W O R L D

Suicide bomber kills 13 in Swat
At least 13 persons were killed and 50 others injured in a suicide blast at a security checkpost manned by the Army and the police in Saidu Sharif outside Mangora, the main town in Swat where the Army quelled a Taliban takeover last summer.

An injured man walks past a burning vehicle at the blast site in Saidu Sharif area of Swat valley on Saturday. — AP

27 killed, 50 hurt in Kandahar blasts
Kandahar, March 13
Twenty-seven persons, including cops, were killed and over 50 injured when a series of explosions hit the centre of Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar today, a hospital official said.

A Buddhist monk holds a banner as he joins other supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra in central Bangkok on Saturday. Anti-government protesters headed for Bangkok from the countryside on Saturday for what they are calling a “million-man march,” aiming to paralyse the capital. — Reuters

China blasts US for human rights violations
Beijing, March 13
China has attacked the United States for its continuous interference in other countries’ domestic affairs in the name of human right violations, but “covering up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory”.

US not directly involved in Indo-Pak talks: Blake
Washington, March 13
The US has made it clear that it is not directly involved in talks between India and Pakistan but encourages them to resume their peace dialogue, even as it said it wanted Islamabad to rein in terror outfits like LeT.

Reopen cases of money laundering, NAB told
The Supreme Court has directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to write a letter to Swiss courts for reopening money-laundering cases in which President Asif Ali Zardari is also implicated.

Couple jailed for racist attack on Indian
Sacramento (California), March 13
A white couple has been convicted in federal court in a racially motivated attack on an Indian immigrant. Prosecutors say 56-year-old Joseph Silva and his 52-year-old wife Georgia yelled racial slurs at Vishal Wadhwa and his wife on a Lake Tahoe beach in July 2007.

Suicide bomber kills 13 in Swat
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad

At least 13 persons were killed and 50 others injured in a suicide blast at a security checkpost manned by the Army and the police in Saidu Sharif outside Mangora, the main town in Swat where the Army quelled a Taliban takeover last summer.

The attack came a day after country’s second biggest city Lahore was rocked by seven blasts, two of which had targeted Army patrol vehicles.

Four days earlier Lahore suffered its first suicide attack this year aimed at the offices of police investigation agency where several ‘high-value’ militants were reportedly being interrogated. As many as 13 persons were killed in the attack.

In Swat attack, one soldier and two policemen were among the dead. Police chief Swat district (DPO) Qazi Jamil said the bomber who wore vest laden with 15 kilograms of explosive got down from an autorickshaw and tried to walk through the checkpost. But when he was challenged by security guards, he blew himself up, he added.

Business and shopping centres in Lahore were closed on Saturday following Friday’s explosions. Partial strike was also observed in Karachi and other parts of Sindh province on a call by religious organisations over target killing of four scholars in Karachi on Wednesday. In Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousaf Raqzaq Gilani presided over an emergency meeting attended by top civil and military officials to discuss the fresh surge in terrorist attacks that had considerably subsided in recent weeks.

Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, ISI chief Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and Interior Minister Rehman Malik were among those who attended the meeting. Pasha reportedly briefed the meeting about current status of the military operation in South Waziristan, which, he said, was successfully nearing its end. He claimed that the operation has broken the back of the Taliban militants and destroyed their strongholds in tribal areas. He, however, said sporadic militant attacks could be expected from splinter groups fleeing the area.

27 killed, 50 hurt in Kandahar blasts

Kandahar, March 13
Twenty-seven persons, including cops, were killed and over 50 injured when a series of explosions hit the centre of Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar today, a hospital official said.

Officials said the biggest attack was aimed at the prison here, possibly an attempt to repeat a brazen jailbreak there two years ago.

“The first explosion was near police chief’s compound and the second near the residence of President hamid Karzai’s half-brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar's council,” a witness said. — Reuters

China blasts US for human rights violations

Beijing, March 13
China has attacked the United States for its continuous interference in other countries’ domestic affairs in the name of human right violations, but “covering up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory”.

China has published “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009” in reprisal of the “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009” issued by the US Department of State on March 11.

“As in previous years, the (US) reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory,” China Daily quoted the Information Office of the State Council, as saying.

The report is “prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States”, the paper said.

The report reviewed the human rights record of the United States in 2009 from six perspectives: life, property and personal security; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; rights of women and children; and the US’ violation of human rights against other countries.

The report slammed the US for taking human rights as “a political instrument to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests”. It says while advocating freedom of speech, press and Internet, the US government unscrupulously monitors and restricts citizens’ rights to freedom when it comes to its own interests and needs.

It points out that in 2008, US residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 million property crimes and 1,37,000 personal thefts, and the violent crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over. — ANI

US not directly involved in Indo-Pak talks: Blake

Washington, March 13
The US has made it clear that it is not directly involved in talks between India and Pakistan but encourages them to resume their peace dialogue, even as it said it wanted Islamabad to rein in terror outfits like LeT.

“The pace and the scope and the timing of the dialogue is really up to the two countries to determine. As a friend of both of the countries, the United States, again, welcomes those dialogues, but we’re not directly involved in the talks in any way,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake, said.

He said one of the most important things to work on was the issue of terrorism because it threatens not only both India and Pakistan, but also the US.

“And, we think that a group like Lashkar-e-Toiba, which is widely believed to have been responsible for the bombings in Mumbai, is a terrorist group based in Pakistan that has increasingly global ambitions and global scope, and so it’s in the interest of Pakistan to rein in the activities of LeT,” Blake said. — PTI

Reopen cases of money laundering, NAB told
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad

Sharif says Zardari threat to democracy Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif has repeated that he would continue to consider President Zardari as “the biggest threat to democracy in the country until he changed his ways”, for which he would continue to step up pressure. Speaking at a community meeting in London Friday, Sharif said Zardari was under pressure from all sections of the society and “he was on his knees”.

The Supreme Court has directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to write a letter to Swiss courts for reopening money-laundering cases in which President Asif Ali Zardari is also implicated.

Justice Javed Iqbal, who presides over the 3-member Bench of the court dealing with the case, however, made it clear that the court is not targeting any individual.

“It is not a person- specific case but the court wants implementation of the Supreme Court judgment of December 16 last year that annulled the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO),” Justice Iqbal said.

President Zardari is among beneficiaries of the NRO that pardoned all corruption and money-laundering cases against him. The court ordered reopening of all cases withdrawn under the NRO.

The Bench also directed the NAB to furnish a report on reportedly missing data of Swiss cases. Around a dozen boxes of record of Swiss cases was secured by Pakistan High Commissioner in London from Geneva to London.

The court expressed dissatisfaction over the NAB report and directed it to implement the SC verdict on the NRO in letter and spirit without any further delay and take steps to protect the NRO-related record.

The court while referring to a news report observed that the record of the NRO cases had been brought to Islamabad from various places where it was destroyed, but a copy was available somewhere.

During the course of hearing, Justice Javed Iqbal said all the record is available in London and asked NAB to take the record into custody. The court ruled that it would not allow NAB to prolong the matter.

Couple jailed for racist attack on Indian

Sacramento (California), March 13
A white couple has been convicted in federal court in a racially motivated attack on an Indian immigrant. Prosecutors say 56-year-old Joseph Silva and his 52-year-old wife Georgia yelled racial slurs at Vishal Wadhwa and his wife on a Lake Tahoe beach in July 2007. Georgia

Silva was sentenced to a year in jail and Joseph Silva six months. When Wadhwa went to call the police, he was attacked and kicked on the head several times. He suffered broken face bones and has lingering sensory and focus complications. — AP