UPI Hears:

Saudis explain Pakistan meeting

Saudi Arabia says they did not talk about nuclear technology at a meeting in Pakistan but instead about Pakistani troops coming to the kingdom.

UPI's exclusive report Monday said that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah had concluded a secret deal to made Pakistan's nuclear weapons available to the Saudis during a weekend visit to Islamabad. But Riyadh has come up with an intriguing alternative explanation to the Arab media, which is now reporting that the two countries had discussed the possibility of deploying Pakistani troops in Saudi Arabia to replace thousands of U.S. forces that were pulled out after the Iraq war.

Why would the Saudis want Pakistani troops on their soil anyway -- unless they were guarding something highly important to Pakistan?

The Italians do it again

Premier Silvio Berlusconi's coalition partner Umberto Bossi of the Northern League has taken name calling a step farther by attacking the whole European Union.

Doubtless jealous of the stunned headlines that Italy's outspoken premier can provoke across Europe with his defense of Fascist dictator Mussolini and sneers about German concentration camps, Bossi launched a furious attack on the European Union that says the EU elite are "filthy pigs" and denounces the euro currency as a "total flop that has cost people a fortune."

The right-wing Bossi added that the European elite "wants to make pedophilia as easy as possible" and that the European arrest warrant was a step towards "dictatorship, deportation, and terror, instilling fear in the people, a crime in itself".

Bossi, who also wants Italy's coast guards to open fire on illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, was speaking in an interview with the Italian daily Il Giornale.

China, Pakistan hold naval exercises

Chinese and Pakistani warships are joined in naval exercises east of Singapore but nobody's saying it's a response to joint U.S.-India war games.

It's the first joint fleet exercises by the Chinese and Pakistani navies and one of the Pakistani navy's rare ventures out of home waters.

They could hardly have chosen a more visible spot, launching the exercise from Shanghai, and conducting joint air-sea rescue mission almost within sight of shore, and with heavy local media coverage.

Code-named Dolphin 0310, the exercise included the Pakistani destroyer Bubur and support ship Nasr.

Bremer tries to repair fences with France

The Bush administration, desperate for the Iraq donors'conference in Madrid this week to raise more than a token sum, seems keen even to be nice to the French.

In a fascinating interview with the French daily le Figaro, our viceroy in Baghdad, Jerry Bremer, gushes of his "enormous affection for France and the French people.

"As a boy I went to school in France and still have a house there, and while I was a free man, I would be there in my house five or six times a year.

"Today, I think it's sad that the French government cannot find a way to help the reconstruction of Iraq - it's time to get beyond the rows which took place this Spring. And it's time for the French government to appreciate that we really are going to rebuild Iraq properly and that there's a role for France to play," Bremer said.