Saturday, December 26, 2009

Nuke - defence on Singh-Hayatoma agenda

Agenda matters includes terrorism measures, a free trade agreement ,climate issues,nuke co-operation and defence are expected to figure predominantly during the talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Japanese counterpart Yukio Hatoyama, who will be here on his first official visit from December 27. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama who arrives in the country on Sunday for his first official visit.The new Japanese Prime Minister, who took over in mid-September, will reach Mumbai where he will pay tribute to the victims of 26/11 terror attacks and sign a condolence book in Trident hotel.He will also interact with top Indian business leaders, including Ratan Tata, before heading to New Delhi on Monday where he will hold delegation level talks with Singh. "The two Prime Ministers will discuss ways to expand, enhance and strengthen the India-Japan Strategic and Global Partnership. They will also discuss regional and global issues," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.Singh will also host a private dinner on Monday for the 62-year-old Japanese leader who is accompanied by his wife Miyuki Hatoyama and senior ministers of his government. The two leaders will sit down for delegation-level talks on Tuesday followed by a brief joint press interaction, he said.This will be the 4th Annual Summit between the Prime Ministers of India and Japan since 2006.Asked if the two leaders will talk about cooperation in the field of civil nuclear energy, Prakash said the "entire gamut" is going to be discussed. On any agreements to be signed during the visit, the Foreign Office spokesman said it was not possible to prejudge anything.The visit will focus on giving a political push to free trade area negotiations and expanding the ambit of security cooperation between the two countries. Japan is the sixth largest investor in India with USD three billion in investments and plays a crucial role in some of the key infrastructure projects such as dedicated freight corridors in the country.The two countries signed a security cooperation agreement during Manmohan Singh's visit last year, the second country after the US with which Japan has inked such a pact providing for training and capacity building.The two countries are close to firming up an action plan to add more content to this agreement, which will also include joint army exercises. Hatoyama's maiden trip to India comes against the backdrop of Tokyo's bid to recast its relations in Asia and a desire to forge a stronger security and economic partnership with India, widely seen as an emerging Asian power along with China. Posted by Nksagar at 9:10 AM 0 comments

Kadima is facing a breakup

"We spoke about Kadima's situation. Kadima is facing a breakup. I recommended to the Kadima chairwoman a way in which Kadima's unity could be preserved. Mofaz told reporters after the meeting. Livni's arch-rival and the second-in-command in Kadima party, Shaul Mofaz, today held an urgent meeting with her against the backdrop of Netanyahu's alleged attempts, demanding to call party primaries to save it from a definite split.The meeting was held at Livni's home in Tel Aviv following a request made by Mofaz. "We spoke about Kadima's situation. Kadima is facing a breakup. I recommended to the Kadima chairwoman a way in which Kadima's unity could be preserved. I hope that for the first time she will also listen to other voices," Mofaz told reporters after the meeting. "The things I said are very clear and unequivocal, and I hope in this way we will be able to reach a leadership which will know how to make the right decisions and continue leading Kadima to where it should be in order to safeguard our interests," he said. Mofaz was beaten narrowly by Livni in the party primaries held before the general elections in February and has been preparing for the next round ever since.Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser personally requested that Livni attend the meeting, which will center on Netanyahu's offer to include Kadima in a national unity government which would jointly combat issues both at home and abroad. Netanyahu hinted in closed forums, if Kadima failed to join the government, he would work to split the party. "I am determined to try to expand the coalition base at this time in the face of the Palestinian refusal and the various threats," the prime minister said. "I am determined to do this, and my efforts won't stop even if Livni says no. I am serious in this intention of mine. I would be very happy to see her join, but I have no plans to give up on the attempt to expand the coalition base," he stressed. Israel media agencies Author: Naresh Sagar e-mail Web: www.nksagar.com Phone: 9810974027

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Global view to COP 15

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also urges richer nations to contribute to a multi-billion dollar fund to help poorer countries cope with global warming which will become operational in January. President Obama said ,I worked throughout the day with Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia, who was representing Africa, as well as Premier Wen of China, Prime Minister Singh of India, President Lula of Brazil, and President Zuma of South Africa, to achieve what I believe will be an important milestone. Earlier this evening I had a meeting with the last four leaders I mentioned -- from China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. And that's where we agreed to list our national actions and commitments, to provide information on the implementation of these actions through national communications, with international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines. We agreed to set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, and importantly, to take action to meet this objective consistent with science. Taken together these actions will help us begin to meet our responsibilities to leave our children and our grandchildren a cleaner and safer planet. Now, this progress did not come easily, and we know that this progress alone is not enough. Going forward, we're going to have to build on the momentum that we've established here in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time. We've come a long way, but we have much further to go. COp 15 is lack of targets to curb emissions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders agree to defend the new climate deal.The rich-poor disputes in Copenhagen that dominated the two-week climate conference and almost blocked any deal at all have almost disappeared after the summit."This breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "Copenhagen is a first step toward a new world climate order, nothing more but also nothing less. President Nicolas Sarkozy intends to invite the countries that signed the Copenhagen Accord to a meeting in spring 2010. One purpose will be to reinstall the goal of halving global emissions by 2050.28 countries that signed the Copenhagen Accord will be invited to a meeting in Paris in April or May 2010.President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office revealing “that Sarkozy had evoked the conditions of the mobilization that France intended to bring in the coming months” during a lunch with representatives from a number of environmental groups. “The aim of the meeting would be to implement the 50 percent objective by 2050,” Arnaud Gossement, spokesman for France Nature Environment, who took part in the lunch, told media. The 50 percent objective refers to the target of halving global emissions by 2050 – a target that has been repeated in many international sessions throughout the last year, including summits of the Group of 20 (G-20) and the Major Economies Forum, but was finally omitted in the accord agreed at the UN conference in Copenhagen, COP15. Meanwhile, ministers for climate and environment from the European Union have met to evaluate the outcome of COP15.“The feeling is that what has been agreed upon is not good enough. However, a step in the right direction was taken in Copenhagen. The issue now is to implement EU’s own policy. We have a clear understanding that we will not allow ourselves to be caught up in a state of climate depression but rather look ahead,” Lykke Friis, newly appointed climate minister for Denmark, tells Danish daily Berlingske. The European initiatives will not stand alone. According to RTT News, Bolivian President Evo Morales will invite countries critical of the Copenhagen Accord to a summit on April 22. Interviewed by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, the president of COP15 during its high-level stage, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, says: “The top leaders were taking Copenhagen seriously as their deadline and delivered beforehand. Had Obama not been due to attend, I doubt whether the US would have begun committing on long-term finance – which is historical. Had Lula not been due to attend, Brazil would hardly have raised its level of ambitions. Had Wen not been due to attend, China would probably not have opened to some level of international insight as to what it is doing – which actually is a globally politically significant admission.” According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the new political dynamics shown in Copenhagen is likely to change the way climate policy is addressed internationally: “The format of the consultations at the UN level, in which every member state can exercise veto power, holds no promise for any success. The balancing of interests between those who want to preserve their standards of living and the emerging economies that want to soon reach such levels of prosperity appears to be impossible. With the global population is growing as well as its energy needs, which will lead to even greater carbon dioxide emissions. Only the most stubborn climate change deniers would say that this is not going to impact the lives of millions of people.” A frequent media observation is that especially four emerging economies – Brazil, South Africa, India and China, constituting the informal BASIC group – unlike at earlier UN conferences played an absolute key role in Copenhagen. “The BASIC group (…) has emerged as a powerful force in climate change negotiations, especially in the face of relentless pressure from richer countries,” Jairam Ramesh, India’s Environment Minister, notes according to BBC News, while adding that “all of India’s concerns had been safeguarded” and that yet “India’s approach had been recognized as constructive”. According to TIME, “if Copenhagen was tough, Mexico City (COP16 in December 2010) will be a lot more so, because there, countries will be tasked with filling in details sketched in the Copenhagen Accord” – but, as the toughness of the negotiations only demonstrate that climate policy has moved beyond hot air into economic reality – “It’s going to get harder, and that’s a good thing”. South Africa's environment minister Buyelwa Sonjica and her two top climate change negotiators said Tuesday that part of the blame rested with the way the host guided the conference. In their first media briefing since returning from talks in the Danish capital that ended Saturday, the trio described an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that Denmark was plotting to force its own position on other nations. In the end, South African negotiator Joanne Yawitch said, the Danes unveiled a draft at the 11th hour that Yawitch said was "seriously problematic". She said negotiators edited late into the night and came up with a document South Africa found more balanced, but that she felt substantive changes were unwelcome. Her fellow negotiator Alf Wills said the resulting agreement was limited not only in terms of what it did to save the planet, but in the number of nations that accepted it, saying it did not extend beyond the 28 represented at the late-night negotiations. British climate minister Ed Miliband, the UN climate conference in Copenhagen was “a chaotic process dogged by procedural games”. “The procedural wrangling was, in fact, a cover for points of serious, substantive disagreement,” Miliband writes, referring to the fact that China, “despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries” vetoed 50 percent reductions in global emissions by 2050 and 80 percent reductions by developed countries. While welcoming the progress made during the last year’s climate negotiations and the “real outcomes” in the Copenhagen Accord – including finance for poor countries – Miliband raises the question of the structure and nature of future international climate negotiations. “The last two weeks at times have presented a farcical picture to the public. We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way. We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted,” he writes.

India beat Sri Lanka 7 wickets in Indore India beat Sri Lanka by seven wickets in Indore. Virat Kohli hit an unbeaten 30 as  India   ...