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Pak for peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue
Pakistan, China sign treaty of friendship
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US making balance of power more stable in S. Asia, says Rice
Monaco's Prince Rainier dead
Novelist Saul Bellow dead
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Pak for peaceful settlement of Kashmir issue
Islamabad, April 6 “Pakistan earnestly seeks amicable and peaceful relations with all countries of our region and is committed to the peaceful settlement of all outstanding issues, in particular the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiri people,” Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said, inaugurating the ministerial meeting of the 26-member Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) here. The Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Kapil Sibal, represented India at the meeting. “It is imperative that the dialogue process to resolve these issues should be sustained and result oriented,” Mr Aziz said. He said Pakistan can be an “anchor of peace, stability and prosperity” in the region with multiple linkages and proposed an 11-point strategy to promote cooperation among the Asian countries. He said Pakistan enjoyed a “unique pivotal position” to play its role for enhanced economic interaction among the Asian countries. “There is a need to promote the required synergies for achieving partnership among the Asian countries,” Mr Aziz said, adding the ACD should concentrate on promoting intra-regional trade, “with focus on trade and not aid.” He said the goal for the ACD for Asia should be an Asia Free Trade Arrangements. Meanwhile, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said today that his country becoming stronger and more developed would not pose any threat to other nations. ‘’If we become stronger and more developed, we will not stand in the way of others, still less become a threat to others. China will never seek hegemony,’’ he asserted while addressing the fourth ministerial meeting of 26 Asian countries of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) here.
— PTI/UNI |
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Pakistan, China sign treaty of friendship
Islamabad, April 6 The two countries signed 22 agreements to boost cooperation in defence, political, trade and economic areas after formal talks between Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and his Pakistani counterpart Shaukat Aziz. The two Prime Minister held over an hour-long exclusive meeting before they were joined by their delegations. The two leaders signed the ‘‘treaty of friendship, cooperation and good neighbourly relations’’ and witnessed the signing of other accords that include agreement on combating terrorism, separatism and extremism. The agreement on ‘‘early harvest programme’’ would offer special tariff arrangements to 767 items and would form the basis of negotiations on the free-trade area. Under this programme, all exportable items of Pakistan, including textile goods, surgical and sports goods, vegetable, fruits, rice, citrus and mangoes, will have market access in China with tariff reduced to zero from January 2006, while Pakistan will import machinery and raw material. Talking to reporters with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Mr Aziz said the treaty of friendship ‘‘institutionalises the broad-based and multi-faceted relations between Pakistan and China’’. The two leaders described the talks as ‘‘productive’’. Prime Minister Aziz said Pakistan-China friendship had entered a new era. Mr Aziz underlined the need for their private sectors to more actively contribute to these efforts. Mr Wen complemented the sentiments of Mr Aziz and said Pakistan and China enjoyed all-weather cooperation. He said the two countries held similar view on various issues. Mr Wen said they discussed means to enhance mutual trust and broaden cooperation. He said the two countries resolved the issue of ‘‘early harvest’’ under the FTA negotiations which, he added, would give a fresh impetus to their bilateral trade. |
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US making balance of power more stable in S. Asia, says Rice
Washington, April 6 “The sale of F-16s to Pakistan... but also, the decision to participate in the request for information from India for high-performance aircraft means that we believe these two relationships can develop on independent tracks, that we are not somehow destabilising the balance of power by having good defence relations with each of them,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told members of the National Conference of Editorial Writers yesterday. “In fact, we are creating a new set of circumstances in which the balance of power will be more stable by an American defence relationship with both of them,” she said. Rice also claimed that USA’s decision to have good relations with India and Pakistan separately, contributed to a significant improvement in Indo-Pakistan relations. Rice ruled out any comparison between the two South Asian neighbours, noting that India was looking to “grow its influence into global influence,” a goal, she said, the US supports, while Pakistan “is looking towards a settled neighbourhood so that it can deal with extremism in its own borders.”
— PTI |
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Monaco's Prince Rainier dead
Rainier had ruled the tiny Mediterranean principality since 1949. He will be succeeded by 47-year-old Prince Albert, who took over his father's royal duties last week as hopes faded that Rainier would recover. "His Most Serene Highness Prince Rainier III died at 6.35 in the morning (0435 GMT)," the palace said in a statement. Rainier brought Hollywood glamour to Monaco by marrying beautiful American actress Grace Kelly in 1956 and transformed the world's smallest state except for the Vatican from a faded gambling centre into a billionaires' haven. He strengthened the sovereignty of Monaco as enshrined by a 1917 treaty with France, its territorial waters and air space were recognised and it won a United Nations seat. But Rainier— the world's second longest-serving monarch after King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand — cut a lonely figure in later life as media focused on his children's problems and on charges that Monaco had become a mafia refuge for dirty money.
— Reuters |
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Novelist Saul Bellow dead
Bellow’s close friend and lawyer, Walter Pozen, said the writer had been in declining health, but was “wonderfully sharp to the end”. Pozen said that Bellow’s wife and daughter were at his side when he died at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Bellow was the most acclaimed of a generation of Jewish writers who emerged after the Second World War, among them Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick. To American letters, he brought the immigrant’s hustle, the bookworm’s brains and the high-minded notions of the born romantic. Bellow was the first writer to win the National Book Award three times: in 1954 for The Adventures of Augie March, in 1965 for Herzog and in 1971 for Mr Sammler’s Planet. In 1976, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift. That same year Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, cited for his “human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture”. In 2003, the Library of America paid the rare tribute of releasing work by a living writer, issuing a volume of Bellow’s early novels. The son of Russian immigrants, he was born Solomon Bellows on July 10, 1915, in Lachine, Quebec, outside Montreal. He dropped the final “s” from his last name and changed his first name to Saul when he began publishing his writing in the 1940s. By arrangement with The Independent |
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Monaco, April 6
The novelist Saul Bellow, a master of comic melancholy who in Herzog, Humboldt’s Gift and other novels both championed and mourned the soul’s fate in the modern world, has died at 89.