Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani returned here Thursday after attending the Nuclear Security Summit claiming that Pakistan's participation in the meeting boosted international confidence in its capability to protect its nuclear arsenals.

"It brought a higher degree of legitimacy to our nuclear programme’, Gilani told reporters before leaving Washington. Gilani felt particularly elated that "a person no less than US President Barack Obama personally quashed all doubts about Pakistan’s nuclear programme, publicly voicing his administration’s firm confidence in the country’s safety mechanism.

“Our nuclear programme is in safe hands and President Obama is totally convinced that our command and control system is undoubtedly effective,” said the Prime Minister.

He pointed out that none of the 47 nations represented at the summit raised any concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear programme which was a great "victory" for Pakistan.

Gilani used the summit to make a strong pitch for Pakistan's access to civilian nuclear technology from the US and other atomic powers saying that denying a deal that the United States has already offered to India would be discriminatory. He, however, evoked little response.

Though Indian premier Dr. Manmohan Singh said India had no objection if Pakistan is also extended this facility, the US officials have been pointing out to proliferation concerns in view of past record. In latest formulation the Obama administration has avoided publicly dismissing the Pakistani plea. Instead, they simply say the administration would "listen" to what Pakistan has to say on this subject.

Moscow, April 15
A week after he was ousted following bloody riots, deposed Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev today left the country for neighbouring Kazakhstan apparently under a deal with the new interim government.

Bakiyev, who had taken refuge in his native village Tyeit in Jalal-Abad region after fleeing capital Bishkek, left for Kazakhstan this evening by air from Jalal-Abad airport in the south of the central Asian country.

“I have been invited by Kazakh President Nazarbayev to discuss the situation in Kyrgyzstan,” Bakiyev told his supporters before leaving the country, Interfax reported.

However, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said an agreement was reached with the interim government of Kyrgyzstan and President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on his departure from the country.

Terming the development as an important step towards the stabilization of the situation and the prevention of a civil war in Kyrgyzstan, it said the agreement was reached following joint efforts of the US, Russia along with the United Nations and the European Union.

Earlier today, Bakiyev had told reporters that negotiations were to be held during the day with the envoys of new interim government in Bishkek, who are demanding his resignation.

The move came hours after Bakiyev had to make a hasty retreat after his opponents clashed with his supporters at a rally in the main southern city of Osh.

According to Central Asian News Channel ‘K+’, Bakiyev’s bodyguards had to fire shots in the air and he hurriedly left for his home-town Jalal-Abad, 100 km from Osh.

Bakiyev had also claimed to have turned down the Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenka’ offer of political asylum. — PTI 

United Nations, April 15
Far more Indians have access to cellphones than to toilet and basic sanitation, a new UN report has said.

“It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet,” said Zafar Adeel, Director of United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

“Popular education about the health dangers of poor sanitation is also needed. But this simple measure could do more to save lives; especially those of young people, improve health and help pull India and other countries in similar circumstances out of poverty than any alternative investment. It can also serve as a very significant boost to the local economy,” he added.

Experts who prescribe ways to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on sanitation by 2015 produce the report. The research shows roughly 366 million people in India had access to improved sanitation in 2008. Other data, meanwhile, shows 545 million cellphones are now connected to service in India’s emerging economy. The number of cellphones per 100 persons has skyrocketed from 0.35 in year 2000-01 to about 45 today. Worldwide, some 1.1 billion people defecate in the open and data shows progress in creating access to toilets and sanitation lags far behind the world MDG targets, even as cellphone connections continue to a predicted one billion in India by 2015, according to the study.

The report says it costs about $300 to build a toilet, and worldwide an estimated $358 billion is needed between now and 2015 to reach the MDG for sanitation. If current global trends continue, the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, in a report titled “Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water” in March, predicted one billion person shortfall from the sanitation goal in 2015, in all, 2.7 billion will lack access. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Girl kills mother over Internet ban
Vienna: A 14-year-old girl has admitted to stabbing her mother to death in Vienna after being told not to use the Internet, the police confirmed. On Tuesday evening, the teenager came home and sat down right away to surf the Internet, a police spokesman said. The pair quarrelled after the mother forbade her daughter to use the computer. After the argument was over, the girl went into the kitchen, took a knife and stabbed her mother several times, the girl told the police — DPA

Baby found in trash can
Beijing: A newborn baby with his throat slit has been found in a trash can in the China's Guangdong province, a media report said. The baby, who is in a critical condition, remains on a respirator at a hospital in Sanshui district in Guangdong, China Daily reported. "The baby is not yet out of danger, despite a successful operation that lasted for more than two hours," a doctor named Li was quoted as saying. The baby was found to have seven to eight wounds caused by a sharp, pointed object in his neck and chest when he was sent to the hospital, Li said, adding that the baby would need at least a week to pull out of danger. — IANS

Laden’s son denied visa 
PARIS: Osama bin Laden’s son Omar has been denied a visa to promote his new book in France and elsewhere in Europe, his French publisher said on Thursday. The Al-Qaida chief's fourth eldest son had planned to travel to Paris tomorrow for the release of a book, “Osama bin Laden: A Family Portrait”, which denounces his father’s murderous ways. The book was co-written with his mother Najwa, (51), a Syrian woman and the first of Osama’s five wives, and American journalist Jean Sasson, said a spokesman for the publishers Denoel. “The countries of the (25-country) Schengen Zone decided to reject his request for a visa,” said the spokesman for Denoel. — AFP