Senior Pakistani officials were in Washington yesterday to discuss issues related to cooperation against extremism, where Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the army, held a “strategic dialogue” with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The US has cautiously welcomed what it sees as a shift in Pakistan and is looking to prove its commitment to a long-term partnership.
Pakistan has come with a detailed wish list in areas from improving access to water and energy to securing lethal drones.
“We have a relationship that goes back 60 years, but I’m here to build a partnership,” Qureshi said on Tuesday.
Islamabad wants to reach an agreement to cooperate on civilian nuclear energy, which could tacitly recognize Pakistan as the Islamic world’s sole nuclear power.
US officials have publicly sidestepped the issue. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said only “we’re ready to listen to anything.”
Asked if nuclear cooperation could assuage Pakistan’s energy crisis, Clinton said there were “more immediate steps that can be taken,” including upgrading power plants.
Pakistan, who so far only has surveillance drones, is also seeking unmanned attack drones from Washington.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell downplayed expectations for major announcements, saying it was a mistake to see the dialogue as “a discussion of requests and replies.”
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
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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
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