30 years since the war ended, Vietnam focusses on future

HO CHI MINH CITY: Marching troops paraded down the same route taken by North Vietnamese tanks when they rolled into the city 30 years ago, as Vietnam on Saturday celebrated the communist victory over a government backed by the United States.

Watched by the country's top leaders and legendary figures such as war hero Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, soldiers, government workers and performers marched with red flags waving toward the palace gates. Hundreds of ageing veterans, their chests decked with medals, watched from the sidelines.

Giant billboards of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's revolutionary leader, dominated the parade ground and adjoining streets, which had been blocked off to the public for security concerns.
The atmosphere in the country three decades later has been mostly festive, focusing on Vietnam's recent economic rejuvenation. Memories of the war and its aftermath are little more than anecdotes in history books for most Vietnamese who were born after it ended.
``My father and grandfather fought in the war but I was too young. I think my future will be good because they created opportunities for my generation,'' said Nguyen Thanh Tung, an 18-year-old student.

On April 30, 1975, Communist tanks barrelled through the gates of the Presidential Palace, the heart of the U.S.-backed Saigon Government. The fall of Saigon marked the official end to the Vietnam War, and America's more than decade-long attempt to halt the spread of communism in the region. The war claimed some 58,000 American lives and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese

Attacks target Cairo tourists

Attacks target Cairo tourists
CAIRO, Two militants were killed and 10, including four foreigners, injured following two attacks against foreign tourists in the Egyptian capital today, police said. Within two hours of a bomb blast near the Egyptian Museum, two women fired at a tour bus — part of a recent spate of violence involving attacks on foreigners.

At least two people were killed — apparently the man carrying the bomb who police said jumped off the bridge and one of the shooters. An interior ministry statement identified the man killed in the explosion as Ehab Yousri Yassin, and said he jumped from the bridge during a pursuit, setting off the bomb he was carrying.

He was being chased as a suspect in a 7 April bombing targeting foreigners near a tourist bazaar, it said. Police suspect that the two women involved in the shooting were Yassin’s relatives. Those wounded in the explosion were identified as three Egyptians, an Israeli couple, a Swedish man and an Italian woman.

PROSECUTING STUPID INNOCENCE

Ravi Raj - Does that name ring a bell? Probably no! Well, he can be described as an extraordinarily intelligent and equally stupid guy. He was foolish enough to commit a crime in a most innocent manner. He did not cover his tracks. In fact, he declared his name and address.

Probably, he was not even aware that publishing or selling pornographic images is an offence. Probably, he thought that selling something that is available so easily couldn't be a crime. What he thought or what his intentions were is not relevant. The only relevant fact is that an inefficient police and judicial system has found it convenient to catch him and the brutal heartless and sluggish mammoth does not believe in showing any mercy to the small preys that it can lay its hands on.

Indian police and judicial system follows the rule of the jungle, where the weakest members of a species are hunted down. In any crime, the police are too happy to catch the small petty criminals, while the big ones carry on their 'business' without any fear. Let us take the case of Ravi Raj. A teenaged boy and a girl of Delhi are filmed while they are enjoying themselves. The film is circulated around the country by mobile phones, e-mails and illegal CD's. The film must have surely passed thousands of hands in its journey from Delhi to every nook and corner of the country. This was an amateur film. There are thousands of much better production quality pornographic films circulating in the market. It will be difficult to find an educated male in urban India who has never seen or handled any pornographic film or image. Legally speaking, hence, every man has committed a crime equivalent to the one committed by Ravi Raj. The only difference being that for everyone else it is! a hush-hush act. Ravi Raj, a student of IIT Kharagpur, was stupid enough to not be hush-hush about it. He took the film that was floating around and put it up for sale on a website (Baazee.com).

Professional pornography does not make any news, but this amateur pornography made news. Indian media - always on the lookout for something titillating - flashed this news as if it was the key to country's future. Based on media reports and sensing an easy prey, Delhi police took suo moto action. Ravi Raj had put his hostel address of IIT Kharagpur on baazee.com. So reaching him was easy. When the police reached his hostel room, they had no difficulty in arresting him and seizing his PC. Hard disk of his PC contained all the incriminating evidence that the police wanted. Now they had a foolproof case against this stupid IIT student, whose greatest fault was that he was not a professional porn peddler.

Professionals in the porn trade pay weekly or monthly sums to all concerned police officers and operate under a cover of anonymity. Some naughty children cannot be allowed to disturb a system that is operating smoothly for years. So, they must be punished most harshly. But it is not just a matter of naughty children discovering the pleasures of the flesh. Let us look at much-talked-about Best Bakery case. It is a well-accepted fact that a crowd of more than 1000 persons attacked Best Bakery in Vadodara during communal riots and set it on fire after murdering most of the family members. Police and investigating agencies have caught about 30 odd persons and have charge-sheeted them. It is clear that more than 95 per cent of the persons who committed the crime have not been booked. How did the police select the chosen handful? Are these the ones who were the most vicious and barbaric of the lot? Or are these the stupid ones who did not bother to cover their faces properly, while the professional hardened criminals hid themselves well? Or are these the people who did not pay to the investigating officer all that he demanded, while others managed to get their names cleared by that method?

The irony is that the self-righteous educated middle class, which is firmly of the opinion that all guilty must be punished, shuts its eyes to the worst offenders going scot-free. When Best Bakery accused were acquitted, almost everyone in India (including Supreme Court) were horrified and cried hoarse. Surprisingly, not one of these wise men talked of the ones who were never brought to court.

Mumbai is estimated to have more than 200,000 prostitutes and Delhi is not too far behind. Prostitution is, generally speaking, illegal in India. Most prostitutes are forced into the trade by rape, coercion, fraud, abduction and violence. Given this situation, one would think that Delhi and Mumbai police would have no time on their hands to pursue a teenager who got himself and his girl friend filmed in an obscene manner or to catch a student who tried to sell a clip of the film on the net. Quite in contrast, police have all the time to engage in a nationwide witch-hunt for these amateurs.

Does this hunting of amateur criminals serve the primary objective of legal and judicial system - prevention of crime? Quite the opposite! The system serves to convert the amateur into professional hardened criminals. Coming back to the case of Ravi Raj - let us try to look at what the future holds in store for him. IIT Kharagpur authorities have expelled him. If he is convicted, he will probably spend about a year in jail. Whether he is convicted or not, he will spend the best part of next two or three (probably five to six) years running from courts to police stations to advocate chambers. By the time he is through this ordeal, his only expertise will be handling relations with police, lawyers and courts. With this expertise the only career option open to him will be crime. After this rich experience, he will not be stupid. He would have learnt to sell pornography the right way. With his sharp intelligence (considering that he is an IITian) he would surely rise to heigh! ts in the criminal world.

Of course, it cannot be anyone's argument that Ravi Raj should not be punished. Let us look at this case as if Ravi is our younger brother. When one's child is caught stealing some candies, what does one do? Does one report the matter to police? No, one just slaps the child and admonishes in harsh terms. Ravi deserves a slap, may be two - but not the ordeal that he is facing.

A criminal law system must differentiate between pranks of a naughty child and crimes that are threat to the society. In most civil societies, there are clear laws that prescribe light punishments and humane treatment to first-time offenders. Not in India! Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and judicial system were created by the British for the natives whom they considered sub-human. British could not imagine treating an accused native as brother. After independence, Indian legal, political and administrative fraternity has continued with the British attitudes. When one of their own class is caught in the clutches of judicial process, they discover loopholes to evade. For all others, it is the sledgehammer that shows no mercy and does more harm than good.

In many developed countries, Ravi Raj would have just pleaded guilty before the magistrate as soon as he was produced before one. His admission of guilt and considering the fact that he has no criminal record would have entitled him to get a light punishment - say serving in a social service institution every evening for one year. Even the prosecution lawyer in USA would avoid arguing for sending such a boy to prison. No trial would have been held, sparing the poor boy the trauma of court. This approach of "plea-bargaining" is standard in USA and many other countries. Indian laws have no provision for plea-bargaining.

It is ironic that the legal system of a country, whose ethos lay great stress on KSHAMA (pardon) and PRAYASCHIT (penance), has no place for these values. In Best Bakery Case, if Zahira Sheikh wants to pardon the accused, she is legally prevented from doing so. In a fit of madness, a vast community turned against the family. Now the community might feel sorry and might want to repent for their wrongdoings by rebuilding Best Bakery and doing all in their power to help the survivors. But such sentiments have no place in Indian legal and judicial world. In India, every murder must be followed by equally ghastly judicial murder called capital punishment. This must be secular morality, because no religion in the world has ever advocated this brutal concept of justice.

All religions emphasize love and brotherhood. KSHAMA (pardon) and PRAYASCHIT (penance) arise from these universal values. No society can survive if it lives only by heartless laws. Every society needs to continuously build and strengthen the bonds of heart, not just adhere to laws. Ravi Raj is my brother, Zahira Sheikh is my sister, and all the accused in Best Bakery case are my brethren too. None of them is a hardened criminal beyond reform. Some of them have made mistakes. What is it that I can do to ensure that they do not commit the same mistakes again? What is that I can do to ensure that each of them suffers the minimum? Let this be the sentiment when anyone sits in judgement.

Compassion, mercy, love, empathy and brotherhood are not constitutional values, but are certainly more fundamental and important than anything written in any Constitution or law. Before we sit in judgement, let us not forget that today it is Ravi Raj, tomorrow it may be one of us. Well, Ravi Raj is one of us.

Author - Anil Chawla
ANIL CHAWLA
http://www.samarthbharat.com/resume.htm
is an engineer (and now a lawyer too) by qualification
but a philosopher by vocation and a management
consultant by profession.

India still hopeful on UN vetoAdd to Clippings

NEW DELHI: Unfazed by the views expressed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, India asserted that the debate on the issue of veto for new Security Council members was still open and that a decision on the matter will not be taken by the Security Council but the General Assembly.
External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh maintained that India would demand veto power if it gets the permanent seat in the Security Council and said special envoys were being despatched to all the 192 UN member countries to garner support in this regard.
"There are many views on this (veto issue)," he told reporters here when asked to comment on Annan's statement asking India and other UN Security Council aspirants not to press for veto as Permanent Five were not in favour of this.

Microsoft Shares Up on Strong 3Q Profit

SEATTLE -- Shares of Microsoft Corp. rose Friday after the world's largest software maker reported a third-quarter profit that nearly doubled from a year ago, despite sales that fell short of Wall Street forecasts due to leaner licensing business and a sharp drop in the dollar's value.

Microsoft shares rose 38 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $24.83 in morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The company reported its fiscal third-quarter earnings after financial markets closed on Thursday.

For the quarter ending March 31, the Redmond, Wash.-based company earned $2.56 billion, or 23 cents per share, up from $1.32 billion, or 12 cents per share, a year ago.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were looking for the company to post earnings of 32 cents per share on sales of $9.83 billion in the latest quarter. The company would have met earnings expectations, except for legal charges of 5 cents a share and a 4-cent-per-share charge for the expense of stock-based compensation required under new accounting rules.

Revenue rose 5 percent, from $9.18 billion to $9.62 billion, short of analysts' estimates.

Microsoft blamed the shortfall primarily on a greater-than-expected decline in commercial and retail licensing for Windows and an unfavorable exchange rate in the past few months.

"We had a good quarter overall with some real strong growth out of our server and tools business," said Scott Di Valerio, Microsoft corporate vice president and controller. That unit posted a profit of $824 million on revenue of $2.44 billion, up about 33 percent from earnings of $616 million on revenue of $2.2 billion in the year-ago period.

The Windows and Office software divisions, the company's two cash cows, showed more modest gains _ a cause for concern among some analysts.

Profits on Windows were $2.34 billion on sales of $2.99 billion, up about 3 percent from the year-ago period. Earnings in the Office division were $2 billion on sales of $2.77 billion, up 2.5 percent from third-quarter 2004.

"What's paying the bills? Office and Windows pay the bills, so it would be more comforting if those two divisions were showing stronger year-to-year growth," said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

For the fiscal year ending June 30, Microsoft now expects to earn between $1.26 and $1.30 per share, compared to its previous guidance of $1.09 and $1.11 per share. Revenue is expected to be between $43.3 billion and $44.1 billion, compared to previous guidance of $39.8 billion and $40 billion.

India, Japan sign strategic partnership

India, Japan sign strategic partnership


Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is on a two-day visit to India, met Prime Minister Manomhan Singh today.

Opening a new chapter in their ties, India and Japan decided to launch a high-level strategic dialogue, upgrade economic links and enhance energy, security and defence cooperation.

After wide-ranging talks on a host of issues, Singh and his visiting Japanese counterpart signed a path-breaking joint statement outlining an updated vision of the India-Japan global partnership.

This has been worked out in the backdrop of steady development of bilateral relations in recent years and the far-reaching changes in the international situation, particularly in Asia.

The document captioned "India-Japan Partnership in the New Asian Era: Strategic Orientation of India-Japan Global Partnership" lays down an eight-fold initiative, envisaging:

* enhanced and upgraded dialogue architecture, comprehensive economic engagement

* enhanced security dialogue and initiatives in science and technology

* cultural and academic fields

* people to people contacts

* and cooperation in the UN and other international organisations

Interestingly, both sides will work together on non proliferation.

Koizumi's predecessor Yoshiro Mori had promised a global partnership in 2001, but nothing happened on that because Tokyo was one of India's strongest critics for the nuclear tests.

Large-scale projects

It was also agreed upon that Japan would provide assistance to India for large-scale projects in infrastructure sector, according to highly placed sources.

A major project they agreed to examine is a high- speed computerised freight train between Mumbai and Delhi and Delhi and Kolkata.

This will be part of the Railway Golden Quadrilateral, which will run parallel to the existing Road Golden Quadrilateral.

Bush's Social Security Plan Cuts Benefits

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Friday pitched his new proposal to fix Social Security's finances by cutting the benefit now promised to future retirees for all but the lowest-income recipients and warned Democratic opponents not to "play politics as usual" with it.

"I have a duty to put ideas on the table, and I'm putting them on the table," Bush said at an event in suburban Falls Church, Va. The outing was a follow-up to his prime-time news conference Thursday, in which Bush talked for the first time about his ideas for changes that would solve Social Security's long-term fiscal problems. He told his audience that "those who block meaningful reform are going to be held to account in the polls."

Under Bush's approach, future Social Security checks would increase more quickly for the lowest-income retirees than for everyone else. Though Bush promised that middle- and upper-income retirees would get benefits "equal to or greater than the benefits enjoyed by today's seniors," they would be smaller than what the system is now promising for the future.

"If you've worked all your life and paid into the Social Security system you will not retire into poverty," Bush said. "If Congress were to enact that, that would go a long way toward making the system solvent for the younger generation of Americans."

Bush's plan immediately drew ire from Democrats.

Bush would "gut benefits for middle-class families," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said in a joint statement.

But White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that calling Bush's proposal a cut is "irresponsible." He argued that Social Security's long-term fiscal problems mean that the benefits the system is guaranteeing today "are an empty promise" and that everyone's checks will eventually be smaller if no action is taken.

Bush's proposal could be accomplished with a "sliding-scale benefit formula," the White House said in a fact sheet. That change, it said, would solve 70 percent of Social Security's solvency problem.

No signal to Karunakaran camp: Prakash Karat

CPI(M) to finalise its approach after new party is floated

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPI(M) general secretary, Prakash Karat, has said that the CPI(M) has not sent any signal, positive or negative, to the Karunakaran faction in the Congress, which is getting ready to float a new party.

Replying to questions at a `meet-the-press' programme organised by the Press Club here on Wednesday, Mr. Karat said the CPI(M) would finalise its approach towards the Karunakaran faction after examining the policies and programmes of the new party proposed to be floated by it. "Why should we presume anything at this point? As far as we are concerned, they are still part of the Congress. Therefore, there is no question of our sending any signal to them," he explained.

Mr. Karat, here to attend the two-day State committee meeting of the party from Thursday, said the lone vacancy in the CPI(M) Central Committee would be filled once the organisational issues in the State CPI(M) were resolved. The party had admitted to the existence of factionalism in the State party in the report presented to the 18th Party Congress and it was clear that such issues could not be resolved overnight. "But we are confident that we will be able to resolve all such issues," Mr. Karat said.

Foreign funding

Responding to a volley of questions on the party stand on foreign funding and business ventures being started by cooperatives closely linked with the party, Mr. Karat said the general criteria for the acceptance of foreign funds would be finalised soon by the party Central Committee and given for publication. The party was not against all forms of foreign funding and would rather look at the question depending on the merit of each case.

Anti-Murali `I' group leaders to meet

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the veteran Congress leader K. Karunakaran and the expelled leader K. Muraleedharan going ahead with their plans to split the Congress, factionalism in the party is taking a new shape. This time, the former leaders of the `I' faction are meeting in separate groups.

The first group comprises leaders known for their opposition to Mr. Muraleedharan, but continue to be loyal to Mr. Karunakaran, while the other comprising leaders who left Mr. Karunakaran at various points of time in the last decade. In the meantime, the Karunakaran faction suffered another set back when V.S. Sivakumar, known to be one of Mr. Karunakaran's close confidantes, dissociated himself from the moves to split the party.

The UDF convener, P.P. Thankachan, the former Electricity Minister, Kadavoor Sivadasan, the KPCC treasurer, C.N. Balakrishnan, are among those in the forefront to organise the `I' group members, mostly those who left the faction recently because they found it difficult to get along with Mr. Muraleedharan and his attempts to split the party.

According to sources close to these leaders, all KPCC, DCC office-bearers, executive members, MLAs, frontal organisation leaders who quit the faction refusing to accept Mr. Muraleedharan's move to split the party would hold a get-together on Thrusday in Thiruvananthapuram.

The other group's agenda is slightly different. Its main aim is to protect the interests of all `I' group members, including the Third and Fourth groups in the context of the expected split. According to the assessment of the leaders of this group, more than 90 per cent of the `I' group workers are against a split. "The main item on our agenda is to ensure all `I' group leaders and workers remain in the party and are given adequate protection," according to a leader of the Third group, which is in the forefront of organising this get-together.

"Once the split materialises, it is imperative to protect the interests of the `I' group.

There is a need to ensure a sense security among these workers," he said.

The decision to convene such a meeting has been taken on the basis of an understanding arrived at after discussions with the KPCC president, Thennala Balakrishna Pillai, the Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy and other leaders. At these discussions, it was generally felt that all those who were prepared to quit the Karunakaran faction should be given an assurance that their positions would be protected, he said. The convening of the two meetings clearly suggests that factionalism is far from over in the Congress. The race is now to attract Mr. Karunakaran's camp followers.

Putin for West Asia summit in Moscow

MANAMA: After staying on the margins for several years, Russia has begun a fresh effort to regain lost ground in West Asia with the visit of its President, Vladimir Putin, to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

At a press conference in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Mr. Putin called for a West Asian peace conference in Moscow this autumn. Striking an assertive note, he also advocated a greater role for the U.N. in Iraq.

"I am suggesting that we should convene a conference for all these countries concerned [with the peace process] and the Quartet, next autumn," he said in the presence of his Egyptian host, Hosni Mubarak. The so-called Quartet includes Russia, the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations.

Later in the day, Mr. Putin was due to visit Israel where talks with the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, have been slated for Thursday. Nearly a million Russian Jews have migrated to Israel, and now comprise nearly one-sixth of the country's population. Mr. Putin said the Foreign Ministers of the Quartet would meet in Moscow on May 8 to discuss the West Asia peace process.

Referring to Iraq, both leaders proposed that the U.N. should play a more active role.

Lakhani judged guilty of terror charges

New York, (Guardian News Service): A British businessman who tried to sell shoulder-launched missiles to what he thought was a terrorist cell that planned to shoot down aircraft in the US was found guilty on Wednesday in a federal court in New Jersey.

Hemant Lakhani, 69, a former clothing merchant from Hendon, north London, was found guilty of all five charges he faced, including attempting to provide material support to terrorists and the unlawful brokering of foreign defence articles.

The offences carry a maximum sentence of 67 years in prison and fines of up to $2.5 million.

Lakhani agreed to supply a Russian-made Igla missile to a government informant posing as a representative of the Somali-based Ogaden National Liberation Front.

He was arrested in a hotel room in Newark, New Jersey, in August 2003 by undercover US government agents.

Lakhani had told the agents that the rockets could be used to shoot down 10 to 15 aeroplanes simultaneously on the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist outrage, and offered a further 50 missiles.

Lakhani, who was born in India but had lived in Britain for 45 years, is heard on audio and video tapes praising Osama bin Laden and claiming the terror leader ``straightened them all out'' and ``did a good thing''.

``This case is about a man who enthusiastically tries to sell 200 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to people who he believed would use them to shoot down planes in the sky with people aboard as part of a terrorist attack on the United States,'' Stuart Rabner, the prosecutor, told the court.

But Lakhani's defence team painted him as an opportunist amateur, with no known links to terrorist organisations, who fell victim to an elaborate sting operation in which the buyer and the seller of the missiles were in fact undercover law enforcement officials.

His lawyer, Henry Klingeman, acknowledged he was an unsophisticated ``clown'', but one, he said, who was utterly incapable of selling illegal arms without the help of a manufactured government plot.

``There was no missile plot until the government created one,'' he said.

``You can convict Lakhani, you can put him in prison for the rest of his life, but it's not going to make any of us safer.'' But the prosecution insisted that Lakhani's ignorance was no excuse, saying he pursued the opportunity to sell the arms with ``gusto''.

``He's not charged with being a sophisticated criminal,'' said Mr Rabner. ``You can be a dumb criminal.'' Outside the courtroom the prosecution hailed the verdict as a victory in the war on terror.

``The evidence proved that Mr Lakhani was engaged in a scheme willingly, knowingly and anxiously to sell arms to people he thought would use them to kill innocent US citizens,'' said prosecutor Christopher Christie.

``He is a victim of his own evil, greedy, deceitful conduct.'' Mr Klingeman acknowledged that Lakhani had ``no compelling explanation'' for his actions.

He would decide whether to appeal after sentencing, which was set for August 12.

``Mr Lakhani's very sad. He's an old man, his wife has been left behind.'' His trial began in January, but took several breaks while he underwent an angioplasty for a heart condition and an emergency hernia operation.

World Bank moots neutral experts for Baglihar issue

New Delhi, April 29. The World Bank has written to India recommending the appointment of a neutral expert to arbitrate in the Baglihar Dam dispute between India and Pakistan in terms of the Indus Water Treaty of September 1960. "We have received a reply from the World Bank recommending appointment of a neutral expert. They have also proposed a panel of three names," an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said in response to questions from the media. Pakistan has sought the World Bank's The World Bank has written to India recommending the appointment of a neutral expert to arbitrate in the Baglihar Dam dispute between India and Pakistan in terms of the Indus Water Treaty of September 1960.

"We have received a reply from the World Bank recommending appointment of a neutral expert. They have also proposed a panel of three names," an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said in response to questions from the media.

Pakistan has sought the World Bank's arbitration in the matter, accusing India of violating the treaty. India recently again appealed to Pakistan to settle the matter bilaterally.

Top student leader is arrested in Nepal

KATHMANDU: Gagan Kumar Thapa, a prominent student leader was arrested early Tuesday morning from his hideout in Kathmandu.


Thapa's friends told The Times Of India that he was arrested with two of his colleagues in an early morning sweep by security forces. He has been jailed at a police station barely 500 metres from the Narayanhity Royal Palace.

A charismatic student leader who shot to fame in late 2003 for shouting republican slogans on the streets of Kathmandu, Thapa was charged with sedition by the King's government and jailed for more than 2 weeks before rising youth anger forced his release.

As secretary general of the Nepali Congress' student wing, he played a prominent role in bringing republican issues to mainstream discourse in summer of 2004, prompting his party to fire him from the student body.

But instead of disappearing, Thapa emerged as the most popular youth leader who could not be ignored. His arrest, therefore, comes as a big victory for the royal regime.

Minutes after his arrest became public through a secret grape vine, human rights networks kicked into high gear in an effort to bring the news out.

Blair's 'big lie' finally out, but he fights on

LONDON: A defiant and barely defeated Downing Street has finally and controversially published the full text of the legal advice given to prime minister Tony Blair on whether or not it was legal for Britain to join the Americans in invading Iraq. Just seven days before Britain votes in an election expected to return a battered but resilient Blair to power, the prime minister faced the ignominy of being privately thought a liar by his people, press, political colleagues and opponents alike.


On Thursday, screaming media leaks told the British electorate that their prime minister had been advised and deceitfully kept silent about the view of the government’s most senior law officer. The legal officer in question, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, had warned Blair in a confidential minute before the war that British participation in George W Bush’s Iraq invasion could be declared illegal.

Offering a cautious legal view, which Blair till now repeatedly refused to publish for the nation’s assessment, the attorney-general warned that it could leave Britain facing the prospect of losing a case in an international court. Goldsmith added that while he expected to be able to argue "a reasonable case"in favour of Blair’s proposed military action, he was not confident a court would agree.

Goldsmith admitted that past UN resolutions sanctioning war on Iraq might be a reasonable basis for legal argument, but he added a caveat, namely that there had to be ‘strong factual grounds’ Iraq was still in breach of internationally-imposed disarmament obligations.

India: PM rejects demand for Lalu's dismissal

New Delhi, April. 27 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, today virtually rejected the Opposition demand for the dismissal of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, in the wake of framing of charges against him in a fodder scam case.

"These are hypothetical questions. We will cross the bridge when we reach there. Today there is no change in the situation," Singh told NDTV when asked about the Opposition demand and in the event of Supreme Court rejecting his bail plea likely to come up on May 10.
On the NDA accusation of "political opportunism" levelled against him for retaining Prasad because of his numbers essential for the UPA Government, he said "Well, I have been accused of many things and I cannot comment on them."

On the Opposition decision to boycott Parliament for three days, Singh said all he could say was that he could appeal to the good sense of the Opposition.

"I took the initiative this afternoon to speak both to L K Advani and Jaswant Singh. I mentioned to them that it does not augur well for the future of our polity for the second year in a row that the financial business of the Government is transacted without the presence of the principal Opposition party.

"I requested them to reconsider their decision. I said everything can be discussed on the floor of the House. Whatever the grievances, let us create an atmosphere in which we can debate all these things," he said.

India welcomes Annan, eyes UNSC seat

In a departure from protocol, Indian External Affairs minister Natwar Singh welcomed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to India on his three-day visit.

It is a sign that New Delhi has made UN reform, particularly its bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council, a foreign policy goal.

"We are very pleased to have the Secretary General in Delhi at this time, particularly when the reform of the United Nations is very high indeed on the international agenda," said Natwar Singh.

The Secretary General also knows he has to keep India on board, if he wants to push through his reform plans before the next big meeting in September.

"We also believe that the UN institutions should be strengthened," said Annan.
"And of course, the proposals for the expansion of the Security Council which I hope, as part of the reform proposals, will be approved this year by the member states," he added.
But a vote or even consensus by then seems unlikely, as the world remains bitterly divided over two rival proposals to expand the 15 member Security Council to 24.

Proposed UN reform plans:
Plan A: Six permanent members--- One proposal is for six permanent seats to be added. Interested parties Japan, Germany, India and Brazil have joined forces to lobby for its adoption. While China opposes Japan's bid, Pakistan has opposed India's inclusionPlan B: Eight semi-permanent members---The other proposal would add eight semi-permanent seats. This is supported by Pakistan, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and several others, who are hoping to get it in rotationNo veto powers to new members --- However, the UN reform plan says nothing about veto powers, which remain with the elite five permanent members. But the process is not all that simple. Annan's reform plans looks at a new human rights agenda, defining terrorism and poverty.

And yet, New Delhi insists that for the world body to have any relevance, it must be given a key position in decision-making.

Oil Falls on Signs of Increased OPEC Output, Inventory Growth

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell for a second day in New York on speculation that production will rise after Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and President George W. Bush discussed oil policy at a meeting yesterday.

OPEC daily output of crude oil rose by 700,000 barrels to 30.4 million this month, the majority coming from Saudi Arabia, according to estimates by PetroLogistics Ltd. A government report tomorrow is expected to show that U.S. crude-oil inventories rose for the 10th week in 11.
``The meeting between Abdullah and Bush has had a psychological effect on the market,'' said Jim Steel, director of commodity research at Refco Inc. in New York. ``The message that came out of the meeting was that OPEC, and in particular the Saudis, will increase production and keep us well supplied.''

Crude oil for June delivery fell 42 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $54.15 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures reached $58.28 on April 4, the highest since the contract began in 1983. Prices are up 46 percent from a year ago.
In London, the June Brent crude-oil futures contract fell 28 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $54.12 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Brent futures are down 6.1 percent from the record $57.65 a barrel reached on April 4.

``We believe that supplies, as we speak, are adequate,'' Prince Abdullah's foreign policy adviser, Adel al-Jubeir, told reporters yesterday after the meeting at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. ``Saudi Arabia has some spare capacity that it can produce,'' he said.

Saudi Arabia hasn't been asked for more oil because output is sufficient, al-Jubeir said. Production will meet demand in the fourth quarter, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

`Met by Skepticism'
``The meeting was met by skepticism by my customers,'' said Aaron Kildow, a broker at Prudential Financial Derivatives, LLC in New York. ``It looked like the Saudis were blowing smoke but one can't deny they have raised output recently. It looks like a lot of the increased OPEC output will be headed our way because of refinery maintenance in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.''

The 11-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries boosted production from a revised 29.7 million barrels a day for March, Conrad Gerber, the president of Geneva-based PetroLogistics, which assesses supply by tracking tankers, said in a telephone interview today.
Output in Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest producer, probably rose to 9.6 million barrels a day this month from a revised 9.05 million a day for March, he estimated.
`Oversupplied'
The global oil market is well supplied and may ``even be oversupplied,'' Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Iran's oil minister, said at a conference of natural-gas exporting countries in Port-of- Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Iran hasn't decided on a position for OPEC's June 15 meeting in Vienna.

``The market should not expect everything to be done by OPEC because everything is not in the hands of OPEC,'' he said. ``There are many players that are acting in the market.''
Zanganeh said he was concerned that high prices might slow economic growth.

Germany's six leading economic institutes cut their forecast for growth this year in half as high oil prices crimped consumers' spending power and unemployment rose to a post-World War II high. Germany's economy will grow 0.7 percent in 2005, the institutes said, slashing their October forecast of 1.5 percent. Germany is the fourth-largest oil consumer.

Surging Profits
BP Plc, the world's second-largest publicly traded oil company, posted a 29 percent jump in first-quarter profit to a record because of higher energy prices. Net income rose to $5.49 billion, or 25.6 cents a share, from $4.26 billion, or 19.3 cents, in the year-earlier period, excluding gains in the value of its oil inventories.

London-based BP is the first of the world's largest oil companies to report earnings for the period, when New York crude oil averaged $50.03 a barrel. Chief Executive John Browne in an interview said economic growth is ``pretty good'' around the world, with few signs of a slowdown in demand.

U.S. crude oil stockpiles probably rose 650,000 barrels last week from 318.9 million barrels the previous week, according to the median of forecasts by 14 analysts before the Energy Department report. Eight analysts expected an increase and six a decline. Supplies in the week ended April 15 were 4.8 percent higher than the five-year average for the week.
Gasoline Inventories

Gasoline stockpiles probably fell 1 million barrels last week, according to the median forecast. The department will release its report on inventories tomorrow at 10:30 a.m.
Gasoline for May delivery fell 2.4 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $1.627 a gallon in New York. Futures have declined 7 percent since touching a record $1.749 on April 4. Prices are 38 percent higher than a year ago.

Pump prices for regular grade gasoline rose 0.1 cent to an average $2.219 a gallon yesterday, according to the AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association. Prices touched a record $2.276 a gallon on April 8 and are 23 percent higher than a year ago.

Taiwan Oppn leader arrives in China on historic visit

Beijing, Apr 26 China today accorded a red carpet welcome to arch-rival Taiwan's main opposition leader Lien Chan, who arrived in the eastern city of Nanjing on a historic peace mission ahead of his visit here for highest-level talks in six decades with the Chinese leadership which may ease tense cross-Straits ties.Lien, Chairman of the Kuomintang Party (KMT) of Taiwan, who has described his visit as a "peace journey," has been invited by Chinese President Hu Jintao, also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

Hu will meet Lien on Friday, marking the first highest-level contact between the two parties since the defeated Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan island after a bitter civil war and the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 by the CPC under 'Chairman' Mao Zedong.

Lien's eight-day visit comes amid rising cross-Strait tensions after the booming Communist nation's parliament last month approved a controversial "Anti-Secession Law" authorising its military the legal basis to attack Taiwan if the island moves towards formal independence.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since the end of the civil war in 1949 but Beijing still considers the island as a rebel province that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Ties between Beijing and Taipei have been strained after Chen Shui-bian, head of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), ended the KMT's 51-year rule in the 2000 presidential election.

Much to the dislike of China, Chen was re-elected in 2004, plunging cross-Straits relations to dangerous levels.

The Devi temple of Chottanikkara near Kochi in Kerala is well known throughout this part of the country for the healing powers, particularly relating to mental illness and disorders. Although popularly called as Raja Rajeshwari, she is known by various names such as Badrakali, Durga, Saraswathi and Amman.

The devotees are mostly from the lower class who have faith in curing patients supposed to be possessed by some sort of spirits. It is very difficult to say whether the cure is the result of the psychological faith in the Goddess or due to the environment within the temple. Mostly, the patients are psychological cases and faith probably cures them. The Chief priest of the temple engages the patients in a sort of conversation and then orders the spirit to leave the patient and go elsewhere. This practice of driving an iron nail into a wooden pillar in the temple, indicated that the spirit is permanently made immobile.



According to local practice, Raja Rajeshwari is worshiped as Saraswathi in the morning, as Bhadra Kali in the afternoon and as Durga in the evening. All the rituals relate to drive away the evil spirits and the methods adopted are varied. Neem leaves, lime fruits, chillies, etc., are offered to the deity and are taken home to be fixed or tied in a corner of the house. This is supposed to ward off all evil spirits.

Many stories are told about the origin of the temple. All of them appear to be relating to tribal deities as being practiced thousands of years ago. However, the devotees have such firm belief in this deity and she is 'Parashakthi' capable of protecting her devotees from any type of difficulty.



The local tradition mentions that the famous saint Vilvamangalam installed the idol of Bhadrakali in a place Kizhakavu having taken out the original idol from the bed of a tank. There is no authentic record or any inscription available about the various stories related about the place and the deity. Many stories are told by the devotees about the miracles performed by the goddess.

The temple of this goddess is located on the out-skirts of Kochi and local buses are run to the place very frequently. There are many good hotels in Kochi according to the needs of the tourist and pilgrims.

Chottanikkara temple

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Wipro net profit jumps by 58%

Bangalore: Wipro Limited, announced a net profit of Rs 1,629 crores for 2004-05 financial year. It is a net jump of 58 per cent when compared to the previous year's Rs 1,031.05 crores the company said in a press conference to announce its results on Friday.

The company's board also approved the issue of additional bonus shares to shareholders in the ratio of one additional share per share held by them. Apart from this, the board has also recommended a cash dividend of Rs 5 per share on existing paid-up capital.

Its dollar revenue in the global IT business has grown to the extent of 43 per cent, despite the rupee's appreciation. The company posted a revenue of Rs 8,169.8 crores, an increase of 39 per cent over Rs 5,881.2 crores in 2003-04.

Commenting on the results, Wipro chairman Azim Premji said that despite the increase in the compensation cost, non-cash charge of restricted stock units and sharply appreciating rupee, the company raised the bar on the operational efficiency leading to increased utilisation, improved price realisation and enhanced portion of revenues from offshore projects, resulting in a far healthier operating margin. "Considering the emerging opportunities in the global market and our unique business model, the future outlook looks as exciting as the journey has been so far. Looking ahead, for the quarter ending June 2005, we expect our revenues from Global IT Services to be approximately $395 million," Mr Premji said, while projecting the company's growth in first quarter of the current financial year.

He added that the process of strategic transformation of their BPO business will continue. "It will help the company in not only building competency among the BPO business, but also ensure a far superior go-to-market approach," he explained.

The NYSE-listed Wipro posted net profits of Rs 433 crores and income of Rs 2,312.10 crores in the fourth quarter ended March 2005 while it also added 41 new clients during the quarter.
The vice-chairman of Wipro, Mr Vivek Paul said that the last quarter witnessed strong sequential volume growth of 8.5 per cent and this led to the highest ever addition in billed man-months in a quarter.

"We saw healthy growth in the number of new clients as well as the deepening of our presence in existing customers," he added.

He clarified that the company's differentiated testing services continued to grow ahead of the company's overall growth rates. "This broad-based growth resulted in revenues of $375 million which is ahead of our guidance of $370 million."

Apart from increase in the customer volume, the IT major also added 2,520 people comprising 1,187 in IT services and 1,333 in BPO business in the fourth quarter of 2004-05 fiscal year to take its total employee strength to 41,857. The total employee strength includes 26,184 in the IT services business and 15,673 people in the BPO business.

Revenues from Wipro Infotech, the India and Asia-Pacific IT services arm, stood at Rs 1,396.4 crores and from consumer care and lighting business, Rs 472.3 crores.

Japan and China pledge better ties

The leaders of Japan and China have pledged to improve ties after weeks of escalating disputes, easing tension but not resolving some critical problems besieging relations between East Asia's big powers.

After a 55-minute meeting Saturday on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit conference here, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan said both sides had agreed to look beyond disagreements and focus on the future.

But speaking at a separate news conference, China's top leader, Hu Jintao, sounded less optimistic, saying that Japan needed to reflect on its past and warning Tokyo not to meddle in its internal affairs by supporting Taiwan.

Both sides appeared to soften their positions. Koizumi did not insist on an apology or compensation for anti-Japanese vandalism in China, as Japanese diplomats had earlier. Hu did not directly demand that Koizumi stop visiting Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined among Japan's war dead, as he had in their previous meeting, in November.
"We were able to confirm at the meeting that rather than criticizing each other's past shortcomings and aggravating antagonistic feelings, we should make efforts to develop the bilateral friendship," Koizumi said. "The Japan-China friendship is beneficial not only for the two countries but also for Asia and the international community," he added.

Hu also stressed the importance of the relationship. "At the moment Sino-Japanese relations face a difficult situation," he said. "Such a difficult situation is not one we want to see. It would be detrimental to China and Japan and would affect stability and development in Asia."
With the Chinese government ordering an end to anti-Japanese marches last week, the meeting appeared to cap three weeks of rising tension that was as much about history as over influence in this region. The marches in China focused on Japanese junior high school textbooks that whitewash Japan's militarism, as well as Tokyo's bid to become a permanent member of an enlarged United Nations Security Council.

On Friday, Koizumi delivered the most public apology in a decade over Japan's aggression in Asia, allowing the Chinese to accept the meeting with Koizumi.

Hu expressed his displeasure at Tokyo's recent declaration with Washington that Taiwan was a common security issue in light of China's growing military power. But he appeared to soften his tone regarding Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

"I would like you to recognize history correctly and I would like you to translate your reflection into concrete action," Hu told Koizumi during their talk, said a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Akira Chiba, who was at the meeting.


Raymond Bonner reported from Jakarta and Norimitsu Onishi from Tokyo.
Chinese textbooks criticized

Chinese textbooks are "extreme" in their interpretation of history, Japan's foreign minister said Sunday, The Associated Press reported from Tokyo.

Nobutaka Machimura said: "From the perspective of a Japanese person, Chinese textbooks appear to teach that everything the Chinese government has done has been correct." That is a tendency in any country, said, "but the Chinese textbooks are extreme in the way they uniformly convey the 'our country is correct' perspective." He said Japan's textbooks did not gloss over Japan's invasion of other Asian countries.

The leaders of Japan and China have pledged to improve ties after weeks of escalating disputes, easing tension but not resolving some critical problems besieging relations between East Asia's big powers.

After a 55-minute meeting Saturday on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit conference here, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan said both sides had agreed to look beyond disagreements and focus on the future.

But speaking at a separate news conference, China's top leader, Hu Jintao, sounded less optimistic, saying that Japan needed to reflect on its past and warning Tokyo not to meddle in its internal affairs by supporting Taiwan.

New Pope receives insignia of office- -

Vatican City:
Pope Benedict XVI was given the insignia of papal office on Sunday, a woollen pallium and the Fisherman's Ring, denoting his power as supreme spiritual leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

The pallium, a circular band of fabric decorated with square crosses, was placed around his shoulders by Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez.
On a finger was placed the Fisherman's Ring bearing the image of St Peter, disciple of Jesus and the first pope in the 2,000-year history of the Church.
It was the central ceremony of the pontiff's inauguration on Saint Peter's Square, in front of leaders and representatives of more than half the world's nations and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.
Benedict XVI, who is 78, was elected on Tuesday by his cardinal colleagues after the April 2 death of John Paul II.

Karunakaran and Murali strike anti-BJP position

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The senior Congress leader, K. Karunakaran, on Friday drew the contours of political developments that are likely to take place after his May 1 Thrissur convention by indicating that he would not take positions that would allow the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to capitalise on the situation.

Mr. Karunakaran, who returned from Delhi this afternoon, steered clear of questions relating to a possible split in the Congress. He maintained that a final decision would be taken at the May 1 convention, which has been convened to hear the views of his supporters. Mr. Karunakaran, however, could not conceal his discomfiture at the new political situation. "I don't know whether any mediatory efforts are on. But I don't see the possibilities for it," he told mediapersons when they met him at his residence.

Asked what political line he would take after May 1, Mr. Karunakaran said he would stick to the declared policies of the Congress, but would not take positions that would give space to the BJP in Kerala. He said his main concern was the organisational aspects in the days after the convention. In any case, we would not pursue violent methods, he added.

The expelled Congress leader, K. Muraleedharan, also spoke more or less on the same lines. Mr. Muraleedharan was more forthcoming than Mr. Karunakaran about the floating of a new party and the options open to it. "All doubts about our plans would be cleared on May 1," Mr. Muraleedharan told mediapersons here at a conference venue.

Mr. Karunakaran met the NCP leader and Union Minister for Agriculture and Food, Sharad Pawar, shortly before he left Delhi this morning. Asked about it, Mr. Karunakaran said that he had met many leaders, not only from the Congress, but also from other parties.

Asked whether he was probing the possibilities of a link with non-Congress leaders such as Mr. Pawar, Mr. Karunakaran shot back: Why do you exclude K. Chandrashekhar and Deve Gowda?"

Pope's personal tone contrasts with his stiff, strident image

Vatican City, April. 23 Pope Benedict XVI said today he hopes to continue the openness with the media fostered by his predecessor and thanked journalists for their coverage during the "historically important" events during the papal transition.

"I hope to follow this dialogue with you and I share, as Pope John Paul II observed concerning the faith, the development of social communications," the Pontiff told more than 1,000 members of the media and pilgrims in his first appearance in the vast Vatican hall used for weekly general audiences.

Benedict noted that John Paul had been "a great artisan" of an "open and sincere" dialogue with the media that was started by the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s. He noted that the media in the modern age has the capacity to reach "the whole of humanity."

"Thanks to all of you, this historically important ecclesiastical events have had worldwide coverage. I know how hard you have worked, far away from your homes and families for long hours and in sometimes difficult conditions. I am aware of this dedication with which you have accomplished this demanding task," said the Pontiff.

The session, which lasted about 15 minutes, ended without the Pope taking any questions. However, Vatican officials had said in recent days that he likely wouldn't take questions and that the meeting was more an audience to greet journalists than a press conference.

AMD, Intel Dual-Core Race

AMD and Intel are racing to get their respective dual-chip processors out the door and into workstations, servers and PCs. AMD's Opteron looks to have a slight lead but Intel, in true tradition, is not likely to hand over its market dominating position.

AMD's server oriented dual-core Opteron processor line was released this week. The company's Vice President said a majority of AMD's Opteron chips will ship as dual and multi-core processors by the end of this year. Desktop computers using AMD's dual-core chips under the brand name of Athlon 64 X2, should be out in June.

This week also saw Intel launch its dual-core chips for its Pentium EE line targeted at gamers. Intel is also hoping to get its dual-core Xeons (targeted at desktops and workstations) to market as soon as possible but they're currently not expected before late this year or early 2006.

The new-generation power processors can hold mutliple cores, or processors, on a single chip. In operability terms this means multiple tasks can be run simultaneously by different processors allowing for better all around functioning and speed.

How does the road lay for the two processor kings? ABC said it best:
"What's next for dual-core processors? AMD announced the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 CPUs on April 21st, and we're sure to see more system builders drop these Athlon 64 X2 CPUs and Opterons, as well as Intel's dual-core Pentium D, Pentium EE 840 and Xeons, in high?powered multimedia and gaming systems in the months to come."

Yahoo, Google look to new outlets

Blockbuster quarters reported by Yahoo and Google this week illustrate the evolution of online advertising into a major economic engine.
Both Internet giants enjoyed big growth that is expected to continue well into the future.

But that future won't be limited to the Web page ads that Internet users are accustomed to seeing today, according to some analysts. Yahoo and Google probably will expand their ad networks to television and mobile phones as online and offline media increasingly converge, the analysts said.

"I think it's certainly possible," said Benjamin Schachter, an analyst for UBS Securities. "There will be testing."

Both Google and Yahoo reported stellar first-quarter results, based largely on the strength of their targeted search engine advertising businesses. The companies get paid each time a user clicks on one of the ads, and lately, the clicking has been furious.

Earlier this week, Google reported a sixfold increase in first-quarter profit. Investors reacted by pushing the Mountain View search engine's shares up $11.59 to $215.81, or nearly 6 percent.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, doubled its first-quarter profit. The Web portal's shares closed down $1 at $34.84 Friday but gained nearly 7 percent for the week.

Extending online advertising beyond its traditional boundaries will be a major topic at Ad:Tech, an Internet advertising conference in San Francisco next week. A flurry of companies is hoping to capitalize on the idea, which is still in its infancy.

Expanding their advertising network beyond Web pages could help Yahoo's and Google's businesses grow after reaching their limits online. The seeds are already in place, according to analysts.

Paul Palumbo, an analyst for AccuStream iMedia Research, an interactive media consulting firm, cited a Google video service introduced last week. Users will be able to download video files submitted to the site by amateurs and Hollywood alike, eventually accompanied by ads, he predicted.

"Google's just like any other part of the media business. They have to exploit their audience," Palumbo said.

"It would be one-dimensional for Google to have paid search and text- based advertising in an environment that is going multimedia."

Google's nascent video service is at https://upload.video.google.com/. So far, the company is asking only for video file submissions and has yet to make downloads possible.

There's no word from Google on whether it will incorporate advertisements into the videos. The terms of service allow for contributors to charge for downloads and for Google to take a cut.

Google is clearly interested in offering more animated advertising. In a conference call Thursday, Larry Page, Google's co-founder, said his company will eventually offer more graphical ads to marketers.

Yahoo already has a head start. It has offered television-like ads for some time -- dancing Coke bottles, for instance -- in a prelude to music videos downloaded from the Yahoo Music area.

More could be on the way through Yahoo's partnership with SBC to offer advanced online services via mobile phones, wireless Internet and television. Such services -- part of an industrywide march to digital convergence -- could start rolling out by the end of the year.

Multimedia ads, Palumbo said, are especially desirable for companies like Google and Yahoo because they can charge a premium for them. Advertisers are interested because they can get their message across more effectively and usually to a more targeted audience than on television, he said.

David Hallerman, an analyst for eMarketer, a research firm that follows online advertising, warned that Google and Yahoo face hurdles when it comes to venturing beyond traditional Web page advertising. Experiments with interactive television have generally been failures because viewers preferred to watch passively.

Converting online ads for mobile telephones is another idea that analysts believe Yahoo and Google are looking into. Text ads that run alongside search engine results are a natural fit, analysts said.

But Hallerman noted that mobile phone users already pay for their phone service and may resent the ads appearing on their screens.

China, Japan Leaders Hold Reconciliation Talks

JAKARTA Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Saturday he wanted better relations with Japan but also told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during ice-breaking talks that Tokyo needed to learn from its wartime past.

Koizumi said the one-hour talks in Jakarta were "very good" but he has yet to make further comments on the effort by Asia's economic powerhouses to repair relations that are at their worst in three decades.

The talks came a day after Koizumi made an unusually public apology for Japan's past atrocities in Asia.

"Remorse expressed for the war of aggression should be translated into action," Hu told reporters after the meeting, held at the end of an Asian and African summit in Jakarta.

"(Japan) should never do anything again that would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people or the people of other Asian countries."

Hu said differences between the two Asian giants needed to be resolved through dialogue. Japan also needed to meet its commitments not to support the independence of Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, Hu added.

"We hope both sides will make efforts so that Sino-Japanese relations can be on a healthy and stable development track."

Asked how the meeting went as he left a Jakarta hotel where the talks took place, Koizumi waved and said: "Very good."

He was expected to hold a news conference later on Saturday.
The two shook hands as they met in a ballroom, Koizumi using both hands but appearing relaxed while Hu was stiff and expressionless. When they sat opposite each other at a long table, Koizumi told Hu about his trip earlier in the day to the tsunami-hit province of Aceh.

"I went to Aceh province today ... I saw that a roof of a two-storey building had been destroyed by the tsunami and realized how tall the waves were," Koizumi said before reporters were ushered out of the room.

LONDON - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized on Friday for Japan's wartime atrocities and said he would meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in a

Here is a short chronology of major incidents in the two countries' rocky ties.
1895 - Japan wins Sino-Japanese War and imposes Treaty of Shimonoseki, which forces China out of Korea and cedes Taiwan to Japan.

1931 - Japan carries out a coup against the Chinese in Shenyang (Mukden) known as the "Mukden Incident." Japanese troops begin occupying northeast China, then known as Manchuria. Tokyo set up Pu Yi, the recently deposed Chinese emperor, as head of the puppet state Manchukuo in 1932.

1937 - Japan invades mainland China from its foothold in Manchuria and in December takes Nanjing. In 1948 the Tokyo war crimes tribunal finds that Japanese troops killed 155,000 people in the Nanjing massacre. China says the toll is 300,000, while Japan never gives an estimate.

1945 - Japan surrenders after two atom bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II, and withdraws its troops from China.
1972 - Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visits China in September. Tokyo and Beijing establish diplomatic relations. Japan says it understands and respects China's position that Taiwan is a renegade province.

1978 - Japan and China sign a 10-year peace and friendship treaty in August.
1985 - Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone visits Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine sparking anti-Japanese protests in China. War criminals are honored at the shrine along with Japan's war dead.
1992 - Emperor Akihito becomes the first Japanese monarch to visit China and says he "deplored" the sufferings brought upon China by Japan but stopped short of offering an apology for his country's brutal military past.
1995 - Fifty years after World War II ended, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama makes Japan's most forthright and widely recognized apology for starting a conflict that killed up to 20 million people.

1997 - Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto becomes the first post-war Japanese leader to visit northeast China. Hashimoto angered China the previous year by visiting the Yakusuni shrine.

Former Defense Minister of India Fernandes – victim of witch hunt

It is a witch-hunt in India that is targeting the former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes has become the center of political focal points. The UPA Government is attacking this man ruthlessly.

But some does stand with George Fernandes. Attacking the UPA Government for ''''acting with ill will'''' against former Defence Minister George Fernandes, in connection with alleged irregularities in Kargil defence purchases, Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav, today warned that any attempt at ''''implicating political opponents in false cases will boomerang on the Government''''.

''''The UPA Government is acting with ill will against Fernandes and any attempt to implicate political opponents in false cases will boomerang on the Government,'''' he said addressing a gathering after inaugurating the three-day sixth national convention of his party. The way the Government has filed ''''conflicting'''' affidavits in the court to ''''frame'''' Fernandes, reflects its ''''dictatorial style of functioning'''', he said. Taking a dig at the Congress party, Yadav, who is also the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, said it was difficult to understand who -- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, or Congress President Sonia Gandhi-- wielded real power.

Assailing the UPA Government's policies, Mulayam said, ''''militancy (in Kashmir) is on the rise but unfortunately we have lowered our guard on frontiers. My party welcomes the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service but we have to be vigilant on the border. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, speaks good things but we should never forget Kargil.''''

Accusing the Centre of having shown ''''undue haste'''' in passage of the Patents Bill, the SP leader said as a result of 'slipshod'''' economic policies the multi-national corporations were dictating terms to the Government.

Germany's Ratzinger elected Pope

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the strict defender of Catholic orthodoxy for the past 23 years, was elected Pope on Tuesday despite a widespread assumption he was too old and divisive to win election.

He took the name Benedict XVI, a cardinal announced to crowds in St. Peter's Square after white smoke from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel chimney and the pealing of bells from St. Peter's Basilica announced that a new pope had been chosen.

Roman Catholic cardinals elected Ratzinger on just the second day of secret conclave to find a successor to Pope John Paul II.

Billed as the front-runner going into the conclave, Ratzinger, 78, was widely seen as a standard-bearer who would fall short of the required two-thirds majority and have to cede to a more conciliatory compromise figure.

180 degrees from ‘dispute’ to ‘referendum’

NEW DELHI: When General Pervez Musharraf said things had taken a 180 degree turn since the Agra summit, his body language showed that he meant it.

At a meeting with editors in July 2001, the Pakistani President was curt, his speech abrupt, and stuck rigidly to the Kashmir dispute, his visit coming shortly after the Kargil conflict. But when he met editors on Monday morning in the Capital, Musharraf appeared composed and entirely at ease with the flurry of probing questions about sensitive issues as Palestine and Chechnya.

While Musharraf continued to stick to the Kashmir issue, he stayed away from words like ‘‘dispute’’, instead tapping into the more reassuring sound of ‘‘referendum’’.

Musharraf said he had heard on the grapevine that people were saying, ‘‘Phir se wohi dil laya hai’’, referring to the acrimony during his Agra visit. With a smile, he said: ‘‘This time, I beg to differ.’’ Joint statement ends with a smileMusharraf’s good humour stretched to the most important occasion this time, the declaration of the joint statement on Monday morning.After PM Manmohan Singh read out the statement, the two leaders stepped in front of their lecterns to shake hands for what was expected to be an impromptu open house for questions.However, after the photos were taken, the PM waved at the journalists and made his way out of the conference room.

The journalists asked Musharraf if he had anything to say. He winked, pointed at the PM as if to say: ‘‘He has already said whatever there is to say’’, and followed the PM out of the room with a smile.

New pope electedTuesday April 19 2005 21:53 IST

VATICAN CITY: White smoke rose from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel and the bells of St Peter's Basilica rang out on Tuesday, signalling that Roman Catholic cardinals had elected a pope to succeed John Paul II.

The smoke, seen by thousands in St. Peter's Square, and the pealing of the basilica's bells meant cardinals meeting for a second day in a secret conclave had agreed on the Church's 265th pontiff.

The new pope, whose identity was still unknown, was to appear later on the main balcony of the basilica to deliver his first public address.The 115 cardinals eligible to elect a new pontiff started the conclave on Monday. To be elected, a candidate needed a two-thirds majority, or at least 77 votes.

ADOBE TO ACQUIRE MACROMEDIA

SAN JOSE, Calif. - April 18, 2005 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia will provide customers a more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Together, the two companies will meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

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India, Pak leave history behind to take new path Part 2.

And as Manmohan Singh read it out to the media, Musharraf stood by his side, underscoring that the two sides are in total sync on the contents of the statement.

Musharraf, who had earlier said that people's wish for peace had overtaken leaders and governments, described the outcome of this visit as beyond his expectations. "The achievements are more than I expected in all areas," he told a meeting of editors, attributing them to the “openness and very flexible approach on both sides, including on Kashmir".

The two sides reaffirmed the commitments made in the Joint Press Statement of Jan 6, 2004, issued in Islamabad and the Joint Statement issued after their meeting in New York on Sep 24, 2004 - to resolve all outstanding issues including Kashmir through negotiations, with Pakistan committing to not allowing territories under its control to be used for terrorist activities directed against India.

"They were satisfied with the discussions and expressed their determination to work together to carry forward the process and to bring the benefit of peace to their people", Monday's joint statement said.

The two leaders also agreed to pursue further measures to enhance interaction and cooperation across the Line of Control (LoC) -- which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan -- including agreed meeting points for divided families, trade, pilgrimages and cultural interaction and reopening of the consulates in Mumabi and Karachi.

Both condemned attempts to disrupt the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and welcomed its successful operationalisation. "The two leaders pledged that they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process," the statement said.

The talks were remarkable for their sense of realism, for there was agreement that the Kashmir dispute, "core issue" for Pakistan, "cannot be solved in one meeting," as Manmohan Singh told members of the Editors' Guild of India after bidding farewell to Musharraf.

The prime minister said such disputes are more amenable to resolution if one looked at it more as a human problem than as a territorial problem and removed restrictions on the movement of people, trade, investment and ideas.
He stressed that reconciliation is a process and not a one-off decision and said Pakistan should not expect an overnight solution to the Kashmir issue that needed a step-by-step approach for resolution as he ruled out "re-drawing" of boundaries.

Musharraf, who in the past had insisted that the Kashmir issue is the key to normalisation of ties, said he was not "unifocal" on it, but said it could not be brushed under the carpet."We may be having very good relations now, I may be having very good relations with (Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh, but nobody is permanent in the world," said the president, who escaped two assassination attempts last year.

"If we don't resolve, it may erupt at some time in the future. It is my earnest belief that unless we resolve the dispute it can erupt again under different environment and under different leadership," he said.

"Therefore, we must go to resolve all issues, including the core issue of Kashmir" he said, emphasising the need for thinking "out of the box."

India, Pak leave history behind to take new path Part 1

New Delhi: India and Pakistan Monday scripted a momentous chapter to their chequered bilateral ties as they termed their peace process "irreversible", agreed to initiate more social contacts and diplomatic confidence-building and decided to work for a "final settlement" of the Kashmir dispute.

After a three-day visit by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, ostensibly to watch a cricket match here but which ended up as another round of bilateral peace diplomacy, the two nuclear-armed countries seemed to have come a long way since they put the world on edge by nearly going to war three years ago.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with whom Musharraf hit it off well and with whom he had several informal meetings and formal talks, summed up his sentiments about the man - whom India had once dubbed as the architect of the Kargil conflict - as a "leader with whom we think we can do business with".
He said the two countries were moving forward in their peace process, looking at their problems "in the wider context of a shared future of a vibrant South Asia.

It was a rare convergence of political views in the independent history of the two countries. It was also a rare instance in their history when their leaders, used to trading charges and highly suspicious of rival intentions, heaped praise on each other, reflecting the enormous change in the atmospherics since a peace process was initiated one and a half years ago.

For the first time the two countries recognised the enormous potential of their largely untapped bilateral trade and resolved that the "two leading economies of South Asia should work together for the greater prosperity of the region."
The almost complete absence of rancour and the unprecedented bonhomie were evident right from the time Musharraf, accompanied by his wife Sehba, arrived Saturday to the time he left Monday afternoon for Manila, nearly three hours behind schedule because of his hectic engagements.

In a demonstration that this was no repeat of the disastrous Agra summit in the summer of 2001, when Musharraf left in a huff failing to persuade then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to a joint statement, there was a 17-point joint statement this time that covered the entire gamut of issues between the two countries. Cont.

Cardinals secret conclave begin

VATICAN CITY - The doors of the Sistine Chapel were closed to the world Monday as cardinals from six continents entered the conclave, the Roman Catholic Church's ancient and secretive process to elect a new pope.
To the sounds of the Litany of the Saints, 115 members of the College of Cardinals solemnly paraded into the chapel to take individual oaths of secrecy surrounding the vote. Each cardinal placed his hand on the Book of the Gospels and swear, "I ... do so promise, pledge and swear. So help me God and these Holy Gospels which I touch with my hand."

The ancient vote formally began with the Latin directive "Extra omnes", meaning "all out." Anyone who is not one of the 115 cardinals taking part in the vote then left the chapel.

Once in the chapel, the cardinals were to have heard a "meditation" from 85-year-old Czech prelate Tomas Spidlik "on the need for careful discernment" in choosing the pope that will replace John Paul II, who died on April 2 at age 84.
"The new pope has already been chosen by the Lord," Italian Cardinal Ennio Antonelli said Sunday. "We must only pray to know who it is.

"Earlier in the day, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger issued a blunt call for the cardinals to choose a pope who will refuse to be swayed by calls for change to the church's guiding principles.

Ratzinger, a German cleric seen as a front-runner, delivered the homily at the cardinals' mass on Monday morning in his capacity as dean of the College of Cardinals.

His words were greeted with an unusual round of applause from the 115 cardinals from 52 nations who are eligible to elect the next pope. (Two of the 117 cardinals under the age of 80 are ill and cannot attend the conclave.)

"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism, whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards," the 78-year-old Ratzinger said during the homily.

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

Liberals looking to modernize the Catholic faith say it should relax its policies on birth control and consider giving women a more prominent role in church affairs in order to remain relevant to more of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.
John Paul refused to consider such changes during his 26-year papacy.
Secret balloting to begin Monday or Tuesday

During conclave, the cardinals will sit at 12 tables along the frescoed walls of the chapel, where each will write down one name on ballots printed in Latin. There, under the splendour of Michelangelo's Last Judgment, showing Christ raising up the chosen and rejecting the wicked, they will vote in a series of secret ballots until a consensus emerges.

The first round of voting will not necessarily take place on Monday. The cardinals may decide to reflect on and discuss their options and delay the balloting until Tuesday.

The winner must receive a two-thirds majority, or at least 77 votes.
If no winner emerges, the ballots are burned in a stove, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Black smoke that billows from a chimney above the chapel signals that a decision has not been reached. When a new pope is chosen, white smoke is pumped through the chimney and the Vatican's bells will ring.

About an hour later, the new pope will appear on the balcony of St. Peter's to greet those who will assemble in St. Peter's Square for the historic occasion.
No one can say how long the deliberations will take, but Jesuit priest and journalist Thomas Reese expects this will be a brief conclave.

"If the conclave goes more than five days, the media are going to be outside saying, 'Crisis in the Church; cardinals divided.' And they don't want that message going out," he said in an interview with CBC.

"So I think there's a lot of psychological pressure on them to pick a pope within three or four days."

Three Canadian cardinals are taking part in the conclave: Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal and Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto.

* FROM APRIL 16, 2005: Pope's ring and seal destroyed
As an added precaution to the oaths of secrecy, the chapel has been wired to jam cellphone signals to prevent leaks.

The cardinals spent Sunday night in a hotel-like building constructed inside the Vatican for that purpose. Between votes, they'll eat and sleep at the Santa Marta residence.

Free-software guru meets Indian president

Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, met with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to discuss "the ethical issues related to the use of proprietary software," according to the Free Software Foundation of India. Stallman also met officials in the state of Kerala to discuss the use of nonproprietary software in government initiatives. Last year, Kalam spoke out in favor of open-source software following a meeting with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

A number of governments around the world have been looking at the prospect of adopting Linux and other open-source software as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Windows operating system and other applications. Microsoft may be moving to counter that trend in India, and other places, by offering to let government agencies get a look at the inner workings of Windows.

Is India yesterday's news? Will China, Russia, Vietnam and Brazil become the future of information technology offshore outsourcing?

Some are making that argument, and there is an argument to be made. After all, the cost advantage of doing business in India has come under pressure as salaries for qualified Indian IT professionals reach record heights. Average Indian salaries in the field rose 12 percent last year, and they are expected to rise by about 15 percent across the industry again this year.

And as Indian salaries climb, many speculate that this presents opportunities for other offshoring hot spots, such as China, Eastern Europe--and even upstarts like Vietnam and Brazil. Some even speculate that rising salaries in India will erode the cost advantage over U.S. IT workers, ultimately returning offshore jobs to American soil. But that's only one side of the story. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reported death of Indian outsourcing is greatly exaggerated.

The counterargument rests on two pillars: productivity and scale. Salaries may increase, but there are offsetting factors such as experience, infrastructure, high productivity levels and economies ofscale to consider. Let me put it another way: The cost of doing information technology in India is falling, as the range and complexity of projects that can be offshored to India is increasing.
How can that be? If you subtract the salary advantage, what makes India different than China, Russia and the myriad other countries chomping at the bit for IT work?

One reason is that India has a multiyear experience advantage over other nations. First-generation IT offshore providers cut their teeth on mainframe legacy code maintenance--the gritty work that few IT professionals in the United States care to do anymore. Now Indian IT companies are hitting the sweet spot of the enterprise application package market, offloading many of the high-volume, routine tasks that chief information officers struggle to maintain with high-cost U.S. resources. Countries like China and Russia simply don't have the experience to handle these tasks, and it will take years for them to come anywhere close.

Better backboneAnother reason is that India has vastly improved its IT infrastructure. A few years ago, large-scale projects required mirrored offshore hardware/software environments that were expensive to set up and a nightmare to keep in sync. That's no longer the case--distributed system development is now the de facto standard in many IT shops. India's IT infrastructure improvements enable Indian businesses to match salary increases with productivity improvements.

What's more, India has achieved global leadership in adopting continuous quality improvements that guarantee mature business processes and ongoing productivity improvement. By creating real software factories, Indian companies leverage the power of doing it right the first time. The leading software quality methodology in the world today is the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model, or CMM. It is no accident that two-thirds of the world's CMM Level 5 organizations are based in India. Other countries will get there, but it's going to take time.

In addition, many India-based companies have discovered the leverage in India's university system to achieve increased efficiency. While it's unrealisticto expect "freshers" to be highly productive the day they receive their sheepskins, Indian businesses with strong training programs quickly supplement their new college graduates' strong theoretical IT foundations with the practical skills needed on their projects. College graduate salaries start at less than $5,000 per year, which is about half the salary or less of a seasoned Indian software developer.

Finally, India is rapidly creating huge economies of scale in IT offshoring, which further offset the inflationary pressures of salary increases. To counter wage increases, many offshore outsourcers are implementing large team sizes and long-term projects to help maintain utilization levels at above 75 percent. With larger teams comes the ability to include new college graduates in the mix, enabling them to train on the job.

While Indian IT salaries are undeniably on the rise, don't think that this will derail the offshore-to-India IT locomotive. Offshore service providers continue to find ways to provide their customers with increased productivity and scale, thus ensuring that India will not easily cede its current dominant share of the global IT offshoring market. And with the Indian government's focus on dramatically upping the supply of technical graduates over time, it ensures that India keeps moving up that steep productivity curve. That's the power of productivity--and India has figured it out.

Musharraf looks for real Indian concessions on Kashmir – India proposes 7 new confidence building measures

New Delhi proposed seven new Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) as Musharraf landed in Delhi for One Day International Cricket in Delhi. According to sources, Musharraf looks for genuine Indian concessions and India is proposing new CBMs

The proposed CBMs are:

* Reviving traditional communication and bus links like Kargil-Skardu and the ones in Poonch and Rajouri

* Allowing relatives on either sides to meet at several points on LoC, including Poonch, Mendhar, Suchetgarh, Uri and Tangdar

* Promoting and developing international trade across LoC

* Mechanism for permitting pilgrims on both sides to visit Sikh and Hindu
temples and Muslim shrines, including Sharda temple, Pir Chinnasi, Gurudwara Chattipatshahi.

* Promoting cultural interaction and cooperation
* Joint promotion of tourism

* Exploring cooperation in the management of environment, forestry resources
Sources in Pakistan pointed out – where is the real thing? These all are great but who is going to break the ice?

India’s approach is to make Pakistan mellowed slowly with new sets of CBMs. Will it work?

All eyes on the real one - Musharraf-Hurriyat meeting

Among all hoopla the real thing is going to happen on Sunday! The Musharraf-Hurriyat meeting on Sunday will be crucial for India and Pakistan relations as well as future of Kashmir.

According to media reports, much water has flown down the river Jehlum since the Pakistani president Parvez Musharraf last met the separatist leadership of Jammu and Kashmir. President Musharraf will meet a divided Hurriyat this time with its two factions poles apart although it is likely that both factions will be roped in for a joint meeting with him.

The separate meetings will take place tomorrow in the backdrop of just inaugurated Muzaffarabad bus service. Both Hurriyat factions, the sources said, were not taken into confidence for starting the bus service and this has come as a major disappointment for both.

Sources said the leaders of two factions and those outside Hurriyat had sought separate meetings with Pakistani president but Pakistan is insisting for a joint meeting, purposely, to bridge differences between them.

The last time the separatist leaders met Musharraf was in 2001 when he was in the country to participate in the Agra summit. Hurriyat leadership met Musharraf as a single unit under the chairmanship of Prof Abdul Gani and the then People's Conference (PC) chairman Abdul Gani Lone was one of the most vocal voices. The only Hurriyat constituent to stay out was JKLF, which insisted on tripartite talks.

All other constituents then had unflinching faith in Pakistani leadership and even Musharraf assured them that Pakistan "will not buckle under any pressure" and "continue its moral and political support to Kashmiris". Both the then NDA government and opposition Congress party were upset by the meet and it was president's steadfastness that made it happen.

Hurriyat no longer is a united house now. The death of PC chairman gave the first major blow to its unity and the subsequent "participation" of one of Hurriyat constituents in the assembly elections in 2002 dealt a death knell to it. The Hurriyat was divided with Mirwaiz and Geelani emerging as the leaders of two factions while JKLF maintained distance from both.

Over the last several months, Geelani has openly admitted his differences with Pakistani leadership on a host of issues. Despite the reservations of the hardline Hurriyat to the opening of road, Pakistan went ahead with it.

Geelani finds the move a shift in Pakistan's traditional stand and fears the latter has diluted its stand under US pressure. "Before leaving for New Delhi, Geelani said that he will seek assurances from Pakistan that it will continue its moral and political support to Kashmiris and during last visit the assurance came without asking. This is self explanatory and shows the differences of Geelani with Pakistan over these latest developments", said a close aide of Geelani.

While the moderate Hurriyat faction hailed the opening of the road and said it should be viewed as a "human issue", its leadership is also disappointed that Pakistan did not take it into confidence for making happen the "biggest CBM" in years and giving credit to their adversary, chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for it.

The second meeting with Musharraf, as was the case with the first one, will also focus on the involvement of Kashmiris in the dialogue process. Both Hurriyat factions, although with some alterations, are viying for it. Mirwaiz, on his part, said he will seek a role for Kashmiris in the process and an assurance from president "to use his influence" in persuading New Delhi for allowing them to go to Pakistan. Also, they are expecting to get a "go-ahead" for the proposed meet of the moderate Hurriyat faction with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Pakistan's immediate priority is to ensure Hurriyat re-unification, the reason they are roping in all separatists for a joint meet. How long will tomorrow's meet go in breaking the ice will become evident but given the bitterness between them, it appears some more exercises are needed.

AMD huffs and puffs over Intel win

AMD finally confirms it. It wasn't a race between AMD and Intel to come out with a dual core chip first. It was a hollow victory!
Hours after Intel said computers containing its Smithfield dual-core chip Monday, AMD issued a statement calling Intel's actions "hurried, reactionary moves to rush their product to market before ours, hoping to claim a hollow victory."

AMD, of course, moved its dual-core announcement from summer to April 21, no doubt a "game changing event" designed to "empower our customers" and not related in any way to one-upping its cross freeway rival.

"It is important to note that AMD only announces products when we are able toimmediately begin shipping for revenue," AMD added.

Well, not always. When it unveiled new Opteron chips in February, the press release stated: "The AMD Opteron processor Models 852 and 252 will be available to partners within 30 days."

Linux programmer wins legal victory

Linux programmer has reported a legal victory in Germany in enforcing the General Public License, which governs countless projects in the free and open-source software realms.

A Munich district court on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction barring Fortinet, a maker of multipurpose security devices, from distributing products that include a Linux component called "initrd" to which Harald Welte holds the copyright.

In addition to being a Linux programmer, Welte runs an operation called the GPL Violations project that attempts to encourage companies shipping products incorporating GPL software to abide by the license terms. The license lets anyone use GPL software in products without paying a fee, but it requires that they provide the underlying source code for the GPL components when they ship such a product.The case highlights the ease with which open-source software can spread across the computing industry--but also the growing pains that companies face as they adjust to new legal concepts underlying the collaborative programming approach.
Fortinet, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said in a statement it's addressing the issue but is surprised that Welte resorted to legal action.

"Fortinet recently became aware of Mr. Welte's allegations and has, in good faith, been diligently working with him to resolve this matter outside of the German court system. Fortinet is actively taking steps to ensure that its products are compliant with GPL requirements. Therefore, Fortinet is surprised that Mr. Welte pursued a preliminary injunction against Fortinet in Germany and believes that this is an unnecessary action," the company said. "Fortinet is continuing its efforts to expeditiously resolve this matter with Mr. Welte."

Welte has said he doesn't object to corporate use of open-source software; he just wants it to be done properly. Welte first notifies companies of his accusations before beginning legal action, he said. In the case of Fortinet, the GPL Violations project informed the company of its concerns March 17, but "out-of-court negotiations on a settlement failed to conclude in a timely manner," the project said in a statement.

In March, Welte sent similar letters to multiple companies exhibiting at the CeBit trade show. And a year ago, he won a ruling against Sitecom in a case similar to that of Fortinet.
Fortinet uses Linux in the operating system included in its FortiGate and FortiWiFi products, the project said. "FortiOS is using the Linux operating system kernel and numerous other free software products that are licensed exclusively under the GNU GPL. This information was not disclosed by Fortinet," the GPL Violations project said.

Most actions by GPL Violation have been against European or Asian companies, and the Sitecom and Fortinet cases don't have direct repercussions outside Germany. But the actions this year also have targeted corporations in the United States--an indication that case law around the GPL could also start building soon in the world's largest computing technology market.

"Generally, corporations are becoming more conscious of the issues surrounding the GPL," said Brian Kelly, an intellectual-property attorney with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. "The process of clarifying the terms and limitations of the GPL through litigation will likely seem interminably long to industry watchers, but this latest result suggests that the process in the United States is soon to begin."

There could be several reasons companies don't release source code for GPL software that they include in products. They might not be aware of the GPL's provisions, thinking that software it governs is merely in the public domain. They might have software enhancements they want to keep secret. Or they might simply be using software from a third party and not even know it contains GPL components.

Open educationActivities to inform the computing industry about open-source licenses have become common. Attorneys could get continuing-education credit for two days of speeches on legal matters at the Open Source Business Conference this month, for example, and Linux seller Red Hat has just posted a video of its in-house lawyer discussing various licenses.

However, it's hard to tell whether GPL violations are decreasing, Welte said in an interview. "The number of cases I know about is always rising, but my guess is that this is mainly because the GPL Violations project becomes more known to the community, and therefore I receive more user reports (from people) who find GPL-licensed software in products they have bought."
And Welte said he wasn't happy with the response to the letters he delivered to company representatives at CeBit.

"Most of them failed to create any form of reaction on behalf of the companies. It's very sad to see that in most cases nobody would even start to listen to you unless you sent it via a lawyer," Welte said.

Without access to the underlying source code, Welte often has to work hard to find out if GPL software is used in a product. In Fortinet's case, the use of GPL software was unusually difficult to verify, because the company had encrypted it, Welte said. It took 40 hours of work to ferret out the information, he said.

The next step in the legal proceedings depends on Fortinet's response, Welte said. "If they do not appeal and (begin to) distribute products according to the license, then the case is basically closed, and they will have to pay all expenses. If they choose to appeal, or ignore the court order, then the case will continue," he said.

Initrd is a module essential to the process of starting up a Linux computer. Welte also has helped write the netfilter/iptables software that provides Linux with protective firewall abilities.
Welte didn't write initrd, but author Werner Almesberger transferred copyright on the software to him earlier in 2005, Welte said.

The court said Fortinet would have to pay a fine of five to 250,000 euros and that employees would face up to 6 months imprisonment for violation of the injunction. In addition, the company is responsible for Welte's legal fees.

The General Public License is 14 years old, but its creator, the Free Software Foundation, has begun an effort to modernize it.

Regardless how the Fortinet case turns out, one message is clear, said Mark Radcliffe, an intellectual-property attorney with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and legal counsel for the Open Source Initiative.

"In any case," Racliffe said, "companies obviously need to be more attentive to the possible use of GPL code in their products."

Dr K Kasturirangan Gets Aryabhata Award

Bangalore, Former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) Director Dr K Kasturirangan has been selected for the prestigious Aryabhata Award-2003 for his outstanding lifetime contribution to astronautics by the Aeronautical Society of India (ASI).
According to a release here today, the other awardees for the year were: R N Bhattacherjee, Director, TMS, Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Hyderabad and M K G Nair, Dy.Director, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram for Rocket and Related Technologies N K Malik, Deputy Director (Control and Mission) ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore-Spacecraft & Related Technologies Prof Shyam Lal, Chairman, Space and Atmospheric Sciences Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad- Space Science and Applications K Thyagarajan, Programme Director, SSS, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore and R K Rajangam, Project Director, INSAT-4B, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore-Space Systems Management.
The awards would be presented at a special function to be organised soon.

India, US sign open skies agreement

India and the United States signeda far-reaching open skies agreement here Thursday that is expected to facilitate direct air links, improve frequencies and lower the cost of air travel between the two countries.
Indian Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and US Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta signed the agreement that is expected to eventually see Indian private carriers flying to American cities.
India also becomes the 67th country with which the United States has an open skies pact.
"This is the most liberal air services agreement we have ever signed with any country," Patel said after inking the pact, which replaces the earlier bilateral agreement between the two countries entered into on Feb. 3, 1956.
"We have signed a landmark agreement that opens the skies between India and the United States. America is committed to help India become a major power in the 21st century. Civil aviation is a core component of that goal," Mineta said.
According to him, three US carriers have already announced their plans to start daily flights to India - Delta (between New York and Chennai), Northwest (Minneapolis-Bangalore) and Continental (Newark-New Delhi).
Patel said the previous bilateral pact between India and the United States was negotiated five decades ago and imposed restrictions on issues such as cities that can be serviced, the number of airlines, type of aircraft and the frequency of routes.

Musharraf to visit India, Philippines, Indonesia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will leave on a week-long visit to India, Philippines and Indonesia from April 16 to 24, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported on Friday.
Musharraf will depart for India on April 16 on the first leg of his trip, the report said.
The President will watch the one-day cricket match of the series being played between Pakistan and India at the Feroz Shah Kotla cricket Stadium in New Delhi on April 17 and will hold talks with the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh, the same day.
The two leaders are expected to discuss the entire gamut of bilateral issues between the two countries with a special focus on the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.
Musharraf will meet with the Kashmiri leaders from the Indian occupied Kashmir on the evening of April 17.
Musharraf will also pay a state visit to the Philippines from April 18 to 20.
From the Philippines the President will proceed to Indonesia to attend the Asian-African Summit in Jakarta from April 22-23 and the commemoration of the golden Jubilee of the 1955 Bandung Asian African Conference on April 24.

PM to meet Musharraf 2 or 3 times

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who are expected to give a new impetus to the peace process, will meet at least two or three times during the latter's three-day visit to India this weekend. They could examine, and even agree to, setting up a "formal group" to look into specific proposals on contentious issues like Kashmir and even the Baglihar dam.
Dr Singh, as part of his open-ended policy on Jammu and Kashmir, has agreed to meet the Hurriyat leaders who have been clamouring for a meeting with him. But when the dates of April 15 and 16 were communicated, the Hurriyat leaders, in a characteristic response, insisted that they could meet the Prime Minister only after April 17. It is not a coincidence that the suggested date is after their meetings with Gen. Musharraf.
The Hurriyat's Maulvi Abbas Ansari told this correspondent from Srinagar that both he and the Mirwaiz were caught in religious rituals and could not fly to New Delhi before April 16. That he was being a little difficult was also apparent from his remarks that the Prime Minister should have consulted them before deciding on the dates. "This proves," he said, "that they do not really want to meet us." Sources here claimed that the dates had been communicated to the Kashmiri leaders earlier. Interestingly, the Hurriyat members have never been known to quibble about dates and times when it comes to meeting leaders from Pakistan here.
The Prime Minister has taken special care to rid the meeting with Gen. Musharraf of preconceptions or preconditions. A third meeting between the two leaders could be in the form of a lunch or dinner hosted by Dr Singh for his guest, although this is yet to be worked out. And such is the air of informality and bonhomie marking Gen. Musharraf's visit after the Agra fiasco that the two leaders could meet for another round of substantive discussions if they felt the need to do so during the visit. Dr Singh, who is learnt to have "done his homework" on the subject, is not particularly perturbed by Gen. Musharraf's overemphasis on Kashmir and will invite him to present his proposals so that these can then be discussed.
Dr Manmohan Singh has already rejected the first proposal by Gen. Musharraf about a seven-region division of Jammu and Kashmir, as according to PMO sources this envisaged a breakup of the state on communal lines. Short of this, Dr Singh is not averse to discussing whatever new offer the Pakistan President might bring with him. Expectations are that the incorrigible general will not queer the pitch between now and his visit, or during his visit, with controversial remarks that could make it difficult for the Prime Minister to give proper attention to his views.
Pakistan's high commissioner to India Aziz Ahmad Khan said that it was an "important visit" and that the meeting between the leaders would give an "impetus" to the peace process. He pointed out that the last meeting between Dr Singh and Gen. Musharraf in New York last year had registered considerable "forward movement" on the resolution of all issues. President Musharraf has said that he was visiting India not just for a cricket match but to take up the issue of Kashmir. The modalities of his proposed visit to Ajmer Sharif are still being worked out with the ministry of external affairs.
The Prime Minister's media adviser, Dr Sanjaya Baru, made it clear that Dr Singh was not at all averse to meeting the Kashmiri leaders. "If they have no preconditions, they can walk right in," he said. Dr Baru was seeking to dispel the notion that Dr Singh was averse to any such meeting, pointing out that he had refused last time only because the Hurriyat leaders had attached the precondition of visiting Pakistan to the request. Hardliner Ali Shah Geelanai will also be meeting Gen. Musharraf, but on his own. The Kashmiri separatists are now all clamouring to be included in the talks, and are arriving here to make it clear that there can be no progress unless they are party to the peace process. Gen. Musharraf has said that there can be no resolution of Kashmir that is not acceptable to the Kashmiris. India has continued to hold the view that the government is representative of all the states and the people of the country.

Natwar says no time frame for resolution of Kashmir issue

NEW DELHI: On the eve of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's visit to India, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh has said that it would not be prudent to set any time frame for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and asserted that there is no question of taking Islamabad off the hook on cross-border terrorism.
"It would not be prudent to impose a time frame or deadline for resolution of the J and K issue, an issue which has defied solution for so long, and which, by all accounts, is complicated," Singh said in an interview published in the latest issue of 'Outlook' weekly magazine.
Emphasising that any discussion with Pakistan on Kashmir must be focussed "first and foremost on the need to end cross-border terrorism and dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism across the Line of Control," he said "there is no question of taking Pakistan off the hook on the issue of cross-border terrorism and terrorism in the valley." On numerous occasions, Musharraf has been underpinning the need for setting a time frame for resolving the protracted Kashmir issue.
Singh contended that Kashmir has defied solution because Pakistan did not pursue discussion on it from 1972 till 1989. Excerpts from the interview were put out by the magazine in a press release today.
"Pakistani leaders themselves, from time to time, argued for easier issues to be resolved first, and the more intractable ones later," he observed.

Musharraf says South Asia Peace 'Fairly Irreversible'

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday he was "fairly optimistic" the Kashmir dispute with India could be resolved and described their peace process as "fairly irreversible."
Speaking in an interview with Reuters ahead of his first visit to India since a disastrous summit in Agra in July 2001, Musharraf was relaxed enough to joke about the prospects, starting by saying: "I hope it doesn't turn out like Agra!"
Musharraf said the atmosphere for talks was now much better, but his weekend meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have to concentrate on trying to get closer to a solution for the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.
"I am fairly optimistic, I would say, because I see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to be a sincere person and wanting to come to a resolution of this dispute," Musharraf said.
"So if there is sincerity in the leadership, I think there can be progress."
Musharraf said he did not expect an immediate breakthrough.
"We cannot solve the issue, we cannot reach a conclusion, but if we make progress on it and we strike some common ground, that is what I would like to achieve and that is the maximum that one can expect."
Musharraf said when he had traveled to India for the failed Agra summit -- after which, far from talking peace, nuclear-armed Pakistan and India shook the world by going close to a fourth war -- the environment had been "tense."
"I go in a very harmonious and friendly environment now," he said, adding that Pakistan and India were now talking about cooperation on gas pipelines from Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan.
Musharraf, who was born in Delhi, said his mother and son had been treated "exceptionally well" when they visited India recently and added: "I only hope we can take advantage of this friendly environment to resolve our disputes."
Asked whether he felt the peace process was irreversible, he said a series of confidence-building measures (CBMs) had done a great deal to improve the mood. "If you see the people-to-people contacts; the business community; the media; the cultural interaction; even the politicians coming here exchanging from this side and going on that side, it is fairly irreversible I would say.
CONFIDENCE-BUILDING NOT ENOUGH
"But if any side becomes intransigent with their views, I have made it very clear that all CBMs cannot be the final solution. Unless we move forward on the main issue of Kashmir we cannot go on the path of CBMs only."
But he said he did not want to appear pessimistic by suggesting the whole process would be reversed. "I hope it doesn't come to that."
Musharraf said Pakistan had pledged a political resolution to Kashmiris, so it was a matter of principle. "One doesn't give up principles for the sake of any other expediency," he said.
Without elaborating, Musharraf said he planned to take up the Kashmir dispute immediately "because we don't have that much time" and because other issues were dealt with at a lower level.
"At the level of the leadership, at the summit level, the core issue of Kashmir needs to be addressed and moved forward."
Musharraf said that after the start of the first bus service across the military Line of Control (LOC) dividing Indian and Pakistani sides of Kashmir this month, Pakistan would like to see more routes across the territory opened.
"That really is the first step toward converting it into a soft border," he said while stressing that India's wish to see the LOC converted into a permanent border was not acceptable.
"I have made very clear to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that we cannot accept the Line of Control to be the final solution. "We have to find an out-of-the box solution."
India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in full and India accuses Pakistan of stoking a 16-year revolt that has killed tens of thousands of people -- a charge denied by Pakistan.
Last year, Musharraf suggested the possibility of solutions that could involve a division of the Muslim-majority region on ethnic lines, demilitarization and a change of its status to independence, joint control, or even U.N. control. But Singh rejected the proposals saying India would not agree to any redrawing of its boundaries.
Musharraf declined to say if he would be bringing anything new to the table in India.
Asked how the impasse over Kashmir could be broken given India's refusal to consider border changes, he suggested there might be more to Delhi's position than met the eye.
"I know that there is much more to it than what is up front. We know what their people are saying, but ... everything is not said up front."
Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan was quoted by India's Hindu newspaper as saying Musharraf had produced "very few" proposals on Kashmir, so it was unclear what he hoped to achieve from his visit. "Expect neither a dramatic breakthrough nor a breakdown," he said.

Plot Against Financial Sites

NEW YORK — Three men have been indicted in connection to an alleged plot to attack financial institutions in New York, northern New Jersey and Washington, D.C., the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The suspects — Dhiran Barot (search), Nadeem Tarmohammed (search) and Qaisar Shaffi (search) — were arrested last year in England and are still being held there.
Barot, 32, is a Briton of Indian descent who converted from Hinduism to Islam some years ago. U.S. officials say he is a senior Al Qaeda (search) figure known within the organization by the aliases Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani. Officials believe he was in the United States under orders from Usama bin Laden (search).
However, Al Qaeda is not mentioned in the eight-page indictment.
Tarmohammed, 26, was charged at the time of the arrests, along with Barot, with possessing plans of the Prudential building (search) in Newark, N.J..
Shaffi, 25, also was charged at the time with possessing an extract from the "Terrorist's Handbook" on the preparation of chemicals, explosive recipes and other information.
The Justice Department tentatively scheduled a press conference for Tuesday afternoon. The indictment came from a grand jury in the Southern District of New York.
The new charges against the three include conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, providing and concealing material support to terrorism and conspiracy to damage and destroy buildings involved in interstate and foreign commerce.
Barot, Shaffi and Tarmohammed are accused of plotting to use weapons such as improvised explosive devises and bombs on U.S. soil between 1998 and 2004. The grand jury also charges them with using video surveillance on financial buildings and surrounding neighborhoods as part of a terrorist plot in April 2001.
According to the indictment, Barot served as lead instructor at a jihad training camp in Afghanistan. He is also accused of applying to a college in New York in 2000 in order to conceal the true purpose of his trips to the United States. He never actually enrolled or attended any classes.
The indictment describes two trips the defendants allegedly took into the United States from London in 2000 and 2001. At one point during one of these trips — April 3, 2001 — Shaffi allegedly became ill and had to be treated at a New York hospital.
British authorities arrested the three last year as part of a separate terrorism investigation, but found evidence the men had monitored the New York Stock Exchange (search) and the Citigroup Center (search) in Manhattan, as well as the Prudential building in Newark.
Sources close to the investigation said Washington would seek extradition of the suspects after British authorities wrapped up a case charging them of plotting attacks in the United Kingdom.
In late July of last year, the Department of Homeland Security raised the color-coded terror alert to orange for U.S. financial centers after finding evidence terrorists were examining the New York-area buildings as well as the International Monetary Fund (search) and World Bank (search) buildings in Washington, D.C.
Officials later told FOX News that other potential targets included the American Stock Exchange (search), Nasdaq, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Bros., Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve Bank, Bear Stearns, AIG, MetLife and JP Morgan Chase.
Police and other security personnel set up concrete barriers and roadblocks outside the buildings after they were put on high alert. Employees were subject to searches and ID checks on their way to and from work.
Homeland Security officials later acknowledged that intelligence pointing to the financial institutions plot was possibly up to four years old, but stressed that Al Qaeda has demonstrated patience in carrying out attacks.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (search) also said that some information discovered had been updated as recently as January of 2004.
The threat level was lowered to yellow in November.

Bangladesh Factory Collapses, Hundreds Feared Trapped

PALASHBARI, Bangladesh - Rescuers pulled 22 bodies from a nine-storey garment factory that collapsed near Bangladesh's capital on Monday but hundreds of people were feared trapped in the rubble.

The rescuers armed with searchlights and cutting gear pulled 82 people alive from the debris but their efforts were hampered by narrow roads, swamps and paddy fields surrounding the site and by a stream of mourners, officials and witnesses said.

"The battle is on and being intensified," said a rescue official. "Hundreds of mourners are still crowding the site of the collapsed building and refusing to go away," he said.

The army brought in sniffer dogs and heavy equipment including excavators and cranes to speed up an effort that went on into the night.

Police and firefighters said the building collapsed at about 1 a.m. (3 p.m. EDT) during Monday's night shift at Shahriar Fabrics at Palashbari, 30 km (18 miles) from Dhaka.

"In a few minutes the entire structure crumbled like a house of cards," a witness told a private television channel.

A massive pile of bricks and concrete slabs was all that remained of the building. Rescuers and relatives stood helplessly on top, some calling for loved ones.

Army medical units supplied bottled water and medicine to trapped survivors after cutting holes in the building's roof.

"We will work through the night and expect to complete the rescue operation by tomorrow," one rescue official said.

CALLING FROM THE RUBBLE

"We suspect up to 500 people are under the debris. It was a packed night shift running ... and dozens may have died already," a survivor told reporters on the scene.

China's Wen Ends Visit to India With Accords on Borders, Trade

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ends a four-day visit to India today, having concluded agreements to resolve historic rivalries and boost commercial ties between the world's fastest-growing economies.

Wen will visit the Indian Institute of Technology, a state- run engineering college, in New Delhi at 11 a.m. before flying to Beijing, the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Wen, 62, yesterday agreed on a road map to end their decades-old border dispute and said they would explore the possibility of creating the world's biggest free-trade zone encompassing 2.4 billion people.

``This will make Asia more attractive and investors will have to start paying more attention to this part of the world,'' said Teng Ngiek Lian, who helps manage $650 million of Asian equities as chief investment officer at Target Asset Management in Singapore.

India and China yesterday agreed to boost two-way trade to $20 billion by 2008. Wen said the figure could reach $30 billion by 2010.

Trade in 2004 was $13.6 billion, 79 percent more than in 2003, according to China's customs bureau. India had a $1.75 billion trade surplus with China, the second-largest overseas market for Indian goods after the U.S.

``The current trade figures are incompatible with the potential,'' Wen said in a speech to business leaders in New Delhi yesterday. ``In order to implement a long-term plan, we must remove trade barriers and create an enabling environment for trade.''

Free Trade

The two leaders yesterday agreed to set up a panel to look into the feasibility and benefits of a free-trade agreement.

China last year said it favors such an accord. India, wary of opening its doors to cheap Chinese toys, clothes and mobile phones, has import tariffs of 15 percent for most goods, compared with China's 10 percent.

``I think it will take some time for our Indian friends and counterparts to think about it,'' Sun Yuxi, China's ambassador to India, said in an interview in India's Businessworld magazine, published on April 4.

A dispute over their mountainous 3,500-kilometer (2,175- mile) border led to a short war in 1962 and has marred ties between countries that are home to two-fifths of the world's people.

The two leaders yesterday agreed to a set of ``guiding principles'' to help negotiators decide territorial claims and demarcate borders. Both governments appointed Special Representatives to resolve the dispute after former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China in 2003.

Border Claims

India claims 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) of Chinese-controlled territory in Kashmir, an area the size of Switzerland. China claims 90,000 square kilometers of land in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

China has accepted the Himalayan region of Sikkim as part of India, instead of regarding it a separate country. China hadn't recognized India's 1975 annexation of the territory, once an independent princely kingdom.

Wen and Singh also discussed ways of cooperating rather than competing in the search for energy resources to feed their growing economies. The two countries should ``engage in the survey and exploration of petroleum and natural gas resources in third countries,'' the statement said.

China is the world's second-largest consumer of oil after the U.S. and India relies on imports to meet 70 percent of its energy requirements. China's economy expanded 9.5 percent in 2004. India's grew 6.9 percent in the year ended March 31, the government estimates.

Regional Ties

Wen's trip to India, the first by a Chinese premier in three years, wraps up a week-long tour of the region that included visits to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Analysts saw this as a response to U.S. efforts to boost ties with South Asia, possibly as a counterweight to China's growing influence.

``China clearly is concerned that its rise in some ways worries the U.S., and they worry there might be some containment policy and so China is making this huge reach out to its neighbors,'' said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and the island-state's former ambassador to the United Nations.

Wen began the visit to India in Bangalore, India's technology hub, where he called for a closer cooperation between the Indian software and Chinese hardware industries to make the 21st century ``the Asian century of the IT industry.''

In New Delhi, Wen also met Sonia Gandhi, head of the Congress party that leads India's ruling coalition.

Yesterday's talks resulted in 12 cooperation agreements in areas as diverse as science, finance, education, tourism and transport. They included a proposal to increase passenger flights between the two countries.

China also signaled it is willing to back India's bid for permanent membership of an expanded United Nations Security Council. China is one of five members of the 15-nation group with veto power.



To contact the reporter for this story:
Andrew Atkinson in New Delhi at [email protected].

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Chris Wellisz at [email protected].

India, China to Form Strategic Partnership

NEW DELHI India and China agreed Monday to form a "strategic partnership," creating a diplomatic bond between Asia's two emerging powers that would tie together nearly one-third of the world's population.

The agreement, announced during a South Asia tour by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, reflects a major shift in relations between the two nuclear countries, whose ties have long been defined by mutual suspicion. It also is another step in a charm offensive by Beijing, which is trying to build ties with its neighbors and ensure regional stability for economic growth.

The United States, which also has courted warmer ties with India, welcomed efforts by New Delhi and Beijing to find ways of cooperating.
"This is an important visit. We are working to promote friendly ties of cooperation between our two countries," Wen said after a ceremonial welcome by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at New Delhi's presidential palace.

Wen also has been to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent days, hoping to reassure its neighbors that increasing clout does not make it a regional danger.

"Some people are worried that a stronger and more developed China would pose a threat to other countries. Such worry is completely misplaced," Wen told a meeting of Asian officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, last week.

But the agreement with India also underscored the power the two nations are increasingly comfortable about wielding.

"India and China can together reshape the world order," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday.

Left out of the equation, for now, was the United States, which announced last month it wanted to help India become a world power. However, India and China, which together have a population of more than 2.3 billion, took care not to offend the United States on Monday.

Chinese leaders insist they're not worried about the warming U.S.-India ties, despite Washington's apparent attempts to counter China's power in Asia by boosting India's economic and political profile.

Bush calls for Palestinian help

President Bush called on Palestinians Monday to cooperate and coordinate with Israel in the evacuation of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip.

The removal of 9,000 Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territory and Israel's unilateral disengagement from the area is to take place in July.

I strongly support his courageous initiative to disengage from Gaza and part of the West Bank, Bush said in a news conference after meeting at his ranch with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "The prime minister is wiling to coordinate the implementation of the disengagement plan with the Palestinians.

I urge the Palestinian leadership to accept his offer. By working together, Israelis and Palestinians can lay the groundwork for a peaceful transition.

Sharon announced the move late last year. He said Monday it began as a unilateral decision driven y the need to reduce terror and give Israel more security. But Palestinians could join in its implementation, which could help pave the way for a re-starting of Bush's stalled road map for Middle East peace.

He said that 'I want to coordinate withdrawal with the Palestinians,' Bush said of Sharon and their discussions. But he's going to withdraw, coordination or no coordination.

Despite flaws in study, HIV drug is called safe

Although U.S. standards were violated, studies on a drug used to shield babies against HIV infection from their mothers were sound enough to prove the drug's efficacy, an expert panel said.

WASHINGTON - Controversial U.S. research in Africa that violated federal patient protection rules was nevertheless conducted well enough to support its conclusions that the AIDS drug nevirapine could be used safely to protect babies from HIV infection, an expert scientific panel has concluded.

''The committee finds that there is no reason based in ethical concerns about the design or implementation of the study that would justify excluding its findings from use in scientific and policy deliberations,'' the Institute of Medicine panel said in a report first obtained by The Associated Press.

The report, released Thursday, will have implications in Africa, where medical officials are debating whether to withdraw the drug, and in the United States, where investigators are examining whether U.S. research is complying with federal law.

The report was welcomed as good news at the National Institutes of Health, the federal agency that funded the nevirapine study in Uganda and which has been engulfed in months of controversy but has insisted that the drug is safe.

''NIH expects that the findings by the IOM will restore confidence in the validity of the conclusions of this study, allow the controversy surrounding the issue to subside and facilitate policy decisions that seek to promote the health of newborns at risk of HIV infection,'' the agency said in a statement.

Researchers last year warned that a single dose of the drug given to a pregnant woman to protect her baby could make the mother resistant to later treatment with the drug.

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, one of the largest providers of AIDS assistance in the Third World, also hailed the report's finding, saying those who have taken or will take the drug in the single-dose regimen can be sure it is safe.

The Associated Press reported in December that the U.S. Office For Human Research Protections had concluded that the NIH experiment in Uganda that dated to the mid-1990s had violated federal patient safety regulations.

However, the NIH did not inform the White House of the problems before the United States began sending hundreds of millions of dollars worth of nevirapine to Africa in 2002 to try to stop the spread of AIDS from infected pregnant women to their babies.

The NIH has acknowledged that its study suffered from flawed document keeping and violated some federal rules but said it believes its scientific conclusions about nevirapine's usefulness and safety remained valid

Chinese Premier:- Let's join forces on IT

BANGALORE, India -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday that China and India should work together to lead the world in information technology, jointly heralding a new "Asian century."

On a visit to India's southern technology hub of Bangalore, Wen said the two nations should put aside their historic rivalry and instead pool their resources.

"I strongly believe that if we join hands together, we will certainly be able to set a new trail in the IT business world. When the particular day comes, it will signify the coming of the Asian century of the IT industry," Wen said in an address to information technology professionals in Bangalore.

India has gained global repute as a hub of software professionals while China is strong on computer hardware. Wen suggested they should collaborate, not compete.

"Cooperation is just like two pagodas (temples), one hardware and one software," Wen said.

"Combined, we can take the leadership position in the world," he said.

Wen appealed to Indian software companies to set up operations in China to tap the Chinese and global markets.

He later met scientists and visited the research facilities at the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organization in Bangalore.

Last year, China became the first Asian power to launch a man into orbit. India has announced similar ambitions.

The two countries have been improving ties despite decades of frosty relations and rivalry. China is also a longtime ally and the main supplier of military hardware to Pakistan -- India's archrival.

"I hope and believe that my visit will inject fresh vigor and vitality into relations," Wen said in a statement distributed to reporters after his arrival.

During talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, the two countries are expected to sign nearly 30 agreements to promote political, economic and cultural ties.

China is keen to develop a free trade area between the two countries. Their combined populations total 2 billion, which would make it the largest free trade area in the world.

India-China trade reached $13.6 billion in 2004, with India recording a trade surplus of $1.75 billion, Indian Commerce Ministry statistics show.

"As the world's two major developing countries, China and India will exert positive influence on peace and development in Asia and the world at large when we live in peace, deepen mutual trust and expand cooperation," Wen's statement said.

Wen and Singh are expected to discuss the more than 50-year-old border dispute over their 1,030-kilometer (650-mile) border, parts of which are not demarcated. A consensus on how to settle the issue is expected to be reached during Wen's four-day visit.

Wen is also expected to raise the issue of Tibet and the role of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, Chinese officials have said.

On Saturday, police prevented Tibetan activists, who oppose Beijing's rule in the Himalayan territory, from demonstrating against Wen's visit.

Police detained two Tibetan leaders to prevent them from organizing demonstrations and prevented 50 Tibetan students from leaving their college hostels to protest, a police officer said.

Another Tibetan protest was planned Sunday in New Delhi.

Strong earthquake hits near Indonesian island of Sumatra

Jakarta — A strong, undersea earthquake hit Sunday near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, causing people to flee their homes in fear of a tsunami like the one that devastated the island in December, seismologists said.

The 6.8-magnitude tremor's epicenter was about 70 miles southwest of Padang, a city in western Sumatra, the Hong Kong Observatory said. The temblor was not strong enough to cause a tsunami, meteorologists said.

"Many people in Padang are panicking," said Yusuf, an official from Indonesia's Geophysics and Meteorology Agency who uses only one name. "People have left their houses, especially those living on the coast."

Tremors from the earthquake were felt in several areas surrounding the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur, national meteorological chief Chow Kok Kee told TV 3 news.
The quake was recorded at 5:29 p.m. (6:29 a.m. EDT) in the Kepulauan Mentawai region, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There have been no reports of damage, USGS spokeswoman Clarice Ransom said.

Sumatra was devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami and earthquake that killed nearly 183,000 people in 11 countries and left another 129,000 missing.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was the hardest hit with at least 126,000 people killed and more than 500,000 left homeless, mostly in Aceh province on Sumatra.

The region has experienced regular aftershocks since. On March 28, an 8.7-magnitude quake hit a string of islands off Sumatra, killing at least 647 people.

Charles, Camilla Wed in Modest Ceremony

WINDSOR, England - Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were married Saturday in a modest civil ceremony at the 17th century Guildhall, and the second marriage for each was blessed by the Church of England as the royals knelt before Archbishop of Canterbury in a majestic ceremony beneath the soaring arches of the Gothic St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

The wedding capped a decades-long love affair that endured the prince's first marriage to Princess Diana and constant tabloid scrutiny.

Charles and Camilla confessed "manifold sins and wickedness" — words from the Book of Common Prayer, as Archbishop Rowan Williams blessed their union. They pledged to be faithful in their marriage, then walked from the cathedral to greet the huge crowd assembled behind police barriers on the manicured grounds of the ancient fortress, first associated with William the Conqueror, who invaded from France in 1066.

Charles and Camilla left in a black Rolls-Royce for a reception where they were greeted the 800 guests, including Prime Minister Tony Blair and the bride's ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, in the castle's State Apartments.

The wedding cake was a single-layered organic fruit cake decorated with roses, thistles and daffodils — a nod to the groom's passion for organic farming. A sword that belonged to King George V, Charles' great-grandfather, was used as a cake knife.

The couple then set off for a honeymoon in a cozy Scottish hunting lodge that once belonged to the prince's grandmother. The car that sped them away had red and blue balloons attached and "Just Married" written on the back window.

Charles's mother and father, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, joined a Who's Who of Britain, representatives of governments and members of royal houses for the blessing ceremony, where women guests wore a dazzling array of hats, feathers much in favor.

After the town hall nuptials, not attended by the queen to honor the couple's desire to keep it "low key," Charles and Camilla emerged arm-in-arm to the cheers of onlookers and a jazz band playing, "Congratulations." They waved to the cheering crowd, but there was no public kiss or embrace.

Camilla now takes on Diana's previous status as Princess of Wales, although she plans to defer to public sentiment by avoiding the title and will instead be known as the Duchess of Cornwall.

When Charles takes the throne, Camilla legally will be queen, but she wishes to be known as Princess Consort — a bow to opinion polls that show 70 percent of the population opposed to Queen Camilla.

Fewer than 30 guests attended the civil ceremony, and they included Charles' sons, William and Harry. Many among the group were moved from site to site in rented buses.

For the wedding ceremony, the bride wore an oyster silk basket weave coat with a herringbone stitch and a matching chiffon dress. She also wore a matching straw and lace hat with feather details.

Charles, in contrast to the military uniform he wore for his first wedding to Diana, was dressed in formal morning wear.

The hall was lined with jasmine and lily of the valley — known to symbolize the return of happiness.

The couple initially planned to wed at Windsor Castle but changed their plans because under British licensing law, registering the castle as a wedding venue would mean opening it to the weddings of commoners.

The civil ceremony was in sharp contrast to the pageantry of Charles' 1981 storybook wedding to the 20-year-old Diana Spencer at St. Paul's Cathedral.

Waving Union Jack flags or raising banners honoring Diana, crowds lining the streets of the handsome riverside town of Windsor waited in chilly sunshine for the nuptials, which were postponed so Charles could attend Friday's funeral of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

"It's up to him who he marries," said Barbara Murray, 41, who camped overnight with her two daughters to stake out a vantage point to see the couple. "Whoever he chose wouldn't be the same as Diana."

Nearly eight years after Diana's death, some have bridled at accepting Camilla as a future queen, seeing her relationship with Charles as the reason his first marriage fell apart.

"She broke up their marriage," said Yvonne Williams, 67, who raised a banner that read: "Long live the Queen, Diana Forever: King Charles, Queen Camilla — Never."

Security was very tight. In addition to sharpshooters on rooftops, plainclothes officers moved around in the crowd, dogs sniffed for bombs, and normally unarmed police carried handguns in the streets around Windsor Castle.

Thames Valley Police, responsible for security outside the castle, had 550 officers on duty and Scotland Yard, which is in charge inside the castle, had dozens more.

On Friday, Prince Charles joined world leaders and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at the John Paul's funeral.

In keeping with tradition, Camilla spent Friday night at Clarence House, the London residence of the Prince of Wales, while Prince Charles spent the night at his country mansion in Gloucestershire, with his sons.

Camilla wore a blue jacket and smiled and waved to the assembled Saturday morning as she set out for Windsor, 20 miles west of London.

Inside Windsor Castle's gates, tents were erected for the media, while every vantage point, from private balconies to the roof of a local liquor store, was converted into a temporary broadcast location.

Hotels were fully booked, and souvenir shops were doing a brisk trade in royal wedding mugs and tea towels.

Charles met Camilla Shand more than 30 years ago and discovered they shared a common love of rural life.

Her great-grandmother Alice Keppel had a love affair with King Edward VII, Charles' great-great-grandfather. The young Camilla is said to have brought that up after meeting the prince at a polo match in the early 1970s.

"My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?" she is reported to have told the prince.

But he sailed off with the Royal Navy without cementing their relationship. In his absence, she married Andrew Parker Bowles.

In 1981, the prince married Diana, who won the nation's heart but did not hold her husband's. Charles acknowledged years later that he had broken his marriage vows after the marriage deteriorated and despite his and Diana's efforts to save it.

"There were three of us in that marriage," Diana said later — but she admitted affairs of her own.

Many Britons took Diana's view, vilifying Camilla as a royal home-wrecker.

Charles and Diana were divorced in 1996, a year after the Parker Bowles' marriage dissolved.

After Diana's death in 1997, Charles and Camilla cautiously began making their relationship public. Their first public appearance together came in 1999; the first public kiss in 2001. In February, the prince and Camilla announced that they would wed.

The wedding faced a series of obstacles, including the debate over what title Camilla would take.

Speculation later surfaced about whether the wedding would be legal. But the registrar general dismissed a series of objections and the government's chief legal adviser said there were no legal obstacles.

Bangalore Police take two Tibetan youth leaders into custody

India News, Bangalore: Two Tibetan youth leaders were taken into custody by police as a precautionary measure as part of the tight security in place for the visit to the city Saturday of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Bangalore Police Commissioner S. Marisamy said the two leaders of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress (RTYC) - its president Prema and vice-president Alex - were taken into custody.

They were detained "to prevent them from mobilising their members and supporters," Marisamy told IANS. The Tibetans have decided to stage a protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet during Wen's two-day stay here.

A Tibetan spokesman alleged that police had laid siege on the Tibetan hostel in the city suburb where about 120 Tibetan students are staying.

"About 40 policemen descended on the hostel and locked up the gates. They are holding up our students, who are preparing for their examinations," a Tibetan spokesman said.

The police, however, denied the charge and said they were only monitoring the movement of the students.

"We are keeping a vigil on them after their threat to stage demonstrations against the visiting dignitary," a police official said.

Earlier, police deputy commissioner G.B. Chebbi said that the Tibetan organisations, led by RTYC, had been denied permission to hold a 24-hour hunger strike in the city against Wen and his 100-member delegation.

However, Friends of Tibet (India) general secretary Tenzing Tsuendue told reporters here that about 200 Tibetans have decided to hold peaceful protests Sunday against the Chinese occupation of their motherland.

"Though the police have cancelled the permission granted earlier for the strike, we intend to stage impromptu protests. We want to tell Wen Jiabao there will be no peace in Tibet till the Chinese leave our country," Tenzing said.

Meanwhile, police have banned any gathering of people or groups on the 10-km route Wen would be taking from the airport to a five-star hotel for the night halt.

Karnataka Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh and select invitees will be hosting an official dinner to the visiting premier and his delegation.

Wen has a hectic schedule in the city Sunday, beginning with hour-long visits to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) facility at Whitefield on the outskirts of the city, the Satellite Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Huawei Technologies, the only Chinese software firm in India.

Before leaving for New Delhi Sunday evening, Wen will spend an hour at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) for a first hand account of the premier institute's R&D activities.

Charles and Camilla are married

World News, LONDON: Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles married Saturday in a British civil ceremony, formalizing a long romance that helped end their first marriages.
The couple, who conducted a lengthy affair during their previous marriages, were united in Windsor's Guildhall, the BBC said.

The union made Parker-Bowles "Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall."

The crown prince and his new wife then left for an Anglican blessing at St.George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.

The queen was to join her son and others at the blessing, after which the royal entourage will attend a reception in the castle.

Many Britons appeared to barely notice the marriage, with British newspapers largely ignoring or insulting the couple.

The Daily Mirror used its front page to feature former royal butler Paul Burrell calling on Prince Charles to step down as heir to the throne, while the Independent focused on the prince's controversial handshake the day before with Zimbabwe's virulently anti-British dictator.

The duchess wore an Anna Valentine-designed dress, a hat by Philip Treacy and Linda Bennett shoes.Her gold wedding ring was made of Welsh gold, a tradition among Britain's royals.

Six months ultimatum to news channels to conform to uplinking rules

Business India, New Delhi: Union cabinet on Friday gave the last extension of six months to news and current affairs channels to show that their structural equity confirms to the uplinking rules.
“The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, gave its last extension of six months from now (till September, 2005) to show that its structural equity conforms to this regime,” Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy told reporters after a Cabinet meeting here. There will be no further extensions, he added.

He said, “The policy requires the news channels to adhere to a cap of 26 per cent of FDI and the Indian entity to have not less than 51 per cent. But for a variety of reasons, many existing news channels have not been able to conform to this changed system.”

He said the companies operating such channels were earlier required to conform to the revised guidelines by March 2004, that is, to restructure their equity to conform to these guidelines.

The decision for extension of the deadline will give time to the Ministry to finalise the proposal to review the uplinking guidelines, Reddy added.

The Union Government had taken a decision on July 25, 2000 to further liberalise its uplinking policy and permit the Indian private companies to set up uplinking hub/teleports for licensing/hiring out to other broadcasters. The new policy also permits uplinking of any television channel from India. It also allows the Indian news agencies to have their own uplinking facilities for purposes of newsgathering and its further distribution.

Europe has confirmed its intention to try again to land on Mars, to search for evidence of past or present life.

The European Space Agency mission, which would include a roving robot, would leave Earth in June 2011 and arrive at the Red Planet in June 2013.

The 500-million-euro mobile laboratory would "sniff" the air for signs of biology and listen to the ground for evidence of Marsquakes.

Esa's last landing attempt, Beagle 2, went missing without a trace in 2003.

Top scientists and officials from the space agency (Esa) met this week to assess the best landing options. The workshop's ideas were presented to the media in London, UK, on Friday.

They still require a great deal of further detail and the agency's member states will also have to sign off the mission. Ministers will have their say when the Esa Council meets in December.


EUROPE'S MISSION TO MARS

To leave Kourou, French Guiana, spaceport in 2011. Will launch on Russian-built Soyuz-Fregat vehicle

Planetary positions account for long journey time Landing date will avoid worst of duststorm season

US may be asked to provide orbital relay of data Could also provide entry, descent and landing expertise

Would employ parachutes, airbags and retro-rockets But the commitment is clear. "We know we're going, we want to go and the intention is to go - but there are an awful lot of steps between now and then and they will be critical," explained Dr Mark Sims, of Leicester University, UK, who is helping to pull together the mission, which comes under Esa's Aurora programme.

The likely final mission will emerge and evolve from concepts that are already on the table and have been debated for some time.

One is ExoMars - a large rover that flies with a relay orbiter. An ExoMars-lite version would use orbiters already at Mars to send home its data.

And then there is BeagleNet, a twin lander design with smaller rovers, which delivers improved versions of the instruments that flew with Beagle 2.

Although the final architecture of the mission will not become clear for several months, there are certain "must haves" scientists have said should be built in to any lander - and these go to technologies that Europe feels will complement any instrumentation the American plan to send on their future rovers. The must haves include:

* a drill or "mole", such as the one designed for Beagle 2, that could go under the oxidised surface of Mars to find water and help investigate the subsurface geochemistry
* "life-marker" experiments that would analyse the soil, rocks and gases in the atmosphere for signs of biological activity. Life traces would have specific chemical "signatures"
* a seismometer to detect Marsquakes and other geological activity.

No one has got as far as identifying landing sites yet, but they could include the locations shown by Europe's Mars Express orbiter to have local "hot spots" of methane in the atmosphere.

One such location is the planet's near-equatorial Elysium region, which also appears to have a huge, frozen sea just beneath the Martian surface.

The site has been proposed as an excellent place to start looking for life.

As a known by-product of biochemistry, methane could indicate the presence of microbial organisms - it could also just be an outcome of volcanism.

"You have to eliminate the possible solutions," said Professor Colin Pillinger, the chief scientist on the illfated Beagle 2 mission.

"We have seen hints of recent lava flows, but if you go to Mars and you can't recognise any geological activity that solution has a problem," he told the BBC News website. "If you can't find a geological signal, don't propose a geological answer."

Aurora envisages not only a roving mission to Mars in the near future, but a sample-return mission, too. Scientists want to bring rocks back from the Red Planet to study in labs on Earth.

But the scale of such a mission, probably costing billions of euros, means it will almost certainly be a joint effort with the US, much like the successful Cassini-Huygens double spacecraft sent to Saturn.

Sample-return means not only getting to the planet, finding and storing suitable rocks, but then blasting them off the surface of Mars in a secure container that can be returned safely to Earth free from contamination.

"It is such a big undertaking and in its present concept, it is American-led - the same as Cassini," said Bruno Gardini, the Esa Aurora programme manager.

"The question is what can Europe contribute? This could be a rover that goes to fetch the samples. This could be the European component and ExoMars gives us that tremendous possibility."

UK returns

The UK is expected to have a major input into the new landing mission. British scientists and industrialists were the lead partners in the Beagle 2 probe.

Although this mission never achieved its final objectives, scientists and engineers on the project felt they built up considerable expertise in the process and would like another go.

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PParc), the major funding body in the UK for this area of science, plans to put aside considerable sums of money over the next few years to give British researchers a leading role in Aurora.

"From the studies that have been conducted, UK industry has participated in developing a number of the leading technologies and that puts us in a good position for the follow-on phases," Mark Roe, from EADS-Astrium, the prime contractor on Beagle 2,

after a funeral in Rome watched by tens of thousands of people, including 200 world leaders.

The vast crowd of pilgrims packed St Peter's Square and spilled onto the surrounding streets.

Millions of others watched the Mass on television, many gathering around giant screens in cities around the world. After the requiem, the coffin was taken back into the basilica and placed in its final resting place in the crypt.

Only senior clerics and close friends of the Pope accompanied the coffin to the 16th-Century crypt for the private interment.

The simple cypress wood coffin was placed inside two other caskets - one zinc and one oak - before being buried near the resting place of St Peter.

The grave is marked by a simple marble slab inscribed with his name in Latin, Joannes Paulus II, and the years of his life, 1920-2005.

The three-hour funeral service was conducted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, which will begin electing the Pope's successor on 18 April.

Throughout the open-air service the Pope's wooden coffin, adorned with a cross and the letter 'M' for Mary, lay in front of an altar on the basilica's stone steps.

A book of the Gospels was laid on top of the coffin.

Weeping openly

In his homily, or sermon, Cardinal Ratzinger traced the life of the man he called "our late beloved Pope" from his days as a labourer in Nazi-occupied Poland to supreme leader of more than one billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

He was interrupted many times by lengthy applause from the crowd - a traditional Italian mark of respect.

Cardinal Ratzinger said John Paul II was a "priest to the last" who had offered his life to God and his congregation, "especially amid the sufferings of his final months".

The cardinal's voice choked with emotion as he recalled one of John Paul II's last public appearances, when he appeared at the window of his Vatican apartment to bless the crowd gathered below in St Peter's Square on Easter Sunday.

"We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that he sees us and blesses us," Cardinal Ratzinger said as he pointed up to the third-floor window above the square.

There was great emotion from the many thousands of pilgrims too, many of whom wept openly as they prayed.

Even young children seemed aware of loss.

Eight-year-old Robert Petre told the BBC News website: "I'll miss him.

"I saw him a year ago when I came to the Vatican. Now he has gone to heaven, to be with Jesus."

Police guarding the throng blinked back tears as the prayers were said.

Huge crowds also gathered in the Polish city of Krakow, the city where John Paul II was cardinal before ascending to the papacy.

About one million people converged on one of the city's parks to watch the requiem Mass on a video screen.

As the coffin was carried away from public view for the last time at the end of the service the bells of St Peter's tolled and the gathered pilgrims applauded.

Just before re-entering the basilica, the coffin was held aloft and momentarily turned towards the piazza where the crowds bade farewell.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Pope John II considered resigning

VATICAN CITY: As world leaders converged for the funeral of John Paul II and officials struggled with the biggest security operation in Rome's history, the Vatican disclosed that the ailing pope considered resigning five years ago.

Hope arises for peace on Kashmiri border

MUZAFFARABAD,
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir: Hopes rose for lasting peace between India and Pakistan as bus passengers defied Islamic militants and crossed Kashmir's military dividing line for the first time in nearly 60 years.

UN voted to probe Hariri's killing

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council voted to set up an international inquiry into the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri, a killing blamed by the Lebanese opposition on Syria.

.Syria in final pullout phase

BEIRUT: Syria began the final phase of a troop pullout ending a 29-year military presence in Lebanon, as consultations for a new cabinet to oversee long-awaited parliamentary elections gathered momentum.

Indonesia reduces tsunami death figure

JAKARTA: Indonesia drastically reduced the possible death toll from the December 26 tsunami, removing more than 50,000 from its total number of people listed as missing.

Pope 'considered standing down'

Pope John Paul II's last will and testament indicates that he considered resigning in 2000, when he reached 80.

The Vatican released the 15-page document on Thursday, after it had been translated from the Pope's native Polish into Italian.

The will thanks other faiths, as well as scientists, artists and politicians, for their support throughout his life.

The document was written over John Paul II's 26-year pontificate. Its release comes a day before his funeral.

Writing in 2000 - when he was already ailing and the Church was embarking on a new millennium - John Paul II suggested the time was one of torment for him.

The Pope said he hoped the Lord "would help me to recognise how long I must continue this service".

He prayed that he would have the "necessary strength" to continue his mission.

The entry mentions the 1981 attempt on his life and calls his survival a "miracle".

The BBC's Peter Gould in Rome says the disclosure that John Paul II considered resigning comes as a considerable surprise.

During his long illness he always gave the impression that the papacy was a mission given to him by God, and only God could decide when it should end.

However the fact that he considered standing down in 2000 in significant, our correspondent adds.

He was 80 - the age beyond which cardinals are no longer allowed to elect a new pope.

The testament also says the pontiff left no material possessions and asked that his notes should be burned.

As Vatican officials made the document public, they said the Pope had considered being buried in Poland, but finally decided to leave the decision up to the College of Cardinals.

A huge security operation is under way, in preparation of Friday's funeral.

Strict controls have been introduced in Rome's airspace, and thousands of extra army and police have been deployed.

Huge crowds

The event will be attended by about 200 political and religious leaders from around the world.

Among those attending will be US President George W Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who leads the world's largest Catholic country.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei - both of them Muslims - are also taking part.

Mr Bush and two of his predecessors, George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton, have already paid their respects at St Peter's Basilica, where the Pope's body is lying in state.

They were allowed past the estimated one million people waiting to enter the basilica.

The sheer number of mourners is said to have doubled Rome's normal population, stretching the city's resources to the limit.

Hundreds of thousands of Poles are among those still on their way.

A total of 117 cardinals are eligible to take part in the secret conclave, scheduled to begin on 18 April, to elect a new pope.