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Zardari talks with JUI-F, MQM inconclusive
We don’t want confrontation with Mush: PPP
36 killed in Pak suicide blast
Hanging of ‘Chemical Ali’ approved
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N-deal: US cautions India
UK enforces point-based immigration system
Mittal’s house on sale
‘Prince Harry to be withdrawn from Afghanistan’
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Zardari talks with JUI-F, MQM inconclusive
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Zardari has promised the nation “good news soon” on formation of national government following a meeting with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and beginning of a dialogue with Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), even while inconclusive.
Zardari went to Parliament lodges along with top leaders of the party, including Makhdoom Amin Fahim, to meet Fazl whose party has received heavy drubbing in the elections but have mustered sufficient strengthen to influence government formation in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan. The PPP is particularly keen to form government in Balochistan with the help of Independents, JUI and some other nationalist parties to outwit pro-Musharraf PML-Q that takes its claim to government formation with 17 seats in the 61-member House against seven each for the JUI and the PPP. Musharraf’s pre-emptive action to appoint Zulfiqar Magsi as Governor is viewed by the PPP as an attempt to garner support for PML-Q and undermine PPP’s efforts to cobble together a coalition. The PPP and the JUI held another round of talks on Friday. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Maulana Fazl said the two sides had agreed that the country needed political unity and a government of national consensus. He said his party would support these efforts even though its central committee decided to sit in the Opposition if these efforts failed. Fazl said the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) would support constitutional amendments aimed at restoring the sovereignty of Parliament and removing distortions injected by Musharraf through a host of constitutional amendments, including the 17th Amendment in whose adoption his party had played key role. Fazl said Musharraf reneged his promise to shed his uniform that absolved the MMA from continuing to support the 17th Amendment. Zardari has held flurry of meetings with a cross section of political and social figures. He assured a delegation of the families of missing persons led by Amna Masood Janjua that the PPP was committed to tracing the missing persons. Talking to a delegation of the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists, Zardari said the PPP would ensure freedom of the press, ending curbs on private channels under PEMRA laws, strengthen law on access to information and converting the information ministry into a facilitator for the press instead of controlling it.
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We don’t want confrontation with Mush: PPP
Islamabad, February 29 Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Punjab unit president of the Pakistan People’s Party and a contender for the post of Prime Minister, said the relationship between the future government and the presidency is a “sensitive issue” and one of the challenges confronting his party. The 51-year-old Cambridge-educated parliamentarian told Dawn News channel that the PPP did not want any confrontation with Musharraf and would not “rock the boat”. Asked if he had any advice for Musharraf, Qureshi said the President should support democracy by letting the government of the day function according to the constitution. The PPP wanted to act “maturely” and avoid any confrontation with the President, Qureshi added.
— PTI
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36 killed in Pak suicide blast
Islamabad, February 29 The bomber blew himself up this evening in the midst of a large number of people attending the funeral prayers for deputy superintendent of police Javed Iqbal Mastikhel, who was killed with three of his guards in a roadside bomb attack in the morning. “It was a suicide attack,” said interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema. Most of those killed and injured in the suicide bombing at Mingora, the main town of Swat district in the North West Frontier Province, were policemen. Among the dead were Mingora’s station house officer Habib Zaman, officials said. — PTI
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Hanging of ‘Chemical Ali’ approved
Baghdad, February 29 Iraq's presidency council, made up of president Jalal Talabani and his two deputies, has for months blocked the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majeed and two others convicted last June of a genocidal campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. While the council was not against hanging Majeed, there was internal disagreement over whether his two co-accused, Saddam's former defence minister, Sultan Hashem, and a former army commander, Hussein Rashid Muhammed, should suffer the same fate. The legal wrangle has held up the execution of all three, who were due to have gone to the gallows within days of an Iraqi appeals court upholding their death sentences last September.
— Reuters
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Washington, February 29 "We now are in the vanguard. We're the leading country that will support the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in making an international case that all nations should engage in nuclear trade with India. That cannot happen without the US, because that NSG, of which we are a leading member, has to decide by a consensus," the top US negotiator for the deal Nicholas Burns said. "The Indian Government is not suggesting this, but in your worst-case scenario, if there was an attempt to say 'well, we're going to forget about the deal with the US, but go forward', it couldn't happen, because the NSG wouldn't make the decision in that case," Burns said. Amid reports that New Delhi could abandon the US deal to engage in civil nuclear trade with other nations, Burns maintained it was "impossible" because what has to happen has to happen in Washington. — PTI
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UK enforces point-based immigration system
London, February 29 The penalty could be raised to an unlimited fine or jail, an official said. The British government had earlier put up a fine of 5,000 pounds for firms hiring illegal immigrants in the country. Home secretary Jacqui Smith described the new laws for people from outside the European Union as “the biggest changes to British immigration policy in a generation, which includes a new deal for those migrants seeking citizenship here, a new UK border agency to strengthen controls at the borders and the introduction of ID cards for foreign nationals”. According to the new regulations, highly skilled migrants who wish to extend their stay in Britain will have to have suitable employment. The points-based system will be tested for highly skilled migrants from India applying to work in the UK from April and would be extended to the rest of the world by the summer. — PTI
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London, February 29 Mittal’s Summer Palace on Bishops Avenue — the ultimate Billionaires’ row in London — is one of Britain’s most expensive homes. But, the world’s largest steel maker has placed his property on the market with an asking price of £ 40 million after the Barratt family’s plans to construct luxury apartments were approved by the authorities, the British media reported today. — PTI
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‘Prince Harry to be withdrawn from Afghanistan’
London, February 29 The British army had been widely expected to pull the 23-year-old prince out of the war-torn country after a US website broke a news embargo imposed for security reasons when the prince was deployed in mid-December. Harry’s posting to Afghanistan makes him the first British royal to be sent into combat in more than a quarter of a century. His unit of the Household Cavalry was fighting Taliban extremists in the restive Helmand province in the south of the country.
— AFP
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