A decision taken by India and Pakistan to move ahead with a pipeline that would ship natural gas from Iran does not have much support in Washington.

Top officials of both the countries have reiterated their commitment to go ahead with the project despite US objections. India and Pakistan appear undeterred. Pakistan PM Shaukat Aziz earlier this week told NDTV News, “Our public opinion, our governments, our people want us to pursue our national interests and we will pursue that,” Aziz said.

While Bush administration officials have expressed serious misgivings about the proposal, former officials, unfettered from the constraints of public office, say the deal is seen as a very bad idea in Washington.

Bruce Riedel, a former special assistant to Bill Clinton and one-time senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs in the National Security Council, predicted the deal would face a very tough time in Washington and that India and Pakistan would come under a lot of pressure not to go along with it.

US-Iranian relations are at one of their lowest points in decades and getting worse, said Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution, “A deal like this, which would involve large-scale investment in the Iranian energy economy, is going to be opposed by both Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

The pipeline, which would run for 2,600 kilometres and carry 150 million cubic metres of gas a day, has a price tag of $8 billion.

Toufiq Siddiqi at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, said, “We have discussed this with India, and they know our concerns. India signed an agreement with Iran several years ago to import LNG. Why should importing it via a pipeline be different from importing natural gas as a liquid,” he asked.

The US and Iran are engaged in a diplomatic standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington insists is aimed at producing weapons. Tehran has denied this, and instead maintains its actions are peaceful.

Noting that there are still major differences over the transit fees that would go to Pakistan, he said it might take a few more years for the deal to mature.

Islamabad, April 6
Hard-line religious leaders have established a qazi court in the Lal Masjid here, which amounts to a challenge to the writ of the government for the fourth time in 45 days.

According to an announcement from Lal Masjid, the court comprising 10 Muftis will decide disputes and give their verdict in accordance with ‘Islamic injunctions’.

When contacted, the deputy in-charge of Lal Masjid and its madressah hafsa, Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed said the court had been set up.A similar system of parallel judiciary had been set up in Malakand Agency and adjoining areas by pro-Taliban leader Mufti Muhammad. But it is for the first time that such a system is being enforced in the Pakistan capital.

Lal Masjid also became a hub of pro-Taliban and anti-military activities at the time when a military operation was launched in Waziristan in 2003-2004. At that time a similar qazi court comprising some muftis was set up which issued a decree that ‘all military personnel killed in the operation were not martyrs and they did not deserve religious funeral’.

Pakistan’s interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, according to the Daily Times, has declined to comment on the qazi court.

But a senior security official said the establishment of a parallel court would never be allowed in the capital. — ANI

Brussels, April 6
Top climate experts issued their bleakest forecasts yet about global warming today.

It ranged from hunger in Africa to a thaw of Himalayan glaciers in a study that may add pressure on governments to act.

More than 100 nations in the UN climate panel agreed a final text after all-night disputes during which some scientists accused governments of watering down some of their findings in a draft 21-page summary.

“We have an approved report,” Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told reporters this morning after negotiations about the regional impact of climate change that began on Monday.

Pachauri, who said he was still wearing the same suit as yesterday due to the marathon overnight talks, added that he hoped the world would pay attention.

The report says the poor would be the hardest hit by changes, including desertification, drought, and rising sea levels.

The IPCC groups 2,500 scientists and is the top world authority on climate change. Its findings are approved unanimously by governments and will guide policy in coming years on issues such as extending the UN's Kyoto protocol, the main UN plan for capping greenhouse gas emissions, beyond 2012.

“Conflict is a hard word, tension is a better word,” Gary Yohe, one of scientists who was a lead author of the report, said of the mood at the talks.

He said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had raised most objections during the night. Other participants also said the US had toned down some passages.

Some scientists objected, for instance, after China tried to eliminate a note saying that there was “very high confidence” that climate change was already affecting “many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans”.

China is the second largest source of greenhouse gases after the US and ahead of Russia. — Reuters

Washington, April 6
In a new research, scientists have decoded the genome of S.sanguinis, a bacteria normally present in the healthy human mouth, which, when it enters the bloodstream, can cause a deadly heart infection.

S. sanguinis, a type of bacteria that is naturally present in the mouth, is among a variety of microorganisms responsible for the formation of dental plaque. In general, S. sanguinis is harmless.

However, if it enters the bloodstream, possibly through a minor cut or wound in the mouth, it can cause bacterial endocarditis, a serious and often lethal infection of the heart.

The research was conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University and was led by Francis Macrina, Ph.D., VCU's vice-president for research.

The research will help scientists in developing new strategies for treatment and infection prevention.

Researchers analysed the genome of the gram-positive bacterium and found that it was larger than other streptococci that had been sequenced. — ANI

New York, April 6
A 76-year-old American has been arrested for causing the death of a retired Sikh professor in a hit-and-run case in Long Islands.

Joseph Kohler, a resident of Plainview, Long Islands, was on Thursday charged with leaving Gurcharan Singh, 77, to die after knocking him down with his car last week.

Kohler had earlier been convicted for drunken driving.

“On Wednesday, a Nassau county resident flagged down an officer on routine patrol and pointed out a damaged Lincoln Mark VII, a maroon sedan that matched the description of the car involved in the accident,” Dennis Barry of Nassau’s Homicide 
Squad said.

Kohler, a retiree who lives alone, later pleaded not guilty in a local court before posting a bail of $5,000 cash, said Charles Hochbaum, his attorney. — IANS