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US freezes $700 m aid to Pak
Jacques Chirac guilty of graft, escapes jail term
Woman facilitated Karachi navy base attack: Police
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Memogate: Pak parliamentarian in contact with Ijaz, says Gilani
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has accused an unnamed lawmaker of being in touch with 'memogate' scandal blower Mansoor Ijaz, hinting that there was a conspiracy against President Asif Ali Zardari.
Putin insists Russian Parliamentary polls fair
Moscow, December 15Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today rejected widespread criticism that the recent Parliamentary elections were rigged and accused the organisers of massive rallies that demanded his resignation of colluding with the West to weaken the country. Russian PM Vladimir Putin speaks during a televised questions and answers session. Reuters
US military ends war in Iraq
Syrian rebels kill 27 soldiers in south
Army deserters killed 27 soldiers in southern Syria on Thursday, an activist group said, in some of the deadliest attacks on forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of an uprising nine months ago.
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US freezes $700 m aid to Pak
Washington, December 15 As part of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2012 passed by the Republican-led chamber by 283-136 yesterday, the lawmakers also okayed slapping of harsher sanctions on Iran and supported indefinite imprisonment of suspected terrorists. The NDAA 2012 freezes nearly $700 million in aid to Pakistan pending the delivery of a strategy by the Department of Defence for improving the effectiveness of such assistance and assurances that Pakistan is countering Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) networks and stemming their flows into Afghanistan, a Congressional aide said. "This freeze includes the majority of the $1.1 billion in Pakistan Counter-insurgency Fund," the House Armed Services Committee had said in a statement early this week. PTI Not based on facts, says Pakistan Islamabad, December 15
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Jacques Chirac guilty of graft, escapes jail term The 79-year-old statesman, who was excused from court on medical grounds, was found guilty of influence peddling, breach of trust and embezzlement between 1990 and 1995, when he was mayor of the French capital. In their ruling, judges said Chirac's behaviour had cost Paris taxpayers the equivalent of 1.4 million euros (USD 1.8 million). "Jacques Chirac breached the duty of trust that weighs on public officials charged with caring for public funds or property, in contempt of the general interest of Parisians," the ruling said. He is the first president of modern France to be tried, although Nazi-era collaborationist leader Philippe Petain was convicted of treason and the country's last king, Louis XVI, was sent to the guillotine in 1793. The verdict marked the end of a long legal drama. France's current foreign minister, Alain Juppe, was convicted in the same case in 2004 but has since returned to public life and is a key ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Today's sentence was a surprise. Even state prosecutors had called for Chirac who still polls as one of France's most popular figures to be cleared, and France has largely forgiven his long history of corruption. "I hope this judgement won't change the profound affection that the French people still rightly have for Jacques Chirac," defence counsel Georges Kiejman said, adding that Chirac would decide later in the day whether to appeal. Chirac's 54-year-old Vietnamese-born adopted daughter Anh Dao Traxel, said the ruling had been "too, too harsh". "Justice has spoken, it must be respected but it's unfortunately a great pain for our family and for Jacques Chirac," she told reporters. A spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, Benoit Hamon, said the verdict was late but "a good sign for French democracy". Chirac was president of France between 1995 and 2007 and as such enjoyed legal immunity. He denied all the charges, but the case is only one of many corruption scandals to have dogged him in a long public career. Doctors say he has "severe and irreversible" neurological problems including memory loss and dementia linked to his advanced age. While he still makes occasional public appearances as a respected centre-right elder statesman, he was unable to attend the trial. He was tried alongside nine alleged accomplices. Two were cleared, but the rest were convicted of helping Chirac run a system at Paris city hall under which political allies were paid municipal salaries for fake jobs. AFP
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Woman facilitated Karachi navy base attack: Police Islamabad, December 15 Sabiha, the widow of Shahid Khan alias Qari Shahid who was killed in a police shootout Dec 5, has told police that she was involved in several terror acts, including in facilitating the Karachi navy base attackers, reported the daily Dawn. A 15-hour siege that began on the night of May 22 at the PNS Mehran base led to the death of 14 people, including four terrorists. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorists destroyed the Navy's P-3C Orion aircraft with rockets. IANS
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Memogate: Pak parliamentarian in contact with Ijaz, says Gilani "There is an honourable member in this honourable House whose name I do not want to take he is in touch with Mansoor (Ijaz) from United States," Gilani said while speaking in the Senate or upper house of Parliament last evening. "I don't want to take his name. I have proofs. I know the person who is in touch and that is the conspiracy against the President," he said, without giving details. Pakistani-American businessman Ijaz created a storm in Pakistan's political and diplomatic circles last month by releasing a secret memorandum that he claimed he had drafted and sent to former US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen on the instructions of former Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani. PTI
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Putin insists Russian Parliamentary polls fair Moscow, December 15 In his traditional year-end call-in programme televised live by state media, Putin, also former President, said there is nothing new in the fact that the opposition is not happy with the outcome of the December 4 polls in which his United Russia party barely managed to hang on to power. The ruling United Russia had obtained 238 seats in the 450-strong State Duma polls, down sharply from the 315 seats it won in the elections in 2007. Putin, 59, who is set to reclaim the presidency in 2012 elections, is facing one of the biggest challenges to his 12-year rule amid massive protests. PTI
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US military ends war in Iraq
Baghdad, December 15 "After a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at the ceremony at Baghdad's still heavily-fortified airport. Almost 4,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives in the war that began with a "Shock and Awe" campaign of missiles pounding Baghdad and descended into sectarian strife and a surge in U.S. troop numbers. Reuters
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Syrian rebels kill 27 soldiers in south Beirut, December 15 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes flared in the southern city of Deraa, where protests against Assad first erupted in March, and at a checkpoint east of the city where all 15 personnel manning it were killed. It did not say how they broke out, but the high casualties among security forces suggested coordinated strikes by the army rebels who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, raising the spectre of Syria slipping towards civil war. The United Nations says 5,000 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on protests inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world. Reuters
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Paris, December 15
Islamabad, December 15