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BUCHAREST: NATO and Russia have concluded a key agreement on
the land transit of non-military freight destined for Afghanistan
and will endorse it Friday, a NATO spokeswoman said. “It’s been
done and it’s going to be signed by [Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei] Lavrov” at a NATO summit in Bucharest, she told reporters.
She said that the deal, which concerns “non-military freight”,
like food, spare parts, fuel and transport vehicles, would probably
be the only concrete element to come out of Friday’s summit.
-- AFP
WASHINGTON: Democrat Barack Obama trounced his
rival Hillary Clinton by raising $40 million in March, twice as much
as the former first lady before their next key White House
nominating clashes. Despite Thursday’s news though, Clinton
insisted she could still win the battle for the Democratic Party’s
nomination to stand in the November presidential elections.
Obama’s windfall, another staggering show of financial muscle
following a record $55-million take in February, saw another 218,000
new donors join what his campaign called his national “grassroots
army.”
-- AFP
MADRID: The worst drought in decades in Spain is
leading to regional disputes over scarce water resources with areas
with more reserves resisting transfers to more parched zones. There
has been 40 percent less rain than normal across the country since
the meteorological year began on October 1, said Angel Rivera, the
spokesman for the National Institute of Meteorology. “We can say
it is the most severe drought in 40 years,” he told AFP.
-- AFP
TOKYO: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said in an interview published Friday that he would reject any new
incentives offered by world powers in return for suspending uranium
enrichment. “This is a non-negotiable subject,” Ahmadinejad told
Japan’s Kyodo News. “Iran is a nuclear country and has no reason
to give up the technology. If there are to be any preconditions, we
must propose preconditions,” he said. The Security Council last
month tightened UN sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt nuclear
fuel work.
-- AFP
BANGKOK: More than 160 nations were working
Friday to set up a plan on how to reach a UN-backed goal of
clinching a new deal by the end of 2009 following the Kyoto
Protocol, expected for the first time to consider rising emissions
from planes and ships. Major rich and poor nations are divided on
what action to take despite growing global fears that climate change
could cause the extinction of plants and animals within the century
and put millions of people at risk.
-- AFP
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