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Medvedev meets UN chief over Libya crisis
US seeking to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq beyond 2011: Report
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ISI chief among 100 most influential people
Sri Lanka to quicken legal process against LTTE detainees Syrian forces kill 38 at ‘Good Friday’ protests
15 dead in checkpost attack in Pak Indo-Nepal relations
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Medvedev meets UN chief over Libya crisis
Moscow, April 22 Medvedev last week criticised the West for exceeding the mandate of the UN resolution establishing a no-fly zone over Libya and essentially launching a “military operation” in the north African country. He told Ban he wanted to discuss the ongoing conflicts in Africa, the situation in the Middle East and North Korea in the talks at his Gorky residence outside Moscow. “There's still a need to undertake plenty of efforts to improve the foundation of international legal order and facilitate the development of democracy and adherence to the human rights in various parts of our planet,” Medvedev said. Ban said that the world leaders had agreed that "the international community should work together very closely, in accordance with the UNSC resolutions." Speaking after a BRIC summit in southern China last week, Medvedev said a loose interpretation of the UN resolutions was a ‘very dangerous tendency in the international relations’. Russia had abstained from the vote on the UNSC Libya no-fly zone resolution and refrained from using its veto in a move that drew praise from the West. But yesterday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov expressed regret that the West was increasingly being drawn into the conflict which threatened to spill into a ground operation.
— AFP
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US seeking to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq beyond 2011: Report
Washington, April 22 The two countries are in negotiations over this and top US military commander Admiral Mike Mullen is in Baghdad to urge Iraqi leaders to spur up discussions if they want US forces to stay beyond the end of 2011, Wall Street Journal reported. The US currently has 50,000 troops stationed in Iraq, down from a peak of nearly 170,000 following the US led invasion in 2003. The paper quoting unnamed officials said US military commanders believed that leaving at least 10,000 troops beyond 2011 could promote greater security and prevent Iran from expanding its regional influence. US allies Saudi Arabia and Israel have echoed the concern that if US pulls out completely, Iran could extend its influence. The talks between US military commanders and Iraqi officials come as Washington is scheduled to start drawing down remaining forces in late summer or early fall. While American defence officials have made it clear that they want to leave troops in Iraq, WSJ quoting officials said such a decision would require Presidential approval. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who recently made a surprise visit to Baghdad said that American forces were prepared to stay in any role beyond the schedule pull out, but time was running out for Baghdad to ask for it. WSJ said Iraqi officials were concerned that a lingering US troops presence would fuel a popular revolt like that has been convulsing the region in recent months and which has swept aside powerful Presidents in Egypt and Tunisia.
— PTI
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Thai, Cambodian armies clash; 6 killed
Bangkok, April 22 It was the first skirmish reported since four days of fighting in February, when eight soldiers and civilians were killed near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple, about 100 miles to the east of today's fighting. A decades-old border dispute over ancient temples and the land surrounding them has fuelled nationalist passions in both countries. Clashes have erupted several times since 2008, when Preah Vihear was given UN World Heritage status. Each side blamed the other for the resumption of fighting. Thai army spokeswoman Lt Col Siriya Khuangsirikul said three Thai soldiers had been killed, and 13 wounded, one critically. Cambodian defence spokesman Lt Gen Chhum Socheat said three Cambodian soldiers were killed and six wounded. Indonesia, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, called for an immediate
ceasefire. — AP
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ISI chief among 100 most influential people
Islamabad, April 22 Pasha's profile on the magazine's website was written by former CIA director Michael Hayden, who described him as “a Pakistani patriot and American partner” trying to manage the difficult task of reconciling the two roles. “Within weeks of Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha's becoming head of Pakistan's top intelligence agency, ISI, in 2008, terrorist attacks in Mumbai seriously roiled already stressed US-Pakistani relations,” Hayden wrote. “Pasha (59) has grown progressively more suspicious of US motives and staying power. The arrest of a US government contractor in Lahore has led to acrimony. And larger changes in Pakistan - the growth of fundamentalism, nationalism and anti-Americanism - have squeezed the space in which any ISI chief can cooperate with the US,” he wrote. Pasha, a Pakistani patriot and American partner, now must find these two roles even more difficult to reconcile - and at a time when much of US counter-terrorism success depends on exactly that, Hayden concluded. The ISI chief, a close confidant of powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was recently given his second one-year extension of service by the civilian government. — PTI
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Pak to provide security, legal aid to Mukhtar Mai
Islamabad, April 22 Responding to a point of order in the National Assembly or lower house of Parliament, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani had given him directives to provide security to Mai and look into the matter. Earlier, senior PPP leader Sherry Rehman raised a point of order and said Mai had been fighting for justice from the past nine years and only one of the men accused of raping her was given life imprisonment while the rest were acquitted.
— PTI
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Indians arriving in UK have latent TB: Study
London, April 22 Professor Ajit Lalvani, Director of the Tuberculosis Research Unit at Imperial College, who led the study, said, "Our findings indicate that immigrants arriving in the UK from countries with high burdens of TB have a high prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection, which is strongly associated with tuberculosis incidence in their country of origin." He added, "UK national guidance to which groups go to be screened has hitherto missed most immigrants with latent infection. We've shown that by changing the threshold for screening, and including immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, we could pick up 92 per cent of imported latent TB." The study has been published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The investigators found that a fifth of recent immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and almost 30 per cent from Sub-Saharan Africa are carriers of latent TB and that the national screening policy, which does not include immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, has been missing 70 per cent of imported latent TB. The researchers also assessed how cost-effective it would be to lower the threshold so that people from more countries are screened. They found that including immigrants from the Indian subcontinent for screening would detect 90 per cent of latent TB cases, and would cost little more than what is spent on screening now, relative to the number of active TB cases prevented. The current UK policy requires that all immigrants from countries with a TB incidence higher than 40 in 100,000 per year have a chest X-ray on arrival to check for active TB, although very few immigrants have active TB on arrival. However, a substantial proportion of immigrants are carriers of latent TB which though initially silent and non-infectious, often progresses to full-blown, infectious active TB within a few years of arrival in the UK. — PTI
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Sri Lanka to quicken legal process against LTTE detainees Colombo, April 22 Rauff Hakeem, the Minister of Justice said today a special committee of the Attorney General's Department headed by a deputy solicitor general is looking at ways to expedite the cases. "It is not easy to hurry up cases against nearly 10,000 members of the LTTE. This committee would take a close review of the charges against them with a view to indict them," Hakeem said. Currently there are about 250 indictments which are being processed. "The committee will visit the long time detainees and explore ways to expedite the process," Hakeem said. The government continues to hold a large number of LTTE members since May 2009 when the war ended. Some of them have been released after the process of rehabilitation. But questions have been raised on the delays in the legal process against a larger majority of the LTTE members. — PTI
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Syrian forces kill 38 at ‘Good Friday’ protests Damascus, April 22 A day after President Bashar al-Assad scrapped decades of emergency rule, his forces fired live rounds at demonstrators in several towns and cities nationwide, witnesses and activists told AFP over telephone. The official SANA news agency said the security forces intervened using only tear gas and water cannon to “prevent clashes” between protesters and passers-by. A coalition of protesters from across Syria meanwhile issued a list of demands in a statement blasting “attempts by the Syrian tyrannical machine to thwart and circumvent the acquisition of our basic rights and needs.” Friday's death toll was the bloodiest since protests for democratic change — the first since emergency rule was imposed by the ruling Baath Party when it seized power in 1963 — erupted in March. — AFP
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15 dead in checkpost attack in Pak Islamabad, April 22 Militants attacked the check post in Lower Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, killing at least 15 security personnel, Xinhua reported. Media reports, however, varied about the time of the attack. Geo TV said the attack took place Thursday night, while the another channel ARY said it took place early Friday. — IANS
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Indo-Nepal relations Visiting Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna and Unified CPN-Maoists chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda traded charges with each other for increasing animosity and sour relations between India and Nepal's former rebels. While holding a meeting with the former rebels' supremo Prachanda, Krishna expressed serious concerns about the growing anti-Indian activities of Maoists in Nepal. "I clearly told him that our party has no anti-Indian policy and it should not be seen in that light," Prachanda told journalists after the meeting. "Rather India is held responsible for that because we have realized that India has been interfering in Nepal's internal affairs since the issue over chief of army staff and is refraining to extend any support for political stability in Nepal," Prachanda said. He, however, said that his party wanted to establish sound relations with India in accordance with the changed political scenario.
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