June 18, 1985, Forty Years Ago: US Assures India
All hostages aboard a hijacked US airliner were removed from the plane to an undisclosed location outside Beirut airport for security reasons, Shiite militia commander and Justice Minister Nabih Berri told a news conference. The evacuation occurred after midnight when there were fears of a rescue operation by foreign troops, he said.
The 'United' Akali Dal dropped president Harchand Singh Longowal and SGPC chief G S Tohra from the ad hoc committee announced by Joginder Singh on May 1. A decision to this effect was taken at a joint meeting of the advisory and ad hoc committees of the party under the chairmanship of Singh. No other leaders have yet been nominated in their place.
The Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF) of Sri Lanka, in a statement, have set five pre-conditions for cessation of hostilities. Cooperation will be extended if the Sri Lankan government lifts the prohibition and surveillance zones and other regulations prohibiting the movement of people in affected areas. The Sri Lankan armed forces should be completely withdrawn from Tamil areas.
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Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Shafi Burfat calls UN's security council role issue to Pakistan ‘murder of justice'
Shafi Burfat, Chairman of Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), has issued a statement condemning the United Nations' decision to grant Pakistan the presidency of the Security Council, calling it a "murder of global justice" and a "direct insult to the oppressed nations under Pakistani military occupation." Referring to the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, Burfat asked: "How can a state that massacred over 3 million Bengalis and raped thousands of women be allowed to guide international peace and security?"(REUTERS File) Burfat expressed deep shock and sorrow over what he called the legitimisation of a rogue state. "Instead of dragging Pakistan before the International Court of Justice for its crimes, sponsorship of terrorism, military occupation of historic nations, and gross human rights violations, the UN has rewarded it with a prestigious global platform," Burfat said. Speaking on behalf of the Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun, Brahui, Lassi, Saraiki, and the people of Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, Burfat called the decision incomprehensible and disgraceful. "Pakistan is not a federation but an artificial and failed state, sustained by a Punjabi-dominated military that uses religion and terrorism as state policy," he added. Burfat accused the Pakistani state of operating death squads, enforcing disappearances, and dumping mutilated bodies to silence political dissent. He said it's military and intelligence agencies, "among the most corrupt and notorious in the world," continue to shelter globally designated terrorists such as Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar. "The recent Pahalgam massacre in India is a glaring example," Burfat said, referring to the killing of civilians. He linked the attack to hate-filled speeches by Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir, accusing the military establishment of promoting religious violence and terrorism. Referring to the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, Burfat asked: "How can a state that massacred over 3 million Bengalis and raped thousands of women be allowed to guide international peace and security?" Calling Pakistan a "morally, politically, and economically failed state," Burfat urged the global community to reconsider this decision. "To grant leadership to such a regime is to empower fascism and legitimise terrorism," he warned.
Mint
3 hours ago
- Mint
When Bill Clinton praised India's cultural diversity
The mortal danger, of losing our democracy, was far from apparent in May 1994, when Prime Minister Narasimha Rao paid his first and only state visit to the United States of America. Although it came a bare seven years after Rajiv Gandhi's visit in 1987, it far surpassed the former in importance for it took place in a world transformed by the end of the Cold War and an India transformed by its new-found economic freedom. In the US, the Democrats had returned to power after being in the wilderness for twelve years. Victory in the Cold War had released US foreign policy from its straitjacket, and revived some of the expansive generosity it had shown towards Germany, and the developing countries, in the first decades after the end of the Second World War. The India that Narasimha Rao represented was also radically different from the one that had existed seven years earlier, for its economy was no longer hemmed in by import bans and sky-high tariffs. The integration of its large home market with that of the rest of the world was well under way, and was being watched avidly by American investors. At the White House press conference that followed Rao's one-on-one meeting with Bill Clinton on May 19, the President paid India a tribute that few of those who heard it have forgotten. He began his statement to the assembled media by listing the subjects he had discussed with Rao from a few slips of paper in his hands—clearly aides-memoire from his aides. Then, with the briefest of pauses, he added, 'Along with the US, India is one of the world's great experiments in multi-cultural democracy. His people have fought for more than four decades now to keep democracy alive under the most amazing challenges.' These remarks were not scripted for he did not look down at the notes that he had been consulting earlier even once. More than what he said, it was the tone in which he said it, and the slight emphasis he put on the word 'amazing', that revealed the depth of his admiration for India's achievement. Clinton's praise in 1994 was sincere. As a Rhodes scholar and student of philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, he had perceived what few others had till then: that in sharp contrast to nation building in Europe and North America, India had succeeded in turning itself into a modern nation-state without taking recourse to war. After the end of the colonial era in the 1960s, 130 new countries had joined the United Nations. All but a few had started out as democracies. Only five had been able to sustain and stabilize it. India was by far the largest and most complex among them. So, as the leader of the world's richest and most powerful democracy, Clinton's praise for India's success was not therefore simply a diplomatic courtesy, but was born out of a genuine desire to understand how India had done it. What made the Indian experience unique was the starting point from which it had begun. The European nation-state had been born out of protracted conflict... most devastating of all, the Thirty Years' War in continental Europe from 1618 to 1648, which cost eight million lives through battle, disease and famine. The horrific destruction of that war led to the Treaty of Westphalia, which was Europe's first concerted effort to create the foundations of peace and proscribe war. This was easier said than done. In the three centuries that followed its signature, the nascent nation-states of Europe had to defend their borders from attack while simultaneously suppressing upsurges of sub-regional loyalties within them. By gradual degrees they learned to minimize external threats by creating well-marked and heavily defended 'hard' frontiers with their neighbours; the internal one, from sub-nationalism, was met by fostering the growth of a single, homogeneous cultural narrative. The rise of industrial capitalism reinforced both these tendencies by bringing a third element into this mix of motives: this was the competition to industrialize. This created the rationale for a further hardening of the boundaries between nation-states... . Thus, by degrees the nation-state became an instrument for the creation and preservation of economic autarchy. Economic autarchy further deepened cultural, political and economic divisions that nation building had already created between the people of neighbouring countries. The penultimate step in nation building was cultural homogenization. This was achieved by enforcing a common language and a single, sanitized version of history. In communities where this too did not work, nation-states played their last card. That was 'ethnic cleansing'.... By the early twentieth century, forced homogenization and ethnic cleansing had become the defining features of the European nation-state. Its bestiality reached its nadir in the Holocaust in which Hitler's Nazis starved, worked or gassed to death six million Jews shipped into Germany and Poland from all over Europe, and took human civilization to the lowest point in its 5,000-year history of unremitting violence.… In sharp contrast to European nation building, the Indian state is founded upon a ready acceptance of India's ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural diversity. India has more than 2,000 ethnic groups, and twenty-nine principal languages, of which thirteen are spoken by more than ten million people, and another sixteen that are spoken by more than a million. Twelve of the thirteen major languages belong to powerful ethno-linguistic groups that have lived in independent kingdoms for several centuries at a time over the past two millennia. Taken in its entirety, India has the most complex and at the same time most flexible system of devolution and power sharing that the world has ever known. The measure of its success is not that there has been no ethnic conflict in India, but that there has been so little, and that accommodation has been reached in all cases but one, with little violence. Excerpted with permission from Speaking Tiger Books. Also read: Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro: A laptop for Android loyalists who secretly desire Apple's ecosystem play
India.com
4 hours ago
- India.com
Irans Nuclear Gambit: Has Tehran Cleared The Path To A Bomb By Ditching IAEA? Know In Detail
Iran has suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a step that has ignited international concern regarding its nuclear activities. The move, as reported by official state media on Wednesday, followed recent Israeli and US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites last month. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ratified legislation to cancel cooperation with the IAEA. The move was made by parliament with a huge majority on June 24, just one day after a ceasefire was imposed on Israel. Enactment of the new law essentially brings an end to international monitoring of Iran's nuclear program, enabling Tehran to pursue its nuclear goals in secret. Iran has always held the stance that no other country can decide whether or not it can have nuclear power. Implications Of IAEA Withdrawal The parliamentary vote signified that IAEA inspectors can no longer visit Iran's nuclear facilities. This has a direct implication that if Iran clandestinely develops its nuclear program, the IAEA cannot find out how many advances it has made. Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, acknowledged that IAEA inspectors are still in Iran and safe, but added that "their activities have been suspended, and they are not permitted to visit our sites." Access by IAEA inspectors in the future would now need to be sanctioned specially by Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Path To A Nuclear Bomb? The move to sever ties with the IAEA heightened suspicions that Iran is rushing headlong towards the development of a nuclear weapon. Frighteningly, 400 kilograms of uranium are said to be 'missing' after the bombing of Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear installations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already stated that Iran has sufficient uranium to make nine nuclear bombs. Worth noting is that Iran already possesses a considerable amount of enriched uranium. The IAEA previously reported that Iran enriched its uranium up to 60 percent purity. In the absence of international oversight, if Iran enriches its uranium further to 90 percent, it could gain the ability to develop a nuclear bomb. Nevertheless, there are still a number of weaponization obstacles that would be in the way. In spite of these changes, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said in an interview with CBS News that there was no force that could fully annihilate technology and science using bombs. NPT Membership And Contradictions Iran is still a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which gives the country the right to utilise nuclear power for peaceful purposes but does not allow it to build nuclear weapons. This right includes uranium enrichment and nuclear research, as well as access to nuclear technology and materials, provided they are not for weaponization. However, NPT membership requires accepting IAEA monitoring to ensure the program remains peaceful. Iran has never denied that its nuclear program is for peaceful use, but its 60 percent uranium enrichment is far beyond the 5 percent that is usually deemed sufficient for peaceful purposes, causing one to question their assertion. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also declared that if Iran wanted to construct a bomb, world leaders could not prevent it. Iran's motives for restarting its nuclear programs are unclear. The US and Israeli attacks allegedly destroyed most of Iran's nuclear centrifuges at Natanz, which would make enrichment difficult. Some of Iran's hidden nuclear facilities are presumed to be still safe. Kuh-e-Kolang Gaz-La, a clandestine nuclear complex within mountains just a short distance from Natanz, is such an example. If Iran resumes operations at this or other centers like it, it will lead to a major increase in anxiety for Israel and the United States. International Reactions The United States has viewed Iran's move to suspend co-operation with the IAEA as "unacceptable." U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy K. Bruce said, "We would characterize it as unacceptable. Iran has opted to suspend co-operation with the IAEA at a moment when it had the chance to alter its path and pursue a path of peace and prosperity." In turn, a representative of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres characterized the move as "clearly concerning." Potential "Breakout Time" Though recent Israeli strikes allegedly killed several leading Iranian nuclear scientists, conceivably slowing the mission, the degree of damage to infrastructure is unknown. The U.S. has asserted the American-Israeli strikes have delayed Iran's nuclear program by a minimum of two years. Experts, as quoted by a report from DW, thought that prior to the attacks, Iran's "breakout time"—the time it would take Iran to enrich uranium up to weapons-grade for a nuclear weapon—had nearly reached zero. This would mean Iran might have enriched weapon-grade uranium within days, weeks, or a few months. The IAEA Chief also informed CNN that "certainly it won't occur tomorrow, although I don't believe it will take many years either." It should be mentioned that highly enriched uranium is not the only ingredient for a nuclear bomb; it also requires a delivery system (such as missiles or submarines) and weapon design.
