Islamabad, June 11
UN agencies and foreign missions in Peshawar have suspended their activities and evacuated their foreign staff members to Islamabad following a suicide car bombing of luxury Pearl Continental hotel, which killed 17 people including three foreigners, two of them UN employees.

The UN suspended all its activities, including humanitarian aid for people displaced by the military operations against the Taliban in Swat and nearby areas, till Monday, media reports said. The world body has also asked all its local employees to stay at home till further orders.

Besides UN agencies, the US consulate, other diplomatic missions and offices of international bodies in Peshawar have also suspended their activities and directed their staff to restrict their movements following the blast on Tuesday.

A meeting of top UN officials will be held on Monday to review the situation and decide on the resumption of relief work in the Taliban-infested NWFP.

The move is expected to affect relief programmes as UN agencies are playing a key role in providing shelter, water, sanitation, food and healthcare to thousands of displaced people living in camps in different parts of the NWFP.

Among the dead were three foreigners, including two UN employees - Serbian national Aleksandar Vorkapic, who worked for the UNHCR, and Perseveranda So of the Philippines who worked for UNICEF. As many as three Pakistanis working for the UNFPA were also killed.

A section of the hotel at the rear collapsed after terrorists detonated 500 kg of explosives hidden in a truck that was driven into the hotel’s parking lot.

Several UN staff members, including four foreigners, were injured in the attack, some of them seriously.

Dozens of people working for the World Food Programme, UN Population Fund and UNHCR were staying at the five-star hotel.

Concerned by the developments, the NWFP has been persuading senior UN officials to rescind their decision to suspend relief work at the earliest. Search operations by army personnel at the Pearl Continental had been concluded, the hotel’s management said today.

The army was called in yesterday to search for bodies and clear the rubble as the local administration did not have heavy equipment needed for the operations.

A team of experts and engineers would visit the hotel to assess losses and draw up a plan for its reconstruction, the management said. Pakistani tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani, who owns the hotel, has pledged to rebuild it within two months. Investigators are focussing on the possibility that members of the hotel staff may have been involved in the attack. Senior NWFP minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour had hinted at this while speaking to reporters yesterday. A committee headed by Peshawar police chief Sifwat Ghayur is probing into the attack. — PTI 

A possible meeting between President Asif Zardari and Indian premier Manmohan Singh in Ekaterinburg (Russia) on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit next week is being projected in Islamabad as a vital opportunity to achieve a thaw in post-Mumbai chilly ties between the two countries paving the way for resumption of the stalled composite dialogue.

A Foreign Office official said it was not yet certain whether Singh would be attending the meeting or not. "However, if the India Prime Minister comes for the summit, the two leaders would certainly meet on its sidelines," the official said. 

Washington, June 11
A Pakistan-born US national has been found guilty of conspiring to support terrorist groups, including the Al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Toiba .

Syed Haris Ahmed, who provided videos of important places in Washington, to LeT and Qaeda operatives, now faces up to 15 years in prison, the US Department of Justice said yesterday after a trial court in Northern District of George found Ahmed guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. 

“This case has never been about an imminent threat to the United States, because in the post-9/11 world we will not wait to disrupt terrorism-related activity until a bomb is built and ready to explode,” said David E Nahmias, US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. “The fuse that leads to an explosion of violence may be long, but once it is lit - once individuals unlawfully agree to support terrorist acts at home or abroad - we will prosecute them to snuff that fuse out,” he said.

In April 2005, the FBI said Ahmed and his principal co-conspirator travelled to the Washington DC area to take casing videos to establish their credentials with other violent jihad supporters. — PTI

United Nations, June 11
After two weeks of tough negotiations, the five permanent members of the Security Council have agreed on a draft resolution to impose tough new sanctions against North Korea for its second nuclear test, diplomats said.

The resolution, which could go to vote as early as tomorrow, puts Pyongyang on notice in no uncertain terms that even its friends like China and Russia do not approve of its continued nuclear ambition and would like to put a stop to it.

The new resolution will include possible inspections of the North Korea's cargo vessels on high seas. In addition, it may expand an arms embargo against North Korea, seek to curtail the North's financial dealings with the outside world, and freeze assets of the communist nation's companies.

"..This sanctions regime, if passed by the Security Council, will bite and bite in a meaningful way," US Ambassador to the UN Susan E Rice said. — PTI

At a time when Nepalese parliamentary panel has expressed its resentment over the ongoing reconstruction work of flood-breached embankment in Saptakoshi, India on Thursday said the reconstruction work carried out by an Indian contractor company was satisfactory.

A joint inspection team, headed by Bihar government's Minister for Water Resources Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood and the Principal Secretary of the Department of India that visited the Kosi breach closure works, expressed satisfaction over the timely completion of the Kosi Breach Closure Works, a statement issued by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said.

London, June 11
About 10 years after describing a shabby-looking fuse box as something that appeared to have been “put in by an Indian”, British Prince Philip honoured Abdul Kalam with one of Britain’s top engineering awards.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who is on a lecture tour of Britain and Ireland, was presented the 2008 International Medal of the Royal Academy of Engineering at a gala dinner in London Tuesday night.

The award was given by Academy president Lord John Browne, former chief executive of British Petroleum.

According to the Royal Academy, the International Medal is awarded occasionally to an individual resident outside the European Union for his or her “outstanding and sustained personal achievement in the broad field of engineering, including commercial or academic leadership”. — IANS

The 63-year-old Nobel laureate faces between three and five years in jail if convicted, which would keep her locked up far beyond controversial elections which the military regime has promised to hold next year. — AFP