Rawalpindi, Sept 6 : Gen Tariq Majid, the Chairman of Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) has said that his country reserves the right to appropriately retaliate against unilateral attacks by coalition forces from Afghanistan.

The statement comes in the wake of recent strikes by US and NATO forces in Pakistan’s tribal areas and statements emanating from the US that such cross-border strikes were “a necessity” to counter the violence in Afghanistan.

“Pakistan reserves the right to appropriately retaliate in future,” the Daily Times quoted Tariq as saying at a meeting with German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung who called on him at the Joint Staff Headquarters here last evening.

New York, Sept 6: Indian Ambassador to the United Nations Nirupam Sen has said a determined action is needed to root out terrorist networks and deter regimes from encouraging and harbouring armed extremists.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on Friday, Sen termed terrorism as a "pervasive and insidious" threat to global security and core values of the UN.

The Ambassador urged the world to act as one in denying terrorists, their ideologues and financiers access to arms, funds and means of transportation of their deadly goods and safe havens.

Washington, Sept 6 : US military officials have reportedly said that strikes in Pakistan’s FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) will increase in the coming months as “such cross-border raids were necessary” to counter increasing violence in Afghanistan.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the cross-border US commando missions, like Wednesday’s strike in Wana killing around 20 civilians, into Pakistan may grow in coming months despite doubts within the Pentagon over the efficacy of such raids.

Pentagon officials who spoke to Los Angeles Times said that some officials in the US Defence Department believed such commando raids were necessary to counter increasing violence in Afghanistan.

Vienna, Sept 6: With China joining the Group of Six like-minded countries that have expressed reservations in granting India-specific waiver, the crucial two day meeting of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) remained inconclusive and a fresh meeting is slated for Saturday.

The US battled hard overnight to clinch the India-specific waiver for India from the NSG with diplomats moving back and forth poring over a revised draft.

China appeared to have raised concerns that put roadblocks in the way of a consensus.

Vienna  - After 436 years of its existence, the Spanish Riding School in Vienna is hiring women for the first time to ride its famous white Lippizaner horses.

Since 1572, male riders have trained and ridden stallions in the riding school, which is one of Vienna's most famous tourist attractions.

One Austrian and one British woman were selected this week for a probation month, Erwin Klissenbauer, the school's business director, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Friday, confirming Austrian media reports.

Recently, the Spanish Riding School decided to select women if they proved to be superior to male applicants, he said.

New Delhi, Sept. 5 : Poor design, the use of substandard materials and other defects are being blamed for the collapse of several school buildings during the May 12 earthquake in China’s south-west Sichuan Province.

Both Xinhua and The China Daily quoted Ma Zongjin, the director of the National Wenchuan Earthquake Expert Committee, as telling a press conference in Beijing that substandard materials were used to build the schools that collapsed.

It may be recalled that the 8.0 magnitude Wenchuan earthquake killed about 70,000 people, including thousands of students.