Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ruled out a premature end to the PPP government, saying the elements setting deadlines would be disappointed, as the government would complete its five-year term. “There is no clash among institutions, including the executive, judiciary and military,” Gilani said in an interactive session with a group of journalists. “Nobody is conspiring to unseat the present government, which will complete its five-year term… I have been elected Prime Minister for five years and we shall complete our term.”

The Prime Minister fielded questions and even volunteered statements in what appeared to be a damage-control exercise to dilute tensions generated by fiery speeches and statements made during past few days by several leaders of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP). The Prime Minister exuded a mix of confidence and jittery response to questions.

He looked unsettled when it came to questions and made some astonishing claims, particular when it came to relations with the President, extent of his authority as theoretically chief executive and current PPP campaign against the judiciary and the military.

His dismissal of presence of “conspiracies” to destabilise the government failed to convince skeptical journalists in the wake of spate of declarations made by other PPP leaders. He was particularly upstaged by President Asif Zardari's statement in Karachi almost at the same time. The President warned that conspiracies were being hatched against the PPP to confine it to a Sindh party and disrupt the present democratic order.

“We will frustrate these attempts and the PPP would remain the biggest federal party," he told provincial ministers and party leaders in Karachi.

Gilani said he was effectively in control of the government as chief executive and denied any differences with President Zardari.

“I am leading the government while the President is running the affairs of the party as PPP co-chairman… I and the President enjoy the confidence of the people,” he said.

Gilani said the government respected the Supreme Court’s verdict on the National Reconciliation Ordinance and was waiting for its detailed judgment for implementing it. He said the government had faith that the court would deliver justice and there was no possibility of any clash with the judiciary.

He claimed the decision to restore the Chief Justice had been taken by him without any pressure. 

Kathmandu, December 25
Deposed king Gyanendra and his son Paras were involved in the 2001 palace massacre that killed ex-monarch Birendra along with most of his family, a Nepalese prisoner, who claimed to be a former royal bodyguard, has alleged.

Gyanendra has been at the centre of many conspiracy theories, including the palace massacre that killed his popular older brother Birendra along with most of the royal family by the then crown prince Dipendra, who was allegedly fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Lal Bahadur Magar, who is serving a jail term in Birgunj jail on charge of killing a couple, claimed he was an eyewitness to the massacre, according to a report in eKantipur, the online news portal of Kathmandu Post newspaper.

Magar claimed that former crown prince Paras was behind the killing of the family of the former King, said the report, which quoted the news agency RSS as saying.

As per the report, Magar, who claimed that he was one of the bodyguards of Deependra at the time when the massacre took place, accused Paras of involvement in the killing when Maoist parliamentarian Leela Kumar Baga went to meet him in the jail yesterday. The prisoner alleged that Gyanendra had a hand in the massacre, the news portal reported. — PTI

Lahore, December 25
A Pakistani court today remanded five American Muslim youths arrested for alleged terror links in custody for another 10 days after the police sought more time to question them and complete their investigations.

Sargodha Magistrate Muhammad Aslam Waniwaal handed over the youths to the police for further questioning.

The magistrate directed that the suspects should be produced in his court on January 4. The suspects were produced in court amidst tight security.

The suspects had mentioned the name of a nuclear plant in a message saved in their common email account and this "sensitive" issue needed to be probed, the police told the magistrate.

Police officials also said they might ask the court to further extend the remand if necessary. The judge refused a request by the suspects to be detained together instead of separate cells. Pakistani security agencies arrested Waqar Hussain Khan, 22; Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20; Ramy Zamzam, 22; Iman Hassan Yemer, 17; and Omar Farooq, 24; in Sargodha, some 200 km from Islamabad, on December 9.

Officials have said they planned to go to Afghanistan via Pakistan's tribal belt to fight US and NATO forces. The youths have also been questioned by the FBI. — PTI

Washington, December 25
The US Senate has confirmed Rajiv Shah, a food security expert, to head USAID, a key development agency. America's top international aid and development agency got a Christmas present Thursday when the Senate confirmed Shah, President Obama's nomination to head the US Agency for International Development.

Shah takes the helm of USAID, which has been without a chief since the outset of the Obama administration, at a crucial moment.

US foreign assistance is expected to double to over 50 billion dollars a year over the next half-decade, in particular with boosts in development outlays to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At the same time, USAID enters the period of growth a weakened agency, having lost its independence and having been incorporated into the State Department in a post-cold war reorganisation of foreign aid.

Aid experts welcome Shah's confirmation but generally acknowledge the difficult task before him. — ANI

Vatican City, December 25
An apparently deranged woman knocked Pope Benedict XVI to the ground after vaulting over security barricades in a dramatic start to the Christmas Eve mass at St Peter's Basilica.

Video footage showed the woman in a red sweatshirt leaping over the barricade and grabbing the 82-year-old pope as he began the traditional procession to the altar, yesterday. The pontiff emerged unharmed and later delivered his homily, undaunted, speaking out against selfishness as Christians across the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

"Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world," said the spiritual leader. The woman, described as "apparently unbalanced" by the Vatican spokesman, was arrested by the Vatican police, the ANSA news agency reported. — AFP

London, December 25
In yet another medical achievement, British scientists have restored eyesight of a partially blind person using pioneering stem cell treatment.

Eye surgeons at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) have almost completely restored the vision of Russell Turnbull who was blinded in one eye by a chemical attack. The attack, which badly burned and scarred Russell (38) as he intervened to stop a fight, left him with permanent blurred sight and pain whenever he blinked.

Now, however, his sight has been almost fully restored thanks to the new technique in which doctors regrown the outside membrane of his cornea from stem cells taken from his healthy eye.

According to the article published in journal ‘Stem Cells’, the new operation involved cutting away a millimetre squared section of his left eye completed with stem cells and growing it to 400 times that size in the laboratory.

The outer skin of the eye is then stitched onto the badly damaged cornea in place of the damaged membrane. “Corneal cloudiness has been estimated to cause blindness in eight million people worldwide each year,” Dr Francisco Figueiredo, consultant eye surgeon at NESCI team, who co-led the project was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.

“The stem cell treatment option is aimed at total cure rather than symptom relief only. This new treatment will alleviate patient suffering and remove the need for long term multiple medications as well as returning the patient to functional and social independence.”

Dr Sajjad Ahmad, who developed the Newcastle method for culturing limbal stem cells, said: “This study shows that stem cell research conducted in the laboratory can have a major impact on the quality of life of patients with corneal disease.” He said, "This work has been a team effort involving stem cell researchers and hospital doctors working together effectively." — PTI

San'a, December 25
Yemen's military hit suspected Al-Qaida hideouts, possibly killing a radical cleric linked to the US army major accused of the Fort Hood mass shooting, as a gathering of top militant leaders was targeted in a remote mountain valley in strikes carried out with US intelligence help, officials said.

At least 30 militants were believed to be killed in the second such strike in a week. Pentagon officials could not confirm yesterday whether radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in the strike.

Al-Awlaki was born in the US and attended Colorado State University before moving in 2002 to Yemen. The Imam reportedly corresponded by e-mail with Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 persons at Fort Hood, Texas, last month.

Along with Al-Awlaki, the top leader of Al-Qaida's branch in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Saeed al-Shihri were also believed to be at the meeting, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said in a statement. — AP 

Bethlehem, December 25
It is truly turning to be merry Christmas at Bethlehem, the holiest city for the Christians, as the place is witnessing a new surge in pilgrims, and a substantial number of these are from India.

Travel agents are reporting a boom in inflow of pilgrims from across the globe this year, the largest number since the outbreak of intifada nine years ago.

They say that of the large numbers, Indians form one of the largest groups of pilgrims.

"Indian tourists never deserted Bethlehem. The important thing about them is that they continued to put up at local hotels even during difficult times. Most of the other tourists prefer staying in Jerusalem and making day trips to Bethlehem," said Fadi Kattan, owner of ACA Travel and Tourism.

"The other good thing about Indian tourists is that they stay here for a longer duration. In times of crisis for the tourism industry, they came as a blessing", Kattan added.

Dozens of Indian tourists could be spotted among the thousands of tourists that turned up for the midnight mass.

"I have been waiting for this for years now. It is dream come true for me. I am going to spend some time here going around with my friends before leaving for India", said Johnny from Mumbai, who is visiting Bethlehem for the midnight mass with a group of Indian tourists.

Kattan, who has travelled in India extensively and spent a lot of time in Varanasi, said his agency alone manages to bring in thousands of Indian tourists to Bethlehem every year. Other agencies have also been active in attracting tourism from India in Bethlehem.

Buoyed by the relative calm in the West Bank, more than 1.6 million tourists have visited Bethlehem this year, Palestinian Tourism Minister Khulud Duaibess said.

Some 15,000 pilgrims attended the midnight mass last night, Palestinian sources said. It marked a third consecutive year that tourists have returned to Bethlehem following the drop that accompanied the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada or uprising in September 2000, Duaibess said.

Some one million tourists visited the town in 2008. However, the significant rise in the number of tourists hasn't brought an accompanying economic surge with most of the visitors choosing to stay in Jerusalem and making day trips to Jesus' birthplace.

"Only five per cent of the money stays on the Palestinian side," the tourism minister said.

The financial woes have been further exacerbated by the barrier that runs along the three sides of the town, and includes the eight-metre-high concrete wall that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem and forms part of the projected 700-kilometre West Bank separation barrier.

Israel terms it a "security barrier" needed to stop attacks inside the Jewish state, while Palestinians call it the "apartheid wall" that cuts them from their land and cause economic hardships. Israeli security forces eased travel restrictions for Christmas to facilitate tourists to easily enter Bethlehem. — PTI

London, December 25
Over 40,000 eco-tourists visiting Antarctica every year are adding to global warming that results in melting of the polar ice caps, a new research has found. Most of these tourists to the snow-covered South Pole travel in cruise ships to view the ice caps and wildlife such as penguins, causing "horrendous" pollution from ship fuel and rubbish, said the study by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

It also stated that the flow of tourists to the region is disturbing wildlife in one of the last pristine landscapes left on Earth. "The visitors to the snow-covered landmass are endangering not just the Antarctic region by their actions, but also the rest of the world. It could even be making global warming worse," said Machiel Lamers, the lead researcher.

Tourism is a boom industry in Antarctica, which was witnessing just a few hundred tourists some 20 years ago, has attracted 40,000 sight-seers last winter, The Telegraph reported.

Asserting on the need to balance the benefits of Antarctic tourism with the environmental impacts, Lamers said, "The local environment is under pressure, more and larger ships are going there, tourists are perpetually looking for 'tougher, faster, more' and there's actually no one to keep this all on the right track."

"It is time for clear rules; vague agreements are not enough any more. There needs to be a binding international treaty that will limit the number of tourists and landings allowed in Antarctica," he added. The South Pole is managed by an international consortium of countries, but no one is really in charge on the ground.

There is no policy setting out any limits for tourism. The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators has imposed stringent bio-safety protocols to keep out seeds and insects and has promised to respect the environment.— PTI