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Pakistan hopeful of Manmohan visit soon
Samjhauta Blasts
Cooperation with India to continue at all levels: US
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Military option in Iran open: Cheney
Police officers stand near the Virgin Pendalino train that derailed on the west coast main line near the village of Grayrigg near Kendal in the Lake District, north-west England, on Saturday. — Reuters photo
Japan launches fourth spy satellite
Top Shia leader’s son detained, released
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Pakistan hopeful of Manmohan visit soon
Islamabad, February 24 'The News' also quoted an unnamed Pakistan Foreign Ministry official as saying that President Pervez Musharraf has kept his option open to attend the SAARC summit in New Delhi in April this year. No specific dates were indicated by Manmohan Singh when Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri met him in the Indian capital this week to renew the invitation extended to the Prime Minister to visit Pakistan, the official said. "Yes and no would be my reply for both the visits. There are plans but no dates set as yet," he said when asked about the visits. Asked whether Musharraf would attend the SAARC summit, the official said, "I would say it is in the realm of an open call." "What he did not say was that Islamabad needed some indication that Manmohan Singh had decided on dates before Musharraf would pack his designer sherwanis for Delhi," the newspaper said. Last month External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, during his visit to Islamabad, extended the invitation to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at the instance of Pakistan, although India had earlier said it would extend the invite to Musharraf himself. "However, chances cannot be ruled out," of Manmohan Singh visiting Pakistan, the official said. "With Sir Creek nearing a resolution, one can sense an agreement on the Siachen glacier, which cannot be ruled out. Political will is needed," he said. Pakistan also maintains that there is a sense after the Kasuri visit that the peace process between the two countries has become more or less irreversible, and the future of the composite dialogue will be slow, steady and at a deliberate pace, he said. Pakistan expects India to share details of the Samjhauta Express blast probe at the anti-terror mechanism meeting here on March 6. "While the Indian government has ruled out joint investigations, Kasuri has been assured by the Indian leadership that all facts and findings of the investigations will definitely be shared with us," he said, adding that "March 6 provides us with a good opportunity."
— PTI
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Samjhauta Blasts
Karachi, February 24 And he says when militants targeted people like his family-one of thousands divided by the bloody partition of India and Pakistan after independence in 1947 -- his hopes for peace on the subcontinent were shattered. “It is a trauma for divided families like ours. We have lost everything in one incident-parents, a sister and two brothers,” said Sami, a resident of Hyderabad, 160 kilometers from the southern port city of Karachi. Sami came home to Pakistan just a month ago back after meeting with his relatives in India. “I would have never thought that within weeks things would have changed so drastically,” he said. “I may not go to India again as I have lost hope for peace and with it hope to see my relatives again.” Most of the millions of Muslims who fled India for the newly-created Pakistan 60 years ago migrated to the southern province of Sindh, especially its capital Karachi. Transport links like the
Friendship Express and the Thar Express, which runs across the border further south, have reunited many families after decades apart caused by hostility between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars. That meant that many of the 68 people killed in Sunday night’s inferno were also visiting relatives in India. Emotions ran high Thursday when the bodies of seven victims arrived here, with public outpourings of grief. “What would be left if we lose hope for peace? There is no other option for our future generation,” said Abdul Sattar (65) who has been visiting India by train for several years. “Forces of darkness are trying to overcome the forces of progress and we have to fight it out,” he said. B.M. Kutty, a member of the Pakistan-India Peace Coalition, said the train was targeted “because it would have a very big impact on the masses in both countries.” He called the attack a bloody attempt to derail not only the Friendship Express but also the three-year-old peace process between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. The leaders of both countries have shown maturity but more must be done to reassure the common people of the subcontinent, who mostly travel by train and bus, Kutty said. “It will certainly take time to restore people’s confidence. There should be more security but the trains should not be locked,” he said, referring to reports that doors on the doomed express were shut tight. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have said the peace process must continue and there has been none of the fingerpointing at Islamabad that followed last year’s Mumbai train blasts. “We must go for a fast track to peace so that the peace train should not be derailed,” said Anis Haroon, a prominent rights campaigner who is president of the Karachi-based Aurat (Woman) Foundation.
— AP
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Cooperation with India to continue at all levels: US
Washington, February 24 “Our contact with India is extensive and was fairly extensive prior to the civil nuclear agreement, and I think it’s growing. Our ties are extensive,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said at a briefing here. He said exchanges in education, trade and investment between the two countries were “extensive”, which was a good sign. “As you know, Indians living in the USA are a fairly large and growing part of our population. Our education exchanges are extensive. Our trade and investment exchanges are extensive. And I see these kinds of exchanges between all levels of our government continuing and growing, and I think that’s a good sign,” he said. Asked what message President George W Bush will have for US investors as they look at China and India, the Spokesman argued that it is not a question of comparing India or China or any other large emerging markets. “I think when you look at the world that way, you are operating under sort of a fixed-pie scenario. And actually what we see are growing economies — certainly in India, on the subcontinent, in China, and elsewhere in South-east Asia, growing economies in Brazil and South Africa,” he said. “As each of these economies grow and become more developed and become more integrated in the global economy, it’s good for US investors and traders, it creates more opportunities and more value and improves the standard of living. So we see no threat to that,” the spokesman said.
— PTI
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Military option in Iran open: Cheney
Melbourne, February 24 "It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Cheney warned during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "All options are still on the table." Cheney said that the US was working with it allies to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear weapons programmes, and that it was Washington's preference for that to happen peacefully. "The next step toward getting Iran to abandon its nuclear programmes was still being debated," he said. Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with The Australian daily, Cheney said Iran has sponsored terrorism in the Middle East, and he accused Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others". He said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet. "You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world. "Is it when they possess weapons or does it come sooner, when they have mastered the technology but perhaps not yet produced fissile material for weapons?" Cheney also encouraged further Australian involvement in Iraq: "The more allies we have and the more committed they are to the effort, the quicker we can anticipate success."
— PTI
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1 dead in UK train crash; probe begins
London, February 24 The state-of-the-art Virgin Pendolino tilting train, heading from London to Glasgow, derailed at 95 mph shortly after 8 pm yesterday in a remote area of Cumbria and a number of carriages slid down an embankment. Emergency workers had to battle difficult conditions including torrential rain to try and reach around 120 passengers, some of whom were trapped in the overturned carriages. Police later said one elderly woman had died and 22 persons were injured, including five who had been seriously hurt. Asked about the cause of the crash, police superintendent John Rush told a news conference: “We are unsure how that exactly has happened.” The leader of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union, Bob Crow, said it was thought a points failure was to blame. “It’s not vandalism and it’s certainly not a cow,” he told Sky News. “There’s been some kind of points failure, what the reason is for that points failure we don’t know.” Rush said the line would be closed for up to six days while investigations were carried out. “You were suddenly aware of a jolt and the train started swaying really quite dramatically,” BBC executive Caroline Thomson, a passenger, told BBC News 24 Television. She said the train then flipped over and came to rest on its side. “The emergency vehicles are coming up and there are a lot of flashing lights. One carriage is lying quite dramatically ... off the line,” she said from the scene, in farmland near the town of Kendal on the edge of the Lake District. Royal Air Force Sea king helicopters ferried the injured to hospital. Twelve ambulances and 80 firefighters were rushed to the scene of the crash.
— Reuters
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Japan launches fourth spy satellite
Tokyo, February 24 ''The satellite has just gone into orbit and is operating normally,'' said a spokesman at the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center, which operates the information-gathering system. With the full complement of four satellites, Japan will be able to monitor any point on Earth once a day. Japan's spy satellite programme was initiated after North Korea launched a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over
Japan. The programme was delayed in 2003 when a rocket carrying two satellites veered off course and had to be destroyed in a spectacular fireball.
— Reuters
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Top Shia leader’s son detained, released
Kut (Iraq), February 24 Ammar Hakim's convoy was stopped at a border checkpoint in eastern Wasit province as he returned from Iran, Iraqi security officials and a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said. He was released on Friday evening after being held for several hours. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sought to contain any political fallout from the incident, telling reporters in Baghdad that while he did not know the circumstances of the arrest.
— Reuters
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