With presidential elections exactly a month away, it’s silly season once again in Washington. This was evident on Thursday, a day after the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill authorising civilian nuclear cooperation between the US and India.

In a statement congratulating Congress on passing the legislation, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain accused his Democratic opponent of initially working to kill the deal.

“During the Senate's previous consideration of this important legislation, Senator Obama supported efforts that would have killed this accord,” McCain said of Senator Barack Obama.

“His own running mate, Senator Joe Biden, described one of the provisions Senator Obama voted for as a ‘deal breaker’,” McCain added.

What McCain was referring to was an amendment Obama had offered during the debate on the Hyde Act.

The Obama amendment opposed giving India the right to build strategic fuel reserves for its imported civilian nuclear reactors and said the supply of nuclear fuel should be commensurate with reasonable operating requirements.

The amendment was rejected. On Wednesday night, however, both McCain and Obama voted in support of the deal, a strong indicator that the future of US-India relations is on a steady upward trajectory, regardless of which man succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House.

The Republican Senator said he took a different approach. “I wanted to make the deal, not break it, and I have supported the US-India Civil Nuclear Accord from the beginning,” he said.

In an election in which every vote counts, McCain's comments can be interpreted as blatant pandering to the 2-million-strong Indian American community.

The relatively new immigrants are becoming increasingly politically active as was evident from the crucial role they have played drumming up support in the Congress for the nuclear deal.

A majority of the community are staunch supporters of the BJP. However, the Indian-Americans worked as a cohesive unit with their congressional representatives on the nuke deal, a product of a Congress-led government.

The divisive debate in India was not reflected here in the US. In fact, while the BJP opposed aspects of the deal in India, some of the initiative’s strongest proponents in the US have been hard-core BJP supporters.

McCain described India as a “responsible democracy” and said this agreement allowed it to become further integrated into the global effort to control proliferation of dangerous technologies.

“The agreement will also allow the US and India to cooperate in taking maximum advantage of new technologies that can provide energy without relying on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels,” he said.

He noted that during a meeting between his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York last month, the two “reaffirmed the shared values that are the bedrock for the prosperity and stability we all desire.”

Silicon Valley (US), October 4
American football legend O.J. Simpson was today found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel, 13 years after he had been acquitted in the sensational double murder case of his former wife and a friend of hers.

Simpson, 61, who faces possible life imprisonment, will be sentenced on December 5 after he was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas of storming into a down-market casino hotel last year along with a gun-totting group and seizing sports memorabilia, worth thousands of dollars, from the two dealers.

Simpson and his co-defendant, Clarence Stewart (54), were both convicted of robbery, kidnapping and 10 other counts. Both defendants, who were handcuffed, were taken into custody after they were pronounced ‘guilty’.

Four of their former co-defendants agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges and testified for the prosecution.

The verdicts mean Simpson faces a possible life sentence for a six-minute confrontation with the two sports memorabilia dealers, the Los Angeles Times reported. Simpson’s attorneys pledged to appeal.

The jury, comprising nine women and three men, deliberated for around 13 hours to reach the verdict. A grim-faced Simpson sat quietly and showed little emotion at the defence table as the courtroom clerk read the verdict.

He told CNN over the phone before the verdict was read that he was ‘apprehensive’. Simpson’s lawyer Yale Galanter alleged that he was a target of investigators from the very beginning. — PTI

Colombo, October 4
At least 21 Tamil Tigers and three soldiers were killed in clashes as Sri Lankan fighter jets and combat troops continued their drive towards the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi in the north, the defence ministry said today.

MI-24 Helicopter gunships strafed LTTE bunkers situated 3.5 km northeast of the Akkarayankulam dam in the outskirts of Kilinochchi this morning, officials said.

The air force spokesman said operations were carried out in support of the ground troops inching towards the city, stated to be nerve centre of the tigers.

Sri Lankan and tiger rebels have been engaged in prolonged battle in an around the area for the past couple of months, with the island’s president asserting that his troops aimed to capture Kilinochchi.

Meanwhile, forces of the 57th Division operating in the east of Kilinochchi front had several confrontations with LTTE activists in Akkarakankulam and Murukkandi areas yesterday, the defence ministry said quoting sources on battlefront.

Army snipers gunned down an LTTE activist in Murukkandi last morning and two other cadres were killed in Akkarankulam in the region.

In northeast Welioya, troops wounded three LTTE cadres during a confrontation in Andankulam, the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) said adding that three rebels were killed in various other incidents in the region later in the day. — PTI

They analyse data from its particle-smashing test probing the nature of matter that began last month. — Reuters

BRIEFLY

Deportation for LeT founder’s brother
ISLAMABAD: A US court has ordered deportation of the brother of Lashker-e-Toiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed on a charge of violating immigration laws in his bid to obtain green card. The Boston court ordered the deportation of Muhammad Masood, the former Imam of the Islamic Centre of New England, on Thursday. After the court order, Masood agreed to voluntarily leave America for Pakistan on Friday night under an agreement with the US immigration authorities. — PTI

Indian tribal girls duped
KUALA LUMPUR: Lured by promises of lucrative jobs, tribal women from India’s north-east are being duped by job agents and brought to southeast Asia to work as bar girls and prostitutes, an Indian high commission official said on Saturday. “Job recruitment agents flew the five young women to Singapore on pretext of giving them work as house maids but dumped them in the city state and another agent brought them into Malaysia,” the official added. — PTI

Top Qaida militant killed
BAGHDAD: US forces have killed an Al-Qaida militant who planned some of the biggest bombings in Baghdad and who killed a group of Russian diplomats in 2006, the military said on Saturday. Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, was killed, along with an unnamed woman, in Baghdad’s Sunni district of Adhamiyah on Friday, a statement said. The military said Abu Rami’s group was responsible for suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday. — AFP