Indo-Pakistan talks inch forward
India and Pakistan wound up their two-day foreign secretary-level talks to unveil the third round of composite dialogue here on Wednesday, with the doves and hawks both finding reasons to claim victory.
A joint statement issued after the talks between India’s Shyam Saran and Pakistan’s Riaz Mohammad Khan presented a wholesome picture of purposeful engagements ahead to bid for a final settlement of the Kashmir issue and other related differences.
But an exchange of words on the margins of the talks over Balochistan left ample room for the hardliners to applaud.
Mr Khan put Pakistan’s interpretation of the talks in a terse comment during a news conference.
“We should move beyond learning to live with the problems,” he warned about the slow pace of progress on Kashmir. “That would be living dangerously.”
He said the third round would be a challenging one precisely for this reason, a characterization that senior officials in the Indian side were also willing to concede as reasonably fair.
Mr Khan offered reasons to suggest that the time was ripe to take up the Kashmir issue for serious discussion.
“We have come to a stage where, given the improved relations, given the CBMs, the people-to-people contacts, it is also time that we start discussing the problems that are as old as the independence of the two countries.”
More US diplomats to India
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said the US will send more diplomats to countries like India.
This, Dr Rice said, is part of ''transformational diplomacy''.
"We will begin to shift several hundred of our diplomatic positions to new critical posts for the 21st Century. We will begin by moving 100 positions from Europe and Washington, DC, to countries like China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon," Dr Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University''s School of Foreign Service.
"Additional staffing will make an essential difference," she added.
Noting that emerging powers like India, China, Brazil and Egypt and South Africa are increasingly shaping the course of history, she said that the new frontlines ''of our diplomacy'' are appearing more clearly in transitional countries.
"Our current global posture does not really reflect that fact. For instance, we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, and in India, a country of one billion people," Rice said.
''It is clear that America must begin to reposition diplomatic forces around the world,'' she said.
US sets aside India nuke doubt
The Bush administration, confronting a potential threat to its 2005 nuclear deal with India, has signaled it will set aside concerns that New Delhi violated a previous agreement with the United States.
In documents released by a Senate panel, the State Department said it could not determine whether the project in question -- a 40 megawatt nuclear reactor called Cirus -- had violated a 1956 U.S.-India contract.
Some experts say the project violated past Indian assurances that U.S. nuclear material would be used only for peaceful uses, not weapons, and this called into question India''s trustworthiness as a future nuclear partner.
But Undersecretary of State for Non-proliferation Robert Joseph said "a conclusive answer (on whether a violation occurred) has not been possible."
Rather than spend time on Cirus, "the administration believes the most productive approach is to focus on India''s new commitments under (the July 18, 2005) joint statement," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The agreement, which must be approved by the U.S. Congress, would give India access to nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors, and commit New Delhi to place nuclear facilities associated with its civilian energy program under international inspection.
Bush now views India, a rising democratic and economic power on China''s border, as an evolving core U.S. ally and the new nuclear deal is central to that vision.(Reuters)
AU: Darfur talks ‘too slow’
The African Union has criticized the Sudanese government and rebels for failing to make progress in talks aimed at ending three years of killing, rape and looting in the western region of Darfur.
Talks have stalled over issues of power sharing and how to create a final cease-fire and they need to be revitalized, according to an AU statement quoting its chief mediator Sam Ibok.
"Ibok made clear to the Sudanese Parties the disappointment of the African Union Peace and Security Council, and the United Nations Security Council over the slow progress so far achieved," the statement issued late on Wednesday said.
"The current round of the peace talks had been characterized by inflexibility, suspicions and the absence of a minimum level of confidence," it said.
The AU special envoy for Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, had described the talks to end the conflict as "disturbingly and agonizingly slow," the statement added.
The mediators urged the parties to resume talks with vigor and reminded them of the millions of Darfuris living in makeshift camps in the region, waiting for an end to the fighting so they could return home.
The rebels want a vice-president from Darfur and an autonomous regional government, both suggestions the government rejects after conceding a high level of autonomy to southern rebels a year ago to end a brutal conflict.
UN warns over West Africa
Nearly $240 million is needed to feed at least 10 million people this year in West Africa, where food shortages risk being overshadowed by emergencies elsewhere on the continent, the United Nations said Monday.
Several countries in West Africa suffered shortages last year after crops were ravaged by drought and locusts.
In Niger, the worst-affected, aid groups scrambled to tackle a food crisis affecting more than 3 million people.
"The poorest are likely to find themselves in a precarious situation again, their survival strategies exhausted and their purchasing power depleted."
So far, $18.4 million had been received out of a total $237 million required for 2006. WFP said it planned to feed at least 10 million people in West Africa with over 300,000 tonnes of food.
About six million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa due to severe drought, crop failure and depletions of livestock herds, while some 12 million people in southern Africa need emergency food aid, the UN says.
In Niger, donations poured in only after months of appeals. Aid workers blamed donor nations for failing to respond quickly, pointing out that the cost to donors of saving a starving child is much greater than the cost of feeding them to avert a crisis.
Snow stymies Kashmir efforts
The United Nations resumed crucial relief flights to earthquake-devastated areas of Pakistan this week, but the race to save hungry and freezing victims was stymied by new landslides.
Helicopters flew again after being grounded for three days by the harsh Himalayan winter. But key roads to quake-wracked areas have been blocked by landslides and avalanches triggered by heavy rain and snow.
"A lot of roads are being cut off by landslides," said U.N. World Food Program spokeswoman Caroline Chaumont.
The agency has organized more than 9,000 flights since the Oct. 8 earthquake killed 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless.
Overland routes bring food and supplies to roughly 500,000 of the 1 million people being fed by the WFP. Helicopters, by contrast, reach only 380,000.
Relief workers worry that the harsh winter weather will intensify hunger and misery in the quake-wracked region of Kashmir and add to the death toll. Some supplies were delivered during brief breaks in the snowfall.
Main roads leading to the Jhelum and Neelum valleys in Kashmir, where thousands of refugees await, are blocked at several places, said Maj. Farooq Nasir, the Pakistani military relief commander for the region.
Bulldozers are trying to clear the roads, but authorities said Monday it would take days to re-establish the route after the rain and snow stops.
India and Pakistan wound up their two-day foreign secretary-level talks to unveil the third round of composite dialogue here on Wednesday, with the doves and hawks both finding reasons to claim victory.
A joint statement issued after the talks between India’s Shyam Saran and Pakistan’s Riaz Mohammad Khan presented a wholesome picture of purposeful engagements ahead to bid for a final settlement of the Kashmir issue and other related differences.
But an exchange of words on the margins of the talks over Balochistan left ample room for the hardliners to applaud.
Mr Khan put Pakistan’s interpretation of the talks in a terse comment during a news conference.
“We should move beyond learning to live with the problems,” he warned about the slow pace of progress on Kashmir. “That would be living dangerously.”
He said the third round would be a challenging one precisely for this reason, a characterization that senior officials in the Indian side were also willing to concede as reasonably fair.
Mr Khan offered reasons to suggest that the time was ripe to take up the Kashmir issue for serious discussion.
“We have come to a stage where, given the improved relations, given the CBMs, the people-to-people contacts, it is also time that we start discussing the problems that are as old as the independence of the two countries.”
More US diplomats to India
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said the US will send more diplomats to countries like India.
This, Dr Rice said, is part of ''transformational diplomacy''.
"We will begin to shift several hundred of our diplomatic positions to new critical posts for the 21st Century. We will begin by moving 100 positions from Europe and Washington, DC, to countries like China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon," Dr Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University''s School of Foreign Service.
"Additional staffing will make an essential difference," she added.
Noting that emerging powers like India, China, Brazil and Egypt and South Africa are increasingly shaping the course of history, she said that the new frontlines ''of our diplomacy'' are appearing more clearly in transitional countries.
"Our current global posture does not really reflect that fact. For instance, we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, and in India, a country of one billion people," Rice said.
''It is clear that America must begin to reposition diplomatic forces around the world,'' she said.
US sets aside India nuke doubt
The Bush administration, confronting a potential threat to its 2005 nuclear deal with India, has signaled it will set aside concerns that New Delhi violated a previous agreement with the United States.
In documents released by a Senate panel, the State Department said it could not determine whether the project in question -- a 40 megawatt nuclear reactor called Cirus -- had violated a 1956 U.S.-India contract.
Some experts say the project violated past Indian assurances that U.S. nuclear material would be used only for peaceful uses, not weapons, and this called into question India''s trustworthiness as a future nuclear partner.
But Undersecretary of State for Non-proliferation Robert Joseph said "a conclusive answer (on whether a violation occurred) has not been possible."
Rather than spend time on Cirus, "the administration believes the most productive approach is to focus on India''s new commitments under (the July 18, 2005) joint statement," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The agreement, which must be approved by the U.S. Congress, would give India access to nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors, and commit New Delhi to place nuclear facilities associated with its civilian energy program under international inspection.
Bush now views India, a rising democratic and economic power on China''s border, as an evolving core U.S. ally and the new nuclear deal is central to that vision.(Reuters)
AU: Darfur talks ‘too slow’
The African Union has criticized the Sudanese government and rebels for failing to make progress in talks aimed at ending three years of killing, rape and looting in the western region of Darfur.
Talks have stalled over issues of power sharing and how to create a final cease-fire and they need to be revitalized, according to an AU statement quoting its chief mediator Sam Ibok.
"Ibok made clear to the Sudanese Parties the disappointment of the African Union Peace and Security Council, and the United Nations Security Council over the slow progress so far achieved," the statement issued late on Wednesday said.
"The current round of the peace talks had been characterized by inflexibility, suspicions and the absence of a minimum level of confidence," it said.
The AU special envoy for Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, had described the talks to end the conflict as "disturbingly and agonizingly slow," the statement added.
The mediators urged the parties to resume talks with vigor and reminded them of the millions of Darfuris living in makeshift camps in the region, waiting for an end to the fighting so they could return home.
The rebels want a vice-president from Darfur and an autonomous regional government, both suggestions the government rejects after conceding a high level of autonomy to southern rebels a year ago to end a brutal conflict.
UN warns over West Africa
Nearly $240 million is needed to feed at least 10 million people this year in West Africa, where food shortages risk being overshadowed by emergencies elsewhere on the continent, the United Nations said Monday.
Several countries in West Africa suffered shortages last year after crops were ravaged by drought and locusts.
In Niger, the worst-affected, aid groups scrambled to tackle a food crisis affecting more than 3 million people.
"The poorest are likely to find themselves in a precarious situation again, their survival strategies exhausted and their purchasing power depleted."
So far, $18.4 million had been received out of a total $237 million required for 2006. WFP said it planned to feed at least 10 million people in West Africa with over 300,000 tonnes of food.
About six million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa due to severe drought, crop failure and depletions of livestock herds, while some 12 million people in southern Africa need emergency food aid, the UN says.
In Niger, donations poured in only after months of appeals. Aid workers blamed donor nations for failing to respond quickly, pointing out that the cost to donors of saving a starving child is much greater than the cost of feeding them to avert a crisis.
Snow stymies Kashmir efforts
The United Nations resumed crucial relief flights to earthquake-devastated areas of Pakistan this week, but the race to save hungry and freezing victims was stymied by new landslides.
Helicopters flew again after being grounded for three days by the harsh Himalayan winter. But key roads to quake-wracked areas have been blocked by landslides and avalanches triggered by heavy rain and snow.
"A lot of roads are being cut off by landslides," said U.N. World Food Program spokeswoman Caroline Chaumont.
The agency has organized more than 9,000 flights since the Oct. 8 earthquake killed 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless.
Overland routes bring food and supplies to roughly 500,000 of the 1 million people being fed by the WFP. Helicopters, by contrast, reach only 380,000.
Relief workers worry that the harsh winter weather will intensify hunger and misery in the quake-wracked region of Kashmir and add to the death toll. Some supplies were delivered during brief breaks in the snowfall.
Main roads leading to the Jhelum and Neelum valleys in Kashmir, where thousands of refugees await, are blocked at several places, said Maj. Farooq Nasir, the Pakistani military relief commander for the region.
Bulldozers are trying to clear the roads, but authorities said Monday it would take days to re-establish the route after the rain and snow stops.
