Islamabad, November 24
Pakistan and China today signed a memorandum of understanding for a long-term collaboration in defence production, including development of an airborne early warning surveillance system. The announcement came during the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Pakistan. China has been the main supplier of military hardware to Pakistan for decades.

A statement from Pakistan's air force said the two countries agreed on collaboration and co-development of aircraft manufacturing and related fields.

Pakistan, concerned over rival India's growing defence capabilities, in May approved plans for the purchase of a 1 billion dollar airborne early warning surveillance system from Swedish firms Saab and Ericsson to boost its air defences.

The system includes Saab 2000 turboprop aircraft equipped with airborne radar from Ericsson.

Pakistan has made downpayment for the Swedish system and expects the delivery to begin by 2009 at the latest, a military official said.

Pakistan's air force is already collaborating with Chinese aviation company, CATIC, in the co-development and co-production of JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft.

Pakistan is set to get the first batch of eight medium-technology fighter jets from China next year and the country will start manufacturing the aircraft locally from January 2008, officials said.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India have continued to focus on building their military capabilities despite a peace process they launched in early 2004. — Reuters

Islamabad, November 24
Pakistan today conferred its highest civilian award Nishan-e-Pakistan on visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao for his contribution in cementing bilateral ties.

Hu, who is on a three-day visit to Pakistan, was presented a medal and a citation by President Pervez Musharraf at a civic reception here. The Chinese President later addressed the people of Pakistan live on state television.

Hu thanked Pakistan for its support to China over the Taiwan issue and the role Islamabad played in helping the Chinese leadership forge ties with leaders of the western world. "These are things we cannot forget", he said.

His address was attended among others by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his Cabinet Ministers.

"We take great pride in China and Pakistan friendship," Hu said, adding China was committed to deepen its strategic partnership with Islamabad and consolidate it.

He said close contacts were maintained between leaders of both countries and regular consultation on major issues in strategic economic and defence fields. — PTI

Mosul, Iraq, November 24
Two suicide bombers, one in a car and the other wearing an explosive vest, killed 22 persons and wounded 26 in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar today, the police in the regional capital Mosul said.

The attack, apparently on civilians at an outdoor market for vehicles, came a day after the deadliest attack in Iraq since the US invasion of 2003, when 202 persons were killed in a series of explosions in a Shi’ite area of Baghdad.

Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, was for a time a stronghold of Sunni insurgent groups linked to Al-Qaida. It has for the past year been held up as an example of successful counter-insurgency operations by the US military.

It is mostly home to Turkish-speaking ethnic Turkmen who are divided between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim believers. Some Sunnis in Tal Afar have complained that the arrival of Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi security forces under the US supervision has led to them being oppressed and discriminated against. — Reuters

BRIEFLY

156 bodies exhumed
Sarajevo: Forensic experts exhumed bodies of 156 persons from a mass grave found recently in north-eastern Bosnia that is believed to be connected to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, officials said on Friday," said Jasna Subotic, spokesman for the district attorney in charge of genocide crimes. — AP

4 insurgents killed in raid
Baghdad: US forces killed four insurgents and detained six others in a raid north of Baghdad on a suspected car bomb manufacturing cell in the early hours today, the US military announced. As the US forces approached the building in the restive village of Tarmiyah, just north of the capital, they came under fire from a nearby mosque, a military statement said. — AFP

‘Mass extinction’
Washington: About 95 per cent of the earth’s marine species and 70 per cent of its land species were wiped out during a “mass extinction” about 250-million years ago, according to Australian and US researchers. The phenomenon fundamentally changed which species survived in the world’s oceans. — AFP