In the West Bank another American peace activist Brian Avery 24 was shot in

In the West Bank another American peace activist, Brian Avery, 24, was shot in the face in the town of Jenin on 5 April.. India and Pakistan are to hold their first talks in almost two years, aimed at ending 50 years of war and acrimony between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Pakistan agreed to restore full diplomatic ties with India.Mr Vajpayee, 78 and in poor health, has indicated that he would like to leave a legacy of peace between the neighbours. He told the Indian parliament: “This round of talks will be decisive, and at least for my life, these will be the last. We are committed to the improvement of relations with Pakistan and we are willing to grasp every opportunity for doing so.”The two countries came close to war last year after India blamed Pakistan for an attack by Islamic militants on the Indian parliament in December 2001 Pakistan denied involvement. Tensions eased after intense diplomacy by the United States and Britain. Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, is to visit the region next week.Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said: “This is very, very promising, at a time when people were beginning to wonder whether or not we were going back up on the slope of potential conflict, a conflict of the kind we feared last year.”Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Khursheed Kasuri, welcomed India’s decision to appoint an ambassador to Islamabad and said Pakistan would reciprocate.Last week, Mr Vajpayee conditionally offered talks with Pakistan on the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, expressed scepticism at the time.Pakistan’s Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said the talks would be between Mr Vajpayee and his counterpart in Pakistan – the Prime Minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali.Mr Vajpayee did not directly answer Indian MPs’ questions about whether he was changing India’s policy of not holding talks with Pakistan until Islamic militants stop crossing the frontier to launch attacks in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.. China confirmed yesterday that 70 officers and sailors had died on one of its diesel-powered submarines. It is one of the worst naval accidents in the country’s history. It endured scathing criticism at home and abroad for trying to cover up the extent of the crisis surrounding the Sars virus, which led to important officials, including the Mayor of Beijing and the national Health Minister, being removed from their posts.The submarine was on an exercise when the accident occurred, and “because of a mechanical malfunction, the 70 crew members on board died,” Xinhua said.In keeping with the Chinese armed forces’ traditionally secretive stance on accidents, Xinhua provided no further details, nor did it say how the crew had died. Citing unidentified “navy sources”, the news agency said the vessel had already been towed back to a port, also unidentified.Military analysts in the West said it was probably a Ming-class diesel-electric submarine, of a type often used for coastal defence.

Ming-class submarines usually carry a crew of 50, suggesting that some aboard were technicians or staff officers.First made by the Soviet Union during the Second World War, the Chinese made them until the 1990s. They are thought to have more than a dozen still in operation. Western defence specialists say they they are obsolete by modern standards, and suggested the accident must have happened on the surface, as it would have been hard to recover the submarine if it had sunk in the depths.In spite of the boat’s’ age, some analysts were surprised such a mishap had taken place. Some speculated that the submarine’s batteries might have leaked acid which mixed with seawater, creating chlorine gas that killed the crew.China’s 2.5 million-strong People’s Liberation Army includes a fleet of about 90 submarines, most of them aging diesel-electric vessels. They are known to suffer from a shortage of funding and insufficient maintenance.Xinhua said that the former president, Jiang Zemin, who still remains as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, sent his condolences yesterday to family members of the sailors.The incident in the submarine is the worst known Chinese naval disaster since the mid-1980s, when a destroyer exploded near the southern island province of Hainan, killing nearly 100 people.The accident could have occurred as long ago as March. Exercises have been ongoing in the Yellow Sea over the past couple of months.