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Iran: US threatens to sink Russian proposal
Bush admn starts briefing US Cong members |
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Hostages in Iraq plead for help
7 killed in Baghdad gunfire
3 die in B’desh factory stampede
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Iran: US threatens to sink Russian proposal
Vienna (Austria), March 7 One of the diplomats, who spoke outside a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board, said Germany remained open to the proposal, which would allow the Iranians to run 20 uranium enriching centrifuges domestically while ceding control of large-scale enrichment to Moscow, on Russian soil. As the board meeting entered its second day, German representatives were meeting with counterparts from France and Britain - which both back the Americans in opposing the plan - to try to re-establish a common European stance on
enrichment, said the diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging confidential information. A European official, in Vienna for the meeting, said that
ultimately the plan would fail if the Americans opposed it. The dispute, which surfaced in the last few days, was driving a wedge into joint international efforts to wean Iran of all enrichment activity by moving it to Russia, thereby reducing its potential for misuse by Tehran as a way of making nuclear arms. The Russian proposal carried to Washington yesterday by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would allow the Iranians a still to be defined "research and development" capacity - including the 20 centrifuges. The diplomats said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei backed the plan.
— AP |
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Bush admn starts briefing US Cong members
Washington, March 7 predicted a “very intensive debate” lay ahead. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns told the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington on Monday that Mr Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be discussing the deal with members of Congress in the next week or two. The administration will submit a request to Congress to change US law. The change will enable US companies to participate in the expansion of India’s civil nuclear power facilities, he said. Noting the separation of the executive and legislative branches in the US system of government, Mr Burns said, “The executive branch in essence has done the job that we set out to do in negotiating this agreement. In our system of government, only Congress can change the law. We hope very much to receive the support of the Congress. We will be trying to do the best job we can to convince the Congress that this is a good deal.” Mr Burns, who has travelled to India five times in the past six months in an effort to hammer out a deal, acknowledged members of Congress will want to see full briefings on the agreement finalised in New Delhi. The Bush administration will offer these briefings both at the staff level as well as the member level. “We are very proud of this agreement,” said Mr Burns adding the Bush administration believed it is good for the United States and it certainly is good for India. India has agreed to place 14 of its 22 reactors, that is 66 per cent, under international safeguards. It will place all of its future civilian thermal and civilian breeder reactors under international safeguards. “And it has agreed that the safeguards that are put in place will be in perpetuity — they will be permanent safeguards,” said Mr Burns. “In return, what we in the United States and our friends and allies around the world will do is try to seek to change American law and ask the Congress to consider that and ask the nuclear suppliers group to adjust its practices,” he said. Dismissing concerns that the civilian nuclear deal with India, a nation that has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), would undermine the United States’ nonproliferation objectives and its handling of rogue states like Iran, Mr Burns said, “We don’t see the connection between what Iran is doing and what India seeks to do.” “India is the responsible one, Iran is the irresponsible one,” he added. Some critics of the deal have said it will trigger an arms race in South Asia. Mr Burns said, “We are having trouble understanding the argument that somehow this deal makes it more likely that India is going to engage in an arms build up” Congressmen Edward Markey and Fred Upton introduced a bipartisan resolution in December last year opposing the proposed nuclear cooperation with India. Current law prohibits the sale of nuclear technology to any country such as India which refuses to sign the nuclear NPT, refuses to allow full-scope safeguards under the treaty, and which develops new nuclear weapons and detonates nuclear tests in defiance of the treaty. Mr Markey said, “In a last minute rush to get a nuclear deal with India at any cost, President Bush appears to have caved to Indian demands and compromised US security by blowing a hole in the NPT.” Noting that the current phase in the US-India relationship was a “high watermark” since 1947, Mr Burns said, “This relationship is remarkably strong, remarkably diverse and very broad.” |
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Hostages in Iraq plead for help
Dubai, March 7 “These three hostages in Iraq, who call themselves the Christian Peacemaker Team, pleaded with Arab Gulf leaders to help free them and asked their governments to intervene for their release,” said the Al-Jazeera news presenter as a short silent clip of the video received by the channel was shown. In the video, Harmeet Sooden of Indian origin and James Loney — both Canadian nationals, and Briton Norman Kember, appear to take turns to speak in the recording. The fourth hostage, American Tom Fox, was missing from the footage.
— AFP |
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7 killed in Baghdad gunfire
Baghdad, March 7 A roadside bomb targeting a US patrol in Baghdad’s western Khadhra neighbourhood killed one civilian bystander and injured another, police Lt Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. There were no reports of American casualties. A car bomb missed another US patrol in the mostly Shiite Zafaraniyah neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad, wounding at least four civilian bystanders, police Lt Ahmad Adab said at the scene. Unidentified assailants attacked the Sunni al-Imam al-Adham mosque in the western Ghazaliyah neighborhood with guns and grenades, killing a guard and torching two rooms, police Capt Qassim Hussein said. When police responded, gunmen ambushed them. Five policemen were wounded in the exchange, Hussein said. Gunmen shot and killed a Baghdad International Airport employee as he drove through the southern Saydiyah
neighborhood, police Lt Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Police found four more shot up bodies — two of them with their eyes gouged out — dumped in parts of the city. —
AP |
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3 die in B’desh factory stampede
Dhaka, March 7 About 2,000 workers at the Sayem Fashions factory in Gazipur, 40 kilometres north of Dhaka, scrambled for the exits last night, believing there was a fire, police said. Fires are fairly common in Bangladesh’s textile factories and the common policy of locking doors to prevent theft is often blamed for high death tolls. Following the blaze, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia ordered a safety crackdown at the nation’s over 4,000 garment and textile factories.
— AFP |
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Yanni held for domestic abuse
Manalapan (US), March 7 Yanni, whose legal name is John Yanni Christopher, was
arrested on Friday and faces a domestic battery charge, according to a police report. The Greek-born singer-pianist denied the allegations. Yanni asked his girlfriend, Silvia Barthes, to leave his beachfront home in Manalapan on Thursday night, the police report said. Barthes, 33, told police she attempted to pack her clothing but the 51-year-old musician threw it on the ground. She told officers he then grabbed her arms and shook her, throwing her on the bed, and jumped on top of her, according to the report. Yanni told the police that Barthes kicked him, and he believed he injured his finger during the incident, the report said. "These allegations are cruel, false, without
merit and baseless," said the statement released by his manager, Danny
O'Donovan. — AP |
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Strong US opposition appeared close to sinking a Russian initiative that would leave Iran with a small-scale uranium enrichment programme, diplomats said today as Moscow and Washington struggled to find common ground on what to do about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
