Blair hoping to calm India/Pakistan tensions

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today kicked off his tour of south Asia with a warning that the simmering conflict between India and Pakistan could destabilise the whole region and the wider world.

Arriving in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka at the start of a six-day tour which will also take in India and Pakistan, Mr Blair said he hoped to exercise a ‘‘calming influence’’ over the those two countries, whose long-running conflict over Kashmir has brought them to the brink of war.