World leaders are not renowned for their modest wine selections or reticence at the G8 summit’s cheese board. True to form, discussing the global food Africa was clearly hungry work that left their stomachs rumbling.

Shortly after calling for us all to waste less food, and for an end to three-for-two deals in British supermarkets, Gordon Brown joined his fellow G8 premiers and their wives for an eight-course Marie Antoinette-style “Blessings of the Earth and the Sea Social Dinner”, courtesy of the Japanese government.

The global food shortage was not evident. As the champagne flowed, the couples enjoyed 18 “higher-quality ingredients”, beginning with amuse-bouche of corn stuffed with caviar, smoked salmon and sea urchin pain-surprise-style, hot onion tart and winter lily bulbs.

With translations helpfully provided by the hosts, the starter menu (second course) read like a meal in itself.

A folding fan-modelled tray decorated with bamboo grasses carried eight delicacies: kelp-flavoured cold Kyoto beef shabu-shabu, with asparagus dressed with sesame cream; diced fatty flesh of tuna fish, with avocado and jellied soy sauce and the Japanese herb shiso; boiled clam, tomato and shiso in jellied clear soup of clam; water shield and pink conger dressed with a vinegary soy sauce; boiled prawn with jellied tosazu-vinegar; grilled eel rolled around burdock strip; sweet potato; and fried and seasoned goby with soy sauce and sugar.

That was followed by a hairy crab kegani bisque-style soup and salt-grilled bighand thornyhead with a vinegary water pepper sauce. The main course brought the “meat sweats” n poele of milk-fed lamb flavoured with aromatic herbs and mustard, as well as roasted lamb with black truffle and pine seed oil sauce. For the cheese course, the Japanese offered a special selection with lavender honey and caramelised nuts. It was followed by a “G8 fantasy dessert” and coffee served with candied fruits and vegetables.

This was washed down with Le Reve grand cru/La Seule Gloire champagne; a sake wine, Isojiman Junmai Daiginjo Nakadori; Corton-Charlemagne 2005 (France); Ridge California Monte Bello 1997 and Tokaji Esszencia 1999 (Hungary).

The G8 leaders had earlier made do with a “working lunch” of white asparagus and truffle soup; kegani crab; supreme of chicken; and cheese and coffee with petit fours. The lubrication of choice, for those drinking, was Chateau Grillet 2005.

The TV cameras were sadly not allowed to loiter long enough to discover whether Brown practised what he preaches by not wasting any of his food.

The Prime Minister has been shocked by the finding that an average British household could save about (pounds sterling) 420 a year by not throwing away edible food.

It is a fair bet that much more than that was wasted last night at the opulent Windsor Hotel in Toya, 30 miles from the general public and with 20,000 special police officers for security. Sixty chefs were flown in for the occasion, foremost among them the Michelin-starred Katsuhiro Nakamura.

The total cost of staging the event on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido is estimated at (pounds sterling) 285m, enough to buy 100 million mosquito nets, and dwarfing the (pounds sterling) 85m Britain spent on the Gleneagles summit three years ago.

Kabul, July 8
Indicating the possible involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in the deadly suicide blast at the Indian embassy here, Afghan authorities today said preliminary investigations revealed the terrorists had received training and logistic support from “across the border.”

“We believe firmly that there is a particular intelligence agency behind it,” President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Homayun Hamizada told mediapersons here, but refrained from naming any country. He said it was “pretty obvious” whom he was referring to.

“The sophistication of this attack and the kind of material that was used ... everything has the hallmarks of a particular agency that has conducted similar attacks inside Afghanistan. We have sufficient evidence to say that,” he said.

A report prepared by the Afghan Ministry of Defence said terrorists had entered the country after receiving training and logistical support from across the border, an obvious reference to Pakistan.

“The terrorists no doubt could not have succeeded in launching such an atrocity without full support of foreign intelligence,” according to a summary of an Afghan Cabinet meeting chaired by Karzai.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, currently visiting Malaysia, rejected reports linking his country’s intelligence agency with the suicide bombing in Kabul. 
— PTI

Washington, July 8
Describing the suicide attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul as “reprehensible,” the international community has offered assistance to probe the incident and said such terror acts were designed to undermine the efforts to bring peace and stability to the region.

Condemning the bombing, the United States said it has offered assistance to probe the attack to find out those responsible behind it.

“We condemn these attacks. And in the incident in Kabul, we have offered assistance, not only to Afghan but also to the Indian authorities, in terms of follow-up, determining who’s responsible for these attacks,” state department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

US national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe had earlier condemned the deadly attack yesterday in which at least 41 persons, including four Indians, were killed.

In Brussels, NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the attack was a clear attempt to undermine regional relations.

“I call on all parties to remain calm in the face of this provocation. The alliance remains determined to continue its mission to help bring security and stability to Afghanistan, including against the scourge of terrorism,” Scheffer said.

British foreign secretary David Miliband said the attack was designed to undermine the efforts of democratic governments and the international community to bring peace and stability in the region.

“The perpetrators of such atrocities will not succeed,” Miliband said.

The UN Security Council condemned the attack and called for international efforts to bring the perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this “reprehensible act” to justice. — PTI

Tokayo, Japan, July 8
The White House today warned that time was running short to ratify a landmark US-India civilian nuclear agreement during US President George W. Bush’s term, which ends in January.

Speaking on the eve of Bush’s talks at this mountain resort with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, spokesperson Dana Perino said the US Congress had a heavy workload and “a limited number of legislative days.” Perino brushed aside a question about whether Manmohan was expected to announce that he was ready to move ahead with the agreement, saying it was “premature to say” before the leaders met on the margins of a rich nation summit.

“But obviously we’ve maintained a strong commitment to carrying through on our side of the deal, and obviously India has had a lot of discussion among its political parties,” she told reporters.

“Its been a long road, and there’s been a healthy debate,” Perino said. “We’ll have to see what he’s able to bring on the India civil nuclear agreement,” she said. “It could be that he’s ready to move forward - but it also could just as likely be that they have a little bit more work to do.”

“But we obviously recognise as well that we have a limited number of legislative days for our congress to get a lot of work done,” said the spokesperson.

Manmohan yesterday arrived in Toyako, where he was expected to tell Bush that he would move ahead on the stalled nuclear cooperation accord despite tough opposition.

Manmohan and Bush in 2005 unveiled an agreement to share civilian nuclear technology - a deal that when finalised would see India entering the fold of global nuclear commerce after being shut out for decades.— AFP 

Washington, July 8
John McCain and Barak Obama, presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, may have previously backed the nuclear deal with India but the new US President may link its full implementation to Indian acceptance of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Bush administration has staunchly opposed, a former senior American diplomat says.

“Both (McCain and Obama) supported the Bush-Singh deal. However, it is unclear whether either, as President, would simply endorse and implement it in its present form,” says Strobe Talbott.

“The winner of the election might, in some fashion, link full implementation of the deal to Indian acceptance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Bush administration has staunchly opposed,” Talbott says.

Painting a rosy picture of Indo-US ties as a “relationship that is on an upward trajectory,” the former US deputy secretary of state, however, says the nuclear deal is “fatally wounded”.

“They fear the pact is a fatally wounded victim of Indian internal politics subject, perhaps, to resurrection next year, when there will be a new leader on the US side and might be one on the Indian side as well. In that case, McCain or Obama would inherit a tricky and consequential piece of unfinished business,” Talbott, now President of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, a prominent think-tank, said in a latest article on Indo-US relations. — PTI

Quebec City, July 8
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has added three new sites to its heritage list, including a former slave hideout in Mauritius, the Nabataean archaeological site in Saudi Arabia, and China’s Fujian Tulou earthen houses.

The archaeological site of Al-Hijr, the largest conserved site of the civilization of the Nabataeans south of Petra in Jordan, is the first World Heritage site in Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation also chose the Morne Cultural Landscape, a rugged mountain jutting into the Indian Ocean in southwestern Mauritius that was used as a shelter by runaway slaves, maroons, through the 18th and early years of the 19th centuries.

Also making the heritage list were the Fujian Tulou property of 46 houses built between the 12th and 20th centuries as homes to entire clans in southwest of Fujian province, inland from the Taiwan Strait.

The three new entries bring UNESCO’s World Heritage List to 854 sites in more than 140 countries around the world.

The 21-member World Heritage Committee meeting until 10 July is considering another 40 candidate sites to its world list. Canada is presiding at this year’s meeting as Quebec City celebrates its 400th anniversary. — AFP

BRIEFLY

Indian students bag 2nd prize in NASA competition
NEW YORK: Two Indian students, R Anusha and S Srinath from an engineering college under Annamalai University, Guindy, Chennai, have won the second prize for their design of transport aircraft for the future sponsored by the American space agency NASA. Faculty advisor Dr E Natarajan oversaw the design. Gary Redman of Australia University of Technology won the first place for his ‘conceptual aircraft for 2058’. — PTI

Nicole has baby girl
NEW YORK: Hollywood film actress Nicole Kidman has given birth to her first baby girl, Sunday Rose, with country music star Keith Urban on Monday. The birth of Sunday Rose, Nicole’s first biological child, comes just days after Kidman and Urban celebrated their second wedding anniversary on June 25. Kidman adopted a boy and a girl when she was married to Hollywood actor Tom Cruise. — AFP

Taslima to become honorary citizen
PARIS: Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen is to be made an honorary citizen of Paris, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has said, praising her courage and freedom struggle. Describing Nasreen as a “woman of exemplary courage and a freedom fighter”, Delanoe submitted a resolution to the city council proclaiming her an honorary citizen. Nasreen was forced to flee Bangladesh in 1994 after radical Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her novel "Lajja". — AFP

‘Bollywood dancing’ world record created
LONDON: More than 200 people danced together to the tune of a hit Indian song, Om Shanti Om, in the city's Trafalgar square to set a world record for ‘Bollywood dancing’ by most number of people. The five-minute routine that engaged 212 people simultaneously had people of all ages and backgrounds. The event was part of a dance-themed festival organised by the BBC Blast. — PTI

UK agent suspects Russian govt's role
LONDON: A British security services agent says the Russian government may have been involved in the 2006 murder of former security agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London, according to the BBC's Newsnight programme aired on Monday. The unnamed security officer told Newsnight there were strong indications the government of former Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in Litvinenko's murder, according to the report. Putin is now Russia's PM. — AP

Laloo a hit on YouTube
LONDON: A clip showing union railways minister Laloo Prasad Yadav translating a Hindi poem into English while presenting the railway budget in February has become a huge hit on YouTube.During the speech, Yadav recites a Hindi poem in which he conveys his achievements. The clip dated 26 February 2008 has attracted over 3.5 lakh hits from across the world. As he recites the poem, he is interrupted by MPs, asking him to translate it into English. — PTI