 |
|
Senators may press for amendments to nuke deal
China for ‘fair’ solution to border issue
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Prakash Koirala sacked
from Congress
Europe within firing range of Iran: Israel
No demilitarisation of J&K, says India
Indian workers go on rampage in
Dubai
|
|
Senators may press for amendments to nuke deal
A top Democratic senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who had earlier indicated he would support the U.S.-India civilian nuclear deal, has hinted that this backing would be conditional.
At a hearing on the nuclear deal on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senator Joseph Biden, co-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said:“I and many others, I suspect, are considering amendments that might deal with what I believe to be the shortcomings in this negotiated agreement.” Both the administration of President George W. Bush and the Indian government have indicated that any conditions attached to this finely balanced agreement would be a deal breaker. Mr. Biden criticised the Bush administration for not consulting with members of Congress before signing the agreement with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington on July 18 last year. “It paid little attention to our concerns as it negotiated with India regarding India’s plan for separating its civil nuclear facilities from its military ones,” he said. He pointed out that the “legislative proposal” submitted to lawmakers and a “decision proposal” to the Nuclear Suppliers Group “were so poorly drafted as to cast doubt on the administration’s seriousness of purpose.” Diplomatic and administration sources are hopeful that the nuclear deal will sail through the Senate committee worry that it will face a tougher time in the House International Relations Committee. Mr Biden, however, warned the Bush administration not to take the Senate and its Foreign Relations Committee for granted. But Mr. Biden noted despite his reservations regarding the deal he had indicated in the past that he would probably support it “because I agree that the time has come to develop a new relationship between India and the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” He said he also believed that undoing the deal could do more damage to the U.S. relationship with India, “than approving it, with carefully drafted conditions. This deal brings risks, and I believe the administration and Congress must minimise those risks.” The hearing on Wednesday saw prominent defence analysts split on the benefits of the deal. Former Defence Secretary William Perry and a former top Pentagon aide, Ashton Carter, backed the agreement. But Robert Gallucci, a former top nonproliferation official at the State Department urged the U.S. Congress to reject the deal. Mr. Biden said the Bush administration had yet to share its negotiating record or explain just what it agreed to when it accepted the idea of “India-specific safeguards,” or “corrective measures that India may take...in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies,” or U.S. “assurances regarding fuel supply,” or “a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel” for India. He said the administration also has to share with members of Congress the full list of India’s civil nuclear facilities – even in classified form. He added the White House had reneged on an earlier promise to share drafts of the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement that it is negotiating with India. The deal isn’t a “slam dunk,” Mr. Biden warned. The chairman of the panel, Republican Senator Richard Lugar urged India and the International Atomic Energy Agency to work hard to “conclude an effective agreement in a timely fashion.” “All parties involved in the negotiations, including the Bush administration, should facilitate the maximum amount of transparency possible, so that Congress is better equipped to make informed judgments,” he said. Dr. Ashley Tellis, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Senate panel renewed civilian nuclear cooperation “becomes the vehicle by which the Indian people are reassured that the United States is a true friend and ally responsive to their deepest aspirations.” “By altering the existing web of legal constraints on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, Congress would also expand simultaneously India’s access to a wide range of controlled technologies that are useful for numerous peaceful economic endeavors going beyond merely the production of electricity,” Dr. Tellis said. A critic of the deal in its current form, Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said a multilateral cap on the accumulation of fissile material would make a major contribution to fighting nuclear proliferation and preventing nuclear terrorism. “Making a U.S.-India civil nuclear deal a catalyst for achieving such an outcome would transform the deal from a substantial loss to a substantial gain,” he said. |
|
China for ‘fair’ solution to border issue
Beijing, April 27 “We hope to resort to equal consultation and then find a fair and rational solution acceptable to both parties,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang told reporters here at a weekly briefing when asked to comment on the India-China negotiations on the boundary issue. Qin noted that Sino-Indian relations are currently developing smoothly. In the greater context of international relations between the two countries, the two sides have decided to resolve the border issue on the basis of friendly and equal consultation, he said. This principle is also manifested in the consensus reached between the leaders of the two countries during Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India last year, he noted. He pointed out that the Chinese and Indian governments have reached consensus on the political guiding principles for resolving the boundary issue and on the basis of these guidelines, the two sides have held several rounds of consultations. During the seventh round of boundary negotiations in New Delhi and Kumarakom from March 11 to 13, Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister, Dai Bingguo led a delegation and held consultations. During the consultations, the two sides reiterated the guidelines and held a practical and active attitude to push forward for progress in the consultation for the border issue, Qin said. The two sides agreed to hold the next round of consultation on the border issue as soon as possible. The next round of India-China border talks will be held in China and the dates would be decided through diplomatic channels, the spokesman added. India says China is illegally occupying 43,180 sq km of Jammu and Kashmir including 5,180 sq km illegally ceded to Beijing by Islamabad under the Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement in 1963. On the other hand, China accuses India of possessing some 90,000 sq km of Chinese territory, mostly in Arunachal Pradesh. — PTI
|
|
Prakash Koirala sacked
from Congress
Kathmandu, April 27 Prakash Koirala was the Science, Technology and Environment Minister in the handpicked Cabinet formed by King Gyanendra after he seized power in February last year. Nephew of the Prime Minister-designate G.P. Koirla, Prakash was removed from the party yesterday along with with another former-royalist minister Narayan Singh Pun. Both of them have also been expelled from the party's ordinary membership, party sources said.
— PTI
|
|
Europe within firing range of Iran: Israel
Jerusalem, April 27 Some of the missiles, which have a range of 2,500 km and are known in the West as BM-25, have already arrived in Iran, General Amos Yadlin said in a lecture yesterday in comments reported by the Haaretz newspaper. While Iran already had missiles capable of hitting arch-enemy Israel and the US bases in the West Asia, the new weapons pose a threat for countries elsewhere in the region and in Europe that now come into Iranian range, the newspaper said. The new ground-to-ground missiles operate on liquid fuel. They were originally manufactured in the Soviet Union, where they were adapted for use by submarines and able to carry a nuclear warhead. After the Soviets retired the missiles from service, they sold them to the North Koreans.
— AFP
|
|
No demilitarisation of J&K, says India
Islamabad, April 27 “We have made serious and sincere proposals to reduce (the) threat along the Line of Control (LoC), that is redeployment, as a measure of reducing the threat. “Redeployment by both sides of artillery, guns, rockets and mortars above 120 mms should be outside the boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir by both sides,” Additional Secretary of Pakistan Foreign Office Tariq Usman Haider said. “India said it has no such intentions. Indian side was not ready to accept the suggestions. Their point of view was that it was their sovereign right to keep their (troops) formations,” he told reporters after the conclusion of the third round of expert-level dialogue on Conventional Confidence Building Measures. Speaking after the Indian delegation left, he said Pakistan, besides proposing a no-war pact, has suggested to India that the best way to demilitarise the region would be by pulling back the heavy equipment and strike forces out of the Kashmir region on both sides in order to demonstrate that both sides have no offensive intent. Haider, who represented the Pakistan delegation in the talks with Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs Dilip Sinha, said: “If you do not have heavy guns it is much more difficult to launch an offensive operation. We do not have any intention to do this in any part of our border with India.” The two countries, however, agreed not to develop new posts and defence along the Line of Control, a joint statement issued after the talks said. Earlier asked about demilitarisation during a press conference with Mr Haider after the talks, Mr Sinha said: “We have heard the Pakistani delegation’s views. We have made our position clear earlier that deployment of forces is a sovereign.” — PTI
|
|
|
Indian workers go on rampage in Dubai Dubai, April 27 The workers damaged eight cars and two buses, destroyed official documents and also pelted office buildings with stones besides beating up a site engineer last evening, a media report said. This is the second incident of Indian workers going on a rampage in less than a month. The workers, all of Al Ahmadiyah Contracting Company, allege ill-treatment, arbitrary salary deductions and non-payment of overtime by the management for stopping work. They also claimed that the food provided by the company was unhygienic. Some also alleged that the supervisor used to beat them up. The protest which began at 6.30 pm local time continued till late in the night.
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
