NEW DELHI : India and Pakistan agreed Tuesday to set up a "terror hotline" to warn each other of possible militant attacks, a move to build trust as the two nuclear foes get their peace process back on track. Indian home secretary G.K. Pillai, the highest official in the home ministry, and his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhary Qamar Zaman also confirmed that an Indian team probing the 2008 attacks in Mumbai may visit Pakistan. "Both sides agreed to set up a hotline between the home secretary of India and the interior secretary of Pakistan to facilitate real-time information sharing with respect to terrorist threats," they said after talks in New Delhi. The joint statement said that Zaman had agreed "in principle" to India's request to send a commission to Pakistan to investigate the Mumbai attacks, in which ten Pakistan-based militants killed 166 people. "Modalities and composition in this connection will be worked out through diplomatic channels," the statement said after two days of meetings between Pillai and Zaman. The talks finished a day before the two countries play a high-profile cricket World Cup semi-final match in Mohali in the Indian state of Punjab. Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has accepted an invitation from his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh to attend the game in a move being dubbed "cricket diplomacy". New Delhi broke off ties with Islamabad in the wake of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which were blamed on Islamist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) network. In 2001, another attack by Pakistani militants on the Indian parliament in New Delhi brought the two countries to the brink of another war. They have fought three since independence in 1947. Last month, the two countries announced they would re-start the formal peace dialogue with a view to resolving their issues, including the vexed subject of Kashmir, which is divided between them. India and Pakistan, who conducted copycat nuclear weapons tests in 1998, also set up a hotline in 2004 to alert each other of any nuclear event which could be confused as an attack. Delhi-based strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney labelled the new hotline as a "public relations" stunt. "A line already exists between director-general of military operations of the two countries and from a practical perspective this new line does not change the dynamics of India, Pakistan relations," he said. The statement released on Tuesday said Pakistan would also provide updates on the ongoing trials into the Mumbai attacks

OSAKA : Japan's Premier Naoto Kan said Tuesday the country must push alternative energy sources as it recovers from its quake and tsunami disaster and struggles to contain a nuclear emergency.
"Taking this as a lesson, we have to lead the world in clean energy, such as solar and biomass, and make it a major pillar of a new Japan," the centre-left leader told a parliamentary committee.
His top spokesman, Yukio Edano, later said that the use of clean energy sources would likely be a key feature of a reconstruction plan for the northeastern region where entire towns were swept away on March 11.
"In overcoming the devastation and creating a future-oriented vision, we are looking into the possibility of promoting and pushing more for clean energy," Edano was quoted as saying by Kyodo News agency.
A massive 14-metre (46-foot) tsunami sparked by the seabed quake hit the coastal Fukushima nuclear plant northeast of Tokyo, which has since emitted radiation into the air and sea, sparking international concern.
Resource-poor Japan, highly dependent on Middle Eastern oil, meets about one third of its energy needs with nuclear power, but its high-tech companies are also world leaders in many environmental and energy-saving technologies. Japanese officials also said Tuesday that-despite the seismic calamity that left about 28,000 people dead or missing-Tokyo would attend UN climate talks starting in Bangkok on April 3 as planned.
The meeting of senior officials is the first for the year aimed at building international cooperation on combating global warming.
It will also continue a fierce debate over whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gases that expires next year.
"Japan is set to fully participate" in the meeting, said Takeshi Sekiya, an environment ministry official, despite the fact that Japan's primary focus now was on disaster recovery and reconstruction