Islamabad, June 8
The Pakistan army has ruled out the possibility of a cut in the procurement of conventional and India-specific weapons purchase despite a sharp increase in expenses due to operations against Taliban in the country’s northwest.

“If you are suggesting that we should take something out of here and put it in another box that would not be a wise strategy. War on terror does require resources, but it should not be at the cost of something else,” chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas has said.

Abbas noted that a recent increase in the Indian defence budget was Pakistan-specific. “Take the example of offensive aircraft, the AWACS (airborne warning and control system aircraft), the air-to-air refuelling system. Then tank division and mechanised forces and their latest offensive doctrine of cold start strategy. All these things are Pakistan-specific,” he told Dawn News channel.

In February, the Indian government increased defence spending by over 34 per cent to $32.7 billion in its interim budget.

The Pakistan government, which is expected to unveil its annual budget on June 13, usually makes its defence allocations with the objective of maintaining conventional parity with India.

The Pakistan People’s Party-led government allocated nearly Rs 296 billion for defence in the budget for 2008-09, an increase of almost 7 per cent over the Rs 277 billion spent on the military in the previous fiscal.

The allocation for defence was later raised to Rs 310 billion. Sources in the finance ministry told the media that the defence allocation for the next fiscal might be increased to Rs 342 billion.

In a departure from the usual practice, the government last year lifted a 43-year-old veil of secrecy on the country’s defence budget by presenting some details of financial allocations for the armed forces in parliament.

This was the first time that Pakistan’s defence spending has been declassified since the 1965 war with India. Over the past four decades, budget documents presented in parliament only mentioned the allocation for defence as a grand total.— PTI

São Paulo, June 8
Search teams yesterday recovered the bodies of 17 people from the crash site of the Air France plane that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people on board June 1, a Brazilian Air Force spokesman said. While Brazilian teams retrieved nine bodies, French teams recovered eight, Brazilian Air Force spokesman Henry Munhoz said in the northeastern city of Recife.

He said four of the bodies were male and four female, but didn’t identify the sex of the remaining nine victims.

Munhoz said other bodies and hundreds of objects had been sighted in the area, about 1,200 km northeast of the Brazilian coastline, and that the priority was to recover the victims. There was “no doubt” that the debris and the bodies came from the missing plane, he said. The bodies and plane wreckage were being taken to the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha and were due to arrive there today. From there, they would be transported to Recife.

Meanwhile, French PM Francois Fillon yesterday named an ambassador for the victim’s families, his office announced. Pierre-Jean Vandoorne is to assist the relatives of the 216 passengers from 32 countries and 12 crew members who died in the accident in their dealings with governments, bureaucracies and Air France.

Vandoorne would also try to facilitate cooperation between the French authorities and officials in the countries affected by the crash. — DPA

Melbourne, June 8
A 20-year-old man was stabbed in a western suburb here after he had allegedly racially abused a group of Indian students here in possibly the first act of retaliation. The victim allegedly said: “You are black. You don't belong here. Go away from our country,” The Age newspaper reported.

The police said they were looking for two dark-skinned men aged between 23 and 29 years in connection with the attacks yesterday. They said a car believed to belong to people attacking Indians was torched at a factory near the station in western suburb.

The attack on the victim was the first time Indian students appeared to have retaliated against violent attacks against them as they walk back home late at night, the daily said.

Sam Afra, chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, said it would be unacceptable for the Indian community to take the law into its own hands. “There is a danger this will become like a chain reaction with the victim becoming the perpetrator. We don't want to get to that,” he said.

Kapil Bajaj, spokesman for the Hindu Council of Australia, said the possible retaliation was worrying and the Council would condemn such a response.

Meanwhile, Australia today named an Indian-Australian as its new envoy to New Delhi, as a fresh case of a brutal attack on an Indian student here surfaced.

Peter Varghese, Australia's intelligence chief and a close aide of Premier Kevin Rudd, was nominated as the new High Commissioner to India.

The announcement comes as Kamal Jit, a 23-year-old Indian student, was beaten up for the second time in a fortnight by a group of youths here, the 11th person from the community to be assaulted within a space of a month in Australia.

Jit was found unconscious and bleeding by another Indian student in western suburb of the city yesterday. — PTI 

Kathmandu, June 8
Aimed at fostering ties in the fields of telemedicine, agriculture, solar energy and education, four MoUs were signed between India and Nepal under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) framework.

According to a statement issued by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, (Indian) Ambassador Rakesh Sood and Nepal’s Foreign Secretary Gyan Chandra Acharya singed the MoUs on behalf of their respective government.

The projects, setting up of which would be financed by Government of India, would be implemented in mutually agreed upon locations and institutions in Nepal. The projects involve an expenditure of around 90 million ruppees (Nepalese).

Seoul, June 8
A North Korean court today sentenced two female US journalists to 12 years in a labour camp for an illegal border crossing and an unspecified “grave crime”, state media reported.

The “trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing”, the Korean Central News Agency said.

It said the court, after a five-day trial, “sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour”.

The sentences were certain to fuel tensions with Washington after the North’s May 25 nuclear test and its reported plans for another long-range rocket launch.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday the charges against the pair were baseless and they should be allowed to return home, adding that the US was considering putting North Korea back on its terrorism blacklist following its nuclear test.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained by North Korean border guards on March 17 along the frozen Tumen River, which marks the border with China, while researching a story about refugees fleeing the hardline communist state.

Pyongyang had previously said they would face trial for “hostile acts” and illegal entry but never gave details of such acts.— AFP

London, June 8
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced a fresh fight for his leadership today after his Labour party suffered its worst-ever result in the European Parliament polls, prompting more calls for him to step down.

Brown was the focus of much hand-wringing within the party last week, but he managed to stave off a challenge to his position by promptly carrying out a reshuffle that sought to overcome the impact of a spate of high-profile resignations.

However, Labour’s finishing third, after the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party in the seats in the UK as part of the European elections, has made it more uncomfortable for Brown to brazen it out and remain as the Labour leader.

He is expected to face some hostile questions at the meeting of the Labour parliamentary party today.

The election results are more significant due to the victory of two candidates of the far-right British Nationalist Party (BNP). Its victory is widely considered a ‘sad day’ for British politics as none of the mainstream parties could prevent the BNP from increasing its space in politics.

The BNP openly calls for a total ban on immigration and voluntary repatriation of migrants.

In the English local elections held on Thursday the Conservatives got 38 per cent vote, the Liberal Democrats 28 per cent and the Labour 23 per cent — PTI