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Need for sustained talks, India tells
Pakistan
Pak Parliament okays National Security Council US will stay course in Iraq, says Bush Bomb explodes near US Afghan base
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Kidman is Australia’s richest entertainer
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Need for sustained talks, India tells Pakistan New York, April 14 This was stated by India’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Vijay Nambiar, while participating in a debate on Indo-Pak relations organised at the Asia Society here yesterday. Pointing out that there was a need to pursue the composite dialogue patiently, he asserted that India was firmly determined to give no quarters to the activities of terrorist groups. Mr Nambiar emphasised that there was a strong desire on both sides that a change in attitude and approach was a historic necessity. He said building a relationship of trust would take time. “If the commitment to stop cross-border infiltration and support for terrorist groups (by Pakistan) holds, the dialogue process will hold,” he said. “Mutual sniping, grandstanding or gratuitous expressions of animosity at multilateral fora must stop” and the composite dialogue must result in concrete progress on various issues. “Logjams in the dialogue will vitiate the political climate.” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram agreed that building trust would require patience and sustained dialogue, and repeated Islamabad’s commitment to do everything to stop terrorists from crossing into Jammu and Kashmir. But, he also claimed that the militancy in Kashmir was mostly indigenous, adding it started indigenously and Islamic militants joined it much later. On nuclear weapons issue, Akram said the two countries needed to come to understanding and take steps like deciding not to match nuclear weapons with missiles.
— PTI |
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Pak Parliament okays National Security Council Islamabad, April 14 Pro-government members passed the Bill by a simple majority in the 100-seat Senate while opposition members of Parliament were out of the chamber, having stormed out in protest against a separate issue. The pro-military government of Prime Minister Zarafullah Khan Jamali has said the NSC would have only an advisory role in Pakistani politics, and would include provincial Governors, members of the opposition and senior military officers. But the opposition counters that the council, to be headed by military President Pervez Musharraf, will be used to run the country and override civilian leaders. — Reuters |
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US will stay course in Iraq, says Bush
Washington, April 14 “I think the analogy (Iraq another Vietnam) is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends the wrong message to the enemy,” Mr Bush said at a televised White House news conference last night. “We are in a long war,” Mr Bush warned “The war on terror is not going to end immediately. The war on terror is a war against people who have no guilt in killing innocent people.” The American President acknowledged that the USA had suffered a series of “tough weeks in Iraq” but added he intended to send “additional forces. If additional resources are needed, we will provide them.” Mr Bush also made it clear that he would adhere to the schedule of transferring sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30. That date, he said, “is firm. We will not step back from our pledge.” “It is important that we meet the deadline. As a proud, independent people, Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation and neither does America,” he added.
— PTI |
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Bomb explodes near US Afghan base
Kandahar, April 14 The explosion ripped through a car carrying General Salim Khan on a road in front of a base of the US military’s provincial reconstruction team here, they said. Khan blamed the attack on remnants of the Taliban militia that were ousted by US-led forces in late 2001. “The Taliban did it,” he told Reuters from a hospital where he was treated for face and hand injuries. Since August last year, more than 600 persons have been killed in violence blamed mainly on the resurgent Taliban. The blast is the first in several months in Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold, and follows sporadic rocket attacks over the past three nights around Kandahar. It also comes two days after the Taliban said they killed a provincial security chief and his two bodyguards in neighbouring Uruzgan province and threatened to step up attacks against the government and the 15,500 US-led foreign troops in the country. Khan said the bomb appeared to have been planted on a speed bump and detonated by remote control. Provincial reconstruction teams usually consist of about 60 soldiers involved in military and civilian projects. Dozens of civilians were killed and wounded in Kandahar in a bomb blast in January. Unrest in southern and eastern Afghanistan prompted President Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-backed government to postpone the country’s first-ever presidential and parliamentary elections from June to September.
— Reuters |
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US troops poised for strike against rebel cleric
Baghdad, April 14 Armed groups opposed to the occupation freed some foreign hostages — five Ukrainians and three Russians — but made new demands for others. Gunmen paraded four Italians and demanded Rome pull its troops out of Iraq. A French journalist joined the list of those held captive. U.S. officials in Washington yesterday said that four bodies had been found in Iraq and the State Department had contacted the families of seven missing Americans. The identities of the dead have not been confirmed, it said. Two U.S. soldiers are missing in Iraq as well as the seven U.S. civilians. Such is the danger on Iraq’s roads that the U.S. Army said it was suspending some supply convoys until safety improved. The Pentagon toll of U.S. soldiers killed in action since the start of the war rose to 484 on Tuesday — seven higher than the previous day. In the last eight days at least 65 soldiers have died in the bloodiest fighting since Saddam Hussein’s fall. Brigadier Gen Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director, Operations, for the U.S. Military in Iraq, said a powerful U.S. force was building up outside Najaf, south of Baghdad, where Sadr is believed to have taken refuge close to the main shrine.
— Reuters |
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Kidman is Australia’s richest entertainer
Sydney, April 14 In its annual survey of the Top 50 Entertainers, Business Review Weekly said Kidman earned an estimated $ 18.6 million last year, catapulting her from eighth place to top of the list. Her income in 2002 was reported at $ 8.63 million.
— AP |
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