PPP doubts UK team will uncover truth behind slaying

ISLAMABAD: British forensic experts investigating the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto are unlikely to discover who killed her, her supporters said on Wednesday. “We will cooperate with the team from Scotland Yard, but we don’t think it will reveal the true facts,” said PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar. He said only an independent investigation would be able to unmask who orchestrated the attack. British investigators have so far examined the car Benazir was travelling in when she was attacked, interviewed witnesses and scoured the crime scene, but have made no public statement. They have yet to interview people travelling with Benazir when the attack occurred, Babar said. ap

'US may take action if polls are rigged’

* US senator warns rigging will increase political polarisations
* President says govt committed to fair polls
* US ‘reassured’ on nukes security

By Sajjad Malik

ISLAMABAD: United States Senator Joseph Lieberman said on Wednesday that the US Congress might take action against Pakistan if elections are not held in a free, fair and impartial atmosphere, as President Pervez Musharraf assured the US delegation that the government was committed to holding free and peaceful elections.

“The US Congress may take some action (if elections are rigged). That would be awful, as relations between US and Pakistan are very important (for both countries),” Lieberman told a press conference. He said rigged elections would increase political polarisations and divisions and increase the threat from Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.

The US senator said he had received a “detailed and explicit” briefing by Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani and Strategic Plans Division Director General Lieutenant General Khalid Kidwai. “I was impressed by the specific explanation I had about the system that is in place here,” AFP quoted Lieberman as telling reporters.

‘Reassured’: “There are some who have expressed concerns about the security of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal,” he said, referring to doubts expressed by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in recent days. “Overall I felt reassured ... and I will take that message back to Congress,” he added.

The US Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman said perfect elections were not possible even in the US, adding that no one should claim that the government had rigged the elections. “Fair elections are important for the future of Pakistan,” he said. On his meeting with President Musharraf, the senator said the two had discussed various issues, including the holding of elections in a free and fair manner. “I stated with clarity that election should be fair and free as it is important for Pak-US relations. I got a specific response (from Musharraf) that they would be free,” he said, adding that the US would send monitors to observe the elections.

The US senator said the government’s action to gag freedom of press and judiciary was unacceptable to the US.

Meanwhile, a Foreign Office statement quoted President Musharraf as telling Senator Lieberman that international observers and an independent media would play an important role in overseeing the electoral process.

President Musharraf thanked Senator Lieberman for his statement of support and solidarity with Pakistan following the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The FO said Musharraf had reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to fight terrorism and extremism. He underlined the importance of a comprehensive strategy combining military efforts with administrative reform and socio-economic development.

Lieberman also condoled the death of Benazir Bhutto. Earlier, Lieberman also met Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro, PML leader Mushahid Hussain Syed, IT Minister Abdullah Rair, Salman Shah, Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, Danyial Aziz, Mazahar Abbas of PFUJ, Samina Ahmad of Sungi Foundation, and Asma Jenagir.

He will return to the US today (Thursday).

__________________
Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

Musharraf govt signs new lobbying contract

* Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide contracted for $45,000 per month

WASHINGTON: The Musharraf government has signed a $45,000 per month contract with the Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide to “polish Pakistan’s image” in Washington, a move that is likely to draw criticism from Congress by the implied Islamabad perception that all that ails the Musharraf regime in Washington is solely a public relations problem.

Also stands renewed the Musharraf government’s $55,000 per month contract last summer with Van Scoyoc Associates, raised from its previous figure of $40,000. The firm has already received $240,000 for the first half of 2007, according to Justice Department records. “Pakistan has more than a public relations problem,” said a congressional source. Ogilvy has been preparing an agreement with Pakistan’s Washington embassy since November 2007.

According to The Hill, a weekly devoted to congressional affairs, “Democrats face a test over how to deal with Pakistan, an already thorny foreign policy issue further complicated by the controversy surrounding Benazir’s assassination. While some Democrats want to impose tougher restrictions on aid to Musharraf’s regime, Democrats also want to avoid tying the hands of a potential future Democratic administration by micromanaging foreign policy. This debate is expected to play out as Congress makes its decisions on the fiscal 2009 appropriations process. When they return from recess, lawmakers are expected to file resolutions condemning Benazir’s assassination, continue calls for an independent investigation and consider placing stronger restrictions on aid to Pakistan, according to several insiders.” khalid hasan

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

CEC to take action against biased ads

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (r) Qazi Muhammad Farooq said on Wednesday he would take necessary legal action against the publication of biased advertisements being published in newspapers, reported a private television channel.

According to Geo News, caretaker Minister for Human Rights Ansar Burney called on the CEC in Islamabad and asked him to take notice of the biased ads being published in newspapers by a certain political party. The channel quoted Burney as saying that the entire nation would have to bear the consequences of ads that spread provincialism and hatred and urged the CEC to immediately take action against such ads.

The CEC assured the minister that he would take legal action against the political party issuing the said ads. The channel said Burney had also asked the CEC to immediately stop the publication of such ads.

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

Indian submarine, cargo ship collide off Pakistan

NEW DELHI: An Indian naval submarine on a routine mission collided with a cargo ship in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan, officials said on Thursday, adding that there were no reports of casualties.

The 2,500-tonne INS Sindhughosh, with a crew of 53, sustained only “superficial damage” to its conning tower, Indian Navy spokesman Nirad Sinha said.

However, according to naval officials who asked not to be named, the vessel was seriously damaged. The navy declined to comment on the extent of damage to the Cayman-registered merchant vessel or reveal its current whereabouts.

“The ship MV Leeds Castle was in restricted waters and in that area the depth is not much and hence the mishap,” the spokesman said.The submarine has been towed to a naval dockyard at the western Indian city of Mumbai.

The naval officials said the submarine was submerged and had its radars off and periscope down when it slammed into the ship off India’s Diu island, 400 nautical miles from Mumbai.

Diu lies 70 nautical miles from Pakistani waters.

The collision came just after naval intelligence received alerts of possible strikes against its warships off Pakistan, naval sources said. afp

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

Republicans ask Bush to stop Pakistan aid

LAHORE: Opposition members in the United States Senate have asked President George W Bush to stop aid to Pakistan unless the investigation into former premier Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is completed, a private television channel reported on Thursday.

According to Geo News, Republican Party leaders in the US Senate on Thursday wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to withhold aid to Pakistan until the completion of investigations into Benazir’s assassination on December 27. A Scotland Yard team is currently in Pakistan probing the assassination. The Pakistan People’s Party, however, has called for UN investigations in the murder. daily times monitor

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

IAEA seeks to soothe Pakistan ire over ElBaradei comments

VIENNA: The UN atomic watchdog attempted Thursday to smooth over a spat with Pakistan over recent comments made by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on the issue of nuclear safety.

A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency insisted that ElBaradei’s comments were intended to “call attention to the need to bolster nuclear safety and security measures, not only in Pakistan, but also everywhere in the world where nuclear materials or facilities exist.”

ElBaradei and the IAEA “follow closely all situations that could have a potential impact on nuclear safety and security anywhere,” said the agency’s spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

“This remains the core of the agency’s mission.”

ElBaradei had wanted to underline the need to boost nuclear safety worldwide amid “concern about the possible ramifications of political violence and extremism in the Middle East region and nuclear security in Pakistan,” she said.

The statement came after Islamabad angrily dismissed what it perceived to be ElBaradei’s criticism of Pakistan’s atomic weapons safety.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq had told a weekly press briefing on Wednesday that ElBaradei should “be careful about his statements and ought to remain within his mandate”. “Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapons state,” Sadiq insisted. “Our nuclear weapons are as secure as any other nuclear weapons state. We therefore believe statements expressing concern about their safety and security are unwarranted and irresponsible.”

The day before, ElBaradei had been quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat as saying he feared “chaos... or an extremist regime could take root in that country, which has 30 to 40 warheads”, and was “worried that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan”.

Sadiq said ElBaradei ignored the fact that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was subject to multi-layered safeguards and controls. “Our civilian nuclear programme is under IAEA safeguards and we have always fully complied with IAEA obligations,” he said. afp

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

Leading paper warns against unilateral US strike inside Pakistan

* Boston Globe says landing of US troops inside Pakistan will make the country more unstable

WASHINGTON: A leading American newspaper on Thursday warned the Bush administration against unilateral operation by US special forces in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, saying it “would be a foolish undertaking, one that is almost certain to have calamitous unintended consequences”.

In a leading article, Boston Globe wrote that while concerns about Al Qaeda’s increasing strength and how it has reconstituted itself in Pakistan are to be taken seriously, “the understandable impulse to go after Al Qaeda with US operatives, rather than Pakistani troops or security services, has to be weighed against the likely outcome of American armed intervention in Pakistan. “Once it becomes known that America violated international law and Pakistan’s sovereignty, nearly all the disparate groups across the Pakistani political spectrum will be united in anger aimed at the American interventionists. The domestic effect within Pakistan will be to strengthen Islamist currents, allowing the army and President Musharraf to be painted as stooges of an arrogant superpower.”

Unstable repercussions: According to Boston Globe, if a concern for Pakistan’s stability is a major factor for the contemplated strikes, policy makers ought to recognise that a decision to land US troops on the ground in the tribal areas is almost certain to make nuclear-armed Pakistan more unstable, not less. Such actions will make it harder than ever for political parties and for individual democrats or human rights advocates in Pakistan to side with America. Conversely, the Pakistanis most vulnerable to the propaganda of Al Qaeda and its affiliates will turn more anti-American than ever. The editorial conceded that security officials in the Bush administration are not the only ones tempted to go after “high-value” Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan. At various points presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden have also yielded to that temptation. The more farsighted policy against Al Qaeda would be to enhance cooperation with the Pakistani military and intelligence services, who have strong reasons of their own to crush the head of that snake, the newspaper advised. khalid hasan

__________________
Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

Fahim to lead PPP election campaign

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) central leadership has asked the party’s Co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, not to head the election campaign himself and decided that the campaign would be lead by PPP Senior Vice-President Makhdoom Amin Fahim, reported a private TV channel.

According to ARY TV, the central leaders of the PPP have decided that videos containing former PPP chairwoman Benazir Bhutto’s speeches would be shown during the election campaign.

The party’s leadership has also advised Zardari to lead the party while remaining in Naudero whereas the meetings and processions would be lead by Amin Fahim.

The channel quoted sources as saying that Zardari has agreed to the advice and said that he would always follow the advice given by the senior leadership of the party

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Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.

600-strong tribal Lashkar to ‘protect peace’

* Local Taliban say pro-Uzbek fighters are threatening peace

Staff Report

WANA: Members of the Pashtun Ahmedzai Wazir tribe on Thursday raised a 600- strong Lashkar (tribal militia) to “protect peace in the area”, elders and eyewitnesses said.

“It is in our common interest to work for peace,” Amir of local Taliban Maulvi Nazir told an Ahmedzai Wazir jirga in Wana, three days after two simultaneous attacks on his offices left 10 of his men dead.

The jirga would mandate the Lashkar in a meeting on Friday, tribal elders told Daily Times. According to tribal traditions, Lashkars are raised to take a unified position against a common threat.

Threat to peace: Taliban commander Matta Khan said the threat was from “the commanders who fought for Uzbek militants when Maulvi Nazir led a popular uprising against them in April last year”. He blamed “people like Ghulam Jan” of “plotting against peace in our area” and for the attacks on two offices of Maulvi Nazir in Wana and Shakai Valley last week.

“Wazir tribesmen sheltering the foreigners must now give them up,” Reuters quoted tribal elder Meetha Khan as saying.

“The lashkar will give two options to those sheltering the foreigners, either to stop sheltering them and return to their tribe, or face the eviction of their families from the area,” Khan said.

The Zalikhel tribe that makes up half of Ahmedzai Wazirs was under fire from the jirga participants being asked to clarify its position on militant commanders who oppose Maulvi Nazir, a witness said.

Witnesses told Daily Times no speaker at the jirga named Baitullah Mehsud as the prime suspect.

Pakistan has blamed the leader from the Mehsud tribe, based in South Waziristan, for a recent wave of suicide attacks, many on security forces. The government has said Baitullah Mehsud was also responsible for assassinating Pakistan People’s Party chairwoman Benazir Bhutto on December 27.

The Wazir militia, Reuters said, is expected to operate only in the Wazir tribal area, and would thus have little or no impact on Mehsud and the Al Qaeda allies in his area.

Thousands of foreign militants, including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks, fled to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal lands after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, a Reuters report said. It says the militants were given refuge by the Pashtun tribes who live on both sides of the porous border.

“But relations between some of the tribesmen and their foreign guests began to break down last year when tribesmen, with the backing of the Pakistani military, turned against foreign militants after they had tried to kill a tribal elder,” it said.

“About 300 foreign militants and up to 40 Pakistani tribal fighters were killed in days of clashes that followed.”

__________________
Regards

Aarwaa

Pakistan is ruled by three As - Army, America and Allah.