India’s new ruling coalition, freed of pressure from its former communist allies, is expected to move forward soon on a military logistics deal with the US that would help US operations in the region.
The Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), on hold for more than two years, allows refueling, maintenance and servicing of military ships and planes from both countries at each other’s ports and bases.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s former communist allies opposed the agreement, saying Indian military bases could become permanent ports of call for the US military engaged in unilateral operations in the region.
PHOTO: AP
But Singh’s Congress party defeated the communists in a general election this month, winning a stronger majority and freeing itself from any pressure from its former allies who had walked out of his last coalition government over a civilian nuclear deal with Washington.
The communists have a traditional antipathy towards the US and oppose any strategic alliance with it. But a top Indian government official and military analysts said the communists’ fears were overblown because the LSA was a fairly common arrangement that the US had with more than 50 countries.
“This is one of the first things we’d have to look at,” a senior Indian government official said as Singh’s coalition was sworn in for a second term on Friday.
US ships were already using Indian facilities on a case-by-case basis, and the agreement will only formalize it, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
With the deepening US involvement in the war against Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, greater access to military facilities in the region would help US forces, military experts said.
“Logistics is at the heart of any military operation,” said B. Raman, former head of India’s external intelligence arm, the Research and Analysis Wing.
“This will definitely help them, they have the assurance of safe and reliable facilities,” he said.
The US has been seeking new supply routes for its troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan after militants stepped up attacks on convoys passing through Pakistan.It has agreed with most Central Asia states as well as Russia to use their territory as transit points for non-military Afghan cargo such as fuel, water and construction materials.
Raman and other experts said the planned logistics agreement was quite apart from US efforts to maintain the supply lines to its troops and that New Delhi wasn’t getting drawn into Washington’s Afghanistan-Pakistan war strategy.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS