Monday, December 24, 2007
RAHIM YAR KHAN: Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto Monday pledged to launch projects for welfare of growers and poor if PPP comes into power after winning January 8 elections.
She was addressing a big public gathering here Mehmood Stadium kick off Punjab election campaign.
On Tuesday, Benazir Bhutto would address public gatherings in Lodhran and Muzaffargarh.
Chairperson of PPP would address a public meeting at Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi on 27th of December and Multan on 31st of December at 12 noon.
The former Prime Minister would visit Jahanian, Vehari and Pakpattan on 1st of January and Sahiwal, Kasur, Sheikhapura, Faisalabad and Gujarat, Gujranwala on 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of January respectively.
According to the schedule, Benazir Bhutto would be addressing a public gathering in Lahore on 6th of January.
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, is making waves in New Delhi where she is in the midst of a controversy, but even though she is busy in electioneering at home, she has had time to hit back at allegations that she went back on promises. It started with Indian National Security (INS) Adviser M K Narayanan’s comments, accusing Benazir of unfulfilling promises made to New Delhi in 1988; he was asked about Benazir.
“One has to go by what she did in the nineties. One is always a little skeptical. It is possible, but her track record is not necessarily something, which will make us believe that she would follow to the letter of what she has said—I think even if she wishes to do so. As I mentioned earlier, the single most important entity in Pakistan remains the army and along with that ISI. I find it extremely difficult to believe that Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, if she becomes that, will have a free hand in doing all the things that she wishes to do. I know that in 1988 when she met Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, she made a number of promises. We know almost certainly that she was sort of curbed by the military at that point but whether she will have success now is difficult to believe and it would be very optimistic to expect that she can fulfill whatever she says but we hope that she will do her best,” he said.
Narayanan made these remarks in a television interview. On Saturday, Benazir hit back at Narayanan in an interview with Outlook. “If anyone kept their word, it was me, not Rajiv. He went back to India and then called me on his way to the Commonwealth to say that he could not keep his promise to withdraw from Siachen and that he would do it only after the elections. Now, if I haven’t raised the subject or complained all these many years, why is it being raised now?” Trying to refresh Narayanan’s memory, she asked, “Does anyone remember those times or is public memory so short that no one recalls the extremely difficult conditions India faced during the Sikh insurgency 20 years ago? India was in a complete mess. Does anyone remember that it was I who kept my promise to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when we met and he appealed to me for help in tackling the Sikhs? Has India forgotten December 1988? Have they forgotten the results of that meeting and how I helped curb the Sikh militancy?”
Recalling her meeting with Rajiv in Islamabad, she said, “Nobody else knew what Rajiv and I discussed. There was no fly on the wall. How can anyone say I have not kept my promises to him when the single biggest result of that meeting was the end of the Sikh insurgency? It was Rajiv, who committed to me that he would withdraw from Siachen. I made no promises that could have been broken.”
She said after the former prime minister was assassinated she tried but could never establish the same kind of rapport with the government that followed. But despite the slight chill, there was no war with India when she was prime minister, she added.
“Not only was there no war, in fact there was peace because I nixed the idea of Kargil. Has India forgotten all of this? When I was prime minister you did not have the Mumbai bomb blasts, you did not have the attack on Parliament. There was no Kargil,” she added.
Benazir said that she made no promises on Kashmir because there were no discussions on Kashmir. “Why does India believe I will break my word, imply I cannot be trusted?” Benazir then added, “I believe we share so much a belief in democratic values, in democracy and human rights. I am very disappointed to hear that Delhi does not think so.”
Meanwhile, the New Indian Express in an editorial asks why Narayanan has taken on Benazir and put full trust in Pervez Musharraf. The editorial is more sympathetic towards Benazir. “Narayanan finds Mr Musharraf, who was responsible for taking his country down the path to Kargil a far more credible interlocutor than Benazir Bhutto.
This clownish and potential flag-waver in Srinagar, is the person in whom Mr Narayanan implicitly has reposed his faith in, the man who even the NSA admits, is only tactically restraining some jehadis from running around freely; Mr Narayanan has implicit faith in the man who has failed to deliver on the join terror mechanism; he believes more in the man who controlled the establishment against whom the NSA declared he had “pretty good evidence” against soon after the Mumbai train blasts, the man even the Americans are now cutting to size. How will this sort of loose talk go down in Pakistan, with Benazir more particularly? Will she keep quiet? Will it colour her view of the Indian Establishment? What do we get out of gratuitous comments like this? In the ‘eighties Kashmir insurgency was less of a problem than the Sikh insurgency in Punjab. Especially considering the fact that after her meeting with Rajiv Gandhi in 1988, Benazir paid the price, for among other things, handing over a detailed dossier of local operatives Pakistan was using to foment the Punjab insurrection,” the editorial says.
By Mariana Baabar
ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization has said that at present there is no danger of bird flu epidemic in Pakistan and no new case of the virus has emerged in the last two weeks in the country.
Who team has completed their initial investigations of the virus in Pakistan. These teams were sent to Abbottbad and Mansehra after two brothers died of the virus in Mansehra and the virus was confirmed in six others.
This is the first time the virus was confirmed amongst humans in Pakistan.
Senior official of WHO team Dr David after completing preliminary investigations has said that there have been isolated cases of the virus in humans in Pakistan however since no new case has come forward in two weeks therefore there is no immediate danger of an epidemic. He said that the last case of the virus was reported on December 6 and the tests of the suspected patients were sent to laboratory, which returned positive.
These samples were also sent to WHO labs for reconfirmation.
WHO investigative team has expressed its satisfaction over the preventive measures taken by the government of Pakistan.
KARACHI: Fire breaks out in a plastic godown in Bihar Colony area of Lyari in Karachi Sunday midnight, no casualties occurred in the incident.
Plastic chips used for making plastic bags were stored in the godown, the residents of the area said. The fire, which was suddenly erupted in the godown, rapidly covered the whole space of the storage. The blaze also affected the electric wires in the store causing problems in the relief operation, fire brigade staff said.
The firefighters however extinguished the blaze effectively. The cause of the blaze still not established.
KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif Sunday called on former president of the Supreme Court Bar Munir A. Malik at his residence here and paid tribute to him for his role in the lawyers’ movement.
Presidents of Sindh High Court Bar and Karachi Bar Association Justice (Rtd) Rasheed Rizvi and Mehmood-ul-Hassan Advocate were also present during the meeting.
Nawaz Sharif lauded the role of lawyers’ movement adding that his party and the lawyers are struggling for the same cause.
MINGORA: A suicide bomber here killed nine people and wounded almost 30 on Sunday when he rammed his car into a military convoy in the restive northwest valley of Swat.
The attack took place near the town of Mingora in the troubled valley, a former tourist haven that has become a flashpoint for violence where the military has been battling followers of a hardline pro-Taliban cleric.
The military in statement confirmed that four security forces personnel and three civilians were killed. It said 15 soldiers and 14 civilians were wounded.
More than 750 people have been killed in militant attacks this year -- and more than half of those since July, when the army raided a radical, pro-Taliban mosque in the capital Islamabad, killing 100 people.
The military launched a major offensive in the Swat valley in November, looking to drive out followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has been looking to establish Islamic sharia law in the region.
He has since gone underground. There have been more than 40 suicide attacks in Pakistan this year, many of them targeting the military and security forces.
The last attack came on Friday, when a bomber wearing a vest packed with ball-bearings blew himself up in a crowded mosque, killing 56 people but missing the intended target, former interior minister Aftab Sherpao.
Sherpao, a close ally of President Pervez Musharraf and a candidate in next month's parliamentary election, oversaw a government crackdown on militants this year when he was in the cabinet.
He survived another suicide attack in April that killed at least 24 people. The latest bombing came just two weeks ahead of the January 8 vote, which militants have vowed to disrupt.
KARACHI: Renowned TV and film actor Izhar Qazi passes away at the age of 52. He acted in over 100 films and numerous TV plays.
Izhar made his debut in the early 80s through Fatima Surayya Bajia's Ana and his last appearance on the mini screen came in the 90s, when he played a vigilante in Syed Noor's Zakham.
But films remained his forte till his early retirement in the new millennium. He acted in Punjabi and Urdu films his most famous ones being Love In Nepal, Aalmi Jasoos, Khazana and Sar Kata Insaan.
While acting in various television plays and making more than 10 films, Izhar Qazi was also fond of singing and did work as a playback singer in some films. He went on to release an album.
He died of cardiac arrest while attending a marriage ceremony last night.
His funeral prayers will be offered at Masjid Darul Khair Gulistan-i-Jauhar after Asar prayers whereas burial would be take place in Model Colony graveyard.
Pakistani opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has accused government security forces of pressuring candidates to drop out of next month's elections.
Ms. Bhutto told reporters during a campaign stop Thursday that the government is sending intelligence officials to ask candidates to withdraw.
Next month's elections are for assemblies in Pakistan's four provinces and a national assembly from which a prime minister and a government will be chosen.
The vote is seen as a three-way race among the opposition parties of former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf.
However, opposition political figures accuse Mr. Musharraf of already rigging the balloting to favor his supporters.
In other news, Pakistani authorities have temporarily released lawyer and opposition figure Aitzaz Ahsan for three days to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Ahsan, a senior figure in Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, was detained last month under emergency powers that President Musharraf invoked on November 3.
He served as lead counsel for Supreme Court Chief Justice Itikhar Chaudhry, whose suspension earlier this year triggered nationwide protests.
The protests led to Mr. Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule and his dismissal of Chaudhry and other judges seen as hostile to the president's reelection while he remained army chief.
This snap was taken today, - a cloudy morning.
This is a typical trailers you can see on the roads of Karachi, Pakistan. In this case, an APL container is being driven on this trailer and the way it has been placed on the deck, it can easily scare you if you happen to be on the left side of the vehicle.
In July 2006, we had two major accidents in Karachi where such trailers couldn’t keep their balance and their loads came to ground.
