Union Home Minister P Chidambaram during his four-day visit to United States to boost \n\nsecurity co-operation, met with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the US Senate's \nSelect Committee on Intelligence, in Washington on Wednesday.
'Whatever Kamala is today, it is because of my sister.' 'My sister inculcated South Indian culture and values in her,' Dr Sarala Gopalan, US Senator-electKamala Harris' maternal aunt, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier in Chennai.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on the fifth day of its deliberations that included 300 amendments to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill -- Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act -- passed it by 13-5 votes.
A United States lawmaker, who was given the rare opportunity by the Central Intelligence Agency to view the death photos of Osama bin Laden, has said the pictures were "pretty gruesome" and there was no doubt that the Al Qaeda chief was dead.
Some members of a parliamentary panel looking into the issue of hate speech on Facebook on Monday expressed the view that whistle-blowers Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen, who have flagged bias and lack of proper regulation on the social media platform, be called to depose before it, sources said.
United States President Barack Obama faced stiff resistance from the opposition Republican senators and skepticism from his own Democrats, forcing the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to postpone the vote on military intervention in Syria.
American Senator John F Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan after twisting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's arm to acquiesce to hold a run-off election after charges of massive fraud and corruption were uncovered in the recent election, has warned that Pakistan could become the epicenter of terrorism in the world, since it is now the headquarters of the Al Qaeda.
'Just think about it. She's a prosecutor, he's a convicted felon. I love that juxtaposition.' 'She's a woman, and she's black and South Asian. He's a white guy who grew up with enormous [wealth].' 'She grew up in a very average, lower middle class/middle class kind of setting with a single mother.'
According to the report, post war findings intimate Saddam Hussein "as distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime".
Kerry is scheduled to head to India later this month for the fourth annual US-India Strategic Dialogue.
United States Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the new Democratic co-chair of the re-constituted US Senate India Caucus, feels that he has impossible shoes to fill, that of erstwhile Senator and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Dodd, one of the senior-most members of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, addressed an overflowing audience of Indian Americans from across the country in the ornate Mansfield Room of the US Capitol.
Democrat Senator Mark Warner and his Republican colleague in the Senate Dan Sullivan, during a programme in Washington asserted that the erstwhile Obama administration and the US Congress designating India as a major defence partner is a significant step forward in taking the India-US relationship to the next level.
The Oxford University social media expert, however, did not elaborate further about his charges.
The Indo-US ties, particularly in the defence sector, have strengthened in past few years and there is still room for growth in the relationship, a Senate committee was told in Washington.
Senator Joseph R Biden, Jr, the chairman of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will be the key player in moving the US-India civilian nuclear agreement forward in Congress if India succeeds in getting in back on the Congressional court expeditiously, says it may be possible to get the deal consummated this year, but that it's going to be in terms of a best-case scenario a photo-finish.
The issue of aid for Pakistan, including reimbursements under the Coalition Support Funds, came up during a hearing of the Senate panel on the fiscal 2009 Pentagon budget. There are also reports that they're concerned that a lot of the money that we're giving, that's supposed to be going to Waziristan (tribal region), is just simply being used to build up the military strength of the Pakistan military on the border of India," Nebraska Democratic Senator Ben Nelson asked.
This is the highest number of Indian-Americans in the history of the US Congress.
"This means we need the Pakistani political system -- or as many parts of it as possible -- to buy into the goal of eliminating extremist influence in Pakistan."
Senator Lugar's statement on N-deal bill
The US Senate has confirmed Indian-American woman administrator Nisha Desai Biswal as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, making her the first person from the community to hold the top diplomatic position.
The Standing Senate Committee on inter-provincial coordination (sports) has come up with a proposal which bars the players, who have been found guilty of spot-fixing, from selection in the national team again and appearing on the cricket chat shows.
'The Senators were playing safe, not angering either the pro-India lobby or the pro-Pakistan lobby, but perhaps more importantly, the military-industrial complex -- the most powerful lobby of all -- which the majority of Senators are beholden to in terms of largesse to their campaign coffers.'
India comes under attack over religious intolerance, human trafficking and slavery at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Cruz have introduced amendments to increase the annual H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to between 300,000 and 325,000.
The report by the standing senate committee on national security and defence criticises the Canadian government for procrastination in implementing and maintaining disaster readiness programs across the country, leaving Canadians vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters.
Speaking at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: "There are mixed signals here that are very, very troubling and that the United States needs to be able to have alternatives for carrying out its foreign policy in that region."
The Central Investigation Agency's terrorist detainees during the Bush era were far more brutal than previously acknowledged and delivered no 'ticking time bomb' information that prevented an attack, a long-delayed United States Senate report said on Tuesday.
Gizmodo reported on Monday that a former Facebook employee claimed workers "routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers," while "artificially" adding other stories to the trending list
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that he is in favour of expansion of H-1B visa programme, offered to highly skilled professionals and students to live and work in the country.
Garcetti's nomination is pending before the US Congress since July 2021, when he was nominated for the prestigious diplomatic posting by President Joe Biden.
"Does it make sense to spend hundreds of millions on P-3 naval surveillance aircraft specifically designed to hunt submarines? So far as I know, al-Qaeda has not yet developed a submarine navy," the Delaware Democrat added. "The White House claims that weapons systems like these are indeed counter-terrorism tools, but such a claim is an insult to common sense," said Senator Joseph Biden.
Gere accused China of 'cruelty, collective violence and persecution' of the Tibetan people, whom he said were repressed by a 'pervasive surveillance system.'
H-1B visa reform bill introduced in US Senate
Frist hoped that the bill would clear the full Senate this week, or before Congress heads for a two-week Easter recess.
Stuard Milne, CEO, HSBC India talks about the bank's gameplan in the country.
