Describing Iran as the 'most significant threat' to regional stability, a top American commander has accused Tehran of carrying out clandestine activities in more than a dozen countries including India.
"As part of the President's ongoing commitment to consult with Congress on national security matters, the President directed the Department of Justice to provide the Congressional Intelligence committees access to classified Office of Legal Counsel advice related to the subject of the Department of Justice White Paper," an official said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak on such sensitive matters.
Putting Pakistan on notice, a Republican-majority Congressional panel has cleared a key bill that would slap strict restrictions on the United States aid to Islamabad for not doing enough in the war against terrorism.
Senior United States lawmakers have demanded an inquiry into the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigations that brought to light the extramarital affair of former Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus, wanting to know when the top general's name popped up on FBI radar and whether national security was compromised.
Biden's remarks could be seen as a setback to the Shehbaz Sharif government's bid to improve ties with the US.
India can help mend the fractured relationship between United States and Pakistan, believes a ranking member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Indian American Leadership Initiative, founded by political activist Varun Nikore a decade ago to promote Indian-American participation in the mainstream political process and to support the community's candidates at the local, state and national levels, formally launched its political action committee on Capitol Hill in September-end.
The massive $7.5 billion aid legislation to Pakistan, authored by United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John F Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar, would be approved without any difficulty in the coming weeks. The massive aid to Pakistan will be approved in spite of the serious doubts raised by some members of the committee, including a senior Democrat and a few Republicans, they said.
The statement of Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral John Aquilino on Wednesday came ahead of the 15th round of high-level military talks between India and China on March 11.
"Pakistan must be dissuaded from using terrorism as a state policy, and part of the US engagement with Pakistan should be focused on that result," says Ed Royce, senior Republican lawmaker.
The defence secretary was responding to a question from Congressman Joe Wilson, a friend of India in the Congress who, of late, has been critical of India deciding to take an independent position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Diplomatic and Congressional sources tell Rediff.com that for all intents and purposes, the F-16 sale is dead.
The US House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included key components of Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi's resolution language urging the Chinese government to end its military aggression against India along the LAC.
'Today we prove that our democracy still works and that the power always belongs to the people through the power of our vote'
The United States has conveyed a veiled threat to Pakistan that their bilateral defence cooperation can come under a cloud if the standoff on the issue of double murder-accused US national Raymond Davis' immunity persists.
India is centrally important for America's success in the Af-Pak region, according to Richard Holbrooke, special United States representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. "I want to be sure that everyone here recognises how centrally important India will be to this (the US success in Afghanistan and Pakistan)," he told American lawmakers at a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan convened by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
United States lawmakers on Wednesday expressed serious concern over Chinese military buildup, which was agreed to by top officials of the Obama administration at a Congressional hearing.
Even before the India-United States civilian nuclear agreement gets a nod from the Nuclear Supplier's Group, a hint of the US Congressional opposition has surfaced, in the form of a salvo fired by Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.Berman, a California Democrat, was the author of several 'killer amendments' to the enabling Hyde Act when it was debated and voted on the floor in 2006, all of which were defeated.
Influential US lawmaker Congressman Ed Royce has called for the shutting down of the Deobandi schools (madrassas) in Pakistan, which he alleged "continue to churn out terrorists that attack" democratic nations, including India and the United States.
Top Pentagon officials have shown an understanding of India abstaining at the UN on resolutions against the Russian aggression against Ukraine but had a hard time pacifying many US lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on the Indo-Pacific on New Delhi's repeated abstention at the world body in New York.
Curtis, who was the lead panellist at a conference at The Brookings Institution titled, The US-India Nuclear Agreement: Expectations and Consequences,' said, "During the Bush Administration, US officials broke the habit of viewing India solely through the India-Pakistan lens. Washington developed a greater appreciation for the Indian democratic miracle and viewed our shared democratic principles as the bedrock for a broader strategic partnership."
American Congressman Ed Royce, a ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the senior-most minority member on the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation, who was part of the Congressional leadership that met with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his recent visit to Washington, is disappointed that the United States-India civilian nuclear deal wasn't completed to make it the signature highlight of the Obama-Singh summit.
India is the birthplace of four major world religions -- Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is home to the world's third largest Muslim population, a diverse community of sects that includes Sufis, Shia, and Bohra. Roughly three per cent of India's citizens are Christian, and notably, Christians are the religious majority in three of India's 29 states, she said.
United States lawmakers, who attended the annual Sikh American Heritage Dinner on Capitol Hill organized by the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, pledged to support the community's efforts to serve in the armed forces without compromising their religious principles.
United States vice president-elect Joe Biden will lead a bipartisan Congressional delegation on a visit to Southwest Asia before he takes office alongside Barack Obama on January 20. For security reasons, details of the trip and the countries to be visited have not been released. Biden would be accompanied by Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic Presidential candidate and the incoming Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ties between Pakistan's ISI and Taliban remain troubling for the United States and this relationship should be "fixed", a top US senator has said.
The Senate version of the bill of approval of the Indo-United States nuclear agreement was introduced on Wednesday in the House of Representatives, giving boost to efforts to push the agreement hours before a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush in Washington.The bill was introduced by the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
The nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan has figured during a Congressional hearing on the New START treaty between the United States and Russia.For the past two days, during hearings on the New START treaty held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lawmakers wanted to know from top US officials and experts about other nuclear weapon countries like India and Pakistan and how it can motivate the two countries to reduce their nuclear stockpile.
"I submitted my letter of resignation last night, which felt pretty good," Clapper told members of the House Intelligence Committee during a Congressional hearing on Thursday.
Congressman Joseph Crowley, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives and the former chair of the Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has condemned the terror attack on Mumbai.
Several members of Congress are confirmed to be in attendance for the Prime Minister's address to a diverse crowd of 18,500 people.
'The Bush administration, through a gag order on its written responses to Congressional questions, had sought to keep the Indian public in the dark on the larger implications of the nuclear deal, lest the accord run into rougher weather. But now its 26 pages of written answers have been publicly released by a senior United States Congressman.'
Royce, 66, one of the founders of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, said he wanted to spend the remaining months of his term on "urgent threats" the US is facing.
"A Biden administration will be mostly positive for India," said Rick Rossow from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank. "I expect most positive areas of cooperation -- notably defence -- to be maintained," he said.
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