Nation

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has no plans to hold a bilateral meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Nato Summit in Chicago, but he will “see him” during the conference deliberations, a top White House official said Thursday.Specifically asked whether President Obama will have talks with the Pakistani leader, White House National Security Adviser Tom ...

ISLAMABAD - The government Thursday again informed the Supreme Court that it could not trace the reports of Mehran Bank Limited (MBL) and Habib Bank Limited (HBL).On the last hearing of the case about alleged disbursement of funds among the politicians by the ISI, Salman Akram Raja, counsel for petitioner Air Marshal (r) Asghar Khan, submitted a copy of a Mehran Bank report he had obtained from ...

ISLAMABAD  - The National Accountability Bureau initiated inquiry into a reference filed by Minister for Interior Rehman Malik against the PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif on charges of money laundering. “We have received the reference and initiated inquiry into the matter,” said NAB spokesman Zafar Iqbal, addressing a press briefing here Thursday.He said Rehman Malik, in a media ...

ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Thursday said the government had no plan to put additional taxation burden on the existing taxpayers in the budget 2012-13 to be announced on June 1.He stated this while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs about the budget preparations. Briefing ...

NOWSHERA/ISLAMABAD - Two training aircraft of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) crashed after a mid-air collision, killing four pilots on board and a civilian, while injuring 10 others in Nowshera district on Thursday.The ill-fated Mashaq planes were on a flight formation training mission when they collided over the Rashakai area. The aircraft wreckage also destroyed two houses - one at Madani Mohalla and ...

LAHORE - People are cursing themselves for having voted to power a party that only added to their miseries during the past four years of its misrule and failed to take a single step that could bring relief to them. They believe that the present setup is going to complete its five-year tenure mainly because it is difficult to launch any public movement against it in the absence of a leader who ...

NEW YORK - Human Rights Watch Thursday urged President Asif Ali Zardari not to sign a bill creating a national human rights commission until “it is revised to authorise investigations of the military and the intelligence agencies for human rights violations.”The National Human Rights Commission Act was passed by the National Assembly on May 4, but requires presidential assent to go ...

NEW DELHI  - The Indian government has approved a deal to buy natural gas from Turkmenistan via a $7.6 billion pipeline passing through Afghanistan and Pakistan, reports said on Thursday.The cabinet approved the signing of the Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement as well as the payment of a transit fee to Afghanistan and Pakistan for allowing the pipeline to pass through their territory, the ...

ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court Thursday indicted federal minister for Law and Justice Babar Awan for contempt of court.According to the charges framed by two-member bench, Babar Awan addressing a press conference on December 1, 2011 had ridiculed the judiciary. His words and tenor of his speech was not only scandalising but it also intended to bring hatred against the judiciary.The court said ...

QUETTA - Unidentified armed assailants gunned down two police personnel and wounded two others after ambushing a patrol van in Eastern Bypass area of Quetta on Thursday morning.Patrol van of Brewery police station was on its routine tour of duty when armed men opened indiscriminate fire on it with sophisticated weapons. Resultantly, two police personnel Sanaullah and Murtaza succumbed to their ...

ISLAMABAD  - A bomb threat delayed a PIA passenger flight bound for Dubai by four hours on Thursday, with officials clearing it to take off after searches found no explosive device on board.The Pakistan International Airlines flight was preparing for a scheduled 11:00 am departure from Lahore when an anonymous caller rang the airport claiming there was a bomb on board.“The plane has ...

WASHINGTON - House members of both parties ripped into the Obama administration’s request for $2.4 billion for Pakistan during a hearing Wednesday of the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East and South Asia.The panel’s ranking member, Rep Gary Ackerman, called Pakistan a ‘black hole’ where the United States has ‘sunk’ $24 billion over the past decade. ...

JERUSALEM  - US plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is “fully available”, the US ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms. Like Israel, the US has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a ...

Islamabad   -The joint sitting of the Parliament is likely to be held on Monday in honour of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be on a three-day visit to Pakistan from May 20.   Sources in the National Assembly have revealed that the joint sitting of the Parliament is expected on May 21 that would likely to be addressed by the Turkish Prime Minister. However, they ...

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday inquired about the safety of Federal Minister for National Regulation and Services Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan after reports of bombing at the shrine of Hazrat Ali (RA) in Najf. Firdous is on a visit of Iraq and was visiting the shrine of Hazrat Ali (RA) when the bomb explosion took place. 

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani negotiators have proposed a fee of about $5,000 for each Nato shipping container and tanker that transits its territory by land into and out of Afghanistan.The amount is a key sticking point in discussions about the terms of a deal that would allow the traffic to resume, about six months after Pakistan closed its border crossings, reported Washington Post quoting US and ...

UNITED NATIONS - Top UN officials Thursday called for steps aimed at ensuring social inclusiveness, job opportunities for all, and more accountability from the financial sector to tackle the ongoing global economic crisis.“It is time to recognize that human capital and natural capital are every bit as important as financial capital,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks ...

NEW YORK – With India cutting down oil shipments from Iran ahead of impending sanctions from the US and the European Union, Iraq has replaced Tehran as India’s second-largest crude oil supplier in the recently ended financial year, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.Citing preliminary government data, the newspaper said Saudi Arabia remained the largest oil supplier, while Iran ...

HERAT  - Gunmen dressed in Afghan police uniforms and wearing suicide vests stormed a government compound on Thursday, killing seven people and wounding 12 others in the southwest, police said.The four attackers targeted the offices of Governor Mohammad Ikhpolwak in Farah, capital of the southwestern province Farah, which borders Iran and is considered a trouble spot for the decade-old ...

KABUL - NATO’s rush to get out of a ‘quagmire’ in Afghanistan risks the collapse of the state and strategic failure for the Western alliance in its decade-long war, a former EU adviser has warned.“The intervention veered from ‘too little too late’ in its crucial early years, to one of ‘too much too late’,” said Barbara Stapleton, who was ...