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N-deal: final pact may take 6 months
1 killed in battle at hospital
US plans naval build-up
in Gulf
Staff shortage hits Indian embassy
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Zia dares Hasina to fight poll within 90 days
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N-deal: final pact may take 6 months
With the US-India civilian nuclear deal having cleared what a senior Bush administration official described as its first major hurdle, Washington is now hopeful that the next steps in the agreement will be wrapped up within six months.
Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns noted that in the next few months the US and India have to conclude a 123 Agreement. "It will essentially be a codification of the last 18 months of our negotiation," he explained. "So there aren't any major issues left to decide. And then India will have to negotiate a (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards agreement with the IAEA." He added, "We hope the rest of the world will then take the step that we've taken. And we hope the Nuclear Suppliers Group will agree by consensus that all of them will lift their restrictions on India, as well." "How long will all that take if we're in fifth gear and move real fast at the beginning of 2007? I would hope we could do all that in six months," Mr Burns said on Monday before President George W. Bush signed the Bill into law in the East Room of the White House. "The major hurdle," Mr Burns noted, "was the agreement between India and the United States, number one, and the votes in the Congress." Earlier this month, both the House of Representatives and the Senate approved the nuclear Bill with overwhelming bipartisan support. Despite this support the Bill has its fair share of critics both from within the non-proliferation lobby in Washington and the BJP and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Left party allies in New Delhi. Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Ed Markey, a staunch opponent of the Bill, on Monday remarked: "This is a sad day in the history of efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and materials around the world. The bill that President Bush has signed today may well become the death warrant to the international nuclear nonproliferation regime." However, Mr Burns defended the deal from such criticism. He noted that Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the IAEA, has consistently said the deal actually strengthens the non-proliferation regime, "because we're bringing the largest country in the world into the system." India has not sold its nuclear technology anywhere, Mr Burns pointed out, adding, "It hasn't sold it outside of India; it certainly hasn't let it go on the black market, as some countries have. And so it's a positive example of a country that's been abiding by the civil commitments." Fourteen of India's 22 nuclear power plants will immediately come under IAEA safeguards. Mr Burns predicted that in 10 or 15 years, 90 per cent of all India's nuclear facilities should be under safeguards. While expressing confidence that Russia, Germany, Britain, France, China, Japan and Australia will support the deal at the NSG in Vienna, Mr Burns indicated there are some countries like Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland "that have had some questions." “But,” he said, "We're hopeful that they will join consensus. And I think they will. I think all eyes were on the United States." Discussing some of the opposition in India, the Under Secretary of state said the Americans have had to explain to the Indians that when Congress writes a Bill, there are operative paragraphs and there are non-operative, non-binding provisions of any Bill. A key concern here was India's support for US efforts to curb Iran's nuclear programme. This is a non-binding provision in the act. "This is a great event for the Indians. They feel, in essence, that they are being liberated from what they felt was an unfair three-decade long effort by the rest of the world to isolate it," Mr Burns said. While ruling out a similar deal for Pakistan, the Bush administration has kept Pakistan in the loop on the progress in the US-India civilian nuclear agreement. "We briefed the Pakistanis in July 2005, and all the way through to last week, every step of the way as to what was happening," Mr Burns said. "We didn't want them to be surprised."
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1 killed in battle at hospital
Gaza, December 19 Internal Palestinian fighting - the worst in a decade - has escalated since Abbas called yesterday for early elections in an attempt to break a political deadlock with the Hamas government. Hamas has accused Abbas of launching a ''coup''. Witnesses and rival factions said a Hamas policeman was killed in the gun fight at the entrance and inside the compound of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The gunbattle began when Hamas police tried to detain Fatah security men, who belong to an intelligence service loyal to Abbas, on suspicion they had been involved in earlier clashes. While neither side has declared Sunday night's truce dead, there has been a spate of gunfights and kidnappings of rival activists since then. Most hostages have been swapped. Abbas told visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday he was committed to early elections but left the door open for the formation of a Fatah-Hamas coalition with a ''technocrat'' cabinet that could satisfy Western countries.
— Reuters
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US plans naval build-up
in Gulf
New York, December 19 Military officials, however, said the build-up was not aimed at attacking Iran. It is in response to what the US officials view as "increasing proactive acts" by Tehran, including naval exercises, its support to Shia militias in Iraq and its uranium-enrichment programme which American officials believe is aimed at making a nuclear bomb, the officials were quoted as saying by the channel.
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Staff shortage hits Indian embassy
Dubai, December 19 The embassy is forced to cut the schedule of consular services by an hour, causing resentment among Indian expatriates. The Ambassador, Dr George Joseph, said no solution was possible unless the mission got more staff. Recently, Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed and Minister for Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Affairs Vayalar Ravi said in Doha that the government would soon appoint additional staff, but nothing had happened since then, The Peninsula reported.
— UNI
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Zia dares Hasina to fight poll within 90 days
Dhaka, December 19 "If you have faith in people like us, contest the poll, which is to be held within 90 days, as stipulated in the Constitution, after the caretaker government takes charge", Ms Zia told her supporters at downtown Dhaka’s Paltan maidan venue. Accusing Ms Hasina’s Awami League-led 14-party grouping of trying to foil the poll by putting forth new demands, Ms Zia said the rival coalition was scared and their words of election engineering were only ploys to stay away from the hustings.
— PTI
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‘Tom and Jerry’ creator dead
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