Indian-American named to US body on terrorism

A leading Indian-American lawyer, Rahul 'Richard' Verma, has been appointed to a US Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

Verma, who was senior national security adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and until recently the highest-ranking Indian American Congressional aide on Capitol Hill, is currently a partner with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, a top-notch international law firm in Washington DC.

"There's probably no more important security challenge facing our country than keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists," Verma said on his appointment to the commission set up at the recommendation of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

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Current race riots like 1949 anti-Indian riots in SA?

The current xenophobic crisis in South Africa is comparable to the 1949 Zulu-Indian riots, the country's Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils has said.

"I liken it to the anti-Indian mayhem that erupted in Durban in 1949," Kasrils told a local newspaper in an interview, as he called on people to accept that describing the current situation as one of xenophobia was accurate.

"I accept that we have had a spontaneous outburst of xenophobia here - and I don't know why people have trouble with that word: it's accurate for what's going on."

Kasrils explained his reasoning for comparison to the ethnic violence in 1949, when Zulus and Indians who had lived peacefully side by side for decades in the sprawling Durban suburb of Cato Manor, clashed.

Thorugh