US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a proposed US-India nuclear energy deal is good for both countries and for global efforts to reduce the spread of atomic technology and greenhouse gas emissions.
In her first public comments on the agreement since India’s government won a confidence vote that paves its way forward, Rice said on Thursday the administration of US President George W. Bush would press US lawmakers to approve the agreement in the coming months.
“I think we can make a very good case that this is not just a landmark deal but a positive landmark deal,” she told reporters aboard her plane as she flew from an Asian security conference in Singapore to Australia.
“It’s certainly our hope that we can get through all the processes and get this done in the Congress, and we are going to work very expeditiously toward that goal,” Rice said.
Bush called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday and both leaders expressed a desire to see the nuclear issue move forward as quickly as possible, Gordon Johndroe said, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House.
The pact would end more than three decades of nuclear isolation for India by opening its civilian reactors to international inspections in exchange for the nuclear fuel and technology.
In the past, India had been denied such outside help because of its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its testing of atomic weapons.
Rice said India has a good record of not spreading its nuclear technology and that safeguards are built into the deal. She said its approval would help India meet its demand for energy without using oil or coal.
“India is a country that has tremendously growing demand for energy,” she said. “It is a country that, if it tries to meet that demand through carbon-based sources for energy, is going to contribute dramatically to the continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions.”
India imports about 75 percent of its oil, and Singh has argued the country needs the nuclear deal to power its financial growth and lift hundreds of millions of its 1.1 billion citizens out of poverty.
On Tuesday, Singh was forced to call a confidence vote after communist political parties withdrew their support for his government this month to protest the agreement, fearing it would draw India closer to the US.
Though Singh made enemies in his bid to push ahead with the nuclear deal, he had the backing of India’s powerful business community and won the vote.
In addition to congressional approval, the deal requires India to strike separate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group of countries that export nuclear material.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS