Assembly session on Friday was prorogued sine die with the coalition government failing to introduce the promised resolution for restoration of sacked judges.

In a related development, the newly created Islamabad High Court dismissed a writ petition seeking to restrain the National Assembly from adopting a resolution for reinstating the judges. The petitioner, Molvi Iqbal Haider, accused of playing the front man for the secret agencies, had maintained that the dismissal of judges by General Pervez Musharraf on November 3 was validated by the Supreme Court and had become part of the Constitution. The petitioner failed to appear before the court.

A six-member panel of two main partners in the coalition, the PPP and the PML-N, which met here late Thursday night, was stuck over some “technical details”, federal minister and a senior member of the panel from the PML-N told reporters here. He said the judges would be restored to their November 2 position before General Musharraf imposed emergency and sacked sixty judges of the superior courts.

He said the finalisation of the resolution might be delayed by a couple of days with the panel sorting out technical details for implementation of the resolution. He said there was no question of accepting the “minus-one” formula that may envisage pre-maturely retiring chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Law minister Farooq Naek said the issue would be resolved soon. He said the Assembly session could be convened any time once an agreed draft was evolved. He dismissed speculations that the Presidency was exerting pressure on the coalition government to block the restoration of judges. 

Beijing, April 25
China, under pressure from the international community to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama, today said it would soon have a meeting with a “private representative” of Tibetan spiritual leader.

“In view of the requests repeatedly made by the Dalai side for resuming talks, the relevant department of the central government will have contact and consultation with his private representative in the coming days,” Xinhua news agency said quoting an unnamed official.

“The policy of the central government towards the Dalai Lama has been consistent and the door of dialogue has remained open,” the official was quoted as saying.

China has been insisting that the doors for the dialogue with the Dalai Lama, living in exile in India, were open but he must give up what it called his “separatist activities”, stop attempts to “sabotage” the Beijing Olympics and accept Tibet and Taiwan as inalienable parts of China.

The Dalai Lama, whom China has accused of having orchestrated the recent violence in Tibet and elsewhere during the most vicious anti-government protests in two decades that have left 20 persons dead, has insisted that he was not seeking independence of Tibet and was ready for a dialogue with the Chinese government.

“It is hoped that through contact and consultation, the Dalai side would take credible moves to stop activities aimed at splitting China, stop plotting and inciting violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic games so as to create conditions for talks,” Xinhua quoted the official as saying.

China has been coming under mounting global pressure, including from US President George W. Bush, to hold dialogue with the Dalai Lama since the anti-government protests erupted in Tibet. — PTI

New Delhi, April 25
Indian national Mohammed Nayeem who was kidnapped from the Afghanistan province of Herat four days ago is safe, official sources said on Friday.

“As of this morning he is safe,” a senior official of the ministry of external affairs said. “We are trying our best to get him released and this is the information we have about his safety,” the official said.

Nayeem, who works for Dubai-based HEB International Logistics, was kidnapped on Monday evening. No group has so far claimed responsibility.

Nayeem was abducted less than a fortnight after a suicide bomber on April 12 blew himself up next to an Indian road crew in Afghanistan, killing two Indian workers and their Afghan driver.

India has already announced its decision to send more security personnel to Afghanistan to guard Indian installations. — IANS 

BRIEFLY

First cloned dog set to produce offspring
SEOUL: The world’s first cloned dog will become a father next month in the first breeding of cloned canines, South Korean researchers were quoted on Friday as saying. Snuppy, the cloned Afghan hound, successfully impregnated two cloned bitches of the same breed through artificial insemination, the Seoul National University researchers said. — AFP

New way to fight Alzheimer's
LONDON: A new kind of drug designed to “hitch-hike” into cells reversed signs of Alzheimer’s disease when injected into the brains of mice and may become a potent new treatment for humans, German scientists said. The compound effectively blocks an enzyme responsible for the build-up of sticky deposits, or plaques, in the brain by attaching to exactly the right spot on the cell wall, where the toxic activity takes place, they wrote in the journal Science. — Reuters

Bhatt’s film to be released in Pak
ISLAMABAD: Bollywood filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt's next venture "Jannat", which takes a close look at match fixing in cricket, is likely to be released in Pakistan on May 2. Emraan Hashmi, who plays a leading role, is expected to attend the Pakistani premiere of the film. Though both Mahesh Bhatt and his producer brother Mukesh Bhatt say the film is not about sports but about youngsters falling prey to consumerism, it has a scene which seems to be a take on Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer's mysterious death. — PTI