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Pakistan calls for settlement of Kashmir and Palestine disputes UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24 (APP): Pakistan on Friday made a strong plea for resolving the two “oldest unresolved disputes on the UN agenda” Kashmir and Palestine to enable the struggling peoples of those lands exercise their right to self-determination. “Self-determination is a basic human right which cannot be applied selectively,” Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told the annual co-ordination meeting of OIC foreign ministers, who met on the sidelines of the 66th session of UN General Assembly. “We are meeting here at a time when the Palestinian aspirations for a national homeland appear to be entering a decisive phase,” she said, referring the application submitted by Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas for UN membership as a state. At this critical juncture, we stand with our Palestinian brethren for their legitimate demand for an independent State with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, and its recognition by the Uni...

US demands Pakistan act against Haqqani insurgents By Tangi Quemener (AFP) WASHINGTON — The United States demanded Friday that Pakistan "break any link they have" with the insurgent group that attacked the US embassy in Kabul and take immediate action against them. The White House statement came a day after the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, directly accused Pakistan's intelligence service of supporting the Haqqani network's attack on the embassy and a truck bombing on a NATO outpost. Pakistan reacted angrily, saying the humiliating public attack was "not acceptable" and warned that Washington stood to lose a vital ally. But the war of words continued with Washington signaling a fundamental shift in attitude toward Islamabad and the insurgent groups that operate from Pakistani havens amid rising violence in Afghanistan. "We know the Haqqani network was responsible for the attacks on our embassy in Kabul," White House spokesman Jay Ca...

Pakistan police puts extremist leader under house arrest ISLAMABAD — Pakistan put the leader of a banned extremist organisation under house arrest on Thursday for inciting sectarian hatred, police said, just days after gunmen killed 29 Shiite Muslims. Malik Ishaq, head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was released on bail in July after nearly 14 years behind bars over his alleged role in numerous sectarian murders and accusations he masterminded an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Ishaq was now under house arrest for 10 days in the city of Rahim Yar Khan, 550 kilometres (350 miles) southwest of the capital Islamabad, police said. "Ishaq has been confined to his house... on the orders of the Punjab government after growing tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims," district police official Sohail Zafar Chattha told AFP. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is regarded as the most extreme Sunni terror group in the Sunni Muslim-majority country and is accused of killing hundreds of Shiite Muslims afte...

By Rob Crilly, Islamabad Rehman Malik denied Pakistan's intelligence agency had ties to the network. "The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never," he told Reuters in an interview. Our government is already co-operating with the US ... but they also must respect our sovereignty." The two nations have been awkward allies ever since 9/11 threw them together in the war against terrorist groups headquartered in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Relations between the two countries had already soured this year with the arrest of a CIA agent – for shooting dead two Pakistani men in Lahore – and then the unauthorised special forces sortie that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

Obama Administration Building New Drone Bases in Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula The Obama administration is expanding its drone program far beyond Pakistan, building secret bases in the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula in a move to target dangerous al Qaeda affiliates. A senior U.S. military official with knowledge of the program told Fox News that the expansion has been underway for over a year. It started with a base in Seychelles, an archipelago northeast of Madagascar. Officials have been eyeing Ethiopia, described as the "basing location of choice," but so far have only been able to fly surveillance drones from Ethiopian bases. Armed drones, though, are being flown out of the small African country of Djibouti. Members of the 11th Reconnaissance Squadron from Indian Springs, Nev., perform pre-flight checks on a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle prior to a mission in this November 9, 2001 file photo shot at an undisclosed location. RELATED STORIES Obama Meets With Pa...

QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen shot dead 26 Pakistani Shiite Muslim pilgrims travelling to Iran on Tuesday, the deadliest attack on the minority community in Pakistan for more than a year, officials said. In a brutal assault, gunmen ordered pilgrims off their bus, lined them up and assassinated them in a hail of gunfire in Mastung, a district 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Quetta, the capital of the southwest Baluchistan province. An hour after the first attack, unidentified gunmen killed another three Shiites on the outskirts of Quetta whom police said were relatives of victims of the first incident en route to collect their bodies. "The attackers stopped the bus and forced the pilgrims to get off, lined them up and then opened fire," local deputy commissioner Saeed Imrani told AFP, referring to the first attack. "The death toll has risen to 26. At least six people were wounded, four of them are in a critical condition," he added, after earlier saying 20 died. Referr...

A polio outbreak in Pakistan has spread to China, killing one person and infecting nine others, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Chinese authorities confirmed that the Wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) that infected 84 people in Pakistan is the same one that killed one person in the prefectures of Hotan and Bazhou in China's western Xinjiang province. The virus also downed nine others, including six children under 3 years. The last polio outbreak in China occurred in 1999. A man was infected with the polio virus after arriving from India. Polio infection causes paralysis, difficulty in breathing and death. The virus is transmitted through contaminated food and water. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a team of doctors to Xinjiang to treat the infected people. The health ministry, meanwhile, said vaccinations against poliomyelitis will also be conducted in the near future.

A displaced Pakistani girl sits on her bed while she and others take refuge on a roadside after fleeing their homes in Tando Allah Yar district near Hyderabad, Pakistan, Sept. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Nathalie Bardou) (AP) PANGRIO, Pakistan - Desperate to save his grandmother from floodwaters swamping southern Pakistan, Ali Ahmed and three other relatives stuck her in a large metal cooking pot and pulled her to safety through neck-high water. The men swam for several hours through driving rain, unable to rest because the water was too deep. "It was the most spine-chilling experience of my life, and I will never forget it" said Ahmed, surrounded by a couple dozen white tents set up outside Pangrio town on the only patch of dry ground for miles around. The rescuers finally reached a road and transported Rasti Bibi to a hospital in Pangrio, where she was treated for acute diarrhea, said Ahmed. The town, like much of southern Sindh province, is under water. Pakistani authorities are ...

WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday renewed blunt demands that Pakistan crack down on Haqqani militants allegedly based in the country, saying the network posed a serious threat to US forces in Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that Washington would “put as much pressure as possible on the Pakistanis to exercise control from their side of the border.” “We’ve continued to state that this cannot happen, we cannot have the Haqqanis coming across the border, attacking our forces, attacking Afghanistan…and then disappearing back into a safe haven. That is not tolerable,” Panetta said. He added: “I think they’ve heard the message, but we’ll see.” Panetta’s comments reflect a tougher public US line in recent days amid growing frustration in President Barack Obama’s administration over the role of the Haqqani network. The stern warnings also coincide with increasingly strained relations with Pakistan. The Americans blame the Haqqani network for a recent bombing at...

Dozens Killed in Attack on Pilgrim Bus in Pakistan By JANE PERLEZ ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen in the southwestern province of Baluchistan attacked a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims to Iran on Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 6 more, local police officials said. The driver of the bus told police that 8 to 10 attackers ordered the pilgrims off the bus and then opened fire on them, the police said. Hours later, the extremist Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jangvi claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, which the authorities say carried out previous attacks against Shiites in Baluchistan, is believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda. The attack occurred at Mastung, about 30 miles south of Quetta, the provincial capital, along the road to the Iran-Pakistan border crossing at Taftan. About 50 passengers were on the bus when it was attacked, said Saeed Imrani, the local deputy police commissioner. Attacks on Shiite pilgrims traveling to Iran through Baluchistan have been frequent ...

A Taliban suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives Monday outside the home of a senior police officer tasked with cracking down on militants in Pakistan's largest city. The blast killed at least eight people and left a crater 10 feet deep, police said. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the early morning attack in the southern port city of Karachi. The target of the bombing, Chaudhry Aslam, escaped unscathed and said he would not be cowed by the attack. "This is a cowardly act," Aslam told local television. "I'm not scared. I will not spare them." The eight people killed included six policemen guarding Aslam's house as well as a schoolteacher and her son who were passing by, said Karachi police chief Saud Mirza. He estimated that at least 660 pounds (300 kilograms) of explosives were used in the attack. The death toll could have been even worse if it had happened a few minutes later when many children would have been headed...

afp WASHINGTON — The top US and Pakistani military leaders met in Spain to discuss ways to shore up strained ties after a US raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a spike in violence in Afghanistan, a Pentagon spokesman said. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and his Pakistani counterpart General Ashfaq Kayani sat down for more than two hours of talks late Friday on the sidelines of a NATO conference in Seville, Mullen's spokesman Captain John Kirby told AFP Saturday. "They agreed that the relationship between our two countries remained vital to the region and that both sides had taken positive steps to improve that relationship over the past few months," Kirby said. "They also discussed the state of military-to-military cooperation and pledged to continue to find ways to make it better." It was the first meeting between the pair since the May 2 night-time military raid in which US Navy Seals, without first notifying Islamabad, killed the...

Gilani asks US government to do more Sunday, Penisula ISLAMABAD: A day after the foreign ministry reacted sharply to US allegations on Pakistan nurturing the Haqqani network, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said it was time the US “does more” in the war on terror. “Pakistan has already contributed enormously in the fight against terrorism and extremism and now the United States should do more instead,” Gilani told journalists in Islamabad yesterday. “Now it’s time they (US) should sacrifice like we did,” the premier said. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had said that Pakistan is shying away from its responsibility to rid the Haqqani network. Panetta’s allegations came after an improvised attack by the Taliban inside a highly fortified enclave in Kabul, which houses the US embassy and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Panetta, who was head of the Central Intelligence Agency before becoming defence secretary, immediately blamed the attack on the Haqqani netw...

KARACHI: Former Pakistan cricket captain, Shahid Khan Afridi says that Mohammad Amir ought to have come clean sooner about his involvement in a spot-fixing scandal which has embroiled the young fast bowler along with two other Pakistani cricketers for over a year. Mohammad Amir, a young and upcoming prospect for Pakistani cricket had found himself in the midst of a spot-fixing scandal last year when he was on tour with the Pakistan national team. A sting by the now defunct News of the World news papers showed a bookie taking money from an undercover reporter for having certain bowlers in the Pakistan ranks deliberately bowling no-balls on pre-specified deliveries. Amir, along with other accuses, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt had for long pleaded innocence. However, Amir came clean during a court hearing on Wednesday, submitting a written statement confessing to the charges labelled against him. Afridi, who himself has faced controversy in cricket after being found guilty of biting down...

*JSQM chief says Rangers have biased attitude towards Sindhis, Balochs KARACHI: Additional District and Session Judge (ADJ) Malir on Saturday granted bail to Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi in two identical cases of arms possession against the surety of Rs 200,000. The court also issued Qureshi’s release order to the jail authorities. ADJ Malir Munawar Sultana was hearing a bail application of the JSQM chief in two identical cases of illegal arms possession. His counsels appeared before the court and stated that the Steel Town police station had registered two FIRs (256/2011 and 258/2011) under section 13-D (keeping illegal arms) and 13-E (recovering illegal arms on arrested person’s information). The counsel further stated all arms were licenced while Qureshi also had permission for carrying arms. The counsel presented licences and permissions before the court and requested for bail to his client against his legal right. The court granted his bail applicatio...