The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Romanian govt moves to suspend, impeach Prez Bucharest, July 4 Romania's leftist government will seek to suspend and then impeach the country's centre-right president, a powerful opponent of the ruling Social Liberal Union (USL), stoking a row that has paralysed policymaking. The USL's majority in parliament means it can easily win a vote to suspend President Traian Basescu for a month, and will then hold a national referendum on impeachment. In power since May and favourite to win an election later this year, the party has passed a law to make it easier to impeach Basescu, who influenced the previous austerity-minded government despite his ceremonial role. The new law is still pending judgment by the country's constitutional court (CCR), which says its independence is under threat from the government. "We have decided ... to ask parliament to set an extraordinary meeting to suspend the Romanian president," USL lawmaker Eugen Nicolaescu was quoted as saying by state news agency Agerpres. The process could last several days. Basescu was previously suspended in 2007 but easily defeated the impeachment attempt in the referendum. A new USL law states that a simple majority of voters in a referendum would be enough to impeach Basescu, which the CCR has yet to rule on. Until now, a majority of the entire electorate was needed to impeach the president, whether they voted or not. The government — led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta — has also attacked the CCR and said it was under Basescu's control, but backtracked on plans to replace judges on Wednesday after the court accused Ponta and his party of trying to dismantle it. The CCR has notified European authorities of threats to its independence and rights groups and some Western diplomats have also criticised the government. — Reuters
	Pak starts allowing NATO supplies to Afghanistan via Karachi port Islamabad, July 4 Pakistan today began allowing NATO supplies to move out from a port in Karachi, a day after it lifted a seven-month blockade of vital routes to Afghanistan in the wake of the US apology for the killing of 24 of its soldiers in a cross-border raid. Authorities at Port Qasim told the media they had received instructions to allow movement of NATO supplies after payment of demurrage for the period when goods were kept at the port. Officials at Chaman land border crossing in southwestern Balochistan province too told the media they had received instructions to prepare for the movement of NATO supplies to Afghanistan. Pakistan's Defence Committee of Cabinet decided late last night to end blockade of supply lines after the US apologised for a cross-border NATO air strike that had killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a telephonic conversation with her Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar, reiterated America's "deepest regrets" for the NATO attack on November 26 last year.— PTI No secret agreement: Khar Islamabad: Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar today said Pakistan had not concluded any "secret agreement" with the US to end a seven-month blockade of supply routes for NATO forces in Afghanistan and contended that a superpower had to "backdown". Khar's comments came shortly after the cabinet formally approved a decision by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) last night to reopen supply lines that were closed in November last year after a cross-border NATO air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
	Pak SC refuses to allow anti-graft watchdog to quiz its registrar Afzal Khan in Islamabad The Pakistan Supreme Court has refused to allow the parliamentary anti-corruption watchdog to quiz its registrar over the apex court’s financial accounts. Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Nadeem Afzal Chan — a Pakistan Peoples Party loyalist – has appeared adamant to scrutinise the apex court’s accounts since becoming chairman of the influential panel last month. He was designated to the post after Chaindry Nisar Ali Khan of the PML-N resigned last month. The committee will decide the matter on Thursday after deliberating over the Supreme Court’s response, Chan told a PAC meeting on Tuesday. Chen insists that all the institutions drawing funds from the treasury must submit to public scrutiny. The notices to the apex court have led to another standoff between the judiciary and the executive. The PAC has not only decided to revisit the policy of handing out plots to judges and bureaucrats, but also it has made public two lists containing names of those who have obtained one or more plots. “Obtaining more than one plot by judges and bureaucrats also comes under the ambit of the National Reconciliatory Ordinance,” said Chan. “It is possible that we may not be able to get the plots back, but we will definitely bring an end to this discriminatory practice in the future.” Earlier, the General Headquarters (GHQ) ignored a request from the PAC for names of generals who were allotted plots. The committee sent a reminder to the military. The issue of asking the Supreme Court to allow its registrar to appear before the committee was first raised during the tenure of Chan’s predecessor Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
	11 killed in Iraq attacks ahead of Shi’ite rituals Baghdad, July 4 A car bombing at a market in central Iraq killed eight people today and three others were assassinated in Baghdad, the latest in a spike in nationwide unrest ahead of Shi’ite rituals. The violence struck a day after a series of attacks across Iraq killed 38 amid preparations for ceremonies on Friday to commemorate the birth of a key figure in Shi’ite Islam. In today's deadliest attack, a car bombing in the town of Zubaidiyah at 9.15 am (0615 GMT) killed eight people and wounded 22 others, a security official and a medic at a hospital in nearby Aziziyah said on condition of anonymity. The medical official said a child was among the dead, and women and children were among the wounded. In Baghdad, a series of morning assassinations with silenced pistols left three people dead — two police officers and a parliament official. In one shooting, a policewoman was killed by gunshots to the head in the east of the capital, an interior ministry official and a medic at Al-Kindi hospital said. In west Baghdad, an off-duty police first lieutenant, who was wearing civilian clothes, was killed, the interior ministry official and a doctor at Yarmuk hospital said. An employee working at Iraq's parliament was gunned down in the north of the capital, the interior ministry official and a medic at Medical City hospital said. — AFP
	Germans want dope legalised Berlin, July 4 German Chancellor Angela Merkel may spend much of her time trying to solve the euro zone crisis, but drug use, protection of animals and interpretations of history are more pressing issues for some of her compatriots. More than 1,52,000 Germans have voted to make cannabis a legal drug in an online poll conducted as part of Merkel's strategy to bring the German government closer to the people. Outlawing sex with animals also proved to be an important issue, with more than 93,000 voting to scrap a 1969 law which decriminalised the sexual abuse of animals. A genocide law proved to be the most popular suggestion on the online platform, with nearly 1,57,000 Germans saying they wanted the government to pass a law which would make it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide. Such a move — already attempted by France — would badly harm relations with Turkey, a key trade partner, and Merkel rejected it in a discussion this week with some of the poll participants. Merkel also turned down a call for holding more critical debates about Islam, a politically sensitive issue in Germany which is home to around four million Muslims. Merkel, who comes from formerly communist eastern Germany, responded much more warmly to a proposal to plant trees in towns and cities across Germany as memorials to German reunification. — Reuters
	Yasser Arafat’s body to be exhumed Jerusalem, July 4 New suspicions that Yasser Arafat was murdered, perhaps poisoned by radioactive polonium, prompted the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday to agree to exhume the body of the iconic leader. Israel, seen by many Arabs as the prime suspect behind the mysterious illness that killed the 75-year-old Arafat in 2004, sought to distance itself anew from the death of the man who led Palestinians' bid for a state through years of war and peace. A Swiss institute which examined clothing provided by Arafat's widow Suha for a documentary by Qatar-based Al Jazeera television said its radiation protection experts had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210, the same substance found to have killed a former Russian spy in London in 2006. But it said symptoms described in the president's medical reports were not consistent with the radioactive agent. "I want the world to know the truth about the assassination of Yasser Arafat," Suha Arafat, 48, told Al Jazeera, without making any direct accusations, but noting that both Israel and the United States saw him as an obstacle to peace. Allegations of foul play — and of Palestinian involvement in it — have long marked factional fighting among Palestinians. The latest revelation coincides with renewed tensions within Arafat's Fatah movement, now headed by his successor President Mahmoud Abbas, and between Fatah and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip. — Reuters