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PPP promoted graft, nepotism: Sharif
Suicide bomber kills nine in Peshawar
Rehman to be quizzed over Bhutto killing
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600 Chinese go Dutch for one-way ticket to Mars
Aussie faces life term for raping, killing Indian
Concern raised over pro-Khalistan group’s links with US lawmakers
Syrian PM survives bid on life
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PAKISTAN ELECTIONS
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) now exists only in television advertisements because of its dismal performance in government over the past five years, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has said.
Addressing public meetings at Oakara on Monday, Sharif said the PPP adhered to Musharraf’s policies and promoted corruption, nepotism and incompetence. The country was pushed to a worse era of darkness in its history, he said. “President Zardari complains of criticism against him but has nothing to show in terms of performance.” Sharif said his rule was interrupted twice in the 1990s although he had set the country on the path of progress and development. Relations with India improved to the extent that its Prime Minister travelled to Lahore by bus and agreed to resolve outstanding disputes through comprehensive dialogue. He urged people to give his party the mandate in the general election if they wanted peace and development. Imran dares Sharif
Imran Khan continued with his hurricane trip across Punjab by holding a rally at Murree where he again challenged Nawaz Sharif to a direct debate. Imran said the Sharif brothers had been in power five times over the past 25 years but had changed nothing. “Now they want a sixth term.” Imran said the Sharifs and Zardari had enriched themselves rather than serving the people and changing their condition. He promised to build a new Pakistan by devolving power to the lowest rung in villages, enhance budget for education, health and other public services. He vowed to end corruption at the top within 90 days, promote austerity, end terrorism, halt drone attacks and effectively tackle religious extremism. Rejecting Sharif’s criticism that he was playing into the hands of Zardari, Imran said both of them remained allies in Punjab for over three years and helped each other to complete tenures. They amassed wealth and stacked it in foreign banks. All of this would now change because people would not trust them anymore, he added.
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Army chief holds security review
Forces deployed in 9 Baloch dists
Quetta: Armed forces were deployed in nine sensitive districts of Balochistan to ensure peaceful and uninterrupted elections in the sparsely populated province of the country on Monday. Sources in Provincial Home and Tribal Affairs Department said army personnel were deployed in Dera Bugti, Kohlu, Awaran, Washuk, Khuzdar, Kalat, Mastung, Kharan and Gwadar districts. The personnel would be stationed in 30 districts across Balochistan and troops would be deployed at polling stations until May 15 to ensure smooth and peaceful elections in Balochistan.
— By arrangement with Dawn Islamabad: The Federation in its reply to the Supreme Court on Monday said overseas Pakistan nationals cannot be given the right to vote in the upcoming general election, adding that the facility will be provided during the next elections. A three-member bench under the chair of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry heard the case pertaining to giving overseas Pakistanis the right to vote. The court, which has been pressing expatriates’ case, disposed it of on hearing government’s final refusal but urged that it should continue efforts for ultimately enabling overseas Pakistanis to exercise their right of vote. The Federation’s reply was submitted to the court during the hearing by Attorney General Irfan Qadir. Logistical difficulties, technical problem, absence of any appropriate legislation and permission from host countries were cited as major hurdles.
— TNS
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Suicide bomber kills nine in Peshawar
A suicide bomber on Monday targeted a police van on a busy thoroughfare of Peshawar city in northwest Pakistan, killing nine persons, including the son of a member of the Afghan High Peace Council. At least 43 others were injured in the bombing on the University Road.
The attack was aimed at a police mobile van in the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Superintendent of Police Peshawar Cantt Muhammad Faisal said. The explosion also hit a passenger bus which was moving alongside the police van. Qazi Hilal Ameen, son of a former two-time Afghanistan minister and Afghan Jihad leader Qazi Muhammad Amin Waqaud, was among those killed in the blast along with another Afghan national Muhammad Idrees, the nephew of Hizb-e-Islami (Khalis group) leader Maulvi Younus Khalis. Waqaud was affiliated with Gulbadin Hikmatyar and was his deputy but later parted ways and formed his own group. He was also a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is engaged in talks with the Taliban and the Karzai-led government. Afghan consulate officials said Qazi Hilal was organising a conference of Afghan and Pakistani religious scholars to oppose militancy and had come to Peshawar for extending invitations. Peshawar Commissioner Sahibzada Anees’ vehicle had passed the scene of the blast a few minutes earlier, officials said. The University Road is one of the busiest thoroughfares in Peshawar. Several cars were damaged by the blast. Yesterday, 12 persons were killed and more than 40 injured in four bomb attacks targeting campaign offices and election meetings in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. The banned Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for two of the attacks. Pakistan has witnessed a sudden surge in militant attacks ahead of the landmark May 11 general
election. (With agency inputs)
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Rehman to be quizzed over Bhutto killing
Islamabad, April 29 Malik was head of Bhutto’s security when she returned to Pakistan from self-exile in late 2007. Federal Investigation Agency officials who questioned the former President after his arrest over the assassination were told that Malik decided the details of security for Bhutto’s December 27, 2007 public meeting in Rawalpindi where she was killed. Musharraf denied his involvement in the killing and said Bhutto was killed because of a security breach for which Malik was responsible, Dawn quoted its sources in the FIA as saying. Musharraf reportedly made the revelation when he was questioned on Sunday. The FIA worked under Malik during his stint as Interior Minister in the Pakistan People’s Party-led government. The FIA was tasked with investigating the assassination during Malik’s tenure. The joint investigation team for the probe was constituted by Malik and it never examined him in connection with the assassination.
— PTI
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600 Chinese go Dutch for one-way ticket to Mars
The project, Mars One,
is being launched by a Dutch non-profit organisation and is scheduled to take four humans to the Red Planet in 2023. In the first three days after it was launched this week, over 20,000 people from all over the world submitted their applications online, with more than 600 coming from China, state-run China Daily reported. Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One, told the media in Shanghai that he was confident of turning the dream into reality and that it would attract more than five lakh applicants. The Chinese enthusiasm to travel to Mars is building up as China, which has a well-funded space programme focussing on Moon missions and building a space station, is also planning a three-phase Mars space mission to collect samples from the Red Planet by 2030. The three stages are remote sensing, soft-landing, exploration and return after collecting automatic sampling, says Ouyang Ziyuan, China’s chief scientist for lunar missions. But India may steal the march as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is bracing to launch its first Mars mission in November to become the first Asian country to accomplish it. NASA has already landed a rover on Mars remaining well ahead of other space programmes of the world. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission is expected to be launched in mid-October and will carry five experimental payloads with a total weight of 14.49 kg. Lansdorp said the
final decision on choosing the first settlers will be made by a television audience vote when around 40 candidates have been
fully trained. Lansdorp said Mars One chose Shanghai as the second stop for the application press conference after New York because he believed many Chinese, including youngsters, were very interested in becoming astronauts, especially as the country already had its own astronauts. Pang Zhihao, a space expert, said the trip to Mars would require a four-member crew, including an experienced astronaut who could drive the spaceship. Lansdorp said by selling live coverage of the Mars mission, it would be easy to raise the $ 6 billion needed to fund the project. “There will be 4 billion Internet users by 2023, much more than those of the Olympic Games,” Lansdorp said, adding that organisers of the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics earned $ 1 billion a week. But Pang said the project may cost more than what Lansdorp has imagined. Pang said the distance between Earth and Mars meant the trip would take eight to nine months using existing technology. Pang also referred to the harsh environment on Mars, saying sandstorms there could last half a
year and be six times stronger than severe typhoons on Earth. Lansdorp said the
first Mars settlers would be able to live on vegetables. — PTI Mission Red Planet
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Aussie faces life term for raping, killing Indian
Melbourne, April 29 The Sydney based Supreme Court today heard that accused, Daniel Stani-Reginald, who lived next door had been planning his “cold and calculated” crime well before he raped the 24-year-old Thakkar. Daniel then stuffed Thakkar's body in a suitcase, dumped it in a canal and went home to read an article called Beginnings of a Serial Killer, it was told. Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi has urged Justice Derek Price to impose a life sentence on Daniel, saying he was capable of seeking notoriety as a serial killer, the AAP news agency reported. He said while other young men of his age were going to college or learning a trade, Daniel “made a deliberate decision to school himself on how to become a serial rapist and murderer”. “In the three months before he raped and strangled Thakkar in the Croydon unit where she lived next door to him, he had viewed about 9,500 disturbing internet articles and websites on serial killers and notorious rapists”, the report said adding the accused also looked up articles on infamous Australian cases like that of Dean Shillingsworth, the murdered toddler whose body was dumped in a suitcase. He read judgments on the sentences of notorious killers and viewed pornography relating to the “degradation of Indian women” on the morning he murdered Thakkar, the court heard. After killing Thakkar, Daniel had called a cab, transported her body to the canal in the suitcase and then gone to a shopping centre. He continued his internet searches of serial killers even as police were milling around outside his unit and had a casual conversation with Thakkar's boyfriend that day, the court heard. “There's not the slightest suggestion he was horrified by what he had done,” Tedeschi said, adding that Daniel has still shown
no remorse. “The community would be justifiably aggrieved if he were to receive a sentence less than life imprisonment,” Tedeschi said. Daniel has pleaded guilty to raping and murdering Thakkar on March 9, 2011. Her body was discovered by construction workers two days later. Thakkar's parents are in Australia for his sentence hearing. The family of the victim told the court hearing about their pain of losing their only daughter and sister. She was like a sweet little fairy “who brought peace and happiness to all of us and a lot of blessings”, they said. “She used to take care of everyone with great love and care. She wanted to help a lot of people”. Thakkar's younger brother Dishang said he still found it difficult to accept that his sister was gone.
— PTI Could be a serial killer
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40 injured in Prague blast
Prague, April 29 The street was covered with rubble and was sealed off by the police, which evacuated people from nearby buildings and closed a wide area around the explosion site. Zdenek Schwarz, head of the rescue service in Prague, said up to 40 persons were injured with at least four of them sustaining serious injuries. Windows in buildings located hundreds of metres from the blast site were shattered, including some in the nearby National Theater. “There was glass everywhere and people shouting and crying,” Vaclav Rokyta, a Czech student, said. Prime Minister Petr Necas said in a statement he was “deeply hit by the tragedy”.
— AP
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Concern raised over pro-Khalistan group’s links with US lawmakers
Washington, April 29 When more than two dozen lawmakers announced the formation of first-ever Sikh American Congressional Caucus last week at the Capitol Hill, it was the presence of quite a number of individuals and representatives of organisations, who in the past have openly supported Khalistan, raised eyebrows among the friends of India in Washington. “Sikhs who were present in the Sikh Congressional Caucus event in Washington were of the ideology of pro-Khalistan,” said Dalwinder Singh Dhoot, chairman of California-based North America Punjabi Association (NAPA), in a statement. A number of eminent Sikh American organisations, including NAPA, were not invited either to the announcement ceremony on April 24 or at the reception held at the Capitol Hill. Neither was there any representation from the Indian Embassy.
— PTI
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Syrian PM survives bid on life
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog reported that a car bomb targeted Halqi’s convoy as it passed through the Mazzeh district of Damascus, killing one of his bodyguards. Halqi's driver and a second bodyguard were seriously wounded.
— AFP
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Five car bombs kill 36 in
Iraq 
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The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) now exists only in television advertisements because of its dismal performance in government over the past five years, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has said.
Rawalpindi: Pakistan’s Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani held a meeting of corp commanders to discuss issues related to security during the upcoming elections. Sources said the deployment of troops during the upcoming elections throughout the country, including Karachi, was approved during the meeting which was held at the Army’s General Headquarters here. — By arrangement with Dawn
Beijing, April 29
Damascus, April 29
