pakistan

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Pakistan activists search trucks for NATO supplies

Club—wielding activists from Imran Khan’s political party forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in northwest Pakistan on Sunday in protest at deadly US drone strikes.

Around 100 workers from the former cricket star's Pakistan Tehreek—e—Insaaf (PTI) party set up checkpoints in the northwestern city of Peshawar on a main road leading to Afghanistan.

Turkey has welcomed the deal reached between P5+1 countries and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program and reiterated its endorsement of the process, recalling its earlier efforts for a diplomatic solution to the question.

Chasing 289 on an outfield that looked like it was wet because of persistent rain and not dew, West Indies had it all to lose, and some of their batsmen tried their best to do so. Ultimately, the cool head of deposed ODI captain Darren Sammy prevailed to level the series 1-1. Kieran Powell and the brothers Bravo threw their wickets away, and Lendl Simmons tried to do so unsuccessfully, but Sammy timed the final assault well to carry a stumbling West Indies to their first win of the tour.

Mandsaur: Attacking Congress for "doing nothing for poor", BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Saturday said the ruling party, over generations never wanted to educate people and eliminate
poverty as it was afraid of being stripped of power.

Car bomb attack kills 10 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai

ISMAILIA, Egypt: Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed and 35 wounded in a car bomb attack near the North Sinai city of El-Arish on Wednesday, a security official said.

The attack was one of the deadliest in the Sinai Peninsula, which is near Israel and the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip, since al Qaeda-inspired militants began stepping up assaults following the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.

The soldiers were traveling in a convoy on the road to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

MOGADISHU: Islamist militants rammed a car bomb into a police compound north of Somalia's capital on Tuesday and opened fire on officers, leaving at least 28 people dead, officials and witnesses said.

Al Shabaab - the al Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility for a deadly raid on a shopping mall in neighbouring Kenya in September - said it carried out the morning assault.

Gunfire rang out at the police station in Baladweyne, near the border with Ethiopia, into the early afternoon as locals rushed for cover.

At least one person was killed when Egyptian riot police stormed Cairo's Tahrir Square late Tuesday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, a health ministry official said.

Police backed by armoured vehicles fired tear gas and shots after clashes in the square to scatter protesters who had gathered to mark the anniversary of deadly 2011 demonstrations.

MIRAMSHAH: At least two security personnel were killed and four others injured Wednesday morning during a suicide attack on a Frontier Corps (FC) checkpost on Bannu-Mir Ali Road in North Waziristan tribal agency, DawnNews reported.

Security officials confirmed the casualties.

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Shawa checkpost situated on the Bannu-Mir Ali Road. Subsequently, four security personnel sustained injuries.

ISLAMABAD: The names of three judges including a female judge have been approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the special court that will conduct trial of former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, DawnNews reported.

The names of the judges, along with their profile, were sent to Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan by the SC registrar with a suggestion to select any three of them as members of the special court.

About the head of the special court, the government was suggested to select the most senior one in the list.

Amritsar: Ten members of a family, among them seven women and children, were killed this morning when the car they were travelling in fell into a canal in Ajnala sector of Amritsar district, police said.

Four children, including two girls, three women and three men lost their lives in the mishap which took place near Ramdas village.

New Delhi: In a big breather for politicians, the Supreme Court on Tuesday approved an amendment in the Representation of People Act, which allows political leaders in police custody to contest elections.

The order comes as a big relief for politicians as the apex court had earlier said that the people who are in police custody cannot contest polls.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pushed back Nov. 18 against allegations that Turkey has not cracked down hard enough on extremists crossing its border to fight in Syria’s civil war while calling for greater intelligence cooperation.

LAHORE: Unidentified gunmen riding a motorcycle on Tuesday killed a senior director of a university along with his driver in Gujrat, a city in Pakistan’s Punjab province, officials said.

Syed Shabir Hussain Shah, director of student affairs at a university, was attacked on Jalalpur Road while on his way to the campus.

Shah and his driver Khadim Hussain received several bullets and died on the spot before they could be taken to a hospital.

Two explosions targeting the Iranian embassy have hit the Lebanese capital Beirut, security sources said, killing up to 23 people, injuring at least 146 and damaging buildings in the embassy compound.

Lebanese sources told Al Jazeera that the Iranian ambassador is safe, but the cultural attache of the embassy has been confirmed dead.

It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts. A security source said the blasts were caused by two rockets fired on the area, in the southern part of the city, but a second security source said there was a car bomb explosion.

A senior official’s use of profanity against a protester has sparked a strong reaction from all opposition parties, prompting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to robustly defend to the Adana governor, while also describing what he did as “inappropriate.”

After initially denying the claims, Adana Governor Hüseyin Avni Cos has admitted that he called a protester “gavat,” which means “pimp,” in response to a demonstration against him by a group of people on Nov. 10. He said the reaction followed a “severe provocation.”

PESHAWAR: At least five suspects were arrested on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in Monday's violence in Kohat a day earlier which claimed three lives, including those of two cops, and caused destruction of public property in Zargaran Bazaar and Tirah Bazaar areas of the city.

According to an official release issued by the office of Inspector General Police Peshawar, seven rifles, a machine gun and three pistols were recovered from the arrested suspects.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied to hear the plea against Union Cabinet’s decision to allow bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh for creation of new Telangana State.

The Union Cabinet had on October 3 given its consent for the creation of Telangana State, to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

HANOI: The death toll from flooding caused by heavy rains in central Vietnam has risen to 41, with about 80,000 people forced from their homes, disaster officials said Tuesday.

The National Floods and Storms Control Agency said in a statement that the floods had affected more than 400,000 houses, but added the flood waters have mostly receded, allowing many residents to return home.

The heavy rains began November 14.

Malaysian ambassador in Berlin to foster closer German-Malaysian ties

BERLIN: The Malaysian Ambassador in Germany, Datuk Salman Ahmad, who arrived in Berlin two months ago, is very keen to improve bilateral German-Malaysian relations in all spheres.

"Malaysia's relations with Germany have been traditionally good but they have been heavily focused on trade and business ties.

"While our relations in trade and business are excellent, I see good potential in other areas such as culture, science, education and many others," said Salman in an interview with Bernama.

GARUT : The Garut Resort Police had detained at least 106 illegal migrants from Myanmar's Rohingya province, who were trying to cross to Australia through the southern waters of the Garut district in West Java Province, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported.

"We have secured 106 Rohingya people who wanted to cross to Australia through Indonesian waters," the Chief of Garut Police, Senior Commissioner Adjunct Arif Rachman said on Monday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has set out on a trip to the United States, which will be followed by visits to Russia and Iran, with the Syrian crisis high on the agenda.Following his trip to Washington on Nov. 17-18, Davutoglu will head to Russia to attend the Turkey-Russia High Level Strategic Cooperation Council’s meeting on Nov. 21-22, with a delegation headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Britain's Channel 4 news team, which travelled to Sri Lanka for the weekend Commonwealth summit, said it left the country early after days of extensive intimidation and surveillance by security forces.

The television channel's news editor Ben de Pear said he finally decide d to pull the team out after six men appeared at his hotel room door early on Sunday demanding entry.

France’s Abraham Kiprotich won the men’s competition in the 35th Vodafone Istanbul Marathon, while two Turkish athletes finished in the top three in the women’s race on Nov. 17.

Thousands of racing enthusiasts in the fun run joined pro-athletes who participated in what has been dubbed as “the only intercontinental race in the world.”

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Monday announced advocate Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi as the special prosecutor in the treason case to be initiated against former military ruler Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf, DawnNews reported.

A petition was submitted in the apex court's Lahore Registry seeking the trial of the former president and his sub-ordinate generals under Article 6 of the Constitution.

ISLAMABAD: On a day when the people of Rawalpindi were anxiously waiting for an official announcement about the state of curfew in their city, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan broke, out of the blue, a jaw-dropping story about his government's decision to formally prosecute former president General Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 of the Constitution.

LAHORE: The Sunni Ittehad Council on Saturday asked the leadership of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan to directly contact political parties including the Jamaat-i-Islami and seek their guarantee for facilitating holding of a Manazra (debate) in Lahore on sensitive religious issues.

On the other hand, the JI leadership has refused to become part of the SIC-TTP debate on these issues, describing it as a futile exercise.

KARACHI: Amid the ongoing ‘Karachi operation’ led by Rangers, six people were killed in the city on Saturday.Violence claimed two lives in Orangi Town while four people, including a policeman, werea killed and at least six others injured in a day-long gunbattle between armed gangs in Lyari.An official at Iqbal Market police station said armed men on two motorcycles targeted two men in Raees AmrohviColony of Orangi Town’s Sector 11½ when they were sitting outside one of the victims’ house.

KANDAHAR: A roadside bomb killed two children in southern Afghanistan on Monday while six bodies found the day before in the restive region where identified as policemen and not laborers, as was initially reported.Deputy governor of southern Zabul province, Mohammed Jan Rasoolyar, said the confusion arose because the bodies found in neighboring Kandahar province were in civilian clothes.

TEHRAN: Iran unveiled a new aircraft Monday that it says is the biggest drone yet to be developed in the Islamic Republic, capable of staying aloft for up to 30 hours.

Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said the reconnaissance and combat drone Fotros has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles). That would cover much of the Middle East including Israel. The earlier Shahed-129 (Witness-129) drone is reported to have a similar range, but can only stay aloft 24 hours.

KOHAT: Army took control of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Kohat and Hangu cities and a curfew was clamped down, following an attack early on Monday on an Imambargah Said Habib in Zargaran Bazaar area of Kohat district.

Station House Officer Cantt Police station Mazhar Jaan told Dawn.com that the unknown miscreants attacked the Imambargah Said Habib in Zargaranabad earlier in the morning which left three people, including two policemen and a civilian, dead during an exchange of fire between the two rival groups.

Deadly bombs hit Syria cities after peace talks flop

DAMASCUS:Bomb attacks in Damascus and southern Syria killed at least 16 people on Wednesday, a day after Moscow and Washington failed to announce a date for proposed peace talks.

In Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow was ready to host informal talks between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition.

Russian and US officials on Tuesday failed to agree a date for a proposed peace conference in Geneva that has been delayed multiple times.

DUSHANBE: Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon won a crushing victory in presidential elections to secure a fourth term at the helm of the poorest state in the former Soviet Union, the election commission said Thursday.

Rakhmon won 83.6 per cent in Wednesday’s elections against five also-ran candidates, full results showed, an improvement even on his showing in the 2006 polls when he won 79.3 per cent.

GENEVA: World powers began two days of talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday, hoping to reach a “first step” deal over Tehran's nuclear programme, although both sides said a breakthrough was far from certain.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed guarded optimism that an agreement to start resolving the decade-old dispute would be reached in Geneva this week. “If everyone tries their best we may have one,” he told reporters.

SRIHARIKOTA: A day after the last of diwali rockets was fired in this part of the country, "the big one" blasted off from the first launch pad in Sriharikota on Tuesday afternoon, firing the ambition of a nation, and the imagination of many others. After 45 minutes, the first phase of India's first Mars mission was pronounced a success.

A court in Dhaka awarded death to 152 including Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) deputy assistant director Towhidul Islam and life-term to 160 including former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and ward-level Awami League leaderTorab Ali for their role in the February 2009 carnage at then BDR headquarters.

A series of devices packed with ball-bearings exploded outside a provincial headquarters of China's ruling Communist Party, police and reports said.

One person was killed and eight injured in the attack in the northern province of Shanxi, according to a police statement.

"There were several explosions caused by small explosive devices near the party provincial commission in Taiyuan," the capital Shanxi, local police said on a verified social media account.

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has said that a deal to end a nuclear standoff with the international community could be reached at talks in Swiss city of Geneva later this week.

"I believe it is even possible to reach that agreement this week but I can only talk for our side, I cannot talk for the other side," Zarif told France 24 television ahead of talks in Paris with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

Riyadh : US Secretary of State John Kerry said it was up to Saudi Arabia to decide when the time was right to allow women to drive.

"It's no secret that in the United States of America we embrace equality for everybody regardless of gender, race, or any other qualification," Kerry said at a press conference in Riyadh.

Yemen's president has warned of sectarian violence in his country after deadly clashes continued for a second week in the restive north between rebels from a branch of Shia Islam and ultraconservative Sunnis.

In remarks aired on Tuesday by state TV, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi denounced "sectarian fighting that does not serve the security or stability of the nation".

KHAIRPUR: At least 23 people, including women and children, were injured as a passenger bus turned turtle in Khairpur on Wednesday morning.

According to PTV, rescue sources said the speeding bus going from Karachi to Lahore overturned near Babarlo bypass as a result of which 23 passengers sustained injuries.

ISLAMABAD: A local court on Wednesday ordered release of former president Pervez Musharraf, AAJ News reports on Wednesday.

Orders were issued after submission of security bonds in the Abdul Rasheed Ghazi case.

LONDON: A suicide car bomb killed a British member of the international coalition in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, authorities said. It was the second death this month of a member in the Nato-led coalition.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said the soldier from 3rd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment was killed in the attack while on patrol in the area of Kamparak, east of Lashkar Gah.

The defense ministry did not name the soldier but said next of kin have been informed.

ISLAMABAD: The opposition refused to enter the Parliament on the request of the Minister of State for Water and Power Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali by chanting “Shame Shame Shame” during the Senate session being held in the open air at the grounds of the Parliament House on Wednesday, Express News reported.

A ten-point agenda, which covers Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s attitude as well as the power tariff hike, inflation and Karachi’s law and order situation, will be discussed during the Senate session.

RAWALPINDI: Two people were killed on Tuesday and two others critically injured during an armed clash in Losar Sharfu in Wah Cantt.

The deceased, a father and a son, were identified as Waheed Sultan and Anees Sultan and the injured as Naveed Sultan and Malik Hashim, a passerby.

KANDAHAR: Afghan police say they have found the bodies of seven soldiers, believed to have been killed by their Taliban captors in a southern province.

The police say the bodies were found on Wednesday on the outskirts of the provincial capital of southern Zabul province.

Gunmen kill state prosecutor in Iran’s Sistan province

DUBAI: Gunmen shot dead a public prosecutor and his driver in southeastern Iran on Wednesday, Iranian media said, less than two weeks after militants killed 14 Iranian border guards nearby and Tehran retaliated by hanging 16 prisoners.

The gunmen shot dead public prosecutor Musa Nouri and his driver as he was on his way to work, Iranian news agencies said. The pair were “martyred in a hail of bullets from Kalashnikov rifles”, Fars news agency quoted the province's chief justice Ibrahim Hamidi as saying.

Dehradun: Elaborate security arrangements are in place in Dehradun and Rishikesh for Prince of Wales Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, who will begin their nine-day visit to India on Wednesday.

More than 600 police personnel besides a large number of PAC jawans have been deployed around places which form part of the royal couple's itinerary, officials said.The royal couple will arrive in a special plane at the Jollygrant airport here at 4:15 PM and leave for Rishikesh where they will take part in "Hawan" and "Ganga Arti" at Parmartha Niketan Ashram.

Kurdish militia in northern Syria have expelled Al-Qaeda-linked fighters from the majority Kurdish area of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

"The Committees for the Protection of the Kurds (YPG) have taken over the Manajeer area, scene of battles with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Al-Nusra Front and other rebel groups," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ordered the government on Wednesday to immediately appoint chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and said it would review the matter after a week.

“We direct the secretary concerned to take up the issue immediately and discharge his function by appointing the PTA chairman without further loss of time,” said a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

DETROIT : At least two people were shot dead and seven others wounded when a gunman opened fire on Wednesday evening at a busy intersection outside a barbershop in Detroit, police said.

The barbershop where the shooting happened has a reputation for gambling, but it was too early to tell whether that played a role in the shooting, Detroit Police chief James Craig told reporters.

Iraqi Kurdistan has finalized a comprehensive package of deals with Turkey to build multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines to ship the autonomous region's rich hydrocarbon reserves to world markets, sources involved in talks said on Wednesday.

The deals, which could have important geo-political consequences for the Middle East, could see Kurdistan export some 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to world markets and at least 10 billion cubic meters per year of gas to Turkey.

UNITED NATIONS: The UN's top human rights official has expressed serious alarm at death sentences handed down in Bangladesh to 152 border guards after mass trials that she says were unfair.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said Wednesday the trials ''failed to meet the most fundamental standards of due process.''

A Bangladesh court sentenced 152 guards to death Tuesday for a 2009 mutiny.

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