A civilian nuclear agreement between the United States and India fails to explicitly state that renewed Indian testing of nuclear weapons would lead to a termination of the pact, according to a longtime critic of the deal.

Writing in Arms Control Today, Daryl Kimball says the agreement promises India, assurances of nuclear fuel supply and advance consent to carry out sensitive nuclear activities that are “unprecedented and inconsistent”, with legislation approved by the US Congress last year.

Kimball’s criticism is contrary to concerns raised by some in India that the agreement curtails New Delhi’s right to test nuclear weapons and would lead to the US scrapping the deal should such a test take place.

To protect its testing options, India sought and got an unprecedented US commitment to help it amass a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any supply disruption, Kimball said, adding, “Incredibly, the agreement also commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing.” “Officials at the department of state may argue that the fuel supply assurances are political and not legal commitments and are there, only to assuage Indian domestic audiences,” Kimball said. But, he noted, this is not how the Indian government interprets the agreement. “Such ambiguity has no place in international nonproliferation rules. Congress and the NSG should clearly establish that any India-specific exemption from existing nuclear trade rules shall be terminated if India resumes testing.”

Kimball said, “The sum of these and other US concessions could give India - a country that has violated past agreements on peaceful nuclear cooperation by testing a nuclear weapon - terms of nuclear trade more favorable than those for states that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India has never signed.”

In his article, “Fixing a Flawed Nuclear Deal,” Kimball described the deal as one that contradicts long-standing US nuclear export policies and threatens the global non-proliferation order.

“Much is at stake,” he warned. In the coming months, the US Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) can prevent further damage by using their authority to close the loopholes in the deeply flawed US-Indian agreement, he added.

Kimball noted that many NSG member states support India’s legitimate nuclear energy goals. But, he added, “they are also deeply uncomfortable with the agreement and for good reason. Partial safeguards in India are hardly worth their estimated $10 million annual cost. Yet, the US-Indian agreement cheapens their value by endorsing the concept of India-specific safeguards and allowing India to take unspecified ‘corrective measures’ if fuel supplies are disrupted.” He asked Congress and the NSG to reject any proposal for nonstandard safeguards for Indian reactors.

China is seen in both Washington and New Delhi as a potential stumbling block at the NSG. A state department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Bush administration has seen a “fair amount” of support from the NSG for the nuclear deal. “We have done some preparatory work there for this deal,” the official said. Earlier, undersecretary of state R. Nicholas Burns had said the US intended to serve as India’s “shepherd” at the NSG.

Islamabad, September 6
Pakistan government was bracing up for the arrest of former Premier Nawaz Sharif after he shrugged off the reported advice by Saudi government to honour his exile undertaking and vowed to return on September 10.

But eminent jurist Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said an arrest on arrival or an attempt to stop Sharif at the airport or to send him back would amount to defying the Supreme Court ruling and the officials doing that could be sent to prison.

Dhaka, September 6
A Bangladesh court today rejected the bail plea of the younger son of former Premier Khaleda Zia, who was arrested along with his mother on corruption charges three days ago, and sent him back to jail.

Metropolitan magistrate Mohammed Salahuddin ordered Arafat Rahman Koko to be sent to jail, pending a probe into his alleged involvement in corruption after his bail plea was turned down.

Koko made a surprise appearance in the court under heavy security escort after three days of interrogation in security remand.

Zia, chief of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and Koko were arrested from their Dhaka Cantonment residence on graft charges in a pre-dawn raid on September 3 when the court sent the former Premier to a makeshift jail at the Parliament complex and placed her son on a seven-day security remand to be quizzed for his alleged involvement in corruption.

Both Zia and Koko were charged along with 11 others for alleged corruption in awarding a profitable contract to a company, going beyond procedures to construct a railway container terminal in Dhaka.

Zia’s high-profile elder son Tarique Rahman was arrested several months ago to face trial on a number of corruption and extortion charges. Zia and her archrival ex-Premier Sheikh Hasina of Awami League, also faced with several corruption cases. — PTI

London, September 6
A Hindu organisation in Britain is planning to challenge the ban on yoga classes by two churches on the grounds that it breaches the country’s Equality Act, 2006.

Last week, priests at the Silver Street Baptist Church and St James’ Church of England in Taunton, Somerset, had banned yoga classes for children by branding it as a “sham” and “un-Christian”.

Now, the Hindu Council UK (HCUK) is actively considering challenging the ban. Lawyers of the organisation are exploring whether the comments by the churches indicate the priests acted contrary to Britain’s “Religion and Belief” section of the 2006 legislation, which makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of religion or belief in the provision of goods, facilities and services, the management of premises, education and exercise of public functions.

HCUK’s spokesperson on yoga Amarjeet Singh Bhamra said he found it “very disappointing that such medieval-like irrational prejudice is still allowed to flourish in the Christian church in 21st century multicultural Britain”. — IANS

Rome, September 6
Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C’s and ebullient showmanship made him one of the world’s most beloved tenors, has died. He was 71.

Pavarotti had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and underwent further treatment in August.

The son of a music-loving baker, Pavarotti’s pristine tenor voice brought opera to the masses, while his international superstar status put him regularly in the gossip column spotlight.

Hailed as the greatest tenor since his fellow Italian Enrico Caruso, Pavarotti sang before a televised audience of more than 1.5 billion for the 1990 World Cup final. He was the first opera star to fill Madison Square Garden and thought nothing of appearing with pop stars such as the Spice Girls.

Alongside countless acts of kindness, Pavarotti was also famed for his off-stage tantrums and romantic dalliances.

Born on October 12, 1935, in the northern Italian city of Modena, Pavarotti was the only son of a baker whose love of opera and his own modest singing were an important factor in determining his future career.

Pavarotti was a talented footballer. But while training to become a teacher in 1955 Pavarotti and his father were part of a chorus that won an international music festival in Llangollen, Wales and he decided to make opera his life.

In 1961 he won a competition in Reggio Emilia, Italy which got him the role of Rodolphe in Puccini’s “La Boheme” in the city.

By 1963 he was singing in Amsterdam, Vienna, Zurich and London.

His American debut came in February 1965 in a production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” in Miami, Florida, with Australian singing diva Joan Sutherland as Lucia. — AFP

Yangon, September 6
Several hundred monks in army-run Myanmar held a group of government officials for more than four hours today and torched their cars as anger deepened at last month’s shock fuel price rises, a witness said.

Around a dozen officials had gone to the monastery in the town of Pakokku, 600 km northwest of Yangon, to apologise for soldiers firing shots over the heads of protesting monks yesterday, the witness said.

They had also wanted to ask the abbot of the Mahawithutayama monastery, the town’s biggest, to stop monks taking part in the sporadic marches that have broken out against soaring living costs in the former Burma, she added.

However, several hundred young monks locked them inside the monastery and torched four of their cars. A crowd of up to 1,000 people gathered outside the gates and there was no sign of military or police.

In the first use of the army against two weeks of rare dissent, soldiers had fired the warning shots to halt a protest march of up to 500 monks reciting Buddhist scriptures and waving banners condemning huge fuel price rise.

Hitherto, the military had responded by arresting leading dissidents and sending pro-junta gangs onto the streets of Yangon to break up protests.

Western governments and the United Nations have become increasingly critical of the junta’s actions, although China, the general’s main trading partner and the closest they have to a friend, has remained silent. — Reuters