British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed yesterday to bolster cooperation "for years to come" in the West's "war against terror."
Blair, after holding talks with Musharraf in Lahore, said Britain would more than double funding for the fight against radicalism in Pakistan, with the bulk of the money targeting madrasahs, or Islamic schools.
"We are going to be doubling our support over the next three years for the program of enlightened moderation that President Musharraf has led," to ?480 million (US$909 million), Blair told reporters during his third visit to Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The talks had "opened another chapter in strengthening that relationship" with Pakistan, he said, adding that Musharraf was an "example for the future of Muslim countries the world over."
Musharraf meanwhile brushed off concerns about Pakistan's role in fueling extremism and its commitment to tackling Taliban insurgents who are fighting NATO-led troops -- including 4,500 British soldiers, in Afghanistan.
"I did inform the prime minister on all that we are doing here as a strategy to combat terrorism and check extremism," Musharraf told the press conference.
However he warned that the international community needed to focus on politics and development in Afghanistan as well as security and terrorism if it was going to defeat the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban.
The two leaders agreed that their countries "would need to work increasingly closely together for many years to come" on counterterrorism because "its causes had spread," a joint communique said after the talks.
The bulk of the British cash will go towards supporting Musharraf's efforts to push moderation, particularly in education, where some madrasahs have been targeted for allegedly radicalizing Muslim youth.
Britain has been on a drive to curb an apparent rise in Islamic radicalism among young men in its 1.6-million-strong Muslim population, particularly after last year's attacks on London's public transport system that killed 56.
Three of the four suicide bombers were Britons of Pakistani origin while two of those three had visited Pakistan in the year before the atrocities, allegedly for training and instruction from al-Qaeda at extremist madrasahs and camps.
But the British intelligence service and police have in recent months expressed concerns about Pakistan's role in radicalizing Muslim Britons travelling to the land of their fathers and grandfathers.
Blair -- who has frequently called for greater engagement by the West with mainstream moderate Islam -- met Islamic scholars and visited a mosque yesterday and held talks with his Pakistan counterpart Shaukat Aziz.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of