Washington, In a rebuff to Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari, US president Barack Obama did not meet him on the margins of the NATO Summit in Chicago as the two countries failed to strike a deal on reopening the NATO supply lines to Afghanistan. Zardari, who flew to Chicago with hopes of lifting his stature with a meeting with Obama, was preparing to leave empty-handed as the two countries continued to feel the repercussions of a NATO air strike last November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an incident for which the US President has offered condolences but no apology. As the two-day NATO summit opened in Chicago last evening, Obama remained at loggerheads with Zardari, refusing even to meet him without a deal on the supply routes, which officials in both sides acknowledged would not be coming soon, US media reported on Monday. But White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said that Obama could not meet Zardari as he had a "full slate of summit meetings to attend." "The two bilateral meetings, really, that he did, or President (Hamid) Karzai for obvious reasons given the focus on Afghanistan here, and the Secretary General of NATO given that it's ...
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Washington, US lawmakers of both Democratic and Republican parties have slammed the Obama administration's request for $2.4 billion for Pakistan, calling it a "black hole" where the US has "sunk" $24 billion over the last decade. "Pakistan is like a black hole for American aid," Gary Ackerman, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East and South Asia said during a hearing Wednesday. "Our tax dollars go in, our diplomats go in - sometimes, our aid professionals go in - sometimes, our hopes go in, our prayers go in," he said. "Nothing good ever comes out." Alleging that Islamabad continues to pursue its national interest at America's expense and that of its allies, Ackerman said: "Pakistan continues to shelter, directly support and sponsor terrorists." "Officially acknowledging this indisputable fact might be grossly impolitic; but that doesn't make it less true. American standing in Pakistani public opinion is terrible and getting worse," he said. Similarly Republican Dana Rohrabacher blasted US support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who he said was taking "marching orders" from Pakistan. "We should cut Pakistan off of every cent ...
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Washington, Embattled Internet firm Yahoo's Chief Executive Scott Thompson has resigned after a controversy over a fake computer science college degree on his biography broke out. The departure is a victory for one of Yahoo's largest shareholder Third Point, which brought the discrepancy in Thompson's educational background to light. Dan Leob of Third Point had accused Thompson of faking his educational record, and called it 'insulting' to shareholders. According to The Telegraph, Ross Levinsohn, the head of the company's Americas division, was appointed as Thompson's temporary replacement. Fred Amoroso, who has recently joined the board of Yahoo was named as chairman. Yahoo has spent the past ten days battling to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Thompson could not have obtained the degree listed in his resume because the university did not start offering it until four years after he ...
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Washington, The Indian-American community has come out in strong support of US President Barack Obama, who kicked off his re-election campaign with two rallies in Ohio and Virginia, with an overwhelming 85 per cent of them favouring a second term for him. About 85 per cent of the Indian-Americans support Obama for a second term, according to a latest survey conducted by Lake Research Partners, a DC-based political consultancy firm, with APIAVote. APIA stands for Asian American Pacific Islander. "President Obama was strongest among Indian-American voters, leading Mitt Romney by a margin of 76 to eight per cent in the poll, and weakest among Filipino Americans, where the vote was 57 per cent to 20 per cent. Among Chinese Americans, it was 68 per cent for Obama, 8 per cent for Romney," said Toby Chaudhuri, veteran strategist and chair of APIAVote. The result of the survey conducted by Lake Research Partners is similar to that of India in New England, an ethnic Indian-American publication, which in an online survey in February had said that 80 per cent of the Indian-Americans support Obama against Romney. According to the Lake Research Partners survey, Indian Americans have the ...
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Washington, Osama bin Laden had planned to kill US President Barack Obama and General David Petraeus, who was then top US commander in Afghanistan, and had issued instructions to Ilyas Kashmiri to set up two units to target planes carrying them. According to the documents seized from the Abbottabad safe-house of bin Laden , the then al-Qaida leader wanted to target only Obama and Petraeus. Some of the documents were released by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point on Thursday. "Bin Ladin had asked Atiyya's predecessor, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid , to task Ilyas, presumably Ilyas Kashmiri, to set up two units, one in Pakistan and another in Bagram, Afghanistan , to target airplanes known to be carrying president Obama and/or general Petraeus on their visits to these areas," CTC said in its report. He explained that the death of Obama would see the "utterly unprepared" Vice President Joe Biden automatically assume the presidency, which would cause the US to enter into crisis mode, and "the killing of Petraeus would have a serious impact on the course of the war" , as bin Ladin considered him to be "the man of this (critical) phase" , CTC said. Bin Laden did not ...
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Washington, Nearly a year after Osama bin Laden was killed in his Abbottabad home, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claims it helped US locate the Al Qaeda chief's high-walled hideout. Osama was shot dead May 2 last year at his Abbottabad house by US commandos, straining ties between Washington and Islamabad. “The lead and the information actually came from us,” a senior ISI official told the Washington Post. Washington is sceptical about the ISI claim. After US stealth choppers flew in to Osama's hideout, Pakistani military said it knew nothing about his six-year presence in the garrison town. On Friday, two ISI officials spoke to the daily. One noted that the ISI’s new head, Lt. Gen. Zaheer ul-Islam, is taking a “proactive” approach to public relations to improve the international image of spy service. “Any hit on Al Qaeda anywhere in the world has happened with our help,” the official was quoted as saying. The second official said the ISI provided the CIA with a cellphone number that eventually led to an Al Qaeda courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. The officials maintained that in November 2010 they gave the number to the ...
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Washington, Around 13% of the world's adults - over 640 million people - would like to emigrate with roughly 150 million, including 10 million Indians wishing to settle in America. So suggests a new Gallup survey giving the US an undisputed title as the globe's most desired destination for would-be migrants. The would-be migrants mostly come from populous nations such as China (22 million ), India (10 million), Brazil (7 million), Nigeria (15 million ) or Bangladesh (8 million ). In addition to the almost 1 in 30 adults globally who would like to permanently settle in US, vast numbers are attracted to the UK (45 million), to Canada (42 million), to France (32 million), and to Saudi Arabia (31 ...
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Washington, The US is planning to expand its intelligence operations against high-priority targets such as Iran as part of a new initiative, a media report said. The newly created Defence Clandestine Service will work closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to expand espionage operations overseas, Xinhua quoted the Washington Post as saying. The plan was approved last week by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, according to a defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Monday. The move is in response to a classified study completed last year that concluded that the military's espionage efforts needed to be more focused on major targets outside war zones. The official declined to provide details on where such shifts might occur, but the nation's most pressing intelligence priorities in recent years have included counterterrorism, non-proliferation and ascendant powers. The realignment is expected to affect several hundred military operatives who already work in spying assignments abroad, mostly as case officers for the Defence Intelligence Agency, which serves as the Pentagon's main source of human intelligence and analysis. ...
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Washington, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked a government panel to look into West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's ultimatum to the centre for a moratorium on the cash strapped state's interest payments. Banerjee, who had Saturday given a 15-day ultimatum for a 3-4 year moratorium on interest payments amounting to about Rs. 220 billion (Rs. 22,000 crore) on loans running into Rs. 2,000 billion (Rs. 200,000 crore) was going to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh May 4 to discuss the issue, he told reporters here Sunday. "After she meets the prime minister, what is her scheme of things would be known. Then we would have to see," Mukherjee said. "But, already I have instructed the committee under the chairmanship of Expenditure Secretary to look into it and make necessary recommendations." The finance minister, who represents West Bengal's Jangipur constituency in Lok Sabha said the 13th finance commission had identified Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal among debt-stressed states and he had appointed a committee to look into how their problems could be ...
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Washington, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the developing and emerging economies would continue to play the role of growth drivers for the world. Mukherjee, who was addressing the BRICS finance ministers here, said: "Developing countries and emerging economies are expected to continue as growth drivers for the world economy." Expressing confidence in India's economic health, Mukherjee further said that India's underlying growth fundamentals remained firmed despite adverse conditions prevailing in the external environment. "As far as India is concerned, despite adverse conditions prevailing in our external environment, we are reasonably confident that the underlying growth fundamentals remain firm. "We are intent on ensuring that the process of fiscal consolidation gains further momentum, with monetary policy remaining vigilant in dealing with inflationary pressures," said Mukherjee. Highlighting the importance of the upcoming G20 summit in Mexico, Mukherjee told the BRICS ministers that a credible and ambitious should be put in place to bring back the world economy on the path of recovery. "We need to ensure that the plan adopted by our Leaders ...
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Washington, Following the controversy around the statement made at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on economic reforms in the country, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Dr. Kaushik Basu on Friday clarified that the central message of his talk was the possible European crisis in 2014 and not India's 2014 general elections. In a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance, Basu said: "Some of this has been reported poorly, juxtaposing my comments on Europe in 2014 with the Indian election of 2014. This is unfortunate because the central message of my talk was the possible European crisis of 2014 and India's major rise thereafter, likely overtaking China." Clarifying further Basu said the gist of his argument was that 2014 was an important year as numerous European banks would begin to repay 1.3 trillion dollars worth of loans, which they had received from the European Central Bank. "The gist of my argument was that 2014 was an important year because numerous European banks would have to begin to repay 1.3 trillion dollars worth of loans that they had received from the European Central Bank. This could precipitate a major global economic crisis—a ...
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Washington, The United States has said that it will continue to press Islamabad to "squeeze" the al-Qaida linked Haqqani network, as Afghanistan blamed the Pakistan-based group for the latest brazen attacks in Kabul. Declaring "there were indications of Haqqani involvement" in the weekend attacks in the Afghan capital, secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that she had pressed Pakistan to "squeeze" the Haqqani network when she visited Islamabad last October. "I will continue to make that point, and press it hard," Clinton was quoted by Fox News as telling reporters in the Brazilian capital Brasilia, where she described the Pakistan-based outfit as a "determined foe". Afghan interior minister Bismillah Mohammadi had told newsmen in Kabul that one of the militants arrested during the latest attacks on the Afghan capital and three other cities had told the authorities that al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network was behind the assaults. The secretary of state said she had spoken to her Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar to urge her for a commitment to work closely for peace and stability in Afghanistan and also discussed the recent terrorist attacks in Kabul. The ...
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Washington, The planned satellite launch later this month by North Korea was provocative, the US government said on Monday. "North Korea's launch of a missile would be highly provocative, it would pose a threat to regional security, and it will be inconsistent with its recent undertakings to refrain from any kind of long-range missile launches," State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. She noted that Washington considered the launch as a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718 and 1874, which prohibited Pyongyang from conducting launches that use ballistic missile technology, Xinhua reported. North Korea last month announced its plan to launch an "earth observation" satellite between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th birth anniversary of its founder Kim Il Sung. ...
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Washington, India's celebrated chef Sanjeev Kapoor was given a rare insight into the historic kitchen of the White House, which prepares the food for US President Barack Obama, his family and the large number of guests invited to the resident of the first family every day. Kapoor was not only given the tour of the historic kitchen, but also had an intensive discussion with the team of White House chefs led by its executive chef, William 'Bill' Yosses, for several hours yesterday. He was accompanied by K N Vinod, an eminent Indian-American chef from Washington who runs three popular Indian restaurant in the nation's capital. Yosses, said to be a great lover of Indian food himself, took Kapoor and Vinod around the White House kitchen, but also gave him a tour of the kitchen garden of the First Lady Mitchell Obama. A frequent visitor to Indique and Indique Heights - the two popular Indian restaurants in the nation's capital - Yosses discussed at length of the growing popularity of Indian food in the US and at the white house. Kapoor presented his latest encyclopedic work on Indian food, 'How To Cook Indian' to Yosses and submitted copies of it for the President and the ...
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Washington, Five Indian Americans will be honoured by the Connecticut chapter of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) for their achievements and contributions at an awards banquet April 28. They are Vivek Maru (social entrepreneur), Faquir Jain (applied science and research), Chandra Prasad (arts and letters), Neena Singh (community service) and Malika Bhandarkar (young person award). William "Vijay" Pinch will be honoured with a Friend of India award at the banquet in Stamford. "The award selection is a rigorous process conducted by an independent committee which evaluates all nominations and we are glad we select the best possible candidates every year," said GOPIO-CT president Shailesh Naik. Maru is CEO of Namati, an international organisation that seeks a better understanding of the impacts of legal empowerment and to create the most effective mechanisms for achieving them. Jain, professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut, has collaborated to form Biorasis Inc to commercialise a minimally invasive glucose sensor for real time, continuous glucose monitoring. Prasad, a multi-talented ...
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Washington, The Indian embassy and its consulates in other parts of the country have, like many missions in other parts of the world, outsourced passport related services. Outsourcing Agency VFS Global would begin its operations for the embassy in Washington, and for the consulates general in Chicago and New York from April 16, the embassy announced Thursday. For the consulates general at Houston and San Francisco, the operations would begin from April 30. In Washington The VFS Global website http://www.vfsglobal.com/india/usa and a Call Centre number 202-800-7412 would be functional from April 9 for providing assistance to passport services seekers. Applications would be accepted by VFS Global in person or delivered by mail from April 16 at Suite 103, 1625 K Street NW Washington DC. Addresses of VFS Global at other locations in support of the consulates general would be available on their respective websites. Indian Visa/OCI/PIO services have been outsourced to Travisa Outsourcing company earlier and that arrangement continues. Miscellaneous services like attestation of power of attorney would continue to be extended by the embassy and consulates general of ...
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Washington, A former CIA officer who became a focal player in the debate over waterboarding as an interrogation technique was indicted on charges he leaked classified secrets to journalists, including the role of an associate who participated in a covert mission to track down a top al-Qaida figure. The indictment of John C. Kiriakou, returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday is part of an aggressive Justice Department crackdown on leakers and is one of a half-dozen such cases opened during the Obama administration. The five-count indictment charges Kiriakou, 47, who was arrested in January, with divulging to journalists _ including a New York Times reporter _ the role of an associate who participated in the capture of suspected al-Qaida financier Abu Zubaydah in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The officer's participation in that mission was classified. The indictment also accuses Kiriakou of separately disclosing a covert officer's name to an unidentified journalist. The government began investigating after information about that officer appeared in a sealed legal brief submitted by lawyers representing a detainee at ...
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Washington, The World Bank needs to be reformed to reflect the rising of emerging countries and to serve for their needs, said Jose Antonio Ocampo, one of the three contenders for World Bank's top job. The 59-year-old former Colombian finance minister now teaching at Columbia University in New York said his nomination came from a selection process managed by directors representing the developing countries in the World Bank board and he is "truly a candidate of the developing world". "The World Bank has not fully adapted to the changing world order. The balance of power in all global institutions has to shift to reflect global trends: the rise of China, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging economies," he told Xinhua in an email interview. He also said it is essential for the Bank as a leading poverty-reduction organization to maintain its global expertise to support development. He said the Bank should remain a truly global institution, giving special assistance to low-income countries and also helping middle-income countries meet the challenges they face, such as building endogenous technological capacities and comprehensive social protection system. In the ...
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Washington, Many regions of India continue to grow rapidly and are opening door for "unprecedented" opportunities for American companies, US commerce secretary John Bryson has said. Bryson, who was on a visit to India last week with a 16-member business delegation, said on Monday that his three-city India trip laid groundwork for a greater US-India trade and business partnership. "During last week's trade mission, we took concrete steps toward strengthening our commercial relationship with India," Bryson said in a statement on his return from India. Bryson traveled to New Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai wherein the focus was on the India's need in the infrastructure sector. In the next five years, India is planning to invest USD 1 trillion in the infrastructure sector. "American business leaders connected with Indian firms to create new opportunities in India's rising infrastructure and renewable energy sectors. We met with government and business leaders and laid out our goals, as well as our concerns," he said. "We saw first-hand how India's many regions continue to grow rapidly - opening the door for unprecedented opportunities. We launched a promising new partnership ...
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Washington, Even as overall growth in the G20 slowed in the fourth quarter of 2011, growth increased strongly in India and Indonesia, modestly in the United States, but slowed somewhat in China, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The G20 Quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of +0.7 percent in the last three months of 2011 compared with +0.9 percent in the third quarter, according to provisional results from this first time release of the G20 GDP aggregate. In 2011 as a whole, G20 GDP rose by +2.8 percent, a marked deceleration compared with the +5.0 percent growth recorded in 2010. The G20 GDP aggregate masks diverging patterns among the world's largest economies, IMF said noting in India and Indonesia growth increased strongly from + 0.9 percent to + 1.8 percent and from + 1.4 percent to + 2.1 percent respectively. However in terms of annual percentage change and percentage change on the same quarter of the previous year India's growth rate fell from 7 percent in the third quarter to 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter. In the United States, GDP growth increased to +0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with +0.5 percent in ...
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