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Deepak Patel | New Delhi | Updated: August 9, 2018 3:14:02 am Negotiations between India and Australia on the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) are in a “slow period” currently and it is quite understandable as both the countries are heading into general elections, said Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu in New Delhi on Wednesday. While releasing the report titled ‘An India Economic Strategy to 2035’, Sidhu said: “We are going through that process right now, the CECA, and it is never a steady pace. These things move quickly for a while and then they slow down and then they move again. We are just in a slow period at the moment. It is quite understandable, India is going into an election and Australia is going into election. We expect some slowing down in these kinds of arrangements.” The report has been authored by Peter Varghese, Chancellor, University of Queensland, who was the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Austra...

Economic Times AFP Feb 06, 2018 DARWIN: US commitment to the Asia-Pacific remains unwavering even though rivals falsely depict its influence as waning, the country's top general said today.  General Joe Dunford's remarks came weeks after the Pentagon unveiled a new national defence strategy labelling China as a "strategic competitor" that bullies its neighbours, and as America seeks to counter a narrative that President Donald Trump's administration is uninterested in Asia unless seen through the prism of North Korea  There's absolutely, in some corners, a concerted effort to portray the United States as a declining power, and obviously I reject that," Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said without naming China directly.  "If you look at the health of our alliances in the region... The evidence reflects anything other than a decline in Pacific power. We have enduring interests here, we have enduring commitment and an end...