briefs

(MCT) BEIJING – Leaders of the world’s two fastest growing major economies, China and… (MCT) BEIJING – Leaders of the world’s two fastest growing major economies, China and India, set out sweeping goals Monday to build trade and put behind them decades of hostility and mistrust.

The two nations, whose populations constitute a third of humanity, declared that their growing ties wouldn’t put at risk either country’s own alliances, an apparent reference to warming U.S.-Indian relations.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Wen Jiabao of China, after unusually lengthy talks, emerged to say that the two nations would conduct new joint military exercises this year, designed to ease frictions along their once-tense border.

While the two leaders apparently made no headway in ending the Himalayan border dispute, which sparked a border war in 1962, they signed an unusual six-page accord affirming support for free trade, cooperation in civilian nuclear energy programs, joint efforts to combat climate change and a panoply of other issues.

Wen praised the “sound momentum” of relations and said that Beijing and New Delhi should “trust each other and work with each other for mutual benefit and win-win progress.” – Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) NAIROBI, Kenya – An exit poll carried out on behalf of a U.S. government-backed foundation indicated that Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki suffered a resounding defeat in last month’s disputed election, according to officials with knowledge of the document.

The poll by the Washington-based International Republican Institute – not yet publicly released – further undermines Kibaki’s claims of a narrow re-election victory. The outcome has sparked protests and ethnically driven clashes nationwide, killing hundreds.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga led Kibaki by roughly 8 percentage points in the poll, which surveyed voters as they left polling places during the election Dec. 27, according to one senior Western official who’s seen the data, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. That’s a sharp departure from the results that Kenyan election officials certified, which gave Kibaki a winning margin of 231,728 votes over Odinga, about 3 percentage points.

U.S. and European observers have criticized the official results, which came after long, unexplained delays in counting the votes, primarily from Kibaki strongholds. – Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) ROME – The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – a first for the nuclear agency – and agreed to a timetable that should resolve questions about Iran’s past nuclear program within four weeks, according to a statement released Sunday.

Few specifics were added, but the International Atomic Energy Agency statement also indicated that Director General Mohamed ElBaradei left Tehran with significant new data: Iran provided design information about “a new generation of centrifuges.”

Explanation of that technology, central to the enrichment of uranium, is not required under current inspection protocols, but Iran’s leadership apparently responded to an IAEA report in November that demanded more transparency. Iran maintains it is pursuing nuclear power for energy use, and critics suspect Iran also is pursuing nuclear weapons.

One diplomat, knowledgeable about the IAEA’s mission but not authorized to speak, described the talks as “very substantive.”

“The point of the trip was to have communication at the highest level, and they did,” the diplomat said. But the effort to clarify Iran’s program, which the U.S. and Western allies believe is hiding weapon aspirations, remains a work in progress.

Questions about military links to the program are still unresolved. A recent U.S. intelligence assessment found that Iran likely shut down a weapons program in 2003.

According to the statement Sunday, ElBaradei apparently asked Iran to consider “confidence-building measures” – code words for suspending its nuclear program as demanded by the U.N. Security Council.

But late Saturday, Iranian state-run television quoted Khamenei as again defying U.N. powers. The IAEA, not the Security Council, should handle all nuclear demands, according to Khamenei’s quote.

“There is no justification for Iran’s nuclear dossier to remain at the U.N. Security Council,” state TV quoted Khamenei. – Christine Spolar, Chicago Tribune