W O R L D

US would invade Pak to end terrorism: Edwards
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Friday said if the US had “actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity” in Pakistan and Islamabad refuses to act, “we will”.

Troika keen to strengthen relations with India
Melbourne, September 8
Viewing India as an emerging “great power”, the US, Australia and Japan today expressed keenness to strengthen ties with New Delhi but ruled out immediate plans to include it in their three-way strategic dialogue.

• Pacific Rim leaders adopt global warming statement

People in a park watch as a protester puts up a poster of Mahatma Gandhi in Sydney on Friday. Thousands of protesters held a march and rally near a summit of Pacific Rim leaders. — AP/PTI photo

Hundreds protest outside Red Mosque in Pakistan. (56k)

Protest planned against Sonia’s UN visit
New York, September 8
A group of pro-Hindutva organisations in the US have planned a protest against Congress president Sonia Gandhi representing India at the UN in New York on October 2, when Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday will be observed as International Non-Violence Day.

Clintons accused of stealing manuscript
New York, September 8
Kathleen Willey, the woman who claimed that Bill Clinton groped her in the Oval Office in 1993, has hinted that the former US President and his senator wife Hillary may be behind a burglary in her house.

17 die in Algeria blast
Algiers, September 8
A car bomb killed 17 people in eastern Algeria today, the official APS agency said, just two days after a suicide blast condemned by the government as a rebel bid to wreck efforts to end political violence.

15 killed in Lanka violence
Colombo, September 8
At least 15 people, including five civilians, were killed in Sri Lanka’s embattled northeast, the defence ministry said today. Five rebels were killed in Vavuniya district last evening.

12 hurt in Pak blast
Islamabad, September 8
At least 12 persons, including a woman, were injured in a car bomb blast that ripped through a parking lot in a congested market area of the northwest city of Peshawar today.

US would invade Pak to end terrorism: Edwards
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Friday said if the US had “actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity” in Pakistan and Islamabad refuses to act, “we will”.

Edwards noted that a recent National Intelligence Estimate found that Al-Qaida has established a safe haven in the northwest tribal areas of Pakistan.

“We have given the Musharraf government billions of dollars of aid in the past several years, yet they have done far too little to get control over these areas,” he said in a speech at Pace University in New York.

As President, Edwards said, he would condition future US aid on progress by Pakistan, including strengthening the reach of police forces and working more effectively with tribal leaders and their members to ensure their acceptance of the government.

“But I want to be clear about one thing: If we have actionable intelligence about imminent terrorist activity and the Pakistan government refuses to act, we will,” he added.

Edwards, the Democratic Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee in 2004 and among the top three of his party’s candidates for the 2008 White House election, is not the first to threaten military action in Pakistan.

Last month another top Democratic candidate, Sen.

Barack Obama of Illinois, drew a heated response from Pakistan when he said he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists even without President Pervez Musharraf’s permission.

Obama warned Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a US troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid.

A few days later, President George W. Bush said the

USA would take out bin Laden and other Al-Qaida leaders believed to be hiding in Pakistan if he had “actionable intelligence”. He refused to say whether he would seek permission first from Musharraf.

In his speech, Edwards criticised Bush’s war on terror.

“Six years later, the devastating consequences of the Bush ‘war on terror’ doctrine are so clear that his own administration has had to admit them,” he said.

A recent National Intelligence Estimate found that Al-Qaida is now as strong as it was before September 11, 2001.

Troika keen to strengthen relations with India

Melbourne, September 8
Viewing India as an emerging “great power”, the US, Australia and Japan today expressed keenness to strengthen ties with New Delhi but ruled out immediate plans to include it in their three-way strategic dialogue.

In their landmark security talks, US President George W. Bush, Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, focussed on how to boost ties with India as they met over breakfast on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney.

“There was a lot of discussion about India, a lot of optimism about India, the importance of strengthening our relations with India,” Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer told reporters, adding “there’s a recognition now that India is a coming great power.”

Downer said India was the world’s largest democracy and its economy is growing at a rapid rate and “it’s a country that we’re all feeling increasingly comfortable working with.”

“It was an opportunity to talk about a range of different issues but certainly to focus on India and the importance of that country to us in the Asia-Pacific region and broader geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

The discussion on engaging New Delhi more came at a time when the three countries are holding joint naval exercises with India in the Bay of Bengal.

Downer, however, said expanding the three-way strategic dialogue to include India was not on the table for the moment.

“Nothing like that is going to happen any time soon, we are looking more in a general sense at progressing the relationship,” he said.

Ahead of today’s meeting, the three developed countries sought to allay China’s fears saying the dialogue was not aimed against any country.

“As far as China is concerned, the three leaders shared the same recognition that it’s important to have a positive engagement with China,” Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Mitsuo Sakaba said after the talks.

Besides India and China’s growing regional influence, the three leaders discussed the North Korean and Iran nuclear issues at the meeting, which was also attended by US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice and Downer.

Downer again said the leaders at the APEC summit were unlikely to expand their club to take in India or any other country by lifting a leadership moratorium.

“One of the reasons for that is, I think, there are 11 applicants for APEC membership, India is one....it’s quite a long list and I think there is a consensus that if you were to bring one in, you’d have to bring others to balance it up,” Downer said. — PTI

Pacific Rim leaders adopt global warming statement

Sydney, September 8
Pacific Rim leaders agreed today that the world needs to “slow, stop and then reverse” greenhouse gas emissions and adopted goals on reducing energy intensity and reforestation as part of the effort.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, as host of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, announced the Sydney Declaration of Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development, which he said reflected the seriousness of body’s desire to address global warming while providing for economic growth.

“The world needs to slow, stop and then reverse the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions,” said the statement issued by APEC’s 21 leaders.

The declaration also calls for increasing forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares by 2020. Forests help absorb the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

The goals are non-binding in keeping with APEC’s voluntary, consensus-based approach.

APEC’s 21 members, which include major polluters, the USA, China, Russia and Japan, together account for 60 per cent of global energy demand and pump out about the same share of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. — AP

Protest planned against Sonia’s UN visit

New York, September 8
A group of pro-Hindutva organisations in the US have planned a protest against Congress president Sonia Gandhi representing India at the UN in New York on October 2, when Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday will be observed as International Non-Violence Day.

They feel Sonia Gandhi is not a true representative of India and not the best person to deliver a speech on non-violence at the UN.

The protest has been organised by the New York-based Forum for Saving Gandhi Heritage which seems to have been recently floated for this protest and supported by the Mahatma Gandhi International Foundation, the Indo-Caribbean Council, the Kashmiri Pandits’ Association, the Indian American Intellectuals Forum and others.

“The peaceful protest will take place in front of the UN headquarters building for two hours on October 2 afternoon. There will also be relay fasting at Gandhi statue in Central Park,” Sunanda Thali, a volunteer with the Forum for Saving Gandhi Heritage, told IANS.

They have already taken out ads about the protest in Indian ethnic papers here. The ads and the forum’s website detail how “in thought, word and deed Sonia (Maino) Gandhi is direct contradiction to Mahatma Gandhi”. — IANS

Clintons accused of stealing manuscript

New York, September 8
Kathleen Willey, the woman who claimed that Bill Clinton groped her in the Oval Office in 1993, has hinted that the former US President and his senator wife Hillary may be behind a burglary in her house.

Willey claims that she was the target of an unusual house burglary wherein the thief nabbed a manuscript of her upcoming book, “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton.”

And she believes that the Clintons were behind the theft, as the impending book contained revelations that could apparently harm Hillary's presidential bid.

“Here we go again. It scared me to death. It's an awful feeling to know you're sound asleep upstairs and someone is downstairs,” the New York Post quoted Willey as telling World Net Daily. Willey's book is expected to hit bookstores in November. Meanwhile, a representative for the Clintons had no comment on the issue. — ANI

17 die in Algeria blast

Algiers, September 8
A car bomb killed 17 people in eastern Algeria today, the official APS agency said, just two days after a suicide blast condemned by the government as a rebel bid to wreck efforts to end political violence.

Residents in the Mediterranean port town of Dellys, 100 km east of Algiers, reported hearing a large explosion.

“I heard a big blast at about 8 this morning and I found out that it targeted the port of the city, probably a military facility there,” Saeed Hamdaoui, 28, said. “Then we heard ambulances.”

There was no immediate confirmation that a military target had been attacked.

APS news agency, quoting hospital sources, said today’s bomb also wounded about 30. — Reuters

15 killed in Lanka violence

Colombo, September 8
At least 15 people, including five civilians, were killed in Sri Lanka’s embattled northeast, the defence ministry said today. Five rebels were killed in Vavuniya district last evening. Three troops were also killed in gunbattle while two Tigers were shot dead in Jaffna. Three civilians were killed in Eravur and two were shot dead in the north. — PTI

12 hurt in Pak blast

Islamabad, September 8
At least 12 persons, including a woman, were injured in a car bomb blast that ripped through a parking lot in a congested market area of the northwest city of Peshawar today.

The blast, which took place in a cantonment area, also damaged several vehicles, city police chief Abdul Majeed Khan told reporters.

Witnesses said glasses of several nearby buildings were smashed due to the impact of the blast, which injured 12 persons, including a woman.

The cars, parked outside a bank, caught fire as the device exploded with a loud bang, heard in many parts of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

There was no immediate claim for responsibility of the blast from any group.

The police cordoned off the area and experts from the bomb disposal squad examined the car in which the device was planted. — PTI