Washington/Islamabad, May 17
The US has stressed there is no change in its assessment about Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who is in the midst of a crisis sparked by the suspension of the chief justice, and said it plans to extend more support to the General as it feels he has not yet reached the “end of his line”.

The US administration's comment came during a briefing here when officials were asked about Washington's assessment about the situation in Pakistan following clashes between supporters of Musharraf and the suspended chief justice.

The US expressed relief that the violence in Karachi was subsiding but said there were issues to be sorted out in the South Asian country.

“There is going to be an important election coming up in Pakistan. It is... in everyone's interest to see that Pakistan develops as a moderate Islamic country that continues to be a good ally with the US in the war on terror and continues to help support its neighbour in Afghanistan deal with the ongoing threat posed by the Taliban,” he added.

“But, again, I don't think our assessment has fundamentally changed about him (Musharraf) or his role in Pakistani society,” Casey said.

In Islamabad, the US special envoy to the region Ronald Neumann said Washington might continue to back Musharraf and even increase the support to him. “I don't think that President Musharraf has reached the end of his line.”

The reinforcement of US support to the General comes in the backdrop of remarks by the Pakistan President's prominent supporter and Sindh chief minister Arbab Ghulam that “Allah, Army and America” continued to back Musharraf.

On the issue of crackdown on Taliban and al Qaeda, Neumann, however, asked Musharraf to do more.

The overall situation with regard to the Taliban was better than a year ago, he said. “I am not trying to tell you that everything is good in Afghanistan. I said I'm relatively more optimistic that I was before,” the US envoy, who was here for talks with Pakistan's national security secretary Tariq Aziz, said.

On the erection of a fence at the Pak-Afghan border, which was opposed by Kabul, Neumann said both sides would have to mull the matter more seriously and reach a solution with mutual understanding.

Nuemann is visiting the region at a time when the US-led coalition is on the offensive against Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Afghanistan continues to bicker over the issue. — PTI

Toronto, May 17
Notwithstanding credible information that a terrorist attack was imminent and three suspicious bags found, airport officials let the 1985 Air India flight to take off from Toronto as they felt the cost of keeping the plane on the tarmac was too high.

Testifying before an inquiry into the bombing, baggage screener Daniel Lalonde said he overheard officials, whom he did not identify, saying that keeping the plane on the tarmac was too costly to justify searching baggage already on board, even though three suspicious bags had been found among those being loaded onto the plane.

"The cost of keeping the plane on the tarmac was high and the decision to depart the plane was based on that factor," said Lalonde.

"The flight was going to go. The decision was that the plane was going to leave," Lalonde, who was 18 at the time, said describing a conversation between Air India security officers and airport personnel in testimony before the tribunal in Ottawa.

The revelation was the latest in a litany of security oversights, unheeded warnings and miscommunication among security officials in the days before Air India Flight 182 was blown from the sky, killing 329 people.

The lapses are a catalogue of missed opportunities: repeated warnings as early as 1984 and up to days before the disaster of an attack by Sikh extremists; absent sniffer dogs at Toronto airport; a malfunctioning x-ray machine; a tardy policeman.

Most of those on board the ill-fated flight were Canadian citizens of Indian descent from Vancouver who arrived in Toronto on a connecting flight from a different airline. — PTI

Paris, May 17
French President Nicolas Sarkozy named Francois Fillon as Prime Minister on Thursday, banking on the moderate conservative's negotiating skills with trade unions to ease the passage of his programme of reforms.

Shortly after taking over from Jacques Chirac on Wednesday, Sarkozy underscored his intention to carry out a series of reforms, such as modernising the country's inflexible economy, which the Prime Minister will be in charge of implementing.

"The President named Mr Francois Fillon as Prime Minister and has tasked him with forming a new government," Sarkozy's office said in a statement on his first full day in office.

Fillon, 53, masterminded Sarkozy's campaign and worked with powerful trade unions as social affairs minister to push through sensitive pension reforms in 2003, making him a natural choice to spearhead changes to labour laws and the pensions system.

Sarkozy and Fillon held a breakfast meeting on Thursday just hours before the new Prime Minister was due to take office in a ceremony at 0900 GMT.

"The French have had enough of nothing ever improving in their daily lives," Sarkozy said in his inaugural speech at the president's Elysee palace shortly after Wednesday's handover.

"The people have entrusted me with a mandate. I will fulfil it. I will fulfil it scrupulously."

To do that, he will need to secure a majority in next month's parliamentary election or face the prospect of 'cohabiting' with a left-wing government, which would compromise his reform agenda.

An IPSOS poll on Wednesday put support for his UMP party at 40 percent, an improvement of 1.5 points compared to the last election in 2002, which the right won. The opposition Socialists and their allies were roughly unchanged at 28 per cent.— Reuters

Cannes, May 17
As Aishwarya Rai walked up the steps of the Theatre Grand Lumiere on the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival, it was apparent that the parade of Bollywood stars on the French Riviera would be stronger than it has ever been before.

To celebrate the simultaneous 60th anniversaries of India's independence and the world's number one film festival, Cannes is mounting a special focus on the diversity of Indian cinema.

The package, which will run parallel to the festival's official selection, includes seven Indian films chosen from across genres, languages and styles.

Aishwarya, a Cannes red carpet regular, was at the opening night with hubby Abhishek Bachchan by her side.

Also present at the opening night ceremony was Preity Zinta, in Cannes for the second year running, to promote luxury watch and jewellery manufacturer Chopard.

John Abraham and Bipasha Basu are expected to land here on Thursday to promote Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘Goal’, a film about an Asian soccer league team shot for the most part in London.

Amitabh Bachchan would be in Cannes for the first time to promote ‘Cheeni Kum’, helmed by advertising executive and debutant director Balki. ‘Cheeni Kum’, which co-stars Tabu, would be screened in the Cannes Film Market.

The opening ceremony last night was characteristically low-key with the master of ceremonies, Paris-based German actress Diane Kruger, welcoming on stage the jury headed by British filmmaker Stephen Frears and introducing brief teaser trailers of the 21 films in competition this year.

Taiwanese actress Shu Qi and 98-year-old Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira declared the 60th Cannes Film Festival open.

The ‘India Focus’, organised as part of the ‘Tous les Cinemas du Monde’ (All the Cinemas of the World) section, kicks off on May 19 with the screening of the Malayalam film ‘Saira’, the debut effort by homoeopathic practitioner-turned- filmmaker Biju Kumar.

‘Saira’ deals with the impact of terrorism on the lives of ordinary people. The 90-minute film looks at how an act of communal anger reduces the lives of a Muslim classical musician and his television reporter-daughter into tatters.

Two other debut films - Bhavna Talwar’s Dharm’, featuring Pankaj Kapur as an ascetic man of God whose life changes for good when his family adopts a little boy, and Mridul Toolsidass and Vinay Subramanian’s quirky ‘Missed Call’, a movie in English about a young man’s obsession with his hand-held camera - are part of the package.

Among the other films in the package are two commercially successful Hindi productions, Rajkumar Hirani's ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ and Mani Ratnam's ‘Guru’.

Also in the line-up is Kolkata filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh's ‘Dosar’, a black and white drama about marital indiscretions. The Tamil-language ‘Veyil’, directed by Vasantha Balan, completes the India Focus. Veyil represents a significant first for Tamil cinema - no film in the language has ever made it to Cannes before. — PTI