Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee today signed the US-India civilian nuclear agreement here. The signing ceremony was held at the ornate Benjamin Franklin Room at the state department.

President George W. Bush signed the accord into law on Wednesday after it was approved by the Congress. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the initiative during a White House meeting on July 18, 2005.

The deal ends 34 years of nuclear isolation for India and allows US companies to sell nuclear technology, reactors and fuel to India.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the co-chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the formal signing of the agreement paves the way for closer economic and political ties between the world’s two largest democracies.

Ros-Lehtinen, who was an original cosponsor of the Hyde Act, introduced in the final days of the legislative session a House companion bill that paved the way for implementation of the nuclear agreement. She contended the accord benefits both India and the US while strengthening counter-proliferation measures.

“This is not an agreement which we would enter into with just any country,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

“Stronger economic, scientific, diplomatic, and military cooperation between the US and India is in the national interest of both countries and reflects our increasingly close relationship with this important democratic ally.”

She said the agreement demonstrates India’s commitment to cooperate with the US on efforts to halt the proliferation to rogue states and others of material and technology that could be used to construct nuclear weapons. In addition, newly implemented safeguards will expand the International Atomic Energy Agency’s authority to monitor Indian nuclear facilities.

President Asif Ali Zardari launched the Rs 34-billion Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) on Thursday. Sherry said the Rs 34-billion amount had already been allocated for the year 2008-09, and was the third largest allocation in the budget, being 0.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Rehman said the programme would cover between 12 to 14 per cent of the population in low-income brackets in the country, including in FATA, northern areas and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

According to the programme, the government would provide Rs 2,000 after every two months to over three million families that have a monthly income of less than Rs 6,000. For families earning Rs 5,000 per month, Rs 1,000 support would amount to a 20 per cent increase in their current purchasing power, she elaborated.

She said this financial assistance would contribute significantly to the poor families’ buying power. She made it clear that the payment would be made only to the female head of the family. Sherry said the money would be distributed through Pakistan post, and delivered by postal money order at the recipient’s address.

Moreover, the minister said work was under way to develop a smart card system that would ultimately become the medium for disbursement of financial support under the BISP.

Sherry said the distinguishing feature of the BISP was that it was free from political partisanship and all members of Parliament had been provided equal opportunities of recommending eligible families. She said each parliamentarian was being allocated 8,000 forms, which he or she would distribute among deserving people in his or her constituency.

The money would be given only after verification from the National Database and Registration Authority. Computerised national identity cards were mandatory for applying for the scheme, she maintained.

Peshawar, October 10
A suicide bomber killed at least 50 persons in an attack on a tribal council meeting in Pakistan’s northwest Orakzai region on Friday, an official and a tribal elder said.

Hundred persons were wounded in the attack, which comes a day after a suicide bombing at the heavily guarded police headquarters in the Pakistani capital in which eight policemen were wounded.

Pakistani tribesman backed by authorities were trying to raise militia groups in Orakzai to drive out militants from areas regarded as safe havens for Al-Qaida fighters and their Taliban allies when the bomber struck.

“We were busy in raising a lashkar (a tribal militia) to evict Taliban from the region when this attack took place,” Qeemat Khan Orakzai, a member of the council, said.

Kamran Zeb, top government administrator of Orakzai, said the death toll could rise further. “The lashkar had taken a decision to destory militants’ headquarters in the region. Shortly afterwards, this attack took place,” he told Reuters.

Orakzai has been the most peaceful of Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions. Unlike most of the others, Orakzai does not border Afghanistan.

Militant violence has intensified across Pakistan in recent months in apparent reaction to an army offensive against the militants in the rugged northwest including Bajaur and Swat regions.

In Bajaur, which is a tribal area north of Orakzai, tribesmen found bodies of four colleagues who were believed to have been abducted by the militants after they agreed to become part of a tribal lashkar, officials said on Friday.

Separately, Pakistani security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, killed at least five militants in an offensive in Swat, an alpine valley once popular with tourists.

Melbourne, October 10
The world’s tallest hardwood tree has been discovered in Tasmania, just 4 km from a popular tourist attraction, an Australian forestry body reported.

“The world’s tallest eucalyptus tree, tallest hardwood tree and tallest flowering plant, Centurion, named after a Roman officer, stands between 100 and 101 metres,” Forestry Tasmania managing director Bob Gordon quoted as saying in a report today.

The 400-year-old swamp gum (eucalyptus regnans) was discovered in a state forest near the Tahune Airwalk tourist attraction, 80 km south-west of Hobart, Gordon said.

The Tasmanian tree is the only known standing hardwood tree in the world to be over 100 metres tall and the tallest known tree in Australia.

The diameter of Centurion, which is also the second tallest tree in the world, is 405 cm and its height was measured using laser survey equipment.

A second giant swamp gum named Triarius, standing 86.5 metres tall with a 390 cm diameter, was also found alongside Centurion.

Forestry Tasmania officer David Mannes said Centurion may have been taller in the past. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Sobhraj wedding reports ‘rumours’
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s central jail authorities on Friday rubbished reports of murder convict Charles Sobhraj having married his teenage girlfriend in the prison calling it a ‘rumour’ and said the ritual they did was just a traditional Nepali practice during the Dussehra festival. “No rituals of a wedding were performed at the meeting,” Bir Bahadur Tamang, a junior staff at the Kathmandu Central jail said. A police official in charge of security at the jail said “We had no information about the wedding before a news report appeared in Indian media.” — PTI

Decline of birds shows wider damage to nature
Barcelona: The dwindling number of birds worldwide is a sign that governments are failing to keep promises to slow damage to nature by 2010, an international report said on Thursday. Rising human population and cutting of forests for farming or bio-fuels were wrecking natural habitats, according to the study by Birdlife International. Birds are among the best researched of all wildlife and are a barometer of the environment. “Bird species are slipping faster than ever towards extinction,” according to Birdlife’s State of the world’s birds report issued at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress in Barcelona. — Reuters

SC no to halt Palin’s probe
JUNEAU: Alaska’s Supreme Court has dismissed a bid by Republican lawmakers to halt an abuse of power investigation against Governor Sarah Palin, court officials said. The lawmakers had sought to stop the trooper gate probe against Republican vice-presidential nominee Palin, claiming it was politically motivated. However, in an 11-page order released on Thursday before the results of the probe into Palin’s dismissal of a senior official was expected to be made public, the court said the investigation was legitimate. However, the court said there was no evidence to suggest bias on the part of legislators overseeing the investigation. — AFP

Russian envoy flays UN chief
MOSCOW: Russian Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Dmitry Rogozin said a secret cooperation agreement between the UN and NATO was illegitimate and said UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon risked impeachment for it. “Ban Ki-moon risks facing impeachment. His actions are outrageous,” Rogozin said in an interview published by Izvestia newspaper on Friday. Rogozin said UN secretary-general and NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer signed the agreement on September 23. — PTI

Military info missing in UK
London: Britain’s security may have been compromised with sensitive military information on its armed forces found to be missing. Described as the “worst information security breach”, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has initiated a high-level probe after a portable hard drive with details of about 100,000 servicemen and women and 800,000 applicants to join the Armed Services was found to be missing on Wednesday.“The matter is being investigated by the MoD police, an MoD spokeswoman said. — PTI