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Boucher in Islamabad for strategic talks
I erred on Kargil: Sharif
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US analysing Laden tape
Missile Defence
Australia, Russia sign uranium deal
What will happen to Pavarotti’s multi-million fortune?
Attack aimed at Algerian Prez kills 22
Korea invites N-experts
for review
Missing girl’s mother suspect
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Boucher in Islamabad for strategic talks
Islamabad, September 7 The US embassy said Boucher is visiting Pakistan for the bilateral Strategic Dialogue, which was in cold storage for some time. He came here ahead of the visit of deputy secretary John Negroponte, who is scheduled to arrive on September 12 to discuss a host of issues, including the political crisis faced by Musharraf and his plans to get reelected in the coming weeks. During their visits here two months ago, Negroponte and Boucher had said US had no objection to Musharraf continuing as the Army chief even after his reelection as President. Significantly, Boucher's visit this time came three days ahead of the expected return of Sharif and his brother Shabaz from their exile. The Sharif brothers have fixed September 10 as the date for their arrival in Islamabad, following a landmark Supreme Court verdict allowing them to return home. The Musharraf government plans to either send them back to Saudi Arabia where they were exiled to in 2000 or arrest them over the corruption and criminal cases against them, which were being reopened. The US government has been trying for a rapprochement between Musharraf and former Premier Benazir Bhutto, which has reportedly unnerved Sharif who apparently feared that he might be left out of a future political dispensation in Pakistan. President George W. Bush and Musharraf launched the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue in March 2006. It will be held on September 13-14 at the level of the foreign secretary on the Pakistani side and the deputy secretary of state on the US side. Officials said the US secretaries are likely to call on Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and foreign minister Khurshid M. Kasuri. The USA has resumed exports of fighter planes to Pakistan with two used F-16/B jets delivered in July and plans to donate another two dozen, according to Arms Control Today. Pakistan will not pay for the used, older model F-16s, whose flying conditions vary, but will assume the costs for refurbishing and modernising them, the publication said citing a defence department spokesperson. The donated planes are in addition to the sale of 18 new F-16C/D fighters for delivery in 2010 and upgrades for its current fleet of 34 F-16 combat aircraft as part of a deal announced in September last year. The US government then cleared Islamabad for about $2.1 billion of new weapons, avionics, engines and other equipment for F-16 fighters. Pakistan is supposed to begin receiving the 18 new, top-of-the-line F-16C/Ds in three years and has the option to purchase 18 more. — PTI, IANS
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Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has admitted to committing mistakes during the 1999 Kargil conflict, saying that he should have appointed an inquiry commission in the aftermath of the conflict like India did. “I may not have taken the action which I should have,” he said on a CNN-IBN show. “I think I also needed to appoint a commission immediately after this episode. India appointed a commission, did a good thing. I should have also done the same,” Sharif said during the interview. He also said he would contest the presidential elections later this year and that Musharraf, with or without his uniform, had no role to play in Pakistan’s affairs. — IANS
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US analysing Laden tape Dubai, September 7 US officials said they were analysing the tape, which the Islamist site said was the first such bin Laden film for nearly three years, to see whether it was new or old. The website, which carries messages from Al-Qaida-linked groups, published a still photograph apparently from the video, which showed Laden looking more worn than he has in many previously available pictures. Al Jazeera television said the tape, produced by Al-Qaida's media arm al-Sahab, was likely to be shown within 72 hours. "We can confirm that the US government has the video and it is being analysed," one US official said on condition of anonymity. "We need to take a look at it to see whether it's old or new and we're doing it very quickly," a US intelligence official said. Bin Laden was last seen in a video statement on the eve of the November 2004 US presidential election. Since then, he has issued several audio messages, the last in July 2006 when he vowed Al- Qaida would fight the United States across the world. His long silence has prompted two schools of thought among intelligence officials and security analysts. Some suspected he was limiting his appearances to maximise their impact, perhaps saving his next one to coincide with a dramatic attack. Others say bin Laden, aged 50 and believed to suffer from a serious kidney ailment, may be too sick or too tightly pinned down in his hiding place to smuggle out a tape. Michael Taarnby, specialist in militant Islamism at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said the new video would be significant as "proof of life" but would probably be more scrutinised for clues to Laden's health than for its message.
— Reuters
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No progress in Putin-Bush talks
Sydney, September 7 The Presidents met at a hotel in Sydney, ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific leader and, shortly after Putin signed a landmark deal allowing Australia to export uranium to Russia. Visibly grim after their hour-long meeting, Putin said the talks had been “above all related to missile defence.” But neither man gave any hint of coming any nearer on Washington’s plans to deploy a missile shield in central Europe which have provoked an increasingly tense stand-off between the two sides. The Russian leader said experts from both sides would meet again to inspect a Russian radar station in Azerbaijan that Moscow has proposed to be used as an alternative to the central-Europe sites. “In this way we are continuing joint work in this direction,” Putin said. Moscow says the US plans to deploy elements of a missile defence shield, in Poland and the Czech Republic, will upset the balance of power, while Washington insists it is aimed against potential attacks from Iran or North Korea posing no threat to Russia. The talks, which Bush called “both cordial and constructive,” also touched on Iran’s nuclear programme, Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation and environmental issues. Earlier in the day, Putin and host Prime Minister John Howard had sought to ease fears that planned uranium sales to Russia posed a nuclear proliferation risk. — AFP
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Australia, Russia sign uranium deal
Melbourne, September 7 Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the deal after his talks with Prime Minister John Howard this morning at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). “Any uranium that is sold to Russia will be sold under very strict safeguards,” Howard said at a joint press conference with Putin in Sydney. He said the new agreement would allow the supply of Australian uranium for use in Russia’s civil nuclear power industry and provide a framework for broader cooperation on peaceful nuclear-related activities. Australia could be exporting its yellow cake to Russia as soon as next year, but Russia could not sell the fuel to any other nation or use it for military purposes. “I simply don’t understand what people are talking about,” Putin said, pointing out that Russia already exports large quantities of enriched uranium for military use, including 30 tonnes a year to the USA. “We are buying uranium from Australia for purely economic reasons,” he said. Foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has expressed confidence that Russia would not risk breaching those conditions. “To suggest that Russia would breach a treaty of that importance with a country like Australia, is not just the real world,” he said. — PTI
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What will happen to Pavarotti’s multi-million fortune?
Many close associates are anticipating a battle over the legacy between the star’s bitter ex-wife Adua and his second wife, Nicoletta, 35 years his junior. Pavarotti married Adua in 1961, but the couple divorced 35 years later, following the tenor’s affair with his secretary Nicoletta Mantovani, whom he later married. Sources claim that even at the time of his death, the bitterness between the two is unlikely to go away as his women and loved ones will claim a share in the estimated 300 million pounds fortune he left. However, shortly before Pavarotti died, his former manager Herbert Breslin wondered whether he was actually happy with these women and with the exorbitant money he earned. “I wonder if he loved the women who shared his life, or simply appreciated their convenience and usefulness to the reflected glow cast on him by their beauty?” the Daily Mail quoted Breslin, as saying. — ANI Thousands bid adieu
Thousands of mourners thronged the open coffin of Luciano Pavarotti in the cathedral of his Italian hometown on Friday, bidding farewell to the tenor whose death prompted emotional tributes from around the world. The doors of Modena’s ancient cathedral opened at dawn to allow fans a last look at Pavarotti before his funeral on Saturday. The opera star, who died on Thursday at the age of 71, was dressed in a black tuxedo, hands folded on his stomach and holding a white handkerchief and a rosary.
— Reuters
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Attack aimed at Algerian Prez kills 22
Algiers, September 7 Bouteflika appeared on television soon after yesterday's bomb attack near a mosque in the city of Batna to denounce the “criminals” and vow to pursue his national reconciliation policy. National television had earlier put the death toll at 15, with 74 wounded in the latest bomb attack in the north African nation, which is still recovering from a civil war in the 1990s that left more than 150,000 dead. The explosion killed and injured people in a crowd awaiting a visit by the president in the centre of Batna and witnesses quoted by the television said the bomb was hidden in a plastic bag. The attacker was discovered by the crowd and triggered the blast before the presidential cortege arrived in that part of the city. Authorities did not identify the killer or say whether he was among the dead. It was the closest that a suicide bomber has come to the president, who today planned to attend the funeral of victims and go on touring the Batna region, rather than returning to Algiers as planned.
— AFP |
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Korea invites N-experts
for review
Sydney, September 7 Assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill called the overture “another significant step toward the de-nuclearization” of the Korean peninsula. He said the team of experts would go to North Korea on Tuesday for an initial four-day survey. Hill said the invitation came out of a US-North Korea meeting last week in Geneva. North Korea agreed to disclose and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.
—
AP
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Missing girl’s mother suspect
Praia Da Luz (Portugal), September 7 Kate McCann entered the police station in the city of Portimao on Friday to be interviewed for the second time in 24 hours. The sudden shift in the investigation came after authorities received forensic evidence from the holiday apartment in the Algarve where Madeleine vanished on May 3. A friend of the McCanns said Kate had told her that the police found blood in a car hired by her and her husband, Gerry, but there was no confirmation it was Madeleine's blood.
— Reuters
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London, September 7