Reassuring Pakistan that the Afghanistan would not allow its soil to be used against it, Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday said his country did not want to become a battle ground for proxy wars between India, Pakistan, Iran and the US.

“India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a twin brother of Afghanistan. We are more than twins, we are conjoined twins. There is no separation, there cannot be a separation," he said in response to a question during a joint news conference with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

“Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory. It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan on Afghanistan,” he said, adding that his country also does not want between Iran and the US on Afghanistan. It does not want any country... to engage in any activity against another country in Afghanistan,"

Karzai said: "We in Afghanistan are fully aware and recognise that without Pakistan and its cooperation Afghanistan cannot be stable or peaceful.” He also believed that it is also recognised in Pakistan that without a stable and peaceful Afghanistan there cannot be stability or peace in Pakistan.

London, March 11
Thirteen Indian citizens are among 14 people arrested during raids by immigration officers at a freight warehouse in Heathrow and at residences for working illegally in Britain. During the raid on Scanwell Freight Services on Amberley Way in Hounslow, immigration officials conducted checks on freight and interviewed staff to check they had the right to work in the UK.

Eight members of staff, all Indian men, were arrested for a variety of immigration offences. The company has been warned that it could face a fine of up to £90,000 for employing the eight men. As a result of the arrests, searches were carried out at three residential addresses in Hayes and Southall, and six more people were arrested: four Indian men and an Indian woman, besides one South African man.

Seven of the 14 remain in immigration detention pending their removal from the UK. The others have been granted bail while the agency works to get travel documents for them. Ben Kelso, head of Hounslow local immigration team, said: “These arrests are part of an ongoing clampdown on illegal working to reduce the attractiveness of the area to illegal immigrants”. — PTI

Washington, March 11
The US will not recognise the outcome of Myanmar's elections scheduled for later this year because of new laws that ban political prisoners and the country's leading democratic activist from participating, the US State Department said on Wednesday.

The military junta that runs Myanmar, published a law on Wednesday that stated 2,000 imprisoned dissidents cannot participate, effectively sidelining jailed activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy. "We made clear that, given the tenor of the election laws that they've put forward, there's no hope that this election will be credible," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said, adding the laws make the election a “mockery of the democratic process”.

The regime has yet to announce a date for the election, the last of which took place 20 years ago before the military junta seized power and began rounding up democratic activists. Suu Kyi has been in prison or under house arrest for years.

The US has applied sanctions to Myanmar to keep pressure on the regime for democratic reforms, and the Obama administration had reached out to Myanmar hoping to encourage change. — DPA

United Nations, March 11
The United Nations has launched an independent review of the functioning of its top climate change body IPCC, which has come under much criticism in the recent months for some errors in its reports.

"... We need to ensure full transparency, accuracy and objectivity and minimise the potential of any error going forward. I have initiated in tandem with the head of the IPCC a comprehensive independent review of the IPCC's procedures and processes," UN Chief Ban Ki-moon told reporters here.

Ban yesterday said: "there were a very small number of errors" in the 3,000 pages of the beleaguered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last major synthesis of climate data in 2007.

The decision to review was announced by Ban and the IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri in the wake of the report which erroneously claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. The error has also been attributed to a typographical error with the words 2035 appearing instead of 2350. But those errors, which include projections of retreats in Himalayan glaciers, have put public confidence in the Nobel Prize winning panel's work at risk.

"This review will be conducted by the InterAcademy Council...it will be done completely independent of the United Nations," he said. Robbert Dijkgraaf, a Dutch mathematical physicist who co-chairs the group the InterAcademy Council of 15 nations' national academies of science, said: "We enter this process with no preconceived conclusions." — PTI

Chicago, March 11
A US court today again turned down the bail plea of terror suspect Tahawwur Rana, accused of plotting terror attacks in India at the behest of LeT, saying the Pakistani-Canadian is charged with "very serious crimes" which give him a motive to flee.

Rana has made several pleas to be released on bond since his arrest last year contending that he was "duped" by American-Pakistani LeT operative David Coleman Headley.

“The evidence in the form of recorded conversations, while not conclusive, appears to corroborate the government's contention that he was a knowing ally of Headley and had been acquainted in advance of the Mumbai attacks,” the court said.— PTI 

BRIEFLY

Half of letters to White House brand me an idiot: Obama
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has joked that half of the 40,000 letters that pour into the White House each day brand him an “idiot”. Tongue-in-cheek, the President remarked that his staff did not spare him the wrath of his correspondents -- selecting a representative portion of 10 letters for him to read when he returns to the White House residence at night. "I will tell you, that my staff is very even-handed, because about half of these letters call me an idiot!" Obama said, chuckling at his own joke during a rally in Saint Louis, Missouri. — AFP

Delegates wearing traditional costumes arrive to attend the fourth plenary session of China's parliament in Beijing on Thursday. — Reuters

New Delhi gives $5 mn for Chile quake relief
UNITED NATIONS: India has announced a cash contribution of $5 million for relief and rehabilitation in Chile in a show of solidarity with the people of the earthquake-hit country. "As a country familiar with the consequences of natural disasters, we fully understand the trauma and suffering that our Chilean brethren are living through," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri said here on Wednesday. — IANS

India media centre in UK
London: India Media Centre, claimed to be the world's first academic centre dedicated to research into one of the most diverse and dynamic media systems on the planet, has been launched at the elite Westminster University here. Westminster University chancellor Lord Swraj Paul said the new centre "will promote and develop research and knowledge transfer on Indian media in a global context, and will attract high-quality research students from the subcontinent. Noted Indian film-maker Shyam Benegal inaugurated the centre on Tuesday. — PTI