird flu. Most of the victims lived in Jakarta. Worldwide, 170 human cases, including 92 deaths, have been recorded following the outbreak. In Malaysia, two adults and five children aged between two months and 12 years have been admitted to local hospitals in Kuala Lumpur to ascertain if they had been infected by the H5N1 virus. Meanwhile, Thailand has imposed a ban on live poultry and raw poultry products from European countries hit by the bird flu. The ban applies to Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia.
— PTI |
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Manmohan’s daughter fighting for Iraqi prisoners
Washington, February 22 The Wall Street Journal in an article in Tuesday's issue notes how a "prominent Bush critic", the Indian Prime Minister's daughter Amrit Singh, is at the heels of the administration, blaming it for alleged systemic abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, while her father is strengthening ties with it. Amrit Singh has been responsible for procuring classified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as she is a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, an organisation that conservatives mistakenly consider left of the most left believers in this country. "These documents confirm that the torture of detainees and its subsequent cover-up was part of a larger clandestine operation, in all likelihood, authorised by senior government officials," she charged in an ACLU newsrelease. "But among the ironies of the post-Sep 11 world is the fact that this particular critic of the Bush administration is also the relative of one of its newest friends," notes the WSJ. The 36-year-old, youngest daughter of the Indian Prime Minister is married to an American but has kept a seriously low profile where hardly any Indian American paper has written about her or her relationship to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "I tease her father that he has a diversified portfolio," Prof Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University told the Journal. "He gets along with President Bush, while his daughter criticises him!" A Yale law school graduate, Amrit Singh is also involved in cases against the administration currently in the US courts against Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.
— IANS |
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Indian American in race for Ohio Attorney-General
New York, February 22 The primaries are to be held May 2 in this swing state that played a last-minute role in catapulting President George W. Bush to victory in his second term for office in 2004, defeating Democrat John Kerry. With the sullied reputation of the former Governor Bob Taft, Republicans are facing an uphill battle for some seats, and particularly that of Attorney-General — and Chandra could benefit from this. But he still has to win over his Democratic challenger, state Senator Marc Dann, who has strong support because of his role in keeping Republicans' feet to the fire in the state. Chandra, who displayed missionary zeal as Cleveland law director, said he hopes to mirror the powerful role played by New York Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer, who brought many a corporation to its knees through pro-active litigation and is now slated to be in the running for New York Governor. Chandra has roped in as fundraiser the renowned David Boeis, Al Gore’s attorney in the landmark case that brought Bush to the White House on the controversial Florida vote-count. Boeis has hosted two fundraisers for Chandra and given media interviews for him. ‘‘We don't need a politician with a law degree for Attorney-General, we need a lawyer,’’ Boies told Hannah News in an interview. ‘‘The midwest and Ohio is obviously very important to the Democratic Party and the nation in general. We have good Attorneys-General elsewhere in the country, such as New York’s Eliot Spitzer who are restoring integrity to the office. ‘‘I believe Subodh has the ability to do that in Ohio. He is precisely the kind of candidate we need in the Attorney-General’s race. He has practised law, he has prosecuted cases, and he knows how to act in the courtroom.’’ If Chandra wins the Democratic primary, he would face off with the winner among the two Republican contenders, Franklin county prosecutor Ron O'Brien and state Senator Tim Grendell. Born and brought up in the US, Chandra became active in Democratic politics when then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ran for the White House in the early 1990s. — IANS |
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OIC denounces fatwa
Islamabad, February 22 “It is very dangerous, personal fatwas like this harm our cause. This fatwa is a wrong fatwa. Nobody should adhere to it because it goes against the essence of Islam and the prohet’s teachings. Nobody has the right to kill anybody,”OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said, while deploring the violent protests across the world on the issue. “Such calls are against the teachings of Islam and do no good to the image of Muslims around the world,” he told a joint press conference with Pakistan Foreign Minister Khrushid Mehmud Kasuri here yesterday. He was responding to a question on a religious decree issued by a Pakistani cleric on Friday offering a $ one-million reward for the death of the artist.
— PTI |
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