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Resumption of Dialogue Roemer is next US envoy to India
Hillary seeks support for
India agenda Burger King apologises to Hindus |
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Sarabjit’s mercy plea sent to Zardari
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Resumption of Dialogue Pakistan on Thursday expressed the hope that the upcoming meeting between Prime Ministers Yousaf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Egypt would bolster efforts for resumption of the stalled bilateral composite dialogue. “We are approaching this meeting with a positive attitude and would make efforts to get the composite dialogue process going at the earliest,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told a weekly media briefing here. He said foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet prior to the Singh-Gilani meeting at Sharm-al-Shaikh next week. Both the meetings have “no agenda as such” and would be “open-ended”, Basit said. “We have no fixed ideas and we will be going to the meeting with an open mind. This will not be a structured dialogue because the composite, which was suspended following the Mumbai attacks, has yet to be resumed. We want to discuss this as well at the meeting and our effort will be that the dialogue process should be resumed as soon as possible,” the spokesman said. India is adamant to resumption of the composite dialogue insisting this must precede concrete action by Pakistan against the Pakistan-based perpetrators and handlers of the Mumbai attack of November 26. India also strongly reacted to the release of chief of Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Hafiz Saeed, and his colleagues by the Lahore High Court last month. It considers JuD as front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that is accused of masterminding the Mumbai massacre and is active in Kashmir. Both outfits, now banned by Pakistan, were founded by Hafiz Saeed.
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Roemer is next US envoy to India Washington, July 9 A former US lawmaker from Indiana and a member of the 9/11 Commission, 53-year-old Roemer is currently head of Washington-based think tank Center for National Policy (CNP). Roemer had testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. The nomination process now goes to the Senate floor for final approval, which is expected to formally confirm him as early as this week. The Senate has accelerated his nomination process so that he could be in New Delhi well before Clinton's proposed visit to India. While no date of Clinton's trip to India has been announced yet, officials in the State Department said the idea is to have Roemer present in New Delhi when the Secretary of State visits the country in about 10 days from now. Roemer in his testimony had said that if confirmed he will work closely with India to promote stability, prosperity and development in the often volatile region of South Asia. Roemer had said he plans to make smart public diplomacy and outreach part of daily mission at the US Embassy in India. If confirmed, he would engage the Indian Government and see their ideas on the most effective way to achieve this, Roemer had said. He said the real test of the US-India partnership would be to work together on the important common global challenges of the era, including addressing the urgent danger posed by climate change, which has a long-term impact on water and food shortages that are so pressing for India. Other global issues include strengthening the global trade and investment system, addressing international threats like nuclear weapons proliferation, terrorism and pandemic disease, promoting sustainable economic development to alleviate poverty and helping other nations become more democratic and open, he had said. Roemer has identified education as another area of cooperation between the two countries. He said with more than 94,000 Indian students to US, collaboration between NGOs and civil society and growing economic and business interests - all have been pulling India and the US closer for decades. — PTI
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Hillary seeks support for
India agenda Washington, July 9 With less than a fortnight left for her first trip to India as the Secretary of State, Hillary had a breakfast meeting with more than a dozen top Congressional leaders from both Democratic and Republican parties yesterday, coming from both chambers of Congress - the House of Representative and Senate. “I appreciate the administration’s determination to strengthen our strategic partnership with India in security, trade, and many other issues of mutual interest,” John Cornyn, the Republican Senator from Texas, said after the meeting. Cornyn is the founder and co-chair of Senate India Caucus. Hillary was its co-chair last year from the Democratic side. —
PTI
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Burger King apologises to Hindus
Washington, July 9 "We are apologising because it wasn't our intent to offend anyone," Denise T Wilson, spokesman of Burger King said in an email when asked about the demand of the Hindu community that the company needs to apologise for running an advertisement which its leaders said were offensive to their religion."Burger King Corporation (BKC) values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone," Wilson said. "Out of respect for the Hindu community, the limited-time advertisement has been removed from the restaurants," Wilson said — PTI
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Sarabjit’s mercy plea sent to Zardari Indian national Sarabjit Singh’s petition for clemency, seeking to commute his death sentence into life in prison, has been sent to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, officials here said. The mercy petition comes after the Supreme Court rejected Sarabjit’s review appeal against a death sentence on June 24 after his lawyer failed to appear in court despite being directed to do so. Sarabjit has been languishing in Pakistani jails for 18 years and has been convicted of bomb blasts in Lahore and Faisalabad in 1990 that killed 14 persons. The prosecution accused Sarabjit of being an Indian spy, a charge denied by him. His family says he crossed over to border being drunk but was implicated in the bombing cases because of mistaken identity.
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