Syria pushes for Iraq government

Iraq's two political heavyweights, the former Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, and Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have met in Damascus, following active mediation by Syria for the formation of a new Iraqi government.

An AFP photographer reported the two had met in Damascus. Turkey also appears to be intervening to resolve the deadlock in Iraq's government formation, with its Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arriving in the Syrian capital on Monday. Iraq is a neighbour of Syria and Turkey.

The meeting between Mr. Allawi and Mr. Sadr took place amid spiralling violence in Iraq, which some analysts attribute to the lack of a functional government in Baghdad. On Sunday, a suicide bomber in Baghdad killed at least 43 people, mostly belonging to the anti-Al-Qaeda Awakening Councils.

Prior to their talks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had separate discussion with both the Iraqi leaders.

On Saturday, after talks with Mr. Sadr, who had arrived from self-imposed exile in Iran, Mr. Assad said a new Cabinet should be formed in Iraq “as soon as possible”. On Monday, Mr. Allawi met the Syrian President, who identified Iraq's national sovereignty, unity and Arab identity as the basis for “any inter-Iraqi accord”, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.

Following Iraq's March 7 elections, Mr. Sadr's anti-U.S. bloc got 39 seats against 91 for Mr. Allawi and 89 for incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in the 325-member Parliament.

Prime Minister post

Apart from Iraq's sectarian and ethnic fault-lines, the choice of a prime ministerial candidate has emerged as a major stumbling block on the road to the formation of a new government.

Analysts say at least two possible scenarios are being discussed by the various political formations that are in the fray to form the next government. First, the Shia Iraqi National Alliance (INA) in combination with State of Law (SLA), also a Shia formation, is deliberating on a new government but without Mr. Maliki, who belongs to SLA, as the next Prime Minister. Second, the SLA is reportedly in discussions with Mr. Allawi's Iraqiyaa list, but has only offered it the post of parliamentary Speaker. Conversely, the Iraqiyaa is rejecting Mr. Maliki as the Prime Minister but is willing to consider him as Iraq's next presidential candidate.

Maoists' second option is CPN (UML)

The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has said it will support the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) if it cannot lead a new government.

Maoist vice-chairman Narayankaji Shrestha said the party had decided to back CPN (UML) chairman Jhalanath Khanal in the prime ministerial election if there could be no Maoist-led government. The decision to support Mr. Khanal comes two days after the Nepali Congress announced its prime ministerial candidate.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda' would rather support Mr. Khanal than announce Maoist vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai as the prime ministerial candidate. Some Maoist leaders favour Mr. Bhattarai as the next Prime Minister. Though Mr. Khanal's name is increasingly heard as the CPN (UML)'s candidate, the party is yet to officially announce its candidate. It is learnt that some voices within the party are against forming a CPN (UML)-led government as senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal has just resigned as Prime Minister.

Political parties represented in the Constituent Assembly have to nominate their candidates on Tuesday for the election on Wednesday. President Ram Baran Yadav had earlier asked the parties to form a consensus government but it could not happen owing to differences among the major political parties on the management of the Maoists' army.

The conservative Tea Party movement in the United States is facing the classic dilemma of an early bloomer. Undergoing an explosive growth phase short

Anti-HIV drugs reached 1.2 million more people last year, the U.N. announced on Monday at the world AIDS forum, as the former U.S. President, Bill Clinton, defended Barack Obama's funding to fight the disease.

The increase meant that 5.2 million people had access to drugs to repress HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, said the U.N.'s World Health Organisation as thousands of delegates met at the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

“This is the largest increase in people accessing treatment in a single year. It is an extremely encouraging development,” said WHO's assistant Director-General Hiroki Nakatani.

Since 2003 the number of people on anti-HIV drugs has risen 12-fold, said the U.N. health agency.

But experts say despite the surge, only roughly half of the world's poor, badly infected people have access to the drugs.

The six-day conference of scientists, policymakers and grassroots workers opened on Sunday in Vienna to rowdy protests from activists accusing Mr. Obama of reneging on a campaign pledge to spend some $50 billion on AIDS by 2013. Some of several hundred protestors chanted “Obama lies — people die,” as data pointed to a slump in AIDS funding.

In a keynote speech on Monday, Mr. Clinton defended Mr. Obama, laying the blame for financial belt-tightening at the door of the U.S. Congress. “You have two options here, you can demonstrate and call the President names or we can go get some more votes in Congress to get some more money,” said Mr. Clinton. “There is no way the White House will veto an increase in funding for AIDS.”

At Sunday's opening ceremonies, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned in a video message that the “significant progress” in the 29-year war on AIDS could be reversed if countries retreated in their funding efforts.

Veteran campaigners also demanded political leaders fund AIDS with the same speed and generosity as they refloated the banking sector in 2008 and shored up the Greek economy earlier this year.

From 2002 to 2008 donations from rich economies for poor countries rose from $1.2 billion to $7.7 billion, but fell back last year to $7.6 billion, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS. — AFP

The Tea Party's bitter brew

The conservative Tea Party movement in the United States is facing the classic dilemma of an early bloomer. Undergoing an explosive growth phase shortly after it surprised mainstream political America with its arrival in 2009, the party now appears to be stumbling, perhaps against its own better judgment, down the path of chaotic radicalism.

While insiders have known of divisions within the party for a while, the froth spilled over into the public domain this weekend when the Tea Party expelled one of its key leaders, Mark Williams, and the sub-group that he led within the party called the Tea Party Express, for a writing a satirical letter purportedly from “the Coloured People” to President Abraham Lincoln praising slavery.

The party's spokesman, David Webb, said: “We have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote”.

His letter was said to be a response to earlier events, when the Tea Party found itself blinking in the spotlight after the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) passed a resolution labelling the party racist.

Some argue that at the heart of the party's problems is the lack of coherent leadership. Though it succeeded in “adopting” the former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, who sprang to the party's defence after the NAACP resolution, and made inroads into some of the primary elections this year, many in the mainstream regard that move to have edged the party even closer to the fringes of the political spectrum.

Methane, seepage at well site

Leaking methane and a seep near the well of the damaged Deepwater Horizon rig will not come in the way of continued testing of the capping stack installed by BP last week, according to Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander in charge of the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In a statement Admiral Allen said, “Yesterday I sent BP a letter stating that there were a number of unanswered questions about the monitoring systems they committed to as a condition of the United States government extending the well integrity test.” He added that over the weekend a conference call between the federal science team and BP representatives was convened to discuss the “detection of a seep near the well and the possible observation of methane over the well”.

Noting that the federal science team had received the answers they were seeking and BP reiterated its commitment to monitoring and notification obligations, Admiral Allen said, “I authorised BP to continue the integrity test for another 24 hours and I restated our firm position that this test will only continue if they continue to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation.”

Seeking to allay fears that the testing period could force oil to seep into the rock surrounding the well, the Admiral said the federal science team had the ability to return to the safe containment of the oil “at any moment” on the surface.

He noted that the team would continue closely monitoring the BP well until such time as the relief wells were completed and the main well was permanently killed.

According to reports, the initial closing of the containment cap's valves was supposed to last 48 hours as a test to determine if the well was leaking elsewhere. However it has lasted four days.

In yet another sternly-worded letter sent on Sunday to Robert Dudley, Chief Managing Director of BP, Admiral Allen said, “Given the current observations from the test, including the detected seep a distance from the well and undetermined anomalies at the well head, monitoring of the seabed is of paramount importance during the test period.”

He added that as a continued condition of the test, BP was required to provide as a top priority access and coordination for the monitoring systems.

Railway Board chairman does not rule out sabotage

Pointing out anomalies in the events leading up to the train collision at Sainthia in West Bengal's Birbhum district that claimed at least 67 lives, Railway Board Chairman Vivek Sahay on Monday did not rule out the possibility of sabotage and hinted at “wilful interference.”

Mr. Sahay described the circumstances of the accident as “out of normal” and emphasised that the “brakes were not touched.”

“According to prima facie reports, we know that the brakes were not applied. The emergency brake was also not applied. Both the loco pilot and assistant loco pilot were sitting in their chairs; no effort has been made to jump out of the train,” Mr. Sahay told journalists here after visiting the accident site with senior Board officials.

The accident must have occurred just after 2.01 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express rammed the Vananchal Express from behind at a speed of 90 km per hour, he said.

At a distance of 1.8 km from the Sainthia station, there was a bridge on which there was a speed restriction of 30 km per hour.

Also, since Sainthia was a scheduled stop of the Uttarbanga Express, the train should have been approaching the station at a speed of 30 or 40 km per hour, Mr. Sahay said.

Secondly, the driver of the Uttarbanga Express and his assistant also ignored the home signal that had asked the train to stop. Even if the driver had ignored it, the assistant driver could have applied the emergency brakes, which he did not do, Mr. Sahay said.

“Why was the train travelling so fast? What went wrong,” asked Mr. Sahay, adding this would be “the focus of investigations.”

Mr. Sahay also ruled out the possibility that the brakes might have failed because the Uttarbanga Express had stopped at the previous station at Gadadhar minutes before the accident. It had arrived at Gadadhar at 1.54 a.m. and departed at 1.56 a.m., entering Sainthia at 2:01 a.m.

“The driver, M.C. Dey, was an ‘A' category driver — a category given to the best drivers for safety. His safety record had been exceptionally good,” Mr. Sahay said.

The guard had been traumatised after the accident and could not be interrogated so far, Mr. Sahay said.

On being asked about the frequency of train accidents with several incidents occurring in the past few months, Mr. Sahay claimed that in fact the average accident rate had declined, but several incidents on mail and express trains had occurred leading to higher causalities.

“Many of them have been found to have been caused by wilful interference. There have been five cases of accidents by wilful interference since January this year … Up to now, no Railway employee has been found to be involved,” he said.