Oslo, December 3
Leaders from more than 100 countries today signed a global ban on the use of cluster bombs. The treaty, which was negotiated in Dublin in May, bans the production, use and trade of cluster munitions.

Cluster weapons - criticised for carrying a high risk of maiming or killing civilians - can be launched from the air or via artillery shells and can disperse hundreds of bomblets over a target area.

Children are often victims of the weapons since they sometimes mistake the so-called bomblets for toys. Several non-governmental organisations and humanitarian groups had pushed for the ban.

However, the world’s largest producers and users of cluster bomb munitions - the US, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - are not signatories of the treaty.

Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles that scatter them over vast areas. Some fail to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years until they are disturbed, often by children attracted by their small size and bright colours.

“Once you get half the world on board, its hard to ignore a ban,” said Australian Daniel Barty, an anti-cluster bomb campaigner. He arrived in Oslo yesterday after spending two months crisscrossing Europe in a white van covered with ‘Ban cluster bombs’ stickers in half a dozen languages.

Washington and Moscow say cluster bombs have legitimate military uses such as repelling advancing troop columns. Stephen Mull, an assistant US secretary of state, told reporters in May that a comprehensive ban would hurt world security and endanger US military cooperation on humanitarian work with countries that sign the accord.

Norway started a campaign against cluster bombs in February 2007, in part inspired by the successful grass-roots movement that led to a 1997 treaty negotiated in Oslo barring anti-personnel mines. Like cluster bombs, those mines are blamed for killing more civilians than soldiers. — Agencies

New York, Dcember 3
Two senior officials in the Bush administration have said that there is now little doubt that militants inside Pakistan directed the terror attacks in Mumbai, a media report said on Wednesday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint of Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who have been dispatched to the region, are expected to issue stern warnings to the government of Pakistan to crack down on militant groups in the country near its borders with India, the “New York Times” reported.

The two senior officials told the paper that the US had warned India in mid-October of possible terrorist attacks against “tourist areas frequented by Westerners” in Mumbai, but that the information was not specific.

Nonetheless, the officials were quoted as saying, the warning echoed other general alerts in 2008 by India’s intelligence agency, raising questions about the adequacy of India’s counter-terrorism measures.

Pakistani leaders appeared to be waiting for the arrival of Admiral Mullen, who has met with the Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in Washington and Islamabad on many occasions, the paper said, adding Secretary Rice is scheduled to land in Islamabad on Thursday.

Senior Bush administration officials, it said, sought to tamp down tensions. “It’s important for there to be restraint on both sides and but it’s also important to find out who was responsible,” defence secretary Robert M Gates said at the Pentagon.

At a meeting at Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, foreign diplomats urged Pakistani officials on Tuesday to take firm action against terrorism suspects, the paper said, citing two diplomats who were there.

The Mumbai attacks were not just a Pakistan-India matter but were of international proportions and involved the deaths of a number of foreigners, one diplomat said. — Agencies

Washington, December 3
A University of Maryland study has claimed that India has experienced over 4,100 terror attacks since 1970. According to the university’s global terrorism database (GTD) that the national consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism (START) maintains, the number of fatalities number is in thousands. This information is freely available online.

The GTD statistical summary on terrorism in India is as follows: India has experienced 4,108 terrorist incidents between 1970 and 2004.

During this period, India ranked sixth among all countries in terms of terrorist incidents (behind Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, the UK, northern Ireland and Spain).

India had 12,539 terrorist-related fatalities between 1970 and 2004 - an average of almost 360 fatalities per year. These fatalities peaked in 1991 and 1992, when 1,184 and 1,132 individuals (respectively) were killed in such incidents.

Terrorists in India have employed a variety of attack types over time: 38.7 per cent of terrorist events were facility attacks, 29.7 per cent were bombings and 25.5 per cent were assassinations. The recent events in Mumbai would be classified as a series of coordinated facility attacks.

Detailed information on terrorist incidents in India between 1970 and 2004 can be accessed via GTD online interface that includes an advanced search function, allowing users to specify which type of incidents they want to explore.

START’s terrorist organisation profiles collection includes information on 56 groups known to have engaged in terrorism in India. Included among these groups is Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). — ANI

It was a fitting coincidence. On the eve of International Day for Persons with Disabilities, Radhav Bir Joshi, the only verbally-challenged member of the Constituent Assembly (CA) of Nepal, ‘spoke’ for the first time since it was convened.

“I was deprived of my freedom of expression in parliament for almost seven months in the absence of parliamentary regulations that allows me to record my voice through interpreter,” he said.

It was only after the adoption of the newly-endorsed rules, Joshi was allowed an interpreter. Clause 152 of the CA rules states: The chairman of the CA shall allow any verbally impaired member to express his/her views at the meeting with the help of an interpreter.

Citing this clause, Speaker Nembang gave six minutes - three minute each to Joshi and his interpreter - in parliament’s special hour. Till now Joshi had been a mute spectator but with the help of his interpreter, who translated his sign language to words, he was finally able to ‘speak’.

“I request this House to treat disabled people in equal footing and introduce a new law that will ensure the rights of the disabled,” he said.

He also urged the government and all political parties to take initiative for the early ratification of International Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol-2006 so that all physically challenged people would be able to enjoy their rights.

Joshi said he would play a proactive role in the CA to ensure the fundamental rights of over 371,000 physically-challenged persons from across the country in the new constitution.

Joshi was elected as a CA member from the CPN (United). The party has also elected a gay rights activist as one of its five members in the CA.

Bangkok, December 3
Anti-government protesters lifted their crippling, eight-day blockade of Bangkok’s main airport on Wednesday, raising the hopes of 230,000 stranded tourists, even though there is no end in sight to Thailand’s political crisis.

A Thai Airways domestic flight landed at 0715 GMT and several international flights were scheduled to leave soon after, although it was unclear when full operations would resume. Still cheering the previous day’s sacking of the government by the courts, thousands of yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) activists made way for an army of cleaners at the $4 billion Suvarnabhumi terminal, one of the world’s biggest.

“I have strong confidence that everything will be OK and will be back to normal in two days,” airport general manager Serirat Prasutanond told Reuters, as PAD officials swept up debris left by their sit-in, the latest stunt in a six-month campaign.

Serirat said on Tuesday that the closure would last until December 15 due to security sweeps and checks to the massive computer systems.

Thailand’s tourist and export-dependent economy, already feeling the effects of the global slowdown, will take much longer to recover, even if the central bank makes a hefty cut in interest rates. Will dissolution of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) heal any of the basic rifts between Bangkok’s royalist elite and middle classes, who despise ousted and exiled leader Thaksin Shinawatra, and the urban poor and rural masses who love him and continue to vote his allies into office. — Reuters

BRIEFLY

Brazil approves sale of missiles to Pak
BRASILIA: The Brazilian authorities gave approval for the sale of 100 missiles to Pakistan, which can be used in air-to-surface attacks on radar tracking installations, defence minister Nelson Jobim said. The MAR-1 medium-range missiles are tactical anti-radiation weapons whose existence was kept under wraps for many years, according to Jane’s Information Group. — AFP

China honours political change in Nepal
KATHMANDU: China has extended full support to Nepal’s recent political change and expressed its commitment to provide necessary assistance for protecting its territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. “China will always honour the political change which has come about through the massive participation of the Nepalese,” visiting Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi said. — PTI

5 soldiers die in rebel attack
BUTUAN (PHILIPPINES): Five soldiers were killed and four wounded in a communist guerrilla ambush in the southern Philippines after a fresh attempt to restart peace talks collapsed, the authorities said on Wednesday. New People’s Army rebels set off landmines as the soldiers’ truck passed near Lianga town on Tuesday, according to the reports.— AFP