Breaking the tradition of not naming countries, the first draft of the final document of the 2010 Nuclear-Non Proliferation Treaty Review conference has asked India, Pakistan and Israel to sign the NPT and the CTBT. "The conference calls upon India, Israel and Pakistan to accede to the treaty as non-nuclear weapon States, promptly and without conditions, thereby accepting an internationally legally binding commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons," it said.
The United Nations has expressed concern over the recruitment and use of minors by armed Maoists in India and said there were credible reports that some young ones were forcibly recruited from schools. In its latest report on children in armed conflicts, the United Nations expressed concern at the use of children by the Maoist armed groups in some districts of Chhattisgarh. It also highlighted an incident in which Maoists forced villagers to provide five boys and girls.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad had planned to attack four other targets if his bid to detonate a car bomb near Times Square in New York was successful, according to a television channel. Other locations that he intended to attack were Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Centre and the Connecticut headquarters of defence contractor Sikorsky. Sikorsky manufactures helicopters for the US military, including the Black Hawk.
A computer programmer, who knew Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, is among the three Pakistani men arrested during investigations into the failed plot. The three men were picked up on Thursday in a series of raids in the Boston suburbs, on New York's Long Island and in New Jersey, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed the money trail in the failed attack.
The New York police on Friday cleared a portion of the city's Union Square after a suspicious car was found in the area and rushed a bomb squad to the scene to investigate the vehicle. The car was spotted by a Consolidated Edison employee, who spotted two gasoline canisters in the back of the Oldsmobile Cutlass that was parked in front of the utility company's headquarters. The NYPD has not released any details of the incident.
Three Pakistanis were arrested on Thursday in the US after authorities conducted raids on new locations in the Northeast in connection with the failed Times Square car bombing, federal investigators have said. The searches were carried out in Long Island, the Boston suburbs and New Jersey.
The United States administration's approach to India -- including its 'slow' response to the request for questioning terror suspect David Headley and its proximity to Pakistan in the war on terror -- are steadily driving a wedge in the strong relations cultivated during the regime of former President George W Bush, noted historian Arthur Herman has observed.
Bolivia has said that the multi-billion dollar contract it signed with India's Jindal Steel to develop an iron ore mine has not been rescinded, but the steel company would have to pay a penalty for not fulfilling the terms of the agreement.
In an expected showdown, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a verbal attack against each other at a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting at the United Nations on Monday.In his 35-minute speech at the NPT Review Conference, Ahmadinejad slammed Washington for bullying Tehran over its nuclear programme while not pushing the 'Zionist regime' (Israel) for getting rid of its nuclear weapons.
Police probing the Times Square car bomb case have zeroed in their search on a white man in his 40s who was seen on surveillance videos shedding his shirt and walking away from the area where the explosive-laden vehicle was found. Over 45 kgs of fertilizer, with fireworks and wires fitted around was found with the bomb, police said, but it was not the ammonium nitrate grade that can explode.
The conference on NPT review will kick off on Tuesday and the Iran-West showdown over Tehran's nuclear programme is likely to dominate the proceedings. India, which is not a signatory to the NPT has decided to stay out of the conference.
Prime Minister Singh left on Friday morning for New Delhi from Paro International airport, about 60 km from Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital.
Nine Indians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and economist Amartya Sen have been named in Time magazine's annual list of 100 most influential people.
Less than a year after their controversial engagement in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani will meet in Thimphu on with little expectations of any breakthrough. The two leaders shook hands twice during the opening day of the SAARC Summit today and Singh is expected to convey India's strong demand for action by Pakistan against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to Gilani.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made the announcement at the 16th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit that began in Thimphu with an apt theme -- Towards a Green and Happy South Asia.
The UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS) also commended the decision by the Chinese government.
The Russian-drafted resolution, which passed unanimously by all 15 member-states of the Security Council, appealed to all countries 'to criminalise piracy under their domestic law and favourably consider the prosecution of suspected, and imprisonment of convicted, pirates apprehended off the coast of Somalia, consistent with applicable international human rights law.'
India has said that the United Nations Security Council was persistently 'encroaching' and 'undermining' the work of the General Assembly as it asked for it's revitalisation as the representative organ of the world body.
India supports "a fresh SAARC position on Climate Change for COP (Conference of Parties) 16 in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chnage principles and the Bali Action Plan," External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said, addressing the SAARC Council of Ministers.
Three of them are believed to have died in "friendly fire" by Afghan security forces. Another staffer was burnt in a fire that was caused by exploding grenades, the Board of Inquiry revealed.
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