Washington, June 28
The Indian leadership is to blame for turning India’s border dispute with China “from a primarily political quarrel into a serious military confrontation”, recently released papers of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) say.

The papers, described by the CIA as its “Family Jewels”, suggest that Chinese policy toward India in the run-up to the 1962 Sino-Indian war operated on contradictory assumptions about dealing with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Chinese believed that it was necessary to “unite” with Nehru and simultaneously to “struggle” against him. They had hoped that an opening for negotiations would appear but, at the same time, noted that Nehru insisted on China withdrawing from the Aksai Plain.

They apparently believed that they had some room for diplomatic manoeuvring with him, when in fact such room no longer existed, the papers suggest.

The Chinese absorbed a continuous volley of Indian insults and rebuffs without striking back publicly, calculating that a public riposte would compel Nehru to leave the dispute open indefinitely.

It pointed up the self-defeating aspect of the Chinese policy to press Nehru in various clever ways but to offer him no concessions. That is, the Chinese had rejected the carrot-and-the-stick as a policy because the only carrot acceptable to Nehru was the entire Aksai Plain.

Then external affairs ministry secretary-general R.K. Nehru was scolded like a small boy by Liu Shao-chi in July 1961 for coming to China only to demand Chinese withdrawal.

As a result of the angry rebuke, relations further deteriorated.

Nehru was constantly pulled in two directions. His inclination was to work for a political settlement; however, Chinese adamancy made him vulnerable in Parliament and consequently more susceptible than ever to the argument of army leaders that the Chinese should be pushed back by force, the papers said.

The Chinese then warned Nehru that they would not remain passive observers.

The warnings failed to deter Nehru; on the contrary, they enabled his opponents to press for an even harder anti-China line.

“The border dispute was in this way transformed by the Indians from a primarily political quarrel into a serious military confrontation,” the declassified CIA papers concluded. — IANS

Vatican City, June 28
Pope Benedict XVI has approved a document that relaxes restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass used by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries until the modernising reforms of the 1960s, the Vatican said today.

Benedict discussed the decision with top officials in a meeting yesterday and the document would be published in the next few days, the statement said. The meeting was called to “illustrate the content and the spirit” of the document, which will be sent to all bishops accompanied by a personal letter from the pope.

The decision comes after months of debate.

Some cardinals, bishops and Jews have opposed any change, voicing complaints about everything from the text of the old Mass to concerns that the move will lead to further changes to the reforms approved by the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council. — AP

Turbat (Pakistan), June 28
Helicopters were airdropping urgent relief aid today to some of the more than 800,000 people battered by the monsoon-spawned flooding in coastal areas of Pakistan, officials said.

Many of the stricken were living in higher open areas or atop the roofs of buildings to escape the floodwaters that inundated large areas of Baluchistan province in the wake of Cyclone Yemyin.

Severe floods had also ravaged four provinces in neighbouring Afghanistan, caused an unknown number of deaths, a NATO statement said.

The Afghan police and NATO troops rescued 42 trapped villagers in Kapisa province yesterday. Flooding was also reported in Kabul, Parwan and Kunar provinces.

In Pakistan, the army took over the relief operations, using 14 helicopters and C130 transport planes to reach areas which need maximum help.

Khubah Bakhsh, provincial relief commissioner, estimated that some 200,000 houses had been destroyed. More than 800,000 people have been affected by the floods, caused by heavy rains and spillovers from rivers and dams, he said.

The cyclone struck the coastline of Baluchistan on Tuesday, killed at least 12 persons, said Raziq Bugti, spokesman for the provincial government in an earlier report.

Bakhsh said an accurate, updated death toll was not possible given that telephone links to outlying areas had been cut and mobile coverage was not available in others. — AP

New York, June 28
An NRI father-son duo in the USA have been charged with defrauding the federal emergency management agency (FEMA) of funds meant for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Ramesh Patel, 51, and Chirag Patel, 26, of Union City, Georgia, were arraigned on Monday. The defendants were earlier indicted by a federal grand jury on June 19, a media report said.

"These defendants allegedly billed FEMA by claiming that Hurricane Katrina evacuees stayed at their hotel on certain nights, when in fact they did not stay at their hotel," said US Attorney David Nahmias.

"They took advantage of the chaos created by Hurricane Katrina and bilked the taxpayers of tens of thousands of dollars earmarked for emergency housing. Such conduct simply will not be tolerated," he was quoted as saying by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Since October 2005, Ramesh and Chirag Patel owned and operated the Comfort Inn hotel at 6800 Shannon Parkway in Union City. The hotel housed several Katrina evacuees in several pre-designated rooms.

Once the evacuee checked in, the defendants submitted periodic requests for payment to FEMA for housing the evacuees. FEMA paid the hotel by mailing checks.

An investigation into the requests for payment revealed, however, that the hotel had billed FEMA for guests who either did not stay at the hotel, or had left the hotel and found a permanent residence, the report said.

The rooms that were supposedly occupied by these evacuees were rented out to non-evacuee guests, or were occupied by the defendants' family members. — PTI

Beheading is a common tactic usually used by radical Sunni groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq, but finding such a large numbers of victims in one group are rare. —Reuters

While several thousand boys and burqa-clad girls students carrying bamboo sticks were alerted to guard the premises, jehadi or war songs were being from played urging people to rise up for jehad. — TNS