International briefs
Rwanda in C’wealth
KIGALI: Rwanda has been officially admitted into the Commonwealth, following a decision taken at the organisation’s summit, a Rwandan government spokesman in Kigali said on Sunday. “My government sees this accession as recognition of the tremendous progress this country has made in the last 15 years,” said information minister Louise Mushikiwabo, quoted by the online edition of the Rwandan daily New Times. A former African colony of Germany and then Belgium, Rwanda is the second country after Mozambique without a British colonial past or any constitutional link to Britain to be admitted into the Commonwealth.
Indo-US nuclear deal
NEW DELHI: India and the United States are close to signing a nuclear fuel reprocessing agreement, one of the last requirements to finalise last year’s landmark civilian nuclear deal, an official said on Sunday. Indian National Security Adviser MK Narayanan told reporters, “We have arrived at almost the very last stage of negotiations.” Narayanan was speaking on board Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s plane as he returned from a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago.
Disaster toll revised
MOSCOW: Twenty-five people were killed in the wreck of a Russian passenger train, a government minister said on Sunday, after officials had previously put the death toll at 26. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu also said 26 people were still unaccounted for after the derailment late Friday evening, but indicated that they were not believed to be among the dead. “Right now, of the 51 people whose fate we do not know, 25 are dead while 26 people are missing. They are neither in hospital among the injured, nor among the dead,” Shoigu said in a government meeting shown on television. “I hope that
by the end of the day all the bodies will be identified and we will publish the list of people we are looking for,” he said.