Dhaka, February 19
India and Bangladesh today agreed to jointly combat terrorism and put bilateral ties on “an irreversible higher trajectory” as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee held wide-ranging talks with the country’s top leadership.

“India attaches the highest importance to its relations with Bangladesh”, Mr Mukherjee told newspersons, wrapping up his day-long visit here to invite Bangladesh to the coming SAARC summit to be held in New Delhi on April 3 and 4.

Mr Mukherjee said both sides agreed to jointly combat terrorism, which today poses the “most grave challenge to our society and threatens the rapid economic development of our nations”.

Mr Mukherjee held talks with President Iajuddin Ahmed, caretaker Prime Minister Fakhruddin Ahmed, Foreign Minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury and former Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia.

Mr Chowdhury said his talks with Mr Mukherjee largely covered cross-border security issues when he categorically told his Indian counterpart that no external terrorist group would be allowed to use the Bangladesh soil.

Mr Chowdhury said he told Mr Mukherjee that Dhaka was concerned over sharing of waters of common rivers and the construction of a dam along the north-eastern frontier as Bangladesh was “not getting” its due share. — PTI

Baghdad, February 19
Militants struck back yesterday in their first major blow against a US-led security clampdown in Baghdad with car bombs that killed at least 63 persons, left scores injured and sent a bloody calling card to officials boasting that extremist factions were on the run.

The attacks in mostly Shia areas - twin explosions in an open-air market that claimed 62 lives and a third blast that killed one - were a sobering reminder of the huge challenges confronting any effort to rattle the well-armed and well-hidden insurgents.

Instead, it was the Iraqi commanders of the security sweep feeling the sting.

Just a few hours before the blasts, Lt-Gen Abboud Qanbar led reporters on a tour of the neighbourhood near the marketplace and promised to “chase the terrorists out of Baghdad.” The Iraqi spokesman for the plan, Brig Gen Qassim Moussawi, yesterday said violence had plummeted 80 per cent in the capital.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the bombing as a desperate act by “terrorists” and “criminals” who sense they are being squeezed.

“These crimes confirm the defeat of these perpetrators and their failure in confronting our armed forces, which are determined to cleanse the dens of terrorism,” al-Maliki said in a statement.

US military chiefs have been much more cautious. They have insisted the security drive, begun last week, may take months to make clear gains and that counter-punches from militants were likely every step of the way. — AP

Washington, February 19
Bahamas Immigration Minister Shane Gibson resigned amid controversy over his involvement with Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy Playmate who died earlier this month, the Bahama Journal said today.

Gibson announced his resignation yesterday on state television and denied any wrongdoing or any romantic link to the billionaire’s widow, the online edition of the newspaper reported.

Gibson came under pressure to resign after the publication last week of photographs of him and Smith embracing on a bed, fully clothed, and reports that he had fast-tracked her application for residency in the Caribbean nation.

“I unconditionally deny that I ever abused my ministerial office by granting Anna Nicole Smith any permit of which she was undeserving or for which she was not qualified under the laws of the Bahamas and long established immigration policies,” the paper quoted Gibson as saying.

Gibson described Smith as a family friend, according to the paper. Gibson’s mother was looking after Smith’s five-month-old daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, when she died on February. 8, aged 39, after collapsing in a Florida hotel.

The cause of death has yet to be determined and her body is the subject of a custody fight between her lawyer and boyfriend, Howard K Stern, and her mother, Virgie Arthur.

A paternity suit over Dannielynn is one of several legal battles launched since her death. — Reuters 

Jerusalem, February 19
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Israeli and Palestinian leaders today for talks overshadowed by a Palestinian unity deal that has cast a new cloud over prospects for peacemaking.

Seeking to lower expectations, Rice said the three-way meeting in a Jerusalem hotel with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would amount to “informal discussions” rather than negotiations.

“This is not something that I expect to move along very quickly,” Rice told reporters travelling with her.

“I expect to have conversations that are at a pace to allow real discussion and not to try to drive some outcome because if you ask people to run at this point, I think somebody is going to fall down, and that’s probably not a good thing.”

A joint news conference was not planned after the talks but officials from all sides have been working in recent days to come up with a statement that indicates a commitment to past Israeli-Palestinian agreements and a wish to move ahead.

“The meeting, which was initiated by the Americans, will be no more than a photo opportunity,” said a senior Abbas aide. “We hoped the meeting could revive peace talks in a serious manner, but the Israelis will do whatever they can to make it fail.”

The deal helped stop Palestinian factional warfare that killed 90 people in recent weeks.

But it fell short of meeting terms set by a Quartet of mediators — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations-for resuming aid to the Palestinian Authority cut off when Hamas was voted into power a year ago.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said yesterday Israel and Washington agreed to boycott the coalition, which has yet to be formed, if it did not meet the demands to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace accords.

Abbas said he would explore with Rice and Olmert “the horizon for the peace process” and discuss the unity accord struck in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, earlier this month.

Rice, however, made clear that while the US administration reserved judgment, any new Palestinian government would have to meet the terms laid down by the Quartet.

“We are going to wait until there is a government but it should be absolutely clear to everybody that the Quartet principles are going to govern what decision we make,” Rice said before the trilateral meeting. — Reuters 

Kathmandu, February 19
The government as well as all the major political parties, today strongly condemned King Gyanendra’s statement in a message to the nation that the take over by him two years ago was a “compulsion”.

The major parties in the government flayed the statement of the king stating that the very act of delivering an address by someone who has been given no space in the interim constitution was “not only constitutionally unauthorised but also inappropriate.”

Earlier in the day, King Gyanendra in his message to the nation on the occasion of the 57th Democracy Day, said, “It is clear that the prevailing situation had compelled us to take the February 1, 2005 step in accordance with the people’s aspiration to reactivate the elected bodies by maintaining law and order.”

Reacting to the King’s statement, Home Minister Krishna Sitaula said, “The message had come without authorisation and attempts to sweep the February 1 move under a rug would be unfortunate,” adding that the king’s message does not represent the governments’ views.

Likewise, Maoist Chairman Prachanda also criticised Gyanendra for his statement, which is seen as a ‘challenge’ to pro-democrats.

“I have already called leaders of the seven parties over the phone and urged them to prepare for declaration of the republic at Nepal in the wake of the King’s anti-Constituent Assembly elections remarks,” he said.

Similarly, the CPN-UML has also slammed the king’s statement as “unconstitutional, unauthorised and a cause for concern”.

The Nepali Congress also reacted sharply against the King’s statement and said it came as an attempt to cover-up feudalistic ambitions, adding, such attempts would not be acceptable to the Nepali people at any rate. — UNI