India and France agreed on Friday to strengthen military ties and go beyond a ‘buyer-seller relationship,’ India’s prime minister said during a state visit in New Delhi by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
   ‘I think it is very important that India and France should cooperate, share information and intelligence gathering for defence of the values which are dear to both our countries,’ Manmohan Singh told reporters.
   ‘We have agreed to go beyond a buyer-seller relationship. We will increasingly focus on joint research and development projects, transfer of technology and greater military exchanges,’ he added.
   The two sides had earlier signed an agreement on protecting classified defence information, which Manmohan said ‘reaffirmed our strong mutual desire to further strengthen our strategic partnership.’
   ‘This partnership is longstanding and rests on shared values and similar approaches to regional and global issues,’ the prime minister said in a joint news conference with Sarkozy.
   ‘A global fight against terrorism is essential to protect open, democratic and multi-cultural societies like our two countries.’
   France has been hoping to use the state visit to revitalise relations with India, a country ranked as the biggest weapons buyer among emerging nations and expected to spend an estimated 30 billion dollars on defence purchases over the next five years.
   France was the second largest arms supplier to India after Russia but has now been overtaken by Israel.
   Defence ties have also been hit by a Eurocopter bid for a 600-million-dollar (410-million-euro) helicopter contract that New Delhi cancelled in December due to alleged irregularities, and a probe into the alleged payment of bribes in a submarine deal.
   However, French firms are expected to be invited to upgrade India’s fleet of Mirage fighters in a contract worth up to 1.5 billion euros — and they are also set to compete in a tender for 126 war planes.

A home grown peace plan aimed at giving more autonomy to Sri Lanka’s war-torn north and east was officially unveiled on Thursday, but its proposals have already been rejected by Tamil Tiger rebels and left analysts lukewarm.
   The All Party Representative Committee’s so-called ‘devolution proposals’, which have been in the making for nearly two years, call for more regional autonomy to territories where rebels have been fighting an independence war for 25 years.
   While analysts said they were disappointed with the proposals, they were encouraged the government still appeared to be seeking a political solution to the 25-year civil war which pits minority Hindu Tamils against the majority Sinhalese Buddhists.
   ‘It will be no different from the system that already exists,’ said Jehan Perera, an analyst with the non-partisan advocacy group, the National Peace Council.
   ‘But, if the government sincerely implements (the proposals), then it will be a positive sign that the government is keen on solving problems through political means rather than military means.’
   The government in 1987 decided to move towards a power sharing agreement in areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, but never actually conceded any power.
   The APRC’s proposals were the latest reincarnation of that plan, but despite its’ lofty name, the committee credibility problems by excluding the LTTE from the outset, and suffered further when most opposition party members walked out.

The United States would be willing to send troops to Pakistan to fight alongside the South Asian country’s forces against Islamist militants, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said on Thursday.
   Gates said Pakistan had not requested such a move and Washington had not presented proposals to Pakistan’s leaders. But he made clear the United States was open to providing more direct assistance.
   ‘We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner with them, to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations, should they desire to do so,’ Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
   The United States, waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan against Islamist militants that have strained its military, is increasingly concerned about the rise of insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
   Those areas have become safe havens for Taliban and al Qaeda militants, according to US officials.
   Washington has given nuclear-armed Pakistan about $10 billion in aid since 2001, when Islamabad dropped support for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and joined the US-led campaign against terrorism after the September 11 attacks.
   The United States already helps train Pakistani forces. Its efforts include a program to train and equip the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force recruited from tribal areas.
   Asked specifically if he envisaged US combat troops and Pakistani forces operating together against al-Qaeda, Gates said, ‘If the Pakistanis wanted to do that, I think we would.’
   US operations in Pakistan would be highly sensitive politically for president Pervez Musharraf’s government and Gates said it would be up to Pakistani leaders to take public opinion into account when considering any US assistance.
   Gates said only a small number of US troops would be involved in any joint operations with Pakistani forces to target al-Qaeda, but he did not give a figure.
   US officials say they believe Pakistan is more interested in taking on Islamist militants as they now pose a more direct threat to Pakistan itself, through actions such as the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
   Adm. Mike Mullen, the top US military officer, noted that Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani wanted to increase his force’s ability to fight insurgents.
   ‘We’ve learned an awful lot about that. We think we could add a lot to ... solving this problem,’ Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the news conference with Gates.
   Pakistani forces have clashed over the past week with militants in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border. Nearly 150 militants and more than 20 soldiers have been killed in the fighting.

Taiwan has for the first time installed home-developed anti-ship missiles on a warship in a significant boost of its naval defence against rival China, a report said Friday.
   The supersonic Hsiung-feng (Brave Wind) 3 missiles were seen on the Perry-class Cheng Kung frigate in the southern port of Tsoying on Thursday, said the United Daily News.
   The paper quoted commander-in-chief Admiral Wang Li-shen as saying that defence authorities will determine how to deploy the missiles and on which warships after testing is completed.
   It also cited an unnamed navy official as saying that the authorities hope to wrap up testing by the end of the year.
   Analysts say the Hsiung-feng 3 can be fitted with a variety of guidance systems and can function as a ship-to-ship, land-attack or anti-radar missile.
   With a range of at least 130 kilometres, the Hsiung-feng 3 has been designed to counter the Russia-made SS-N-22 Sunburn bought by China, analysts say.
   Taiwan first unveiled the Hsiung-feng 3 missiles to the public in a rare military parade on October 10, 2007, which was seen as a reminder to China that it has the weaponry to defend itself.
   Beijing has repeatedly warned of an invasion should Taiwan declare formal independence.
   In his New Year speech, Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian warned that China had increased the number of tactical ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan from 200 in 2000 to more than 1,300 now.
   Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, although Beijing regards the self-ruling island as part of its territory awaiting reunification.

The UN Security Council failed yet again on Thursday to agree a compromise statement urging an end to Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and to the rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
   After day-long talks by experts and ambassadors, it was agreed that a new attempt would be made Friday to overcome US objections to a text accepted by the council’s 14 other members.
   ‘We still do not have an agreement and the way it’s going it’s not hopeful,’ said South Africa’s UN envoy Dumisani Kumalo. ‘But the president (of the council) has asked us to try again Friday.’
   The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, insists that the crippling Israeli blockade of Gaza is a self-defence move in the face of rockets fired from the impoverished territory controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas.
   After consulting with Washington, the US delegation here on Thursday put forward a series of oral amendments, including a call for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in 2006 and a condemnation of terrorism under all its forms.
   But most of these amendments were deemed irrelevant and unacceptable by Arab countries which feel strongly that the council has to react to what they view as the ‘collective punishment’ of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents by Israel in reprisals for the rocket attacks.
   ‘Our view is that getting a product will be difficult,’ US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters after the consultations.
   He added that his delegation would be prepared to accept ‘a balanced, credible, constructive statement that looks at this issue realistically,’ including condemning the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
   Israeli ambassador Dan Gillerman for his part dismissed the whole debate as a ‘futile waste of time’ that only serves ‘to reward Hamas.’
   ‘Israel should take note that 14 members of the Security Council, a significant number of them friends of Israel, are saying that this humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot be tolerated,’ the Palestinian observer to the UN, Ryad Mansour, retorted.
   And Syrian ambassador Bashar Jaafari accused the United States of trying to politicize a humanitarian issue and of ‘trying to turn the victims into victimisers and the victimisers into victims.’
   He warned that if Washington manages to block a consensus on the non-binding statement, Arab countries were likely to turn the text into a resolution and dare the United States to veto it.
   The latest version of the draft expresses ‘deep concern about the steep deterioration of the humanitarian situation’ in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade.

Pakistan’s army chief dismissed on Friday fears that the country’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants as the military test fired a nuclear-capable missile.
   Pakistan is a staunch ally in the US-led war on terrorism but deteriorating security and political turmoil has raised international concern about the safety of its nuclear weapons.
   General Ashfaq Kayani, who became army chief in November when Pervez Musharraf stepped down to become a civilian president, rejected the worry as ‘unrealistic’.
   Speaking at the test-firing of a medium-range Shaheen-1 (Hatf-IV) ballistic missile, he said such concerns were based on a “lack of understanding of Pakistan’s command and control mechanisms’.
   ‘He said the Pakistani armed forces were a highly professional, motivated and well-trained force and were capable of safeguarding and securing nuclear assets against all categories of threat,’ the military said in a statement.
   Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in May 1998, days after its old rival India conducted tests.
   Kayani said Pakistan had developed a strong nuclear deterrence capability but it did not harbour aggressive designs against anyone.
   ‘Pakistan’s nuclear capability was solely for the purpose of deterring all types of aggression,’ he was cited as saying.
   Pakistan has seen a rise in militant violence since the middle of last year and has been rocked by political turmoil at the same time over opposition to Musharraf’s bid to stay on as president.

Thailand’s parliament is to elect the country’s new prime minister on Monday, an official said, with the leader of a party backing deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra widely tipped for the job.
   ‘My office will issue a letter today calling for a meeting on Monday at 9:30am to vote for the prime minister,’ Pitoon Pumhiran, secretary general of the House of Representatives, told AFP.
   Thaksin’s allies in the People Power Party dominate parliament after winning 233 of 480 seats in December elections, the first since the military toppled his government in a bloodless coup in September 2006.
   The PPP formed a coalition with five smaller parties and said the party would nominate its bullish leader Samak Sundaravej as Thailand’s new prime minister.
   Thaksin has been living in self-imposed exile in Britain since the coup, but his wife said this week he would return to Thailand in May.
   The former first couple face corruption charges imposed in the wake of the coup but they deny any wrongdoing.

Major UN Security Council powers have agreed on an incremental increase in sanctions on Iran, including a new restriction on exporters doing business with the country, diplomats said Thursday.
   A draft resolution also calls for more monitoring of Iran’s military and financial institutions, broader travel bans on Iranian nuclear scientists and other key officials, and freezing the assets of people and banks linked to weapons proliferation, Security Council diplomats said.
   Diplomats from the five nations with veto power on the council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - spent a third day negotiating a final agreement on principles that would form the basis for a third round of UN sanctions on Iran. They were joined by Germany, which has long been involved in efforts to resolve the Iran nuclear dispute.
   The general terms were hammered out in Berlin earlier this week, chiefly through negotiations between the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Those elements have been closely held, though they have begun circulating among the rest of the 15-member council.
   Russia and China, which have strong business ties with Iran, resisted earlier British and French draft principles pushing for harsher sanctions if Iran keeps refusing to stop enriching uranium - a process that can provide fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb.
   Iran says its nuclear program seeks only to generate electricity.
   The Bush administration continues to press the case that Iran tests ballistic missiles, enriches uranium toward building an atomic bomb, hides information and remains in violation of two previous UN Security Council resolutions.
   On Wednesday, Russia said the new resolution would not impose harsh sanctions against Iran.
   But the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, rejected that claim Thursday, saying the resolution was ‘meant to be punitive.’
   He said the draft increases travel restrictions on Iranian nuclear scientists, bans trade in items that can be used for nuclear purposes and freezes more Iranian assets.
   Because it lacks significant trade with Iran, the United States must rely on influencing other major nations to apply economic pressure on the country.
   Security Council diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations were sensitive, said the new resolution would impose new credit restrictions on exporters. Such measures could complicate matters for nations such as Germany and Italy that are major trading and investment partners with Iran and have billions of dollars of export credits at risk. The proposed resolution would make it more difficult to obtain those credits.
   Diplomats say a third round of sanctions is unlikely to be approved until next month after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog based in Vienna, receives more answers from Iran. Iran agreed to answer all remaining questions about its nuclear activities after IAEA director Mohammed Elbaradei visited Tehran in January.
   Bush’s contention that Iran poses a worrisome threat suffered a setback when US intelligence said in December that Iran halted active work on its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
   That has ‘made things complicated’ for the United States, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Thursday.
   ‘It’s important to get the international community focused on Iran,’ she told the AP. ‘I do think it’s not just an American issue.’

Most Americans and Russians want their governments to ensure a weapons-free outer space and would back a treaty underpinning the move, a poll showed on Thursday.
   Seventy-eight per cent of Americans and 67 per cent of Russians said their leaderships should refrain from deploying any weapons in space as long as no other country does so, according to the poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org.
   Eighty per cent of Americans and 72 per cent of Russians also favour a new treaty banning all weapons in space, said the survey conducted with the Centre for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland.
   A overwhelming majority of Americans and Russians — 86 per cent each — put a high priority on preventing an arms race in space, according to the poll of 1,247 Americans and 1,601 Russians surveyed over two weeks in September.
   A slim majority of Russians, 53 per cent, list this as a top priority.
   ‘What is striking is the robust consensus — among Russians as well as Americans, and among Republicans as well as Democrats — that space should not be an arena for the major powers to compete for military advantage,’ said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, in a statement.
   Seventy-eight per cent of Americans and 65 per cent of Russians supported a treaty banning countries from attacking or interfering with each others’ satellites, even when told of the potential benefits of disabling satellites.
   Some 79 per cent of Americans and 63 per cent of Russians back a treaty that would prevent countries from testing or deploying anti-satellite weapons systems, even told that arms control treaties are sometimes ineffective.
   Seventy-seven per cent of Americans and 61 per cent of Russians support a treaty prohibiting interference with satellites.
   John Steinbruner, director of CISSM, said Americans and Russians shared a common view of what is best for their security.
   ‘The use of space for common protection is, in fact, far more important for all countries under the circumstances of globalisation than the pursuit of national advantage in performing traditional military missions,’ Steinbruner said in a statement.

Kenyans faced more turmoil on Friday after both sides in the country’s deadly political crisis accused each other of trying to sink mediation efforts.
   Hopes of an end to violence that has killed nearly 700 people rose after the president, Mwai Kibaki, met his rival Raila Odinga for the first time since disputed Dec. 27 polls.
   The two men shook hands and vowed to seek a solution. But in remarks to reporters, Kibaki’s description of himself as the nation’s ‘duly elected’ leader brought an explosive reaction from Odinga’s party, which says he stole the vote.
   ‘Kibaki lost the last general election and his claim to the presidency is illegal and illegitimate,’ Anyang’ Nyong’o, a senior opposition figure, told reporters shortly after the talks, which were brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan.
   Nyong’o said Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement would now review the whole process and it was essential that mediation principles be agreed in writing before anything else happened.
   Asked about the prospect of more direct talks, he said it would depend on Kibaki’s ‘good manners’.
   ‘We must be assured that Mwai Kibaki will behave himself.’
   A spokesman for Kibaki’s Party of National Unity said the opposition statement on Thursday was juvenile, disappointing and had dragged Kenya into the ‘deepest abyss’.
   The fresh round of verbal attacks raised the prospect of more violence in a nation rocked by riots and ethnic clashes that have shattered its image of stability.
   Annan had earlier persuaded the ODM to call off protests planned for Thursday after earlier rallies turned violent.
   Many Kenyans already traumatised by their country’s slide into chaos were shocked at the swift change in tone.
   Henry, a hairdresser in the capital Nairobi whose business has virtually collapsed since the troubles began, was pleased Kibaki and Odinga had finally met face to face.
   ‘Maybe they did it out of shame or obligation however,’ he said. ‘Kibaki’s language and their reaction is not good for us. Don’t they know all we want is peace? It’s a disaster for all of us. They have to sort this out.’
   The ODM had demanded an outside mediator to solve a crisis that has split Kenya down tribal and political lines, after Kibaki narrowly won the closest election in the country’s history following a vote rife with rigging.

Embattled Britain’s Gordon Brown suffered a fresh blow on Thursday when a minister resigned amid allegations of funding irregularities, his first cabinet loss since taking office.
   The work and pensions secretary, Peter Hain, said he had ‘no alternative’ after a complaint about his failed bid to become the governing Labour Party’s deputy leader last year was referred to police.
   He also resigned as Welsh Secretary, vowing to clear his name.
   After issuing a fresh apology for failing to declare more than 100,000 pounds (137,000 euros, 202,000 dollars) on time, Hain pledged to co-operate with the police and any other inquiry before backing Brown’s government.
   ‘I will continue to support this government and will continue to offer the prime minister all the support I can. I’m grateful for his decision to appoint me to the cabinet and I wish him and the government all the best,’ he said.
   Hain’s position had become increasingly precarious since the row came to light, and he seemed virtually certain to quit after Brown appeared to give him only qualified support in a television interview last week.
   Although the prime minister said Hain made a mistake and there was no corruption, he described the situation as an ‘incompetence’.
   Brown told Hain in a letter made public by the prime minister’s office: ‘I recognise that, given the circumstances and your desire to clear your name, this is the right and honourable thing to do.
   ‘I also recognise that in making this decision you have as ever put the country’s interests before your own, he said.

A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy killed at least 10 people, including a senior official, in a Christian area of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday, army and security officials said.
   An army officer said that captain Wissam Eid, a member of the Internal Security Forces, was among the dead. Another source added that two years ago Eid had been the target of an attempt to kill him, when a hand grenade was thrown at his home in Beirut.
   ‘Eid was a key member of the ISF and was involved in many investigations concerning bombings in Lebanon, including a February 2007 bombing in a Christian area. He was involved in sensitive probes and this is a major loss for us,’ a senior security official said.
   Many of the bombings over the past three years have been blamed by Lebanon’s Western-backed political majority on neighbouring Syria, a charge denied by Damascus.
   Captain Eid was in his 30s and had been working with the ISF for about eight years, the security official said.
   General Ashraf Rifi, head of the ISF, who was at the site of the blast, said that as well as Eid and his bodyguard, three or four people were killed. ‘This will not deter us from our mission to protect the country and ensure security,’ he said.

An Australian teenager who made world headlines by drawing 500 people to a wild party while his parents were away is set for a new career as a party promoter and DJ, his manager said Friday.
   With his bleached-blond hair and yellow-rimmed dark glasses, 16-year-old Corey Delaney’s party in Melbourne earlier this month made him a national celebrity when hundreds turned up after seeing it advertised on the Internet.
   The party in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren also upset the teenager’s parents.
   Top agent Max Markson has decided to cash in by taking him on a nationwide tour, which he says could earn the apprentice carpenter up to 100,000 dollars over the next year.
   Delaney is to be given training as a DJ, with the first date of ‘Corey’s Party Tour’ in Sydney next month.
   ‘He is the highest-profile 16-year-old in the country,’ Markson said. ‘He will probably earn 50,000 to 100,000 dollars this year.’
   Markson foresaw endorsements by marketers wanting to reach the teenage market for soft drinks, snack food, mobile telephones and other products.
   Delaney had shown he could throw a great party, although he did it in the wrong place, the promoter said.

Longshot Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich will announce Friday that he is dropping his presidential bid, officials with his campaign said Thursday.
   Kucinich, 61, a member of Congress representing a district in the mid western state of Ohio, is one of his party’s leading left-wing figures.
   He has called a news conference for midday Friday to announce plans for ‘transitioning out of the Democratic presidential primary race,’ officials said in a brief statement.
   In an interview with the leading Ohio newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kucinich said he will not endorse another Democrat in the primary.
   ‘I want to continue to serve in Congress,’ he told the newspaper.
   Kucinich focused his presidential campaign heavily on an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.