PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto said on Saturday her talks with President Musharraf have stalled without reaching any agreement and declared she would be returning to country for which date would be announced on September 14.

Blaming a 'core element’ in the ruling Pakistan Muslim for the stalemate, Bhutto did not close the door with Musharraf for what she described as a "negotiated transition to democracy".

There are reports that both Musharraf and Bhutto are meeting again in Abu Dhabi some time this week to salvage the dialogue process.

Bhutto parried questions about prospects of another meeting with Musharraf, but dropped the hint that she was waiting for a word from the Presidency about the future of the dialogue process.

She also refused to give exact date of her return saying:" The date and venue of my return will be announced by the PPP on September 14 from Islamabad and provincial capitals".

Bhutto told a questioner that the agreement had almost been reached with Musharraf and the two sides were still discussing three points regarding supremacy of parliament, the presidential election and impediments in her election to a third term due to a law that clamped a ban on two-time prime ministers.

In Islamabad, PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain told MQM leaders that the talks with Bhutto have failed because of her demands that included accepting her as future prime minister to the detriment of present ruling coalition.

Shujaat said Bhutto has also come down to demand chairmanship of the Senate, where her party has only seven seats in the 100-member upper house.

Bhutto repeated that she is not in competition with Nawaz Sharif, who is returning on September 10. But Shujaat said Sharif will not return to Pakistan on the promised date.

Attorney general Qayyum Malik told Dawn TV Saturday that Nawaz would be arrested on arrival and put in jail to serve the remainder of the life term after withdrawal of the concession allowed to him in 2000 on promise to live in exile for 10 years.

He said Nawaz was also disqualified from contesting any election because of conviction on charge of hijacking Musharraf's plane. He has also been declared absconder in another case.

About Bhutto, Malik said she is facing several corruption cases but has not been convicted. He was not sure what would be government's stance to pursue these cases if she returns to the country.

In her news conference, she focused mainly on menace of terrorism and militancy in an apparent attempt to address US concerns and accused PML leaders for aligning with forces of extremism in the country. She said her party stood for a democratic, moderate and progressive Pakistan devoted to improving the lot for common man.

While Bhutto spared Musharraf of any criticism, she hit hard his coalition partners who have thrown a spanner in Musharraf-Bhutto understanding. She was also critical of religious grouping the Muttahida Majlise Amal (MMA) for sharing power with the government in Balochistan and supporting the 17 th Amendment.

She made some sarcastic remarks about Nawaz Sharif for securing his release through a deal with Musharraf in 2002 and Imran Khan for his support to Musharraf during the 2002 referendum.

She said she has not shut the door for contacts with Nawaz Sharif, adding that he himself has opted out of the Alliance for Restoration of Demcoracy (ARD) to join the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), which included all opposition parties and groups sans PPP. She said her party would consider talking to APDM if the MMA quits Balochistan government.

The PPP chairperson is due to return to Dubai on Sunday and may take a brief trip to the United States for a meeting with US envoy to UN Zalme-Khalil, who has been her main contact with Bush administration. On Friday, she also held a meeting with British foreign secretary David Miliband to brief him about the snags that have hit her talks with Musharraf.

London, September 1
An Indian-origin policewoman in Britain faces jail sentence after she was found guilty of claiming insurance by lying that she had been robbed of her mobile phones.

Davinder Gill (30) was convicted by a jury of obtaining property by deception following three hours of deliberation.

Gill allegedly made four such false insurance claims over a three-year period. Earlier this month, she was pleaded guilty to charges of obtaining property by deception in 2005 and 2006, and another count of attempting to obtain property by deception in 2004.

Gill told the court that on two occasions her phone had been stolen but she made up a crime number because she was too lazy to report it.

City court Judge David Elvin, while granting her bail yesterday, warned Gill that he was considering “all options” and adjourned the sentencing for October 9.

He said: “As a police officer if these offences had been committed in the line of duty, it would most probably be a custodial sentence.”

In April last year, she told fellow officers that she was robbed of her handbag on her way home and as a result received another phone.

However, detectives found that the handbag was handed over to the lost property department at a pub in central London, where she had been drinking that evening. — PTI

Spin Boldak, September 1
South Korea paid Afghanistan's Taliban more than 20 million dollars to release 19 missionaries they were holding hostage, a senior insurgent leader said today, vowing to use the funds to buy arms and mount suicide attacks.

The freed hostages flew out of Afghanistan yesterday to Dubai en route South Korea.

Seoul denies paying a ransom, but critics say negotiating with the Taliban sets a dangerous precedent that could spur more kidnappings — which the Taliban have vowed to carry out.

“We deny any payment for the release of South Korean hostages,” an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House said today in response to the Taliban claim.

But the Taliban disagreed. “We got more than 20 million dollars from them (the Seoul government),” the commander told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“With it we will purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles for carrying out more suicide attacks.”

“The money will also address to some extent the financial difficulties we have had,” he said, but did not elaborate.

The commander is on the 10-man leadership council of the Islamist Taliban movement, which is led by the elusive Mullah Mohammad Omar.

He rejected an Afghan government claim that a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Brother, was killed in a US-led operation on Thursday in the southern province of Helmand.

“This report is just propaganda,” he said.

The South Korean Christian volunteers, part of a group of 23 missionaries kidnapped in southeast Afghanistan in mid-July, arrived in Dubai on a chartered United Nations plane overnight and were due to fly on to Seoul today.

Seoul had already decided before the crisis to withdraw its 200 engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of 2008. Since the hostages were taken, it has banned its nationals from travelling there. — Reuters

Washington, September 1
A Sikh man has sued a Texas judge who allegedly ordered him out of a courtroom for refusing to remove his turban while defending himself in a traffic citation case.

In the lawsuit filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the state district court in Dallas yesterday, Amardeep Singh charged Judge Albert Cercone with religious discrimination.

Singh was "deeply humiliated" as he was forced to remove the turban which is an integral part of a Sikh's identity, ACLU's Legal Director Lisa Graybill said.

The incident happened in June, 2006, when Singh, who was defending himself in a speeding case, was ordered out of Judge Cercone's courtroom and threatened with arrest on refusing to remove his turban.

Singh said that he tried to explain the judge that his faith requires wearing a turban but Cercone ordered him to leave the courtroom or face arrest under a "no hats" policy.

"There is no question that Amardeep Singh's rights have been violated.... Judge Cercone not only denied Singh his basic rights to religious practice while defending himself in court, he caused him deep humiliation as well," Graybill said. — PTI

Instead, he said he needed to make more than his salary of USD 168,000 through speechmaking . — AP