The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, visited Pakistan on the weekend, fuelling speculation that the United States was about to take action against militants in northwest Pakistan.
   Pakistan has been a close US ally in the global campaign against terrorism but the United States has become increasingly frustrated at what it sees as insufficient effort by Islamabad to fight militants on the Afghan border.
   A US embassy spokeswoman confirmed that Mullen had made a one-day trip to Pakistan on Saturday, but said she had no details about his meetings. Pakistani military and government spokesmen were not available for comment.
   Pakistani newspapers said Mullen, in talks with Pakistani military commanders and leaders of a new government, had expressed deep frustration with growing cross-border militant attacks and had called for decisive action to stop it.
   ‘Sources quoted Mullen as complaining that militants were moving across the border with greater liberty now than during the previous government,’ the Dawn newspaper said.
   Pakistan’s semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal belt on the border has became a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants fighting Western soldiers in Afghanistan and against security forces in Pakistan where 15 soldiers were killed on Saturday.
   The US Pentagon said last month insurgent havens in Pakistan were the biggest threat to Afghan security.
   Pakistan has ruled out allowing foreign troops onto its soil although US pilotless drones have been increasing their flights, and attacks, over the Pakistani side of the border.
   The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, sought in talks in Washington on Friday to assure the United States his country was doing all it could to fight militants on the border.
   What Pakistanis see as a more aggressive US action on the border has fuelled speculation of a US thrust.
   Last month, 11 Pakistani border soldiers were killed in a US air strike as US forces battled Taliban militants.
   On Saturday, Pakistan lodged a protest with the United States over fire from Afghanistan on Thursday that wounded six Pakistani soldiers. Afghanistan’s NATO force blamed militants for the fire saying they were trying to ‘spark a border incident.’
   Feeding the worry, some US politicians, including presidential candidate Barack Obama, have said the United States could attack al-Qaeda inside Pakistan without Pakistani approval.
   A new government took power after president Pervez Musharraf’s allies were defeated in February elections, vowing to negotiate an end to violence, but US commanders in Afghanistan say such peace efforts have led to more militant attacks there.
   Many Pakistanis oppose the US campaign against militancy and blame Musharraf’s cooperation with the United States for inciting violence. Any U.S. action in Pakistan would only exacerbate the problem, they say.

India’s national security advisor blames Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service for the suicide bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul this week, he said on Indian news channels late on Saturday.
   ‘We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this,’ MK Narayanan told NDTV, referring to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
   ‘We are in the favour of the peace process, but the ISI is not in any way part of it. The ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed,’ he said, according to a transcript of the interview on the NDTV website.
   He told another news channel that India had a ‘fair amount’ of evidence linking the ISI to Monday’s car bomb that killed 41 people, including an Indian defence attache and a diplomat.
   Afghan authorities had also hinted they suspected the ISI, a charge Pakistan denies.
   An Afghan spokesman said after the attack that it bore the ‘hallmarks of a particular intelligence agency.’ India has close ties with Afghanistan, where it has pledged some $750 million towards reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. Some political analysts think Pakistan is increasingly wary of ceding influence to India.
   India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1945 over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Zimbabwe’s rival parties have moved closer to a deal to allow fully-fledged talks on the country’s crisis, state media said Sunday, after sanctions against Robert Mugabe’s regime were vetoed at the UN.
   Following vetoes by China and Russia on the targeted measures at the UN Security Council, Zimbabwean state media reported negotiators from the opposition and ruling parties had tentatively agreed on terms for detailed talks.
   ‘The working framework that has been agreed to so far removes the sticking points between the negotiating parties and paves way for serious talks,’ the Sunday Mail newspaper said, citing what it called highly placed sources.
   The ruling ZANU-PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change are to draft a memorandum of engagement, which will be subject to approval by the parties’ leaders, according to the government mouthpiece.
   It will set out terms for talks following Mugabe’s widely condemned one-man election, including the timeframe, the composition of the negotiating teams and the agenda for discussions, according to the paper.
   A South African newspaper reported Sunday that Zimbabwe’s rival parties were set to meet again on Wednesday in Harare and were expected to sign a deal that would lay the groundwork for further discussions.
   The agreement would likely set out guidelines for negotiations that would occur over a 14-day period, according to The Sunday Independent.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and 42 leaders on Sunday launched a union between Europe and its Mediterranean neighbours amid hopes the grand plan will bring fresh impetus to Middle East peace efforts. Heads of state and government from the 27 EU nations and an arc of countries from north Africa to the Balkans – representing some 756 million people – will inaugurate the new forum at the Grand Palais on Paris’ Champs Elysees.
   ‘The goal of the summit,’ Sarkozy said, ‘is that we learn how to love each other in the Mediterranean, instead of continuing to hate and wage war.’
   ‘It doesn’t mean that all of the problems are resolved of course,’ he said, following talks between the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas, on the sidelines of the summit.
   The meeting will see the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, return to the international stage, but while he will sit at the same table as Olmert no talks between them are planned.
   It is also providing a venue for France to step up its Middle East diplomacy.
   ‘We have never been as close to an accord as we are today,’ Olmert told reporters after his talks with Abbas, in the presence of the French leader. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, recognised that the region was fraught with tensions and economic disparities but he nevertheless hailed ‘a time of hope’ for Middle East peace.

The Thai prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, who lost two ministers after tough court rulings, said on Sunday he would rewrite the army-designed constitution, a move likely to intensify street protests to oust him.
   The embattled premier, whose government is threatened by a series of lawsuits, also announced that he would reshuffle his cabinet and unveil an economic stimulus package on Tuesday.
   Samak blamed the current crisis on the 2007 constitution, designed by the coup makers who overthrew prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006, which gives judges more oversight powers in the political arena.
   ‘As Buddha says we must tackle sufferings at their causes, we have to amend this constitution that is causing this crisis,’ Samak, a devout Buddhist, said on his weekly TV show.
   Any move to amend the charter could intensify a nearly two-month old street campaign, whose leaders accuse the government of seeking to protect Thaksin from corruption charges.
   ‘It will only upset more people and invite them into the streets,’ Ramkhamhaeng University analyst Boonyakiat Karavekphan said, referring to the street protests led by the People’s Alliance for Democracy.
   Samak’s remarks could trigger further selling of Thai shares, which have fallen nearly 16 percent since the PAD – a coalition of activists, royalists and businessmen – launched their campaign 7 weeks ago.

Hollywoood star Angelina Jolie has given birth to healthy twins, a boy and a girl, at a maternity clinic on the French Riviera, the hospital said on Sunday.
   Partner and fellow Brad Pitt, 44, was by her side for the births, by caesarean operation, of Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline at a clinic in Nice, reports said.
   Gynaecologist Michel Sussmann told the press that Jolie and the babies were doing fine shortly after the births on Saturday evening.
   ‘The babies are doing well. The operation went just perfectly,’ Sussmann told PEOPLE.
   ‘Angelina is in very good spirits. Brad Pitt was at her side. He was there and all was well.’
   A source close to the clinic had said earlier that the babies were not due until mid-August. Knox Leon was reported to weigh 2.27 kilogrammes and Vivienne Marcheline 2.28 kilogrammes.
   The babies’ first photograph was sold to a US paper for 11 million dollars (6.9 million euros), the regional Nice-Matin newspaper said, adding that the money would be given to a humanitarian cause.
   The twins brought 33-year-old Jolie’s brood with partner Brad Pitt to six.
   Pitt was seen entering Nice’s Santa Maria clinic, part of the Lenval hospital on the seafront Promenade des Anglais, on July 2 with at least two of their children.
   Jolie and Pitt have been the subject of celebrity gossip fascination since they met on the set of their 2005 film ‘Mr and Mrs Smith.’

US and Iraqi negotiators have ended efforts to reach a formal security pact before the president, George W Bush, leaves office in favour of an interim deal, the Washington Post said on Sunday, citing senior US officials.
   The two sides had been negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement that would provide a legal basis for US troops to remain when a UN mandate expires at the end of the year.
   But in the past week Iraqi leaders have spoken of only agreeing what they call a memorandum of understanding. Shia prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has also raised for the first time the idea of setting a timetable for US troops to leave Iraq.
   The Washington Post quoted one US official close to the negotiations as saying ‘we are talking about dates,’ even though Bush has previously rebuffed calls for a timetable.
   Iraq is a major issue in November’s presidential election battle between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
   McCain supports the Bush administration’s current strategy, while Obama has called for a timetable for withdrawal. The Iraqi vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, added his support for a withdrawal timetable.
   ‘Iraqis must know when the American and other forces will leave Iraqi land. It is our right to know, and know the truth of where the situation stands, if there is an intention for American forces to leave or not,’ Hashemi told Iraqiya state television in an interview broadcast late on Saturday.
   The Post said the ‘bridge’ security document would be limited in both time and scope and would allow basic US military operations to continue once the UN mandate ended.
   Iraq has rejected a number of Washington’s demands, insisting they infringe on the country’s sovereignty.
   The document now under discussion with Iraq was likely to cover only 2009, the Post said.