US visa fee hike to be used to develop its Border security

In what could deal a serious blow to Indian tech companies, the US House of Representatives has passed a bill to steeply hike US visa fees for skilled workers to raise $ 600 million in emergency funding to help secure the US-Mexico border.

Senators passed a similar plan last week. But since the House version passed in a voice vote Tuesday is slightly different it will go back to the Senate for final congressional approval before being signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The measure proposes to raise the fees on H-1B visas for companies who have more than 50 per cent of their employees on such visas for highly skilled professionals from $ 320 to $ 2,320. Similarly, the fee on L visas given to multi-national transferees will go up from $ 320 to $ 2,570.

The additional fees from the popular H-1B and L visas programmes would be used to build operating bases and deploy unmanned surveillance drones to better secure the US-Mexico border, one of the rare issues both Democrats and Republicans have agreed upon.

The legislation targets companies that lawmakers say "exploit" US visa programmes. A summary of the Senate version listed Wipro, Tata, Infosys and Satyam as such firms, saying that they fly thousands of employees to the US to work at as technicians and engineers for their clients.

Eelam hurts Tamils in Lanka -- Lankan Tamil minister

A Sri Lankan Tamil minister who accompanied President Mahinda Rajapaksa to India says the Tamil diaspora's refusal to give up the Tamil Eelam dream is only hurting his community.

Expatriate Tamils in Western countries who continued to be loyal to the goal of forming an independent state were no way serving the mass of Tamils in Sri Lanka, said cabinet minister Douglas Devananda.

"The fact is there is going to be no Tamil Eelam, now or ever," the minister for traditional industries and small enterprises development told IANS in an exclusive interview. "It remained a dream even when LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was alive. Today it is like dreaming about a dream.

"Can these Tamils achieve what Prabhakaran failed to?" he asked. "They cannot. But their actions create suspicions in the minds of a section of the government in Sri Lanka. It makes life more difficult for the Tamils."

Japan to consider sanctions to DPRK

The Japanese government said Monday it was ready to take punitive action against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, Kyodo News reported.

The move would be taken in consultation with South Korea and the United States, the report said.

Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama instructed cabinet ministers to consider additional sanctions on the DPRK over the South Korean warship issue at a high-level national security meeting.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told reporters Japan would offer support if the South Korean government referred the incident to the UN Security Council for punitive measures against the DPRK.

Gordon Brown bigot

On the morning after the final leader’s debate, Gordon Brown witnessed a potential disaster. Upon spying the Prime Minister on a street corner, a lorry driver swerved and a second vehicle veered off the road.

Though reassured to hear no one was hurt, Mr Brown might have reflected that this has been a week of car crash politics, albeit chiefly in a less literal sense. First, he forgot he was wearing a television microphone and committed the unimaginable gaffe of referring to Gillian Duffy, a Labour voter whom he had greeted warmly, as “a bigoted woman”.

Then his bravura comeback in the televised debate on the economy failed to procure the boost he might have hoped for. Despite a consensus that this was Mr Brown’s most impressive showing, most snap polls taken after the broadcast put him in third place.

India -Pak talks will resume soon

A day after Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to resume talks at the level of foreign ministers, Pakistan said the meeting in Thimphu had gone “better than expectations”, but sustained efforts would be needed to bridge the “trust deficit” between the two sides.

The outcome of the engagement had been “better than the expectations,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference here today. “It (the resumption of dialogue at the political level) is a step in the right direction, it is a concrete development and we will build on it.”

Gilani positive of resuming talks with India soon

Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today reciprocated the good wishes conveyed to him by senior Indian leaders and hoped that the stalled dialogue between the two countries would be resumed soon.

Gilani made the remarks during a meeting with population welfare minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, who visited India recently and met several leaders, including Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

During her meeting with Awan, Sonia Gandhi sent her felicitations to President Asif Ali Zardari, prime minister Gilani and the people of Pakistan on the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which strips the president of his sweeping powers and removes changes made to the constitution by military dictators.

Riot Panel waiting for Modi to appear

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has so far not appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) enquiring into the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The SIT has given Modi a week starting from Sunday to come and answer questions in a case filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of late Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who along with 68 others were killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre of February 28, 2002.

The summons though does not make it mandatory for Modi to make an appearance before the SIT team headed by RK Raghavan. Narendra Modi is consulting his top legal advisors whether he should appear or not before the panel.

Pak says India didn't ask for the arrest of Saeed over Mumbai attack connection

Expressing ‘surprise’ over Pakistan's claim that the issue of arrest of Hafiz Saeed, one of the 26/11 masterminds, was not taken up during Foreign Secretary- level talks, India said on Sunday that it has been demanding action against him since the barbaric and dastardly attacks in Mumbai and the matter was raised ‘strongly’ during the parleys.

"Saeed's activities including his recent vitriolic and venomous statements aimed at fomenting further acts of terrorism against India and the unhindered public space and freedom he enjoys in Pakistan was raised strongly by India during the Foreign Secretary-level talks," External Affairs Ministry spokesman said in a statement here.

Talking to reporters in Multan, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had claimed that India never demanded the arrest of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Saeed nor discussed the issue at the talks between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir here on February 25.

Senate passes Jobs bill

After stalling briefly, the Democrats' jobs agenda regained momentum on Thursday as the House passed one measure designed to boost employment and the Senate pressed forward on a more ambitious bill that is expected to come to a vote next week.

The House voted 217 to 201 to approve a $15 billion measure that would give tax breaks to companies for hiring new employees. Six Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats in supporting the bill, which also includes a one-year reauthorization of the law governing federal highway funding, as well as an expansion of the Build America Bonds program and a provision allowing companies to write off equipment purchases.

India asks US to ensure the weapons they supply to Pak won't be misused

 Raising concern over the reported decision of the United States to supply sophisticated arms to Pakistan, New Delhi on Thursday said Washington should ensure that the military aid was not used against India.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony expressed concern over the move to supply a whole array of sophisticated laser guided bomb kits, surveillance drones and latest-model F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan.

In a statement here, Mr. Antony said: “Given our bitter past experience of how Islamabad used such aid against India, Washington should ensure that the latest tranche of military aid is used only for the purpose of countering al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and not against India.”

a Saudi women to get 300 lashings & 18 mnts imprisonment for complaining against authorities

A SAUDI woman's to get 300 lashings and 18 months' prison for filing complaints against court officials and being in court without a male guardian.

A human rights group said today Sawsan Salim was convicted last month in a court in Rass, in Qassim province, after petitioning officials in the kingdom's capital Riyadh.

The petition included King Abdullah over what she alleged was years of abuse by local justice officials, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement.

Taliban condemns on live coverage ban

They banned music, television and education for girls during their rule of Afghanistan, but the Taliban on Wednesday condemned a government ban on live broadcasts of their own attacks.

The Western-backed government has banned live coverage of militant assaults in a bid to prevent the Taliban exploiting television news to send messages to their operatives.

As the measure -- which applies to domestic and international media -- was criticised by journalists and rights groups, the Taliban joined the fray, calling it an attack on free speech.

Musharaff says militancy in Kashmir region is nurtured in Pak since 1989

Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf has admitted that militancy in Kashmir was actually fathered in Pakistan way back in 1989 and the process of fanning insurgency in the region was still continuing.

Addressing a meeting on the subject of 'Leadership' at the House of Lords committee here earlier this week, Musharraf said Kashmiri Mujahideen groups, that first came to the scene twenty years ago, enjoyed great support in Pakistan and the case is similar even now.

Iranian rebel confess of his US links

An alleged member of a Sunni Muslim group fighting the Iranian government has said in a televised confession that his group received help from the United States.

Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of Jundallah, said on state-run TV on Friday that Iranian authorities had detained him on his way to a meeting with a "high-ranking American person" in Kyrgyzstan.

Rigi was reportedly seizedafter Iranian warplanes forced a flight from Dubai to Kyrygzstan to land at an Iranian airport.

Thai Supreme Court orders Former Thai PM to give $2.3 Billion

Thailand's Supreme Court has ruled that former PM Thaksin Shinawatra's family should be stripped of more than half a contested $2.3bn fortune.

The court said $1.4bn (£910m) of the assets were gained illegally through conflict of interest when Mr Thaksin was prime minister.

The funds were frozen after Mr Thaksin's elected government was overthrown in a military coup in 2006.

Mr Thaksin, who is living abroad, has denied any wrongdoing.

SUU KYI's appeal for her release rejected by court

The Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi failed in her latest bid to end more than a decade of house arrest today after the country's highest court threw out an appeal against her sentence.

The supreme court's decision was widely expected but her lawyer said he would launch a final special appeal to the supreme court after establishing the reasons why the latest attempt had been rejected. "The court order did not mention any reasons," he said.

The British ambassador Andrew Heyn attended the court session along with diplomats from Australia, France and the US.

Oil exploration in Falkland island begins amid Argentina's claims

A British rig has begun drilling for oil in the territorial waters of the Falkland Islands, despite strong opposition from Argentina.

The platform has been towed to a point 100km (62 miles) north of the UK territory in the South Atlantic.

Argentina claims sovereignty over what it calls the Islas Malvinas and has imposed shipping restrictions.

UK Defence Minister Bill Rammell said the government had a "legitimate right" to build an oil industry in its waters.

Good Taliban Vs Bad taliban

 The Manmohan Singh government may have expressed its willingness to try out the US’ “good Taliban, bad Taliban” differentiation,
but the Congress is just not buying into this argument.

Reacting to the beheading of two Sikhs by the Taliban in FATA of Pakistan, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said the incident is reprehensible. “This unfortunate incident is a message to those forces who make a distinction between ‘good Taliban and bad Taliban’. There is nothing called good Taliban. They need to be crushed with a resolute resolve of the civilised world,” Mr Tewari said.

Melbourne not safe for Indians - Oz opposition leader

Streets of Melbourne were not safe for Indians and the Government should spend money on policing and preventing racial attacks to improve relationship, Australia’s opposition leader Tony Abbott said on Tuesday.

The remarks came in the wake of the Government’s move to arrange accommodation for a team of Indian journalists touring Down Under.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is spending A$250,000 on flights and five-star accommodation for the journalists in a bid to clear up a diplomatic row over a series of attacks on Indians, the AAP reported quoting Herald Sun.

Fonseka getting 5 Star facilties in jail - Rajapakse

 Sri Lanka's president says arrested ex-army chief and defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka is getting "five-star" treatment in custody, it was reported Saturday.

Fonseka, whose detention came two weeks after being beaten in presidential elections in late January by President Mahinda Rajapakse, is being held by the military pending court-martial proceedings on unspecified charges.