May 30, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 29: Opposition senators on Tuesday submitted an adjournment motion to the Senate Secretariat seeking discussion on the conduct of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the light of reports that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her recently launched biography had called him a “ladies man.”

According to the parliamentary secretary of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Izhar Amrohvi, the motion has been submitted under Rule 74 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate 1988 and it carried the signatures of 10 opposition senators, belonging to People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).

The opposition members in their motion also quoted the excerpts from the biography titled “Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and her path to power” by Newsweek chief of correspondents and senior editor Marcus Mabry. The biography was recently launched in the United States.

Referring to Condoleezza’s first tour to South Asia in March 2005 during which she also visited Pakistan, the author writes: “Yet, when Rice sat down with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who fancies as ladies’ man, Aziz puffed himself up and held forth in what he obviously thought was his seductive baritone (He bragged — to western diplomats, no less — that he could conquer any woman in two minutes). An eye-witness and participant at the meeting recalled that there was this test of wills where he was trying to use all his charms on her as a woman, and she just basically stared him down. By the end of the meeting, he was babbling.”

After giving this quote from the book, the opposition senators said the matter as published was “shameful” for the entire nation and needed discussion on the floor of the house.

“If it has wrongly been reported, the prime minister should explain his position on the floor of the house adjourning the business of the Senate,” the members concluded.

The motion has been signed by Opposition Leader in the Senate Raza Rabbani, ANP’s Asfandyar Wali, Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA, Sardar Mahtab Abbasi and Ishaq Dar of the PML-N, Enver Baig, Sardar Latif Khosa, Dr Safdar Abbasi and Dr Babar Awan of the PPP and Abdur Rahim Mandokhel of the PkMAP.

Meanwhile, four opposition senators have also submitted a calling attention notice to the Senate Secretariat inviting the attention of Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao regarding the warning issued by the Embassy of Pakistan in Greece that a diplomatic disaster would happen in making as an estimated 10,000 illegal immigrants taken to Turkey by a gang of Pakistani human smugglers were likely to be pushed into Greece and Italy possibly between now and September.

The calling attention has been moved by Dr Safdar Abbasi and Enver Baig of the PPP, Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA and Ishaq Dar of the PML-N.