UNITED NATIONS, Apr 19: Syria has not fully complied with its obligations to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from towns and has yet to send a ‘clear signal’ about its commitment to peace, the UN chief told the Security Council in a letter obtained.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday said an expanded UN monitoring mission for Syria would he comprised of ‘an initial deployment’ of up to 300 unarmed observers who would supervise a fragile week-old ceasefire between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters seeking to oust him. (agencies)

NEW YORK, Apr 19: The husband and daughter of an Indian woman, who died last year in a bus crash near here, have filed a USD 40 million lawsuit, blaming the driver and bus company for negligence.
The suit was filed last week by attorney Michael Kaplen on behalf of Kaizar Master and his 17-year-old daughter Maryam Kaizar Master.
Master’s wife Sakina was killed when the Niagara Falls- bound bus carrying a group of tourists from India flipped over and slid into a wooded area.
The Masters are Indian citizens who currently live in Abu Dhabi.
Kaplen said the lawsuit seeks USD 20 million each in compensation for the father and daughter.
The two sustained “severe psychological injuries” in the crash and continue to suffer from “post-traumatic stress disorder,” Kaplen told.
Kaplen said apart from seeing other people get hurt, his clients themselves experienced the fear of death.
“The Master family was very close knit and the young girl now has to live without the support and guidance of her mother,” Kaplen added.
He said the passengers were thrown off their seats when the bus flipped over.
Some of those injured had to crawl over the dead bodies of their fellow passengers to get out of the bus to safety.
Sakina was sitting in the front seat and there was nothing to hold her back once the bus crashed.
The lawsuit, filed in Niagara County Court, names Nashville-based tyre-maker Bridgestone Americas Tyre, Bedore Tours of North Tonawanda and Motor Coach Industries of Illinois, and the bus driver.
Kaplen said the driver was driving too fast and had exceeded the speed limit when the bus’s tyre blew up.
He could not control the bus and unlike an experienced driver, did not know what safety measures had to be taken to avoid an accident.
Kaplen said the blame also lies with the bus company for not inspecting the tyres, with the tyre manufacturer as well as partially with the bus manufacturer since the bus did not have seat belts.
Apart from Sakina, one other passenger was killed in the July 17, 2011 crash and dozens were injured.
State police officials had said after the crash that the right front tyre apparently blew out.
They had said they had found no evidence of “any excess speed, of any alcohol, of any driver fatigue or of any other violation.” (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Apr 19: Oil-rich South Sudan, the world’s newest nation and one of the least developed countries, has joined the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund.
The country’s formal inclusion in the IMF and the World Bank Group took place yesterday after South Sudan Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Kosti Manibe Ngai signed the Articles of Agreement and Conventions here.
“Even before we became members, the World Bank has already been collaborating closely with us… So today we are very pleased that the formalities have finally been completed, and we look forward to a long-term partnership with the World Bank Group as we work together on the much-needed development of South Sudan,” Ngai said.
South Sudan became the world’s newest country on July 9, 2011, after decades of conflict.
It has some of the lowest education, health, and other human development results in the world, and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line.
The country, however, has rich agricultural and forestry potential, and significant oil reserves.
In addition to becoming a member of International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), South Sudan joined the International Finance Corporation (IFC), International Development Association (IDA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Apr 19: A top Republican Senator has criticised the Afghan policy of US President Barack Obama, opposing his troop withdrawal plan from the country and the peace talks with the Taliban.
Republican Senator John McCain also opposed the plan to reduce the strength of the Afghan national security forces post 2014 and accused Obama of overruling advice of his commanders on Afghanistan.
“The effect of these and other decisions has been strategically debilitating. It sends the signal to everyone in Afghanistan and the region, both friend and enemy alike, that the United States has lost the will for this fight… that we are hell-bent on leaving Afghanistan regardless of conditions on the ground… that the Taliban is literally coming back, starting with the five detainees possibly headed to Doha.
“…And that the international community will not even help our willing Afghan partners to sustain a sufficient number of forces to lead this fight on their own,” McCain said.
None of this may be true, he said, adding, “I can assure you that it is the perception in Afghanistan and the region. And perception is reality. This set of incentives only emboldens our enemies to keep fighting. It encourages the Pakistani army and ISI to continue hedging their bets by supporting terrorist proxies as a source of strategic depth in Afghanistan.
“It leads our Afghan allies to hedge their bets as well by making counterproductive choices about governance and corruption due to their fears of what a post-American future will bring in Afghanistan.”
Obama, he alleged, overruled his commanders, choosing to withdraw the full surge earlier than the military recommended.
“After the initial decision on troop levels lengthened the campaign, this decision denied our commanders the full combat power they had wanted to employ against the Haqqani Network in eastern Afghanistan during the coming fighting season,” McCain said in his address to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think-tank.
“In addition, the Administration is now planning to cut the end-strength of the Afghan National Security Forces from 352,000 to 230,000. The rationale offered is that the larger number is a surge force, and it can be drawn down to the lower number in a matter of years after 2014.
“That is a hard argument to swallow from a military standpoint, and the Afghan Defence Minister has been critical of it in those terms. Furthermore, how can it make sense to begin laying off 120,000 well-trained Afghan combat veterans in 2014 and sending them into what will surely be a dim job market? We saw a similar movie before in Iraq, and it did not end well,” he said.
McCain said US needs to be realistic. “Reconciliation with the Taliban will not happen because we want to stop fighting. It will happen when we have broken their will to keep fighting.” (PTI)

    UNITED NATIONS, Apr 19: Syria has not fully complied with a UN-backed peace plan for the country and has yet to send a ‘clear signal’ about its commitment to ending more than a year of violence, the UN chief told the Security Council in a letter obtained by Reuters.
At the same time, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced hope that there may be a chance for progress on ending a 13-month conflict that has brought Syria to the brink of civil war.
Ban yesterday proposed an expanded UN monitoring mission, which, if approved by the council, would be comprised of ‘an initial deployment’ of up to 300 unarmed observers to supervise a fragile week-old ceasefire between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters seeking to oust him.
But he cautioned that the fighting had not ended.
‘The Syrian Government has yet to fully implement its initial obligations regarding the actions and deployments of its troops, or to return them to barracks,’ he said in a preliminary assessment of Syria’s compliance with a resolution on Syria the Security Council passed on  Saturday.
‘Violent incidents and reports of casualties have escalated again in recent days, with reports of shelling of civilian areas and abuses by Government forces,’ he said. ‘The Government reports violent actions by armed  groups.’
‘The cessation of armed violence is therefore clearly incomplete,’ Ban said, adding that both sides say they are committed to ending the ‘violence in all its forms.’
Diplomats on the 15-nation council say Ban’s report and a briefing they will receive from U.N .-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan’s deputy, Jean-Marie Guehenno, on Thursday at 9:00 am will be crucial in determining whether the conditions are right for deploying a larger monitoring mission to Syria.
US and European diplomats on the council have suggested that Syria’s lack of full compliance with its obligations to end the violence might make it difficult for them to support a new resolution that would be needed to deploy an expanded observer mission. (agencies)

WASHINGTON, Apr 19: Acknowledging that economic reforms in India have slowed down and may remain that way till the next general elections in 2014, Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said they will gather pace thereafter and from 2015 India will be among the world’s fastest growing economies.
Relatively less important bills might go through Parliament but major economic reforms would hit the road block, Basu said, adding that they are unlikely to happen before the next Parliamentary elections.
At the same time, he said there are some reforms that need to go into fast gear and identified the opening up of the retail sector as one key reform in waiting.
India, he said, also needs to address the issue of massive subsidy leakage and that of poor infrastructure.
After the elections, the government of the day would take reforms on fast track and there would be a flurry of reforms, Basu said, addressing a meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an eminent Washington-based think tank.
In Washington to attend the Annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, Basu was addressing the concerns expressed by the US corporate on some recent decisions of the Indian government and its reluctance to initiate the series of next phase of reforms.
He is accompanying Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to the IMF, World Bank meet.
Post 2014, Basu said, “you would see a rush of important reforms” and after 2015 India would be one of the “fastest growing economy of the world”.
The new government, if in majority, would start with the reforms in a big way because there is a sense that it needs to pick up, he added.
Basu said there is a slowdown in decision making.
The unearthing of a series of corruption and scams, he argued, is having its own impact on the psyche of the bureaucracy, who are not willing to take risks.
Reforms, he said, have also slowed down because of the coalition government. Another reason for the slowdown is the battle against inflation and drop in agricultural production.
India, he said, acted on both the fiscal and monetary policy. Finally, India too is impacted by the global economic slowdown.
“We are going through a difficult year,” Basu said, adding that India is trying to go back to fiscal consolidation. (PTI)

BAGHDAD, Apr 19: At least five explosions rocked mainly Shi’ite Muslim areas in an apparent coordinated attack on Iraq’s capital early today, police sources said. They said at least four people had been killed and 20 others wounded.  (agencies)

MELBOURNE, Apr 19: Soon after announcing pulling out its troops from Afghanistan early next year, Australia assured the United States that it has not altered its timetable on withdrawal from the war-torn country.
A informal US query was made at senior officials level following reports of Australia expediating its timeline for pulling a majority of its troops out by 2013, according to The Age newspaper today.
In a speech in Canberra on Tuesday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australian troops would begin pulling out from Afghanistan this year and most would be home by the end of 2013, – a year earlier than the proposed 2014 date.
Australia has some 1,550 troops serving in Afghanistan, mainly in the Oruzgan region. Since 2001, a total of 32 Australian soldiers have been killed in the country.
“What drives the timetable is the assessment by ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and then by the Afghan government of transition, the right moment to enter transition and that is based on an assessment of the growing capability of the Afghan National Security Forces,” she said.
“This is a war with a purpose, this is a war with an end,” Gillard said, adding the 32 Australian soldiers who had lost their lives in the war had not died in vain.
She said the decade-long war had helped quash international terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
According to media reports, Gillard also brushed aside suggestions that timing of the early withdrawal announcement was linked to the US election in November.
She has also agreed to provide a confidential briefing to the Opposition’s acting Defence spokesman George Brandis on the reasons for bringing forward the exit after he suggested the timing could be linked to the Australian election. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Apr 19: Pakistan has kept the “best” of its forces on the “Kashmir border” instead of deploying them on its Afghan border, a top American Senator has said, asserting that Islamabad cannot use Kashmir as an “excuse” to not act against terrorist safe havens.
“Kashmir obviously has a significant effect in a lot of ways… Including the stationing of troops in very significant numbers on Kashmir border rather than on the Afghan border (which) in our view could be much more usefully employed,” Senator John McCain said, responding to a question at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an eminent Washington-based think tank.
McCain, who had visited Jammu and Kashmir last year, said, “I think it is a long standing problem. I understand there have been at least discussions about that Indians are at least in a mood to have conversations (on Kashmir). Lot of people die… It’s a sad situation,” he said.
“…But to somehow use Kashmir as an excuse to break ties with the Haqqani network… By the way, we have now strong evidence of the spectacular attacks, which are reminiscent of the spectacular attack to get American public opinion… That does not change the fact in my view it is reprehensible that the ISI continues to maintain a close relationship with the Haqqani network, responsible for the deaths of Americans,” McCain said.
He said Kashmir “is a huge friction point”, but to use this as an “excuse for its failure to act more forcefully against terrorist networks that are acting almost openly in parts of Afghanistan, is rescind in my view.”
“Facts on the grounds were very clear that majority of the best trained soldiers of the army are on the border with Kashmir, rather than on the border with Afghanistan,” he said when asked about a statement by Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani that he was in favour of less defence spending and peaceful co-existence with India.
McCain said it was a source of “never ending frustration to all of us” to see this “continued relationship” between the ISI and the Haqqani network, “when General Kayani is responsible for the appointment of the head of the ISI”. (PTI)