Bilateral talks between India and Pakistan that began in 2004 have been put on hold in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, news reports said yesterday.
“I do admit there is a pause in the composite dialogue process because of the attacks on Mumbai,” Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was quoted as saying by the Times of India newspaper.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Srinagar, the minister said: “We are now waiting to see whether the assurances they have given us are taken to their logical conclusion.”
India has alleged the Pakistan-based Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind last month’s Mumbai terrorist attacks, which killed more than 170 people. It demanded Pakistan take action against militant groups based on its territory.
Meanwhile, Islamabad is seeking “leads” from India to help with investigations into the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said.
“We want India to provide us leads and we will follow up,” he told reporters in Islamabad yesterday.
“There is no concrete evidence from India” of the involvement of elements in Pakistan, he said.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has denied any government link and pledged to take action against anyone found to have been involved.
Pakistan this month detained suspected militants linked to Jamaat ud-Dawa, which a UN Security Council panel said was a front for terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed by India for the attacks. Jamaat ud-Dawa has denied involvement.
“Pakistan is a responsible country,” Qureshi said.
Pakistan has proposed a meeting of the two country’s foreign ministers to work out details of a joint investigation into the Mumbai attacks, he said.
In other developments, some Bollywood producers have already registered film titles about the Mumbai attacks. Many of the proposed names focus on the city’s Taj Mahal hotel, where a tense 60-hour standoff erupted into fierce gun battles between militants who had stormed the building on Nov. 26 and crack commandos outside.
“We’ve had about 20 to 25 titles registered so far,” said Sushma Shiromanee, vice-president of the Indian Motion Pictures and Producers’ Association.
Titles include “The Taj Encounter,” “Taj Terror,” “Terrorist Attack on the Taj,” “Operation Five Star Mumbai” and “Taj to Oberoi,” the last referring to the Oberoi/Trident hotel that was also seized.
Each title has been registered for 250 rupees (US$5). Producers retain the title for 12 months and can renew the copyright for up to three years. If the film is not made, another producer can use the name, Shiromanee said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS