U.S. gives Pakistan $116 million grant

U.S. gives Pakistan $116 million grant

PAKISTAN: The United States on Monday announced a new health grant of US$116 million to key war on terror ally Pakistan.

U.S. ambassador Nancy Powell signed an agreement for the grant, to be disbursed over five years, with Pakistan's top economic affairs bureaucrat Waqar Masood Khan.

The funds will target Pakistan's health, population ministries, provincial and local governments and private sector with the aim of boosting healthcare for women and children.

Islamabad has earned substantial financial rewards from Washington for providing pivotal support to the military campaign against Afghanistan's former Taliban regime and the ongoing hunt for al-Qaeda terrorists.

Washington has already written off more than $1 billion in Pakistani debt, given Islamabad more than $1 billion in aid and grants and in June foreshadowed a new $3 billion loan package. --AFP

;AFP;KOD; ANPAu..r.. ATW-Australia-politics Butler named as queen's man JP/11/Butler

Butler named as queen's man

AUSTRALIA: Diplomat Richard Butler, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq and recent strong critic of the Australian government, was named on Monday as Queen Elizabeth II's representative in the island state of Tasmania.

Butler, 61, who also supports cutting Australian links to the British monarchy, will be sworn into the supposedly non-partisan vice-regal post of state governor on Oct. 3, replacing Sir Guy Green, who is retiring after eight years.

Tasmania's state premier, former trade union official Jim Bacon, described Butler on Monday as one of the world's most respected commentators on international affairs.

Butler had a distinguished diplomatic career in which he served as Ambassador to Thailand, to Cambodia and then to the United Nations in New York for five years before he was appointed executive chairman of the UN Special Commission to disarm Iraq in 1997. --AFP

;REUTERS;KOD; ANPAu..r.. ATW-Howard-China-Korea Howard lauds China's role JP/11/Howard

Howard lauds China's role

CHINA: Australian Prime Minister John Howard praised China on Monday for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table to try to defuse a 10-month crisis over its nuclear ambitions.

Howard's visit comes a week before Beijing hosts six-way talks over the crisis, which erupted last October after U.S. officials said Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.

"No country is more important than China. China has more influence on North Korea than any other country in the world and China has played a wholly constructive and positive role," Howard told a news conference after meeting his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao.

China, which fought alongside the North against the United States and the South in the 1950-53 Korean War, is the isolated North's closest ally and main source of food and energy.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told Howard there was room to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, state television said.