Briefly

INDIA

India, U.S. vow to boost intelligence cooperation

NEW DELHI | Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with top Indian officials on Thursday as part of a security dialogue to increase cooperation between the two countries in counterterrorism, intelligence sharing and cybersecurity.

Ms. Napolitano, who is on a four-day visit to India, has described India as a steadfast partner and said both countries should work together to strengthen their law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts.

During the Cold War, India and the Soviet Union shared close ties while the U.S. tilted toward India’s rival, Pakistan. In recent years, however, New Delhi and Washington have drawn closer, finding common ground in their concern over global terrorism, commitment to democracy and booming trade.

Ms. Napolitano’s visit comes as a businessman stands trial in Chicago in connection with the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, which killed at least 166 people. India has blamed Pakistan-based insurgent groups for the killings.

NEPAL

Political turmoil looms over Nepal’s peaks

KATMANDU | Nepal’s capital has just a few hours of running water per week, one of many problems left to fester as the country’s political parties squabble over a new constitution.

The country has had no prime minister much of the past year and risks having no government at all by the weekend.

Five years after the country’s communist rebels gave up a bloody revolt to join a peace process - raising hopes of a new era of stability - the country is sinking deeper into political turmoil.

On Saturday, the Constitutional Assembly - which serves as the country’s legislature - is set to dissolve without coming close to agreeing on the document that is supposed to govern the new Nepal.

SRI LANKA

Government to begin new rights probe

COLOMBO | Sri Lanka said Thursday that its dormant human rights commission would begin hearing new complaints as the Indian Ocean nation remains under mounting Western pressure to investigate war-crimes allegations made by a U.N.-appointed panel.

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, which has no judicial powers beyond recommending that government authorities take action, said it will begin a probe of serious rights violations nationwide, including those from the war.

“We propose to appoint a panel of retired judges to look into all the pending important cases,” commission Chairman Priyantha Perera told Reuters news agency. “We want this panel of judges to look into more serious violations in every part of the country.”

Western governments led by the United States have pushed Sri Lanka to establish a believable probe into the panel’s finding of “credible evidence” government troops killed thousands of civilians at the end of the country’s civil war in 2009.

CHINA

2 killed, 6 hurt in blasts in southern city

BEIJING | Homemade bombs exploded at three government buildings in a southern China city within a half-hour Thursday, killing two and wounding at least six others in what state media said was a revenge attack by a middle-aged jobless man.

The first bomb was in a car parked outside the prosecutor’s office in Fuzhou city. That was followed by an explosion at a district government building and then another car bomb outside the drug administration office, said an official at the information office of Jiangxi province, where Fuzhou is located. He gave only his surname, Zhang.

The official Xinhua News Agency, citing police officials it did not further identify, said the bombs apparently were set by an unemployed 52-year-old city resident, Qian Mingqi, who was killed in one of the explosions.

Provincial and city officials said they could not confirm the report.

Xinhua said Mr. Qian was involved in a dispute over the demolishing of his home.