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July 25, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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No early lifting of sanctions on India USA defiant over Kyoto treaty China convicts
scholar for spying |
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200
feared dead in Pak flash floods
Wahid to ‘leave’ palace Musharraf
strikes |
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No early lifting of sanctions on India Washington, July 24 Senior Congressional sources say some senior Democrats on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee are peeved that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has been “shooting his mouth off” about time frames for lifting of sanctions against India without consulting them. They include committee chairman Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, who heads the panel’s South Asia Subcommittee. A well-informed administration official told IANS; “No hard decisions have been made and these will be made only in consultation with Congress. What they are saying is true — that any decision on the sanctions will have to be gone over with key members of Congress for sure,” the official said. What had evidently set the senators off, the sources said, was Armitage’s briefing to members of the Congressional Caucus on India in late May that the Bush administration would lift the remaining sanctions imposed on India on a staggered basis in the next four to five months. The sources said the senators’ displeasure had been conveyed to senior officials such as the new Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Christina Rocca. As a result Rocca and other senior officials had been scrambling to reassure these Democratic senators and their aides that no decision had been made on the exact date of lifting of sanctions and they would be duly kept updated on the review. The sources said “it’s all very good for Armitage to be as expansive as he wants to be about US-India, US-South Asia relations, but on specifics like the lifting of sanctions and such matters, you bet, Sen Biden, Sen Wellstone and others need to be kept abreast of what’s going on.” “He just can’t go shooting his mouth off that sanctions will be lifted and not keep the senators apprised of what the status is on the sanctions review and other policy review matters,” one source said. The source asserted, “It’s not that the senators are opposed to the lifting of sanctions against India — not at all. But it is imperative that if the administration wants to work in a bipartisan manner on these issues, they be kept informed. And they don’t believe this has been happening.” During the confirmation hearings of both Rocca and Robert Blackwill, the new US ambassador to India, senators Biden and Wellstone questioned them about the status of the sanctions review and were told it was yet to be completed. Biden, a non-proliferation hawk and an avowed opponent of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, had warned that any guarantees to India on lifting of sanctions would exacerbate instability vis-a-vis China and Pakistan instead of alleviating the tensions that prevail in that region. Meanwhile, the pro-Pakistan lobby is determined to resurrect US-Pakistan ties to glory days of yore despite Islamabad being raked over coals for a plethora of indiscretions. In recent weeks, Pakistan, already under all possible sanctions under U.S. laws for actions ranging from its 1998 nuclear tests to the 1999 military coup, has all but been called a “rogue” state by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage. Military leader Pervez Musharraf has been condemned for declaring himself President — issues that in Washington’s eyes have taken the country further away from a return to democracy. But the setbacks have not fazed the pro-Pakistan lobby, led by the influential Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA), the Pakistani-American Congress and the Pakistani political action committee (Pak-PAC) — APPNA’s political wing. Last week, at the APPNA annual convention in Chicago, the pro-Pakistan lobby landed its prize catch — Rep. Henry Hyde, who chairs the powerful House International Relations Committee, called on the Bush administration to lift nuclear-related sanctions against Pakistan. |
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USA defiant over Kyoto treaty Martin Kettle (Washington) and Paul Brown (Bonn) “I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that the USA believes the protocol is not in its interests, nor do we believe that it really addresses the problem of global climate change, and we’ve said that. I think we’ll continue to say that,’’ George Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in Rome, where the president wrapped up the last full day of his European visit. The latest example of America’s isolation from most of world opinion made few headlines in the USA. The Bush administration’s priority yesterday was to portray the tour as a personal triumph for Mr Bush, even though his representatives were simultaneously attempting to beat a dignified retreat from Bonn in the face of international and domestic environmentalist scorn. “We are a very different country,’’ Ms Rice said. The administration would continue to work on alternative ideas to put to the rest of the world on climate change issues, and would ``lead on some of the technological aspects’’, she added, but there was little disguising the degree of Washington’s isolation. “The Bush Administration will never be able to address the problem meaningfully as long as it prefers to promote an energy strategy that reads like a recipe for heating up the planet,’’ said Mark Helm, a Friends of the Earth spokesman in Washington. Jennifer Morgan, of the World Wildlife Fund, said: “The agreement reached today is a geopolitical earthquake. Other countries have demonstrated their independence from the Bush administration on the world’s most critical environmental problem.’’ Bill Hare, of Greenpeace, said: “It shows that George Bush is totally isolated in the climate debate.’’ Part of the reason for the success of the talks was the absence of the USA. In earlier negotiations it had been accused of blocking progress and in the Hague of “fighting a rearguard action, line by line through the agreement’’. The key points of the agreement are: 1. One hundred and eighty-six countries agreed to the Kyoto protocol, including 38 industrialised countries which agreed to binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. 2. The EU will immediately start turning the treaty into law for all member countries, forcing a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 8 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010. 3. The protocol is expected to come into force as early as 2002, as soon as 55 countries have passed it into national law and countries with a total of 55 per cent of the emissions of the industrialised world have ratified it. 4. New funds of $ 500m of a year will be provided by the industrialised world to help the developing countries adapt to climate change and to provide new clean technologies. 5. Industrialised countries will be able to plant forests, manage existing ones and change farming practices, and thereby claim credits for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 6. An international trade in carbon will be started. Companies saving carbon by building clean technologies in other states will be able to claim credits which can be sold as tonnes of carbon saved on the international commodity markets. 7. Countries will have to submit their plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and update progress to give early warning if they are failing to reach targets. 8. If countries fail to reach the first set of targets by 2012 they will have to add the shortfall to the next commitment period plus a 30 per cent penalty. They will also be excluded from carbon trading and be forced to take corrective measures at home.
The Guardian, London |
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China convicts
scholar for spying Beijing, July 24 Bai said Beijing’s Number One Intermediate Court announced the verdict after only four hours of trial — just three days before US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit Beijing. Bai said he has applied to the court for Gao, a US permanent resident, to be released on medical parole because she was hospitalised recently for a heart ailment. Gao, a 39-year-old sociologist at American University in Washington DC, was detained along with her husband and five-year-old son in February during a family holiday to China. Her husband and son were released a month later. Bai said he was disappointed with the verdict, saying the evidence presented was not sufficient to convict her. He declined to comment on the chances of the court granting Gao medical parole. He said it was unclear when the court will make a decision as Chinese law does not stipulate a time for when such a ruling must be made. Bai said Gao was awaiting the court’s decision before filing an appeal. Gao’s husband, Xue Donghua, had hoped she would be allowed to return to the USA, like another US-based scholar Li Shaomin, who was convicted of spying for Taiwan and ordered deported on July 14. AFP |
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200 feared dead in Pak flash floods Islamabad, July 24 The officials, confirming media reports, here said a major tragedy struck in which at least 150 people were killed since yesterday, scores of others injured and many more reported missing as a pre-dawn downpour followed by flash floods wreaked havoc on rural parts of Mansehra, Swat and Buner districts in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Dadar Qadeem was the worst hit village in Mansehra where more than 70 bodies have been recovered. About 200 houses in the village were washed away by violent waves from Seron river, Pakistan daily ‘Dawn’ reported today. The village was hit by huge torrents, carrying big rocks and trees with them, which battered the village. The flooding was severe as the village is located on the bed of an old rainwater drain. By yesterday afternoon, torrents as deep as 30-feet were passing through the village, the reports said. Heavy rains continued to lash Islamabad and Rawalpindi in which nearly 40 people were killed and property worth millions of rupees damaged. The situation became worse in Islamabad as three major hospitals virtually closed down their services due to heavy flooding.
PTI |
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Wahid to ‘leave’ palace Jakarta, July 24 Asked by reporters when Wahid would go, Bambang Kesowo, a top aide to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, said: “Probably this week, hopefully. We will try gradually (to get Wahid to leave) as everything cools down, that’s more pleasant isn’t it?’’ Megawati, apparently keen to avoid confrontation and inflame Wahid’s millions of followers, has been holding meetings in the vice-presidential office, her former workplace.
Reuters
An employee at a government building hangs a portrait of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri after removing a portrait of deposed Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid in Jakarta
on Tuesday. |
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Musharraf strikes Islamabad The chief reporter had asked Musharraf whether he thought an elected ruler would have been more successful than him at the Agra summit as two former prime ministers, Z.A. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, had managed to end their summits with the Indian leaders by signing agreements.
PTI |
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Mandela has cancer Johannesburg, July 24 |
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