US senators voted on Wednesday to overturn a three-decade ban on atomic trade with India, giving final congressional approval to a landmark US-India nuclear cooperation accord and handing US President George W. Bush a rare foreign policy victory in his final months in office.
The Senate voted 86-13 to allow US businesses to begin selling nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and UN inspections at India’s civilian — but not military — nuclear plants.
The accord, which the House of Representatives approved on Saturday, marks a major shift in US policy toward nuclear-armed India after decades of mutual wariness. It now goes to Bush for his signature.
Bush hailed the Senate’s vote, saying in a statement that the legislation approving the accord “will strengthen our global nuclear nonproliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in a responsible manner.”
In India, Congress party spokesman Veerappa Moily called the deal “a monumental achievement. It’s a victory of [Indian] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.”
Congressional approval caps an aggressive three-year diplomatic and political push by the Bush administration, which portrays the pact as the cornerstone of new ties with a democratic Asian power that has long maintained what administration officials consider a responsible nuclear program. Bush officials have also championed the opportunities for US firms to do business in India’s multibillion-dollar nuclear market.
Republican Senator Richard Lugar said the pact protects US national security and nonproliferation efforts while building “a strategic partnership with a nation that shares our democratic values and will exert increasing influence on the world stage.”
“With a well-educated middle class that is larger than the entire US population, India can be an anchor of stability in Asia and an engine of global economic growth,” Lugar said.
Opponents say lawmakers, eager to leave Washington to campaign for next month’s elections, rushed consideration of a complicated deal that would spark a nuclear arms race in Asia.
The extra fuel the measure provides, they say, could boost India’s nuclear bomb stockpile by freeing up its domestic fuel for weapons.
Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan said the accord “will almost certainly expand the production of nuclear weapons by India” and help dismantle the architecture of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global agreement that provides civilian nuclear trade in exchange for a pledge from nations not to pursue nuclear weapons.
India built its bombs outside the NPT, which it refuses to sign.
It has faced a nuclear trade ban since its first atomic test in 1974; its most recent nuclear test blast was in 1998.
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the