Moscow, August 25
Russian lawmakers today approved a resolution recognising the independence of two rebel regions of Georgia, a move likely to worsen relations with the West already strained by Moscow's military intervention there.

The upper house of parliament voted 130-0 to call on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise the rebel regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent.

Georgia and Russia fought a brief war earlier this month over South Ossetia after Tbilisi sent in troops to try to retake the province by force, provoking a massive counter-attack by land, sea and air from Moscow.

"Today, it is clear that after Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia (that) Georgian-South-Ossetian and Georgian-Abkhazian relations cannot be returned to their former state," upper house speaker Sergei Mironov said during the debate.

“ The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have the right to get independence".

"We will look today at the appeals from the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to recognise the independence of these republics... I think that all these decisions will be accepted," said Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov.

The non-binding resolutions could either signal Medvedev's intentions or be intended to strengthen his hands as he negotiates the status of Russian forces in Georgia with the West.

The EU president, who brokered a ceasefire in the conflict, which has killed hundreds of people and made thousands more homeless, called a September 1 meeting of EU leaders to discuss the crisis and review the bloc's relations with Russia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said ties with Moscow could be scaled back if its troops were not fully withdrawn. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was more cautious. "We're not talking about sanctions," he told France Inter Radio.

Moscow, which has pulled back the bulk of its forces from central and western Georgia, says the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed.

But Georgia and the West object to the scale of the Russia-imposed buffer zone adjoining the two rebel regions, which hands Moscow pressure points on key oil and trade routes through Georgia to the Black Sea. Bargaining Chip

Formal recognition by Russia of the independence of South Ossetia and the Black Sea province of Abkhazia, would put it on a collision course with the United States and other western nations.

However, the Kremlin could -- as it has done in the past ignore pleas by parliament that would exacerbate its confrontation with the West, and instead use domestic pressure as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with the West.

But diplomats say the Kremlin is also worried about separatist pressures in some of Russia's own Caucasus regions and may be reluctant to grant South Ossetia independence for fear of creating a domino effect at home.— Reuters

New York, August 25
The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) deal with a family of Swiss engineers helped it to reveal underground supply network of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan, end Libyan atomic programme and expose Iranian ambitions.

A report in The New York Times today said Switzerland had acknowledged in May that it had destroyed a huge trove of computer files and other materials, so that they do not fall in the hands of terrorists.

But the newspaper said the real reason for the destruction was pressure from the CIA, which feared that its ties with the family would be exposed.

It said the operation involved Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, who have been accused in Switzerland of dealing with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.

Over four years, the report citing unnamed officials said, operatives of the CIA paid Tinners $10 million. In return, they delivered a flow of secret information that helped to end Libya’s bomb programme, reveal Iran’s atomic labours and ultimately, undo Khan’s nuclear black-market.

In addition, the officials were quoted as saying, the Tinners played an important role in a clandestine American operation to funnel sabotaged nuclear equipment to Libya and Iran to slow their nuclear progress.

The relationship with the Tinners “was very significant,” the newspaper quoted Gary S Samore, who ran the National Security Council’s non-proliferation office when the operation began.

The West’s most important questions about the Khan network, the Times says, have been consistently deflected by Pakistan’s former president Pervez Musharraf. He refused to account for the bomb designs that got away or to let American investigators question Khan, perhaps the only man to know who else received the blueprints.

The CIA, it said, declined to comment on the Tinners case, but a spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, called the disruption of Khan’s network “a genuine intelligence success.” — PTI

The president should not have the power to dissolve the parliament and the head of state’s role should be ‘more ceremonial’, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has said in an interview with US magazine Newsweek. The interview was taken before he was named the PPP’s presidential candidate.

“The parliament is sovereign, and one has to look at the future of Pakistan's democracy as more important than individuals as such,” he said in the interview with Newsweek's Lally Weymouth.

“We have fought this war for democracy and all the powers that Musharraf enjoyed were obviously non-democratic. We need to have a debate in the parliament and see how strong we want the future president to be, and how strong we want to make our prime minister. I think the president should not have the power to dissolve the assembly,” he said.

The PPP leader said that he was in favour of reinstating sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, “But there is a position in the party, which says that he has become too politicised in the last many months and has been leading rallies.”

To a question about Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency ISI, he said: “It is going to be controlled. There is no other choice. ISI is part of the state.”

Dhaka, August 25
One person was killed and 12 were injured when Dhaka University students went on a rampage here today following a report that former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's son Tarique Rahman sustained injury in custody.

Police and campus sources said the students were holding a rally on the campus demanding the release of Begum Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman arrested in corruption cases.

Ailing Tarique was injured as he slipped in the bathroom of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital this afternoon.

As the news reached the university campus, student activists belonging to Khaleda's party got enraged and rushed to the hospital.

The police halted the rowdy activists near the hospital, who went berserk and threw brickbats towards the law enforcers.

Witnesses said angry students damaged five vehicles and set fire to a taxicab on the campus. Violence also erupted at nearby Engineering University and Dhaka College campus. — UNI

BRIEFLY

Minister: Irish need to vote again
DUBLIN: Ireland needs to hold a second referendum on the European Union's (EU) reform treaty to avoid isolation because all other 26-member states appear likely to ratify it, Ireland's European affairs minister said on Monday. Irish voters plunged the EU into a diplomatic crisis in June when they rejected the Lisbon treaty, designed to end years of wrangling over the reform of the bloc's institutions. — Reuters

China deports 8 Americans
Beijing: China has deported eight Americans and released a Briton and a German, who were detained for a week for holding a series of pro-Tibet demonstrations during the Beijing Olympics. Six Americans detained on Wednesday, were members of the group 'Free Tibet Reporters'. Their release comes a day after Washington voiced its disappointment that China had not used the Games to demonstrate greater tolerance. The authorities deported them on a flight to Los Angeles. — PTI

Plea to seize Thaksin assets
BANGKOK: Thai prosecutors asked the Supreme Court on Monday to seize former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's 76 billion baht (2.2 billion dollars) in assets frozen in Thai banks after he was ousted in a 2006 coup. In 3,00,000 pages of documents presented to a nine-judge panel, the prosecutors argued Thaksin had abused power during 5 years in office to enrich his associates and businesses owned by his family. — Reuters