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| September 15, 2008 | Monday | Ramazan 14, 1429 |
Updated round-the-clock, with major updates after 10:00 PST (06:00 GMT)
 PAKISTAN: Straw distances himself from US raids Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 23:32 PST Lahore, British Secretary of State for Justice and former foreign secretary Jack Straw called on Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif at the CM Secretariat here on Monday and discussed matters of mutual interest. Sharif briefed the guest about the steps being taken by the provincial government for the development of province especially in education and health sectors. He also said the country was facing a wave of terrorism which was hindering economic progress of the country. Straw said his country valued solidarity of Pakistan and wanted to see it as a stable state for a large number of people of Pakistani origin resided in Britain who they too were well-wishers of Islamabad. Dawn News also reported Straw as saying that Britain does not support US incursions on Pakistani soil. He hoped that relations between the two countries would strengthen in the days to come.  PAKISTAN: Senate committee grills govt on TV license issue Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 22:46 PST Islamabad, The Senate Committee on Information and Broadcasting unanimously rejected the present mode of collection of television license fees, in a session on Monday. Currently, the fee is collected through the electricity bill of each consumer. The committee directed the government to change this mode of fee collection immediately. The committee was informed that at present the State-run television earns Rs.3 billion annually by collecting Rs.25 per consumer through electricity bills, without certifying whether a consumer has a television in his house or not. The Senators grilled the government on why the fee was collected without any type of verification. They termed this method of collection as unjust and indiscriminate and stressed that is must be changed forthwith. PAKISTAN: No odds can deter Pakistan Army: Kayani Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 22:40 PST Islamabad, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said that it is the manifestation of the Pakistan Army’s resolve that no odds can deter it from pursuing its obligations towards national defence. He made these remarks during his visit to forward posts on the Line of Actual Contact and Line of Control in Northern Areas, according to a press release issued by the ISPR here on Monday. He was accompanied by Corps Commander Lieutenant General Mohsin Kamal. General Kayani met troops at various locations deployed at Siachen,the world’s highest battlefield, and surrounding areas on the Line of Actual Contact. He paid tributes to troops who were facing rigours of terrain and inhospitable weather in order to safeguard the frontiers of the country. The army chief lauded the high state of morale of the troops. PAKISTAN: 26 militants killed in Bajaur operation Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 21:55 PST Khar, (By Our Correspondent), At least 26 people, including 24 militants and two civilians were killed, and 28 others suffered injuries as security forces intensified their offensive and pounded suspected hideouts with mortar and artillery shelling in different areas of the restive Bajaur tribal region on Monday, sources said. Helicopter gunships and jet fighters targeted positions in Loe Sam, Tang Hatta, Rashakai, Jannat Shah, Dozakh Shah, Tandar Gat, Kerala, Baicheena, Tangai, Khazana and other areas. Sources said the security forces were facing stiff resistance from militants holed up in these areas. They said the intensity of airstrikes showed that forces had launched a decisive action against the militants. PAKISTAN: Low-income housing scheme on the cards Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 21:30 PST ISLAMABAD, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday chaired a meeting of the Steering Committee on Housing Development at the Prime Minister's Secretariat which discussed among other things modalities for developing one million housing units for low income groups. Talking to the participants the Prime Minister said that the PPP government and its allies were committed to providing shelter and other basic facilities of life to every citizen of the country, particularly the poorest of the poor. The Steering Committee was constituted by the Prime Minister to figure out the modalities for realizing the programme of constructing one million housing units for the low income group as announced by him on the floor of the House on March 29, 2008. PAKISTAN: Pakistan’s water woes continue Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 21:16 PST Islamabad, Pakistan has lodged a formal protest with India over reduction in Chenab river flows, calling for an emergency meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission for explanation of the grave violation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The reduction in Chenab flows has caused substantial losses to standing Kharif crops in most parts of downstream of Head Marala in Punjab that was partially being irrigated by higher releases from Mangla reservoir to save rice and sugarcane crops. This will cause additional stress on coming Rabi crops because of depletion in Mangla resources. Pakistan has protested with India more than half a dozen times over this gross violation of the decades-old treaty over the last two months but all in vain, Pakistan’s Permanent Indus Commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah told Dawn on Monday. SINDH: KESC’s blunders further agitate locals Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 21:00 PST Karachi, The continuous unannounced loadshedding of electricity and public reaction with deteriorating law and order situation came under detailed consideration in a meeting held in the office of Provincial Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed here Monday. Speaking on the occasion ministers cautioned that if unannounced loadshedding and power crisis are not controlled in Karachi, it would become difficult to stop public reaction against KESC. ‘The patience and tolerance of people cannot be tested any more’, they said adding that conspiracy to destroy Karachi through defective KESC performance and ill-planning will not be allowed to succeed. They pointed out that while people are faced with great problems because of power crisis on one hand, the local industries and business was getting badly affected on the other and serious damage was being caused to the economy. WORLD: UN agency says Iran stalls nuclear inquiry Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 19:58 PST Vienna, A UN inquiry into intelligence allegations of secret atom bomb research in Iran has reached a standstill because of Iranian failure to cooperate, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said on Monday. Iran said the IAEA bore the blame for lack of progress. A senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named, said it must change its approach and work in a ‘legal and logical’ manner. A confidential IAEA report said Iran had raised the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to 3,820, compared with 3,300 in May, with over 2,000 more being installed. ‘We have arrived at a gridlock,’ said a senior U.N. official familiar with the latest report, which urged Iran to take the intelligence allegations seriously to defuse suspicions its nuclear work is not entirely peaceful. CRICKET: PCB chairman should be appointed ASAP: Alam Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 19:14 PST Islamabad, Former Pakistan captain Intikhab Alam has urged the country’s cricket board to appoint a new chairman ‘as soon as possible’ to salvage the national team’s international season. ‘It’s been almost a month now that the Pakistan Cricket Board is without a chairman, it’s absolutely imperative for the president to announce the chairman as soon as possible,’ Alam said Monday. ‘Whosoever is appointed, he must have some experience and a recognisable figure in the cricketing fraternity,’ Alam advised. ‘It will save precious time of getting along with the officials of other cricket boards.’ Since Ashraf’s resignation, the scheduled Champions Trophy limited-overs tournament in Pakistan was postponed for a year due to security fears of some leading cricket nations. ECONOMY: Oil tumbles under 93 dollars Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 18:54 PST London, Oil prices plunged on Monday to seven-month lows below 93 dollars on prospects of weaker energy demand amid a worsening global financial crisis after Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, analysts said. In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in October tumbled 4.81 dollars to 92.77 dollars a barrel -- the lowest level since February. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October, dived 5.26 dollars to 95.82 dollars a barrel. ‘Turmoil in the financial markets hurt sentiment and reinforced concerns about weaker oil demand growth,’ said Sucden analyst Michael Davies in London. Oil prices were also weighed down by news that damage to US oil platforms caused by Hurricane Ike had not been as bad as feared, analysts said. SPORTS: PCB chairman should be appointed ASAP Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 18:48 PST Islamabad, Former Pakistan captain Intikhab Alam has urged the country’s cricket board to appoint a new chairman ‘as soon as possible’ to salvage the national team’s international season. ‘It’s been almost a month now that the Pakistan Cricket Board is without a chairman, it’s absolutely imperative for the president to announce the chairman as soon as possible,’ Alam said Monday. ‘Whosoever is appointed, he must have some experience and a recognisable figure in the cricketing fraternity,’ Alam advised. ‘It will save precious time of getting along with the officials of other cricket boards.’ NWFP: Militants free 25 soldiers and police Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 18:32 PST Islamabad, Militants in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley freed 25 soldiers and police on Monday, more than a month after they were taken captive, a spokesman for the militant group, Tehrik-e-Taliban in Swat, said. Muslim Khan told Reuters soldiers and police, part of a larger group of 39 taken hostage from checkpoints in the valley, were being freed as a gesture of goodwill during the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan. ‘We decided that as it's a holy month and we have respect for it, some of abducted security forces should be freed now in a first phase,’ Khan said. ECONOMY: Wall Street rocked by Lehman failure, Merrill sale Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 18:04 PST New York, Global financial markets were shaken to their core on Monday after US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection and rival Merrill Lynch agreed to be taken over. As a deepening crisis took new, bigger victims, the US Federal Reserve said for the first time it would accept stocks in exchange for cash loans and 10 of the world's top banks agreed to establish a $70 billion emergency fund, with any one of them able to tap up to a third of that. On a black Sunday for Wall Street, frantic attempts to find a rescuer for Lehman failed, and troubled insurer American International Group asked the Fed for a lifeline, according to news reports. ECONOMY: Rupee ends weaker, stocks fall on bleak outlook Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 16:55 PST Karachi, The Pakistani rupee ended weaker in dull trade on Monday due to import payments and dealers said pressure on the currency would build unless foreign inflows arrived to bolster dwindling currency reserves. The rupee closed at 76.58/68 to the dollar compared with Saturday’s closing of 76.48/55. It hit a record low of 77.45 on September 3 because of heavy oil payments. Trade was dull, as it usually is during the month of Ramadan. ‘The rupee will probably come under pressure unless Pakistan receives substantial foreign inflows,’ said a Karachi-based currency dealer. WORLD: Eleven killed in occupied Kashmir violence Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 16:26 PST Srinagar, Four Indian soldiers and three militants were killed in gun battles across occupied Kashmir on Monday, police said. They said suspected militants also beheaded a villager suspecting him to be an informer of Indian troops. Police said a firefight with separatist militants broke out in southern occupied Kashmir, where four soldiers were killed and two were wounded. Elsewhere in occupied Kashmir, three militants, including a senior 'commander' of a Kashmiri militant group were killed in two separate gun battles with soldiers, police said. WORLD: Baghdad car bombs kills 12 Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 17:02 PST Baghdad, Two near simultaneous car bombings in central Baghdad on Monday killed 12 people and wounded 34, security officials said. The victims were ferried to four city hospitals after the bombs went off within minutes of each other in the central district of Karrada, the officials said. More than 30 cars were burnt in the explosions, they added. The attacks took place near a courthouse in the Karrada district at around 11:45 a.m. They came as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates flew into Baghdad on an unannounced visit. WORLD: Zimbabwe rivals sign power-sharing deal Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 16:40 PST Harare, Zimbabwe's rival political parties signed a landmark power-sharing deal on Monday which will see President Robert Mugabe ceding some of his powers for the first time in nearly three decades of rule. Mugabe, main opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara — who heads a breakaway MDC faction — signed the agreement at a hotel in the capital, Harare, after weeks of tense negotiations. The audience in the hotel cheered as the agreement was signed in front of African leaders including Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete, chairman of the African Union, and South African President Thabo Mbeki, who brokered the deal. WORLD: Four Indian troopers killed in Kashmir Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 16:32 PST Srinagar, Four Indian security force personnel were killed in a gunbattle with heavily armed freedom fighters in revolt-hit occupied Kashmir, an army spokesman said on Monday. He said the fighting broke out late Sunday when Indian soldiers, backed by counter-insurgency police, surrounded a forest where freedom fighters were present. ‘They opened fire on the approaching security personnel killing two army soldiers and two policemen,’ the spokesman said, adding the troops retaliated and the gunbattle was still raging. WORLD: Tourist bus crashes in Egypt, killing 12 Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 16:04 PST Cairo, Twelve people were killed and 37 wounded after a bus collided head on with a delivery truck near the Red Sea resort town of Ras Sadr, Ibrahim Hassan, the head of emergency services for the southern part of Egypt's Sinai peninsula said. The dead included seven foreign tourists, Hassan said, adding that the foreigners included citizens of the Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine. PAKISTAN: Miscreants and militants Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 19:14 PST 'THERE are a handful of miscreants, and we will sort them out in no time,' thundered Gen Yahya Khan. The date was March 24 1971, the occasion: the launching of a crackdown against the Awami League and its supporters. A foreign correspondent asked how many of these ‘miscreants’ were there. Before Yahya Khan could reply, a colleague whispered in the correspondent’s ear, 'only four and half crores [45 million].' This was no joke. The crackdown soon transformed into a full-fledged military action against Bengalis, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. With a few exceptions, no one from the western wing raised a protesting voice. The Bengalis, who had once been at the forefront of the Pakistan Movement and were more in number than the West Pakistanis, were ultimately declared secessionists and pushed out of the federation. It was a unique case of its own kind, a minority declaring a majority secessionists. (Posted @ 15:28 PST) WORLD: Roadside bomb kills two in western Afghanistan Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 15:00 PST Kabul, A roadside bomb blast targeting a district chief killed two people Monday in western Afghanistan, where insurgents also attacked two Americans training police, officials said. The target of the bomb attack in Herat province was the chief of Shindand district, said Rauf Ahmadi, the region's police spokesman. The motorbike bomb missed the district chief but killed two other people, including his son who was riding in a separate vehicle, Ahmadi said. Seven other people were wounded in the blast. PAKISTAN: China contacts militants for hostage release Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 14:22 PST Peshawar,China has established contacts with militants operating in the restive northern district to secure the release of their two expatriates, a militant spokesman told Dawn. ‘The Chinese embassy in Islamabad has approached us to negotiate the release of their two engineers seized by our men,’ Muslim Khan said in a telephonic interview from the region. The two technicians working for a Chinese cellular company operating in Pakistan were abducted by militant gunmen from the northern Dir district on August 29 and later shifted to Swat. ‘We told the Chinese diplomats that we would like to negotiate through the Pakistani government. We have over a hundred men in the government custody we want released and we may have some other demands before we could set them free,’ the militant spokesman said. SINDH: PPP should reciprocate MQM’s support: Altaf Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 13:44 PST Karachi, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain said on Sunday that nazims and ministers belonging to his party were facing innumerable problems and urged the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party to understand the problems and take just decisions.‘Nazims of Karachi and Hyderabad do not have funds … our ministers have been complaining, but instead of speaking about their problems, we extended unconditional support to the PPP to enable it to steer the country out of the crisis it is facing. We have given all we had to the PPP and now it is their turn to understand the problems and do justice,’ he said in a telephonic address from London to an Iftar dinner organised by the Society Residents Committee. He said that the MQM had been given a chance to serve the people and over the past five years it had delivered in Karachi and Hyderabad. He criticised what he called the reduction in funds of Karachi and Hyderabad nazims and town municipal administrations. ECONOMY: Yet more inflation Monday, 15 Sep, 2008 | 12:20 PST Dawn Editorial, According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the Consumer Price Index — which reflects roughly the changes in the cost of living of urban areas — rose 24.83 per cent in July and August over the corresponding period in 2007. To put this in perspective, in the same July-August period in 2007 the CPI rose 6.41 per cent over 2006. What this means is a nearly four-fold increase in inflation within a year. And the numbers seem to suggest that worse is to yet come. In July, the CPI rose 24.33 over July 2007; in August, the CPI rose 25.83 over August 2007. This rising trend will be compounded by the fact that the ongoing month of Ramazan has seen a further spike in prices. Most worrying in the short-term is the price of food essentials. In August, the price of perishable and non-perishable food items rose by more than 35 per cent over August 2007.
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