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Pickering visualises greater growth in US-India trade ties WASHINGTON, Dec 10: Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas....more UNGA adopts treaty UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10: In a major effort to combat international terrorism, the United Nations...more
India responding positively to strategic dialogue: US WASHINGTON, Dec 10: United States has said India is responding positively to the strategic..more Unskilled workers lead lonely lives in oil-rich gulf DUBAI, Dec 10: Nasir Khan lives on memories and photographs. Every week he receives letters and family photographs in the mail from his wife.....more |
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Yeltsin holds final BEIJING, Dec 10: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, shaky after a zout of pneumonia but robust....more Scientists grow WASHINGTON, Dec 10: Artificial corneas that look and act like the real thing may soon replace.....more New Zealand coalition sworn in after majority slips WELLINGTON, Dec 10: New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Government was sworn.....more Mysterious SYDNEY, Dec 9: Is it a UFO, Space Junk, a meteorite or simply frozen.....more |
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Pickering visualises greater growth in US-India trade ties WASHINGTON, Dec 10: Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering visualises greater growth in Washington-Delhi trade relationship if India succeeds in moving further away from a command and control economy, the license raj, and parastatals, and rids itself of the massive red tape that makes it a difficult place in which to do business. In a speech at the foreign policy in George Washington University here on Monday, he, however, said, "there are some positive signs in this regard, including steps to open up the insurance and telecommunications industries to foreigners." "Clearly, there is tremendous economic potential," he said adding, "India is responding positively in its increased dialogue with the United States, and we need to take advantage of that not just for traditional security and economic interests, but also to counter the human rights and environmental concerns that, matter so justifiably to the American people." He said the trade between the two countries grew by 127 per cent between 1991 and 1998. Recognising the potential for closer ties with India, and the increasing importance of India on the world stage in the next century, US President Bill Clinton had expressed a desire to travel there next year. Mr Pickering said, "in our new dialogue with India, we discuss issues cooperatively and try to avoid raising hackles gratuitously as part of the process of building better ties. The end of the cold war and the natural expansion of mutual interests gives us a now opportunity." The under secretary noted that the recent elections had "brought an end to a long hiatus in our forward movement with India, and seemed to have galvanised the Indian Government to consider non-proliferation issues in greater earnest." He said relations between the United States and India had the potential to deepen now that the end of the cold war eliminated some of the tensions that once interfered in them. "Problems still exist, but I think it is fair to say that these two great democracies are poised to build a relationship good for both countries and potentially stabilizing for the region," he added. Mr Pickering said, "today, we have four broad andinterlinked policy interests inthe region: Regional stability and conflict resolution, non-proliferation, promoting democracy and human rights and promoting economic development in the region and finding opportunities for trade and investment. He said, "economic interests can be an engine for improvement onthe security and political fronts. As even protesters in seatle recognise, globalisation is here to stay— and it is here to stay in large part because it is in every country’s economic and human interest." "While there are valid concerns with such problems as child labour and trafficking of women and children in South Asia, the very fact of globalisation gives us a better chance of helping to alleviate these problems," he added. "As we gauge what type of partner India might make," Mr Pickering pointed out, "it is useful to consider first India’s self-image. India sees itself as one of the world’s great civilisations, with over 5,000 years of culture. It has just passed the one billion mark in population, and its population is projected to be greater than China’s by about 2020." He said, "modern India sees itself as a country with higher tech prowerss, as the world’s most populous democracy, as a state that has moved from starvation and hand-outs to being an exporter of food, as a country that produces more films than hollywood, as a nation that believes it merits a seat on the UN Security Council and is due more respect and attention than it gets from the international community and the United States." This helped explain why "getting the bomb" was considered by Indian decision-markers to be a good thing. The bomb in many Indians’ view, says to the world, "look at us, we are a country to contend with." "Strategically, India and Pakistan’s nuclear testing is injurious to the United States not because either country poses, may immediate and direct threat to the United States, but example for other countries," he added. (UNI) |
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funding for terrorist activities UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10: In a major effort to combat international terrorism, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a new treaty that makes it a crime to provide financing for terrorist activities. Acting on a series of resolutions recommended by its legal committee, the Assembly last night adopted without a vote the international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism. In approving the measure, the Assembly noted that the number and seriousness of acts of international terrorism depend on the financing that terrorists might get and that existing multilateral treaties do not expressly address such funding. According to the convention, it is a crime for anyone to provide or collect funds to be used for acts that constitute terrorist acts as defined by existing treaties. Any other act intended to kill or harm civilians in order to intimidate them or a Government or international organization would fall under the treaty’s jurisdiction. The treaty also compels countries to confiscate funds found to be intended for use in terrorist activities and to investigate information that a person who has or is alleged to have committed such a crime is in its territory. In a related resolution on measures to eliminate international terrorism, the Assembly strongly condemned terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable and called on countries to refrain from financing, encouraging, providing training for or otherwise supporting such activities. (PTI) |
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India responding positively to strategic dialogue: US WASHINGTON, Dec 10: United States has said India is responding positively to the strategic dialogue the two countries were having on nuclear non-proliferation issues. India is responding positively in its increased dialogue with United States and we need to take advantage of that not just for traditional security and economic interests, but also to counter the human rights and environmental concerns that matter so justifiably to the American people, Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering has said. Change in India on these conditions could spur change elsewhere in the region. India is the engine that moves South Asia, he said while delivering a speech at George Washington University earlier this week. Referring to the nine rounds of talks between External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Pickering said the elections (in India) brought an end to a long hiatus in our forward movement with India, and seemed to have galvanised the Indian Government to consider non-proliferation issues in greater earnest. ...A key incentive seems to be the recognition that India’s broader economic and international interests cannot be advanced until India resolves its differences on these issues with the international community, he added. Exuding confidence that New Delhi would sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Pickering said India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear programmes destabilise the region and could trigger an arms race that none can afford—politically, economically or socially. The nuclear programme raises the chances of a mistake of the use of such weapons—either in conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir or by accident or miscalculation, he warned. Pickering said nuclear testing by India and Pakistan is injurious to the United States not because either country poses any immediate and direct threat to the US, but because the tests upend the international non-proliferation regime, and set a terrible example to other countries. (PTI) |
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Unskilled workers lead lonely lives in oil-rich gulf DUBAI, Dec 10: Nasir Khan lives on memories and photographs. Every week he receives letters and family photographs in the mail from his wife back home in India. He has hardly spent any time with her, or his two children in recent years. The pictures and memories help overcome some of the loneliness of living in the Gulf, where Nasir and an Army of hundreds of thousands like him do the menial jobs that keep the oil-rich desert nations ticking. Since coming to Dubai, one of the seven sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates, 20 years ago, Nasir has been to India for short holidays only. Employers usually give workers like Nasir one airline ticket for a trip home every two years. Nasir, 40, was married nine years ago during a brief vacation in India. During that visit, his wife conceived their first child. The labourer did not see his baby daughter until he returned home for another brief visit two years later. His second child, a boy who is now four years old, was conceived during another holiday. Like Nasir, other unskilled workers from the Indian subcontinent and the Philippines who come to the Gulf to seek their fortune are forced to leave their families behind. Their low incomes are not enough to keep a family in these prosperous nations. The UAE and other Gulf countries, do not allow low-income workers to bring their families over. The UAE does not grant family visas to workers who earn less than 821 dollars a month. Nasir, who works as a Doorman, earns 156 dollars. By working overtime, he can take home an additional 63 dollars. The UAE has the highest per capita income in the world after the United States, Luxembourg and Switzerland. But workers like Nasir don’t see much of that wealth. Still, their salaries are more than what they could earn back home, where an educated schoolteacher’s salary is about 6,000 rupees (164 dollar) per month. Out of the 2.4 million population of the UAE, three-fourths are foreigners, most of them Asian maids and other unskilled workers. With his salary, Nasir maintains his family, including his parents, two brothers and eight sisters. He has paid for the dowries of six sisters. Paying dowries is a major burden, but in a country where a woman often cannot marry without it, men like Nasir must do all they can for their family honour. His dream is now to save enough in the next comming five or six years to build a house, to pay the dowry of one remaining unmarried sister, and return to Ilayangudi, his native village near Madras, in Southeastern India where he will work in a small tea-stand his father owns there. Every week Nasir calls his 26-year-old wife Saibunisha, whom he says he loves deeply. "I think of her all the time. Every week I make a quick call, just to hear her voice. I say ‘I love you’ and then I hang up because I can’t afford to spend more," he said. The call costs him less than a dollar. Some in the United Arab Emirates are even less fortunate than nasir. They often earn even less and their jobs are hazardous. Construction workers earn about 135 dollars, and they work nearly from dawn to dusk. Many die in construction accidents every month 286 were killed last year. Safety is not a priority, and workers’ lives are cheap. Jahankheez Aleem, a Pakistani construction worker, recently fell to his death from a seventh floor flat in the UAE. He was trying to fix a window. Police records showed that he had tied himself to the window frame with a nylon rope that came loose. He had no scaffolding, or a proper security belt. Many workers come here in search of a living, but often find they can’t earn enough to meet all of their commitments back home. Some are cheated by unscrupulous employers who refuse to pay after the work is done. Some workers kill themselves in desperation. Thirteen workers recently committed suicide in the emirate of Sharjah within a three-month time frame. According to the local police, some suicides are linked to non-payment of wages which they cited as a major cause of depression among workers. (DPA) |
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Yeltsin holds final talks with Jiang BEIJING, Dec 10: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, shaky after a zout of pneumonia but robust in his defence of the military campaign in Chechnya, started a final session of talks today with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Jiang, the only major world leader to back the Russian campaign, and Yeltsin took a 100-metre (yard) stroll through the scenic grounds of Beijing’s state guest house complex on a sunny, but cold and windy morning before beginning their talks. Chinese support for the Chechnya campaign, offered swiftly and strongly shortly after the Russian leader arrived on a 26-hour visit yesterday, appeared to invigorate Yeltsin, who defied doctors orders to travel to Beijing. Under increasing verbal fire from the west and threats to international aid and loans for Russia’s stumbling economy, Yeltsin let rip after some trenchant criticism from US President Bill Clinton as thousands of Chechens fled their homes. Nobody was going to tell nuclear-armed Russia what it should or should not do in Chechnya, Yeltsin thundered in the presence of television cameras. "It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that. Therefore he decided to play with his muscles, as they say," Yeltsin said of Clinton. "I haven’t forgotten that. You know, I didn’t think he’d forgotten America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo," Clinton replied in short order. Carefully chosen stage? The 68-year-old Yeltsin appeared to have chosen carefully his moment to blast Clinton with comments which were played repeatedly on television back home in Moscow. His talks with China’s top three leaders were designed to push a "strategic partnership" between the two giant neighbours and his outburst came shortly after Jiang fully endorsed the campaign against Chechnya’s Muslim separatists. China has its own Muslim separatists in the remote Western region of Xinjiang and has found itself aligned with Russia in opposition to the west over a series of major international issues in the past few years, including NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia. "It’s of particular importance for Russia, given its isolation in the international community over Chechnya, to brandish its good relations with China," said one western diplomat. Jiang, a Soviet-trained engineer, made it clear that relations between Moscow and Beijing which were antagonistic not so long ago, were warm. He greeted Yeltsin with a bear hug yesterday and called him "my old friend" in Russian. Later, the two men toasted the formal signature of agreements which erased centuries of border disputes which had bedevilled relations. "From this moment, we no longer have any border problems," Russian Foreign Minister Igor Inanov said. Partnership seen limited But the "strategic partnership" between the two countries may be a limited one, analysts say. They say neither Russia nor China is likely to risk vital relations with the United States. "I don’t think the west is under any illusion as to any kind of real active alliance between China and Russia. They haven’t got enough in common and they don’t trust each other," said another Western diplomat in Beijing. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appeared to bolster that view as he stepped in swiftly to soften Yeltsin’s verbal barrage against Clinton. "I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have very good relations with the United States. We have very good relations with the leadership of the United States," Putin told reporters in Moscow. "I would consider it absolutely incorrect to produce the impression that some kind of period of cooling off of relations between Russia and the United States has begun or is beginning," he added. (REUTERS) |
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Scientists grow artificial corneas WASHINGTON, Dec 10: Artificial corneas that look and act like the real thing may soon replace those of animals in tests and may one day be used as transplants, researchers said. They said they had grown artificial corneas, using human cells and growing them on a framework that later dissolved away. The resulting "cornea equivalents," as they call them, look and act like the real thing. May Griffith and colleagues at the University of Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa said on Thursday they used cells from all three main layers of the cornea, and all three layers grew correctly on their matrix. They used several viruses to immortalise their human eye cells, including one of the wart viruses blamed for causing cervical cancer, a monkey virus known as SV40 that is also blamed for causing human cancer, and an adenovirus — one of the viruses that cause the common cold and more serious respiratory infections. One of the characteristics of cancer cells is the ability to grow and grow. This out-of-control growth is what causes a tumour. But the cells did not act like cancer cells. They acted like healthy eye cells, Ms Griffith and her colleagues reported in the journal science. They tested their artificial corneas to see how they would react to a supposed injury. When exposed to a mildly irritating soap, the cells produced various defence and inflammatory chemicals, including Interleukin-1, IL-6, as well as commands aimed at replacing damaged tissue such as the production of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF). The researchers also dropped other chemicals onto the corneas and found they became opaque in just the same way that rabbit corneas do after such treatment. Rabbits are widely used in tests on chemicals to see if they will irritate the eyes. "These results showed that the corneal equivalents had an active response to different grades of injury, an important functional characteristic of human corneas," they wrote in their report. They said the most immediate uses for their artificial corneas was in testing drugs and chemicals. The corneal equivalents can also be used in biomedical research, for example, to study wound healing and cell-matrix interaction. (REUTERS) |
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New Zealand coalition sworn in after majority slips WELLINGTON, Dec 10: New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Government was sworn in today after losing its outright majority to surprise green party successes. Vote counting, which stretched into the early hours of today, saw clark’s labour-alliance coalition lose another seat to the greens in the 120-seat Parliament. The coalition had 59 members sworn in during a brief ceremony at Government house only hours after final results were posted by the electoral office — two weeks after the November 27 election. The greens added one more member to the six who on Tuesday became the party’s first Members of Parliament when co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons won the key Coromandel seat. Labour, the senior coalition partner, has 49 seats and the left-leaning alliance has 10. After watching the greens win their seventh seat, Fitzsimons reiterated her party’s support for the Government on confidence motions and supply bills, effectively assuring the coalition of a workable majority. "Even before this extra seat changed, they needed us in order to continue governing and we had agreed on a cooperative relationship," Fitzsimons told Radio New Zealand. The greens have said they won’t take positions on monetary policy, tax and trade, but expect to be involved in policy areas such as fisheries, economic development and the environment. The outgoing conservative national party has 39 seats and the remaining 15 are shared between the free market act New Zealand, the nationalist New Zealand first and the united party. But the results still could change, with re-counts expected in several seats including Tauranga, held by nz first leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters by only 62 votes. Meanwhile, incoming Finance Minister Michael Cullen denied a newspaper report that he wanted the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to ease its inflation range target of between zero and three percent to stimulate growth. Cullen later said in a statement that, while labour supports the Rbnz’s independence on monetary policy and its inflation target, he wanted to negotiate an amendment to an agreement signed by the central bank and the previous Government. Labour suggested during campigning last month that the policy targets agreement be changed to allow the Rbnz more latitude to influence the value of the New Zealand dollar. The greens plan to back a taxation review that could include a tax increase for those earning more than NZ 60,000 dollars (US30,600 dollars). (REUTERS) |
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Mysterious UFO lands in Australian dam SYDNEY, Dec 9: Is it a UFO, Space Junk, a meteorite or simply frozen sewage? whatever it turns out to be a mysterious flying object has landed in an Australian country dam, leaving a large crater, and sunk beneath the mud. Air tests around the dam found no radioactivity, but water supplies from the dam to the nearby town of Guyra have been cut. Police have also erected a two km no go zone around the dam, as curious locals and scores of media descend on the sleepy town of Guyra, 400 km North of Sydney. "At this stage we don’t really know what the object is," said a police spokesman at Guy Sit has made a significant depression in the floor of the dam. The mysterious object, which landed sometime between Monday and yesterday, has left a 15-metre long and six metre wide crater. The object appears to have hit the dam at about 45 degrees and skidded before sinking. "They have had a close look at the surface of the crater and it seems that the reeds have actually been flattened not broken," said the police spokesman. Police divers are on their way to Guyra to inspect the dam, while further air and water tests are being conducted. Theories of what the object is ranged from a meteorite to frozen sewage jettisoned from an aircraft. But most ruled out a UFO or Space Junk. (REUTERS) |
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