Even as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd prepares to arrive in India on Wednesday on his maiden official visit to discuss bilateral relations, including trade and investment and issues relating to global economic recovery and upcoming talks on climate change in Copenhagen, yet another Indian student was subjected to alleged racial abuse and assault by two Caucasian teenage males last Saturday. This is the third such incident to have occurred so far this month.

Last Saturday, Sai Ratin Tewari, a resident of Jabalpur and a student of Information Systems at the Australian Technical Management Institute, was left bleeding after first being racially abused and asked to “go back to India” and then punched in the face by the two youth aged between 17 and 19 in Frankston suburb.

His accompanying friend, also from India, had his mobile phone snatched.

Earlier on November 2, Amrit Goyal, a student of automotive engineering at the Australian Industrial Systems Institute, was abused and assaulted by a young boy aged around 12 which was preceded a day earlier with Pushpal Singh, a Masters student in Information Technology at Swinburne University from Punjab, being assaulted by two youth of Lebanese origin.

Rudd’s visit comes in the wake of widespread concern on the sub continent over assaults on Indian students and also the larger Indian community which has damaged Australia’s image in India.

Last week, three more vocational colleges and a high school shut down in Melbourne after declaring bankruptcy taking the total number of Indian students dislocated in the last four months in Victoria alone to around 1,000. In addition, another 503 Indian students were dislocated in Sydney last week when the same education provider, Global Campus Management Group, shut down their campuses in that city.

Rudd’s first port of call will be Mumbai where he will meet captains of Indian industry at the stadium where the Australian and Indian cricket teams will play their last one day international. Rudd’s stopover in Mumbai is in sharp contrast to Victoria Premier John Brumby who chose to cancel his trip to Mumbai as part of his eight-day visit to India last September ostensibly owing to “terrorist threats” cited in an Australian foreign office advisory.

After briefly watching the cricket match, Rudd will leave for New Delhi the same evening. He will spend Thursday holding meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh in addition to calling on President Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari before leaving for Singapore.

New York, November 9
Asif Ali Zardari is a “criminal” and a “fraud” who will do anything to save himself, former military ruler Pervez Musharraf said about the Pakistani president who succeeded him last year.

The former president told well-known US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in an interview that he was still in contact with army chief General Asfaq Kayani and didn’t think the military was capable of mutiny - “not the Army he knew”.

“Asif Zardari is a criminal and fraud. He’ll do anything to save himself. He’s not a patriot and he’s got no love for Pakistan. He’s a third-rater,” Musharraf was quoted as saying by Pakistani daily The News today.

“There are people with fundamentalist ideas in the Army, but I don’t think there is any possibility of these people getting organised and doing an uprising. These ‘fundos’ were disliked and not popular,” Musharraf was quoted as saying by the Pakistani daily. Former Pakistan President Musharraf spoke of two prior attempts to create a "fundamentalist" uprising in the army.

In both the cases, he said, the officers involved were arrested and prosecuted. He told the American journalist that Pakistan’s “strategic assets” are well monitored so that they do not fall into the hands of “potential” fundamentalists. — PTI

At a time when serious concerns are being raised over possible efforts to sabotage the ongoing peace process and the journey towards constitutional stability in the country, the Nepal government has claimed that Maoists were purchasing arms to resume fresh armed struggle.

According to a report carried out by the Newsfront, a national weekly English newspaper, the government has information that the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) collected around Rs 2 billion from various sources during the period of mid-August to mid-September and a major part of it was spent on purchase of arms.

Following a tip-off, Nepal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal took up the issue with the Maoist vice-chairman and party ideologue Dr Baburam Bhattarai on November 4, the report said.

Nepal took up the issue with Bhattarai in the wake of agitating Maoists announcing to impose a blockade in Kathmandu on November 10, 12 and 13 by bringing over 200,000 cadres.

After November 1, the main opposition party in the Legislature-Parliament has been carrying out fortnight protest programmes seeking immediate correction in the controversial move to retain the chief of army staff Rookmangud Katawal by President Dr Ram Baran Yadav to uphold what they called "civilian supremacy" and form the national unity government under their leadership again.

However, the government has taken it as Maoists strategy to resume the Protracted People's War (PPW) with the help of recently purchased arms and capture the state.

Four soldiers and at least eight militants were killed over the last 24 hours in fierce fighting during the continuing military operation in South Waziristan areas, a Pakistan army spokesman said here Monday.

According to a release issued by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the security forces consolidated and strengthened their positions around Jandola-Sararogha axis.

Security forces conducted search and clearance operation in Bangal Khel, Totai Langar Khel and Kanigurm and demolished terrorist commander Mumtaz Burki’s hideout. They cleared Tauda China Khola and established a check post near Makeen. The militants fired rockets at security forces in Makeen, resulting in the death of four soldiers and eight rebels. 

Four persons, including a police constable, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up as the police tried to stop him at a picket in the outer ring of Peshawar city, the troubled capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Monday morning.

The police said the rickshaw in which the bomber was travelling did not stop at the first picket at which the next badge of policemen blocked the road. The rickshaw driver stopped his vehicle at which the bomber triggered the explosives in his jacket - killing himself, the rickshaw driver, a constable and a passerby. Besides, two private vehicles were also badly damaged in the blast.

The blast took place in less than 24 hours after a suicide bomber killed 15 people outside a cattle market near Peshawar.

The Pakistan Foreign Office has rejected a report on US inspection of its nuclear installations and said Pakistan would never allow “any country to have direct or indirect access to its nuclear and strategic facilities”.

“No talks have ever taken place on the issue of the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal with US officials,” a spokesman said in a statement issued here in response to assertions made in an article in “The New Yorker” magazine by journalist Seymour Hersh.

In his report, Hersh disclosed that the Obama Administration has been negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military on its nuclear assets.

He quoted senior former intelligence officials as saying that Pakistan gave US officials a virtual look at the number of warheads, some of their locations, and their command-and-control system.

The spokesman pointed out that Hersh, had quoted “anonymous and unverifiable sources” for his assertions and article, “Defending the arsenal - In an unstable Pakistan can nuclear warheads be kept safe”.

These claims amounted to “nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people”, the spokesman said while saying Hersh is known for anti-Pakistan bias.

In his article, Hersh referred to his meetings with former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf, President Asif Zardari and senior Pakistani civil and military officials.

The report concedes that the Pakistani nuclear warheads and their triggers are stored separately from each other, and from their delivery devices, which reduces the threat of a militant takeover.

The arrangement serves as a safeguard in case of a quickly escalating confrontation with India but also makes the weapons vulnerable during shipment and reassembly, the report adds.

The spokesman said Pakistan’s strategic assets were “completely safe and secure”.