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Zardari set to lose sweeping powers
US refuses mediation in Indo-Pak water dispute
Chicago cabbie indicted for aiding Al-Qaida
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Moscow Metro Bombings
Rocket blasts off with 2 Russians, 1 American
UK to hand over details of Muslim students to CIA
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Zardari set to lose sweeping powers
Islamabad, April 2 “Today is a historic day. Today we have gathered here to mend the follies of the past,” prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said prior to the 18th constitutional bill being introduced in the national assembly, lower house of parliament. Under the amendment, the president will be bound to act on the advice of the prime minister, who will get back, among others, the power to appoint the armed forces chiefs and the chief election commissioner. These powers had been taken away by then president Pervez Musharraf by the 17th amendment that he rammed through parliament in 2002. “I appreciate the (efforts of the constitution reforms) committee and the political parties to redress the acts of a dictator who had trampled the constitution,” Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Gilani as saying. “I also congratulate (committee chairman Senator) Raza Rabbani and his colleagues who burnt the midnight oil to mend the mistakes of the past in a legal and constitutional effort,” Gilani added. Zardari has accepted the recommendations of the reforms committee, which include stripping former military dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq of his title of president of Pakistan and removing the current bar on a prime minister serving a third term. According to Gilani, the recommendations of the committee will empower the provinces, leading to good governance and political ownership. Under the 18th amendment, the president will not be able to dissolve the assemblies in future and can do so only on the advice of the prime minister. — IANS
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US refuses mediation in Indo-Pak water dispute
Washington, April 2 "If Pakistan believes that India is violating the Indus Waters Treaty, then Pakistan should avail itself of the opportunity to submit whatever grievances it has to the independent arbitration panel that has been set up by the Indus Waters Treaty," the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said. “We are not going to get involved in bilateral issues related to water, because I think the World Bank is the best mechanism for that.” —
PTI
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Chicago cabbie indicted for aiding Al-Qaida
Chicago, April 2 A federal grand jury returned the indictment against Raja Lahrasib Khan, who is being held in federal lock-up Metropolitan Correctional Centre without bond. The indictment charges the same two counts of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation that were charged in the complaint filed against Khan after his arrest by the FBI last week. Khan was scheduled to appear in a Chicago court on April 7 for a preliminary hearing, when the government would have shown some of its evidence against him. However, due to the indictment that hearing now stands cancelled. No date for an arraignment has been set yet. "In the next couple of days, an arraignment will be scheduled before the assigned judge in the US district court in Chicago, and the indictment effectively cancels the preliminary hearing that was scheduled for April 7 before Magistrate Judge Soat Brown," US Attorney's office spokesman Randall Samborn said. According to the 2-page indictment, "On November 23, 2009 at Chicago, Khan did knowingly attempt to provide material support and resources, namely property (funds) and currency, to a foreign terrorist organisation, namely the Al-Qaida, which was designated by the US Secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organisation... knowing that the Al-Qaida had engaged and was engaging in terrorist activity." — PTI
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Moscow Metro Bombings
Moscow, April 2 Resident of Daghestan's Khasavyurt district Jannat Abdurahmanova, the teenage widow of Umalat Magomedov - a prominent militant belonging to Daghestani Jamaat, is responsible for the first attack on Lubyanka metro station, the Federal Operative Headquarters of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said. “She is Jannat Abdurakhmanova (Abdulayeva), who was born in 1992 and lived in the Khasavyurt region of the North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan," the committee was quoted as saying by Itar Tass news agency. Her husband was killed last year in an anti-insurgency security operation. Several papers have also published the photograph of the couple holding pistols. Female suicide bombers are known in the Russian media as ‘Black Widows’. The death toll has risen to 40 in the twin metro attacks as the investigators are waiting for the DNA tests of the second female bomber, widely believed to be 20-year old Markha Ustarkhanova, widow of Chechen militant Said-Amin Khizirov. President Medvedev called for zero-tolerance against terrorists and underscored the need to punish all the actors involved in terror chain at par. “It is not important what they do — cook soup or wash their cloths, like in a criminal gang they work for the end result. When we are talking about such crimes, there cannot be any leniency depending on the role played,” Medvedev said at meeting with the parliamentary leaders. He urged lawmakers to enact laws for stricter punishment of terrorists and their accomplices in the entire terror chain and regretted that due to its international obligations Russia cannot restore death penalty in the country. — PTI
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Rocket blasts off with 2 Russians, 1 American
Baikonur (Kazakhstan), April 2 The Soyuz craft carrying California native Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko rose from the Baikonur cosmodrome on schedule. Powerful booster rockets shattered the stillness of the immense and arid Kazakh steppe, propelling the Soyuz heavenward atop an iridescent flow of flames. The craft, which thundered into orbit at more than 8,000 miles per hour, docks with the space station, orbiting about 200 miles above Earth. — AP
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UK to hand over details of Muslim students to CIA
London, April 2 Names, email and home addresses of members of the Islamic Society at the University College of London were handed over to detectives investigating the alleged attack on an aircraft by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as it landed in Detroit on Christmas Day last year. Abdulmutallab studied engineering at the University from 2005-08. A police spokesperson for said he did not know whether the personal details had been passed on to foreign intelligence services and that the way data was used was “an operational decision”. — PTI
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Former Greece PM dies Vintage flying boat to be sold Experts to search 9/11 rubble
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