November 29, 2006	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 7, 1427

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HYDERABAD, Nov 28: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has described as farce Pakistan Sugar Mills Association’s announcement of closure of all sugar mills in Sindh for an indefinite period due to "no-cane-situation" and appealed to the federal and provincial governments to prevail upon the mill owners to continue cane crushing at all costs.

If sugar mills stopped cane crushing at this stage it would deal a deadly blow to agriculture and lead to a sugar and wheat crisis in the country, warned SCA Senior-Vice-President Mir Murad Ali Khan Talpur as he addressed an urgent meeting of the chamber here on Tuesday.The meeting pointed out that if sugarcane was not harvested in time it would leave growers with too little time to cultivate wheat, which could be sown after fields were cleared of standing sugarcane crop.

The SCA urged the prime minister and the Sindh government to intervene into the matter and prevail upon mill owners not to close their mills as Faran, Mehran, Ansari and Digri sugar mills were busy crushing more than 70,000 maunds a day, which proved there was no cogent reason to cease crushing.

JI: Naib Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami and former Karachi city nazim Naimatullah Khan has said that Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) legislators were not only ready to resign but they were also prepared to render sacrifices for Islam.

Speaking to party workers at the Markaz-i-Tableegh-i-Islam here on Monday, he said that Pakistan was facing worst crises of its history and urged party workers to prepare themselves for sacrifices.

When proper time came even the Shahinshah Iran who was the biggest ‘chowkidar’ of American CIA had to disappear from the scene, he said, adding that the JI had always fought against dictatorship.

District Amir Shaikh Shaukat Ali said that the so-called Women’s Protection Bill had been rejected by all the religious parties and sects. The MMA would stage a large rally against the bill on December 17, which would march from Mirpurkhas to Hyderabad in the lead of central leaders.

PWF: The Sindh chapter of Pakistan Workers Federation has lashed out at m/s Nephew and Nephew for withholding its workers’ salaries and introducing the contract system in the factory.

In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, Sindh PWF President Mir Khan Baloch, General Secretary Abdul Latif Nizamani and Deputy Secretary Mehboob Ali Qureshi said that the management had told female workers that the contractor who had run away was responsible for paying them salaries.

They alleged that the factory owners did not pay Rs4,000 per month to workers as fixed by the government and make them to work even on the gazetted holidays without overtime.

Besides, they had no cover under social security laws, they complained.