Former federal minister of Pakistan Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has resigned from the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and announced to launch his own party - Awami Muslim League (AML).

Rashid, who suffered a crushing defeat in February 18 elections and was a candidate in the byelection being held on the same seat vacated by PML-N leader Javed Hashmi, also announced his withdrawal from the contest. Hashmi had won on three seats and opted to retain the seat in his home constituency of Multan. The PML-N had offered to support Supreme Court Bar Association president and PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan, but he later withdrew to focus only on the lawyers’ movement for restoration of deposed judges.

Rashid said since he was unable to play his role in the PML-Q, he had decided to resign and form his own party. He vowed to make AML a truly people’s party, dedicated to serve the cause of poor and downtrodden. 
“My party will not be revolutionary, but will work for the welfare of people. It will become the voice of the destitute,” said Rashid.

Although he was accompanied by ‘nazims’ of several local councils of Rawalpindi, he could not name any political figure of some consequence who would join or support his party. However, he claimed that some key political figures would join the AML soon.

Meanwhile, Rashid said he would continue to support President Musharraf but clarified that he has not met him since the assembly was dissolved in November last year. He also predicted that two of the highest figures in the present government would soon fade out. Asked if he was alluding to Musharraf and the deposed chief justice, Rashid quipped: “That is for you to guess.”

Rashid added that he wished the present coalition stays together but things were fast moving towards its disintegration that may trigger early elections, in which he would participate. 

London, June 2
Fashion king Yves Saint Laurent, considered as one of the greatest designers of the 20th century who revolutionised women's clothing with an audacious new dress code, has died.

The French maestro, whose slinky tuxedo suits and safari jackets became a symbol of women's liberation in the 1960s, died at his Paris home last night at the age of 71, his longtime business associate Pierre Berge said. Laurent was suffering from brain tumour.

The last of a famous generation that included Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and made Paris the fashion capital of the world, Laurent designed clothes that foresaw the rise of working women and their changing role in society. He was credited with reworking the rules of the world of designing, providing for both functional and fashion needs of women. From see-through blouses, safari jackets and glamorous gowns, Laurent created instant classics that remain stylish decades later.

He once said he felt “fashion was not only supposed to make women beautiful, but to reassure them, to give them confidence, to allow them to come to terms with themselves”. — PTI 

London, June 2
Nobel prize-winning poet Derek Walcott has hit out at V.S. Naipaul in a manner he knows best - verse. The poet, who told the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica that he was going to be “nasty”, before mocking Naipul as a mongoose in a poem he composed, reports the Telegraph.

"I have been bitten. I must avoid infection. Or else I'll be as dead as Naipaul's fiction,” the poem opens.

He also attacks Naipaul's later novels “Half a Life” and “Magic Seeds”, with the words: “The plots are forced, the prose sedate and silly. The anti-hero is a prick named Willie." This is not the first time that the two Nobel winners have been at odds. Walcott has once called "VS Nightfall" in verse.

Walcott has been vocal about what he thinks about Naipaul's rejection of his Caribbean heritage.

He was particularly outraged when Naipaul, whose ancestors were Indian labourers who moved to Trinidad in the 19th century, thanked Britain and India in his Nobel acceptance speech, but not the country of his birth.

Patrick French, Naipaul's biographer, said: "Knowing Naipaul, he'll say nothing and then at some point he will lash out. He said to me once, 'I settle all my accounts’”. — ANI

Stockholm, June 2
Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has arrived in Sweden where she has been offered a safe haven, the Upsala Nya Tidning newspaper reported on Monday.

The city council of the university city of Uppsala, north of Stockholm, would pay Nasreen a monthly stipend of 5,000 kronor ($833) and would also pay for her accommodation during a two-year period, the report said.

It is the second time Nasreen will live in Sweden. In 1994 she was forced to leave Bangladesh after Islamic fundamentalist groups in her native country issued a fatwa and placed a bounty on her head over the content in her writings, including the novel, “Lajja” (Shame).

Nasreen, who is also a trained doctor, lived for more than a decade in Europe and the US. She later lived in Kolkata but was forced last year to leave West Bengal's state capital after violent protests by Muslim fundamentalist groups who said her writings were offensive to Islam. The 45-year-old Nasreen was reported to be in poor health, and suffering from a heart problem. — DPA

London, June 2
Indians form the largest group of highly skilled migrant workers in Britain, a new report said today and called for more workers from abroad to secure the future of the country's high-tech industries.

The report titled, "Towards a Global Labour Market", by the Work Foundation said that the UK would need to attract more highly skilled workers from abroad in order to secure the future of high technology, knowledge-intensive industries in an increasingly global world.

Policymakers must do more to ensure that the UK remains an attractive place for highly skilled migrants who want to come here, the foundation said.

"A climate of hostility towards immigration in general has the potential to harm the ability of firms to attract skilled and talented people from abroad," the report warned.

In 2005, 45,000 professionals came from India, 25,000 from the US, 10,000 from the Philippines, 8,000 from South Africa and 6,500 from Australia on official records.

Katerina Rdiger, author of a new report, said: "Global firms need more global people -- not just to fill shortages, but for the sake of enabling firms to innovate.The UK needs to be seen, along with the US, Canada and Australia, as being among the most open and attractive places for highly skilled people to want to move". — PTI

BRIEFLY

Macedonian PM declares victory
SKOPJE: Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has declared victory in Macedonia's early parliamentary election after a vote marred by gunbattles that left one dead and eight wounded. Gruevski says his centre-right VMRO-DPMNE won enough votes in Sunday’s ballot to gain a majority of Parliament's 120 seats. — AP

Earthquake hits Taiwan
TAIPEI: A 6.0 magnitude earthquake has struck northern Taiwan, rattling buildings, but causing no damage or casualties, officials said. The Central Weather Bureau said the quake struck 20 km north of the north-eastern city of Ilan on Sunday. Ilan is about 70 km east of the capital of Taipei. — AP

40 hurt in B’desh blasts
DHAKA: At least 40 persons were injured in a series of explosions and an ensuing fire at a hotel here, the police said on Monday. The blasts took place at around 9:30 on Sunday night at Hotel Orchard, a 12-floor building in central Dhaka. A Sri Lankan national was badly injured when the first blast went off, it said, adding that two more loud explosions within two hours rocked the hotel. — PTI

Fire in Hollywood studio
UNIVERSAL CITY (US): A fire broke out in one of Hollywood's largest movie studios, Universal Studios, destroying a set from "Back to the Future", a King Kong exhibit and a streetscape seen frequently in movies and TV shows. — AP

Lanka floods kill 6
Colombo: Flash floods due to heavy rain have left at least six persons dead and over 80,000 marooned across Sri Lanka, officials said. The government on Sunday released Sri Lankan Rs 15 million to provide immediate relief to the affected. The rain displaced thousands in the southern districts of Galle and Kalutara, the south-eastern districts of Kegalla and Ratnapura and the central hill areas since Friday. Displaced families had been provided temporary shelters. — PTI