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

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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

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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.