The prime ministers of India and Pakistan were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of a summit in Egypt yesterday, sparking hopes of a resumption of peace talks between the nuclear rivals.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were to hold talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where more than 50 heads of state are attending the developing world’s most important get-together, the Non-Aligned Movement summit.
Relations between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars, deteriorated sharply after last year’s bombings in Mumbai, which killed 166 people and were blamed by New Delhi on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Singh has voiced hope that Pakistan will promise action against those behind the November attacks when he meets Gilani for the second high-level talks between the two sides since the bombings.
Pakistan on Wednesday expressed optimism over the talks.
“There has recently been some forward movement in our relations with India,” Gilani told summit participants. “We hope to sustain this momentum and move toward comprehensive engagement. We believe durable peace in South Asia is achievable.”
The Mumbai siege left in tatters a fragile peace process launched in 2004 to resolve all outstanding issues of conflict between the neighbors, including a territorial dispute over the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Peace “will be facilitated by the resolution of all outstanding disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir,” Gilani said.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon has been holding talks with his Pakistani counterpart Salim Bashir since Tuesday in preparation for the meeting between the prime ministers.
Menon told a press conference on Wednesday that the talks were continuing.
“We have had good detailed discussions. We are still in the process of talking to each other,” Menon said.
Singh has voiced hope that Pakistan will promise action against those behind the attacks when he meets Gilani for only the second high-level contact between the two sides since the Mumbai bombings.
Pakistan has said that it would “probably” put the five accused of involvement in the attacks on trial this week.
More than 50 heads of state from the developing world are gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to tackle the fallout from the global economic meltdown, with calls for a “new world order” to prevent a repeat of the crisis.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS