Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has denied reports that the present Pakistan government has a covert understanding with the United States that permits drone attacks inside Pakistan.

Responding to points of orders by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz legislator Ahsan Iqbal and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid member Raza Hayat Hiraj in the National Assembly, Qureshi said the government had no formal or informal understanding with the US government permitting aerial attacks on Al-Qaida or Taliban targets in Pakistani territory.

The Washington Post in a reports said the US and Pakistani governments have reached a tacit agreement on Predator strikes on Pakistani territory, under which Islamabad allows them while continuing to complain about them and Washington never acknowledges them. Under this don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, unmanned US drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days recently.

Under this don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, unmanned US drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days recently, Washington Post said.

Qureshi said Pakistan has been raising the issue with the US administration on bilateral and international forums to stop violating Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty. He said the British, German and Italian foreign ministers had supported Pakistan’s stance and the NATO secretary-general had dissociated himself from the drone attacks “because of Pakistan’s successful diplomacy”.

He said the government would also take up the issue with the new US administration and hopes that the Obama staff would review the policy.

Information minister Sherry Rehman said Washington Post report about the alleged tacit understanding was concocted and the newspaper had not identified its source. 

Beijing, November 18
China today denied it had illicitly sought technical data for space launch vehicles from the US, after a physicist from Virginia pleaded guilty to illegally exporting the information to China. The US justice department yesterday said Shu Quan-Sheng (68), a China native who was a naturalised US citizen, entered the guilty plea in the federal court in Norfolk, Virginia.

Shu admitted that from 2003, through October of 2007, he violated the US arms export control law by providing China with assistance in the design and development of a cryogenic fuelling system for space launch vehicles.

He admitted that in 2003, he violated the same law by exporting to the China military technical data from a document about designing and making a liquid hydrogen tank and various pumps, valves, filters and instruments.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang dismissed the case.

“The so-called (allegation) of China stealing space technology from the US is a sheer nonsense,” Qin said.

“It has ulterior motives, which will not be successful,” he added, without elaborating.

Shu also pleaded guilty to offering bribes of nearly $1,90,000 to Chinese government officials to win the award last year of a $ 4 million contract for a hydrogen liquefier project for a French company Shu represented, the US justice department said.

Shu faces up to 10 years in prison on each of the export violations and up to five years for violating the foreign corrupt practices law, department officials said. 
— Reuters

Gaza City (Gaza Strip), November 18
Israeli tanks forged into the southern Gaza Strip today, drawing mortar fire from Palestinian militants and intensifying violence that has chipped away at a tenuous cease-fire.

Israel and Hamas have been trading fire for two weeks after nearly five months of relative quiet. The June 19 truce is due to expire next month, and both sides might be trying to dictate more favourable terms in anticipation of the agreement’s renewal. The tanks, backed by a bulldozer and military jeep, rumbled about half-a-km deep into the tiny seaside strip, residents and Gaza security officials said. Residents said they levelled lands along the border east of the city of Rafah. It was the first ground action in a week.

The tanks did not respond to the Palestinian fire.

The Israeli military described the activity as “a routine operation to uncover explosive devices near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip.” It said two mortars were fired at troops, causing no injuries or damage.

The militant groups said they fired both mortars and rockets. At least 17 militants have been killed since the truce began unravelling, and by the military’s count, the militants have fired more than 140 rockets and mortars at Israel.

In an effort to squelch the rocket fire, Israel has kept cargo crossings into Gaza clamped shut for the most part, drastically restricting vital supplies.

Both Israel and leaders of Gaza’s ruling the Islamic militant Hamas movement have said they hoped the Egyptian-brokered truce could be preserved. — AP

BRIEFLY

WARSAW
Poles awarded for saving Jews: A number of Poles were awarded medals for risking their lives during World War II to save Jews from the Holocaust. President Lech Kaczynski awarded state medals - many posthumously - to around 70 persons from across Poland. First Lady Maria Kaczynska presented them to the people or their relatives in a gala ceremony at Warsaw’s National Theatre on Monday. Among those awarded was Zofia Brusikiewicz (81), whose parents hid 13 Jews in an apartment in Warsaw. — AP

LONDON
Bishop visits Balaji temple: The top bishop in Britain has visited Europe’s largest Hindu temple in the country to celebrate the growing “friendship” between the Hindus and Christians in the UK. The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who visited the Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) temple in Tividale in the suburbs of Birmingham in west central England, said he accepted the invitation by the trustees of the temple as “a sign of the celebration of friendship and the facing of challenges with hope.” —PTI

FRANKFURT AN DER ODER (GERMANY)
Russia returns artwork: Six medieval stained-glass windowpanes looted by the Red Army during World War II were returned to a German church, where officials said they hoped to negotiate the return of other plundered artworks. The windows complete a 117-panel set that depicts the Bible in pictures. The 14th-century panels will be restored and reinstalled at the Marienkirche, a church near Germany’s border with Poland. — AP

NAIROBI
Ivory seized, 57 held: The Kenya Wildlife Service says the authorities in five African countries have seized about a ton of illegal ivory in a joint operation. Kenya’s conservation agency says 57 suspects have been arrested after a four-month investigation in the Republics of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. The authorities have also recovered hippo teeth and skins of cheetahs, leopards and pythons in the operation. The agency announced the seizures in a statement on Tuesday. — AP

BEIJING
Govt office attacked: A crowd of about 1,000 persons attacked a government office in northwest China, smashing cars and beating police and officials in a riot sparked by a property dispute, the local government said on Tuesday. A group of more than 30 persons seeking redress for the loss of their homes and land were joined by hundreds of people outside a petitions office in Longnan, Gansu province, the Longnan City government said in a statement. — Reuters

MADRID
Suspected ETA military chief arrested in France: The French police has arrested the suspected leader of Basque separatist rebels ETA, believed to be behind attacks including the bombing of Madrid airport in 2006, the Spanish and French governments said on Monday. Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known by his alias “Txeroki” or “Cherokee” and Spain’s most wanted man, was arrested along with female ETA suspect Leire Lopez in a flat in Cauterets, in France’s mountainous Pyrenean region near the Spanish border. It was the latest in a series of captures of senior ETA figures and appeared to be the biggest blow to the organization since May, when ETA’s top commander Francisco Javier Lopez Pena was arrested in the French city of Bordeaux. — Reuters