House approves nuclear pact with India .

Critics say this will lead to South Asia arms race; deal goes to Senate.

WASHINGTON - The House voted overwhelmingly Saturday to approve a landmark pact that would allow the U.S. to provide nuclear materials to India.
The deal still faces major obstacles in the Senate, making prospects uncertain for passage before President Bush leaves office in January. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Senate would vote on the accord in the week ahead, possibly Monday.
The House approved the measure by 298-117 without debate in an unusual Saturday session. The accord reverses three decades of U.S. policy by shipping atomic fuel to India in return for international inspections of India's civilian reactors .Supporters say it would bring India's atomic program under closer scrutiny. Critics say it would boost India's nuclear arsenal and spark an arms race in South Asia.More.

Russia blasts US dominant role in world affairs.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Russia called Saturday for a revival of the global anti-terrorism coalition that formed after Sept. 11, 2001 but started to unravel with what it called the subsequent domination by a single power - a veiled reference to the United States.
"The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow 'privatized'," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.
Lavrov cited the U.S. invasion of Iraq "under the false pretext of fight on terror and nuclear arms proliferation" and questions of excessive use of force against civilians in counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.
And he said the recent crisis over Georgia's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia proved again that "it is impossible or even disastrous to try to resolve the existing problems in the blindfolds of the unipolar world."More.