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India committed to fighting AIDS: Sonia
USA can help India, Pak work together: Powell
India may get US
anti-missile systems
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Muslims’
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India committed to fighting AIDS: Sonia Bangkok, July 16 “Given the scale of suffering wrought by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it is to be expected that doomsday scenarios of its spread are commonplace. My country figures prominently in all these projections,” she said addressing the concluding session of the 15th International AIDS Conference here. “While there is no place for complacency, I would like to take this opportunity to categorically assert the determination and ability of the government and people of India to meet this daunting challenge just as they did in the campaign to eradicate smallpox some decades ago,” the Congress President, who got a standing ovation when she walked to make her address, said. Mrs Gandhi said the government had already allocated 10 per cent of the national health budget for AIDS control. “Many in my country believe that we are paying disproportionate attention to HIV/AIDS at the expense of malaria or tuberculosis, for instance. The present government does not share this view. “In fact, the budget increased the allocation for the national AIDS Control Organisation for this year, although we recognise that the amount needs substantial augmentation”. Noting that greater insight and commitment were needed to deal with the social issues that prevented a proper recognition of the scale of the problem, she said, “There is need to integrate prevention and treatment”.
— PTI |
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AIDS conference ends with calls for more funds Bangkok, July 16 In a blunt appraisal of work so far, a coalition of leaders at the closing ceremony of the world AIDS forum said failure and inaction had contributed to the 20 million AIDS deaths since the early 1980s and vowed to step up the fight against the disease. “We are ashamed that in 2004 some 38 million people are living with HIV/AIDS and fighting the same battles after two decades,” said the Bangkok leadership statement at the end of the six-day conference in the Thai capital. “Despite all that we have learned about what works in prevention and treatment, the epidemic is on the rise in every region. “We recognise that we have not done enough to protect people from new infections. We have not done enough to provide access to affordable treatment and care to all those who need it.” The communique was drafted under the patronage of Mrs Graca Machel, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, in the name of health ministers, youth groups, women’s organisations and armed forces who took part in the conference. The six-day forum has been marked by rows over funding and the commitment of key world leaders in combating the epidemic that now threatens Asia and Eastern Europe with a similar disaster that has hit sub-Saharan Africa.
— AFP |
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USA can help India, Pak work together: Powell Washington, July 16 As a result of the relationship we have been able to develop with the two countries, “we no longer see India and Pakistan in one lens, but we look at them as two proud nations we are working with individually, and because we respect them individually, we can help them work together as they solve mutual problems,” Powell said in a speech at the US Institute of Peace here yesterday. “We defend the peace and extend the peace and we work with our friends in South Asia,” he said. Recalling that two years ago he was “worried to death” about a major war breakout between India and Pakistan, he said the USA got deeply engaged, along with other members of the international community, working with the Pakistanis and the Indians. “And now we see them working together, having meetings among themselves, having soccer matches with each other, working on issues that would have been too difficult to even imagine just two years ago. That is part of our policy of defending the peace and extending the peace throughout the world,” he said. On US relationship with Pakistan, Powell said “we can be proud of what we have done there. We can be proud of the new relationship we have created in South Asia with Pakistan, with Afghanistan, with the others in that part of the world that used to be on the other side of the Iron Curtain are now working with us, cooperating with us. Pointing out that President George W. Bush has said after 9/11 that the struggle against terrorism would be a long one, and “we have to have patience and determination to defeat this new kind of enemy, he said “we have that patience, we have that determination”.
— PTI |
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India may
get US anti-missile systems Washington, July 16 The three systems each consist of a AN/AAQ-24 large aircraft infrared countermeasures system, a AN/ALE-47H countermeasure dispensing system and a AN/ALQ-211 early warning suite controller and radar warning system, the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement yesterday. “India will install the self-protection systems on three new Boeing 737 aircraft,” it said. “They will use the system for the movement and protection of their Head of State.” The AN/AAQ-24 automatically alerts an aircraft’s crew to a missile launch and activates an infrared countermeasure to foil the launch. The AN/ALQ-211 is used to detect hostile radar signals and jam them, and the AN/ALE-47H is a computer-controlled system to dispense decoys.
— AFP |
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Tarlochan
seeks representation for NRI Sikhs in SGPC London, July 16 “The 170-member SGPC should have NRI Sikh representatives from as many countries as possible to take up the problems of Sikhs all over the world,” he said here last evening. He also emphasised the need for having a Sikh gallery in the British Museum on the lines of the one in the USA.
— PTI |
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Muslims’ panel asks Musharraf to ban LeT activity London, July 16 “We urge the Pakistani Government to come clean and ban the activities of the LeT and request our Kashmiri brothers to realise the evil nature and dubious role of organizations like the LeT,” the Chairman of the Council of Indian Muslims, UK, Munaf Zeena said, in a statement here yesterday.
Reacting to LET’s confession that Ishrat Jahan, who was killed along with other three of her accomplices in Ahmedabad was its member, Zeena said: “We cannot expect any better action from a terrorist organization like the LeT than to defame the Islam and create problems for the Indian Muslims”. “If Musharraf is serious about good neighbourly relations with India and if he was honest in his advice that he gave to Pakistani politicians a few years ago to refrain from making statements which might create problems
or Indian Muslims, then we urge him to take notice of the outrageous activities of this evil outfit and take stern action against it,” the Council said.— PTI |
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Washington, July 16
In
video: Powell calls Al-Jazeera coverage "horrible". (
