New York, December 2
India has the right to pursue terrorists harming its interests, said President-elect Barack Obama addressing a news conference in Chicago yesterday to introduce his national security team.

''Sovereign nations obviously have a right to protect themselves,'' he said after being reminded of his remarks during the presidential election campaign that his future administration would hunt down terrorists, including those belonging to Al-Qaida, whether Pakistan gave permission to do so or not.

Obama, however, declined to speak more elaborately on the issue at the news conference.

''Beyond that, I don’t want to comment on the specific situation that is taking place in South Asia right now,'' he said. ''I think it is important for us to let the investigators do their job in making a determination in terms of who was responsible for carrying out these heinous acts.''

Obama added, ''I can tell you that my administration will remain steadfast in support to India’s effort to catch the perpetrators of this terrible act and bring them to justice, and I will expect that the world community will feel the same way.'' India has accused 'elements' in Pakistan of perpetrating last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

It said relevant proof would be furnished to Pakistani authorities asking them to rein in the terrorists based on their soil.

Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, two extremist organisations believed to be in Pakistan, were reportedly responsible for the Mumbai attacks, though Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility.

''First of all, I think it is important to reiterate that our condolences, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of India, the families that have been affected and obviously we are heartbroken at the deaths of six Americans in this tragedy,'' Obama said.

The Democratic Party leader said he had spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Mumbai terrorist attacks. — UNI

Washington, December 2
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon has arrived here on a two-day visit to the US with a series of scheduled meetings, including with officials at the state department, the under secretary of state for political affairs William Burns.

Menon’s visit to Washington, which began Monday, was planned and scheduled way ahead of last week’s terror attacks on Mumbai which claimed nearly 200 lives, including some American nationals.

Although bilateral issues and areas of cooperation would be the focus of Menon’s meetings, the expectation is that he will be discussing at length the latest goings-on on the terrorism front in the wake of Mumbai attacks.

He is also expected to meet some senior lawmakers in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

A senior official in the Embassy of India confirmed that Menon did in fact have some meetings, but was not in a position to say whom the foreign secretary had met in the first few hours of his arrival in the capital city.

Menon is in Washington at a time when the President-elect Barack Obama announced his National Security Team in Chicago that included Senator Hillary Clinton as the secretary of state designate. — PTI

Washington, December 2
Counting many elements, including terrorism and nuclear weapons, in Pakistan as causes of international worries, a former top US official has described the South Asian country as an “international migraine.”

“My own sense is Pakistan has everything that gives you an international migraine. It has nuclear weapons, it has terrorism, extremists, corruption, very poor and it’s in a location that’s really, really important to us. And now with this issue with India. So, I think that the current President and the current secretary of the state, who’s on her way to India right now, have a very big job ahead of them,” said former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

“And I also do think that the next President and the secretary of the state are going to have to pay a great deal of attention to that combination of issues, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, that all fit together. That’s very important to the US,” she added.

In the wake of current tension between India and Pakistan, following the Mumbai terror attacks, Albright said Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was trying very hard to deal with the issue.

“There’s an agreement that the Pakistanis understand what the issue is. I think that if we have clear evidence and intelligence that is one part of this. And that is the Achilles’ heel of everything, which is whether you have actual intelligence. I think that he is their president and he is working very hard to try to get control over what is a very difficult place,” she added. — PTI

New York, December 2
Outgoing US President George W Bush has admitted that he was “unprepared for war” when he joined Oval office and said his “biggest regret” during his eight year tenure was the “intelligence failure” on Iraq.

“I think, I was unprepared for war,” Bush told ABC News in first of his farewell interviews. “I didn’t campaign and say, ‘Please vote for me, I’ll be able to handle an attack,” he said. “In other words, I didn’t anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.” Bush, who has been a stalwart defender of the war in Iraq and maintaining US troop presence there, said a lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction was a reason to remove Saddam Hussein.

“It wasn’t just people in my administration. A lot of members in the Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington DC during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess,” Bush said, looking back at eight years of his presidency.

More than 4,200 US troops have died in Iraq since Bush launched the war after a campaign focused on the charge -- later proved false -- that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking about his role as his role as the “comforter-in-chief,” Bush told ABC News that the president ends up carrying a lot of people’s grief in his soul. “One of the things about the presidency is you deal with a lot of tragedy -- whether it be hurricanes, or tornadoes, or fires or death -- and you spend time being the comforter-in-chief,” Bush said. “But the idea of being able to serve a nation you love is -- has been joyful. In other words, my spirits have never been down. I have been sad, but the spirits are up.” Bush underscored his reliance on his values to guide him through tough moments. — PTI

Bangkok, December 2
Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was today banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded, plunging the country deeper into chaos and raising fears of a violent backlash by government supporters.

Party members vowed to ''move on'' and vote for a new prime minister on December 8, setting the stage for another flashpoint in Thailand's three-year-old political crisis. First deputy prime minister Chavarat Charnvirakul would take over as interim prime minister, a government spokesman said.

Unexpectedly, anti-government protesters who had blockaded Bangkok's two airports for the past week said hours after the Constitutional Court's rulings that they would end all their rallies on Wednesday.

People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) leader Sondhi Limthongkul told a news conference the protesters would start pulling out of Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports tomorrow.

The PAD had refused to negotiate until Somchai steps down. They accuse him of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Jerusalem, December 2
The Indian nanny who rescued Jewish toddler Moshe Holtzberg from the clutches of terrorists during the Mumbai attacks may be conferred a top Israeli honour usually reserved for saviours of Jews from Holocaust.

Moshe, the orphaned son of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, reached here in a special Israel Air Force aircraft last night which also brought the governess, Sandra Samuel.

The Jewish couple were killed during the terror siege of Nariman House where they ran a cultural and outreach centre for the ultra-orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

Samuel, lauded as a hero by the Chabad movement and Moshe’s family for saving the child, could be conferredthe “Righteous Gentile” award that could facilitate her stay in Israel, media reports said.

The special honour is usually reserved for those who risk their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.— PTI 

BRIEFLY

BBC flayed for not terming Mumbai gunmen as ‘terrorists’
LONDON: A group of legislators of the Labour party has criticised the BBC for not referring to the Mumbai attackers as “terrorists” in its news bulletins but the UK-based news organisation has defended the practice. The BBC chooses to call such attackers as “militants” or “bombers”. Criticising the news channel, Stephen Pound, chairman of the Labour Friends of India, said: “This is the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing. — PTI

HIV testing can save newborns
UNITED NATIONS: Early testing of newborn babies for the virus that causes AIDS can significantly improve their survival, according to a report by four UN agencies. Far too few pregnant women know their HIV status and in 2007 less than 10 per cent of infants born to HIV-positive mothers were tested for HIV before they were two months old, the report said on Monday. “Without appropriate treatment, half of children with HIV will die from an HIV-related cause by their second birthday,” Ann Veneman, executive director of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said. — AP