First signs of thaw in India-Pakistan 26/11 freezeis

Six months after the Mumbai terror attacks put the peace process between India and Pakistan on “pause”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday directed their Foreign Secretaries to meet before the NAM summit in Egypt, where the two leaders are likely to meet again.

The summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries will take place mid-July in Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt, and indications are the FS-level meeting is likely to be held in the last week of June or early July.

Manmohan Singh on Tuesday told President Zardari to take action to stop terrorism against India emanating from his country’s soil. Setting the tone for the meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Singh, shaking hands with Zardari, bluntly told him in front of television cameras that “my mandate is to tell you that Pakistan territory should not be used for terrorism against India.”

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Hamas declares a week’s ceasefire

Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza announced an immediate, week-long ceasefire in the conflict with Israel on Sunday, about 12 hours after an Israeli unilateral ceasefire went into effect.

The Palestinian groups said that they would give Israeli troops a week to leave Gaza. Hamas leaders outside Gaza had previously said the group would continue fighting so long as Israeli troops remained on the ground.

The ceasefire announcement, coming after 22 days of war that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, was confirmed by the Palestinian groups’ exiled leaders meeting in Damascus.It came after Egypt held talks with Hamas representatives, and as European and Arab leaders gathered in Egypt for a summit meeting designed to turn the fragile truce into a more durable arrangement.

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Egg on both UPA and Left faces as NAM and Iran slam nuclear deal

In a severe embarrassment, ironically for both the UPA government and its Left allies although for quite the opposite reasons - the Non-Aligned Movement countries which are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty have called for "complete prohibition" of any kind of nuclear cooperation with countries that have not acceded to the NPT Iran, too, has jumped in, making this part of a formal proposal and calling all NPT members for an endorsement.

At the ongoing meeting of the preparatory committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference in Geneva, Indonesia, making a statement last week on behalf of NAM countries that have signed the NPT stated: "Without exception, there should also be a complete prohibition of the transfer of all nuclear-related equipment, information, material and facilities, resources or devices and the extension of assistance in the nuclear, scientific and technological fields to states, which are not parties to the NPT."

Going beyond this, the statement reads: "The recent developments, in particular the nuclear cooperation agreement signed by a NWS (Nuclear Weapon State) with a non-party to the NPT is a matter of great concern."

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