ENB WORLD

India-US pact in final stages
AgenciesNew Delhi, July 14:

India and the US are close to signing an agreement under which their armed forces will provide each other logistics support on a reciprocal basis even as New Delhi may bid to buy another American amphibious warship.
A logistics support agreement is in the final stages, said top Pentagon officials now on a visit to the country. They also said that Washington had offered the giant landing ship, USS Nashwill, to the Indian Navy.
"We have put the offer to the Indian Navy," Lt Gen Jeffrey B Kohler, director of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency in the US defence department told reporters. The amphibious warship is of the same class as the 17,000-tonne USS Trenton that was bought by the Indian Navy.
Referring to the logistics support agreement, Kohler said the accord had been put up to the Cabinet Committee on Security. The Americans usually describe such a pact as an "acquisition and cross-services" agreement.
It was listed as a logistics support agreement at the suggestion of India, he said.
"The agreement will ease joint operations by the armed forces of the two countries during exercises and in coming to the aid of people struck by natural calamities," Kohler said, making it clear that the accord did not in any way imply the stockpiling of weapons on each other's soil.
"The armed forces of the two countries are having frequent interactions and face immense difficulties by way of fuel supplies and other logistics. With such an agreement in place, it would ease things for both militaries," he said.
N-deal: Narayanan heads to US
A high-profile Indian team headed by National Security Adviser MK Narayanan heads to Washington Sunday for talks that are expected to break an impasse over key issues like reprocessing that stand in the way of a bilateral nuclear pact between India and the US.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar will accompany Narayanan for this crucial round of talks with the American team led by US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Nicholas Burns, Washington's chief pointman on the nuclear deal.
India's ambassador to the US Ronen Sen and S. Jaishankar, New Delhi's envoy to Singapore who have been closely involved in nuclear negotiations, will also join the Indian team in Washington for these crucial talks, official sources said.
The composition of the Indian delegation, especially the inclusion of Kakodkar, indicates that this is New Delhi's most serious attempt yet to seal the bilateral nuclear pact, also called the 123 agreement, by taking the nuclear establishment on board. The meeting is expected to close the gap over contentious issues like India's insistence on its right to reprocessing, nuclear testing and fuel guarantees.
The idea is to finalise the 123 agreement, which will pave the way for resumption of nuclear commerce between India and the US after a three-decade hiatus, by year-end, as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently.
Both Indian and American officials here, however, say informally that it's unreasonable to set a time frame to these inherently complex negotiations.
India is likely to focus on its proposal for setting up a stand-alone dedicated facility for reprocessing US-origin fuel, which was informally shared with the US last month on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Germany.
As Washington did not react to the Indian suggestion last time, Indian officials here say the forthcoming talks will provide India an idea of the US thinking on the subject that may well break the deadlock over India's demand for prior approval for reprocessing US-origin spent fuel, which it insists was part of the original July 18, 2005 understanding between the two countries.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to US President George Bush Wednesday to give an added political push to the long-stalled deal so that a pact can be clinched before he heads to the US in September to attend the UN General Assembly. Depending on the outcome of the talks, Rice is likely to come to India early next month before Manmohan Singh goes to the US.
If the 123 is in place, Manmohan Singh may accept the invitation to visit Bush at his private ranch in Crawford, Texas, the sources said.
Other issues that are holding up the 123 pact are India's insistence on its right to test a nuclear device and its right to lifetime fuel guarantees for the 14 civil reactors it has agreed to place under international safeguards over the next few years.
With the chief opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanding that the 123 pact should be discussed first in parliament, the negotiations in Washington next week are going to be under closer scrutiny back home.
Manmohan Singh has assured parliament many a times in the past two years that the bilateral nuclear pact will conform to the July 18, 2005 understanding and March 2, 2006 separation plan and will not impinge adversely on India's strategic deterrence and its three-stage indigenous thorium-based energy programme.


Black guilty of fraud, cleared of racketeering
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Chicago
Published: July 13 2007 16:57 Last updated: July 13 2007 23:58

Conrad Black, the British peer who at the height of his power controlled one of the world’s biggest media empires, was on Friday night facing up to 35 years in jail after being convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice.
The Canada-born former publisher of the Telegraph titles in the UK and the Chicago Sun-Times, dressed in a beige linen suit and flanked by his wife Barbara Amiel Black and daughter Alana, sat stonefaced as the verdict was read out. He did not look at his daughter or wife, but passed a note to Lady Black, minutes after he learned of his fate. Lord Black later left the courthouse holding hands with his wife and daughter.
Although he was acquitted on nine of the 13 charges, including the most serious one of racketeering, Lord Black faces a prison sentence and forfeiture of most of his assets, including his home in Palm Beach, Florida, for his part in the theft of millions of dollars from Hollinger International, the company he built and controlled.
Prosecutors on Friday night suggested that he could expect between 15 and 20 years in jail when he is sentenced on November 30.
Edward Greenspan, Lord Black’s lawyer, said they would appeal, adding: “We vehemently disagree with [prosecution’s estimates for sentencing].”
Lord Black personally stole $2.9m from Hollinger and millions more were directed to the other defendants through a complex scheme in which they were paid “non-competition fees” following a sale of some of the company’s newspaper properties to another company Lord Black controlled.
In another instance, he siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hollinger in a sham transaction. Lord Black was acquitted of allegations that he stole tens of millions more – possibly because the audit committee signed off on the transactions.
The ruling was reached on the 12th day of deliberations. After the jury was excused during a break in the proceedings, Lady Black huddled around her husband with her step-daughter.
He faces a bail hearing on Thursday after Eric Sussman, chief prosecutor, argued that Lord Black was a flight risk who had a history of flouting the court’s orders.
Lord Black’s three co-defendants – Jack Boultbee, former Hollinger International chief financial officer; Peter Atkinson, former vice-president and general counsel; and Mark Kipnis, a former Hollinger lawyer – were all found guilty of the same mail fraud charges.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois whose office prosecuted the case, said he was ”very satisifed” with the outcome.
He also denied that class had played a role in the jury’s verdict, pointing out that the jurors had acquitted Lord Black on accusations involving “corporate perks”, including his use of company’s corporate jet for a vacation to Bora Bora.

Brown acts to avoid risk to US ties
By James Blitz, Political Editor
Published: July 13 2007 20:42 Last updated: July 13 2007 20:42

Gordon Brown has sought to avert a row with the White House over his government’s approach to ties with the US by reminding his cabinet of the importance of bilateral relations with Washington.
The prime minister made clear he was not contemplating any change in relations with the US following a speech in which Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, called for a foreign policy that was “multilateralist, not unilateralist”.
ADVERTISEMENTTom Scholar, the prime minister’s chief of staff, wrote to all members of the cabinet stating Mr Brown wanted to remind them of the importance of the relationship with the US.
Downing Street underlined Mr Brown’s commitment to the US by bringing forward an announcement that he would go to Washington to see President George W. Bush this month.
“We will not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges that we face around the world,” the prime minister said earlier in the day.
“I think people have got to remember that the relationship between Britain and America and between a British prime minister and an American president is built on the things that we share, the same enduring values about the importance of liberty, opportunity, the dignity of the individual.”
Nevertheless, the new government’s line on the transatlantic relationship was open to misinterpretation, with two prominent government figures talking publicly about relations with the US.
In a speech delivered in Washington, Mr Alexander called for a new approach to foreign policy, one based on “new alliances, based on common values” and “driven by core values, consistently applied, not special interests”. The speech was interpreted by sections of the British media as the first clear signal that the Brown government was distancing itself from the White House.
Lord Malloch Brown, who has been brought into the government as a minister at the foreign office, was also expected to make his first public comments on Saturday since his appointment. The former deputy secretary-general of the United Nations has been a fierce critic of the Iraq war.
As far as Mr Alexander’s speech was concerned, Mr Brown’s official spokesman insisted that newspaper reports suggesting it indicated a shift in policy towards Washington were wrong.
Mr Brown’s spokesman said: “I thought the interpretation that was put on Douglas Alexander’s words was quite extraordinary. To interpret this as saying anything at all about our relationship with the US is nonsense.”
Mr Brown’s visit to Washington will be the first time he has seen Mr Bush since becoming prime minister on June 27. Next week, he will make his first international visits, seeing Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, in Berlin on Monday and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, in Paris days later.
Mr Brown has good reasons for wanting to play down any suggestion of a rift with the US. On Monday, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is set to announce the UK’s retaliation against Russia for failing to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, wanted for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent, in London.
Friday’s events might be taken to underscore a need for a more disciplined approach to comments on foreign policy in the early stages of the Brown premiership.