Islamabad, December 27
Pakistan will not act first in any face-off with India but is prepared to defend itself from aggression, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said today.

Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have deteriorated sharply after India blamed Islamist militants based in Pakistan for the last month's attacks on Mumbai that killed 179 people.

In a sign of mounting tension, Pakistan has cancelled army leave and shifted some troops from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern border with India.

That is likely to cause alarm in the United States which does not want to see Pakistan distracted from the battle against al Qaeda and Taliban militants on the Afghan border.

The United States has urged both sides not to further raise tension. China and Iran have also tried to calm things down. Gilani said Pakistan did not want war but was ready for one.

“Our friends are trying their best to persuade India so as to avoid aggression ... to avoid any sort of misadventure,” he told Muslim diplomats at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. “But at the same time, our armed forces are highly professional.

They are fully prepared but at the same time I assure you, once again, that we will not act. We will only react,” Gilani said.

India, the United States and Britain have blamed the Mumbai attack on Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Toiba. — Reuters

Islamabad, December 27
Slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto’s niece Fatima Bhutto, a writer and a social activist, has said that given the Pakistan government’s track record, one can understand India’s lack of faith in the country’s justice system in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

“Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, has insisted that Pakistan is not only working to track down those who may have had links to the attacks but he has also promised that if India’s allegations prove true, the perpetrators will be put on trial,” Fatima wrote in a column for Al-Jazeera.

“The Mumbai attacks, gruesome in nature and planning, have already been given a 9/11 nomenclature - 11/26. That is how many in Mumbai now refer to the violent siege of their city. While the world watches and waits for answers, and for those responsible to be condemned, Pakistan’s government has provided little assurance that peace will prevail between the two countries in the coming year,” she wrote in the article authored, along with her stepmother Ghinwa Bhutto.

Fatima, who is often compared to her aunt Benazir whose first death anniversary is being observed today, criticised the Pakistan government for letting the US drones operate in the country’s airspace.

“The other major achievement has been to sit by as US drones travel through its sovereign airspace and attack Pakistani targets at their own discretion,” she wrote.

According to Fatima, justice for Mumbai and for those killed by unmanned drones in Waziristan is interlinked and the link is inexorably Kashmir.

“Beefing up security apparatuses in capital cities like Dehli and Islamabad is not enough; it is in fact too little. Our governments have proven, in India and Pakistan both, that they cannot give us justice, while our intelligence agencies have shown us that they can no longer be the solution.”

“Rather they are more often a large part of the problem. The solution then is an autonomous, demilitarised Kashmir,” Bhutto’s niece wrote.

It is in their hands that south Asia will ultimately find its peace, but until then, the longer our governments ignore their population’s call for peace, the longer India and Pakistan will both suffer more violence,” added Fatima. — PTI

Baghdad, December 27
A massive bomb tore through a crowd gathered near a bus station in a Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 54, security officials said.

“The toll in the Kadhimiyah explosion has risen to 22 killed and 54 injured,” army spokesman Major General Qassim Atta told AFP.

He said the explosion occurred in parking lot used by commuters near a key city bus terminal in the Shiite neighbourhood of Kadhimiyah, northwest Baghdad.

Initial Iraqi military reports said that the source of the explosion was car bomb. However, a statement from a US military identified the bomb as an improvised explosive device (IED).

An AFP photographer at the scene said the charred remains of one vehicle pointed to car bomb. The force of the explosion was so powerful that body parts had been scattered across houses and vehicles surrounding the site.

The blast, which occurred around midday, echoed for kilometres across the embattled Iraqi capital. Kadhimiyah, site of an important shrine where two respected Shiite Imams are buried, has suffered routine attacks since the 2003 US-led invasion triggered vicious Sunni and Shiite sectarianism.

The level of violence in Baghdad has dropped in recent months but insurgents seem able to strike at will despite the tight security measures in capital of seven million.

Today's bombing was the deadliest in the Iraqi capital since November 10, when at least 28 people were killed, including women and schoolgirls, and dozens wounded in a triple bombing in a market. — AFP

Washington, December 27
Stars of Hollywood, including Halle Berry, Steven Spielberg and bosses of high-tech giants like Google and Microsoft are opening their wallets to help fund Barack Obama’s inauguration party.

Obama, in keeping with his vow to purge US politics of influence peddling, has ordered that the names of all inauguration donors, withheld by previous presidents, be published on the Internet.

Lists of those stumping up for the inauguration on January 20 show that Spielberg and his wife, Kate, each gave the maximum $50,000 donation.

Actress Halle Berry, listed as working for her Bumper Inc. production company, also gave $50,000, as did comedian and actor Jamie Foxx. Sharon Stone of California is also on the list with $50,000.

Obama’s inauguration fund is also attracting big contributions from titans of the US Internet and software industry.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who served on Obama’s campaign economic advisory board, gave $25,000, as did Google co-founder Larry Page and Google vice-president Marissa Mayer.

Former basketball star and businessman Earvin “Magic” Johnson also gave $25,000 and five members of the family of billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros collected $250,000 between them.

The fund is required to pay for the long list of balls and other commemorative events on and around the inauguration day.

Texas, December 27
The United States today urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties in air strikes on Gaza but did not call for an end to the attacks in pursuit of Hamas targets that killed at least 155 people.

The White House said for the violence to end, Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organisation, must stop rocket attacks into Israel.

Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip killing at least 155 people in the bloodiest day for Palestinians in more than 20 years. Palestinian militants responded with rocket fire that killed an Israeli, medics said.

“Hamas’ continued rocket attacks on Israel must cease if the violence is to stop,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Texas where President George W Bush is on vacation at his ranch.

“Hamas must end its terrorist activities if it wishes to play a role in the future of the Palestinian people,” Johndroe said. “The United States urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”

The Bush administration has typically taken the position that Israel has the right to defend itself.

Bush in November 2007 launched an effort to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of this year but all sides have acknowledged that there is no chance of this happening before he leaves office on January 20.

The United States regards Hamas a terrorist organisation and has worked to isolate the Islamist group since it won a Palestinian parliamentary election in January 2006.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned as “criminal” the Israeli air campaign and called for the international community to intervene.

The air strikes followed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet decision to widen reprisals for cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. — Reuters

Cairo/Brussels, December 27
Arab foreign ministers would meet in Cairo tomorrow or Monday to take a common position on Israeli raids, which killed at least 155 people in Gaza, the Arab League chief said on Saturday.

At the same time Libya, the only Arab country on the UN Security Council, would seek an urgent meeting of the council, secretary-general Amr Moussa told reporters.

“The council of Arab foreign ministers will hold an extraordinary and immediate meeting tomorrow or the day after at the request of Jordan,” he said.

“It will take a joint Arab position on what is happening and at the same time agree on the steps to be taken,” he said.

Moussa said the attacks today were only the beginning. “We are facing a continuing spectacle which has been carefully planned. So we have to expect that there will be many casualties. We face a major humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.

Meanwhile, the European Union today called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. “We are very concerned at the events in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and urge everybody to exert maximum restraint,” a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

“Everything must be done to renew the truce,” he added.Israeli war planes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip today, killing at least 155 people and prompting rocket fire from Palestinian militants that killed an Israeli, medics said. — Reuters

The secretary-general’s high-level panel for the parliamentary elections would report to him on the conduct of the electoral process and developments in the immediate post-election period. — PTI

Mexico City, December 27
A Mexican beauty queen was sentenced to 40 days in jail after she was arrested with an alleged Ciudad Juarez drug cartel leader and a group of heavily armed men.

Laura Zuniga (23) was picked up late Monday at a military checkpoint in the western state of Jalisco, while travelling with seven armed men in two vehicles carrying $1,00,000 in cash, government sources said.

A judge yesterday ordered “the cautionary measure” of 40 days of detention for Zuniga and the men “for probably committing crimes” relating to drug trafficking and transporting weapons, the office of Mexico’s attorney-general said.

Zuniga was picked up, along with Angel Orlando Garcia Urquizar, “presumed to be one of the leaders of the Juarez Cartel,” the statement read. The police earlier identified Zuniga as Garcia Urquizar’s girlfriend.

Zuniga was crowned ‘Miss Sinaloa’ in July, and also won the Queen of Hispanic America contest in November in Bolivia.

At the time of the arrests, authorities said they found two AR-15 rifles, three pistols, 633 cartridges and 16 mobile phones, along with the cash, in the vehicles.

Garcia Urquizar’s brother Ricardo, known as “The Doctor,” was also a top Juarez drug cartel operative until his arrest in 2005.

The Juarez cartel is believed to be responsible for smuggling up to 20 per cent of all cocaine consumed in the US, for annual profits of $660 million.

The group was “just coming to town. They came from different places and the young woman said the money was for making purchases in Bolivia and Colombia,” said Jalisco public security director Alejandro Solorio. — AFP