W O R L D

Nawaz Sharif gives ‘oust-Zardari’ call
Joins thousands of protesters on the long march
Islamabad, March 15
Pakistan plunged deeper into a political chaos tonight as a defiant Nawaz Sharif, joined by tens of thousands of supporters in Lahore, was headed towards Islamabad for a mass sit-in front of Parliament tomorrow amid reports that IGP of Punjab province's police and other senior officials had resigned and joined his 'long march' for restoration of the constitution.

Protesters throw stones at the police during a countrywide anti-government protest march in Lahore on Sunday. — Reuters

Zardari ‘keen’ to hold talks with Sharif London, March 15
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is keen to have a dialogue with Opposition Leader Nawaz Sharif and is awaiting a “positive response” from him to resolve the current political crisis, Islamabad’s High Commissioner said here today.	Asif Ali Zardari    awaz Sharif

Clinton steps in to bring down tempers in Pak
Washington, March 15
Amidst deepening political crisis in Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tried to bring down the tempers between the two rival camps by making personal calls to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and his main political rival and former premier Nawaz Sharif.

Backup crew of the Soyuz TMA-14 space mission (from left) entrepreneur Esther Dyson of Switzerland, US astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev pose for a picture in front of the monument to Yuri Gagarin at Baikonur on Sunday. The space mission is scheduled for this year. — Reuters

Old age begins at 27: Study
London, March 15
Believe it or not, old age begins at 27, say researchers. A new study has revealed that many well-known effects of ageing may start decades before the twilight years when old age is often blamed for causing many people to misplace keys, forget a word or lose the train of thought.

Displaced Tamils to move into independent houses
Colombo, March 15
The hundreds of displaced Tamils who arrived last month from embattled Northern Wanni and were forced to share a room with many others in a Vavuniya school are being moved to independent tin houses in a sprawling camp in the district.

Lankan army kills 57 rebels
Colombo, March 15
Sri Lankan troops today moved further into the last LTTE held territory of Pudhukudiyyiruppu in the Wanni region in the embattled north and killed at least 57 Tamil Tigers in fierce clashes.

Militants torch NATO supply containers
Islamabad, March 15
Pro-Taliban militants destroyed about 20 containers with supplies meant for coalition forces in Afghanistan during an attack today on a transport terminal in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, an official said.

Bomb kills four NATO soldiers
Kabul, March 15
Four NATO-led soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan today, the alliance said, one of the deadliest attacks against foreign troops in recent weeks in the country.

Doctors Without Borders Laura Archer of Canada (right), Mauro D’Ascanio of Italy (left) and Raphael Meunier of France (center background) are escorted after their release from captivity in Darfur, at Karthoum airport, Sudan, on Saturday. Three foreign aid workers abducted in Sudan’s lawless Darfur region were released unharmed on Saturday, three days after their capture at gunpoint led international aid groups to question whether they can stay in the area. — AP/PTI

Nawaz Sharif gives ‘oust-Zardari’ call
Joins thousands of protesters on the long march

Islamabad, March 15
Pakistan plunged deeper into a political chaos tonight as a defiant Nawaz Sharif, joined by tens of thousands of supporters in Lahore, was headed towards Islamabad for a mass sit-in front of Parliament tomorrow amid reports that IGP of Punjab province's police and other senior officials had resigned and joined his 'long march' for restoration of the constitution.

Heading for a showdown with the government, Sharif, who gave a call “to oust President Asif Ali Zardari”, defied his house arrest in Lahore as one of Pakistan's biggest civil disobedience movement unfolded with hundreds of stone-throwing anti-government protesters fighting pitched battles with police in the capital of Punjab province. The Punjab Deputy Attorney General was also reported to have resigned.

As Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met Army chief General Ashfaq Gilani to discuss the escalating situation, the protests by lawyers and PML-N supporters for restoration of judges sacked in 2007 by the then President Pervez Musharraf gathered steam and threatened to spiral out of control after Sharif defied the house arrest.

Emerging from his Model Town residence, Sharif, who, as per his party supporters, along with his brother Shahbaz Sharif was ordered to be placed under house arrest for three days, urged people to defy restrictions and join the 'long march'.

"Brothers, do not be scared or worried. These obstacles are temporary. We must remove them and only then can we reach our destination," he said.

Denouncing his house arrest order as illegal, Sharif told his flag-waving and chanting supporters, "These are the decisive moments." "After 1947, this is the second time that the country needs you," the former premier said.

Sharif told supporters before leaving for the GPO chowk from his residece, "I tell every Pakistani youth that this is not the time to stay home; Pakistan is calling you to come and save me."

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik, however, claimed no orders had been issued for putting the Sharif brothers under house arrest. Sharif's younger brother and former Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz, who was in the garrison city of Rawalpindi at a PML-N leader's residence, gave a slip to police and went into hiding before he could be served order for his house arrest, a PML-N spokesman said.

The government also issued orders for the detention of Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed and cricket-turned- politician Imran Khan, the leader of Tehrik-e-Insaf party, both of whom are in hiding, local media reports said.

On the penultimate day of the long march, which was launched on March 12, a large police contingent fired tear-gas shells and rubber bullets to disperse lawyers, civil society activists and workers of the PML-N, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and Jamaat-e-Islami parties, who had gathered at GPO Chowk in Lahore to join the rally to Islamabad.

The police also put under house arrest several other senior PML-N leaders, including Senator Ishaq Dar, parliamentarian Saad Rafiq and Zulfikar Khosa, the chief of the party's unit in Lahore. Dissident PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan, a key player in the lawyers' movement, too, was placed under house arrest.

Supporters accompanying Sharif's swelling convoy smashed the windows of buses parked along the route. Others set fire to tyres, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky. To thwart them, authorities parked trucks across major roads on the edge of the city, and riot police took up positions outside the railway station and government buildings. — PTI

Zardari ‘keen’ to hold talks with Sharif

London, March 15
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is keen to have a dialogue with Opposition Leader Nawaz Sharif and is awaiting a “positive response” from him to resolve the current political crisis, Islamabad’s High Commissioner said here today.

“Zardari wants to begin a dialogue with Sharif and the President has sent a message and is looking forward to some sort of positive response from Sharif,” Wajid Samsul Hasan told the Sky News.

Asked whether the Pakistani army would take advantage of the situation, Hasan said: “I don’t think the army is in a position to get involved because they don’t want to get involved. They have too much on their plate at the moment. The army has a full-fledged war against terrorism. The concern of the whole nation is that this situation could be taken advantage by terrorists to create law and problem and bloodshed in the country.”

Pakistan plunged deeper into a political chaos tonight as a defiant Sharif joined by tens of thousands of supporters in Lahore headed towards Islamabad for a mass sit-in front of Parliament tomorrow.

The former premier defied a house arrest order as one of the Pakistan’s biggest civil disobedience movement unfolded with hundreds of stone-throw ing anti-government protesters fighting pitched battles with the police in the capital of Punjab province. — PTI

Clinton steps in to bring down tempers in Pak

Washington, March 15
Amidst deepening political crisis in Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tried to bring down the tempers between the two rival camps by making personal calls to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and his main political rival and former premier Nawaz Sharif.

During her unusually long conversation with Zardari and Sharif, Clinton is understood to have asked the two leaders not to reach a point of no return and insisted that at a time when they are fighting a tough battle against extremism, it is not in the best interest of the country and the US as well to create another round of political instability in Pakistan.

The Secretary of State is believed to have urged both leaders to settle their differences through negotiations and not on the streets of Pakistan, which would further destabilise the situation in the country.

The result of Clinton’s intervention at the highest level would be known in the coming days only, as situation continued to be tense in cities across Pakistan.

Clinton’s call was preceded by several rounds of calls placed by Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson in the past few days. — PTI

Old age begins at 27: Study

London, March 15
Believe it or not, old age begins at 27, say researchers.

A new study has revealed that many well-known effects of ageing may start decades before the twilight years when old age is often blamed for causing many people to misplace keys, forget a word or lose the train of thought.

In fact, according to the researchers, people's mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27 after reaching a peak at 22.

“Results converge on a conclusion that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s,” the ‘Daily Mail’ quoted lead researcher Prof Timothy Salthouse as saying.

They studied 2,000 men and women aged 18 to 60 over seven years to reach the conclusion.

The people involved - who were mostly in good health and well-educated - had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and declines, including dementia.

The study found that in nine out of 12 tests, the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.

The first age at which performance was significantly lower than the peak scores was 27 -for three tests of reasoning, speed of thought and spatial visualisation.

Memory was shown to decline from the average age of 37. In the other tests, poorer results were shown by the age of 42, It was found in a study by the University of Virginia.

The findings, published in the ‘Neurobiology of Aging’ journal, suggested that therapies designed to prevent or even reverse age-related conditions could need to start earlier, long before people become pensioners, the researchers said. — PTI

Displaced Tamils to move into independent houses

Colombo, March 15
The hundreds of displaced Tamils who arrived last month from embattled Northern Wanni and were forced to share a room with many others in a Vavuniya school are being moved to independent tin houses in a sprawling camp in the district.

The fresh batch of internally displaced persons (IDPs) would be shifted to the main camp. The batch of 150 Tamils would move to the independent houses tomorrow, authorities told a group of foreign journalists in Vavuniya.

"While the first batch of 150 persons who are staying in the Vavuniya Mahavidyalaya (school) are being shifted today, 225 others will move to the Manik Farm IDP camp on Monday," an official said. Over 39,000 IDPs have arrived from LTTE-held territories to government-controlled areas in the north till now since February, officials said. "We are fulfilling the assurance that the IDPs will be shifted from the transit camps to independent houses, which are under construction," a government official said, adding that preparations were also being made to accommodate more IDPs who are expected to arrive in the coming days. — PTI

Lankan army kills 57 rebels

Colombo, March 15
Sri Lankan troops today moved further into the last LTTE held territory of Pudhukudiyyiruppu in the Wanni region in the embattled north and killed at least 57 Tamil Tigers in fierce clashes.

Infantrymen of the 58 Division further advanced into Pudhukudiyyirippu inflicting heavy damages to the Tiger militants, military reports received from the battlefront said.

“As many as 57 LTTE rebels were killed in intense clashes between the forces and rebels on Friday and Saturday in Pudhukudiyyirippu and Chalai areas of Mullaitivu district,” Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said.

In search operations conducted in the area following the confrontation, troops recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition from there. — PTI

Militants torch NATO supply containers

Islamabad, March 15
Pro-Taliban militants destroyed about 20 containers with supplies meant for coalition forces in Afghanistan during an attack today on a transport terminal in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, an official said.

The militants fired several rockets at the terminal in the Ring Road area on the outskirts of Peshawar, destroying at least 20 containers and some other vehicles. Local residents said the militants and security forces exchanged fire though there were no reports of casualties. The assailants fled after the attack, the police said.

Nearly 300 supply trucks, trailers and containers were destroyed during attacks on terminals in Peshawar in December last year. Around 70 per cent of the supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan are transported via Pakistan.

Supply convoys are regularly targeted by militants in Peshawar and the nearby Khyber tribal region, through which the main highway connecting Pakistan and Afghanistan passes. The US has struck deals with Russia and some Central Asian states for alternate supply routes. — PTI

Bomb kills four NATO soldiers

Kabul, March 15
Four NATO-led soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan today, the alliance said, one of the deadliest attacks against foreign troops in recent weeks in the country.

Violence has increased since last year in Afghanistan where the Taliban, ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, have made a comeback in their campaign to drive out foreign troops.

The latest deaths happened in the east of the country, NATO said in a statement, without identifying the nationality of the victims. Most foreign troops deployed in the east are Americans. Yesterday, two NATO soldiers, one in the east and one in the south, were killed in two separate attacks by the insurgents, the alliance said earlier. — Reuters