International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammad ElBaradei has said that he does not expect India to sign the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, but feels the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty could be more "acceptable".
United States President Barack Obama has assured Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the United Nations Security Council resolution asking non-Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty states to sign the proliferation treaty is not directed against India and that his country would fulfill all obligations with regard to the nuclear deal.
Pakistan will fulfil international obligations regarding the designation of individuals and entities by the United Nations as terrorist, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has opposed the expansion of the United Nations Security Council by including countries like India which would spur a 'competition' with nations like Pakistan wanting to get in.
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution asking all non-Non Proliferation Treaty states to join the treaty at an unprecedented summit chaired by United States President Barack Obama who signalled that these countries, which include India, must come on board.
Will stand for rights of Kashmiris: Imran Khan in PoK
Israel has warned that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which carried out the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is planning "imminent" terror strikes across India especially in Jammu and Kashmir.
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday asked the Tamil Tigers to immediately surrender, renounce terrorism and join the political process through dialogue to put an end to the decades old ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. "We demand that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam immediately lay down arms, renounce terrorism, allow a UN assisted evacuation of the remaining civilians in the conflict area, and join the political process through dialogue," UNSC stated.
"Of course, from a more general perspective, the Indian weapon programme has produced sufficiently good weapons -- they did go 'bang' at Pokhran II -- to provide a nuclear deterrent that only insane fools or idiots would ignore."
Hitting hard at countries that have been blocking the expansion of United Nations Security Council in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, India on Thursday dared such nations to schedule a straw poll in the UN General Assembly to prove that they had the numbers.
Visiting Namibian Foreign Minister Marco Hausiku conveyed his country's "strong support" to India's candidature for permanent membership of the Security Council during talks with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said China will be 'pleased' to see India become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
India on Wednesday said Pakistan has not responded to its consistent demand for handing over underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and others fugitives."We have consistently asked Pakistan to hand over Ibrahim and others to us. The demand has been made in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.... But, unfortunately there has been no response from Pakistan so far," Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said in the Lok Sabha.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is still active and trying its best to increase the tension between India and Pakistan, a top United Nations official mandated to monitor the Security Council sanctions against Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorist groups said on Wednesday.
The Pakistan government filed an appeal against the release of Jamaat-ud Dawah chief Hafeez Mohammad Saeed in the country's Supreme Court on Friday. Saeed, who was held under house arrest after the United Nations Security Council banned the Jamaat, declaring it as a front for terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was released by the Lahore High Court on June 2. Saeed, the founder of the LeT, is widely considered to be the mastermind of the terror attack on Mumbai.
He had come in search of jobs in America to rescue his presidency and India failed him in more ways than one, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Investigations into the origins of the Mumbai terror attacks are still on and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to assist Indian agencies, authorities in the US have said, following reports that the Pakistani probe indicates that the strike was planned outside the country."I believe the investigation is ongoing as to the origins of the attacks," a National Security Council spokesman said when asked about news reports in this regard coming from Pakistan.
In a wide-ranging interview with French daily Le Monde, the minister said Pakistan does not deny sending terrorists to India.
Pakistani authorities have detained more than 60 leaders of the outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah though no evidence linking them to the Mumbai attacks has been found so far, the interior ministry said on Friday. Intelligence and security agencies have detained the Jamaat leaders, including its chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, as part of the ongoing crackdown on the group designated as a terrorist outfit by the United Nations Security Council. Nothing incriminating has been found.
Jamaat-ud_Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, designated as a terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and other militant leaders detained by Pakistani authorities cannot be tried in the absence of solid evidence against them, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said on Wednesday. The government had recently launched a crackdown against militant groups, including the JuD.
The ministers, including Krishna, also reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism and to increased participation of developing countries in the decision-making bodies of multilateral organizations and institutions.
Riedel, who was also the erstwhile director for South Asia in the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration and most recently an adviser on foreign policy to the Obama campaign, said it's difficult to believe the Pakistani government's assertions that its intelligence service has no links to LeT. If there's anything that is a 64 million dollar question today," it is finding out the "extent of its ties to the Pakistani intelligence service."
Bruce Riedel, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is being talked about as likely to be tapped for a senior position in an Obama Administration that deals with South Asia, said while the LeT's continuing relationship with the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, is much debated and the Pakistani authorities deny any such relationship, "The fact is that the organisation has been tolerated in Pakistan despite the 2002 ban."
The United Nations Security Council held a close door meeting to discuss the situation after the junta government in Myanmar extended the house arrest of the country's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The meeting was held at the request of France, which condemned Tuesday's verdict of a Myanmar court convicting the 64-year-old leader for breaching the terms of her detention. "The verdict is in clear violation and breach of the request made by the Security Council," UNSC said.
"The United States believes that the long-term legitimacy and viability of the UN Security Council depends on its reflecting the world of the 21st century," said Gordon Duguid, the State Department Acting Deputy Spokesman, onThursday.
The United Nations Security Council's sanctions committee has not received any petition from Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front for Lashkar-e-Tayiba, to reconsider the decision declaring it as a terrorist group, a top official said on Thursday. Reports from Pakistan had said that the JUD is appealing the decision but Coordinator of Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee Richard Barrett said no such petition has been received.
India is hopeful of getting the non-permanent Asian seat in the United Nations Security Council, said Minister of state for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Friday.
Diplomats said that France, whose original draft is being opposed by Moscow, is working on fresh resolution that would try to harmonize the two opposing drafts even as most members stressed the need to have resolution, which could be adopted unanimously.
The original document, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy last Tuesday during his Moscow visit and approved by EU foreign ministers in Brussels the next day, has already been signed by separatist leaders of the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
A defiant North Korea on Friday test-fired another short-range missile and warned of more 'self- defence counter-measures' if 'hypocrites' in the United Nations Security Council slapped sanctions on it for this week's nuclear test. North Korea launched a new type short-range missile with an estimated range of 160 km from its Musudan-ri rocket launch site on its east coast, a South Korean official said.
Chinese state television CCTV9 has highlighted the role of the LeT and its sponsors in Pakistan in this horrific attack which shook the world.
MAG was constituted by Department of Electronics and IT in February 2014.
Shivshankar Menon said the government's amendment to the Citizenship Act was a "self-inflicted goal".
The warning by the Counter-Terrorism Bureau at the National Security Council regarding attacks on Israelis in India comes at a time when all terror groups have decided that targeting an Israeli would be the only way to get the better of the United States of America.
"There was a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. If Pakistan had not taken steps under that, then they could have declared Pakistan a terrorist state. They could have crippled Pakistan's economy," Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said.
The United Nations Security Council has placed sanctions on Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front organisation of banned Lashkar-e-Tayiba, declaring it a terrorist organisation.Four top leaders of LeT including Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Zaki-ur-Bahaziq have also been declared as terrorists by the UNSC.Imposing the sanctions, the Council asked all member states to freeze their assets and impose travel ban and arms embargo.
Pakistan on Thursday said it was "disturbed" by reports that India could be preparing for additional nuclear tests and hoped a unilateral moratorium on testing would remain in place in the region.
The Seven-Party Alliance in Nepal has achieved a major breakthrough in the ongoing political logjam by agreeing to elect prime minister, president and vice-president through a simple majority of the Constituent Assembly, but differences continue to persist over the composition of the National Security Council.
Even as Pakistan continues to urge the international community to accept its membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, highly placed sources in the United States who are involved with the tracking of nuclear commerce have claimed that Islamabad is still selling nuclear materials to North Korea.
Analysts suggest that with the Indo-US nuclear deal in limbo, New Delhi could be balancing foreign policy with an eye to the polls. They say that India's sharp response to the US State Department's 'advice' on Iran was one such move. While some felt the response was a case of dangerous over-reaction, others said it was merely an act of diplomacy where relations with other countries, particularly the US, are balanced to suit India's interests.