L’aquila (Italy), July 8
Major nations failed to agree on Wednesday to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in a setback to efforts to secure a new UN climate pact.

Talks involving officials from the 17-nation Major Economies Forum (MEF), whose members account for about 80 per cent of global gas emissions, broke down overnight after China and India opposed any mention of the target, a source familiar with the talks told Reuters.

However, wealthy northern hemisphere countries in the Group of Eight issued a statement saying they were committed to reaching a comprehensive and ambitious climate deal at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December.

The G8 leaders from the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia, who are holding a three day meeting in central Italy, urged other nations to join the fight against global warming.

“We intend to secure our present and future prosperity by taking the lead in the fight against climate change,” they said in the joint statement.

“We call upon other industrialised countries and emerging economies to actively engage, consistently with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” they added.

Indian negotiators said there was no deal on greenhouse gas emission reduction targets because rich countries had refused to set mid-term goals or promise finance and technology.

“For any long-term goals there have to be credible mid-term goals in the range of 25-40 percent,” Dinesh Patnaik, a top Indian negotiator who attended Tuesday’s talks, told Reuters in reference to a range set by a panel of UN climate experts.

According to a draft G8 statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday, the MEF agreed the rise on global temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

"In the spirit of compromise we have agreed on a 2-degree target,” Patnaik said.

Environmental experts say if this target is taken seriously it will force deep cuts in heat-trapping gases. MEF leaders are due to meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit on Thursday to review the climate negotiations.

Many climate campaigners see the talks as a chance to break the deadlock over sharing the burden of curbing greenhouse gases in what could be a mini-blueprint for the UN treaty.

G8 nations have so far promised cuts in emissions that total about 10-14 percent below 1990 levels — far short of the “at least 40 percent” demanded by developing states.

The discussion of climate change was one of the main items on the agenda of the annual G8 summit and major power leaders will be anxious to put a positive emphasis on their talks. — Reuters

The Pakistan Army on Wednesday announced that operation in Swat launched on April 26 was almost over and said conditions were now conducive for over two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return to their homes.

"Swat and Malakand region has been cleared of the militants who command and control the system have been decimated and most of the middle and lower rank leadershiphave been killed or captured," army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told a news conference here. He said some stray skirmishes were continuing in remote pockets but they no more posed threat to the civilian population.

"It is now up to the federal and the NWFP government to make arrangements for the safe return of the IPD's to their homes where the army will continue to provide them security. All public amenities, including electricity, water, gas, telephones and roads, have been opened for use by the people. The highways have been reopened to allow smooth return of the IPDs.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, who also talked to reporters said the government announced within next two days the time schedule for orderly return of the civilian population. Funds would be provided for the rehabilitation of the families each of whom would be paid Rs 25,000 as interim relief.

Gen.Abbas said the success of the army operation was made possible by the tremendous support it received from the people of Pakistan and the fortitude and patience shown by the people of Malak.

28 militants killed in US drone attacks

At least 28 Taliban militants were killed on Wednesday when US drones carried out two missile strikes targeting insurgents in Pakistan's troubled South Waziristan tribal belt, the latest in a series of such attacks in the region bordering Afghanistan.

One of the US drones fired several missiles at a convoy of vehicles in the Makeen area of South Waziristan tribal agency, destroying five cars from which bodies of 18 militants were pulled out, TV news channels reported.An important militant commander was reported to be among those killed. There was no official word on the incident.

In a separate US drone attack earlier in the day, 10 militants were killed and five more injured in South Waziristan. The drone fired several missiles at a training centre run by militants loyal to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud in the Karwan Manza area.The injured militants, some of them in critical condition, were taken to a nearby hospital. — PTI

Five doctors, who were main sources of information for many foreign and local media personnel during the last stages of the military operations against the Tamil Tigers in northern Sri Lanka, told journalists today that they had provided false information from the war zone due to pressure from the Tigers.

In the dramatic development, the five doctors, who are now in police custody took part in a press briefing organised at the Media Centre for National Security in Colombo, where they said they had provided false information on food and medicine shortages and civilian casualties in fear of earning the wrath of the Tigers.

The men escaped into the government controlled areas days before troops crushed the LTTE completely and took control of all the areas in the north on May 18.

The doctors are currently under the custody of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the police but no formal charges have been framed against them. The police are investigating their complicity with the Tigers, if any, in providing false information to the outside world.

“We regret that we have provided false information”, Dr Illancheliyan Pallavan said and sought to distance themselves from the defeated rebel movement saying that the LTTE had fought a useless war in which civilians suffered.

Washington, July 8
Despite US efforts to make Islamabad shed its traditional conception of New Delhi, the Pakistani people still believes that India is a threat to them, a top US army official has said.

"We can argue about whether or not India is a threat to them - I can assure you that the Pakistani people think India is a threat," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his address to US-based think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"That is his (Pak Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani's) responsibility to address that. So he's got that front on the East and he's also moving forces to the West," Mullen said in response to a question. US has been asking Pakistan to focus on the war against the Taliban, contending that an internal insurgency not India, was the real threat to its existence. President Asif Ali Zardari has said more than once that he considered the Taliban militancy as Pakistan's prime threat.

Commenting on Pakistan's military action against Taliban in the Swat valley and the adjoining areas, Mullen said this time there was commitment on the part of the military and the establishment in Pakistan to "hold and clear out insurgents". "I think what's different this time in Swat as opposed to last time is the commitment to hold not just to clear out the insurgents," he said.

"... and as I said earlier sometimes this doesn't happen at a pace that we'd like, but it's their country and they get to pick that pace," Mullen said.

He said Pakistan's leadership and military understands they have a very serious internal threat to their country and "I know the chief of staff of Army General Kayani is committed to this." Mullen said, in one of his recent visits to Pakistan he was taken to two training centres where the Army is being trained in counter-insurgency operations. "I watched two of his companies go through this and he's (Kayani) got it now throughout his force. He's got rotation plans and... he's pushed in terms of his overall military capacity as well -- he's got two fronts," Mullen said. — PTI 

Colombo, July 8
Sri Lanka today ruled out holding snap presidential elections this year amid reports that the government may want to cash in on the military triumph against Tamil rebels.

Agricultural minister Maithripala Sirisena denied that President Mahinda Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) had taken any decision to go for an early election.

The constitution allows a snap presidential poll after the incumbent completes four years out of his six-year term. The earliest the government can hold a presidential election is after November this year.

“The SLFP or coalition partners have not taken such a decision with regard to the presidential election or parliamentary elections,” Sirisena said.

However, he said the government would hold elections to the southern provincial council, the highest-level local government body later this year.

President Rajapakse is riding the crest of a huge popularity vote after security forces declared wiping out the entire leadership of the Tamil Tigers in mid May. — PTI 

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is scheduled to visit India next week, on Tuesday said she was very excited about the trip.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, she said Washington and New Delhi would cooperate on an unprecedented range of issues.

“We are working hard with our Indian counterparts to create a very deep and broad strategic engagement,” she said, adding, “And it is my hope that we’ll be able to announce our intentions when I’m in India, and that we will be cooperating and working together across the broadest range of concerns that our two governments have ever engaged on.”

Hillary, who has visited India in the past as US first lady, will be making her first visit as Secretary of State. She was hopeful that the relationship between the United States and India, which had “improved considerably over the last 15 years, continues on the path that we’re on”.

She described India as an emerging global power.

She said the recent elections in India had provided “political stability, and the new government is very committed to pursuing a very activist domestic agenda, particularly about poverty and the condition of people in rural India, as well as its emphasis on development and job creation, but also to look for ways that India can play a role regionally and globally on economic issues and other matters that confront us”.

In the early days of the Obama administration, some Indian commentators had complained that the administration in Washington was ignoring India. Hillary’s visit should dispel some of that concern.

“I was thrilled to go to India for the first time as first lady and to begin a process that has led us to this point with the contributions of many along the way that really demonstrates that the world’s largest democracy and oldest democracy have so much more in common than perhaps was first recognised,” she said.