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BISHKEK: Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz and Indian ExternalAffairs Minister Salman Khurshid shaking hands before meeting on Friday.

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AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The State Bank ofPakistan has raised the policyrate by 50 basis points to 9.5percent with effect from 16thSeptember, 2013.

Governor, State Bank ofPakistan, Yaseen Anwar whileunveiling the Monetary PolicyStatement (MPS) for the nexttwo months at a press confer-ence at SBP Learning ResourceCentre, Karachi, said that deci-

Policy rate up by 50 basis points to 9.5 pcCentral Bank taking steps to arrest rupee decline

sion to raise the policy rate wastaken at a meeting of the CentralBoard of Directors of SBP heldunder his chairmanship inKarachi today.

When his attention wasdrawn towards steep fall of ru-pee against dollar which is erod-ing the purchase power thus add-ing to plight of the poor, he saidthat as a financial regulator thecentral bank was well aware yetthe ground conditions like bal-ance of payment issues, current

account deficit were the factorbehind the rupee slide, which isnot exception to Pakistan but restof the countries were also facingthe similar conditions on theback of international economicslowdown. The governor how-ever was hopeful that the stepsand measures taken by the cen-tral bank will bear fruit goingforward in bring stability to thecurrency. He cited the exampleof India, Turkey, some Africancountries where the currency

depreciation is also a concern ofthe economies.

Mr. Anwar said that the fun-damental issues for sluggishlong-term economic growth inPakistan such as weak economicmanagement and low productiv-ity had largely remained unad-dressed. He added that the“economy has experiencedbouts of growth and stable in-flation but a sustainable perfor-mance has remained largely elu-

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NEW DELHI—Hindu national-ist Narendra Modi was crownedas the candidate for prime min-ister of India’s main oppositionparty on Friday, cementing theremarkable rise of a leaderadored by business but tainted bydeadly religious riots that brokeout on his watch.

“It’s BJP tradition to an-nounce its PM candidate beforeLok Sabha elections. So todayour parliamentary board decidedthat Sri Nadrendra Modiji willbe our PM candidate,” BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) president

Modi named Indian PM candidateRajnath Singh said at a press con-ference.

The coun-try is due to goto the polls byMay 2014.In June, Modi,p o p u l a r l yknown as“NaMo”, wasselected to headthe BJP’s cam-paign in the 2014 elections, amove that saw senior leader LKAdvani resign from top partyposts in protest.

The Hindu-nationalist BJPhas been fractured by squabblingamong its leaders, with severalfearing Modi being too divisivea figure who could deter votersfrom minority religions, particu-larly Muslims.

Modi, 62, has sought to painthimself as a pro-business reform-ist who could revive Asia’s third-largest economy, which is grow-ing at its slowest rate in a decadeand is struggling with a currencyat near record lows.Though the market-friendlyleader has been popular with the

corporate world, he remainstarred by the Gujarat riots in2002, in which as many as 2,000people were killed, mainly Mus-lims, according to rights groups.

Modi denied any wrongdo-ing, but one of his former min-isters was jailed last year fororchestrating some of the vio-lence and the Supreme Courtonce likened him to Nero, theemperor who fiddled whileRome burned.Rahul Gandhi, 43, who is sometwo decades younger than Modi

SHARAFAT KAZMI

ISLAMABAD—The ExecutiveCommittee of the National Eco-nomic Council (ECNEC) in ameeting at the Prime Minister’sOffice on Friday, approved 10developmental projects amount-ing to Rs 51791.435 million.

The meeting of the Com-mittee was held under theChairmanship of the FinanceMinister, Senator MuhammadIshaq Dar.

It was attended by MurtazaJatoi, Minister for Industries andProduction, Anusha RehmanAhmed Khan, Minister of Statefor Information Technology andTelecommunications, representa-

ECNEC approvesRs 51791m 10 projects50 diesel-electric locomotives to be procured

tives of Planning and Develop-ment of Government of Punjab,

Sindh, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwaand Balochistan, Abdul Rahim

Ziaratwal, MPA Balochistan,Representative of Government ofKhyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Ministerof Finance, Government ofPunjab, Syed Murad Ali Shah,Advisor to Chief Minister Sindhand senior officials of federal andprovincial governments.

The ECNEC which had ear-lier constituted a committee un-der the chairmanship of Ministerfor Planning and Development,Ahsan Iqbal, to review the KachiCanal Project was informed thatthe committee had decided tovisit the site to ascertain theprogress tomorrow.

The field visit report wouldbe submitted to ECNEC later.

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US, Russia, UN mull overworkable Syria solution

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Syria to abideby anti-chemical

treatyBISHKEK—Russian PresidentVladimir Putin on Friday wel-comed Syria’s announcementthat it had joined a global anti-chemical weapons treaty, say-ing it showed Damascus was

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BISHKEK—Advisor to primeminister on Foreign Affairs,Sartaj Aziz held a meeting withthe Indian External Affairs Min-ister Salman Khurshid on thesidelines of the Shanghai Coop-eration Organization (SCO) onFriday here.

Advisor on Foreign AffairsSartaj Aziz held a meeting withIndian External Affairs ministerSalman Khursheed in Bishkak onthe sideleines of Shanghai Coop-eration Organisation meeting.

They discussed bilateral is-sues, ways to defuse tension onLine of Control and dialogue pro-

Sartaj, Khurshid discusstwo PMs’ meet in NY

Pak looks forward to work closely with SCO countriescess between the two countries.They also discussed proposedmeeting of the prime ministers oftwo countries in New York laterthis month.

Sources said that the two topforeign affairs leaders of Pakistanand India exchanged views onmatters of mutual interests, es-pecially on the upcoming meet-ing of the prime ministers of thetwo countries in New York.

Later, Indian External Min-ister, Salman Khurshid talking tomedia said that matters includ-ing the Line of Control (LoC)situation came under discussion.

He said that views were also ex-changed on post Mumbai attackdevelopments in this meeting.

Sartaj Aziz, Advisor has saidthe Pakistani Judicial Commis-sion was scheduled to visit Indiaon September 23.

At the informal meeting, theissue of Mumbai attacks was alsodiscussed.

During the meeting, SartajAziz mentioned the appointmentof a new public prosecutor for thetrial of seven men accused oftraining and guiding the Mumbaiattackers. Khurshid said Paki-

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NEW DELHI—Four convicts inthe December 16 gangrape-cum-murder case were on Fridayawarded death penalty by a Delhicourt which said the gravity ofthe offence cannot be tolerated.

“Death to all,” AdditionalSessions Judge Yogesh Khannasaid while delivering the verdictin the case that had evoked na-tionwide outrage and led the gov-ernment to bring in a stringentanti-rape law.

“Besides discussing othersoffences, I straightaway come tosection 302 (murder) of IPC. This

4 get death in India bus rapefalls under inhuman nature of theconvicts and the gravity of of-fence they committed cannot betolerated. Death sentence is givento all the four convicts,” he said.

The offence committed byMukesh (26), Akshay Thakur(28), Pawan Gupta (19) andVinay Sharma (20) falls under therarest of rare category warrant-ing capital punishment, the judgesaid.

The four were convicted bythe court on September 10 for thegangrape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student.

“Court cannot turn a blindeye to such a gruesome act,” thejudge said, while handing downthe maximum punishment.

He said, “When crimeagainst women is rising on day-to-day basis, so, at this point intime court cannot keep its eyeshut.”

“There should be exemplarypunishment in view of theunparallelled brutality withwhich the victim was gangrapedand murdered, as the case fallsunder the rarest of rare category.

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Pardoning in name of Allah in murdercases contrary to Qur’an teachings: CJP

KARACHI—Chief JusticeIftikhar Mohammad Chaudhryon Friday said pardoning inGod’s name someone convictedof murder by a court of law wastantamount to evading the law.

The chief justice’s remarkscame days after the parents andtwo sisters of Shahzeb Khan,who was murdered in cold bloodby a business tycoon’s son andhis three accomplices, ap-proached the Sindh High Courtto seek acquittal of the convicts

after pardoning them “in thename of Allah”.

The pardon of the men con-victed of Shahzeb’s murder trig-gered a widespread debate overwhether the country’s elite couldbe held accountable for crimesthey committed as the prime ac-cused belonged to powerful feu-dal families.

Chief Justice Iftikhar wasspeaking on the matter during thehearing of another murder case.The chief justice stated that it was

wrong to use Quranic verses andreligion for personal gains.

He said most suffering indi-viduals and families were usuallypressured into pardoning the con-vict, adding that it was the re-sponsibility of the court(s) to pre-vent acts that harm not only cer-tain people and families, but so-ciety at large from occurring.

Chief Justice Iftikhar de-clared that if an agreement be-tween the parties fails to bring

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Justice Mushirnomination as SC

judge okayedOBSERVER REPORT

KARACHI—The ParliamentaryCommittee on Appointment ofJudges to Superior Court on Fri-day unanimously okayed thenomination of Sindh HighCourt’s current chief justice, Jus-tice Mushir Alam, as a judge ofthe Supreme Court.

The post of SHC chief jus-tice would be handed over to Jus-tice Maqbool Baqar, who wasrecently badly injured in a terror-ist attack in Karachi, Sindh’s pro-vincial capital.

The committee for judges’appointment, headed by Raja

HEART—Taliban militants un-leashed car bombs at the US Con-sulate in western Afghanistan onFriday morning, triggering afirefight with security forces inan attack that killed at least twoAfghans and wounded 17.

The US said all its person-nel from the mission were safeand that American forces later se-cured the site.

The attack in the city of Herat— along with a suicide truck

bombing in the country’s east thatwounded seven Afghans on Fri-day — raises concerns of spread-ing insecurity in Afghanistan asUS-led troops reduce their pres-ence ahead of a full withdrawalnext year. It came two days afterthe 12th anniversary of the Sep-tember 11 attacks, and was also arude return to reality for Afghanswho had spent the previous dayand a half celebrating their

GENEVA—US Secretary of State John Kerry meeting United Nations special envoy Lakhdar Brahimion Syria in Geneva on Friday.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is also present.

Al-Qaedacalls for attacks

inside USDUBAI—Al Qaeda leaderAyman al-Zawahri urged small-scale attacks inside the UnitedStates to “bleed America eco-nomically”, adding he hopedeventually to see a more signifi-cant strike, according to the SITEmonitoring service.

In an audio speech releasedonline a day after the 12th anni-versary of the 9/11 strikes,Zawahri said attacks “by one

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Misbah holds groundas Pak fumbleHARARE—Pakistan captainMisbahul Haq stood firm as hisside lost five wickets chasing vic-tory on the fourth day of the sec-

ond Test against Zimba-bwe at the Harare SportsClub yesterday.

Set 264 to win, Pakistanwere 158 for five at theclose of play, setting up atense last day with Zim-

babwe having a realistic chanceof sharing the series and earninga rare victory against one ofcricket’s major nations. Misbahwas unbeaten on 26 and will re-sume batting today with wicket-keeper Adnan Akmal (17 notout), with Pakistan needing an-other 106 runs to win.—AFP

Detailed story on Sports Page

Taliban attack on Herat USconsulate kills 2 Afghans

MQM beingpushed to

wall: SabzwariIRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Leader of opposi-tion in Sindh assembly SyedFaisal Sabzwari said that theMuttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) was being pinned to wallin the disguise of the ongoing tar-geted operation in Karachi,which was for the elimination ofthe crimes and the criminals from

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Apex Court tells govt

Appoint NABboss or face

consequencesISLAMABAD—The SupremeCourt on Friday ordered the gov-ernment to appoint National Ac-countability Bureau Chairmansoon or it should be ready to faceconsequences in the light of acourt order.

The orders came during thehearing of a case pertaining toappointment of NAB chief. At-torney General Munir A Malikrequested the court to grant moretime as leader of the oppositionwas out of the country.

The CJ said that it was notthe court’s headache whether theprime minister or the oppositionleader were in or outside the

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No demandsput for peacetalks yet: TTPPESHAWAR—A banned outfitTehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP) Friday refuted reportsabout putting demands forpeace dialogues with thegovernment.

According to the TTPspokesman Shahidullah Shahid,the meeting of decision makingbody of the group has not yetheld. Shahid further said thatthe outcome of the peace talksdepended upon the govern-ment.—AP

Obama to makerare Malaysia stopon Asia tourWASHINGTON—BarackObama will pay the first visitby a US president to Malaysiain a half-century on a four-nation Asia tour next month,the White House said Friday.

Obama will attend summitsin Indonesia and Brunei andalso visit longtime US ally thePhilippines during the October6-12 trip.

The last US president tovisit Malaysia was LyndonJohnson in 1966. US relationswith the Muslim-majoritynation soured during the 1981-

Dr Qadeerdissolves Tehrik-e-Tahaffuz PakistanOBSERVER REPORT

LAHORE—Dr Abdul QadeerKhan, father of Pakistan’snuclear programme, hasofficially announced thedissolution of his political partythe Tehreek-e-TahaffuzPakistan.

Khan said he had taken thedecision after consultation withhis companions, and would filethe termination documents tothe Election Commission today.

He further professed thatpoliticking through small,isolated groups was wrong, andthat from hereon, he would

GENEVA/DUBAI—US Secre-tary of State John Kerry and Rus-sian Foreign Minister SergeiLavrov met the United Nationsspecial envoy on Syria in Genevaon Friday as they worked on adeal that could avert U.S. mili-tary action.

Lakhdar Brahimi, who actsfor both the world body and theArab League, met Kerry andLavrov together. He has been try-ing to broker a political solutionto the Syrian civil war. The twopowers are trying to flesh out

Moscow’s plan to dispose of Syr-ian President Bashar al-Assad’schemical weapons.

Damascus formally appliedto join a global poison gas ban -a move welcomed on Friday byRussian President VladimirPutin. He called it “an importantstep towards the resolution of theSyrian crisis” and added: “Thisconfirms the serious intention ofour Syrian partners to follow thispath.” China, too, hailed Assad’sdecision. But Kerry underscored

Crackdown onsubstandard CNG

cylinders from 16thFAISALABAD—Traffic policein collaboration with Re-gional Transport Authoritywill launch a crackdown fromSeptember 16 against CNGcylinders in public transportin violation of the rules andregulations of Oil and GasRegulatory Authority(OGRA). Chairing a meetinghere on Friday, acting Divi-sional Commissioner NajamAhmad Shah said that twodays had been given to own-ers of public transport withCNG cylinders in violation ofthe OGRA rules.

Owners of all buses andvan should voluntarily re-move CNG cylinders or beready to face action in accor-dance with law, Najam Shahwarned, adding that no ve-hicle would be allowed to plythe road violating the OGRAinstructions. He ordered po-lice to arrest owners of ve-hicles instead of their driv-ers and other employees. Healso directed the RegionalTransport Authority to can-cel route permits of all thevehicles.—APP

Four die inhouse collapse

PESHAWAR—As many asfour people died and awoman injured when roof ofa dilapidated house sud-denly caved in districtAbbottabad, police said onFriday.

The dead include twochildren and two womenwhile a woman alsowounded.

The ill-fated incidentoccurred at village PakanPesar in the limits of LoraPolice Station Abbottabadwhere the people gatheredin the house of MunsifKhan on occasion of wed-ding of his daughter lastnight.

Police said the roofcould not bear peoples’load, who were assembledin sufficient number on rooftop to see wedding cer-emony and fell on them.

The local residentsrushed to the spot and re-trieved the bodies of de-ceased and shifted the injuredto a local hospital. The de-ceased include Tayyab, Talib,Bilqees and Saeeda.—APP

Power shutdownPESHAWAR—The PeshawarElectric Supply Company(PESCO) here Friday issuedpower shutdown notice fordifferent areas of the city dueto maintenance work.

Power supply would beremain suspended from 132KV Shahi Bagh grid stationon Sept 14 from 7am to12pm and resultantly, theconsumers of 11 KVSarbalandpura, Eid Ghah,Latifabad, Faqirabad,Charsadda Road feederswill face inconvenience.

From132 KV Peshawarfort grid station, power sup-ply will remain not availableon Sept 16 from 6am to 12pmdue to technical and repairworks.

As results, the consum-ers of 11KV Karimpura feed-ers will face problems. Powersupply will remain sus-pended from 132KVPeshawar City grid station onSept 16 from 8am to 12pm andresultantly the consumers of11 KV Nishtarabad,Islamabad, Shiekhabad,Hashtnagri feeders will facedifficulty.

Likewise, from 132KVPeshawar City grid stationon Sept 17 from 8am to12pm, the resultantly theconsumers of 11 kv FaqirAbad-2,Zaryab feeders willface inconvenience Powersupply will remain sus-pended from 132KV SakhiChashma Grid station onSept 14 from 7am to 12pm,resultantly the consumersof 11 kv Nishat feeders willface inconvenience.

Power supply will remainsuspended from 132KVMardan-II Grid station onSept 16,18,20 from 7am to1pm, resultantly the consum-ers of 11 kv new Bughdada,Par hoti,new eid ghah, ShahDhand, Shankar,Old EidGhah feeders will face incon-venience.

Power supply will remainsuspended from 132KVJamrud Grid station on Sept16,18,21 from 7am to1pm,resultantly the consum-ers of 11 kv Hayat Abad-6feeders will face inconve-nience.—APP

ISLAMABAD—The FederalFlood Commission (FFC) onFriday said that all the mainrivers Indus, Jhelum,Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej areflowing normal. According todaily FFC report, the actualriver flows and reservoir el-evations indicates thatTarbela & Mangla Reser-voirs are at elevations of1547.39 feet and 1238.90 feetrespectively, which are2.61feet and 3.10feet belowtheir respective MaximumConservation Levels of1550.00 feet and 1242.00 feet.

The combined live stor-age position of Tarbela,Chashma and Mangla reser-voirs is 13.817 MAF as com-pared to last year ’s10.723MAF. According toFlood Forecasting Division(FFD), Lahore, yesterday’strough of Westerly Waveover Kashmir has movedaway Eastwards and a freshWesterly Wave lies overNortheastern Afghanistanand adjoining area. MarkedSeasonal Low lies over Northwestern Balochistan and ad-joining areas.Moist currentfrom Arabian Sea is penetrat-ing into up per parts of the

country upto 4000 feet.As predicted by the

Flood Forecasting Division(FFD), Lahore, scatteredthundershower with isolatedmoderate falls is expectedover Rawalpindi, Gujranwala,Malakand, Hazara, Kohat &Peshawar Divisions includ-ing Khyber, Mohmand,Kurram & Bajour Agenciesand Kashmir, besides, uppercatchments of Rivers Indus,Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi andSutlej during the next 24hours.

Isolated thund ershowermay also occur over LahoreDivision, besides, Gilgit-Baltistan and NortheasternBalochistan during the sameperiod.

Significant rainfall eventsreported by FFD, Lahoreduring the past 24 hours in-clude; Phulra =97 mm,Balakot =62 mm, Lahore (Air-port=51 mm), Islamabad (Air-port=40 mm ,Zeropoint=28mm ), Palandri = 39 mm ,Kotli =37 mm , Oghi = 36 mm, Kallar = 28 mm ,Nauseri = 26mm , Sehrkakota = 25 mm ,Domel, Murree & Kakul =22mm each, Muzaffarabad &Rawalakot.—APP

OBSERVER REPORT

I S L A M A B A D — D e f e n c eAttachés of 6 European coun-tries reviewed the functioningof rehabilitation centers ofMalakand and FATA at DTCE.

The defense attachés in-cluded Lt Col Zsolt MULLER(Hungary), Col Anders

Visit of EuropeanDefence Attachés to DTCE

Walden (Sweden), Lt ColMarkus Maeder (Switzerland),Lt Col Walter Buysse (Bel-gium), Commander Carstenklenke (Germany) and Fransvan Veenendaal (Netherlands)along with Saadat Ali (Senior

Program Officer Embassy ofNetherlands).

The Naway Sahar De-

radicalization Center, Bajauris being operated under theCommander North FrontierCorps for the rehabilitationand reintegration of formermilitants. Commander NorthBrig Haider joined the dis-

cussion via video confer-ence and shared his experi-ence.

RAFIULLAH MANDOKHAIL

ZHOB—Rabies is a viralZoonotic disease caused by‘Rabdo-Virus’ and carried inthe saliva of infected warm-blooded animals. It is trans-mitted to human beingsthrough bites and scratches.Rabid dogs are the mostcommon vector for thespread and transmission ofvirus. It is fatal if not treatedproperly. According tohealth experts, more than50,000 people die each yearof rabies in the world, whilenearly 5,000 deaths are re-ported annually due to theRabies in Pakistan due tothe lack of awareness re-garding the disease. Most ofthe population is either un-aware of the risk of rabieswhen bitten by rabid dogs,

or deprived of the right treat-ment for its prevention.

Majority of the rabiessuspect cases remain unre-ported in the country, whileof the reported cases, morethan 60% of deaths occur inchildren below 15. Overall,one person is killed by thedisease in every 10 minutesacross the world. It is be-lieved that nothing may bemore painful and horrific thanrabies. Rabies is a neglecteddisease in bordering districtZhob, although the incidentsof dog bites in the district arevery high. Recently dozensof people including childrenhave sustained multiple inju-ries, when number of straydogs has turned mad and bitcitizens in various areas ofthe district. Increasing num-ber of stray dogs has now

become a nuisance for peopleof the area. Stray dogs caneasily be seen roaming in al-most every street and roadof the city, particularly dur-ing pre-dawn and night time.They are often seen chasingpeople and growling at them.

In a number of localitiesin the city, it has become al-most impossible for citizensto move freely at night. Thedogs pose a serious threat tothe lives of pedestrians. Resi-dents complain that they hadlodged several complaints tothe office of the Administra-tor, but no step has beentaken so for to control swell-ing number of stray dogs.“Eradication of stray dogshas never been taken seri-ously despite continuousrise in number of injuries dueto dog-bites”. A resident

said. Officials of Municipal-ity repeatedly claim thateradication of stray dogs isresponsibility of the districtadministration and healthdepartment. But, no onecomes forward.

Hazrat Umer resident ofGustoi area breathed his lastof dog bite at civil hospitalfew months back. “Districtheadquarters civil hospitalZhob receives 5-10 cases ofdog-bite almost every day”,said President Para MedicalStaff Federation MuhammadTahir Hotak. Moreover, Dis-trict Headquarters civil hos-pital is facing shortage ofanti-rabies vaccines. Owingto the lack of vaccines and illmedication, the disappointedpeople have diverted theirattention towards specialtreatment (Dam).

The high mortality rateof the disease in Pakistan ismainly because of the lackof awareness about vacci-nation of domestic animalsand pre-exposure vaccina-tion of at risk population.Moreover, lack of diagnos-tic facilities regarding thespecific infection adds up inmaking the infection withfatal outcome. VeterinaryOfficer Relief InternationalDr. Syed Ramazan Shah saidthat the virus affects thecentral nervous systems ofmost warm-blooded animalsand victims of such animalbites have to be immediatelyvaccinated. It causes con-vulsions, inability to moveand strange behavior devel-oping hydrophobia (fear ofwater) in the victim exposedto the disease.

Chotu gang returnsto DG Khan

DG KHAN—Release ofChoto gang in Dera Gazi Khanand Rajanpur has boostedcrimes in the area wherepeople are scared and ap-pealed to the government forproper action against thecriminal elements. While theSecurity forces are busy inhalting religious riots in thearea, Chotu gang once againhas become active and startedlooting and plundering inno-cent people who are alreadyliving under the poverty line.

According to sources,crimes of theft, murder andabduction for ransom haveincreased as notorious gang-ster Ghulam Rasool aliasChotu is patronizing criminalelements particularly in thesuburb of Dera Ghazi Khanand Rajanpur. It is the samegang, which had kidnappedpolicemen last month from thearea of Rojhan and transferredthem to Karachi. Police hadlaunched an operation whichcontinued for more than 22days against them but in vain.Being encouraged by thisgang, other criminal elementslike Pat gang.—INP

All main rivers normalBAHAWALPUR: Police personnel escorting the former member Punjab Assembly Zulfiqar Ali after the hearing ofhis fake degree case.

CHITRAL: Main bridge has been washed away in rains flood.

Rabies cause 5,000 deaths annually in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD—Constructionwork on the Lowari road tun-nel project was going onunhindered,and the projectwould be completed withinthree years provided thatflow of funds continues. Anofficial of the National High-way Authority (NHA) in-formed APP that the work onLowari Tunnel Projectstarted in September 2005.

The original tunnel of8,150 meter was excavated byJanuary 2009. However, due tochange in design from rail tun-nel to road tunnel in 2009, ad-ditional excavation to widenthe tunnel was being carriedout now. He said that so farover 1570 meter tunnel hasbeen widened and overallprogress has crossed 40%.Toa question, he said that LowariRoad Tunnel was indispens-

able for the people of Chitraland Dir because it was the onlyroad link for the people of theseareas with rest of the country.

Moreover, this road tunnelwill also facilitate access to Af-ghanistan and Central AsianRepublics and the country’strade, tourism and industry willbenefit greatly from it, he said.He said at times, work on thetunnel had to be stopped dueto financial constraints and badlaw and order situation but nowsteps were being taken to re-move all hindrances in the wayof this mega project.

The official said that theprovincial government ofKhyber Pakhttunkhaw hasalso pledged to allocate Rs 3billion for provincial PSDP forearly completion of variousprojects including Lowaritunnel.—APP

Construction work ofLowari tunnel road on

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—Pakistan Inter-national Airlines Hajj Opera-tion currently going on infull swings which has so farcarried over 9000 intendedhajis to holy land from Pa-kistan so far.

On the fifth day, Fridayof its Hajj Operation operatedfive special hajj flights whilecarrying around 2200 Hujjajto the Holy Land.

PIA’s PK2109 carrying502 Hujjaj left Islam Abadtodayat 5.20AM, fromKarachi PK2607 with 327

PIA Hajj operation in full swing

Over 9000 intendedHajis carried so far

hujjaj at 10.25AM, LahorePK2209 carrying 499 at11.25AM, from PeshawarPK2009 took off at 2.00PMcarrying 324 whereas thesecond hajj flight fromLahore departed carrying503 intending pilgrims toJeddah. Once again the de-parture and arrival of allflights was on time. PIASpokesperson said here.

Till now the total upliftof intending pilgrims standat 9,100 by 22 hajj flights.So far, three Hajj flightsfrom Karachi carried 929, sixflights from Lahore 2,955;

seven flights fromIslamabad 3,312; threeflights from Peshawar 1,227and two flights from Quettacarried 656 Hujjaj to SaudiArabia. On 14th September,Saturday four flights arescheduled; two fromIslamabad and one eachfrom Lahore and Peshawar.PIA Spokesperson con-cluded.

On Thursday, 12th Sep-tember, a total of five specialflights are scheduled to op-erate; two from Islam Abad,and one each from Peshawar,Lahore and Quetta:

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—Qaumi WatanParty (QWP) Chairman AftabAhmad Khan Sherpao onFriday asked the federal gov-ernment to implement thedeclaration of the recentlyconvened All Parties Confer-ence (APC) in letter and spirit.“We cannot afford to wastetime. The delay in holdingtalks with the Taliban will addto the woes of thePakhtuns,” he told a pressconference at Watan Kor, thecentral secretariat of QWP.

About the talks with theTaliban, he said the federal

government should evolve amechanism to prepareroadmap for holding talks withTaliban. He said the govern-ment should entrust respon-sibility to stakeholders fromKhyber Pakhtunkhwa to ar-range talks with the Taliban.“The stakeholders fromKhyber Pakhtunkhwa and theFederally Administered TribalAreas (Fata) should be part ofthe talks as the Pakhtuns havesuffered a lot,” he argued.

Welcoming the possiblerelease of Afghan Talibanprisoners, Aftab Sherpaosaid the move would help cre-ate an enabling environment

for talks between the Talibanand the Afghan government.He said peace in Pakistanwas linked to the stability ofAfghanistan. The former in-terior minister said he wouldvisit Kabul on September 17in a bid to bring the peopleand leadership of both thecountries together. He said adelegation of Afghan parlia-mentary secretaries wouldalso visit Islamabad on Sep-tember 24. He called upon thefederal government to estab-lish a trust to extend finan-cial help to the families of thevictims of the war on terror.He said over 50,000 people

were killed and injured inacts of subversion.

The QWP leader said hisparty was committed to bringpeace and prosperity to theland of the Pakhtuns. He saidno effort would be spared toremove the sense of depriva-tion among the Pakhtuns.Aftab Sherpao asked the fed-eral government to take ini-tiatives for bringing peaceand prosperity to Pakistanand Afghanistan. On the oc-casion, Awami National PartyPK-20 president Nisar Khanannounced joining QWPalong with his scores of sup-porters.

Sherpao asks Govt toimplement APC declaration

2-year-old childdrown in filthy

water pondKHAIRPUR—Family membersof a two-year-old child who diedafter falling into a filthy waterpond held a strong protestwhile carrying his body, block-ing the road which caused traf-fic jam here on Friday. Accord-ing to police, a 2-year child ofMuhammad Younas was play-ing outside his home located inMills Colony when he fell intoa waste water pond located nearby and died.

The locals recovered thebody and held a protest dem-onstration blocking the MillsColony Road resulting in mas-sive traffic jam at two sides ofthe road. They chanted slo-gans against the local admin-istration for not draining outwater despite repeatedly sub-mitting applications and re-quests in this regard.—INP

Regional stabilityISLAMABAD—Chairman Senate Stand-ing Committee on Defence and DefenceProduction Senator Mushahid Hussainhere on Friday said peace in Afghani-stan is vital for a secure and stable Pa-kistan. Addressing a press conferencehere along with Senators Haji Adeel andSughra Imam, Mushahid described indetail the meetings of Pakistani parlia-mentarians with Afghan leaders duringtheir two-day visit to Kabul on Septem-

ber 10-11. Mushahid said the Pakistani delegation had afruitful and frank discussions with Afghan President HamidKarzai, Defence Minister Bismillah and opposition leaderDr Abdullah Abdullah. Senators from PML-N, PML-Q, PPPand ANP were part of the delegation. Mushahid said itwas the first ever dialogue between Senate Standing Com-mittee on Defence and Defence Production of Pakistanand Defence and Internal Security and Local Administra-tion Committee of ‘Meshrano Jirga’ of Afghan Parliament.The bilateral dialogue focused on issues including secu-rity and defence cooperation between the two countries,existing and emerging challenges in Pak-Afghan relations,cross-border terrorism, narcotics smuggling, border man-agement, challenges of 2014 NATO withdrawal and Af-ghanistan peace process and institutionalizing Pak Af-ghanistan Defence Parliamentary Dialogue. The two sidesagreed that in the best interest of both countries, the twobrother nations should move forward with a joint approachon important national and regional issues, and should havea joint strategy on security issues affecting the two coun-tries. It was stressed that by connecting with each otherand, with the region and outside world, full economic po-tential of this area and the people can be realised. Parlia-mentarians from both sides agreed to enhance the defencecooperation between the two countries while developingbilateral cooperation between the armed forces and secu-rity agencies of Pakistan and Afghanistan. MPs at the de-fence committees’ dialogue agreed that if Pakistan andAfghanistan join hands together, the two armed forcescan manage their respective internal security problems ina more reasonable and effective way.—APP

Action against Hajj flight delayISLAMABAD—Minister for ReligiousAffairs and Interfaith Harmony SardarMuhammad Yousaf said that str ictact ion would be taken against theairline’s responsible for delay in theongoing Hajj flights. Talking to me-dia persons at Pakistan Institute ofMedical Sciences (PIMS), he saidManaging Director Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines has assured that someaircraft had been placed in reserve

to meet any emergency situation. He said Mauveen-e-Hujjaj have been directed to register complaints of theHujjaj and provide maximum facilities to the intendingpilgrims. Eight circles have been constituted for thepurpose. Strict action would be taken against the HajjGroup Operator, if caught violating agreement with theHujjaj. The intending pilgrims are being vaccinated atHaji camps, he said. Earlier, the minister administeredoath from the elected members of the Non-gazettedEmployees Welfare Association of Pakistan Instituteof Medical Sciences (PIMS). He assured for the reso-lution of the problems including the approval of ser-vice structure, promotion mechanism, Shaheed ZulfikarAli Bhutto University would be separated from PIMS.He said the Hajj quota of PIMS employees would beenhanced next year. PML-N MNA Malik Abrar,Chaudhary Ashraf Gujar, former minister J. Salik a largenumber of the employees of PIMS were present on theoccasion.—APP

PWDs quotaIS L A M A B A D—Senator Dr. SaeedaIqbal Friday urged the government toenforce Persons With Disabilities(PWDs) quota in letter and spirit in allorganizations across the country. Thisshe said while addressing a seminaron ‘Decent Work and Persons withDisabilities’ as a chief guest,organised by Health, Education, Re-habilitation and Awareness (HERA)Trust with collaboration with Interna-

tional Labour Organisation (ILO), held at Al-Farabi Spe-cial Education Complex. She stated that the governmenthas already allocated two percent quota for PWDs butit had not been implemented yet by a number oforganisations. “For building PWDs confidence up, it isour duty to take extra care of the legal rights of thisignored segment of the society”, Senator Saeeda opined.Rabia Razzaque, Project Manager of ‘Empowering Vul-nerable Group through Education, Employment andTraining’ launched by ILO, pointed out that in 2012,only three countries in the world remain polio-endemic.Persistent pockets of polio transmission in northernNigeria and along the border between Afghanistan andPakistan were key epidemiological challenges. “Eradi-cating polio from Pakistan depends on delivering oralvaccine to each and every child, including the most vul-nerable and the hardest-to-reach. This massive under-taking can succeed but only with the tireless effortsand commitment of the people of the country”, sheadded. Farhat Abbas, President of HERA Trust, saidthat despite the presence of National Policy and Na-tional Plan of Action for PWDs, there were various chal-lenges hindering on its implementation. “The eighteenthconstitutional amendment has developed the subjectof ‘Special Education’ for PWDs both at federal andProvincial levels. Now each of the four provinces needto develop their policy and plan of action in the better-ment of PWDs.”, he added.—APP

Peace in KarachiIS L A M A B A D —Sindh InformationMinister, Sharjeel Inaam Memon saidthat consensus evolved in All Par-ties Conference to revive law and or-der situation in Karachi. He said thatfederal government fully coordinatedwith provincial government to main-tain peace and stability in Karachi.Sharjeel Memon said the targeted op-eration backed by secret agencies wasbeing carried out by the police and

Rangers and that no particular political party was be-ing made a target. Provincial Information Minister saidthat provincial government was against the politicalvictimization and use of violence against their politi-cal opponents. Talking to a private television channel,he said that in the presence of the independent judi-ciary no unlawful activity and unjust action was takenagainst any group in Karachi. He warned against giv-ing ethnic or political colour to the ongoing targetedoperation in Karachi and sought political parties’ helpfor the government in its efforts to eliminate terrorismin the port city. The targeted operation would be con-ducted only against the criminals and the city wouldbe cleansed of the outlaws, he added. He said the me-tropolis cannot be left at the mercy of terrorists andextortionists.—APP

World Alzheimer’sDay on Sept 21

H Y D E R A B A D — W o r l dAlzheimer’s Day will be ob-served on September 21 allover the world including Pa-kistan to raise awarenessabout Alzheimer’s and de-mentia. According to a pressreleased issued here onMonday the Alzheimer’s dis-ease is the most commonform of dementia, a group ofdisorders that impairs men-tal functioning. At the mo-ment, Alzheimer’s is progres-sive and irreversible. It saidthat every 71 seconds, some-one develops Alzheimer’sdisease. Today, it is esti-mated that about five millionAmericans.—APP

PESHAWAR—Child RightsClub Pakistan and studentsof government middleschool Takiya SanganPeshawar held a walk hereon Friday to encourage par-ents to enroll their out-of-school children. DistrictEducation Officer AbdulBasit and SPARC (Societyfor the Protection of theRights of the Child) ProgramManager Imran Takkar ledthe campaign.

Speaking on the occasion,Abdul Basit resolved to bringall out-of-school children backto schools. He termed the en-rollment walk a positive activ-

ity and asked parents, particu-larly mothers, to make sure theirchildren were enrolled inschools to make them good citi-zens of the country. He said thatduring last week enrollmentcampaign till now almost 10,000new children were enrolled inschools. He further said thatonly education can protect andpromote children rights in theprovince. Mr. Basit also encour-ages child to child motivationof Child Rights Club for increas-ing enrollment.

Imran Takkar said that asprovincial government hadfocused on education. H saidthat the government should

bring the desired changethrough education in the prov-ince to make it a role model forother provinces. He assuredthat Child Rights Club Pakistanwill fully support the educa-tion department in increasingenrolment in schools and re-quested PTI provincial electedrepresentative to patronizesuch activities in throughoutthe province itself.

It is demanded by ChildRights Club students that allthe required facilities shouldbe provided by the provincialgovernment that out of schoolchildren also avail the oppor-tunities of education as their

MULTAN—Pakistan isranked at 26 for under fivemortality in the world withunder five mortality rate of 86,neo-natal mortality rate 42and infant mortality rate of 69per 1000 live births. TheUnited Nations has issued itsannual statistics on childmortality around the world.The data reveals that thenumber of children dyingevery year has halved in ageneration-down from 12 mil-lion in 1990 to 6.6 million in2012. The report notes thathalf of these deaths occur injust five countries India, Ni-geria, Pakistan, and China.

Likewise more than 4 in10 of all neonatal deathsworldwide occur in just threecountries India, Nigeria andPakistan, added the report.Jasmine Whitbread, ChiefExecutive of Save the Chil-dren International, said “Dra-matic global progress is be-ing made in saving children’slives and we are now at anhistoric point where endingpreventable child deaths lieswithin our grasp.” This dem-

onstrates that widespreadefforts to improve access tolife-saving healthcare forsome of the world’s mostvulnerable children are work-ing.

But these efforts need tobe stepped up in order to pre-vent millions more childrenfrom dying. The new data re-veals that this historic oppor-tunity is at risk because twomain challenges remain thepoorest children are beingexcluded and too many chil-dren are still not surviving thefirst month of life, report said.Governments need to takeurgent action to deliverhealth care and nutrition toevery child if we are going tosee sustainable progress incoming years and pay spe-cial attention to newbornsand the most excluded. Ev-ery child has the right to sur-vive, no matter where theyare born, it added. Donorcountries and internationalorganizations should alsomake sure no child dies forlack of resources, concludedthe report.—APP

HYDERABAD: People gather outside a bank after a robbery in the bank.

QUETTA: Activists of Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen shout slogans against a possiblemilitary strike on Syria during a protest.

ABBOTTABAD: Workers demolishing the cabins constructed illegally on the sides ofKarakoram Highway.

fundamental right and the en-rolled children may not drop-out due to lack of required fa-cilities inside the schools.

The enrollment campaignwalk organized by SPARCwas participated by teach-ers, Child Rights Club’s stu-dents, media men and com-munity members. The partici-pants were holding playcards and banners inscribedwith motivational slogans inconnection with the enroll-ment increasing campaignannounced by the Elemen-tary & Secondary EducationDepartment in KhyberPakhtoonkhwa.—APP

Child Rights Club, students stageenrollment motivation walk

Global reductionin child mortality

SWAT—Community partici-pation is vital to prevent andcontrol the spread of denguevirus in the district this wasstated by Additional Assis-tant Commissioner tehsilBabuzai Ashfaq khan. Localdistrict administration hastaken initiative to providesuch marvelous training ses-sions for the local youth,workers and supporters ofdifferent political parties andelders of the valley, he added.The training sessions havebeen started by trainers fromWednesday last which is stillgoing on in different shifts.

The trainers include DrAsad and Dr Iftikahr whohave been given the duty totrain the public by WHOand Health department ofSwat. Ashfaq Khan said thatafter imparting training to thelocals, they will visit everyhousehold in their own

union council and makepeople aware about the pre-ventive measures and how todestroy the dengue virus andlarva from their homes. Headded that it is the responsi-bilities of every citizen thatthey should take care of them-selves and as well as theirfamilies. He appealed to thepeople that they should co-operate with the district ad-ministration in this hard time.

To make aware the peopleabout this deadly disease, thedistrict administration alsoarranged a seminar on the pre-vention of Dengue. The semi-nar titled “Control and Pre-vention of Dengue” was a re-sponse to the efforts of Uni-versity of Swat to eradicatedengue fever from the area.Dr Jawad Ahmad and Dr AyazAyub from Khyber MedicalUniversity Peshawar were thekey speakers on the subject

matter.Speakers at the seminar

highlighted the importanceof peoples’ participation inorder to eradicate denguefrom the area. Sharing his re-search, Dr Jawad of KhyberMedical University said thatmost of the Dengue feverpatients in the area are actu-ally affected by Aedes Mos-quitoes. He added that a Den-gue fever patient at initialstage could be treated athome while at the later stagethe situation could lead tofatality. He said that everyyear 50-100 million people getDengue fever and causingabout 24,000 deaths aroundthe world. Dr Ayaz Ayub, anexpert in public health high-lighted preventive measures.He urged the students tocome forward and make thecommunity aware on Denguefever.—APP

Community participation vital toprevent spread of dengue virus

I S L A M A B A D — S c a t t e r e drain-thundershower is ex-pected in Kashmir,Malakand, Hazara,Islamabad, Rawalpindi,Gujranwala, Lahore divi-sions, while isolated rain inPeshawar, Kohat, Sargodhadivisions and Gilgit-Baltistan is expected duringnext 24 hours. According toMeteorological department,seasonal low lies overNorthwest Balochistan andadjoining areas with itstrough extending southeast-wards. Weak Monsoon cur-rents from the Arabian seaare penetrating into upperparts of the country and awesterly wave is affectingupper parts of the countryand is likely to persist dur-ing next 2-3 days.

While, hot and humidweather is expected in mostparts of Punjab and Islamabad.However, rain-thundershoweris expected at scattered placesof Islamabad, Rawalpindi,Gujranwala, Lahore division,and at isolated places ofSargodha division during next24 hrs. In KhyberPakhtunkhwa, mainly hot andhumid weather is expected inmost parts of the province.However, rain-thundershoweris expected at scattered placesof Malakand, Hazara divisions,while at isolated places of

Rain, thundershowerlikely during next 24 hrs

Peshawar and Kohat divisionduring next 24 hours.

Hot and humid weatherwill prevail in Balochistan andSindh during next 24 hours.Rain-thundershower is ex-pected at scattered places ofKashmir during next 24hours. While, partly cloudyweather is expected withchances of rain-thunder-

storm at isolated places ofGilgit-Baltistan during next24 hours. The Meteorologi-cal Department Friday fore-cast rain for Malakand,Hazara, Kohat and Peshawardivisions during next 24hours due to seasonal lowlied over NorthwestBalochistan and its adjoiningareas with its trough extend-ing southeast wards.

According to Met OfficeSpokesman here, weak mon-soon currents from the Ara-bian Sea are penetrating intoupper parts of the countrywhereas a westerly wave isalso affecting upper parts andlikely to persist during next2-3 days.—APP

SHER GONDAL

MANDI BAHAUDDIN—Paki-stan Ex-servicemen Society isa vibrant organization withobjective of promoting wel-fare of ex-servicemen of allranks and protect their rightscollectively. Besides it, itstrives for creating a respect-able place in the society forex-servicemen and their fam-ily members by remaining inlegal limits. This was said bySenior Vice President Paki-stan Ex-Servicemen Society

(PESS) Commodore FarooqMirza while talking throughtelephone with District Presi-dent PESS Major SherMuhammad Gondal on Fri-day. He said with the effortsof its members nowadayssociety is organized acrossthe country from village tonational level and it has es-tablished its recognitionamong all segments of thesociety.

Realizing its importancethis time two generals – fourstars General Ehsan ul Haq

and three stars Lt GeneralHameed Gul are contestingelection for top slot ofpresidentship of the society.This is very encouraging forall ex-servicemen, he said. Hefurther said polling wouldstart at 10 am on Sept 15 atPESS central office inRawalpindi. He urged votersto support a candidate whoin their opinion could leadthe society in a better wayfor promoting welfare of ex-servicemen and protect theirgenuine and legitimate rights.

Farooqs: PESS working for ex-servicemen’s rights protection

MUZAFFARNAGAR—Violence-hit Muzaffarnagar was calm forthe fourth day on Friday, withUttar Pradesh officials sayingthat the three days of violencehad left over 43,000 peoplehomeless. And with the townand its surrounding areas inch-ing towards its old self, cau-tious authorities Friday relaxedcurfew for 12 hours — 7 a.m.to 7 p.m.

An official was quoted assaying by IANS that the nightcurfew would be in place till theweekend. “Once the situationbecomes normal, we will com-pletely lift the curfew,” said asenior police official. Districtauthorities say more than43,000 people who fled theirhomes, primarily from sur-

Muzaffarnagar riotsleave 43,000 homeless

rounding villages, are beingsheltered in the 38 relief campshurriedly set up in the district.The Uttar Pradesh governmenthas sanctioned funds for finan-cial compensation to the injured,riot—affected and ex-gratia forthe next of kin of the 43 peopleofficially listed as killed in theviolence. An official said Rs.3.1crore had been distributed toriot victims thus far.

Recovery of arms andcancellation of arms licensescontinued, with 300 more re-voked till late Thursday. Homedepartment officials said thepolice were trying to zero inon people who “electronicallydistributed” a fake video clipthat aggravated the violenceafter Sep 7. As many as 70

people have been named indifferent first information re-ports (FIRs) but none hasbeen arrested. Over 10,000people continued to be underpreventive detention. Policehave confiscated a largeamount of ammunition, in-cluding AK-47 cartridges.

The violence erupted lastweekend after simmering dis-content following the harass-ment of a young woman Aug27 in a village Muzaffarnagardistrict. Chief MinisterAkhilesh Yadav andSamajwadi Party chiefMulayam Singh Yadav haveaccused rival parties of trigger-ing trouble in Muzaffarnagar,a bustling city 130 km from NewDelhi, and nearby areas.—INP

PIA: It was theonly way out

IN the given situation, there was only one viable option to avoid virtual collapse of national flag carrier and it is satisfying thatPrime Minister has decided to try that option. Decision to privatise 26%

share of PIA through a transparent and fair bidding process would hopefullyattract investors with ability to run affairs of Airline on sound lines.

PIA has been incurring huge losses of 3.5 billion rupees per month andtherefore, pushed to the brink of disaster where no bailout package couldhelp it out. Financial packages should be used to help institutions reformthemselves and stand on their own feet but unfortunately this has not hap-pened in the national Airline. PIA has been enjoying a sort of monopoly inthe field but despite all that it could not plug its losses and transform itselfinto an enviable entity as it once was. This is mainly because of stuffing ofunnecessary manpower in the Airline by successive governments purelyon political considerations, which has alarmingly increased aircraft to staffratio and made salary bill unbearable. Inductions against huge perks andprivileges and that too of ineligible people as well as corruption have led tothe threatened downfall of the corporation. Service standards have alsoseen a nose-dive besides proverbial delays in domestic and internationalflights and as a result its revenue is falling whereas those of its small com-petitors is increasing. The deplorable state of affairs of PIA forced somecircles to plead for its closure but the Government has acted wisely inrejecting such a proposition. PIA has the entire necessary wherewithal toregain its lost glory and the objective can be achieved if the proposed pro-cess of privatization is carried out in really transparent manner. As theGovernment will still be a major shareholder after privatization of 26%shares of PIA, it will be the beneficiary if the new management succeeds inoverhauling the Corporation and turning it into a profitable institution.

Major face-lifting andexpansion of Capital

PML-N Government is coming out with fabulous ideas of mega projectsand schemes in different areas as part of its economic vision. Latest is

the plan to create New Islamabad on the other side of the picturesqueMargallah Hills and linking it through a tunnel. Construction of an interna-tional standard new airport at Rawat, expansion of Islamabad Highway to10-lanes, construction of high rise commercial buildings along the high-way from Rawat to Faizabad and establishment of an economic zone aroundRawat are part of the proposed projects involving investment worth bil-lions of rupees.

Islamabad is a comparatively new and modern city but there is grow-ing realization that it has almost exhausted its expansion capacity and itsstreets and roads have become congested due to increase in population andcommercial activities and the resultant traffic. Water and sewerage lines ofthe Capital have also lived up their lives and the city is unable to material-ize its plans of having a new sewage treatment plant and a satisfactorymechanism to dispose of solid waste. In most part of the globe, cities andespecially capitals are given in the control of elected leadership while de-velopmental authorities work under Mayors, who can better manage citiesas per expectations of the people and needs of the time. Anyhow, one mustappreciate the vision of the Prime Minister for face-lifting and expansionof the Capital as it will take care of socio-economic needs of the city formany decades. In this perspective, one is pained to hear objections fromPTI Chief Imran Khan, who has termed the project as environmental dev-astation claiming that it will ruin landscape of Margallah Hills. It is unfor-tunate that leaders of the stature of Imran Khan should churn out commentsto play with the galleries without comprehending the fuller dimensions ofthe issue and making its analysis. The city is to be established on the otherside of Margallah Hills and not on the Hills themselves and only a tunnelwould pass through these mountains and this much degradation of envi-ronment is acceptable for the sake of revolutionary impact that the projectwill have on the lives of the people and the overall economy. Objection ofImran is akin to the fake alarm bells raised by some vested interests claim-ing that Gaddani Power Park project is in doldrums because no environ-mental studies have been carried out. It is not understandable whose inter-ests these anti-developmental circles are serving as going by such stan-dards no development work will ever be possible in this country.

Purging, not sheerreshuffling, of Police

SINDH Home Department on Thursday carried out largest reshufflingin the Provincial Police department, which is being seen as part of the

efforts to energize the force in the backdrop of ongoing targeted operationagainst criminals. Meanwhile, the Provincial Government has decided toexpedite the operation and do legislation to prevent forced strikes.

Though the targeted operation, being carried out by Rangers and Po-lice, is taking action against criminals other than those involved in fourcrimes identified by the authorities for action by Rangers. But it is under-stood that in the long run the onus would be on Police to maintain lawand order. With this in view, directions have already been issued to thePolice chief to revamp the force and both the Federal and Provincialgovernments have offered to provide the necessary resources for the pur-pose. We, however, believe that neither reshuffle nor revamping wouldbe effective in the presence of thousands of political inductions in thepolice force made in the past. These are not only political loyalists moreinterested to serve the cause of their mentors than that of the state butsome of them are also believed to be hardened criminals. Therefore, qualityand credibility of both intelligence information and plans about actionagainst criminals are likely to be compromised in the presence of thesepersonnel. A bold decision will have to be taken to purge the Police ofsuch elements, followed by inductions purely on merit.

Conjectures about BB’s assassination

There will besleeping enough inthe grave.

A case ofcareful

choreography?

THERE is a suspicious elegance to the way in whichthe Syrian diplomatic dance

between Moscow and Washingtonhas been unfolding this week. In-deed many will be wondering veryseriously, if the whole affair has notbeen carefully choreographed.

Remember, President VladimirPutin and President Barack Obamaare by all accounts these days, atodds over virtually everything.Their body language at last week’sG20 gathering in Russia, might nothave demonstrated the same disaf-fection as the last time they met, atthe UK G20 summit in June. Nev-ertheless, by all accounts, they werestill the best of “not-friends”, asObama argued the case for militaryintervention in Syria and Putinstonewalled on behalf of his faith-ful ally in Damascus.

And yet within days of theirparting, still apparently on verypoor terms, Putin seems to havethrown his US opposite number apolitical lifeline. The Russian sug-gestion that Syria place its entirestockpile of chemical weapons un-der international control, in returnfor a halt to a US attack on the re-gime, was described by politicalpundits as an unexpected interven-tion. Yet the deftness with whichObama caught that lifeline and pro-ceeded to use it, could suggest tosome, that he knew perfectly wellthat it was coming.

For the two and a half years thatBashar Assad has been seeking tobludgeon his own people into re-submitting to his dictatorial will,the case for foreign intervention onbehalf of the rebels has grown everstronger. More than 100,000 peoplehave died and in excess of two mil-lion refugees have been created, ina conflict marked by the savageryof Syrian government troops andtheir attendant Shabbiha militia-men. Yet Obama has resisted evencalls to arm the insurgents, let aloneintervene militarily.

To ease the pressure buildingagainst America’s refusal to en-gage, Obama warned that if chemi-cal weapons were used, Washing-ton would take military action. Healready knew that Assad’s soldiershad used chemical agents earlier inthe attempt to suppress the rebel-lion. However, he must have hopedthat his new threat would give himclear ground on which to base hisrefusal to engage in the conflict.

And yet, days later, almost cer-tainly on orders from Assad orsomeone close to him, chemicalshells are fired into a Damascussuburb, murdering 1,400 people,many of them women and children.To all intents and purposes it ap-peared that Obama’s bluff had beencalled and that he was committedto taking early military action,which he could have done straightaway using his executive powers.

But if this really is a diplomaticballet, then the choreography fromhere on in is worth examining. Pre-dictably Putin leaps onto the stagewarning that no such attack can takeplace. The corps de ballet clompsout of the wings in the shape ofFrance’s Francois Hollande and theUK’s David Cameron, vowing tosupport Obama through thick andthin. Then Cameron decides tocheck his plans with the British Par-liament, which vetoes them, re-membering how Tony Blair connedit into attacking Iraq. Then Obamadecides to do the self-same thingand it quickly becomes apparentthat he might not get the desirednod of approval from Capitol Hill.Humiliation seems days away.

But lo! The prancing Putin stopswagging his finger but offers insteadthat life line, a way for Obama toescape his dilemma. Call off themilitary attack and he will persuadeAssad to put his chemical weaponsunder international control. The Syr-ian leader needs no persuading. Ofcourse he will submit to this condi-tion. Suddenly, not just Obama buteveryone is off the hook — exceptthe long-suffering people of Syriaand the Free Syrian Army.

The idea that international ob-servers should be able to enter a warzone and guard arsenals of chemi-cal weapons is fanciful in the ex-treme. Would he not fear that therebels might seek to seize them anduse them on his own people? Andbesides, organizing an internationalmonitoring force and moving it intoposition in the midst of conflict, isgoing to take, not weeks, but months— if indeed such a mission ever ac-tually sees the light of day.— Arab News

MEDIA WATCH

—Proverb

IN his forthcoming book ‘GettingAway with Murder: BenazirBhutto’s Assassination and the

Politics of Pakistan’, the authorHeraldo Munoz, who had led the UNinvestigation in Benazir Bhutto’s as-sassination, described that theMusharraf government facilitated thecrime through its negligence. In theexcerpts of the book he released lastmonth to international media, he saidthat Tehreek-e-Taliban executed theattack, possibly backed or at leastencouraged by elements of the estab-lishment. Heraldo Muñoz also statedthat “local senior policemen at-tempted a cover-up, whereas Bhutto’slead security team failed to properlysafeguard her. The author describedthat Bhutto’s assassination will be an-other unsolved case in the long his-tory of impunity in Pakistan, and thatthe controversy surrounding her as-sassination will endure as much asher memory. The UN investigatingcommission led by Heraldo Munozhad commenced its activities in July2009, and submitted its report to UNSecretary General in March 2010,pointing fingers at ISI for its possibleinvolvement in BB’s murder.

He appears to have an anti-PakArmy/ISI agenda to malign the na-tional institutions of Pakistan. Hedoubted attack by Taliban assisted byAl-Qaeda basing his opinion on as-sumptions, thereby conducting nega-tive propaganda against the ISI. Heprovided no evidence which purport-

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edly involved ISI in BB’smurder, yet went on tocomment that ISI cannot beexonerated for its allegedinvolvement in BB’s assas-sination. His remarksagainst ISI in the shape ofpublished extracts from hisbook suspecting involve-ment of intelligence (ISI)

operatives in murder of BB and latercovering up of evidence are based onconjectures, which is an effort to mis-lead the public opinion and world atlarge. He alleged that General (R)Pervez Musharraf facilitated killingof BB as his government ignored se-curity needs of BB. Similarly, hiscomments “suspicion of ISI or at leastof some retired officer or its roguemembers’ involvement in the murderwas not unfounded”, are reflective ofhis prejudices.

In this backdrop, his conclusionsare not only biased but pre-meditatedand well planned to malign ISI. Theauthor had failed to interview someimportant PPP members who hadtaken upon themselves the responsi-bility for BB’s safety, but on occur-rence of murder of BB they left thescene, and drove quickly to Islamabad.Naheed Khan and others accompany-ing BB inside the vehicle were notinterviewed. Reportedly, somebodymade a mobile contact telling BB tocome out and stand in the ceiling-opening of vehicle to wave back at thepeople waiting outside to greet her.

This was the most relevant as-pect but neglected by HeraldoMunoz. His biased attitude towardsCOAS and DG (ISI) seems obvious,as he doubted the information givenby the COAS and DG (ISI), and in-stead worked on assumptions, cast-ing aspersions on the role of Armyand ISI in BB’s murder. Munoz iscreating misperceptions by project-

ing baseless information to malignPakistan’s institutions.

By giving a spin to the conversa-tion he had with the COAS AshfaqParvez Kayani, he claimed that“COAS wondered if BaitullahMehsud had organized the assassina-tion, and mentioned that one cannotconclude culpability solely on a phoneintercept”. Such revelations are madeonly to create doubts about internalsecurity mechanism of Pakistan. Heconcluded that Police washed thecrime scene on the instructions of topmilitary leadership contradicting him-self stating that Police did not usehosepipes to wash the crime scene asa practice and that the procedure wasfollowed by Army. Anyhow, the en-tire focus now is on the hypothecationthat the then president did no provideadequate security to former primeminister Benazir Bhutto. The questionis when the sole super power with allthe resources and sophisticated gad-getry could not stop terrorists fromtheir attack on its symbols of economicand military strength terrorists can at-tack GHQ, Mehran Base and otherinstallations, how it was possible toward off possibility of attack by theterrorists on Benazir Bhutto.

In 2010, U.N. investigation teamhad raised suspicions about the rolesof the Pakistani government andmilitary in her death. It accusedMusharraf’s government of “inex-cusable” failures to provide Bhuttowith sufficient security and docu-mented what it said was a cover-upby the military and Inter-Services In-telligence agency. It stopped short,though, of implicating Musharrafhimself. The case against Musharrafseemed to boil down, according tothe New York Times to two piecesof information, both of which comefrom the same person, a Washing-ton lobbyist named Mark Siegel who

SA victim of global agenda

RECENT elections in Pakistancan be viewed in the backdropof international and domestic

factors, interests and strategic envi-ronment. Pakistan, like most othercountries of the world, is factually a‘relatively’ sovereign state. Not resist-ing drones can be understood to beits state policy. A country that isheavily under debt, and is forced toget loans to repay its loans, and ac-cepts drone attacks obliquely, cannotbe termed as completely sovereign.Such a country accepts foreign inter-ference for vital decision making as apublic policy. Pakistan therefore liestangled in the web of foreign domi-nation and domestic conflicts. The USand its western allies, regional coun-tries, judiciary, media, executive, re-ligious and sectarian leaders orgroups, and feudal or industrialists,are the stakeholders of power in Pa-kistan. Unless a power contender inPakistan appeases these stakeholders,it cannot get to the saddle.

A realistic reflection of the lastthree decades’ global environment re-flects that Muslim leaders were eitherremoved or assassinated, turn by turn,in a manner that appears to be ‘justand democratic’. Several leaders inAfghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq,Libya, and now Egypt and Syria areone such example. Addressing theArab League, Col Qaddafi warned theArab leaders that “after his ‘removalor hanging’, their turn would comesoon”, over which Basharul Asad andothers laughed, as the video showed.Today the noose has tightened againstAsad and the turn is waiting for oth-ers too. The author of famous book“The Confessions of Economic Hit

Man” reveals the pattern of assassina-tions or removals. Henry Kissingeronce stated that we will make a “hor-rible example” out of Bhutto, and itso happened. Musharraf was alsothreatened by US Assistant Secretaryof State after 9/11 of pushing Pakistaninto ”stone ages” if it failed to cooper-ate in US war on terror. Even after soyielding, he was shown the door whenno more needed and, consequently,Pakistan today is quite close to ‘stoneages’. If this inference is to be reliedupon even partially, those in powershould know when a foreign author-ity is confiding in you, he will be quickto get rid of you, when not needed.

Another common pattern ofdeaths and assassinations of Pakistanileaders depicts that nationalist leaderswho had strong followings in all prov-inces have been killed or removed. InPakistan, present political environmentshows domination of regional politi-cal parties. These regionally populistpolitical leaders are given safe havensin western states and neighbouringcountries, as political asylum. It is in-ferred that these countries and theirallies fund these separatist leaders anddo much more covert things for themto weaken Pakistan and to disallowfederal political parties to operate intheir areas of interest.

One does not need to go backmuch in history to observe as to howBahadur Shah Zafar was humiliatedand his sons were expelled and killedin detention; how Liaqat Ali Khan,Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ziaul Haq andBenazir Bhutto were assassinated.(Probably Nawaz Sharif also had aclose call.) These were also our na-tional leaders and they were not killeddue to domestic feuds. Their deathshad this commonality that allegedly,foreign powers were involved and assuch inquiries could not be made pub-lic. For the sake of stability of the coun-

try, there is a need to examine the pat-tern of ‘removing’ leaders, irrespec-tive of their political merit, draw les-sons from such incidents.

Needless to say nations are pre-pared to sacrifice their citizens, as forexample, in Afghanistan, where sol-diers from such distant countries asFrance and England are laying downtheir lives for preservation of their na-tional interests. There is no love-haterelationship between countries, butonly national interests reign supreme.The United States and allies have theircritical national interests in CentralAsia as well as South Asia that are fol-lowed as a policy and are not changedfollowing a change in government asa valid principle of statecraft. Not allsuch interests can be stated here butthose relevant to Pakistan in the cur-rent situation are, firstly, making a vigilat the ability of Russia, China, Iran orthe Central Asian Republics to domi-nate Afghanistan or to be able to ap-proach or use ‘warm water’ throughPakistan for their power projection oreconomic advantage. So Afghanistanwill have to remain destabilized.

If Afghanistan and Pakistan are tobe destabilized, there are several waysto accomplish this. The presentlyworking plan is to roll down insur-gency from the line of Hindu KushRange that horizontally divides Af-ghanistan into Pushtoon and nonPashtoon areas. This plan has multipleadvantages, as even after NATO de-parts, the seeds of enmity and revengebetween Afghanistan, the Tribal Ar-eas and Pakistan will keep germinat-ing. This way a pro Pakistan commu-nity has been turned into anti Pakistan.

Secondly, Iran is an ideological,religious and political enemy of west-ern forces. In the past Turkmenistan-Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline projects,other natural gas projects, any ship-ping or trade effort through land or

Chah Bahar and Gwadar ports, hasbeen resisted. Iran bordersBalochistan and safe and firm naval,air and land bases or routes for at-tacking it exist through Balochistanand Mekran Coast. Western allieswill be therefore seen supportingseparatist Baloch movements on ‘hu-manitarian grounds’. Any power con-tender in Pakistan cannot cross thisred line. Economic development ofMekran region, Riko Dik depositsand improving economic ties withIran or China will be disliked by theUS and it will be of interest to ob-serve if any government in Pakistandares to venture in this area. We al-ready observe Musharraf having tooambitiously developed MekranCoast and Gwadar port, and is nowpaying a price for going too far indeveloping these no go areas.

Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) andBalochistan have an interesting com-monality for foreign interests. Bothare reasonably well populated byShias, and both have Chinese intrud-ing into these regions. US is alreadyseen waging a war against Shias allover the world, as currently in Syria.Therefore this geographic and reli-gious reality will never allow peaceand development to these unfortunateregions of Pakistan, unless a prolificPakistani leadership is ready to bearthe consequences. The election re-sults have reminded us that due toour geography, societal intolerance,and accordingly, increased foreigninterference, Pakistan will remain inturmoil in the short term unless for-eign interference is reduced. Only aprudent government that is able tocruise through these predictable for-eign interests has chances to bringsome relief to the people.—The author is retired Brigadierand has served on importantstrategic points.

was friendly with Bhutto. Siegelhad said that Musharraf threat-ened Bhutto in a phone call twomonths before her death. He alsosaid that Bhutto once sent him ane-mail in which she said that ifshe were killed, it would probablybe the work of Musharraf, alongwith another political rival andtwo military intelligence offi-cials. First of all, mere doubt thatPervez Musharraf along with an-other political rival could ‘prob-ably’ be involved would not standin the court of law.

Anyhow, Pervez Musharraf hasbeen formally charged for the mur-der of Benazir Bhutto, who twiceserved as prime minister and wasassassinated while campaigning tosecure a third term. In the latest set-back to former dictator PervezMusharraf, the one-time army chiefwas indicted on three counts over themurder of Ms Bhutto. The move tobring charges against a former armychief could be an attempt to createfissures between the institutions.The charges relate to one of a se-ries of cases that Pervez Musharrafhas faced since his returning fromself-imposed exile earlier this year.He seized power in a coup in 1999and resigned as president after Pa-kistan Peoples Party came intopower after 2008 elections. “Hewas charged with murder, criminalconspiracy for murder and facili-tation for murder,” public prosecu-tor Chaudhry Azhar told AFP at theanti-terrorism court hearing the casein Rawalpindi. One should not com-ment on the case which is sub judice,but it is hoped that the court wouldtake all the aspects that have beenconveniently ignored by UN teamand other investigators.—The writer is Lahore-based seniorjournalist.

Mohammad JamilEmail: mjamil1938@hotmail.com

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Brig [R] M IrfanEmail: nazianazar@hotmail.com

Voice of the People

Save theholy places

SYED MUZAMMIL HUSSAIN

The enemies of Islam are eying atreaching the Holy Land of the twoHoly mosques. But they are usingto capture surrounding Muslimcountries gradually. They had put ondisplay a would be map of the Stateof Israel on the main entrance of Is-raeli Parliament. The map includesMadina Munawwara as the borderof Israel towards the Arabian Gulf.

The Muslims of the world knowthis well and they are beware of thedanger coming from their enemies.After losing Al Quds in 1967, theMuslims are not going to surrendertheir Holiest places. But how it canbe done? Surely by the unity amongtheir ranks and files.

Main responsibility lies uponshoulders of the general public touse all means and ways to prepareMuslims to face any possible threatfrom any country.—Islamabad

‘Talks’ arebound to fail

F Z KHAN

The crux of the All Parties Confer-ence is talks, not gun. One hopes andprays that a positive outcome comesout, though nobody knows as to whowould represent from the other sideand where. It would be a big eventof the century as the men who mat-ter would see the cruel killers of hu-manity sitting beside them. How-ever, I disagree with Zahid Hussainwho says acceding to talks with theTaliban is tantamount to surrenderon part of the Government.

It is the political leadership thathas high hopes and is proceeding ingood faith and with good intentions,only to get the country out of trouble.But as far the hunch goes, and ex-perience speaks, the talks are boundto fail and there is nothing left tolose on part of the state. A final battlewill have to be fought, once and forall, with all our force, together withthe nation at the back of our army.Because there is nothing left to ac-cept except one i.e. to fight them out.—Islamabad

HappinessAHSAN KAMRY

We all spend our lives searching forhappiness. But do we really knowwhat happiness is? And what actu-ally we are looking for? No we don’tknow! We will never have an exactanswer. Let’s stop here for 15 sec-onds and think what we want mostin life? Everyone would have dif-ferent answer of this question. Buteveryone’s approach would be simi-lar. Because we human beings findour happiness in tangible goods aslavish home and an expensive car.We really work hard to achieve thesethings. Basically we don’t work hardto achieve these expensive goods butwe work hard to get happiness. Be-cause we think we would get happi-ness once we get our desire fulfilled.If we bound our happiness andsearch them in these tangible goodsthen we would never be able to livea happy life. We can never satisfyour desires fully. Actually we don’tknow the meaning of happiness.Once we get the meaning of happi-ness we would have more and morehappiness. Let’s have a simple ex-ample of a job seeker who searchesa job day and night and binds hishappiness with it. He thinks that nowhe can’t live happily because he isjobless. He starts living depressedand once he get the job he feels thatnow he is the happiest person. Thisis not true!

We run after an ideal life andwonder why we are not happy? Theanswer is that an ideal life only staysin our minds and dreams. Happinessis very beautiful and free of cost.Why are we associating it withmoney? This thinking of today’speople makes their life worse. Weneed to search happiness in smalland real things. If we look aroundourselves, we would observe thathuman beings are unhappy and ani-mals are happier than human beings.

Need to ensure sound financial managementHASHIM ABRO

I vividly remember it to this day when I used to work with one international organization, sometwelve years ago, even at that time the top management of that organization complained about the

financial mismanagement in various projects and now my local friends who are foreign qualified andworking with some projects in the health, education, agriculture, environmental, sewerage and sani-tation etc. also complain about the same gross mismanagement of donor money. Is there anyone totake notice of this misuse, misappropriation and mismanagement of project funds, among others, inSindh Province? In order to ensure sound financial management these steps may be taken at theearliest. First, Put in place effective financial monitoring procedures and schedules in the institutionsin the event that such problems are encountered. Second, if needed, provide accounting and commu-nication software and proper training for their use as part of the job description in every project andother Provincial organizations. Third, make sure that at least one senior member of the team hasadequate financial management skills. It is an established fact that due to financial misappropriationand mismanagement many officers became millionaires but the situation worsened in all areas in theProvince. Enough is enough. Now at least have mercy on the people of the Province and use theallocated funds with honesty and transparency.—Islamabad

Putin’s deft timing snookered Obama

IT is no consolation at all toSyria’s suffering people, stuckwith Bashar al-Assad’s brutal re-

gime. But for Vladimir Putin,Russia’s president and long-standinganti-western bogeyman, the decisionto put military action on hold repre-sents a signal diplomatic triumph withpossible long-term strategic implica-tions for Moscow’s role in the MiddleEast and beyond. Putin’s unexpectedproposal that Syria surrender itschemical weapons to the internationalcommunity comprehensivelysnookered a politically corneredBarack Obama. The White House,not Assad, was disarmed; it simplydid not see it coming.

Despite belated claims that theidea was under discussion for a yearor more, the fact is Putin, with im-peccable timing, made it his own –and won instant backing from Syria,Iran, the UN and relieved Europeanallies. Faced with overwhelming op-position to military intervention fromthe American public and a near cer-tain defeat in Congress, Obamaseized on the Russian démarche with

almost embarrassing eagerness. Thatformer UN inspectors say collectingchemical weapons in the midst ofSyria’s civil war may be unworkable,apparently mattered little to the USpresident at this moment of high angst– and even less in Putin’s cynicalworld of great power gamesmanship.

“Putin’s goal is to play for time,to push off the talk of strikes for aslong as possible, because the longerhe pushes them off the less likely theyare,” Philippe Moreau Defarges, ofthe French Institute of InternationalRelations, in Paris, told Henry Meyer,of Bloomberg. “Hats off to the Rus-sians, those guys are master diplo-mats. Putin and Assad have totallywon this round.” For American con-servatives keen on zapping Assad andsupporting the rebels, the bailing outof Obama by the reviled Putin seemsdoubly offensive, amounting almostto a conspiracy to betray.

Some American liberals areequally appalled. Bill Keller, formereditor of the New York Times, pro-duced a list of the benefits accruingto Putin and Russia if his bid to headoff US military intervention in Syriais ultimately successful. “He hasstalled and possibly ended the threatthat his client thug, Assad, will be

Views From Abroad

Shortest path to peace in Syria

BECAUSE “defensive alliances which have fixed andlimited objectives are often

more durable,” the “Syria-Iran alli-ance has survived” more than threedecades of unwavering and insistentUS – led military, economic, diplo-matic and media campaign to dis-mantle it, but it is still enduring “be-cause it has been primarily defen-sive in nature” and “aimed largelyat neutralizing … Israeli capabilitiesand preventing American encroach-ment in the Middle East.” This wasthe conclusion of the professor of In-ternational Relations at WebsterUniversity Geneva, Switzerland,Jubin M. Goodarzi, in his 2006book, “Syria and Iran: DiplomaticAlliance and Power Politics in theMiddle East.”

Professor Goodarzi’s conclusionis worth highlighting amid the thicksmoke screen of “chemical weap-ons,” “civil war,” “responsibility toprotect” and the “dictatorship – de-mocracy” rhetoric of the US – Is-raeli propaganda, which is now mis-leading the world public opinionaway from the core fact that the cur-rent Syrian conflict is the inevitableoutcome of the 45 - year old Israelioccupation of the Syrian Arab GolanHeights in 1967. Israel, protected bywhat President Barak Obama repeat-edly describe as the “unshakable”support of the United States, is stillmaintaining its military occupationof the Golan as a “bargaining chip”to enforce upon Syria, irrespectiveof the regime and who is ruling inDamascus, the fait accompli which

struck by American missiles for gas-sing his own people … He has di-minished the already small prospectthat the US will attempt to shift thebalance in Syria’s war. That soundyou hear is John McCain’s head ex-ploding… He has further demoralisedthe Syrian resistance and strength-ened the Jehadi radicals among them,by demonstrating that American redlines mean little,” Keller said.

Putin’s deft intervention mayachieve much more in advancingRussian interests. By forcing theSyrian crisis back to the UN Secu-rity Council, with the muddle-headed assistance of France’s presi-dent, François Hollande, Putin canclaim to be upholding the UN sys-tem and international law in the teethof reckless American unilateralism.This is truly ironic, given that formore than two years Russia hasblocked effective UN action. But itwill play well with China and theother Brics countries. So, too, willRussia’s apparent success in defend-ing the principle of non-interferencein the internal affairs of sovereignstates. After Afghanistan, Iraq andLibya, Moscow has been determinedto prevent Syria falling prey to self-styled western liberators. This too is

popular among developing worldleaders, for obvious reasons.

Other benefits for Putin: Assad’sSyria is Russia’s main Arab ally, abastion of Russian influence in theMiddle East, and home to its onlymilitary base outside the former So-viet Union. He has now gone a longway, with Obama’s unwitting col-laboration, towards preserving thisrelationship. He has humbled anAmerican president, always a goodresult for Russian nationalists. Andif Putin pulls this off, Russia’s re-vived pretensions as a superpowerrival to the US will be enhanced,as will Putin’s own claims to be aglobal statesman and not the oftportrayed mean-spirited autocratoverseeing Russia’s repressive“managed democracy”.

Obama famously tried to resetrelations with Russia. Putin rebuffedhim. Now Putin has engineered hisown reset with the US, on his ownterms; and for political favours re-ceived, payback will be expected.On a range of issues, from missiledefence to Iran and human rights toenergy supply, expect anemboldened Putin to be morebloody-minded than ever. — Courtesy: The Guardian

Simon Tisdall

THE custodian of internationaladministration and monitoring needs to scrutinize within

itself first, before indulging into oth-ers’ sovereign environs. According toSlavoj •i•ek, International Directorof the Birkbeck Institute for the Hu-manities, (University of London) anew international network is neededto organize the protection ofwhistleblowers and the disseminationof their message. Whistleblowers areheroes because they prove that ifthose in power can do it, others canalso do it. Paradoxically whistleblowing at present is an essential artplayed by Edward Snowden in the ex-isting scenario. The former NSA con-tractor Edward Snowden leaked anews’ according to a report on thesecret budget for US intelligence op-erations to the Washington Post thatUS intelligence officials are far moreworried about the security ofPakistan’s nuclear weapons and ma-terials than the government has pub-licly admitted.

A further astound aspect of thereport is that the US tabbing onchemical and biological facilities inthe violence-wracked South Asiannation. What actually this statementis trying to send message here, whenthe US is planning surgical strike onSyria for the alleged use of chemi-cal weapons. More interestingly theObama administration openly ad-mits its authority over every act (le-gal or ill-legal; justified or un-justi-

fied) leaving the UN role aside. It’sbeyond doubt how the blame gameis being played preplanned and tact-fully with its old ally. It’s the needof hour to remind the US that Paki-stan is a state party to both Chemi-cal Weapons Convention and Bio-logical WeaponsConvention andis a partner in theGlobal Initiativeto Combat NuclearTerrorism.

This “so-called black bud-get” for fiscalyear 2013 coversnumber of the USspying opera-tions carried outby several agen-cies that are in-volved in covertactivities, coun-terintelligence andsurveillance glo-bally in one way orthe other. The USintelligence agen-cies / communityis planned to spendroughly 6.9 billiondollar for fiscal2013 to sponsorfor the efforts tosqueeze the spread of WMDs andnearly 16.6 billion dollar to combatal-Qaeda and other related terroristorganizations according the Wash-ington Post, but no amount of bud-get was stipulated specifically in re-gard to the inspections of Pakistan.

According to the report the USdoes not know much about how

Pakistan’s nuclear material is chan-neled through the various facilitiesinvolved in the warhead program. Inthe wake Pakistan’s establishmenthas quite often exposed its compre-hensive Command and Control sys-tem and ensured the safety and se-

curity of its nuclearmaterial. Ironicallyhow US comes thatal-Qaeda or other

radical elementscould get access toWMD related mate-rial while the globalauthoritative superpower is still un-aware of Pakistan’sstrict and unyieldingnuclear safety pro-gram. The US,should now admitthe fact that, as anuclear weaponsstate ‘Pakistan’spolicy was charac-terized by restraintand responsibility.’

Foreign Officespokesman Aizaz

Ahmed Chaudhrymade clear that ‘Pa-

kistan has estab-lished extensivephysical protec-

tion measures, robust command andcontrol institutions under the chair-manship of the Prime Minister, com-prehensive and effective export con-trols regulatory regimes to ensuresafety and security of nuclear instal-lations and materials.’ As far as theinternational practices are concernedset by the International Atomic En-

Dilemma of black budgetergy Agency (IAEA), Pakistan is ad-herent to full scope safeguards andis open to regular inspections overits civil and military installations.

Mr Chaudhry further pro-claimed that the efficacy of our stra-tegic export controls has been ac-knowledged by experts from the in-ternational export control regimesduring interactions on various occa-sions.” In addition he added thatPakistan’s nuclear deterrence capa-bility was aimed at maintaining re-gional stability in South Asia. WhatPakistan could do here for the com-prehensive percent satisfaction of theinternational community is transpar-ency and declaration of its nucleardoctrine is yet to be on paper thoughexplanatory doctrinal statements arealready on board. It would not onlylessen spying activities of war-ha-bitual country (the US) but also opena welcoming posture of export con-trol regimes too, breaching access tocivil nuclear technology for Paki-stan. Besides it would also curtail therole of whistle blowers from nationsparadoxically calming down SlavojZizek concerns.

Finally the issue in leaked bud-get report that can’t be left aside andneeds to shed light upon is the an-nouncement of the US monitoringof safety and security on Indiannuclear activities too sardonically,wouldn’t it be worth effective if thereport raises curtains from here alsosince it is often manifested that thecommand and control system in ourneighbor is kept over and over blur.—The writer is a ResearchAssociate and works for theStrategic Vision Institute.

was created forcefully by the cre-ation of the State of Israel in Pales-tine in 1948.

The US support to dictating theresulting fait accompli to Syriamanifested itself first by empower-ing Israel by US arms and tax payermoney to gain the “bargaining chip”of the Golan Heights, then by pro-tecting the ongoing Israeli occupa-tion of this Syrian territory. The “bar-gaining chips” of the Sinai penin-sula and the West Bank of River Jor-dan proved successful by dictatingthe Israeli terms on the signing ofthe “peace” treaties with Egypt in1979, with Jordan in 1994 and theOslo peace agreements with the Pal-estine Liberation Organization(PLO) in 1993, but failed so far toproduce similar results with Syriaand Lebanon, which remain in a“state of war” with Israel, mainlybecause Damascus still insists onmaking peace according to interna-tional law and the UN resolutions.

Damascus “did” engage thepeace making process. The assump-tion to power of late al-Assad seniorin 1971 was hailed by the US andits regional allies because he first ofall recognized the UN SecurityCouncil resolutions No. 242 and338, the basis of the US – sponsoredso – called Arab – Israeli “peace pro-cess;” he fell out with his “com-rades” in the ruling Baath party spe-cifically because of this recognition.Instead of building on al-Assadsenior’s constructive approach,Washington made every effort topressure him to accept the “Israeli”terms of peace: US sanctions wereimposed on Syria and the countrywas condemned as a state sponsorof terror because of hosting the po-litical offices of anti - Israeli occu-

pation Palestinian and Lebanese re-sistance movements.

Only months after its invasionof Iraq, the US concluded it was verywell positioned — and Syria verywell cornered between US occupa-tion in the east, the Israeli occupa-tion in the west, the Jordanian, Pal-estinian and Egyptian peace accordswith Israel in the south and the Turk-ish NATO member in the north - -to pressure Syria into submission.On December 12, 2003 the Congresspassed into law the “Syria Account-ability Act,” the main purpose ofwhich was to disarm Syria and de-prive it of all its defensive means and“resistance” allies, long before theeruption of the ongoing current con-flict in Syria.

The act demanded the with-drawal of the Syrian forces fromLebanon, ignoring the fact they werethere upon the official request andblessings of Lebanon and the USthemselves and the Arab League tosecure Lebanon and help it recoverafter the civil war. Their withdrawalhas become indispensable only af-ter the Israeli invasion of Lebanonin 1982, in the hope the invasion willdictate a peace treaty to Lebanon,which would have left Syria a peacepariah among the Arab immediate“neighbors” of Israel. No surprisethen the Syria – Iran alliance wasformalized in March that year witha series of bilateral agreements. TheUS invasion of Iraq in 2003 only ac-celerated their strategic cooperation.

More importantly, the actbanned Syria’s engagement “in theresearch, development, acquisition,production, transfer or deployment”of “weapons of mass destruction,”“biological, chemical or nuclearweapons” and “medium and long

range surface – to - surface ballis-tic missiles,” of course without anyreference to Israel’s acquisition ofthe same and more. Egypt’s sign-ing of its “peace” treaty with Israelin 1979 deprived Syria of its re-gional strategic Arab partner in the1973 war and the collapse of theformer Soviet Union deprived it ofits international one a decade later,leaving the country off balance. Tostrike a defensive alternative “stra-tegic balance” with Israel has be-come the overriding strategic goalof Syria. No Arab substitute hasbeen available. The revolution inIran in the same year came as a God– sent breakthrough. The Syria –Iran alliance was cemented eversince. Dismantling this alliance hasbecome the overriding US – Israelistrategic priority as well.

Until Syria finds an Arab strate-gic defense alternative to Iran or untilthe United States decides to medi-ate unbiased peace making betweenSyria and Israel, the bilateral Syrian– Iranian alliance will endure, un-less Washington decides to repeat inSyria its failed invasion of Iraq,which all indications render a mis-sion impossible. To end the Israelioccupation of the Golan Heights andother Arab Israeli – occupied landsis the shortest US – Israeli path todismantling the Syria – Iran allianceand to peace in Syria and the region.That only would ensure that Syriawill shift its outward focus strategi-cally from looking for strategic bal-ance with Israel to liberate its occu-pied land to the development of itssociety internally.—The writer is a veteran Arabjournalist based in Birzeit, WestBank of the Israeli-occupiedPalestinian territories.

Think about it! Live happily it willgive pleasure to all..—Via email

Respect low-scaleofficials too

USMAN GHANI

This is apropos a news story pub-lished in a section of the press on 13th

September that the DC slapped asweeper in Hangu over lack of clean-liness. I won’t comment as to whetherthe sweeper was or was not carryingout his assigned duties of sweepingand cleaning. I only ask as to whetherthe DC concerned was authorized tobeat a subordinate government ser-vant. What clause or section of lawand Constitution allows a DC to slapeven a low-scale official?

What would be the reaction ofelectronic and print media if a DCwere slapped in the face or beaten bya senior Minister, or a CM of a Prov-ince? What hue and cry would havebeen heard from all corners of Paki-stan? The CM of KP is requested totake to task the DC concerned byawarding him due punishment; theleast punishment could be the orderto the DC concerned to apologize tothe grieved official. The PeshawarHigh Court, headed by the Chief Jus-tice, Mr. Dost Mohammad Khan isalso requested to take suo motu ac-tion against the bureaucrat. Who elsecan be expected to side with the ag-grieved ones?—Via email

IMCs for KPpublic hospitals

MOHAMMAD FAYYAZ

KP Health Department has notifiedapolitical Management Councils. Thegovernment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwain general, and the Minister of Health,Shaukat Yousafzai, in particular areworth admiration for a superb step ofintroducing Institutional Manage-ment Councils (IMCs) for the KhyberPakhtunkhwa for tertiary public hos-pitals of Peshawar to ensure transpar-ency and merit in recruitments andpurchases. This most commendablestep in this regard is the appointmentof apolitical persons of repute asmembers of the IMCs.

The previous government of KPappointed their blue-eyed ones asmembers of these Councils. The cur-rent list of members for the IMCs hasmen of good repute among the Paki-stanis in general and the residents ofKP in particular. Now almost cer-tainly merit will prevail in runningthe affairs of these four tertiary pub-lic hospitals, and as consequence ofwhich patients, availing medical ser-vices in these hospitals will benefit.The CM of KP, and ShaukatYousafzai as Minister of KP Health,must not stop here. Go ahead andappoint other persons of good repu-tation, integrity and competence, asmembers of IMCs for the main dis-trict public hospitals. District Head-quarters Teaching hospitals need theservices of these IMCs badly. Thefree medical services announced bythe PTI KP government are not ben-efiting fully the needy ones in theabsence of this institution; the blacksheep in the medical field in thesedistrict public hospitals need to beregulated, put on right track, whichcan best be done by these IMCs.—Charsadda

Watersupply lines

RAJA GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN

I want to draw the kind attention ofPrime Minister of Pakistan that thewater supply lines of Rawalpindi andeven of Islamabad are not being pro-tected and saved by both departmentsof WASA and CDA. It is observedthat the labours and scavengers of thekutchi Abadis and private watertanker owners of both the twin citiesare habitual of breaking of main Wa-ter supply pipes which result in wast-age of drinking Water, reduction inwater pressures in the houses, sus-pension of water supply in the housesand last but the most worrisome, themixing of sewerages and dirty waterof Nallahs in the drinking water pipe-

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Nicola NasserEmail:nassernicola@ymail.com

Beenish AltafEmail: beenishaltaf7@gmail.com

The issue inleaked budget report

that can’t be leftaside and needs toshed light upon isthe announcement

of the US monitoringof safety and

security on Indiannuclear activities too

sardonically,wouldn’t it be worth

effective if thereport raises

curtains from herealso since it is oftenmanifested that the

command andcontrol system in

our neighbor is keptover and over blur.

lines. Some times the dead rats, cats,Snakes and others stinking garbageare found in the broken pipes lines ofwater supply. Many news storiesabout incidents of adulterated poison-ous water in the water supply lineshave been appeared in all the news-papers of Rawalpindi and Islamabadand these facts are already on therecord of newspapers.

When I was residing in my offi-cially allotted house No 506-D, G6/2, Lal Quarters Islamabad, break-ing of water supply Lines was a dailyroutine in that areas and some of-ten, Sewerage mixed water was sup-plied to residents of the Lal Quar-ters. Now I am residing in IqbalTown Rawalpindi. The position ofwater supply was satisfactory up tillFebruary 2013, but thereafter thesituation started aggravating. It wasreported by WASA officials thatsomeone (Terrorist) had thrust threebig stones in the pipes of water sup-ply Lines of Iqbal Town and blockedthe water supply of the area. If it isso, it is a clear case of terrorism be-cause one can mix poisonous pow-der in the water supply lines in or-der to kill the peoples of Rawalpindi.Hence this incident needs to prop-erly investigated. WASA and CDAshould also designate special teamsfor the daily patrolling of the routeof water supply Lines so that suchincidents of terrorisms should beeliminated. I hope that Prime Min-ister will take a serious view of thismost serious matter and will surelyset right the working position ofCDA and WASA.—Rawalpindi

Indiscriminateact in Karachi

MUHAMMAD AMJAD

Government is taking valuable stepsto eradicate terrorism and target kill-ings from our motherland, especiallyfrom Karachi. In this regard, the re-cent meeting of PM Nawaz Sharif inKarachi with all stakeholders to bringpeace for the people of Karachi wasa significant move. They decided tar-geted operation against all terroristswhosoever they are. As a result achange has been seen in Karachi situ-ation. Karachi Police and Rangers arearresting terrorists and extortionistsfrom across the city, who(terrorists/extortionists) are a perpetual head-ache for the people of Karachi whoselife has been made miserable. Thou-sands of people have become victimto this menace of target killing andterrorism.

APC was another great step takenby PM Nawaz Sharif to eliminate ter-rorism from our beloved country. ButPM Nawaz Sharif should keep inmind that it is not enough, Govern-ment needs ensure zero tolerance tothe culprits even if they are associ-ated with a significant political orpartisan group.—Islamabad

Procrastinationin decisions

MIR TABASSUM MAIRAJ

PML-N government has completedits first 100 days. Most of the colum-nists were of the view that this Gov-ernment does not deserve any hon-eymoon period as it was its third ten-ure and it was supposed to work fromthe day one. Despite all the experi-ence it has got during the past twotenures, a lot of decisions are pend-ing. Some important appointmentsincluding those of ambassadors arepending. Even name of the NAB headhas yet to be finalized. The policy ofthis Government appears to be ‘Gov-ernment by procrastination’.—Islamabad

Moroccan judicial reformsRABAT—After more than a year of dia-logue, Morocco’s Islamist-led govern-ment has moved forward on a major cam-paign promise and unveiled a reform planfor the country’s much-criticized judicialsystem. The system has been a major sorepoint for Moroccans because of a wide-spread perception that courts serve therich and powerful. Critics allege that ver-dicts in civil trials can be purchased for afew thousand dollars, while a phone call

from a high-ranking official can ensure a guilty ruling in politi-cal cases. The justice system was listed as one of the mostcorrupt sectors in the country by the 2013 World CorruptionIndex. The Islamist Justice and Development Party won theright to head Morocco’s next government in the 2011 elec-tions, and one of its main campaign promises was battlingcorruption and creating a truly independent judiciary. JusticeMinister Mustapha Ramid unveiled the new plan late Thurs-day describing it as a product of an extensive dialogue thathas the backing of King Mohammed VI, who first pushed forjudicial reform in a 2009 speech. “This is a historic moment weare living as we meet to reform the judicial system,” Ramidsaid at the conference’s opening, which included high gov-ernment officials and diplomats. “Our dialogue was distin-guished by the fact that we all wanted a profound reformrequiring the mobilization of all forces in society.” The ambi-tious plan addresses many of the criticisms of Morocco’sjustice system, including higher standards and more trainingfor judges, prosecutors and lawyers, as well as greater trans-parency in appointments and penalties on members of thejudiciary. Judicial reform has long been discussed, but neverimplemented, and in 2010 the European Union scaled back itsfunding for the reforms after complaining that nothing washappening. The charter, which has to be voted on by parlia-ment, also talks about setting up a mechanism to overseejudges’ expenditures and lifestyles to ensure they are in linewith their income.—AP

Internet companies rappedSAO PAULO—Angered by reports thatthe U.S. government spied on her andother Brazilians, President DilmaRousseff is pushing new legislation thatwould seek to force Google, Facebookand other internet companies to storelocally gathered data inside Brazil. Therequirement would be difficult to ex-ecute, technology experts say, givenhigh costs and the global nature of theInternet. Still, Rousseff’s initiative is

one of the most tangible signs of a backlash followingrevelations that the U.S. National Security Agency moni-tored emails, phone calls and other communications abroad.The legislation, which is being written by a lawmaker inRousseff’s left-wing Workers’ Party and is scheduled tobe completed next week, would force foreign-based internetcompanies to maintain data centers inside Brazil that wouldthen be governed by Brazilian privacy laws, officials said.Internet companies operating in Brazil are currently free toput data centers wherever they like. Facebook Inc, for ex-ample, stores its global data in the United States and a newcomplex in Sweden. Rousseff believes that the changewould help shield Brazilians from further U.S. prying intotheir activities, and she is considering urging other coun-tries to take similar measures when she speaks at the UnitedNations General Assembly later this month, a senior Bra-zilian official told Reuters. “This would be a turning pointfor these companies,” the official said, naming Facebook,Google Inc and Microsoft Corp as examples, although theywould not be the only companies affected. “If you want towork here, you will have to obey our rules.” The officialspoke on condition of anonymity to frankly discussRousseff ’s plans and the consequences of the law. Theproposal follows a series of media reports based on docu-ments leaked by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contrac-tor who is now in asylum in Russia.—AP

US PR firm helps PutinWASHINGTON—April 2011, then-Rus-sian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wasasked an unusually flattering questionby an American journalist: “Are you thecoolest man in politics?” The interview,which ran on the website of OutdoorLife magazine, was set up by KetchumInc., the U.S. public-relations firm thathas worked to burnish Russia’s imagesince 2006. On Thursday, Ketchumscored another public-relations coup: It

helped place a Putin commentary in opinion pages of TheNew York Times, just as representatives from Russia andthe United States were beginning to meet in Geneva tonegotiate a plan for Syria to give up its chemical weapons.The article made quite a splash in Washington. Putinpainted himself as a peacemaker and lectured the UnitedStates for what he said was a tendency to use “brute force”in world disputes. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner saidhe was “insulted” by the article, while the White Housenoted that Putin was taking advantage of press freedomsunavailable in Russia. Ketchum, a division of the OmnicomGroup Inc., has earned more than $25 million working forRussia, according to documents filed with the U.S. De-partment of Justice. It also has been paid more than $26million since 2007 to promote Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas company. In 2007, Ketchum successfully lob-bied Time magazine to name Putin its “Person of the Year,”according to U.S. Justice Department lobbying disclosurefilings that show repeated meetings between Ketchum rep-resentatives and Time staffers. “He expanded his outsize -if not always benign - influence on global affairs,” Timewrote of Putin. Meanwhile, Ketchum staffers urged theState Department to soften its assessment of Russia’shuman-rights record that year, according to lobbyingrecords.—Reuters

Merkel rival causes stir with vulgar gestureBERLIN—A magazine photograph thatdepicts Chancellor Angela Merkel’scentre-left challenger making a vulgargesture stirred sharp criticism from hispolitical rivals, 10 days before the Ger-man election. The photograph, on thefront page of Friday’s edition of theSueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine,shows Peer Steinbrueck making a ges-ture with his middle finger in responseto a question referring to the gaffe-prone

early months of his campaign. Though Steinbrueckauthorised the publication of the photo, it could damagehis bid to oust Merkel as chancellor by reinforcing a pub-lic image of him as arrogant and maladroit - especiallyamong women voters, whose support he needs. It comesas Steinbrueck’s Social Democrats make late gains in theopinion polls, helped by his efforts to project a gentler,more human image to voters. But Merkel’s conservativesremain well ahead. Philipp Roesler, leader of the liberal FreeDemocrats who hope to renew their coalition with Merkel’sconservatives after the September 22 election, told SpiegelOnline: “A candidate for chancellor is forbidden to makesuch a gesture.” “Giving somebody the finger is not funny.A candidate for chancellor should set an example,” tweetedhis FDP colleague Joerg-Uwe Hahn. Steinbrueck, 66, madelight of the matter on Twitter, saying: “Plain speaking doesnot always require words”.—Reuters

SEOUL—A South Korean manhas escaped four decades af-ter he was kidnapped by NorthKorea while fishing near thedisputed Yellow Sea border,officials said Friday.

The 68-year-old, identifiedas Jeon Wook-Pyo, made it toSeoul recently after escapingfrom North Korea in early Au-gust, a government officialsaid. “He is now under inves-tigation by security authori-ties,” the official said, declin-ing to give details. South Ko-rean says more than 500 of itscitizens — most of them fish-ermen — have been abductedby North Korea in the 60 yearssince the end of the 1950-53Korean War.

Those who manage tomake it back to the South areoften treated with initial sus-picion, and subjected to a rig-orous screening programme toensure they are not operatingas North Korean spies.

Jeon was among 25 fisher-

S Korean abductee escapesNorth after 41 years

men aboard two boats thatwere seized by a North Koreannavy ship on December 28,1972. The whereabouts of hisfellow crewmen are currentlyunknown.

An activist group said ear-lier that Jeon had stayed in anundisclosed third country —most likely China — after flee-ing the North on August 11.He then sent a letter to SouthKorean President Park Geun-Hye seeking assistance, say-ing he wanted to spend hisremaining days in his home-town, the group said.

South Korea has repeat-edly urged North Korea to freeremaining abductees, butPyongyang insists it is hold-ing no one against their wishes.

Since 2000, 28 formerSouth Korean soldiers whowere listed as killed in actionhave been confirmed alive inthe North, with 13 of themshowing up for reunions withtheir southern relatives.—AP

MOSCOW—A fire killed 37people in a Russian psychi-atric hospital on Friday, thesecond deadly blaze at sucha facility this year and it waslikely to heighten concernsabout Russia’s treatment ofthe mentally ill and otherwards of the state.

There have been manydeadly fires at state institu-tions like hospitals andschools over the past de-cade, raising questionsabout safety standards.Russia is also dogged bytransport and industrial ac-cidents, and critics point toa culture of negligence bredby President VladimirPutin’s top-down rulingstyle. The pre-dawn firerazed a dilapidated ward forseverely ill patients at thehospital in a provincial vil-lage north of Moscow, ap-parently killing some whileunder sedation as fogslowed firefighters travellingfrom 45 km (28 miles) away.

Emergency authoritieshad recently sought to havethe run-down wood, brickand concrete building con-demned as unfit for use, asenior official said. Federalauthorities began a criminalinquiry into suspected lethalnegligence. State televisionshowed firefighters spray-ing water on the smoking,blackened ruins of the wardat the hospital - footage thathas become grimly familiarafter a number of deadly fires

37 dead in fire at Russian psychiatric hospitalat state institutions in Rus-sia in recent years.

A female orderly diedwhile trying to save patients

at the hospital in the villageof Luka, which is inNovgorod province betweenMoscow and St Petersburg,the regional branch of thefederal Investigative Com-mittee said in a statement. Itsaid 37 people were killed,and the Emergency Situa-tions Ministry said 15 bod-

ies had been recovered bymidday.

More than 20 patientswere evacuated after the fire

broke out shortly before 12.00a.m. British Time. Official ini-tially said some others mayhave escaped on their own,but none had been foundhours later by police comb-ing the area. The fire left littlebut the concrete foundationof the single-story buildinghousing male patients at the

hospital.Volunteer firefighters be-

gan battling the blaze min-utes after it started, but the

nearest fire station is 45 kmaway and it took a crew 45minutes to arrive on fog-shrouded roads, Interfaxcited a top regional emer-gency official as saying. In-vestigators and the chiefdoctor at the hospital saidthey suspected a patientstarted the fire, Russian news

agencies reported, but re-gional governor Sergei Mitinsaid it might have been acci-dental.

“Medical personnel sawa patient who was shroudedin flames. ... It’s possible thathe was smoking in bed andthe mattress caught fire,”Mitin said, according toInterfax. He said the ward thatcaught fire housed severelyill patients. “Sedatives weregiven to patients for whom

they had been prescribed,”Interfax quoted the chief doc-tor, Gusein Magomedov, assaying, but it was unclearhow many were sedatedwhen the blaze broke out.

Critics of the governmentsay state authorities fre-quently blame the victims offires in order to avoid culpa-bility. Emergency officialsand prosecutors had soughtto have the building con-demned as unsafe, but acourt instead ordered man-agement to correct unspeci-fied flaws by August 2014, thehead of safety oversight forthe Emergencies Ministrysaid.

“The building thatburned was unfit for use,” theofficial, Yuri Deshevykh, toldstate-run Itar-Tass newsagency. Fires with high deathtolls have not been uncom-mon at state institutions in-cluding drug treatment cen-tres and homes for the dis-abled over the past decade.In April, a fire at a psychiat-ric hospital outside Moscowkilled 38 people.

The death rate from firesis much higher in Russia thanin Western countries includ-ing he United States. Thenation of 142 million is alsoplagued by accidents on itsroads, rails, rivers and in theworkplace, taking the shineoff a post-Soviet recovery forwhich Putin - in power since2000 - claims a measure ofcredit.—Reuters

MOSCOW: A second deadly blaze at a psychiatric hospital this year likely to heighten concerns about Russia’streatment of the mentally ill and other wards of the state.

WASHINGTON—An eliteSyrian unit that runs thegovernment’s chemicalarms program has been scat-tering the weapons to doz-ens of sites across thecountry, potentially compli-cating U.S. plans for airstrikes, the Wall Street Jour-nal reported.

The newspaper, citingunnamed U.S. officials andlawmakers briefed on the in-telligence, said on itswebsite on Thursday that asecretive military groupknown as Unit 450 had beenmoving the stocks aroundfor months to help avoid de-tection of the weapons.

U.S. and Israeli intelli-gence agencies and MiddleEastern officials still believethey know the location ofmost of the government’schemical weapons supply,the Journal said.

But “we know a lot lessthan we did six months ago

Syrian chemical sitesbeing dispersed

about where the chemicalweapons are,” one officialwas quoted as saying.

The United States and itsallies say Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad’s forces car-ried out a chemical weaponsattack in a Damascus neigh-borhood on August 21 thatU.S. officials say killed about1,400 people, including 400children. Assad and Syrianally Russia blame rebelforces.

The United States andRussia began high-stakestalks on Thursday onMoscow’s plan for Syria tosurrender its chemical weap-ons as Damascus formallyapplied to join a global poi-son gas ban.

The talks were part of adiplomatic push thatprompted President BarackObama to put on hold plansfor U.S. air strikes in responseto the suspected attack.

The United Nations said

it received a document fromSyria on joining the globalanti-chemical weapons treaty,a move Assad promised aspart of a deal to avoid U.S. airstrikes.Syria’s civil war haskilled more than 100,000people since 2011.

The Journal quoted asenior U.S. official as sayingthat Washington estimatedthat Damascus had 1,000metric tons (1,102 tons) ofchemical and biologicalagents, “although theremight be more.”

After traditionally storingmost of its chemical and bio-logical weapons at a few sitesin western Syria, the govern-ment started dispersing theweapons about a year ago,officials said.

They added that theUnited States now believedthe arsenal had been movedto up to 50 sites in the west,north, south and east of thecountry.—Reuters

VIENNA—Israel on Thursdayexpressed skepticism ofWestern hopes that the elec-tion of a new Iranian presidentcould reduce tensions overthe country’s nuclear pro-gram, asserting that Tehranremains committed to buildingnuclear arms.

The Iranian envoy lashedback at a meeting of the U.Nnuclear agency, accusing Is-rael of making “unsubstanti-ated allegations” about a non-existent nuclear weapons pro-gram meant to divert attentionfrom Israel’s own nuclearweapons arsenal.

Iran’s new president,Hasan Rouhani, has said hewants to ease internationalconfrontation over hiscountry’s nuclear program,and the United States andother Tehran critics indicatedthis week that they are hope-ful that his words will trans-

Israel skeptical ofnew Iran president

late into action. U.S. envoyJoseph Macmanus urged theU.N.’s International AtomicEnergy Agency board meet-ing earlier this week to seizewhat he called an opportunityopened by Rouhani’s moreconciliatory rhetoric, thoughhe threatened unspecifieddiplomatic action if Iran hasn’tcooperated by Novemberwith the U.N. agency’s effortsto probe allegations thatTehran worked on nucleararms.

Israel is the most out-spoken of nations accusingIran of using its nuclear pro-gram to achieve the abilityto make weapons. Referringto Iran on Thursday, Israelidelegate Ehud Azoulay saidis no “change in their(nuclear) policy,” even if therhetoric coming out ofTehran under Rouhani ismore low-key.—AP

BEIJING—China’s militarytold the United States thisweek not to support Japan,nor let it do as it pleased,over a group of disputed is-lands in the East China Sea,the Chinese Defense Minis-try said on Friday.

Ties between the world’ssecond- and third-biggesteconomies have beenstrained over the uninhab-ited islands, controlled byJapan but claimed by bothcountries. The isles areknown as the Senkaku in Ja-pan and the Diaoyu in China.

A year ago on Wednes-day, the Japanese govern-ment bought three of the is-lands from a private owner,inflaming anger, and settingoff big anti-Japan protests,in China.

Aircraft and ships fromthe two countries haveplayed cat-and-mouse in thevicinity of the islands ever

China asks U.S. not toencourage Japan over isles

since, raising fears of conflict,perhaps sparked by an acci-dent.

Wang Guanzhong,Deputy Chief of General Staffof China’s People’s LiberationArmy, said during scheduledtalks with U.S. counterparts inBeijing that China was deter-mined to defend its territory,but had all along exercisedrestraint.

“This issue should notbecome a problem betweenChina and the United States,and China hopes that theUnited States does not be-come a third party in this is-sue,” the Defence Ministryquoted Wang as telling U.S.Under Secretary of Defensefor Policy James Miller.

“The United Statesshould maintain a consistentstance and policy, not sendwrong signals nor supportand connive with the relevantcountry to do as they please,”

Wang added. He said Chinahoped the United Stateswould handle the issue ap-propriately to ensure it did notaffect mutual strategic trust.

The ministry cited Milleras saying in response that theUnited States did not take aposition on the sovereigntyissue, called for all sides toexercise restraint and sup-ported China to use diplo-matic means to resolve thematter.

China has long harboredsuspicions about U.S. inter-est in the dispute as the U.S.-Japan security treaty commitsthe United States to intervenein defence of Japan if there isan attack on Japanese-admin-istered territory.

The United States alsohas a hefty military presencein Japan, including on thesouthern island of Okinawa,which is close to the disputedislands.—Reuters

HONG KONG—Beijing’stop representative in HongKong has ruled out opennominations for candidatesto become its next leader, thestrongest sign yet thatChina’s pledge of democracyfor the former British colonyby 2017 comes with condi-tions.

Hong Kong returned toChinese rule in 1997 with theguarantee of wide-rangingautonomy and an indepen-dent judiciary and press un-der the formula of “onecountry, two systems”.

It is the freest city in

No open nominations forHong Kong leadership: China

China, but every year on theanniversary of the handover,thousands take to the streetsdemanding fully democraticelections amid mountingfears of increased meddlingby Beijing’s CommunistParty leaders.

Zhang Xiaoming, thehead of Beijing’s Liaison Of-fice in Hong Kong, said opennominations for the leader, orchief executive, would not beallowed.

Zhang’s open letter, sentto a major pro-democracygroup, the Civic Party,quoted the city’s mini-consti-

tution, the Basic Law, as say-ing that all candidates couldonly be nominated by a“broadly representativenominating committee”.

“There is no other op-tion,” Zhang said in the let-ter. That means the nomina-tions will instead come froma small election committeestacked with Beijing loyalistswho would essentially vetoany opposition candidatesfrom running.

The letter was publishedon the Liaison Office’swebsite - www.locpg.hk/big5/shouyexinwen/201309/

CAIRO—Egyptian groundtroops and helicopter gun-ships attacked Islamist mili-tants in the Sinai Peninsulaon Friday in their drive tostem a security threat nowspilling over into the rest ofthe country.

Three soldiers werewounded in clashes in threeseparate villages, security of-ficials said. Islamist militancyhas risen sharply in the rela-tively lawless region adjoin-ing Israel and the Gaza Stripand elsewhere in Egypt sincethe army ousted IslamistPresident Mohamed Mursion July 3, following mass pro-tests against his rule.

There are rocket and gre-nade attacks on soldiers andpolicemen in the Sinai nearlyevery day, and about 50 have

Egypts crackdown on Sinaimilitants as protests held

been killed since July. A Sinai-based militant group claimedresponsibility for a failed sui-cide bombing attack on theinterior minister in Cairo lastweek.

Authorities are also fo-cused on Mursi’s MuslimBrotherhood, one of the old-est and most resilient Islam-ist movements in the MiddleEast, which had held powerfor over a year when Mursiwas ousted.

Thousands of pro-Mursiprotesters marched after Fri-day prayers in the Cairo dis-trict of Nasr City after authori-ties boosted security in ar-eas where large protests hadgathered in the past. Demon-strations were also held in thecities of Fayoum, Alexandria,Assiut and Qena.—AP

Suu Kyi: Polishpath to

democracyinspired me

WARSAW—Myanmar oppo-sition leader Aung San SuuKyi told Polish democracychampion Lech Walesa onThursday that she was in-spired by how Poland hadpeacefully ended authoritar-ian rule and hoped her home-land would follow the samepath to freedom.

Suu Kyi, who spentmany years under house ar-rest for opposing Myanmar’smilitary rulers, met fellowNobel Peace Prize laureateWalesa, who in the 1980s ledthe protests that helped oustPoland’s Communist authori-ties.

“We in Burma (Myanmar)are just at the beginning ofthis road that you took many,many years earlier, a coupleof decades earlier, but we be-lieve, as you did then, that weshould succeed,” she told re-porters in the Polish capital.

“It is very encouraging forme to be among people whounderstand exactly the kindof struggle that we would stillhave to go through before wecan say that we are a demo-cratic society,” she said.Walesa, a former shipyardworker who went on to bePoland’s first democraticallyelected president, said he wasoptimistic about Myanmar’schances for freedom.

“We lost a number ofbattles before accomplishingsuccess. They’re in a similarsituation. They lose somebattles, but in general they’llprobably win the war,” he said.Suu Kyi is on a tour of easternEurope that will also includevisits to Hungary and theCzech Republic.—Reuters

Iran: Date couldbe set for nuclear

talks at U.N.meeting

BISHKEK—A date could beset soon for new talks withglobal powers over Tehran’snuclear programme but Iranwill not sacrifice its rights orinterests for the sake of a so-lution to the dispute, IranianPresident Hassan Rouhanisaid on Friday.

Iran has been in on-offtalks for years with six nationsseeking to ensure it does notdevelop nuclear weapons ca-pability. A solution has beenelusive and the most recenttalks, in April, ended withouta breakthrough.

Rouhani, who was electedin June, has said Iran will bemore transparent and less con-frontational in talks with the sixpowers - the United States,Russia, China, Britain, Franceand Germany. Speaking at asummit of a regional securitygroup led by Russia andChina, Rouhani said a date fornew talks could be set thismonth during the U.N. Gen-eral Assembly in New York,where meetings between Iranand some of the powers areexpected.—Reuters

sive.” According to GovernorSBP, a relentless increase in fis-cal borrowings and a secular de-cline in both domestic and for-eign investments are only symp-toms of structural issues. “Therole of monetary policy was al-ways going to be limited in thisenvironment; both in terms ofkeeping inflation low and stableand supporting private invest-ment activity. However, in thewake of considerable decelera-tion in inflation over the last twoyears, the SBP did lower itspolicy rate by 500 basis points.”

Mr. Anwar said that the SBPalso intervened in financial mar-kets by imposing a minimumsavings deposit rate at 6 percentand containing volatility in theforeign exchange market. It alsocalibrated its liquidity operationsin a manner that balanced finan-cial stability considerations andmedium-term inflation risks. Headded that as a result of theseactions, “the weighted averagelending rate has declined by 423basis points by end-July 2013while deposits of the bankingsystem grew by 15.9 percent andthe depreciation of exchange ratewas limited to 5.1 percent inFY13.”

Governor SBP said that adeclining interest rate environ-ment did contribute in a marginalpick up in loans to some sectorsof private businesses in FY13 but“most of the loans were used tofulfill the working capital re-quirements only”. He added that

Policy rate up by 50 basisFrom Page 1Three projects in Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa will be completedwith a total funding of Rs. 7160.16million, while the allocation forone project in Sindh isRs.2094.747 million, with oneproject amounting to Rs.4795.80million in Balochistan, while twoprojects amounting toRs.10116.288 million and threeFederal Projects amounting toRs.27684.260 million were alsoapproved by ECNEC in its meet-ing. The project Reconstruction ofNawabshah-Sanghar Road wasapproved by ECNEC with thecondition that if it would not at-tract funds from donors/agenciesthe entire cost would be borne bythe Government of Sindh.

It envisages reconstruction ofthe existing 61 km road alongwith the improvement of existingculverts and bridges to improvethe existing road width ranging6-7.3m to 7.3m with 2.5m widetreaded shoulders on both sides.

The Dirgi Shabozai (N-70)to Taunsa Sharif road construc-tion project was also approvedon the condition that theBalochistan Government wouldallocate Rs.250 million in itscurrent budget for 2013-2014,while the Federal Governmentwould include its share in thebudget 2014-15 for the project.

The plan had been lingeringfor the past four years, and wouldreduce the distance betweenPunjab and Balochistan by 90kilometers. Another project, titledRemedial Measures to ControlWaterlogging due toMuzaffargarh and T.P. Link ca-nals, was approved in principleand the Punjab Government wasasked to arrange funding fromdonors. This project would re-claim 33800 areas of land outof the command area of 967000acres.—APP

ECNEC approvesFrom Page 1

serious in its intention to resolveconflict in the country.

Syria became a full memberof the global anti-chemical weap-ons treaty on Thursday, thecountry’s U.N. envoy said, a movethat the government of SyrianPresident Bashar al-Assad hadpromised as part of a Russian planto avoid U.S. strikes.

“I believe we should welcomesuch a decision,” Putin told aShanghai CooperationOrganisation summit. “(It) is animportant step towards the resolu-tion of the Syrian crisis, this con-firms the serious intention of ourSyrian partners to follow this path.”

Syria agreed to the planbrokered by Russia, its most pow-erful ally, to transfer its chemicalarms to international custody afterWashington threatened militarystrikes over a gas attack on August21 that it attributes to governmentforces. China’s President XiJinping threw his weight behind theRussian initiative and the ChineseForeign Ministry said in an a state-ment released almost simulta-neously that it welcomedDamascus’s move to join the anti-chemical arms convention.

Both Russia and China haveblocked successive U.N. SecurityCouncil resolutions aimed at pres-suring Assad to end violence thathas killed more than 100,000 in themore than two-and-a-half year-long conflict. —Reuters

Syria to abideFrom Page 1

the city but there were some hid-den forces that had changed thedirection of the operation and wasbeing deliberately directed to-ward the MQM.

He expressed these viewswhile addressing a huge protestrally outside the Karachi PressClub Friday. A large number ofworkers and supporters of theMQM and people from differ-ent walks of life had joined theprotest, which was in condemna-tion to the arrest of MQM leaders,office-bearers and activists and im-plicating them in fake criminalscases.

Sabzwari asked as why thelaw enforcement agencies werereluctant to enter and conduct op-eration in those areas that weremade No Go Areas and attackedthe law enforcement agencies with

heavy weapons. Nonetheless, thelaw enforcement agencies hadfound it easier to ransack the of-fice s of the MQM and arrest theinnocent people and office-bear-ers of the MQM and book themin fake cases.

He said that the MQM was apeaceful and democratic partyand believed in the supremacy ofthe law and what the law enforce-ment agencies had done to teparty in recent few days washighly condemnable.

He said that although therewere some elements that had suc-cessfully converted the directionof the operation against theMQM but the party would re-spond to their tactfulmaneouvours through politicaland democratic manners. He saidthat it was not for the first time

that the genocide of the Mohajirswas done as the genocide wascarried out in past and was beingdone in recent days once again.

He said that the MQM hadcategorically announced its sup-port to the federal government inits efforts for restoring peace andeliminating the target killings,extortion and kidnappings forransom.

The MQM would still con-tinue to support the federal gov-ernment provided that the tar-geted operation should only bedirected against the criminals,terrorists without any discrimina-tion. However, it was unfortunatethat the terrorists and the crimi-nals were not touched but the in-nocent people of the city werebeing put under the deliberategenocide.

MQM being pushed to wallFrom Page 1

All be given death,” the court saidwhile reading out a portion of theorder.

“This is a time when seri-ous crime against a woman hascome to the fore and now itsjudiciary’s responsibility to instillconfidence among the women,”it said.—INP

4 get deathFrom Page 1

the “real private investment ex-penditures have declined for thefifth consecutive year, reaching8.7 as percent of GDP in FY13.”

He said that higher interestrates were not the major con-straining reason for the privatesector credit off-take adding thattwo “fundamental factors respon-sible for the lackluster increasein credit demand are: persistenceof energy shortages and deterio-ration in law and order condi-tions.”

Governor SBP said that theincrease of Rs1446 billion inbudgetary borrowings from thebanking system during FY13 wasalmost Rs1 trillion higher thanthe original target and was evenhigher than the total expansionin M2. “Deviation of this scalehas significantly constrained ef-fective monetary management,disrupted financial intermedia-tion in the economy, and has ledto a sharp increase in domesticdebt,” he added.

Mr. Anwar said that the in-ability to raise the tax-GDP ratiowas the fundamental source oflarge fiscal deficits, high borrow-ings, and rising debt.He further said that with “swiftsettlement of the outstandingstock of energy sector circulardebt, reduction in electricity tar-iff related subsidies, and intro-duction of some taxation mea-sures the new government hasshown intentions to addressdeeper issues afflicting the fiscalaccounts.” Regarding the exter-

nal sector, the Governor SBP saidthat the stress “has gradually in-creased with every passingmonth of 2013 due to shrinkingnet capital and financial flowsand high loan repayments to theIMF.”

Mr. Anwar said despite thesepressures and speculations of adrop in the value of the Pak ru-pee the foreign exchange markethad largely remained stable inFY13. He added that the “likeli-hood of receiving higher finan-cial flows has increased giventhat a new IMF program has beenapproved for Pakistan in Septem-ber 2013. This would ease pres-sure in the foreign exchange mar-ket.” Governor SBP said that“clarity on the political front to-gether with newly-initiated fiscalconsolidation efforts of the gov-ernment could boost offshore in-vestors’ confidence and an-nounce Pakistan’s return to inter-national capital markets.”

Mr. Anwar said “the impactof upward adjustments in energyprices on inflation outlook can-not be under-estimated. In addi-tion to having a direct effect onCPI inflation, there is a high like-lihood of considerable indirecteffects as well. Similarly, an in-crease in the GST together withthe removal of certain exemp-tions could put further pressureon inflation in the comingmonths. The outlook of oil pricesmay deteriorate as well givenescalating political tensions in theMiddle East.”

CJP rejects official reportFrom Back Page

Taliban attack on HeratFrom Page 1

nation’s first international soccerchampionship. Taleban spokes-man Qari Yousef Ahmadi took re-sponsibility for the Herat attackin a phone call with The Associ-ated Press. Afghan and US offi-cials, meanwhile, offered slightlydifferent accounts of what hap-pened — differences which couldnot immediately be reconciled.

According to Gen.Rahmatullah Safi, Heratprovince’s chief of police, theattack began around 6 am whenmilitants in an SUV and a vanset off their explosives-laden ve-hicles while others on foot firedon Afghan security forces guard-ing the compound in the city,1,000km from Kabul.

An Afghan police officer andan Afghan security guard werekilled, though it was not clearwhether they died in the explo-sions of the two vehicles or in thegunfire, Safi said. At least sevenattackers were killed, includingthe two drivers of the explosives-laden vehicles, he said.

Herat hospital officialSayednaim Alemi said at least 17people were wounded, and thattwo dead bodies were brought tothe medical centre. It was not im-mediately clear if the dead werevictims mentioned by Rafi.

US State Department deputyspokeswoman Marie Harf said ina statement that the assault be-gan around 5.30am, when “atruck carrying attackers drove tothe front gate, and attackers —possibly firing rocket propelledgrenades and assault rifles —started firing at Afghan forcesand security guards on the exte-rior of the gates.

Shortly after, the entire truckexploded, extensively damagingthe front gate.”

Rafi said US special forcessecured the compound and thatno attackers managed to breachit. Harf’s statement said “Ameri-can security personnel” wereamong the responders, and that“it appears American and con-tract security personnel ad-dressed any attackers who man-aged to enter the compound.”Robert Hilton, a spokesman forthe US Embassy in Kabul, saidthat “all consulate personnel aresafe and accounted for.”—AP

brother or a few of the brothers”would weaken the U.S. economyby triggering big spending onsecurity, SITE reported.

Western counter-terrorismchiefs have warned thatradicalized “lone wolves” whomight have had no direct contactwith al Qaeda posed as great arisk as those who carried outcomplex plots like the 9/11 at-tacks.

“We should bleed Americaeconomically by provoking it tocontinue in its massive expendi-ture on its security, for the weakpoint of America is its economy,which has already begun to stag-ger due to the military and secu-rity expenditure,” he said.

Keeping America in such astate of tension and anticipationonly required a few disparate at-tacks “here and there”, he said

“As we defeated it in thegang warfare in Somalia, Yemen,Iraq and Afghanistan, so weshould follow it with ...war on itsown land. These disparate strikescan be done by one brother or afew of the brothers.”—Reuters

Al-Qaeda callsFrom Page 1

and heir to India’s most power-ful political dynasty, has beengroomed by the Congress partyto take over the reins from PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh.

But he remains reluctant tobe pushed to the fore and doubtsremain about his ability and hun-ger for the job.

The Congress-led govern-ment is lagging badly in the polls,its popularity sapped by the eco-nomic downturn and a slew ofcorruption scandals.—Agencies

Modi namedFrom Page 1

Zafarul Haq, has also requestedthat six additional judges of theLahore High Court be made per-manent. These include JusticesAbdul Sami Khan, AbdurRahman, Shujat Ali Khan, AishaA. Malik, Shahid Waheed and AliBaqir Najfi.

The committee expressedsatisfaction with the FederalBoard of Revenue (FBR) andIntelligence Bureau (IB) reportssubmitted on the judges’ assets.

Justice MushirFrom Page 1

peace to either of the two, it couldnot be regarded as such. Theagreement between the partieshas to be valid for a court of lawto allow the pardon for theconvict(s).

The chief justice has askedAttornery General Munir A.Malik, all four provincial pros-ecutor generals and AdvocateShahid Hamid, who is repre-senting a party in the case heardtoday, for their opinions on theissue relating to pardon in mur-der cases by September 23.

PardoningFrom Page 1

stan must indicate tangibleprogress on meeting some ofIndia’s concerns, prime amongthem being effective and speedyprosecution of Pakistanis behindthe 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Talking to newspersons aftermeeting Mr. Aziz at a dacha bothare sharing in the vast Presiden-tial complex here, Khurshid ex-pressed his satisfaction at the as-surance but hoped the evidencewould be such that the Pakistanicourt would be able to do some-thing substantial.

Sartaj Aziz welcomedKhurshid’s expression of satis-faction over the assurances and,quoting the Indian minister,hoped both sides would muzzletheir guns on the LoC to main-tain the ceasefire agreed upon in2003. Khurshid stressed on moreeffective utilisation of the mecha-nism to dampen aggression onthe LoC. “We have a few days,let us see how it shapes up,’’ hesaid.

Prime Minister’s Advisor onForeign Affairs Sartaj Aziz alsomet his Kyrgyz counterpartAbdyldeev Bekeshovitch on the

Sartaj, Khurshid discussFrom Page 1

sidelines of Shanghai Coopera-tion Organization Summit inBishkek and reviewed bilateralrelations.

The two sides agreed thatexcellent relationship at the po-litical level should be translatedinto other areas particularly tradeand economy.

The two leaders stressed theimportance of activating the ex-isting mechanism of joint eco-nomic commission and jointbusiness council to promote bi-lateral cooperation and trade andeconomic sectors.

Advisor on Foreign Affairsshared Pakistan’s governmentfocus on trade and developmentand its vision on regional connec-tivity with particular reference toPakistan-China corridor.

The Advisor said Pakistanlooks forward to work closelywith SCO countries to promotebilateral trade.

He said Pakistan believesthat Shanghai Cooperation Or-ganization can play an impor-tant role in promoting regionaltrade and economic coopera-tion.—Online

2003 tenure of Prime MinisterMahathir Mohamad, a stridentcritic of the West.

The White House said thatObama will visit Malaysia to takepart in the Global Entrepreneur-ship Summit, an initiative on jobgrowth that the US leader de-signed as a way to reach out tothe Islamic world. Obama willalso meet Prime Minister NajibRazak “to highlight our growingbilateral ties with Malaysia,” aWhite House statement said.

Obama, who spent part of hisyouth in Indonesia, has put a pri-ority on building relations withSoutheast Asia, seeing the fast-growing and largely US-friendlyregion as neglected in the past.

The trip is “part of his ongo-ing commitment to increase USpolitical, economic and securityengagement with the Asia Pa-cific,” the statement said. Obamawill take part in the Asia-PacificEconomic Cooperation summitin Bali, Indonesia and then headto the sultanate of Brunei for theEast Asia Summit.—AFP

Obama to makeFrom Page 1

support the party he feels isheading in the right direction.

The TTP was established inJuly 2012 as a platform for cam-paigning against corruption andpromoting political awarenessamong the country’s youth. DrKhan had told media.

Dr QadeerFrom Page 1

country. He said that the govern-ment should submit in the courtthat the decision was not beingimplemented. The court observedthat the NAB was meant to elimi-nate corruption but the anti-cor-ruption body had been workingwithout its boss for the last threemonths.—Agencies

Appoint NABFrom Page 1

expressing his furor at ineptnessof police and security apparatusfor allowing a single person toharass, create nuisance at themiddle of a busy expressway forsix relaxed hours, while only acasually dressed SSP,in sports-wear, talked shortly to that crimi-nal , the CJP while chairing a 3-member bench on Friday , ex-pressed grave concerns over thebad global impression about Pa-kistan , created by incident.

“At least the governmentshould take necessary action,now”, the CJP stated in responseto (rejected) various recommen-dations by investigative commit-tee under additional interior sec-retary Tahir Siyal , seeking over-all clarifications from I.GIslamabad, questioning the pres-ence of two irrelevant DSPs(deputy superintendent police) atthe site of incident, and whatevertranspired between IdreesRathore and Zammarud Khan ,before Zammarud jumped to im-pulsive unsuccessful heroics ofgrabbing the armed criminal.

“An authority no less thanI.G should have been present onthe occasion, while the concernedSHO of relevant Thana shouldalso have been present”, said thatCJP, expressing his concernabout “any more serious and dan-

gerous incident(s) in future”.The CJP was also chagrined

about crimes being fostered by,and right under the nose of ICT(Islamabad Capital Police),which included fearless sale ofdrugs, while even two policemenwere murdered with relativeease, and the magistrate did noteven have any idea about the lo-cation of the murders.

Justice Jawad. S. Khawajaremarked that the issue had to betabled, in order to avoid recur-rence of such grave incidents infuture, among daily routine se-curity lapses. Meanwhile ChiefJustice of Pakistan (CJP) IftikharMuhammad Chaudhry has re-marked “court is put behind thetruck to run after its light in thename of Afghanistan every time.

CJP gave these remarkswhile presiding over a 3-mem-ber bench of Supreme Court (SC)during the course of hearing ofmurder and kidnapping of law-yers cases Friday.

“Federal government and itsinstitutions should give in writ-ing that they are absolutely help-less in the cases of missing per-sons and lawyers and they can donothing. Court is made to run af-ter the light of truck every timeby mentioning the name of Af-ghanistan. Non initiation of ac-

tion against the accused personsdespite enjoying all facilities byall the national institutions in-cluding ISI and MI is clear evi-dence of utter failure of state or-gans”, CJP further remarked.

Deputy Attorney General(DAG) told the court efforts areunderway for the recovery ofZahir Ahmad Gondal advocateand interior ministry has filedreport in this connection that noclue had been found about him.

CJP remarked “ you have allthe resources including ISI andMI and despite it lawyer is notbecoming available. Are youhelpless.

Court was told TanvirGondal is missing since the last6 years and he has connectionwith Jehadi outfits. He is alsoinvolved in the murder ofChaudhry Zulfiqar.

DAG told Ali Gondal is theirbrother and he is involved inthree different cases. He is alsoallegedly involved in the case offiring of rocket launcher on par-liament.

CJP remarked if your stanceis accepted that both the brothersare involved in terror acts. Thenas to why Zahir advocate waspicked up as he was doing prac-tice. Why he has gone missing.—Online

US, Russia, UN mullFrom Page 1

that Washington could still attackif it was not satisfied: “This is nota game,” he said on Thursday.

The talks were part of a dip-lomatic push that promptedPresident Barack Obama to puton hold plans for U.S. air strikesin response to a chemical weap-ons attack on civilians in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus onAugust 21.

The United States and its al-lies say Assad’s forces carried outthe attack with sarin nerve gas,killing more than 1,400 people.Putin and Assad have blamedrebel forces. The United Nationssaid it received a document from

Syria on joining the global anti-chemical weapons treaty, a moveAssad promised as part of a dealto avoid U.S. air strikes.

The move would end Syria’sstatus as one of only seven na-tions outside the 1997 interna-tional convention that outlawsstockpiling chemical weapons.Other holdouts include neighborsEgypt and Israel, as well as NorthKorea.

Kerry expressed some opti-mism about the talks in Geneva,saying, “We do believe there is away to get this done” and that theUnited States was “grateful” forideas from Russia.—Reuters

ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain exchanging views with President Azad Jammuand Kashmir Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan during a meeting at Aiwan-i-Sadr.

KABUL—Facing a tight with-drawal deadline and tough terrain,the U.S. military has destroyedmore than 170 million poundsworth of vehicles and other mili-tary equipment as it rushes to winddown its role in the Afghanistanwar by the end of 2014.

The massive disposal effort,which U.S. military officials callunprecedented, has unfoldedlargely out of sight amid an ongo-ing debate inside the Pentagonabout what to do with the heapsof equipment that won’t be return-ing home. Military planners havedetermined that they will not shipback more than $7 billion worthof equipment, about 20 percentof what the U.S. military has inAfghanistan, because it is nolonger needed or would be toocostly to ship back home, a reportin Washington Post said Friday.

That has left the Pentagon ina quandary about what to do withthe items. Bequeathing a largeshare to the Afghan governmentwould be challenging because ofcomplicated rules governingequipment donations to othercountries, and there is concern thatAfghanistan’s fledgling forceswould be unable to maintain it.Some gear may be sold or donatedto allied nations, but few are likelyto be able to retrieve it from the

war zone. Therefore, much of itwill continue to be shredded, cutand crushed to be sold for pen-nies per pound on the Afghanscrap market.

“We’re making history doingwhat we’re doing here,” said Maj.Gen. Kurt J. Stein, head of the 1stSustainment Command, who isoverseeing the drawdown in Af-ghanistan. “This is the largest ret-rograde mission in history.”

The most contentious andclosely watched part of the effortinvolves the disposal of Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected ve-hicles, the hulking beige person-nel carriers that the Pentagonraced to build starting in 2007 tocounter the threat of roadsidebombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.The massive trucks, known asMRAPs, came to symbolize thebloody evolution of wars that weremeant to be short conflicts butturned into quagmires.

The Pentagon has determinedthat it will no longer have use forabout 12,300 of its 25,500MRAPs scattered at bases world-wide, officials said.

In Afghanistan, the militaryhas labeled about 2,000 of itsroughly 11,000 MRAPs “excess.”About 9,000 will be shipped to theUnited States and U.S. militarybases in Kuwait and elsewhere,

but the majority of the unwantedvehicles, which cost about $1million each, will probably beshredded, officials said, becausethey are unlikely to find clientswilling to come pick them up.

Those MRAPs that the Pen-tagon has deemed unnecessaryhave been arriving by the dozenat scrap yards at four U.S. mili-tary bases in Afghanistan in recentmonths.

In another section of the scrapyard, a massive grinder gobbledslabs of steel, turning them intosmall scraps.

The debris is packed intoU.S.-owned shipping containersthat also have been deemed unfitto return home. Last month, theKandahar yard produced 11 mil-lion pounds of scrap that was soldto Afghan contractors for a fewcents per pound, said MorganGunn, a Defense LogisticsAgency employee who runs thesite. Afghans use the scrap mainlyfor construction and as makeshiftspare parts.

As they have debated howmuch excess equipment toshred or sell, officials have con-sidered whether the defense in-dustry would suffer if the Pen-tagon unloaded tons of usedequipment on the market atvastly reduced prices. —INP

US destroys $7b militaryequipment in Afghanistan

SC seeksaffidavits from7 intelligence

officersISLAMABAD—Supreme Courthas sought affidavits from 7 of-ficers of intelligence agenciestill September 23 for cross ques-tioning them by Amna MasoodJanjua, in her husband MasoodJanjua recovery case.

The list of these 7 officerswas given by Amna MasudJanjua, wife of Masood Janjua.

A three-member bench ofSC presided over by Chief Jus-tice of Pakistan IftikharMuhammad Chaudhry took upthe case for hearing Friday.

Amna Masud Janjua andAdditional Attorney GeneralTariq Khokhar appeared in thecourt. Amna Janjua presentedthe list of 7 officers of intelli-gence agencies in the court.These officers included Col(Retd) Jahangir Akhtar, Col(Retd) Habib Ullah, BrigMansoor Saeed Sheikh, Lt GenNusrat Nadim, Lt Gen NadimTaj, Lt Gen Shafqat Ahmad andformer attorney general MalikAbdul Qayyum. —Online

Govt withdrawsSecy Civil Aviationtransfer notification

OBSERVER REPORT

ISLAMABAD—The federalgovernment has withdrawn thetransfer notification of Secre-tary Civil Aviation,Muhammad Ali Gardezi. Athree-member bench of theSupreme Court headed byChief Justice IftikharMuhamamd Chaudhry heardthe case pertaining to the trans-fer of Secretary Civil Aviation.

Attorney General, Munir AMalik submitted the written re-ply in court which said that theprime minister believed intransparency. The statementadded that the secretary wasnot transferred because he re-ferred the matter of the delayin the construction ofIslamabad airport to the FIA.

PTI leadersupports targeted

operationKARACHI—Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Central Deputy SecretaryGeneral Imran Ismail Friday sup-ported the ongoing targeted opera-tion in Karachi.

While speaking to a group ofmedia people at PTI Central Me-dia Cell here, he said, Karachi isthe economic hub of Pakistan. Animpartial plan was needed to beimplemented through authoritativelaw enforcement personals in or-der to revive the economic activi-ties in the city. —INP

ISLAMABAD—Azad Jammu andKashmir President SardarMuhammad Yaqub called onPresident Mamnoon Hussain inIslamabad Friday and felicitatedhim on assuming the office ofhead of state of Pakistan.

During the meeting‚ Presi-dent Mamnoon Hussain assuredthat Pakistan will continue to pro-vide diplomatic‚ moral‚ and po-litical support to the Kashmiris’

Tauqir sent to jailon 14 days

judicial remandISLAMABAD—AccountabilityCourt (AC) Islamabad has sentformer chairman OGRA TauqirSadiq to Adiala jail on 14 daysjudicial remand in 82 billion ru-pees OGRA mega corruptioncase.

Tauqir Sadiq was producedin ATC on Friday on completionof his 67 days physical remand.He was taken into court understringent security measures.

Counsel for Tauqir Sadiqfiled two applications in thecourt on the occasion with re-gard to allocation of A class inthe jail and provision of secu-rity to the accused.

NAB on the other sideprayed the court to grant judi-cial remand of the accused Thecourt ordered for sending TauqirSadiq to jail on 14 days judicialremand.

Tauqir Sadiq request to grantA class in jail was rejected bythe court. —Online

NEW DELHI—Having al-ready bagged Indian defencecontracts worth over $8 billionin recent years after musclingout Russia, Israel and France,the US is now headed towardsclinching another four majordeals worth almost $5 billion.

Defence ministry sourcessaid the deals for six more C-130J “ Super Hercules” aircraft($1.2 billion), 22 Apache attackhelicopters ($1.4 billion), 145M-777 ultra-light howitzers($885 million) and 15 Chinookheavy-lift helicopters (around$1 billion) “are in the finalstages” now.

India will convey this toUS deputy secretary of defenceAshton B Carter when he ar-rives here next week. Carter,who will hold talks with de-fence minister A K Antony,

national security advisor ShivShankar Menon and defencesecretary R K Mathur, is theObama administration’s “pointman” for expanding defencetrade with India as a cornerstoneof the bilateral strategic ties.

“The deals should be inkedwithin this financial year (2013-2014) despite budgetary con-straints. The C-130J deal, forinstance, is likely to go to theCabinet Committee on Securityin October-November,” said asource. The aircraft and howit-zer deals will be direct govern-ment-to-government contractsunder the US foreign militarysales (FMS) programme, whichdoes not involve competitionthrough global tenders.

The attack and heavy-lifthelicopter deals, however, werewon by aviation major Boeing

after its AH-64D ApacheLongbow and twin-rotor Chi-nook helicopters outclassedRussian Mi-28 Havoc and Mi-26 choppers in field trials andcommercial evaluation.

But there are “some looseends” in the deals that need tobe tied up first. The defenceministry, for instance, has toldBoeing that it should drop itsinsistence on “limited liabil-ity clauses” being included inthe agreements.

Similarly, the M-777 con-tract has been hanging firesince January 2010 due tofield evaluation reports being“leaked” and certain other ir-regularities involving a topIndian Army officer. “There isan inquiry in progress but itshould not be a major hurdle,”said another source. —INP

India to enter $5bdefence deals with US

Gunmen torch15 NATO

tankers, killdriver in Kalat

OBSERVER REPORT

QUETTA—Gunmen attacked aconvoy of NATO oil tankers inKalat overnight, killing a driverand torching eight vehicles, lo-cal officials said Friday.

The attackers fired rocketsand bullets at the convoy of 15oil tankers traveling fromKarachi to landlocked Afghani-stan.

“The gunmen attacked theconvoy at a rest stop in Soorabtown of Kalat district.

They fired rockets and bul-lets on the convoy from bothsides of the road,” police offi-cial Yousaf Reiki said.

“One driver of a tanker diedin the attack while eight tankerswere burnt,” he added.

Senior administration offi-cial Muhammad Akbar con-firmed the attack.

There was no claim of re-sponsibility but the Taliban havein the past said they carry outsuch attacks to disrupt suppliesfor US-led NATO troops fight-ing in Afghanistan.

Kabul blames Pak,Taliban for attackon Indian writer

KABUL—A week after Indianauthor Sushmita Banerjee waskilled in Afghanistan, Afghan au-thorities have told the Indian em-bassy in Kabul that the plot washatched in Pakistan, and the Pa-kistani Taliban, Afghan Talibanand Haqqani network were in-volved. Sources said the four per-sons arrested Wednesday revealedthree militants from the PakistaniTaliban were involved. “The planwas made in Pakistan and theyworked with Akbar Musafir, thelocal commander of AfghanTaliban in Paktika, where it is alsopart of the Haqqani network,” saidgovernment sources.—INP

85 Afghannationals heldQUETTA—The security forceson Friday arrested at least 85Afghan citizens who were ille-gally traveling to Karachi fromQuetta. According to securitysources, on tip off, the securitypersonnel stopped a Karachibound passenger bus and ar-rested at least 85 Afghan nation-als under Foreign Act. The se-curity sources said that the ar-rested afghan citizens were trav-eling without documents. Thesecurity personnel shifted themto undisclosed location for in-vestigation. —INP

ISLAMABAD—The Chief Min-ister Balochistan Dr. AbdulMalik Baloch has declared theBalochistan issue as a politicalone, asking for a political solu-tion of provincial crisis.

Talking to media atBalochistan House on Friday, hecriticized endeavors to resolvethe issue with force, whichfailed, while all religious andpolitical parties would have toplay their due role to resolvethese political natured issues.

Dr. Malik expressed his fullresolve for cooperation of fed-eral government withBalochistan government, andconcerns about massive exodusof Baloch community from theirlands, while Balochistan gov-ernment strived for their imme-diate rehabilitation in theirlands. He cited the dilemma offamily of (late) Akbar Bugti’s asthe biggest example of this is-sue, which was being accommo-dated in their ancestral lands.

Expressing his deepest sor-row and grief over the barbarouskilling of labour in Gwadar, andwhile strongly condemning theissue, said that the labor were an

integral force in progress anddevelopment of Country; while“Killing labor was not forte ofBaloch and Pakhtoons’.

He also berated corruptionas something intolerable at anylevel, and stressed on rooting outthe evil, in better interests anddevelopment of the BalochistanProvince.

The chief minister cited anincrease of provincial educa-tional and health budget by 9%from 2.9%, while also announc-ing establishment of 3 medicalcollages, 6 universities, 300 highschools, more than 300 middleschools, and scholarships formore than 10,000 children.

Replying to a question, hesaid that law and order situationwas better as compared to be-fore, and stated that governmentwas trying its best efforts to pro-vide latest technology and train-ing for security personnel, alsoassuring to discourage any moretransfers, appointments on po-litical basis; while “previouspostings, appointments made onpolitical basis would be thor-oughly investigated and re-scinded”, he assured. —Online

Malik seeks politicalparties role in Balochistan

KALAT: Militants attacked and set ablaze oil tankers on Friday.

3 cops injured inattackKHIARPUR—Unknown gun-men attacked Kumb police sta-tion in Khairpur and injuredthree cops on Friday. Accordingto police, the armed men at-tacked the police station in or-der to free accused Naimatullahfrom police custody.Naimatullah was arrested forselling drug on Wednesday. Theassailants managed to flee af-ter police retaliation. Policehave launched search operationin the area for the arrests of thegunmen.—INP

USC reducepulses pricesISLAMABAD—Utility StoresCorporation (USC) has an-nounced to reduce the pulsesprices by Rs 7 to 10 kg at alloutlets across the country. Talk-ing to media persons here onFriday, USC spokesman WajidSwati said notification regard-ing reduction in prices of pulseshas been issued. He said thatwith the recent decrease, DaalChanna would be available at Rs73/kg, white and black grain atRs 98/kg and 65/kg respectively.Wajid Swati said that new priceswould be implemented with im-mediate affect at 6000 outlets ofUSC across the country. He saidthat the corporation was makingall out efforts to provide stan-dard commodities to citizens atcontrolled rates. —INP

Support for Kashmiris’right of self-determination

to continue: Mamnoonstruggle for right to self-determi-nation.

Ongoing developmentprojects in Azad Kashmir werealso discussed at the meeting.

Meanwhile‚ GovernorKhyber Pakhtunkhwa EngineerShaukatullah also called on Presi-dent Mamnoon Hussain inIslamabad on Friday and felici-tated him on assuming the officeof presidency. —INP

LAHORE— The Chief Justiceof Pakistan, Justice IftikharMohammad Chaudhry, hastaken a sou motu notice of thesexual molestation of a five-year-old girl, who was sub-jected to this brutality inLahore on Friday.

The CJP has also orderedthe Inspector General of Police(IGP) Punjab to submit a re-port on the case by today (Sat-urday) morning.

According to details thegirl was abducted and sexuallyassaulted and was dumped out-side the Ganga Ram Hospitalin a semi-conscious state.

Later the girl was shiftedto the Services Hospital where

she remained in critical condi-tion for several hours.

A three-year-old was alsoabducted and later left at thechild protection services by thecriminals.

The medical report of theminor confirmed that she wasbrutally sexually and physi-cally assaulted. She requiredstitches on her stomach, backand had also received internalinjuries. Following the crime,neighbours gathered at thehouse of the five-year old,while her father said that shecould not say anything becauseof fear. Her mother cried outfor the criminals to be heldaccountable.

CJP seeks report on minorgirl’s sexual assault

ISLAMABAD—The Chief Jus-tice, Iftikhar MuhammadChaudhry has rejected the offi-cial recommendations, regard-ing (Sikander’s) Jinnah Avenue

Islamabad incident

CJP rejects official reportincident’ presented by addi-tional attorney general ShahKhawar, giving 30th Septem-ber deadline for police ac-

Continued on Page 7

Purchase of 58locomotivesLAHORE—A joint meeting ofthree locomotive manufacturingcompanies and a team of seniorengineers of the Pakistan Rail-ways, presided over by FederalMinister Khawaja Saad Rafique,reviewed the purchase of 58 lo-comotives at the PR headquar-ters here on Friday. Represen-tatives of CSR Ziyang locomo-tive company from China, Al-lied Engineering from theUnited States and PEMCONfrom Pakistan participated in themeeting. The PR minister toldthe media after the meeting thatPakistan would never sign anyagreement against national inter-ests, adding transparency wouldbe ensured in agreements andthe time of commission andkickbacks had been over. Hesaid that a session of cross-talkamong all stakeholders had beenarranged in the meeting for sat-isfaction of them.—APP

POSTMENOPAUSAL women who takea class of medicine for high blood pressure may be at a greater risk for devel-

oping breast cancer, according to a recentstudy by Fred Hutchinson Cancer ResearchCenter scientists.

The study, published inthe Journal of the AmericanMedical Association, is thefirst of its kind to analyzelong-term use of the antihy-pertensive drugs known ascalcium-channel blockersand to associate their use toa risk of breast cancer.

The researchers note ithas been previously theo-rized that this type of drugcould increase the risk ofcancer because they sup-press cell death, a normalpart of a cell’s life.The teamof researchers, led by Dr.Christopher Li, interviewed1,763 people from the PugetSound region of Washingtonstate. The participants were all between ages55-74 years, 880 of whom had invasive duc-tal cancer, 1,027 had invasive lobular cancer,and 856 were cancer-free.In the US, about70% of all breast cancers are invasive ductalcarcinomas, while about 20% are invasivelobular carcinomas, the researchers say.

Researchers suggest that women who takecalcium-channel blockers may be at higherrisk of developing breast cancer.

Results show that women who took cal-cium-channel blockers for 10 years or morehad a risk for both ductal and lobular cancerthat was 2.5 times higher than those who neverused calcium-channel blockers or those who

used other forms of antihypertensive drug.Long-term use of other forms of antihy-

pertensive drugs, such as diuretics, betablockers and angiotensin-receptor blockers,were not linked to an increased breast can-

cer risk in the study.Antihypertensives are the

most-prescribed drugs in theUS, with the researchers cit-ing over 678 million prescrip-tions filled in 2010, and nearly98 million being for calcium-channel blockers.

“Because hypertension isa chronic condition, mostpeople with high blood pres-sure use antihypertensivedrugs chronically and will of-ten stay on the same regimenfor long periods of time.

Characterizing their po-tential associations with themost common cancer inwomen is an important clini-cal and public health issue,particularly with the increas-

ing availability of alternative options to man-age hypertension.”

Although many people use high bloodpressure drugs, often for long periods oftime, the evidence linking use ofantihypertensives to breast cancer has beeninconsistent.The study’s authors cite twostudies, one from 1996 and one from 1997,that showed links between the drugs andbreast cancer. But because larger subsequentstudies failed to confirm the links, the re-searchers put their hypothesis “into hiber-nation.” That is, until now, with Li’s studyadding weight to the link between the drugsand breast cancer.

Blood pressure drugs linkedto higher breast cancer risk

Mr. Zahid Malik, Chairman NPC addressing educationists on genesis of Pakistan at Islamabad Club.

Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi with the Ambassadorsand High Commissioners of different countries during a farewell reception hosted by Deanof Diplomatic Corps Rodolfo Martin J Saravia in the honour of Turkish Ambassador BaburHizlan.—PO photo by Sultan Bashir

Lord Nazir Ahmed called on President Mamnoon Hussain at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Friday.

CITY REPORTER

I S L A M A B A D —Researchthink-tank MUSLIM Instituteorganized a round table dis-cussion on the topic “Currentsituation in Middle East andfears of sectarian polarizationin Muslim world” here on Fri-day.

Chairman MUSLIM Insti-tute Sahibzada Sultan AhmadAli, while dilating upon the ob-jectives of the discussion saidMiddle East is facing multipleinternal and external chal-lenges as every country in theregion has its own stakes.

He said the sectarian ten-sion in the Muslim world is notnew. However, the real ques-tion is what the MuslimUmmah has collectively doneto extinguish this fire.

“It is difficult to single outany one who is responsible forcontaining it. We collectively

Ummah needs unity to overcome challengesneed to discuss and deliberate onthis issue to strive to control it”,he said.

Regardless of our affiliationwith any school of thought, weneed to think how we can sur-mount this challenge. Solution tothe same lies in research, fore-sight and prudence, not in emo-tionalism, irrationality and intol-erance, he said.

Dr Sadollah Zarei fromTabatabaei University Tehran,and Director The Thought Mak-ers Study Center expressing hisviews, stated that the currentsituation in Syria is not like as ifit is at war with another country.

“It is not a conflict of sector religion but continuity of Westand American designs of crip-pling Muslim countries politi-cally and economically. They aretrying to occupy resources of theMuslim world”, he said.

The Muslim scholars andintellectuals need to understand

these challenges and should notremain quiet. To confront theprevailing challenges, academi-cians and intellectuals shouldcome forward.

Rising above sectarian andterritorial divide, we all need toaccord priority to the interestsof the Ummah and devise col-lective and consensual strategyin this regard, he added.

The Muslims should getthemselves acknowledged at inter-national level as a politically unitedentity and need to formulate poli-cies for attaining it. Solution to ourproblems lies in the same. FormerAmbassador Amir AnwarShadani, addressing on the occa-sion, said that danger of a deadlywar are looming large on theMiddle East, adding current crisisin Syria has a relation with theArab Spring that originated in Tu-nisia and also affected Libya,Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.

The Middle East is divided

into two camps: on one side areIran, Lebanese Shiite, Hezbollahand Syria, while in other campare Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Syr-ian Rebels.

He further stated that theMiddle East, in fact, remaineddivided in two blocs after thecold war. On one side have beencountries having friendly tieswith America and soft approachtowards Israel, while countriesopposed to America and Israel,like Iran, Syria and PalestinianHamas have been in the otherbloc.

Nonetheless, current Syriancrisis has added another verycritical dimension to this dividei.e. sectarian conflict, he said.

This sectarian dimension isso intense that even SunniHamas appears to be movingaway from the Iranian camp.Shifting of its central office fromDamascus to Doha (Qatar) isindicative of the same.

This sectarian wedge is achallenge not only for Syria butalso for the entire Muslimworld. Though current situa-tion in Syria is alarming butnewly elected IranianPresident’s indications of im-proving ties with Saudi Arabiaand easing tensions are posi-tive omens.

Ambassador (R) GulHanif, Chairman IslamabadStrategic Studies Institute, inhis concluding remarks, statedthat the opponents have alwaysused sectarianism to weakenMuslims. It is the need of thehour to discourage all suchforces and their toadies. It isimperative to formulate collec-tive and consensual strategy tocounter the same.The RoundTable Discussion was attendedby academicians, researchers,analysts, students of differentuniversities and research asso-ciates of think- tanks.

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—A spirited gather-ing of intelligentsia organised byFederal Government RetriedTeachers Faculty Fellowship atIslamabad Club on Thursday wit-nessed emotional and movingscenes when sacred country ofPakistan, its genesis and future wasdiscussed in a very open and frankway.The sitting was arranged inconnection with Pakistan Day.

The participants raised theirantenna on the sensitivities ofthis scared country and thrashedthose elements who are out tocreate confusion and perplexity.

The key speaker on the oc-casion, Zahid Malik, ChairmanNazirya Pakistan Council (trust)Islamabad said Pakistan has itsgenesis in Al-Quran and its cre-ation in 1947 was a unique phe-nomenon, which took place with

High spirited gathering of intelligentsia

Pakistan has itsgenesis in Al-Quran:

Zahid MalikCountry will bounce back soon

exceptional blessings of Al-mighty Allah. Pakistan is an ex-tension of Madina State and‘Gumbad-e-Khizra’ has its re-flection in Pakistani flag.

When teachings of Islamstarted taking roots in the Holyland, The Arab society was di-vided into two parts ——believ-ers of Allah and its Holy ProphetMuhammed (Peace be UponHim) and opponents. The samesituation happened in 1947 whenSouth Asia was bifurcated on thesame lines— believers and non-believers, Zahid Malik who isalso Editor-in-Chief of PakistanObserver said.

He said despite heavy oddsPakistan is facing at present,there is silver lining on the ho-rizon. Pakistan has all ingredi-ents to bounce back. A brightfuture is waiting for this coun-try. It is our conviction that no-

body can harm Pakistan, he said.Zahid Malik said NPC has

initiated ambitious programmein educational field by facilitat-ing to enroll drop-out children.In this connection, effluentshave been approached to extendhelp to those children. Similarly,an international Seerat Centrewill be set up to present teach-ings of Holy Prophet in true per-spective. It will be service to thenation, he added

Professor Qaiserah Alvi,President of the teachers’ bodywhile welcoming Zahid Maliksaid Pakistan has come to stayand it will move forward on thepath of progress and stability.Professors and teachers are greatasset of society and they are play-ing their role in building up thiscountry, she said.Khalida Mazharenthralled the participants by pre-senting national songs.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Only one patientout of eighteen dengue patients,currently under- treatment invarious hospitals of Islamabadcaught virus in Islamabad, saidDr. Hassan Urooj, DirectorHealth Services of Capital De-velopment Authority.

Talking to Pakistan Ob-server on Friday, he said afterthorough scrutiny of all thesepatients, only four patients, oneis still a suspect belong to

Eighteen dengue patients under treatment

Only one patientfrom Islamabad:Dr Hassan Urooj

Islamabad. Except one, the otherthree patients have travelled his-tory to Swat and Sargodha.

Swat area is braving thisepidemic and Islamabad has re-ceived patients from there andalso from other areas. All thepatients are out of danger andthey are recovering fast, he said.

The anti-dengue campaignwas launched in Islamabad fromJanuary one and it is still on.Affective insecticides were usedto put under control breedingareas, Dr. Hassan Urooj said.

Ambassador ofTurkey callson CJCSC

RAWALPINDI—M BaburHIZLAN, Ambassador of Tur-key called on General KhalidShameem Wynne, ChairmanJoint Chiefs of Staff Committee(CJCSC).

According to ISPR pressrelease, M Babur HIZLAN,Ambassador of Turkey re-mained with the Chairman forsome time and discussed mat-ters related to mutual inter-ests.—Online

Crackdown onprivate taxis

ISLAMABAD—Islamabad Traf-fic Police (ITP) has launchedcrackdown against those viola-tors involved in using privatecars or vehicles as taxis withoutnecessary permits and fulfillinglegal requirement.

ITP received complaintsfrom the citizens regarding useof private cars as taxi withoutgetting necessary permit fromthe competent authority underthe motor vehicle rules.

Taking strict note of this il-legal practice, SP (Traffic)Asmat Ullah Junejo has directedthe traffic policemen to take ac-tion against the violators andbring to end this illegal activity.

ITP teams conducted sur-prise traffic checking near SaudiPak tower as well as other areasof the city and impounded sev-eral vehicles in Kohsar policestation. These vehicles and carswere found being used as taxiswithout lawful permit.

SP (Traffic) Asmat UllahJunejo said that constant trafficchecking will be ensured forputting this illegal practice to anend.—APP

Lord Nazircalls on

PresidentCITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Former BritishParliamentarian Lord NazirAhmed called on PresidentMamnoon Hussain at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Friday.

Lord Nazir felicitated thePresident on assuming his re-sponsibilities as the President ofIslamic Republic of Pakistanand conveyed his best wishes indischarge of his constitutionalduties.

The President thankedLord Nazir Ahmed for his bestwishes and appreciated his ser-vices for the Pakistani commu-nity living in the United King-dom.

Police impound51 bikes

ISLAMABAD—Islamabad Capi-tal Territory Police on Fridayimpounded 51 bikes and 12 ve-hicles during general hold upwhile black sheets from 27 ve-hicles were also removed be-sides fine to them, a policespokesman said.

According to details, SSPIslamabad Muhammad Rizwanhas directed all police officialsto ensure effective security andpatrolling measures in their re-spective areas. Police officialshave been directed to take strictaction against vehicles beingdriven without documents andcriminal elements.

In compliance of the direc-tions, Islamabad police im-pounded 51 bikes and 12 ve-hicles during general hold up.Black sheets were removed from27 tinted glasses vehicles.

The police also apprehended08 suspects during search opera-tion in various areas of the city.Meanwhile, Sub-InspectorMuhammad Ishaq from BharaKau police station arrested twodrug pusher Munir and Imranand recovered hashish from theirpossession.—APP

ISLAMABAD—No repair ormaintenance of roads damagedduring the ongoing monsoonrains in the Federal Capital hasbeen started yet by the CapitalDevelopment Authority (CDA).

Different roads have been

No maintenance of broken roadsbroken up with potholes and cra-ters, which not only damagesvehicles but also put the lives ofmotorists and residents at risk.

The service road from I-10Sector to 7-Up Chowk, whichis used by heavy traffic for the

Industrial Area, is in dilapidatedcondition, with potholes, craters,ruts and cuts. The entire road,especially near Islamabad Rail-way Station and I-10/3 Indus-trial Area, is in a bad shape andneeds urgent repair.—APP

Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al Ghadeer called on Federal Minister forPlanning, Development and Reforms in Islamabad on Friday.

A lady and a child on their way under the cover of umbrellas to protect from rain on Friday.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Vice Chancel-lor Pir Mehr Ali Shah AridAgriculture UniversityRawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR)Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad onFriday emphasized that focusshould be on rainwater har-vesting, water resource de-velopment and value addi-tion of farm produce in aridagriculture.

He said uplift of the aridregion might not be too pro-

Rainwater harvesting, developing water resources vital in arid areasductive due to isolated work-ing of different research anddevelopment organizationsof agriculture department,said a press release here.

He said this while chair-ing a meeting of different ag-riculture departments ofPunjab at University to dis-cuss and formulate workingpaper for forthcoming plan-ning and development meet-ing on the water vision anddevelopment of arid region ofChief Minister Punjab.

In the meeting represen-tative of ICARDA, Soil Con-servation, Agriculture De-partment, BARI Chakwal,ABAD, Punjab Agri Exten-sion Department, Institute ofSpace Technology and Ad-ditional Secretary PlanningAgriculture DepartmentAhmad Ali Zafer were alsopresent.

He said that water is es-sential element for agricultureand livestock and misman-agement of this valuable re-

source has compoundedproblem, which is badly af-fecting the economy of thecountry.

A plenty of rain water isbeing wasted before reach-ing fields. He was of the opin-ion that efficient use of wa-ter in agriculture sector isneeded and suggested thetechniques of water harvest-ing to overcome the problemof water scarcity.

In the meeting, partici-pants reviewed previous

work done by ABAD, Agri-culture Engineering FieldWing, Soil Conservation,Water Management Wing,Agri Extension Wing, Forest,Livestock and Small DamsOrganizations and earmarkedthe potential area for furtherdevelopment in Potohar area.

They agreed to developmechanism for collaborationof various departments toachieve output oriented re-sults and discussed the re-sponsibilities of various in-

stitutes in Potohar Area de-velopment program.

In the meeting, researchactivities being carried on atthe institutions were elabo-rated and representatives ofdifferent organizationsagreed to strengthen the in-teraction and collaborationamong institutes.

They highlighted thesignificance of close linkageswith organizations andhoped that it would not onlyhelp them to resolve common

issues but also enhance themutual understanding for thedevelopment activities.

The representatives ofdifferent organizations high-lighted the location, topog-raphy, demographic, climateand other characteristics ofPotohar region along withproblems impeding the de-velopment of the area anddiscussed future actionplans.

They also presented theglimpses of efforts made by

their organizations for upliftof the area through imple-mentation of variousprojects and their impactthereof.

The participants appre-ciated the efforts of ViceChancellor for arranging thisimportant and need of thetime meeting and said thatthis initiative would improvethe well-being of the farmingcommunity of Potohar areaand would strengtheneconomy of the country.

Children perform at RAC on the eve of children festival.

05:1001:3005:00

08:15

Zohr

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Students oftwin cities will be tryingtheir luck in a poster com-petition on environmentalpollut ion to win cashaward and aware thepeople on negative impactof chemicals on humanhealth especially the chil-dren.

The Inter-School Paint-ing and Poster Competitionon ‘Chemicals Impacts onEnvironment and ChildrenHealth - Beware of Mer-cury’ is being organized bySustainable DevelopmentPolicy Inst i tute (SDPI).Last date of submission ofnomination with postersand paintings has been setfor October 10, 2013.

The competition seeks

Competition onenvironmental issues

to raise awareness onnegative effects of chemi-cals especially mercury onenvironment and healthand will lead to greater un-derstanding and supportfor minimizing chemicalsproduction and use of es-pecially mercury for pro-tect ion of environment,healthy living and sustain-able development.

The painting andposter competition is tar-geted at two levels; juniorlevel (class 5th - 8th) andsenior level (class 9th -12th) including O and Alevels students.

The contestants wil lhave to follow certain rulesincluding that postersmust have creativity, origi-nal artwork and ideas;should not be mounted on

mat board; and participantsmay use any type of media,such as water color, crayonor color pencil.

Moreover, computerclip art, pictures from maga-zines and other print mediaor any other copyrightedbrand or product imageswill not be accepted and thecompeti t ion wil l be re-str icted to students ofRawalpindi and Islamabadwho will also have to pro-vide necessary personal in-formation for the contest.

Winners of 1st, 2nd and3rd best entries would getmonetary awards of Rs 5000,Rs 3000 and Rs 2.000 for Se-nior and Junior level both re-spectively along with SDPIpublications, meritoriousaward certificates and groupphotograph.

ISLAMABAD—The encroach-ments at Khanna Pul havebecome a permanent sourceof irritation for commutersand motorists who takeLehtrar Road while drivingback from Islamabad/Rawalpindi.

The service road linkingIslamabad Expressway withLehtrar road is thronged withmakeshift shops andhandcart pushers creatinghurdles in smooth flow of traf-fic besides spreading filth onthe road.

The administration have,a number of times, removedthese encroachments but thetent-shop owners andhandcart pushers again re-occupy the road raising con-cerns about the efficiency ofpolice and Capital Develop-ment Authority (CDA) in this

regard. “It is really frustrating

when you have to travel atsnails pace and sometimeeven stuck in traffic jam dueto these encroachments asthey have occupied almosthalf side of the road,” saidDanish Ali, a motorist.

Talking to APP he saidthese encroachments wereremoved one day but returnback the next day. It is alsofeared that there could be apresence of anti-state ele-ments in the area who couldfind safe hideouts here.

During a visit to the area,some people also expressedconcerns about the involve-ment of police and CDA offi-cials in allowing these en-croachers to reset their shopsdespite being removed on anumber of times.

“I think some govern-ment officials are backingthese encroachers, otherwisehow is it possible that theycome on the road again andagain with such a confi-dence,” said Bashir Ahmad,a local living at Khanna Pul.

He said a proper moni-toring mechanism and willwas required to permanentlyremove these encroach-ments. When contacted, aCDA official said these en-croachments were being re-moved and confiscated regu-larly but the vendors re-es-tablish their shops soon af-ter paying fines and gettingtheir items cleared.He, how-ever, said the authority wasfully aware of the problemand would take solid stepsfor permanent solution of theproblem.—APP

Encroachments atKhanna Pul

Rainthundershowerin twin cities

ISLAMABAD—Scattered rain-thundershower is expectedin Islamabad, Rawalpindi isexpected during next 24hours.

According to Meteoro-logical department,seasonallow lies over NorthwestBalochistan and adjoiningareas with its trough extend-ing southeastwards.

Weak Monsoon cur-rents from the Arabian sea arepenetrating into upper partsof the country and a west-erly wave is affecting upperparts of the country and islikely to persist during next2-3 days.

While, hot and humidweather is expected inIslamabad.

However, rain-thunder-shower is expected at scat-tered places of Islamabad,Rawalpindi.—APP

WASAreshuffles 22employees

RAWALPINDI—Water andSanitation Agency (WASA)has reshuffled 22 employeesof its three departments toimprove performance of thecivic body. Talking to APP,MD WASA Raja ShaukatMehmood said transfers andpostings have been madewith the aim to place ‘rightperson on rightjob’ forstreamlining matters pertain-ing to agency’s performanceand services.

He said nine employees,who were appointed as tube-well operators and perform-ing their duties as telephoneoperators for last three years,have been reassigned theirjobs.

Besides, he said, 12 driv-ers and Motor Transport Of-ficer Chaudhry Zafar havebeen transferred to improveworking of the water supplydepartment.

Raja said Deputy Direc-tor WASA Amir Qureshi hasalso been given additionalcharge of the Director Ad-ministration as the post waslaying vacant for quite sometime.—APP

ISLAMABAD—A one day chil-dren festival was arranged byRawalpindi Arts Council(RAC) in collaboration withAims School System.

Former Federal TaxOmbudsman Dr ShoaibSuddle was chief guestwhile Aims ChairmanSchool System AlmaasAyub Sabir and ResidentDirector RAC WaqarAhmed were also present

RAC arrangeschildren festival

on the occasion. A large number of people

including parents and chil-dren attended the colorfulceremony.

The children staged tab-leau and skits on the impor-tance of education and othercontemporary issues.

Addressing at the par-ticipants, Dr Shoaib Suddleappreciated the performanceof children and said that chil-

dren are precious asset of thecountry.

He said that good train-ing of children means to pro-vide a good leadership to thecountry.

Waqar Ahmed, said thatco-curricular activities in-creased confidence of thechildren.

Dr Shoaib Suddle distrib-uted awards among chil-dren.—APP

ISLAMABAD—The city policearrested two supervisors ofCapital Development Au-thority (CDA) and four po-licemen in Sabzi Mandi extor-tion case on Friday.

According to details, theInterior minister took seriousnotice of involvement ofCDA men and police person-nel in the extortion activitiesunderway in the federalcapital’s vegetable market.

Chaudhry Nisar notedbhatta mafia men alone are

Nisar takes notice

2 CDA officers, 4policemen arrested

not to blame; police and CDAstaffers who protected themfor 12 years now, are equallyculpable, ordering to imme-diately arrest any personnelwho is involved in bhattaactivities.If any such activ-ity takes place in Islamabadin future, a case against theconcerned government offi-cial will be lodged, he added.

The federal interior min-ister said it is unbearable tosee the government func-tionaries unaware of the

people’s miseries.According to the

sources of interior ministry,moving on the directives offederal interior minister, po-lice expeditiously arrestedtwo CDA supervisors andfour policemen for protectingbhatta activities.Reports said the arrested in-clude CDA supervisorsSagheer and Ghafoor andpolice ASI Ishaq, ASI Saeed,head constable Sarfaraz andConstable Agha Shah.—INP

AIOU announcesMPhil and PhD

resultsISLAMABAD—Allama IqbalOpen University (AIOU) hasdeclared final results of M.Phil(Islamic Studies), M.Phil (Sta-tistics), M.Phil (Mass Com-munication) and Ph.D (Agri-cultural Extension-M.Philbased) for the Semester Au-tumn, 2012 and uploadedthese results on website of theUniversity www.aiou.edu.pkController of Exams, AIOU Dr.Hamid Khan Niazi pushed thecomputer button and inaugu-rated the placement of resultson website of the University.

On the occasion, Addi-tional Controller of Exams,Iqbal Hussain, Haji AbdulShakoor and Incharge Com-puter Section, Shabnum NShahid were present.

After inauguration the re-sults, Controller of Exams, Dr.Hamid Khan Niazi said thatunder dynamic leadership ofthe Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dr.Nazir Ahmed Sangi, the depart-ment of exams is giving its fullattention towards increasingstudents’ facilities. He saidthat as per directives of theVice-Chancellor, holding ofexams, declaration of results,dispatching of roll numberslips and result cards havebeen made very systematic onwhich the students’ com-plaints have been minimized.On the basis of this, trust ofthe students on University’squality and services have alsobeen raised and the admis-sions’ enrollment is increasingrapidly.—INP

Registration ofdomesticservants

ISLAMABAD—The InteriorMinistry has decided to takestrict action against resi-dents of the federal capitalwho failed to register theirdomestic servants.

According to reports, thegovernment is facing prob-lems in registering around20,000 servants of foreignersresiding in the capital city.Registration forms havebeen issued to the foreign-ers but they are not cooper-ating with the governmentdespite many reminders.

The interior minister hadordered the registration of thehouse servants in the back-drop of law and order situa-tion in the country. Follow-ing the directives, Nadra reg-istered 40,939 servants butwas facing some problems inregistration.

The authority sent a re-port to the Interior Ministerabout the residents not co-operating in the process ofregistration. In the light ofthe report, the interior minis-ter directed the Capital Policeto assist the registration au-thority.—INP

Operationagainst

encroachmentsR A W A L P I N D I — T e h s i lMuncipal Administration(TMA) Rawal Town has de-cided to seek the help of EliteForce instead of police for theelimination of encroachmentsfrom the city.The strategy hasbeen set for grand operationin this regard in all across thecity and staff of elite force willbe remained uninformed be-fore operation to resist all kindof pressure from political andencroachment mafia.

Sources said that, TMO willhead the operation directly andinstead of limiting it only up toofficial hours it will be contin-ued all night long, TMA staffwill be also transferred from onesector to another.Sources saidTMA has been given green sig-nal to high authorities for theelimination of encroach-ments.—Online

CDA demolisheskiosks

ISLAMABAD—Capital Devel-opment Authority (CDA) hasdemolished number of kiosksconducting grand operationagainst encroachments whilea huge amount of luggagehas also been taken in thecustody.

The operation was con-ducted in the area of G-9markaz Karachi Company,where big boards installedalong side the main avenuehave been also confiscated,while 2 sheds have been alsodemolished.Angry stallholders and trad-ers have said that their kiosksand stalls have been demol-ished on the support of rivaltrade union.—Online

Drive againstillegal

constructionsRAWALPINDI—RawalpindiDevelopment Authority(RDA) has sought details ofillegal domestic and commer-cial constructions from build-ing inspectors in their re-spective areas.

RDA is collecting thesedetails from the building in-spectors to launch operationagainst the illegal construc-tions.

There are several illegalconstructions existing in theareas under the control ofRDA and such constructionsare continuing in connivancewith the corrupt officials.—Online

September 19

ART and Cultural Festivalunder Lok Virsa will startfrom September, 19 in fed-eral capital. Lok Virsa execu-tive director Khalid Javedsaid arrangements for hold-ing festival are being givenfinal shape. Folk singers,artists, skilled persons fromacross the country will par-ticipate in this festival.Handicrafts bazaar, re-gional dances show, musi-cal concerts, stage show,Bhangra, puppet showansd magic show will beheld in the festival , headded.

My family has lost its innocenceIFTIKHAR GILANI

I am the father of twogrown-up kids and fromtheir childhood, I have

trained them to be law-abid-ing citizens of India. Butwhat they experienced onthe morning of February 9will, perhaps, stay with themforever. On that day, as newsof Afzal Guru’s hangingcame on television channelsand I was getting ready toleave for my job at DNA’sDelhi office, some peopleapproached me, inquiringabout the house of Syed AliShah Geelani, my father-in-law, who resides at KhirkiExtension in south Delhi.

I showed them thehouse from outside and

started walking away. Rightthen, they pounced on meand dragged me to Geelanisaab’s first-floor flat. Theytook away all my belongings,but I somehow kept the mo-bile phone away and man-aged to inform my friendsfrom the bathroom about mycondition. A little later, mywife also was brought in bysome cops in civvies.

By that time, cops incivvies had flooded the tinyflat. We knew that this op-eration was to keep the en-tire Geelani family underwatch, in view of the hang-ing. Nine men kept watch onus, while two female officerswatched over the women ofthe house in the next room.

For the next five hours,

the cops threatened and in-timidated us. The less saidabout the language theyused, the better. At one point,they even went around theneighbourhood, askingpeople to explain how such a“family of terrorists” could bekept in their vicinity. Whenmy children’s tutor came, shewas detained and interro-gated for an hour. She wasasked, “Why are you teach-ing these children? After all,these are children of terror-ists and they will become ter-rorists. So why do you comehere?” The interrogation onlyexposed their ignorance ofthe procedures they weresupposed to follow whiledealing with citizens of India.

I had been at the receiv-

ing end of their attention in2002, when I was accused ofbeing a terrorist. Then, too,my journalistic credentialswere overshadowed by myrelation with Geelani saab.But at that time, thebehaviour of the police wasvery civilised and profes-sional. This time, however,they behavedunprofessionally, and itseemed they were motivatedto insult and humiliate meand my family members. Thebiggest scar of this incidentwill be borne by my innocentchildren, whom I have keptaway from developments inKashmir as much as I could.But on that day, when they,too, were kept under watch,they lost their composure.

ISLAMABAD: AJK Prime Minister Chaudhary Abdul Majeed in a meeting with Minister Chaudhary Afsar Shahidand Begum Shamshad Aziz.

MUZAFFARABAD: President Muslim Conference and ex-AJK Prime Minister SardarAttique Ahmed Khan talking to Afshan Saeed.

ISLAMABAD: Lord Nazir Ahmed, flanked by PPP member AJK Legislative AssemblyBarrister Sultan Mehmood, addressing a press conference.

Frederick Douglas saysthe life of the nation is se-cure only when the nationis honest, truthful and vir-tuous. I may add that sub-jugation, harassment andtrampling on rights makethe nation weak and inse-cure in the long run, thoughit may address the rabblerousers and serve the myo-pic purpose of law and or-der. My children have beentraumatised ever since theirparents and relatives weretemporarily detained by thepolice. I pray that my chil-dren live a fear-free life inIndia. As a father, I feel mychildren could have beentreated better. Becausethey, and innocents like me,deserve better.—KMS

ISLAMABAD—The veteranHurriyet leader, Syed AliGilani, while maintainingthat the recent civilian kill-ings have left theKashmiris with no optionbut to prepare themselvesfor a decisive struggleagainst Indian occupation,has cal led for completeprotest strike in the IndianOccupied territory on Sat-urday and Sunday.

Syed Ali Gilani in a state-ment in Srinagar said,“Whether it is the Shopiankillings or the mysteriousdeath of pro-freedom leaderAbdul Rashid Ghazi inBaramulla, these incidentsare offshoots of the Indian

occupation. Kashmiris mustprepare themselves men-tally for a decisive struggleto end this occupation,KMS reported.

“The veteran leadersaid that the two-day shut-down would be Kashmiris’message to the world com-munity that their strugglewould continue unti l thelast Indian trooper leftJammu and Kashmir.

He urged the people tosever all ties with the pro-India parties, which actedas a bridge to strengthenthe Indian occupation.

“Unti l this bridge isbroken our youth will con-tinue to be showered with

bullets and our grooms willbe smeared with blood in-stead of henna,” he stated.

Syed Ali Gilani said thatthe Kashmiris’ freedomstruggle had entered in thedo-or-die phase.

“How long shall we shoul-der the coffins of our young?How long shall we maintainsilence over the reign of ter-ror and oppression un-leashed upon us by the In-dian occupation? The Indiantroops believe that slaughter-ing Kashmiris is in their na-tional interest. It is high timefor the people of Kashmir torise to the occasion to see endof forcible occupation,” headded.—APP

Do-or-die phase forKashmiris: Gilani

ISLAMABAD—The Kashmiristudents pursuing highereducation under India’s so-called Prime Minister ’sScholarship Scheme (PMSS)have complained that theprogramme was nothing buta bait, laid by New Delhi, tospoil their career. A Srinagar-based daily, Kashmir Readerin its latest report disclosedthat many students from theIndian occupied territorywere on the verge of beingthrown out of the colleges asIndian Ministry of HumanResources Development(MHRD) had failed to releasefunds promised to them un-der above scheme (PMSS),Kashmir Media Service re-ported.

“The college has askedus to deposit the university

fee until MHRD releases ourfunds. But if MHRD againfails to release the money bythe end of this semester, wewill be thrown out of the col-lege,” Umar Gulzar, one ofthe students who hadavailed the scheme, toldKashmir Reader.

The scheme was an-nounced by New Delhi amidmuch fanfare at the height of2010 intifada in Kashmir.Most of the students whoapplied under the PMSS nowsay they think they wereduped in order to deviate theattention from the public agi-tation.

Take, for instance, thecase of Umar, a resident ofPampore in Kashmir. He is inthe third semester of BHM(Bachelor of Hotel Manage-

ment) course at Rawal Col-lege of Technology andManagement in Faridabad,Haryana (India), the paperwrote.

After a smooth first se-mester, the situation turnedugly for Umar and his fellowstudents from the KashmirValley. The college starteddemanding fees from them inthe second semester, threat-ening not to let them sit inthe examination if the pay-ment wasn’t made by a cer-tain date. “We (students fromKashmir) got together andgave a representation toMHRD, but of no avail. Wemet officials and ministers inSrinagar, but they said theyhave nothing to do with thescheme,” Umar said aboutthe short-lived joy.—APP

India lays bait to spoilstudents’ career

‘Patwari’ arrestedon charges of

record tamperingMIRPUR—AJK Accountabil-ity Bureau on Friday arrested‘Patwari’ Wajid Hussain ofAJK Revenue (Mahaal) De-partment on charges of tem-pering the land record.

A spokesman of the AJKAccountability Bureau saidthat the accused ‘Patwari’Wajid Hussain of KhankaKatehra, had been arrestedfor tempering the record tocover up fake transfer ofownership rights of sevenkanal in Charhoi sub-divi-sion of Kotli district.

“ The Ehtesab Bureauhad earlier arrested three per-sons for their alleged in-volvement in the aforesaidscam,” he added. Further in-vestigations are inprogress.—APP

JKPL condolencemeeting

in memoryof Ghazi Baba

SRINAGAR—In occupiedKashmir, the Jammu andKashmir Peoples League isorganising a condolence ref-erence in memory ofmartyred Hurriyet leader,Ghazi Abdul Rashid inBaramullah, tomorrow. APHCleader and the JKPL Chair-man, Mukhtar Ahmad Wazain a statement in Srinagarappealed the people hailingfrom all walks of life includ-ing politicians, civil societyactivists and legal and tradeleaders to attend the func-tion.

Waza refuting the claimsof Indian police said that thetorture signs were visible onmartyr’s body, indicating thathe was brutally murdered bypolice. He demanded athrough probe into his kill-ing by the international tri-bunal, as the investigationsordered by the puppet au-thorities were fake and nottrustworthy.—KMS

India killingKashmiris to changedemography: ShabbirSR I N A G A R—In occupiedKashmir, senior leader ofthe All Parties HurriyetConference and the Demo-cratic Freedom Party Chair-man, Shabbir Ahmad Shah,condemning the ongoingspate of terrorism, has saidthat India is perpetratingkillings to change the de-mography of the territory.Shabbir Ahmad Shah, whois under house arrest inSrinagar, in a statement de-scribed the incidents as theworst kind of state terror-ism. He said that the au-thorities were playinghavoc on the lives of inno-cent people to please theirmasters in New Delhi, whichwould not be tolerable.

Denouncing the killing ofHurriyet leader, AbdurRashid Ghazi, he urged theinternational communityand human rightsorganisations to take noticeof the continued massacreof the people of Kashmir bythe Indian troops. He saidthat India wanted to changethe demographic status ofthe territory by killingKashmiris especially theyouth.

He appealed to the inter-national community to takecognizance of the bloodshedin Kashmir and exert pressureon New Delhi to put an endto human rights abuses andtake measures for resolvingthe Kashmir dispute in accor-dance with the Kashmiris’aspirations.—KMS

SRINAGAR—Facing publicoutrage over the killing offive people since Saturdayin Shopian, the IHK govern-ment has directed the statepolice chief to replace theGagren CRPF camp with acontingent of the J&K Po-lice.

The state cabinet, whichmet on Thursday under thechairmanship of J&K ChiefMinister Omar Abdullah, ex-pressed concern violence inShopian in south Kashmir,where five people have alleg-edly been killed by the CRPFin a week.

“It (the cabinet) tookstock of the investigation bythe police into the incidentof firing on September 7 atGagren, Shopian, and noted

with dismay that there is noclarity on the facts even fivedays after the incident,” anofficial spokesperson said.The cabinet also directed thepolice to determine all factspertaining to the case, includ-ing the identity of the de-ceased person, within thenext 48 hours.

The CRPF maintains allfour people it killed on Satur-day were militants, but thepolice claim three of the slainyouths were civilians, whilethe fourth, Abdullah Haroon,was a Pakistani militant.

Locals in Shopian as wellas separatist leaders, mean-while, allege that the fourthperson killed was a non-statelaborer. The officials saidthat if the facts are not es-

tablished on time, a judicialinquiry may be ordered.

On Wednesday, a youthidentified as Rafiq AhmedRather was allegedly killed byCRPF personnel from Gagrancamp amid a shutdown calledby the separatists over theearlier killings.

Meanwhile, senior sepa-ratist leader Syed Ali ShahGeelani has called for a shut-down across the Valley onSeptember 13 and 14. OnThursday, too, the Valleyobserved a complete shut-down. Angry protesterspelted stones in Baramulla,Delina, Sangrama andQamarwari. The police had toresort to cane charge and fireteargas shells to quell theprotesters.—INP

IHK govt orders removalof CRPF from Shopian

Mirwaiz: CMis morally deadSRINAGAR—APHC leaderMirwaiz Umar Farooq hasassailed Jammu & Kashmirchief minister Omar Abdullahand described him “shame-less and morally dead”.

He said the state’s rulerswere “acting as stooges ofDelhi to implement theagenda of suppression andbrutalization of Kashmiristhrough military might tocrush their aspirations’’ in astatement after he was pre-vented from addressing apresser.

Police did not allow jour-nalists to enter the Mirwaiz’shouse, where he had calledthe presser over the killing offive youth in CRPF firingsince Saturday. He later ad-dressed journalists outsidehis house and described thepresent situation in Kashmiras “extremely worrisome”.

“The universally ac-cepted basic right — theright to life — is being to-tally violated and is undergreat threat in Kashmir. Infact it has ceased to exist forthe rulers.’’ He said blacklaws like AFSPA provided alicense to the forces to killand the immunity from pros-ecution has emboldenedthem to create havoc. TheMirwaiz urged people tohoist black flags and tieblack arm bands on Fridayto protest recent killings andother atrocities.—INP

Naqshbandiapprises delegates of

Indian repressionGENEVA—Kashmiri repre-sentative, Syed FaizNaqshbandi chaired an im-portant sideline event duringthe 24th session of HumanRights Council in Geneva,today.

Syed Faiz Naqshbandiapprised the delegates of theongoing repression by Indiain occupied Kashmir. De-tailed briefing was given onIndian draconian laws thatfacilitated human rights vio-lations in the occupied terri-tory. A video about Indianatrocities was also releasedin the sideline event.SardarAsadullah Khan, ChairmanYouth Forum, also informedthe delegates about the In-dian state terrorism. Ms.Maria Shah also spoke aboutthe Indian barbarism in oc-cupied Kashmir.

The OMAEP and WorldPeace Forum organised aseminar on the theme “Edu-cation and Children Rights inConflict Zones” at Palais desNations on the sideline of24th session of the HumanRights Council.

The panellists wereFrançois Schmitt, PrincipalRepresentative of theOMAEP OrganisationMondiale des Associationspour l’Education Prénatale atthe UN, Geneva.—KMS

SRINAGAR—In occupiedKashmir, several persons in-cluding Jammu and KashmirLiberation Front Chairman,Muhammad Yasin Malikwere injured when Indianpolice resorted to brute forceon a big protest demonstra-tion at Lal Chowk in Srinagar,today. Call for the protestwas given by MuhammadYasin Malik against the re-cent killing of five civiliansby Indian Central ReservePolice Force in Shopiantown.

Police attacked protest-ers with batons and teargasand thrashed and draggeddozens of leaders and activ-ists including MuhammadYasin Malik, MuhammadYousuf Naqash, NoorMuhammad Kalwal, ShabbirAhmad, Professor Javed,

Nisar Jilani, MuhammadYasin Butt, Ghayas-ud-Din,Shahid Tantray andMuhammad Ahsan Untoo.Later, they were lodged atKothibagh Police station inSrinagar. A clash betweenpolice and protesters wasgoing on in Maisuma area ofSrinagar till last reports camein.

On the other hand, a pro-test rally was taken out fromJamia Masjid in Srinagar.APHC leaders Javed AhmadMir, Hakeem AbdurRasheed, Yasmeen Raja andMushtaq Ahmad Sofi led therally. Black flags werehoisted in other parts of theterritory to protest the kill-ings. Senior APHC leader,Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi Al-Safvi and Demo-cratic Political Movement

Chairman, Firdous AhmadShah also led demonstra-tions in Badgam andSrinagar.

Police continued to placeMirwaiz Umar Farooq, SyedAli Gilani, Shabbir AhmadShah, Zafar Akbar Butt andNayeem Ahmad Khan underhouse arrest. Jammu andKashmir Mass MovementChairman, Moulvi BhashirAhmad was arrested from hishouse. The veteran Hurriyetleader, Syed Ali Gilani in astatement called for a two-day strike from tomorrowagainst the recent killings.

Meanwhile, curfew con-tinued in Shopian andKulgam towns, today, whilerestrictions were imposed inSrinagar to prevent anti-In-dia protest demonstra-tions.—KMS

Several injured during policeattack on Srinagar march

SR I N A G A R —In occupiedKashmir, the All Part iesHurriyet Conference(APHC) leader and theChairman of Jammu andKashmir Salvation Move-ment, Zafar Akbar Butt hasappealed to the interna-tional community to helpend the worst kind ofrights violat ions in theterritory.Zafar Akbar Butt,who is under house arrestsince September 7, in astatement Srinagar saidthat fundamental rights ofKashmiri people includingright to life were being vio-lated by the Indian forcesby kil l ing the innocentpeople.

“Curfew is being im-posed in Kashmir withoutany justification,” he said,adding that India wanted tomuzzle the Kashmiris’ free-dom struggle, which was afutile exercise of India as

Kashmiri people had givencountless sacrifices for theKashmir cause and wouldcontinue i t t i l l completesuccess .

Condemning the killingof innocent youth includedTauseef Ahmed, TariqAhmed, Mohmmad Yousfand Mohmmad Rafiq inShoipan and Hurriyetleader Gazi Abdul Rashid,the APHC leader paid glow-ing tributes to the martyrsand expressed solidari tywith the bereaved families.

He said the of martyrs’mission is noble and no-body wil l be al lowed towaste it. Meanwhile, ViceChairman of the party,Tufail Altaf Butt in a state-ment condemned the con-t inued house arrest ofparty Chairman, ZafarAkbar Butt and otherHurriyet leaders and activ-ists .—KMS

Word’s intervention soughtto end killing spree in IHK

Damage to Sikhhouses part of

conspiracySRINAGAR—In occupiedKashmir, the All Parties SikhCoordination Committee(JKSCC) has said that thedamage to some houses ofminority community inShopian was done to divertthe attention from the deathof four civilians.The JKSCCChairman Jagmohan Raina ina media interview in Srinagarsaid, “We believe that theincident is being deliberatelyflared up to divert the atten-tion from the death of fourcivilians.”

Jagmohan Raina headeda delegation to Shopian inthe wake of the damage tofour houses of the Sikh com-munity by miscreants. Hedenounced the death of fourcivilians terming it as unwar-ranted. “While we were inShopian another civilian waskilled which is very unfortu-nate,” he said.—KMS

ISLAMABAD—The Chairmanof Jammu and KashmirPeoples Freedom League(JKPFL), Muhammad FarooqRehmani, has strongly con-demned the fresh wave of kill-ings by Indian forces inShopian area of occupiedKashmir.Muhammad FarooqRehmani in a statement issuedin Islamabad warned that theuntoward situation ofShopian had greater ramifica-tions for peace not onlyacross the occupied territorybut also the regional peaceinitiatives could suffer due toIndia’s belligerence.

He urged the United Na-

tions, which was deliberatingthis month the global crisis,should take cognisance of thecurrent wave of state terror-ism in occupied Kashmir andmake India answerable onevery killing in the territory.“Peace can’t return and dia-logue for peace and peacefulresolution of Kashmir disputecan’t be fruitful, if India fol-lowed catch and kill policyagain and again in the tor-mented Kashmir,” he added.

Muhammad FarooqRehmani was profoundlyshocked to receive the sadnews of death of AbdulRashid Ghazi in mysterious

circumstances near a railwaytrack at Baramulla, who was asincere freedom fighter andhad been serving the Kash-mir cause since early 1970s.

In 1990s, he served in Pa-kistan also, Rehmani said anddemanded enquiry into hisdeath. He stated that themarks of injury were visible onhis forehead. He paid tributeto the departed soul andprayed to Allah for his eternalblessings.

The JKPFL Chairman alsoexpressed profound grief overthe sad demise of the motherof APHC leader, MukhtarAhmad Waza.—KMS

Targeted killing of youthin IHK alarming: Farooq

Leadership is doingwhat is right when no

one is watching.

— George VanValkenburg

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Federal Ministerfor National Food Security & Re-search, Sikandar Hayat KhanBosan has said that technologiesdeveloped by the Pakistan Agricul-tural Research Council (PARC)must reach to farmers so they couldcontribute to the economy and forfood security. This he sated whilevisiting the National AgriculturalResearch Centre (NARC) ChakShahzad , Islamabad.

Seerat Asghar, Secretary,Ministry of National Food Se-curity & Research (NFSR&)and Malik Zahood Ahmed, Di-rector General, National Ani-mal, Plant and Health InspectionServices (NAPHIS) and otherhigh officials of the ministrywere also accompany the Min-ister during this visit.

PARC must enable farmers toensure food security: Bosan

Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosanwhile visiting the experimentalfarm fields and laboratorieswhere he was briefed by theChairman PARC, Dr. IftikharAhmad, Dr. MuhammadAzeem, Director General,NARC, Dr. Muhammad Ali,CSO (PGRI), Dr.Samina Khalil,Director, Food Science & Prod-uct Development Institute(FSDPI), Dr. MuhammadAslam, Director (API), Dr.Mujeed Qazi, an internationalwheat expert, and other seniorscientists.

Sikandar Hayat Bosanstressed the scientists that an ef-fective mechanism must be de-vised in collaboration with pro-vincial agricultural institutionsfor dissemination of new knowl-edge to end users to get positiveresults of our efforts. He urged

the Agricultural Scientists thatOlive cultivation and its extrac-tion will play a tremendous rolein the economy; therefore agri-cultural scientists work hard forproduction of Olive.

Sikandar Hayat Bosan whileinspecting the cotton and othercrop experiments farm field areaat NARC appreciated the agricul-tural scientists’ efforts for pro-ducing various varieties of cropsincluding horticultural crops.

During the visit he wastaken to Food Science andProduct Development Institute(FSPDI), Wheat-Cross Labo-ratory, Bioremediation, PlantGenetic Resources Institute,Gene Bank, Horticulture,Farm Machinery, etc. He wasmuch impressed to see the ac-tivities being carried out at theNARC.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for National Food Security & Research Sikandar HayatKhan Bosan inspecting Cotton Crop Experiment at NARC.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—“The improvementmade by local suppliers in Pa-kistan over the last few years isappreciable and they should fur-ther enhance the quality of lo-cally manufactured parts andlower costs to achieve entry inthe regional market”. This wasstated by S. Nishihara, GeneralManager, Purchasing, ToyotaMotor Corporation during IndusMotor Company’s Annual Sup-pliers Convention 2013.

The convention, under thetheme ‘Shaping the Future’, wasattended by senior management of

Indus motor holdssuppliers convention

Toyota Motor Corporation,Daihatsu Motor Corporation,House of Habib, IMC’s suppliers,representatives from the automo-bile industry and the managementof IMC. Nishihira specially ap-plauded the suppliers’ role for theircontinuous support in runningproduction smoothly. He also em-phasized on introducing greenpurchasing, which focuses on pro-curement of material whichshould be environment friendlyand can be used alternatively.

On the occasion ParvezGhias, CEO, IMC, stated “Webelieve that, for sustainable busi-ness growth, a healthy rapport

with our vendors is essential.Without that, it would not be pos-sible to communicate our goals,business vision, and expecta-tions”. He also mentioned thatIMC is committed on activities forstrengthening the supplier base,enhancing management skills,productivity and technology ex-change. The Vendor Conventionis an annual feature with the aimof recognizing the efforts of theIMC vendors. Evaluating lastyear’s performance, AEK Indus-tries, was recognized top perform-ing vendor for the year 2012-13,while Load Ltd. was awardedSupplier Excellence Award.

PBIT signs MoUwith PTBA fortrade promotion

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Board of In-vestment & Trade (PBIT) andthe Pak-Turk Businessmen As-sociation (PTBA) signed aMemorandum of Understanding(MoU) today at the PBIT office.The MoU was signed by SyedMaratib Ali, Vice ChairmanPBIT and Taner Kocyigit, Sec-retary General PTBA.

Both PTBA and PBIT havecommon objectives and goalsthat include investment and tradeenhancement between Punjaband Turkey. PTBA is a partnerof TUKSONN, which is the larg-est business confederation in Tur-key. It has partner offices in 135countries including Pakistan; theMoU will seek to synergize theefforts of both organizations forgreater efficiency.

Chemicalmanufacturer voiceconcern over SROs

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Leading chemicalmanufacturers would take up thematter of serious ambiguities andanomalies in the export-relatedStatuary Regulatory Orders(SROs) with the FBR as such no-tifications are causing seriousproblems for the entire industryengaged in providing chemicals tothe five export-oriented sectors.

Leading chemical manufac-turers under the umbrella of “Pa-kistan Chemical ManufacturersAssociation” would conveytheir concerns to the tax authori-ties. The association is beingestablished to exclusivelyhandle the issues of the chemi-cal manufactures comprisingleading groups and companies.

According to the chemicalmanufacturers, a serious matterhad cropped up as a result of is-suance of SRO 154(I)/2013dated February 28, 2013 readwith SRO 221(I)/2013 dated 19March 2013 which haveamended SRO 1125(I)/2011dated 31 December 2011.

Details revealed that thechemical manufacturers are en-gaged in producing chemicalsfor using in five export sectors.These manufacturers, prior toissuance of SRO 154(I)/2013dated 28 February 2013 andSRO 221(I)/2013 dated 19March 2013, used to import pur-chase of raw materials.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—UAE’s first pri-vate sector airline allowed bythe UAE government waslaunched by a 26-year-old Pa-kistani businessman MalekNaureed Awan who hails fromAbbottabad.

The upcoming airline i.e.MMA Airline has been regis-tered with the Ras Al KhaimahFree Zone, from where it re-ceived airline licence as acompany last month.

Pakistani businessman launches UAE’s first private commercial airlineThis will be the first pri-

vate commercial airline to op-erate from the UAE. It may bementioned that UAE alreadyhas five state-owned airlinesowned by the governments ofAbu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjahand Ras Al Khaimah. Thecountry has, so far, not al-lowed any private airline tooperate scheduled commercialflights.

However, a number of pri-vate companies operatefreighters and charter flights,

including business jet opera-t ions such as Royal Jet ,ExecuJet and EliteJet. An airoperator’s certificate (AOC)is an approval granted by a na-tional aviation authority to anaircraft operator to allow it touse aircraft for commercialpurposes. This requires theoperator to have personnel,assets and systems in place toensure the safety of its em-ployees and the general pub-lic.

According to detail, Awan’s

company is investing $50 mil-lion (Dh183 million) in the start-up, which will be based in RasAl Khaimah. The total invest-ment is coming from company’sown resources.

Awan plans to launch flightsfrom Ras Al Khaimah Interna-tional Airport to Karachi andLahore initially and then adddestinations in India and othercountries when it secures trafficrights.

The newly launched airlinehas already acquired two Airbus

A320s to start flights. TwoBoeing 777-300s are expected tojoin the fleet when we plan toadd more destinations, such asMumbai after traffic rights aregranted.

Pakistani-backed carrier islooking to share traffic fromcost-conscious Pakistani nation-als living and working in theUAE, albeit away from the con-gestion and high competitionseen in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

With two A320s to start op-erations, it’s not clear whether

the company has the finance, oranother avenue, to source morejets as they plan to expand op-erations.

The airline is beinglaunched at a time when west-ern airlines are struggling to sur-vive while regional carriers arerecording strong growth. Emir-ates and Air Arabia are makingincreased profits and Etihad hasjust become profitable.

International Air Trans-port Association (IATA) thisweek announced a downgrade

to its industry outlook for2012 primarily due to risingoil prices.

IATA expects airlines to turna global profit of $3 billion in2012 for a 0.5 per cent margin.The $500 million downgradefrom the December forecast isprimarily driven by a rise in theexpected average price of oil to$115 per barrel, up from the pre-viously forecast $99.

The risk of a worseningEurozone crisis has been re-placed by an equally toxic risk

— rising oil prices. Already thedamage is being felt with adowngrade in industry profitsto $3 billion,’’ said IATA.

For MMA Airline, thechallenge will be to attractpassengers from Dubai,Sharjah and otherneighbouring emirates —home to a large number ofSouth Asian expatriates.

The new airline is going tooffer free bus shuttle servicesto its passengers from Dubaiand Sharjah.

Shipping activityat PQKARACHI—Three shipscarrying containers andchemicals were berthed atQasim International Contain-ers Terminal, Multi PurposeTerminal and Engro VopakTerminal on Thursday.Meanwhile four more shipscarrying containers, gen,furnace oil and LPG mix alsoarrived at outer anchorage ofPort Qasim during last 24hours. Berth occupancy was55% at the Port on Fridaywhere total six ships namelyHammonia Pacificum,Diamond Star, Observator,Atlantic Glory, Chem BulkMinneapolis and TheofyLaktos are currently occupyingberths to load/offloadcontainers, cement, chemicalsand rape seed respectivelyduring last 24 hours. A cargovolume of 60,171 tonnescomprising 42,419 tonnesimports and 17,752 tonnesexports inclusive of container-ized cargo carried in 629containers (TEUs) washandled at the Port during last24 hours.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Federal Ministerfor Planning, Development andReforms, Prof. Ahsan Iqbal Fri-day said government assignedhighest priority to Bhasha Dambecause a serious water crisis islooming in next five to ten yearswhich will be much bigger thanelectricity crisis.

“We are following an inte-grated approach towards solv-ing energy challenge in thecountry. This will not only rec-tify our Energy-Mix but alsoprovide storage for 8.1 MAF ofwater which is equal to lost ca-pacity of Mangla and TarbelaDam due to silting”, he said thiswhile addressing in a meetinghere.

The meeting was held withWorld Bank, Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB) and JapanInternational Cooperation

Government assigns high priorityto Bhasha Dam: Ahsan Iqbal

Agency (JICA) to discuss powersector reforms in line with pur-posed loan for power generationprojects.

World Bank, ADB and JICAdelegation visited Minister forPlanning Development and Re-forms regarding drafting devel-opment of policy matrix and for-mulating financing plan for en-ergy sector program loan.

The Minister briefed theparticipants regarding the is-sues of energy shortages in thecountry and talked about Vi-sion-2025. He apprised the par-ticipants that Government ofPakistan is focusing on leastcost power generation plansuch as to produce powerthrough our indigenous re-sources like coal and hydel in abid to overcome power short-age in the country and to ratio-nalize the tariffs.

Ahsan Iqbal said “We had a

very comprehensive energypolicy in vision-2010. Weplanned 28,000 MW of electric-ity by 2010 but unfortunately,our plan was thrown out byMusharraf”.

There was no planning for14 years, whose consequencewe are facing today. Now wehave restored independence sta-tus of Planning Commission inorder to plan for the growingneeds of our population, headded.

Farkhand Iqbal, SeniorChief Energy of Energy wingelaborated on power generationthrough indigenous resourcesand stressed on development ofGaddani Power Park of 6600MW based on imported/ Localcoal and development ofDiamer Bhasha Dam to store8.1 MAF of water and to pro-duce 4500 MW of cheap elec-tricity.

This, in long-run, will re-solve the issue of circular debtforever and will reduced bur-den on the economy to greatextent. Iqbal, while elaborat-ing the integrated energypolicy in Vision-2025, said“We have paid circular debt infirst three month of the gov-ernment and our next focus isthe change of Energy-Mix. Wehave already started work onsubstituting furnace oil withcoal and the cheaper means.We are working to developThar-Coal field.

“We are also addressinggovernance and managementissue in energy sector. Gov-ernment has launched com-prehensive crack downagainst defaulters and to stopelectr ici ty and gas theft /losses. Reforms in energy sec-tor are part of our manifesto”,he added.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Pakistan Steel Re-rolling Mills Association(PSRMA) has urged the ChiefMinister Punjab not to lower theguard against gas and powerthieves who are committing bil-lions of rupees tax evasion.

The patron Chairman of Pa-kistan Steel Re-rolling Mills As-sociation Hafiz MuhammadAkbar, while appreciating theongoing drive against power andgas pilferage, said that it was agreat national service but thefield formations of the InlandRevenue should asked to re-cover taxes worth billions ofrupees from the pilferers.

Hafiz Akbar said that theSteel re-rolling Association be-lieves that the theft is being car-ried out in connivance with theauthorities of the concerned de-partment because a number of

PSRMA seeks actionagainst gas, power thieves

representations to gas/power au-thorities specifically pointingout the unregistered Steel unitscommitting power theft wentunheeded.

He said that the ChairmanFBR Tariq Bajwa had also ex-pressed serious concerns on thefailure of field formation in re-covery of Income tax, sales taxand Federal Excise Duty to thetune of Rs 64 billion

The FBR should understandthat in high power, gas consum-ing industries like Steel re-roll-ing a theft Rs. 10 million de-prives the exchequer further in60 millions in revenues besidesmarginalizing tax compliantunits in the same sector.

“We wonder why the FBRis not taking action against theunits found steeling gas andelectricity. We request the ChiefMinister to take up the matterpersonally with Federal Finance

Minister Ishaq Dar.”Hafiz Akbar said that there

are 150 unregistered steel re-rolling mills in Daroghawalaand Band Road that are opera-tional without any let and hin-drance.

He said that whenever somejunior officer of the sales tax orincome tax department tried tocatch them, was transferred tofar-flung areas. He said that in thegiven circumstances, it has be-come very difficult for the hon-est medium and small re-rollingmillers to compete with these un-scrupulous elements because thedifference between the default-ers and the honest manufactur-ers is around Rs.15000 per ton.

Hafiz Akbar said that it isprime duty of the FBR to regis-ter all the unregistered busi-nesses but unfortunately, theyare not performing their dutieshonestly.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—SSGC has intensi-fied its drive against gas theft inKarachi and other cities andtowns of Sindh.

During the past two months,the Company has unearthed 34cases of gas theft in which domes-tic, commercial and industrial cus-tomers were found involved indirect gas consumption by takingillegal connections from the

Crackdown on illegalgas connections

Company’s main supply line.Gas theft is one of the ma-

jor factors contributing towardsUnaccounted-for-Gas (UFG)

In July and August 2013,more than 80 different catego-ries of customers were found in-volved in gas theft and metertampering, causing a loss of39.88 mmcf gas to the Com-pany. Moreover, against thesewrongdoers, SSGC lodgedclaims amounting to Rs. 31.26

million.In order to check unautho-

rized consumption, SSGC hasinstalled bulk meters in manyareas where gas theft is rampantto ensure proper recording andcalculation of lost volume.

UFG has severely affectedthe Company’s profits in recenttimes since every 1% increasein UFG, reduces SSGC’s prof-its by Rs. 1.3 billion plus the costof gas.

PSMA asks Nepra forequal installmentsStaff CorrespondentLAHORE—The Pakistan SteelMelters Association (PSMA)has urged the National ElectricPower Regulatory Authority(Nepra) to issue notificationpermitting equal installmentsof fuel price adjustment up toJune 30, 2014. Association’srepresentatives in a meetingwith the Nepra , apprisedofficials them about theworries of the industry. Thesteel melting industry is facingsevere liquidity crunch due anumber of accounts includingrecent devastating floods anddiscriminately high electricitytariff for the Punjab basedindustry. The furnaces arealready running under-capacityand producing only 1.5 to 1.8million tons against theinstalled capacity of over 4million tons, the sourcesadded. The sources said thatthe dealers of the flood hitdistricts in Punjab failed to payback the price of steel bars andother products.

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—Managing Directorof PIA Muhamamd JunaidYunus has sounded a note ofwarning that no lethargy andindiscipline in the organizationwill be tolerated anymore hesaid.

He said that despite fleetconstraints the national flag car-rier is doing all possible effortsto provide maximum facilities toits valued passengers and thecurrent Hajj Operation is theproof of it. There has been bigsaving in expenditures as wehave not leased any aircraft forHajj and also maintaining theschedule effectively with exist-ing resources. He vowed to con-

Discipline in PIA

No lethargy, indisciplinewill be tolerated: MD

tinue with his improvementdrive in making the flying ex-perience as convenient and com-fortable as possible. “I have is-sued instructions

The hajj Operation has beentermed very successful as allflights are departing on time.This can also be witnessed in theflight schedule of other flightsas well where the punctualityrate is above 90%.

Referring to the recentlyheld meeting under the chair-manship of Prime Minister ofPakistan, Mr.MuhamamdNawaz Sharif, he said that mat-ters relating to betterment of PIAwere discussed in detail and allpossible venues were exploredto bring the airline out of present

crisis. In the light of instructionsof Prime Minister, the Board ofDirectors has been entrusted toconsider best possible sugges-tions and chalk out workableplan to make the airline a prof-itable entity. The BOD’s recom-mendations will be presented toGovernment for approval.

To attract business class pas-sengers, Junaid Yunus has in-structed all officials including totravel in Economy class only sothat seats remain available forgeneral public. These instruc-tions will be applicable to Man-aging Director as well. He saidthat we are already on path ofrecovery and trying all out ef-forts to enhance revenues andreduce costs as well.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—At least 234people were killed while 1129others injured due to currentheavy rainfall and flash floodsin the country, besides affectingcrops on 1.5 million acres, re-vealed National Disaster Man-agement Authority (NDMA)data.

According to the latest offi-cial figures, the devastatingfloods have killed at least 234people and injured another 1129,besides affecting 1.5 millionpeople mainly in Sindh and

Punjab. Rains and floods havealso badly damaged cotton,paddy, maize and sugarcanecrops in both the provinces.

NDMA spokespersonBrigadier Kamran Zia has saidthat the Authority has yet to as-sess the total loss caused due torains and floods in the countryhowever; there are still chancesof more rains and floods in themonth of September.

Though the Authority has yetto issue the estimated figures ofloss, however an official on thecondition of anonymity revealedthat the floods have caused an

estimated loss of Rs 250 billionto the national economy.

According to the officialdata, standing crops on1,457,299.25 acres have beenaffected in the country includ-ing 1,094,171 acres in Punjab,535 acres in KP, 246,500 acresin Sindh, 115,927 acres inBalochistan and 76.25 acres inFata. As many as 7,841 villagesincluding 2,482 in Punjab, 2 inKP, 3,088 in Sindh and 2,289villages of Balochistan. 55,397houses have been damaged par-tially and 23,811 completely asa result of floods.

Rains, floods cause Rs250blosses to economy

Skilled workforceStaff ReporterKARACHI—Speakers at aworkshop stressed the need ofPublic-Private Partnership(PPP) for effective vocationaltraining system. The theme ofmoot was “Building Competi-tiveness through PPP”, whichwas jointly organized byEmployers’ Federation ofPakistan (EFP) and SindhTechnical Education andVocational Training Authority(STEVTA) with the supportof a German organization GIZat a hotel. In his welcomeaddress, President EFP K.M.Nauman said globally theneed for high qualityinternship and apprenticeship,to ease school work transi-tion, to ensure the futureneeds of skilled workforcehas been recognised. WaseemAhmed Ursani, SecretaryLabour.

Gold Tezab 47142.00Silver Tezabi 788.75

Gold Tezabi (24-Ct) 46030.00Gold 22 Ct 42090.00SilverTezabi 789.00Silver Thobi 760.00

USA 104.60 104.40

UK 165.51 165.19

EURO 139.33 139.06

Canada 101.39 101.19

Switzerland 112.50 112.29

Australia 96.85 96.66

Sweden 16.03 16.00

Japan 1.0503 1.0483

Norway 17.68 17.65

Singapore 82.53 82.37

Denmark 18.68 18.64

Omani Riyal 256.00 253.00

Saudi Arabia 27.89 27.84

Hong Kong 13.49 13.46

Kuwait 367.79 367.09

Malaysia 32.04 31.98

Newzeland 85.03 84.87

Qatar 28.74 28.69

UAE 28.48 28.42

KR WON 0.0966 0.0964

Thailand 3.297 3.291

Drug Actbarring export

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan’s localpharmaceutical manufactur-ers have identified section 12of Drug Act as a majorhaurdle in the boost and ex-port of their products to othercountries and have urgedGovernment of Pakistan andDrug Regulatory Authorityto harmonize laws & policieswith accordance to interna-tional standards.

They also demandedDrug Regulatory AuthorityPakistan (DRAP) to complywith World Health Organiza-tion (WHO) guidelines forGlobal Manufacturing Prac-tices (GMP) and Associationof Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) FrameworkAgreement on mutual recog-nition arrangement which isbeneficial for industry, gov-ernment and patients, themain concern.

This was stated byShaikh Kaiser Waheed andZahid Saeed, both theformer chairmen of Paki-stan Pharmaceutical Manu-facturers Associat ion(PPMA) during the 9thHealth Asia Seminar on“Exploring the untappedpotential of export of phar-maceutical products fromPakistan” held here in expocenter, Karachi by Paki-stan Pharmaceutical Manu-facturers Associat ion(PPMA) and EcommerceGateway.

Former Chairman PPMADr. Shaikh Kaiser Waheedshared the growth and hurdlesof pharmaceutical sector in Pa-kistan. He said few decadesback, Pakistan made drugswere exported to un-regulatedmarkets of the world whichlater on expanded to low regu-lated countries. Regulators ofthe few African countries aretrained by WHO hence theyhave good knowledge of in-specting the standards, valida-tions, processes of pharmaceu-tical products.

KARACHI—Follow-ing were the bullionrates in major citiesyesterday.

KARACHI:

MULTAN:

Currency Selling Buying

Bullion Rates

RS PER 10 GRAMS

Strategy evolvedto win new

markets for PakbusinessmenSTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—PIAF-Founders Al-liance has evolved a comprehen-sive strategy to win new marketsfor Pakistani businessmenthrough trade delegations, singlecountry exhibitions and marketresearch reports.

These views were expressedby the PIAF-Founders Allianceleaders Iftikhar Ali Malik andMuhammad Ali Mian during thevisit of Liberty Market andHafeez Center here on Friday.

The trader leaders said thebusiness community had ac-knowledged services of PIAF-Founders Alliance rendered forthe trade and industry and wouldvote for the PIAF-Founders Al-liance candidates in the LCCIelections.

They said Alliance mani-festo was a ray of hope in thepresent scenario and the busi-ness community would onceagain pose its trust on the Alli-ance candidates.

Later, renowned industrial-ist and leader of Lions ClubSheikh Muhammad Ibrahimhosted a dinner in the honour ofPIAF-Founders Alliance leadersand candidates for Corporateand Associate Classes.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Provincial Ministerfor Industries, Commerce & In-vestment Ch. Muhammad

Shafiq said that youth must belured to get technical training totake part in the socio-economicdevelopment of the country anderadication of unemploymentand poverty alleviation. Govt.of the Punjab expects best re-sults, in this regard, from Tech-nical Education and VocationalTraining Authority (TEVTA). Itis because the only empoweredbody having such capabilities isTechnical Education and Voca-

Youth must take part insocio-economic dev of country

tional Training Authority(TEVTA) in Punjab. He saidthis while talking to the seniormanagement of TEVTA, on theoccasion of his visit to TEVTA

Secretariat yesterday (Thurs-day).

While briefing him aboutthe performance of TEVTA.Chief Operating Officer TEVTAJawad Ahmed Qureshi said, ef-ficient monitoring system for theevaluation of Technical Educa-tion and Vocational TrainingAuthority management and fieldstaff is well placed and regularreports from the field are gener-ated. On the basis of such in-

formation further guidance isprovided to the Principals andpunitive actions are also takenwhenever necessary.

Monthly meetings of

Zonal Managers and DistrictsManagers are also arranged onregular basis at TEVTA headoffice. Technical Educationand Vocational Training Au-thority is also in communica-tion with foreign bodies likeILO, World Bank, JICA etc. toget financial and technical as-sistance to complete a numberof projects which are impera-tive for the development ofTVET sector in Punjab.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—The 15th Councilof the Institute of Chartered Ac-countants of Pakistan (ICAP) inits first meeting held on Septem-ber 11, 2013 elected office bear-ers for the year 2013-14.

The Council unanimouslyelected Mr. Naeem AkhtarSheikh as President of the In-stitute, Mr. Riaz A. RehmanChamdia as Vice President-South and Mr. Rashid Ibrahimas Vice President-North.

Naeem Akhtar Sheikh is afellow member of ICAP. Hequalified in 1990, since then heis in professional practice and isa senior Partner in UHY HassanNaeem & Co., Chartered Ac-countants. Mr. Naeem has beenserving in the Council for thelast 4 years and was the VicePresident North in 2012-13. Healso served as Chairman of vari-

ICAP elects office-bearersfor 2013-14

ous Committees i.e. Investiga-tion, CPD, Education & Train-ing etc. During his tenure as

Chairman ETCOM the Educa-tion Scheme 2013 was initiated.He was also a member of theNorthern Regional Committeetwice from 1993 to 2001.

Riaz A. Rehman Chamdia isa fellow member of ICAP. Hequalified in 1993 and presentlyengaged as Partner in Ernst &Young Ford Rhodes SidatHyder, Chartered Accountants.

He was elected member of theSouthern Regional Committeefrom 2009-2013 and served asCPD Convener, Honorary Sec-retary and its Chairman. He hasserved five years as a memberof Accounting and AuditingStandards Committee and alsomember of Quality AssuranceBoard.

Rashid Ibrahim is a fellowmember of ICAP. He qualifiedin 1985 and presently serving asa partner of A. F. Ferguson &Co., Chartered Accountants. Heserved on various Committeesof ICAP. He was a member ofTechnical Advisory Committee,Education and Training Com-mittee, CPD Committee, Com-mittee on Taxation He also re-mained Chairman CoordinationCommittee for Islamabad/Rawalpindi and ManagingCommittee of Benevolent Fundfor last nine years.

Speech by Li Keqiang

Distinguished Guests,Ladies and Gentlemen,Dear Friends,Let me begin by extending, onbehalf of the Chinese govern-ment, hearty congratulations onthe opening of the seventh Sum-mer Davos Forum and a warmwelcome to all the distinguishedguests.

Seven years ago, when theDavos Forum came from thehigh mountains in Switzerlandto the shore of the Bohai Bay inChina, I was working inLiaoning and was personallyengaged in the launch of theForum, and my memories of theevent are still vivid today. I amtruly happy that the Forum,which has been held in Dalianand Tianjin in rotation since then,is gaining greater influence, andI find the theme of this year’sForum, “Meeting the InnovationImperative”, a forward-lookingone that points the way to thefuture.

Five years have passed since

The Chinese Economy: Reform and innovation for sustained and healthy developmentthe outbreak of the internationalfinancial crisis in September 2008.Yet the world economy still facesa complex situation. Just as devel-oped economies begin to showsome signs of improvement,

emerging economies are con-fronted with rather serious down-ward pressure. As we often say inChina, “Hardly has one wave sub-sided when another wave rises”.Affected by a multiple of factors,economic growth in China hasslowed down to some extent. Yes-terday, Professor Schwab and I hadan exchange of views with someof the business representatives.They all showed a keen interest in

the state and prospects of the Chi-nese economy. For some time now,there have been many commentson the Chinese economy, wonder-ing whether it may slow down tooearly, like in some other countries,or even encounter a hard landing.What I would like to say is that theChinese economy, which is at acrucial stage of transformation andupgrading, is moving forward in asteady way and its fundamentalsare sound.

First, keeping the macro eco-nomic policy stable with consider-ation given to both immediate andlong-term needs. In the face of eco-nomic downturn, a short-termstimulus policy could be one wayto drive up growth. But afterweighing the pros and cons, weconcluded that such an optionwould not help address the under-lying problems. Hence, we optedfor keeping the macro economicpolicy stable, which we believeserved both the immediate needsand long-term interests of theeconomy. With respect to fiscalpolicy, we introduced policy mea-sures that kept deficit from expand-

ing, readjusted the expenditurestructure, cut down administrativeexpenditures, accelerated spend-ing, increased support for the cen-tral and western regions as well asfor structural readjustments and forimproving people’s wellbeing, andgranted preferential tax treatmentto small and micro businesses. Interms of monetary policy, westayed focused, responded calmlyand met difficulties head-on.

Second, steadfastly pursuingreform and opening-up with prior-ity given to the stimulation of themarket. Reform and innovationprovide an inexhaustible drivingforce for a country’s development.What this government has donefirst is to vigorously reform the ad-ministrative system with focus ontransforming government func-tions. Since the beginning of thisyear, we have abolished or del-egated to lower levels the conductof administrative review and ap-proval for over 200 items. Bystreamlining administration anddelegating power, the governmentaims to delegate power to lowerlevels as much as what is neces-

sary and appropriate while effec-tively managing all the matterswithin its purview so as to providea level-playing field for all enter-prises and stimulate the creativityof market players. We have ex-panded the scope of the business-to-value added tax pilot reform, andadvanced reforms relating to mar-ket-based interest rates, the invest-ment and financing system for theconstruction of railways and otherinfrastructure, pricing of resourceproducts and government procure-ment of public services. Ladies andGentlemen,

The fast growth of the Chineseeconomy over the past 30-oddyears is a miracle in the history ofdevelopment of the world. TheChinese economy has entered aphase of medium to high rategrowth. Though lower than thenear double-digit rates seen in pre-vious years, a growth in the neigh-borhood of 7.5% is still consideredhigh for any major economy in theworld. China’s economic size isconsiderably bigger than before. Asthe economy enters a phase oftransformation, the slowdown of its

prospective growth and modera-tion of the Chinese economy froma high speed to a medium to highspeed are only natural.

In the world today, the trendtowards economic globalization, amulti-polar world and IT applica-tion is gaining momentum. We livein a global village. No country canlive in isolation of others likeRobinson Crusoe. Over the years,the Chinese economy has benefitedenormously from its opening-uppolicy. At the same time, China hasbecome a major engine drivingworld economic growth and playedan important role in responding tothe international financial crisis. Inthe next five years, China is ex-pected to import 10 trillion USdollars of goods, invest 500 billionUS dollars overseas and send over400 million tourists abroad. China,with its economic structure trans-formed and upgraded, will contrib-ute more to the prosperity and de-velopment of the world economy.China is ready to share this hugebusiness opportunity with the restof the world and hopes to have abetter cooperation environment for

its development.In view of the difficulties and

setbacks in the global economicrecovery, members of the interna-tional community should increasecoordination on macro economicpolicies as well as the readiness tocope with the cross-border finan-cial risks and help speed up the re-form of the global economic gov-ernance.

China will continue to encour-age foreign companies to makeinvestment and do business inChina. We will create a more in-vestment friendly environment,intensify IPR protection, and pro-vide an environment in which allplayers have equal access to fac-tors of production, market compe-tition and legal protection whiletaking up social responsibilitiestogether. Facts will continue toprove that to come and do businessin China is a wise decision for mul-tinationals to grow their business.Ladies and Gentlemen,

We live in a time of fastchanges. Changes call for inno-vation and innovation leads toprogress. Reform and innovation

is the running theme and spiritof the policies adopted by theChinese government, and it isthe banner that we will alwayshold high. I hope you, newchampions of the worldeconomy, will become indeedchampions of reform and inno-vation in your respective areas.Over the years, the SummerDavos has played a unique roleand served as an important plat-form for discussions on the Chi-nese economy. Now the newseason of the Chinese economicmiracle, one of better quality andhigher efficiency, is unveiled,and I guarantee you even moreexciting stories to come. I amsure that the Summer DavosForum will achieve greater suc-cesses, presenting to the worldnew progress of the Chinesepeople in building a moderncountry, and contributing morewisdom and strength to the com-mon prosperity of China and theworld.In conclusion, I wish this year’sforum a complete success!Thank you.

LAHORE: COO TEVTA Jawad Ahmad Qureshi briefing the Provincial Minister for Indus-tries, Commerce and Investment Choudhary Muhammad Shafiq.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Institute ofSpace Technology (IST)

Islamabad and IslamabadChamber of Commerce & In-dustry have signed a Memoran-dum of Understanding to estab-lish and formalize cooperationto facilitate the growth of indus-trial activities and achieve thecommon objectives. Engr.Imran Rahman, Vice Chancel-lor, IST and Zafar Bakhtawari,

ICCI and IST sign MoUPresident, ICCI signed theMoU.

Both organizations haveagreed to undertake joint re-

search projects to address R&Dissues of industry. ICCI wouldalso encourage its member in-dustries to initiate joint researchprojects with the researchers ofIST to cater to their R&D needs.ICCI member industries couldalso seek the expertise andconsultancy of IST faculty andresearchers in product and pro-

cess design & development.Both organizations would

jointly develop need-based pro-fessional development short

courses to produce skilled man-power for industry. ICCI wouldhelp IST in implementation of itsentrepreneurship developmentprogram along with providingtechnical assistance for establish-ing Business Incubation Centerat IST. ICCI will help IST toplace its students on internshipin various local industries.

ISLAMABAD: Zafar Bakhtawari, President ICCI and Engr Imran Rahman, VC Instituteof Space Technologies, signing MoU.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Zubair AhmedMalik, President of the Federa-tion of Pakistan Chambers ofCommerce and Industry(FPCCI) has shown his concernover the upward revision in theinterest rates by 50 basis pointsas announced by the GovernorSBP in the present MonetaryPolicy Statement. Through hisearlier statement of 4th Septem-ber 2013 president FPCCI hasapprehended for such move ofthe SBP.

It should be rememberedthat in his earlier statement of4th September 2013 Mr.ZubairA. Malik has apprehended forsuch move of the SBP. Accord-ing to section 16 of Para B

FPCCI expresses concernover interest rate hike

(Monetary and Exchange ratepolicies of the Memorandum ofEconomic and Financial policiessigned by Finance Minister andSBP Governor with the Interna-tional Monetary Funds (IMF), toaddress declining reserves anda projected rebound in inflation,the SBP will adjust monetaryand exchange rate policies.Though the Memorandum withIMF covers monetary and fiscalpolicies, taxations, and tradepolicy, however, private sectorhas not been consulted beforesigning and finalization of thedocument.

Though Governor SBP of-ficially declared a significantreduction in the bank borrowingby private sector but despite ofthis fact he announced an in-

crease in interest rate. FPCCI isseriously concern with signifi-cant decline in private sectorlending from commercial banks.

The Governor SBP has ad-mitted in his statement that Pri-vate sector is reluctant to bor-row from commercial banks dueto energy crises and deteriorat-ing law & order situation, whileGovernment has borrowedRs.547 billion from banks to fi-nance its deficit during two andhalf months. The lack of bor-rowing by private sector indi-cates the sever problem in indus-trialization and investment pro-cess. It reflects also the lack ofinvestor’s confidence and de-industrialization in the countrywhich is a cause of growing un-employment.

STAFF REPORTER

LA H O R E—The majorityshareholders of Unilever Paki-stan Limited have applied forvoluntary de-listing of theCompany through buy-back ofshares from the minorityshareholders.

The proposed buy-backtransaction by the Companyhas been approved by the List-ing Committee (LC) of theLahore Stock Exchange at aprice of Rs. 15,000/- per sharesubject to purchase of at least199,400 ordinary shares out ofthe total 3,312,452 shares, out-standing with the shareholdersother than sponsors, to qualifyfor delisting. After de-listingof Unilever Pakistan Limitedfrom the Lahore Stock Ex-change total listed companieswill remain 438.

The purchase agent of theCompany, i.e. KASB Securi-ties Ltd., has purchased2,912,328 shares within a pe-riod of 60 days as per condi-tion imposed by the Exchange.The Company has also com-plied with the procedure forvoluntary de-listing underListing Regulation No. 30-Cof LSE.

In view of the above, theExchange has decided to de-list Unilever Pakistan Ltd.from the Ready Board Quota-tion of LSE w.e.f. September13, 2013. The shareholders ofthe Company who could notavail the opportunity earlierand desire to sale the shares arerequested to approach the pur-chase agent, KASB SecuritiesLtd., 5th Floor, Trade Centre,I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi,Phone: 021-111-222-000, Fax:021-32630202

Managing Director LahoreStock Exchange Aftab AhmedChaudhry congratulated themanagement/stakeholders ofthe Company on completingthe successfully buy-back pro-cess of voluntary de-listing ofthe Company. MD also high-lighted the steps taken by theLSE contributing to build amechanism that has producedmore transparency in the trad-ing of the shares as well as tosecure the investment of the in-vestors. Lahore Stock Ex-change is a fully electronic andcompletely automated stockexchange of Pakistan that isthe only domestic exchange tohave more than one tradingfloors in the region.

Unilever Pak Ltd’s buy-backtransaction approved

Rates ofcommodities

LAHORE—Agriculture Market-ing Information Service Punjab(AMISP) issued rates of agricul-ture products in local market onFriday.

The following are 100 kgrates of different agricultureproducts in Lahore market:

Maize minimum Rs 2000and maximum 2200, Rice SuperBasmati (New) minimum Rs11000 and maximum Rs 12000,Rice Basmati (old) minimum Rs12500 and maximum Rs 14500,white sugar minimum Rs 5120and maximum Rs 5120, whitegram (local) minimum Rs 5500and maximum Rs 5500, RedChili Whole (Dry) minimum Rs16000 maximum Rs 16000, Cau-liflower minimum Rs 4000 andmaximum Rs 4500, Onion mini-mum Rs 3000 and maximum Rs3400, Tomato minimum Rs 4000and maximum Rs 4400, Ginger(china) minimum Rs 15000 andmaximum Rs 15500, Peas mini-mum Rs 10000 and maximum Rs11000, Brinjal minimum Rs 1800and maximum Rs 2000, PotatoFresh minimum Rs 3200 andmaximum Rs 3400, Dates(Aseel) minimum Rs 10000 andmaximum Rs 11000, GrapesSundekhani minimum Rs 13000and maximum Rs 14000.—APP

Concern overloss to exchequer

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Sub-Com-mittee of the Standing Commit-tee on Finance expressed seri-ous concerns over the loss tonational exchequer due toSaindak and Reko Diq projectsin Balochistan and recom-mended to the authorities to re-view the agreements of the twoprojects.

The Sub-Committee metwith Sardar Fateh MuhmmadMuhmmad Hassani in the chairat Parliament House. The mem-bers of the Sub-Committee ex-pressed dissatisfaction overmulti-billion-dollar agreementssigned with international com-panies on Saindak and Reko Diqand asked the government torevisit agreements.

The committee membershad an impression that the Chi-nese company was perhaps in-volved in some malpractices inrelation to copper and gold re-serves in Saindak.

Senators MuhmmadHamayun Khan Mandokhel,Kalsoom Perveen, SecretaryPetroleum Abid Saeed and highofficials of Planning Commis-sion and the Geological Surveyof Pakistan attended theCommittee’s meeting.

The Sub-Committee sum-moned Secretary Finance andSecretaries for Mines and Indus-tries of Balochistan. The Sub-Committee summoned five of-ficers appointed for monitoringthe projects in its next meeting.The Sub-Committee also di-rected the project authorities tosubmit audit reports of theprojects.

Senator MuhmmadHamayun Khan Mandokhel toldBusiness Recorder that SaindakCooper and Gold mining projectagreement had undermined rightsof the local people and failed tocreate employment and over-come poverty in the province. Hesaid the conditions of local em-ployees were miserable and theywere facing 7a lack of basic fa-cilities.

He said the governmentshould make investment itself insuch projects instead of givingcontracts to foreign investors.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Finance Minis-ter Ishaq Dar has given assur-ance to the IMF in writing thatpower tariff for domestic con-sumers will be increased fromOctober 1, 2013 under a four-phased plan.

Authorities have launchedtheir plan to gradually eliminatemost of the energy subsidies.The four-phase plan is expectedto reduce the subsidies fromabout 1.8 percent of GDP to 0.3–0.4 percent of GDP in threeyears.

The first phase entailed thealmost full elimination of thesubsidy for industrial, commer-cial, bulk, and AJ&K2 users,accomplished through an in-crease in tariff of about 50 per-cent at end—July. The majorityof domestic consumers are ex-cluded from increases at thisstage.

The second phase entailsthe elimination of subsidy forconsumption over 200Kwh,SCARP3 , and others (publiclighting, housing schemes,railways, HVTL4 ), and reduc-ing the subsidy in agricultureby about 13 percent. The cor-

responding price increaseshave already been approvedand notified effective October1, 2013

In FY 2014/15 and FY 2015/16 authorities will reduce theremaining subsidies (on agricul-ture and consumption below200Kwh) in order to reduce thefiscal burden to 0.3-0.4 percentof GDP. By the end of phase fourthe subsidy for consumptionabove 200Kwh will be elimi-nated, and it will be reduced forthose below 200Kwh. Whilemost households will see priceincreases, subsidies will remainfor the lowest level consumersand increases in targeted trans-fer programs will also protectthe poorest.

Pakistan’s strategy isbroadly consistent with the les-sons learned from previous en-ergy reforms. Their strategy ad-dresses the six key elements usu-ally linked with successful re-forms: (i) they developed a com-prehensive energy sector reformplan with long-term objectives,(ii) they have launched a com-munication strategy, (iii) theprice increases are phased andsequence differently across en-ergy products.

Upward revision of powertariff hike from Oct 1

Long-termstability of

banking sectorAMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The governmenthas decided to launch a depositinsurance scheme with cover-age limit of Rs100,000 per de-positor per bank to strengthenthe long-term stability of thebanking system in the country.Well placed sources in financialcircles disclosed that, the min-istry of finance in consultationwith State Bank of Pakistan hasplanned to introduce the depositinsurance scheme.

“The proposed initial cov-erage limit is Rs. 100,000 perdepositor per bank, covering 72percent of depositors and 40percent of total insurable de-posits, sald spirces.

The deposit insurancescheme will be managed by aDeposit Protection Fund, estab-lished as a subsidiary of SBP,with its own governance struc-ture and funded by flat pre-mium payments from banks.

The draft act for the Fundis being finalized and is ex-pected to be enacted by end-September 2014 and thescheme would begin operationsby end-December 2015.

PESHAWAR—Kashif Asif ofPunjab clinched the trophyafter defeating second seedMehran Javed in the Under-17 final of the KhyberPakhtunkhwa National Jun-ior Squash Championshipplayed here at PAF HashimKhan Squash Complex onFriday.

Chief Security Officer,Airport Security Force TariqKhan was the chief guest onthis occasion. Before thestart of the Under-17 finaland Under-15 final the play-ers were introduced to him.President KhyberPakhtunkhwa Squash Asso-ciation and former WorldChampion Qamar Zaman,Secretary of the associationIhsan Ullah Khan, JansherKhan coach Mehboob Khan,players, officials and largenumber of spectators werealso present and witnessed

Kashif Asif of Punjab winsNational Jr Squash Championship

the two finals.In the Under-17 final top

seed Kashif Asif of Punjabfailed to click in the first setwon by Mehran Javed at 10-12. The two were tied at 4-4,5-5, 6-6 and 7-7 but Kashifreached to 9-7 whereinMehran again came back andtied the tally at 9-9 and 10-allbefore winning the set.

Mehran was made un-forced errors which causedhim the remaining three setshe lost. Kashif Asif after los-ing the first set, managed hisposition and did not givemuch time to Mehran Javedto strike back. He took thesecond set by 11-7 and didthe same in the third andfourth sets.

The score was 11-5 and11-7. Mehran did four errorsin the third set and three inthe fourth and last set whileKashif Asif played with cool

head, putting him all aroundthe court with his dropshorts and smashes. ThusKashif Asif won the final by3-1.

In the Under-15 final bothZeeshan Gul and ZeeshanJaved, hailing from KhyberPakhtunkhwa, stretched tofive sets battle enjoyed bycapacity crowd present onthis occasion. Zeeshan Gul,who defeated Abbas Zeb inthe semi-final in straight set,won the first two sets but hefailed to click in the third andfour sets won by ZeeshanJaved.

Zeeshan Gul was lookingtired becuas eof the toughsemi-final against Abbas Zebwhere he stretched to fivesets battle but after losing thefirst two sets, Zeeshan Gulstaged a strong comeback byeliminating Zeeshan Javed ofFrontier Corps in the mara-

thon five sets battle.The score was 5-11, 8-11,

11-4 and 11-8 while in the lastset Zeeshan Gul did not lookbehind and won the battle by11-8 to seal the fate ofZeeshan Javed in a 3-2 battle.

At the end, the chiefguest CSO ASF Tariq Khangave away trophies and cashprizes to the position hold-ers. In his brief chat, TariqKhan lauded the efforts be-ing put in by KhyberPakhtunkhwa Squash Asso-ciation as far as holding ofvarious competitions.

He said the legends ofsquash ruled the world for37-long years. He advised theplayers to keep hard workingso that they could be able toachieve the lost glory in theworld of squash. Secretary ofthe association presented ashield to Tariq Khan on thisoccasion.—APP

ISLAMABAD: MD APP Mohammad Khalid Sarwar with APP team after final of NBP Inter-Media Football Tourna-ment played between APP and Sama teams at Sports Complex.

IS L A M A B A D—AssociatedPress of Pakistan (APP)won the Inter Media Foot-ball Tournament organizedby National Press Club(NPC) in collaboration withNational Bank of Pakistan,Pakistan Sports Board andRight To Play here at JinnahStadium of Pakistan SportsComplex.

In the final APP beatSaama TV by 3-1 on penaltykicks. Both the teams wereunable to score a goal inboth the halves of the match.Even in the extra time givenby the management bothteams remained goal-less.

However, in the 3/3 pen-alty kicks given to bothteams at the end, APP wasable to utilize all three of itwhile Saama TV was suc-

APP victorious in Inter-MediaFootball Tournament

cessful in only one.APP penalty kicks scor-

ers were Iqbal Choudhry,Zahid Abbasi andMuhammad Shoaib whileMudassar was the lonescorer from Saama TV.

In the third-fourth posi-tion match played, Journal-ist Eleven beat Geo TV by6-0. Afzal Javed, Rehmat andKhurram scored two goalseach.

President of IslamabadOlympic Association (IOA),Brig. (R) Arif MehmoodSidiqqi was the chief gueston the occasion andawarded trophies to thewinners and runner-ups.

At the closing cer-emony APP Managing Di-rector Muhammad KhalidSarwar, NPC President

Farooq Faisal, SecretarySheryar Khan, PSB DeputyDirector General AghaAmjad, APP EmployeesUnion President AftabZahoor, Organizing Secre-tary Rana Tanveer and othersupporters of all the teamswere present.

Talking at the occasionIOA President ArifMehmood said that IOA isdoing everything for thepromotion of sports in thefederal capital.

APP Managing DirectorMuhammad Khalid Sarwarwhile parsing teams of APPand Saama for giving atough competition to eachother in the final said thesekinds of healthy activitiesshould be organized for thejournalists.—APP

ISLAMABAD: A view of final match between APP and SAAMA during the NBP Inter-Medida Football Tournament at Pakistan Sports Complex.

KARACHI—Desperate forregular cricket encounterswith India, the PCB is hop-ing to convince the BCCI tohost a tri-series later this yearwhen the officials from thetwo boards come face to faceduring an Asian CricketCouncil meeting in Chennaion Saturday.

Reliable sources in thePakistan Cricket Board saidthat chief operating officerSubhan Ahmad will not onlyattend a meeting of the ACCbut also hold discussionswith BCCI officials.

“There is a strong chancethat the BCCI might proposeto have a tri-series sometimein December in India withPakistan and Sri Lanka andthe PCB is ready to acceptthis invitation,” one sourcesaid.

He said even if the tri-se-ries led to some reschedul-

Chief Operating Officer to attend ACC meeting in Chennai

PCB hoping for tri-seriesinvite in India

ing of Pakistan’s home seriesagainst Sri Lanka in the UAEin December-January, thePCB and Sri Lanka Cricketwould work out a joint solu-tion.

“The PCB has got feelersfrom India that it is contem-plating having the tri-seriesafter having decided to cur-tail its tour to South Africalate in the year,” the sourcesaid.

The BCCI is presently indisagreement with CricketSouth Africa over the num-ber of matches to be playedin the series and on Wednes-day even the ICC came outin favour of South Africa.

“But the Indians areclearly not happy with the re-entry of Haroon Lorgat intoCricket South Africa and arenow thinking about the tri-series with Pakistan and In-dia,” he added.

Pakistan had toured Indialast December to play a shortone-day series that markedthe revival of bilateral seriesbetween the two nations af-ter 2007.

The source said the PCBis hoping that Ahmad wouldconvince the Indian board toalso talk in terms of a bilat-eral cricket series soon.

“PCB is keen for the tri-series as it will guaranteegood money for both Paki-stan and Sri Lanka,” headded.

But the possible tri-se-ries also comes at a time whenthe Indian government hasnot issued visas to theFaisalabad Wolves team totake part in the ChampionsLeague tournament.

“Subhan might also dis-cuss this issue with the Indi-ans. But apparently onething is clear he is going thereafter the PCB got some sortof signal from the govern-ment,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Operat-ing Officer (COO) PakistanCricket Board (PCB), SubhanAhmed reached Chennai onFriday, to attend the AsianCricket Council (ACC) meet-ing.

General Manager MediaPCB, Nadeem Sarwar saidthat it is a routine meeting ofthe ACC and matters pertain-ing to promotion of cricket inAsia will be discussed by thestakeholders.

It is expected that PCBCOO’s tour to India will helpresume cricketing ties be-tween the two nations asSubhan will be discussingthe details of Pakistan’stour with the Indian offi-cials.

According to sources thepossibility of a three nationseries between Pakistan, In-dia and Sri Lanka will also bediscussed.—APP

ISLAMABAD—The openingceremony of Snooker Acad-emy in Faisalabad by the Paki-stan Billiards & Snooker As-sociation (PBSA) in collabo-ration with the University ofAgriculture will be held on Sat-urday (today) in Faisalabad.

Talking to Online, Presi-dent PBSA, Alamgir A. Shaikhsaid, “The PBSA has alreadydispatched two Billiard Tablesfor installation in the hall pro-vided by the University of Ag-riculture, Faisalabad in the uni-versity premises. The SnookerAcademy is being establishedby the PBSA in collaborationwith the University of Agricul-ture, Faisalabad.”

Minister of Inter ProvincialCoordination (IPC) RiazHussain Pirzada will be thechief guest of the ceremonyand declare first FaisalabadSnooker Academy officiallyopen.

The President PBSA,Alamgir A. Shaikh and theHonorary Secretary,Munawwar Hussain Shaikhwill sign the MoU with ViceChancellor of the University ofAgriculture, Dr. Iqrar AhmedKhan.

Director General-PakistanSports Board (PSB) Syed AmirHamza Gilani, Director General(Technical & Training) PSB Dr.Akhter Nawaz Ganjera andUsman Anwar Director Gen-eral PSB will also attend thehistorical ceremony.

IPC Minister inauguratesSnooker Academy in

Faisalabad todayA Press/Media briefing

has also been arranged on thesame day in the Universitywhere a formal MoU signingceremony will be held in thepresence of the media. ThePress Briefing will be held inthe Vice Chancellor Block NewSenate Hall at 01:00 pm fol-lowed by MoU Signing andOpening of FaisalabadSnooker Academy, which willbe the first Academy in theProvince of Punjab.

Last month, Alamgir A.Shaikh had held a meeting withIPC Minister Riaz HussainPirzada and briefed the Minis-ter regarding the delay in theannouncement of the CashAward of Rs. 10 Million forMuhammad Asif (Snookerchampion) as per the SportsPolicy of the government forwinning the coveted WorldSnooker title for Pakistan. ThePresident had requested theIPC Minister to use his goodoffices for the release of theCash Award for MuhammadAsif. The IPC Minister had as-sured the President PBSA thatthe Cash Award entitlement ofRs. 10 Million to MuhammadAsif would be expedited andwould be presented soon tothe World Champion at a cer-emony which would be ar-ranged at Islamabad.

“Muhammad Asif has notbeen awarded with cash awardof Rs. 10 million so far,” Shaikhstated.—Online

Jahangir Khansays Olympicfight to go on

KARACHI—Legendary Paki-stan squash player JahangirKhan vowed to keep fight-

ing for a place for his sport inthe Olympics despite thefailed bid to join the 2020Tokyo Games.

The International Olym-pic Committee voted Sundayto put wrestling back on theroster. Squash trailed in thirdplace, winning 22 votes outof 95 cast, behind 49 for wres-tling and 24 for baseball/soft-ball.

Khan, who set a recordof 10 British open titles in1991, said he would not bedeterred from fighting hardfor squash.

“I have been very pas-sionate about squash’s in-clusion in the Olympics, sothe decision is not only sur-prising but also shocking,”Khan told AFP.

“But we will not losehope and will continue thefight.”

Khan, who won six worldtitles and had three stints aspresident of the WorldSquash Federation, said hissport had come the closestyet to being inducted into theOlympics.—Online

K A R A C H I — P a k i s t a n ’ sTwenty20 Champions,Faisalabad Wolves will takepart in the ChampionsLeague T20 after the IndianEmbassy in Islamabad issuedthe visas to the players fol-lowing days of uncertainty.

According to PakistanCricket Board (PCB) state-ment issued on Friday saidFaisalabad Wolves team willbe touring India from Sep-tember 14 to participate in the

Faisalabad Wolves getIndian visa, to featurein Champions League

Champions LeagueTwenty20.

As per the plan Misbah-ul_haq’s Faisalabad Wolvesteam will fly from lahore onSeptember 14 by an EmiratesAirlines.

Mishah, Saeed Ajmal and

Ehsan Adil will travel directlyfrom Zimbabwe to join thesquad.

Faisalabad Wolves willplay New Zealand’s T20

Champion Otago Volts intheir opening match atPunjab Cricket AssociationStadium, Mohali.

Faisalabad will be only thesecond Pakistan team to takepart in the Champions Leagueand the first in India - SialkotStallions featured in the 2012tournament in South Africa.Faisalabad Wolves squad:Misbah-ul-Haq (Captain),Asif Ali, Ali Waqas, KhuramShahzad, Muhammad Salman(wicket-keeper), WaqasMaqsood, Samiullah KhanNiazi, Asad Ali, Saeed Ajmal,Ehsan Adil, HassanMahmood, Rana JahandadKhan Farrukh Shahzad, ImranKhalid, Ammar MahmoodKhan. Officials: NaveedAnjum (coach), HaroonRashid (Manager), TariqFareed (Assistant Manager),Muhammad Amer Kamal(Analyst), Muhammad AdeelIqbal Bajwa (Physiotherapist),Nadeem Afzal (PhysicalTrainer), Azhar Arif (SecurityManager).—APP

BANNU: Secretary District Hockey Association Sabzar Ali Khan giving winning Trophyto UAE Falcons team players.

Pakistan to faceOman in Asian

championstrophy hockey

LAHORE—Pakistan will facelittle know Oman in inaugu-ral match of the 3rd AsianChampions Trophy HockeyTournament on November 2in Kakamigahara, Japan.

The Asian Hockey Fed-eration and the Organizershave released schedule of theevent made available here onThursday.

Pakistan will play Chinain its second match on No-vember 3 followed by a matchagainst Malaysia on Novem-ber 5. The green shirts willface off with their arch rivalsIndia on November 7 andtheir last pool match will beagainst Japan on November8.

The classificationmatches for the 3rd to 6thplace and the final will beplayed on November 10.—APP

Punjab makewinning start inInter-Provincial

BasketballKARACHI—Punjab got off tosterling start in their openingmatch of Inter Provincial Bas-ketball Championship beat-ing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 64-33 at Arambagh FloodlightCourt on Thursday night.

The trio of Kashif Gill(13), Sunil Gill (12) and ZahidMalik (10) played key role intheir team’s triumph. WahabKhan contributed 15 pointsand Haris Khan got nine.

Balochistan fought hardagainst Sindh before goingdown 77- 57. ShootersSaifulah (20) and SaadFarooqi (19) led their teamvictory with brilliant shoot-ing, dribbling and consistentscoring. Rashid Khan (17),Danish (15) and AhmedNawaz (10) performed well forthe visiting team.

Spectacular Ahmed Javriscored 22 points to spear-head Sindh Whites to theirsecond win by beatingBalochistan 67-48.Fahadullah (11) and SaadRizvi and Ali Abid bothscored eight points each.Rashid Khan (19), Tabish (9),Danish (9), Ahmed Nawaz (8)were their main contribu-tors.—APP

Hania clincheswomen’s singlescrown in Super

series tennisKARACHI—Hania Naveedclinched the women’s singlescrown of Super Series Rank-ing Tennis Championshipwhen she defeated NehaKhan 2-0 in a one-sided finalat Karachi Gymkhana Hardcourt on Friday.

Hania produced betterbrand of play from the baseline to thrash Neha Khan 6-1, 6-1

Raza Sawani and MalikHamza will be contesting inthe final of Junior Under-17singles after won their re-spective semi-finals.

Sawani faces some chal-lenge from Ibrahim Ilitifat be-fore recording 6-3, 6-4 vic-tory. It was Raza Sawani’sconsistent play and forcefulwinners which gave him ex-citing victory.

In the other pre-final,Malik Hamza play superiorgame to beat Dawar Rehan6-2, 6-2. Following are re-sults: Women’s singles (fi-nal): Hania Naveed bt NehaKhan 6-1,6-1 Under-17 (semi-finals): Raza Sawani btIbrahim Ilitifat 6-3.6-4, MalikHamza bt Dawar Rehan 6-26-2. Under-15 (quarter-finals):Hassan Farooq bt NazifAhmed 6-2,6-4 Under-13(semi-final): Nouman Aftabbt Rayyan Jawad 6-4,3-6,10-2 Under-11 (semi-finals):Rayyan Jawad bt Amin Shafi8-6, Muhammad Dada btAsheesh Kumar 8-3.—APP

We wants to gofew notches up inWorld Women’sBridge: Rubina

KARACHI—The captain ofPakistan women’s bridgeteam, Rubina Agha “Teeta”has said she was looking for-ward her team to bring upsome good results in 41stedition World Bridge TeamChampionships & 19thVenice Cup being held in Bali(Indonesia) from September16 to 29.

“We have trained reallyhard in the past couple ofweeks and we are hoping togo few notches-up in theVenice Cup - World Women’sBridge Championship,” shetold APP in an interview onFriday as they completedtheir 10-day strenuous train-ing camp.

A seven-member squadis due to leave for Bali onSunday night on en-route totake part in the fortnight-event.

Rubina Agha’s teammade history by winning the17th BFAME Women’sBridge Championships inAhmedabad beating hostand favorites in the final afew months ago.

Members of the Pakistanteam included Rubina Agha-Zeenat Azwer, Roshan AraBokhari-Qudsia Dossa,Rubina Hai and Fatima Raza.Former NBP President SyedAli Raza will be managing theteam.—APP

HARARE: Azhar Ali attempts a diving catch off Richmond Mutumbami of Zimbabwe during the 2nd Test on Friday.

BIPIN DANI

OBSERVER

CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI—Bertrand deSpeville, the London-based Anti-corruptionfighter didn’t wish to becredited for first disclosingto the ICC that the arrivalof T20 and IPL have in-creased the risk of fixing.

“I don’t deserve to becongratulated but I am verysad with the news that theplayers had to be banned fortheir role in fixing thematches in IPL”, he saidover telephone fromLesotho, where governmenthad sought his services forreducing corruption in theAfrican countries.

“The view of thoseconsulted is that the arrivalof international T20 cricketand the Indian PremierLeague has considerably

IPL can survive if made clean,says anti-corruption fighter

increased the risk of match-fixing”, he had said in its 33-page report for the ICC. “Re-view of the ICC’s anti corrup-tion arrangements and spot-fixing. By contractual ar-rangement the ICC providesservices to the IPL”, he hadsaid.

“I hope the IPL continuesto survive. The board offi-cials should maintain thestandard of the IPL as it is aworld wide popular comple-tion”.

The anti-corruptionfighter had no answer as towhy the fixing is more inAsian countries. Barring Pa-kistan, where no SuperLeague is played yet, allleague matches in remainingthree Test playing nations(India-IPL), Sri Lanka (SriLanka Premier League) andBangladesh (BangladeshPremier League) have eitherplayers or umpires or both are

found in fixing controver-sies, Pakistan has threeplayers serving ban fortheir role in spot-fixing inTest matches.

“Honestly I don’t knowthe answer but it is goodthat the national boardshave become alert now”.

“In my report I did saythat the players get moreopportunity to fix the gamein this format”. “Wheneverthe players or their agentsare cheating the authorityshould take the right disci-plinary action and fansshould not be deprived ofthe true cricket”, he added.

Bertrand de Spevillehad spoken to severalformer cricketers at Lord’sbefore preparing his report.

“The game of cricketcan only gain people’s con-fidence if enough measuresare taken to make it clean”,he signed off.

Adebayor totrain with

Spurs reservesL O N D O N — T o t t e n h a mHotspur manager Andre Vil-las-Boas revealed on Thurs-day that he has askedTogolese striker EmmanuelAdebayor to train with thePremier League club’s re-serve team.

The 29-year-old hasfallen down the pecking or-der at Spurs following thearrival of Roberto Soldadofrom Valencia and was re-cently granted leave to returnto Togo after the death of hisbrother, Peter.

Adebayor is due to returnto London on Monday andVillas-Boas says that whenhe does, he will have to trainwith the club’s second-stringplayers.

“At the moment Ade isnot with us, because wehave granted himauthorisation to stay up un-til Monday in his country forpersonal reasons, so he’s notgoing to be involved againstNorwich (on Saturday),” Vil-las-Boas said.

“Up to when I find it ap-propriate, he will train withthe development team.”

Villas-Boas was also criti-cal of right-back Kyle Walker,who had to issue an apologyafter a Sunday newspaperpublished pictures of him in-haling nitrous oxide, alsoknown as ‘laughing gas’, ona night out with friends ear-lier this year.—AFP

Ford will notrenew Sri

Lanka contractCOLOMBO—Sri Lankacoach Graham Ford has toldSri Lanka Cricket he doesnot wish to renew his con-tract when it expires in Janu-ary, an SLC statement hassaid.

Ford came aboard fortwo years after Geoff Marshwas sacked in January 2012,and unless SLC convincehim to stay, Sri Lanka’s tourin the UAE from Decemberwill be his last with the team.

“Mr. Graham Ford has in-timated that he would like tobe released from his dutiesat the end of his contract dueto his family commitments,”the release said. “Sri LankaCricket intends to discussthis matter with him furtherand obtain his thoughts andtake the process forward.”

Ford has been linked tothe vacant coaching positionat Surrey, which is expectedto be filled over the Englishwinter. Ford had said in Au-gust that he has already beeninformally approached bySurrey’s CEO regarding theposition.—Online

DELHI—India and RajasthanRoyals fast bowler Sreesanthhas been handed a life banby the BCCI for his involve-ment in spot-fixing in IPL2013. His Royals team-mateand Mumbai spinner AnkeetChavan was also banned forlife, following the board’sdisciplinary committee meet-ing in Delhi on Friday.

Amit Singh, the Gujaratcricketer-turned-bookie, gota five-year ban, whileSaurashtra and Royalsseamer Siddharth Trivedi issuspended for a year for notreporting an approachamong other things. Twenty-one-year-old Harmeet Singh,who was part of India’s Un-der-19 World Cup winningteam in 2012 and had a simi-lar charge against him asTrivedi, has been cleared ofwrongdoing due to a lack ofevidence against him.

There has been no rulingas yet on offspinner AjitChandila, the third Royalsplayer who was arrested inMay, since he is yet to bequestioned by Ravi Sawani,who led the BCCI’s probeinto the matter. Save for a fewdays when Chandila was outon bail due to a death in thefamily, he has been in policeor judicial custody since hisarrest on May 16, meaningSawani could not speak tohim. However, he wasgranted bail on September 9,so his case should come upsoon. Sreesanth and Chavanwere out on bail since June11.

Sreesanth tweeted soonafter the news of his banbroke, saying he found it“surprising”. “Been tracking

Spot-fixing in IPL-2013

Sreesanth, Ankeet get life ban

the news channels... Me get-ting a life ban??!! Very sur-prising,” he said. The tweetwas deleted soon after.

While Trivedi is bannedfrom playing any BCCI-organised cricket, the otherthree are banned from playingany such cricket or in any waybeing associated with activi-ties of the Indian board or itsaffiliates. The penalties weredecided upon by the disciplin-ary committee, comprisingboard president N Srinivasanand vice-presidents, ArunJaitley and Niranjan Shah. Theban means Trivedi will have tobe replaced in Royals’ squadfor the Champions LeagueT20, which begins on Septem-ber 21.

The Sawani report hadrecommended bans rangingfrom five years to life for thefour players it found guilty

on multiple accounts, includ-ing “match-fixing” and“seeking or offering a bribeas a reward for match-fixing”,the Indian Express reportedearlier in the day. The finalreport adopted a tough tone,saying that none of the play-ers were naive to the propo-sitions of manipulation.

“There is no specific miti-gating factor that would re-quire any mercy while sanc-tioning the aforesaid guiltyplayers,” Sawani said in thereport. “Sreesanth hasplayed a number of interna-tional games and was part ofthe Indian national teamwhich won the inaugural T20World Cup, 2007 and ICCCricket World Cup in 2011. Hehas received the ICC ACSUeducation programme onmany occasions. In any caseall the three players of

Rajasthan Royals who arenow being accused andfound guilty by the under-signed received the ICC Edu-cation Programme just priorto the beginning of the IPL-6season i.e. on April 5, 2013.The programme was deliv-ered to the entire RajasthanRoyals team by Mr Arrie DeBear, regional security man-ager of the ICC ACSU.

“Obviously, the anti-cor-ruption education given tothe three players had no im-pact on the conduct. There-fore, the three players de-serve no leniency whatso-ever.”

The players, minusChandila, were summonedby the board to present theircase in the disciplinary com-mittee meeting in Delhi.

Sreesanth, Chavan andChandila were arrested byDelhi Police on May 16 inMumbai, for the alleged ful-filling of promises made tobookmakers, along witheleven bookies including AmitSingh. Royals later sus-pended their players and theBCCI set up an inquiry intothe matter, headed by its Anti-Corruption and Security Unitchief Sawani. Apart from theaction taken by the board, theplayers face possible prisonsentences should they befound guilty in a court of law.They were among 39 personsnamed in the Delhi Police’schargesheet on alleged cor-ruption in the IPL in July,charged with criminal con-spiracy, cheating and dishon-esty under sections of the In-dian Penal Code and theMaharashtra Control ofOrganised Crime Act.—AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil’s former World Cup soccer champions Marcos, Zagallo, Rivellino, Amarildo and Bebetowith the FIFA World Cup trophy at the start of the FIFA WCUP Trophy Tour in Brazil.

SHANGHAI—Tennis super-star Roger Federer will makea rare appearance on thedoubles court when he teamsup with Chinese number oneZhang Ze at the ShanghaiMasters, organisers said.

Federer, with a record 17Grand Slam singles titles andnow striving to stay at thetop of the game, has playeddoubles only once this yearalthough he won the Olym-pic title in 2008.

“We know that Rogerdoes not play a lot of doublesthrough the year so havinghim take to the doubles courtin Shanghai is a wonderfuladdition to what is alreadyshaping up to be a fantasticweek of tennis,” tournamentdirector Michael Luevanosaid in a press release.

He added: “It is justamazing that Roger has cho-sen to play with a Chineseplayer. It is a great testamentto his affection with Chinaand his Chinese fans, he re-ally could have played with

Federer doubles up withChina’s Zhang in Shanghai

anyone.”The 23-year-old Zhang,

nicknamed “Big George”, isChina’s highest rankedsingles player at 180—com-pared to Federer’s worldnumber six—with a doublesrating of 334.

“I know I am going to bequite nervous to be thedoubles partner of Roger,”

said Zhang. “He is such a bigname all over the world andhas achieved so much suc-cess.” The October 6-13Shanghai Masters is shapingup as an important week forFederer, 32, as he bids to stayinside the world’s top eightand reach the end-of-yearATP World Tour Finals inLondon.—AFP

Roger Federer Zhang Ze

Zimbabwe 1st innings:294Pakistan 1st innings:230Zimbabwe 2nd innings: ...Mawoyo lbw b Arehman 58Utseya c Asad b Rahat .. 5Masakadza lbw b Rahat 44Panyangara c Azhar Alib Arehman ........................ 0Taylor c Azhar b Rahat . 27Sibanda c Adnan b Rahat10Waller c Khurram b Saeed 3Chigumbura c Adnanb Junaid ............................ 3Mutumbami b Saeed ..... 29Chatara c Adnan b Rahat . 1BV Vitori not out ............. 0Extras: (b 3, lb 11, w 5) .. 19Total: (all out) .............. 199Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-117,3-121, 4-121, 5-136, 6-149, 7-156, 8-177, 9-199, 10-199Bowling: ........... O-M-R-W

Junaid Khan ....... 19-6-37-1Rahat Ali .......... 24.5-5-52-5Saeed Ajmal ....... 22-7-56-2Arehman ............. 24-5-40-2Pakistan 2nd innings:Khurram b Utseya ......... 54Hafeez c Vitori b Chatara16Azhar Ali b Chatara ........ 0Younis Khan b Vitori .... 29Misbah not out ............. 26Asad Shafiq b Utseya .. 14Adnan Akmal not out ... 17Extras: (w 1, nb 1) ............ 2Total: (5 wickets) ......... 158Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-46, 3-90, 4-100, 5-133Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WT Panyangara .... 10-2-32-0BV Vitori ............. 11-2-46-1Chatara ............ 11.3-1-24-2P Utseya ............. 12-2-39-2Masakadza ............. 1-0-2-0

HARARE—This Test hasbeen played with pay strifeand load shedding as thesightscreens, but Zimbabwewere five wickets short of lift-ing that gloom momentarily.Misbah-ul-Haq stood be-tween them and only theirfifth Test win against teamsother than Bangladesh, theirfirst since 2001. It seemedthey had given up a signifi-cant bit of their advantage asthey lost their last six wick-ets for 78 and as the Pakistanopeners attacked them forquick early runs, but TendaiChatara and Prosper Utseyapulled Pakistan back withtimely strikes.

Pakistan themselves werechasing a bit of a landmark: awin here will be their third-highest successful chase,and their first of a 200-runtarget in close to last 10years. Having fallen behindover the first three days, Pa-kistan tried the classical big-team trick: bowl tight and letthe opposition batsmenmake the mistake, and try todemoralise them when theybowl.

The first part workedwell. Rahat Ali led a bowlingunit that aimed for the cracksas opposed to trying any-thing spectacular. The scor-ing stalled with in-and-outfields in place. Three of thesix Zimbabweans to be dis-missed today fell to poorshots. When their batsmentry to dominate the bowlers,though, they couldn’t keepit up for long enough.Chatara struck the first blowswith wickets of MohammadHafeez and Azhar Ali, andUtseya accounted for thedangerous Khurram

Zimbabwe vs Pakistan 2nd Test

Harare promisesthrilling final day

Manzoor for 54, and AsadShafiq.

That batting freely wouldbe difficult was evident forthe morning session. Rahatand Abdur Rehman beganwith the simple plan of land-ing the ball near the crack thatruns down the middle of thepitch. The ball would jag ei-ther side after hitting thecrack, and a wicket alwayslooked around the corner.Rahat first got Vusi Sibanda,who batted at No. 6 becausehe was unwell on the thirdday.

The pressure - the twobowled the first 12.4 overs ofthe day for just 25 runs - waspalpable. When Saeed Ajmalcame on to bowl, MalcolmWaller saw release in a shortand wide ball, but failed tokeep it down and gave pointthe catch. Junaid Khan, the

other change, hit the crackeven more regularly. Oncewhen he did, the ball movedaway from EltonChigumbura, beating his out-side edge. From a similar area,the next ball didn’t move, butthe muscle memory had al-ready drawn Chigumburaacross, and the edge wastaken.

The chaos continued af-ter lunch when Brendan Tay-lor ended his fighting in-nings with a limp drive at afull and wide delivery.

The lead hadn’t yetreached 250. RichmondMutumbani now began toattack, scoring 21 off the 25balls he faced after Taylor gotout. Those crucial runsadded, he got a leading edgeto Ajmal, followed shortly bya flailing pull from TendaiChatara.—AFP

Motorcycling:Lorenzo readyfor title defence

MISANO (Italy)—Defendingchampion Jorge Lorenzo saidhe was back to full healthgoing into this weekend’sSan Marino MotoGP, as theSpaniard prepares himself foranother run at the title.

Lorenzo, who suffered abroken collarbone at Assenin June, twice underwent sur-gery following his initialheavy crash in the Nether-lands and a subsequent ac-cident in Germany two weekslater.

However, the two-timeworld champion said his in-juries had finally healed andthat he was back in properphysical shape.

“I feel strong again like Iwas at Montmelo andMugello before the crash,”said Lorenzo, referring toconsecutive wins in Italy andCatalonia before his fall inthe Netherlands.

“Misano is a track I en-joy a lot and also the Yamahais comfortable there. My nextgoal is to fight for the vic-tory once more and think raceby race, improving our pacestep by step,” added theSpaniard, who has won thelast two races at Misano.

Lorenzo halted leaderMarc Marquez’s four-racewinning streak when he tri-umphed at Silverstone a fort-night ago, but he is still 39points adrift of his rookiecompatriot in the riders’standings with six races re-maining.—AFP

POSTMENOPAUSAL women whotake a class of medicine for high bloodpres sure may be at a greater risk for

developing breast cancer, according to arecent study by Fred Hutchinson CancerResearch Center scien-tists.

The study, publishedin the Journal of the Ameri-can Medical Association,is the first of its kind toanalyze long-term use ofthe antihypertensivedrugs known as calcium-channel blockers and toassociate their use to a riskof breast cancer.

The researchers noteit has been previouslytheorized that this type ofdrug could increase therisk of cancer becausethey suppress cell death,a normal part of a cell’slife.The team of research-ers, led by Dr. ChristopherLi, interviewed 1,763 people from the PugetSound region of Washington state. Theparticipants were all between ages 55-74years, 880 of whom had invasive ductalcancer, 1,027 had invasive lobular cancer,and 856 were cancer-free.In the US, about70% of all breast cancers are invasive duc-tal carcinomas, while about 20% are inva-sive lobular carcinomas, the researcherssay.

Researchers suggest that women whotake calcium-channel blockers may be athigher risk of developing breast cancer.

Results show that women who tookcalcium-channel blockers for 10 years or

more had a risk for both ductal and lobu-lar cancer that was 2.5 times higher thanthose who never used calcium-channelblockers or those who used other formsof antihypertensive drug.

Long-term use ofother forms of antihyperten-sive drugs, such as diuret-ics, beta blockers and angio-tensin-receptor blockers,were not linked to an in-creased breast cancer risk inthe study.Antihypertensives are themost-prescribed drugs in theUS, with the researchers cit-ing over 678 million prescrip-tions filled in 2010, andnearly 98 million being forcalcium-channel blockers.“Because hypertension is achronic condition, mostpeople with high blood pres-sure use antihypertensivedrugs chronically and willoften stay on the same regi-

men for long periods of time.Characterizing their potential asso-

ciations with the most common cancerin women is an important clinical andpublic health issue, particularly with theincreasing availability of alternative op-tions to manage hypertension.”

Although many people use highblood pressure drugs, often for long pe-riods of time, the evidence linking use ofantihypertensives to breast cancer hasbeen inconsistent.The study’s authorscite two studies, one from 1996 and onefrom 1997, that showed links between thedrugs and breast cancer.

Blood pressure drugs linkedto higher breast cancer risk

KARACHI: MQM supporters holding protest demonstration against its workers’ arrest.—PO photo by Sultan Chaki

KARACHI: Residents of Agra Taj blocked Maripur Road during a demonstration againstexcessive electricity load shedding.

Targeted operation unavoidablefor peace, prosperity in city

KARACHI: Director General Parks and Horticulture, KMC, Abdullah Mushtaq chair-ing a meeting on renovation of the green belts and parks in the city.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Min-ister Syed Qaim Ali Shahwelcomed the management ofHydro China Dawood PowerLtd. For their investment of$130 million for the establish-ment of 50-MW Wind PowerProject, at Bhambhore nearGharo and had assured themfull support and co-operationfrom Sindh government tomake the project success.Talking to a 5-member delega-tion of Hydro China DawoodPower Ltd, which called onhim at CM House Fridayevening,

The CM said that Sindhhad great potential in the fieldof Wind energy and any in-vestment to exploit its windenergy corridor would bewelcomed and encouraged .He assured the delegation

that their problem pertainingto provincial govt would beresolved on priority basisand those belonging to fed-eral government would begot resolved with the help ofPrime Minister (PM) of Paki-stan.

He said that the provin-cial government had alreadyallocated 1720-Acre to theircompany for the establish-ment of 50-MW PowerProject while the matter aboutthe confirmation of powerevacuation from NTDC andapproval for up-grant tarifffrom NEPRA would also begot resolved with the help ofPM, so that, the companycould execute its commercialoperation Date (COD) as perits schedule i-e June2015.While responding theCM’s invitation for further in-vestment in Sindh, the leader

of delegation Wang YongQiang, who was also CEO ofthe company offered invest-ment for establishment of 500-MW wind power project in theSindh.He said that his com-pany was in process in estab-lishing a 50-MW wind powerproject at Bhambhore nearGharo and had achieved let-ter of interest, letter of sup-ports, feasibility from AEDB,generation licenses and deter-mined generation tariff fromNEPRA however the matterspertaining upfront- Tariff andconformation for powerevacuation as per companyschedule were yet be resolved.

The CM assured them thattheir problems and bottlenecksif any would be got resolvedon priority basis.The ChairmanSindh Investment BoardZubair Motiwala, who had ac-

companied and facilitated thedelegation said that any typeof encouragement facilitationand incentive to the local andforeign companies would leadthe investment in the province.

He said that Sindh Govthad already framedinvestor’s friendly policy,consequently Billions of Ru-pees were being invested inthe province. He said thatHydro China Dawood PowerLtd. Was very much inter-ested to establish its anotherWind Energy Power Projectof 500-MW in Sindh, subse-quently, It will not only to mini-mize the energy crises in Sindhbut also open opportunities ofemployment for the people ofprovince .The Secretary toGovernment of Sindh EnergyDepartment and other officersof line department present onthe occasion.

Qaim welcomes Chinese firmto set up wind power project

Zardaricondoles demiseof A.R. Siddiqui

KARACHI—Former presi-dent Asif Ali Zardari has paidrich tributes to ex-federal sec-retary and chairman Board ofRevenue, A.R. Siddiqui, whodied in Karachi the other dayafter a short illness. A BilawalHouse statement here on Fri-day said that in a condolenceletter to Mrs AyeshaSiddiqui, the widow of A.R.Siddqui, the former presidentexpressed grief over the pass-ing away of her late husbanddescribing him as “a dedi-cated civil servant and a per-son of great integrity whoperformed his duties dili-gently and with devotion,without fear and refusing tosuccumb to undue pres-sures.”

Asif Ali Zardari’s letter toAyesha Siddiqui said, “I hadknown Mr. A. R. Siddiqui forquite some time. His courageof conviction earned him theadmiration and respect of many.Indeed his death is a great lossnot only to his family and thosewho knew and worked with himbut also to those who valuethese qualities.”—APP

KUJ annualelections todayKA R A C H I—The annualelections of the KarachiUnion of Journalists (KUJ)will be held on September14. This was stated by theChairman of the ElectionCommittee, Prof. Dr.Tauseef Ahmed Khan, onFriday. He said that the poll-ing will be held at theKarachi Press Club from9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

The number of total eli-gible voters is about 1,200.There are two panels in therun- one is headed by G.M.Jamali and the other by ImtiazKhan Faran.—APP

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Sindh govern-ment decided Friday to pro-vide selective premise toRangers with special arrange-ments for carrying out inves-tigation and prosecution inone police station in each dis-trict of the province and theinvestigation and prosecutionprocess to be done by Rang-ers would be incorporated tothat of police.

According to sources,Sindh Chief Minister SyedQaim Ali Shah would in nextfew days would make a for-mal announcement in thiscontext. A summary had beenmoved for approval from theCM. Despite that fact thatRangers was present in the

city but the lawlessnesscould not be controlled butgradually worsened to apoint of no return, they haddemanded more legal powersfor them so as to play theirrole more effectively for themaintenance of law and or-der in Karachi. However, theSindh provincial governmentwas reluctant to approveRangers demands becauseRangers were not profession-ally trained for carrying outinvestigation as police hadbut the Sindh provincial gov-ernment was, however, tak-ing various measures intoconsiderations, which in-cluded that the Sindh gov-ernment should approve aseparate set-up for rangers inKarachi’s all 5 districts.

Rangers investigationcells in the offing

Sindh to have7 new prisons

in 3 yearsSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Min-ister Syed Qaim Ali Shah hadapproved a summary for theestablishment of 7 new prisonsin the province. The summarywas moved earlier by the Min-istry of prisons. According todetails, the new jails wouldhave a capacity to keep 8000inmates and would be equippedwith latest security arrange-ments and equipments.

The proposed new 7 jailswould be established inKarachi, Thatta, Mirpurkhas,Benazirabad, Kashmore andDadu districts. The proposedjail for Karachi city would havea capacity of accommodating2,000 inmates while other jailswould have the capacity forkeeping 1000 inmates each.

The preliminary cost ofconstruction of the 7 new pro-posed jails was being estimatedto be Rs 2 billion.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Muttahida QaumiMovement’s deputy convenerof coordination committeeEng. Nasir Jamal while ad-dressing the students of SirSyed Engineering UniversityKarachi at ‘Techxibition’ (Anevent that was arranged andmanaged by AMPSO & SIRSSociety) said that youth werepatron for the development ofcountry.

Role of youth cannot beforgotten or ignored in the de-velopment of nations but itwas very unfortunate that ouryouth had not been given theright exposure and nurturingand it is a fundamental road-block on the route of devel-opment. Nations that nurture

and facilitate their youth withdevelopment opportunitieswere sure to be considereddeveloped.

On this occasion deputyconvener of MQM Dr KhalidMaqbool Siddiqui, MQM’smember of national assembly(MNA) Sajid Ahmed, MNAMuzammil Qureshi, memberprovincial assembly (MPA)Adnan Ahmed and membersof central cabinet of AMPSO,teachers and great number ofstudents were also present.

Students had set up stallsto exhibit their scientificprojects and their efforts werelauded by MQM’s deputyconvener Dr Khalid MaqboolSiddiqui and he also appreci-ated APMSO for their won-derful effort and also advised

students to keep their focuson education and that eventslike these would ultimatelygive more opportunities tostudents.

Earlier, MNA MuzammilQureshi while addressing tointroductory session said thatstudents are the ray of hopewhile the country is passingthrough a very tough time. Healso visited the stalls andcongratulated AMPSO onsetting up this event.

The exhibition lasted inthe evening at 6 and the eventwas covered by a large num-ber of media personnel andlater students and teachers ofSir Syed Engineering Univer-sity thanked AMPSO andwished to have more suchevents in future.

APMSO puts up Techxibitionat Sir Syed Varsity

JI for withdrawalof privatizationdecision of PIA

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Acting ChiefJamaat-e-Islami (JI) KarachiProf Nizamuddin Memon hasdemanded of the governmentto withdraw its decision ofthe privatization of the na-tional airline Pakistan Inter-national Airline.

He strongly condemnedthe decision of Prime Minis-ter to privatize the nationalairline, said that theprivatization of the nationalairline is not in the interestof the nation.

He said the nation hopedthat the Prime MinisterMuhammad Nawaz Sharif willplay his due role in the improve-ment of the national institu-tions, not to privatize them.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—A 33-memberParliamentary delegation ofPunjab assembly memberswhile in support of the on-going targeted operation inthe city against the crimi-nals said that the peace inKarachi was directly linkedto the peace and prosperityof the country and wouldcause the economy of thecountry to improve andhence the federal govern-ment should make sure thatthe targeted operationwould be continued tillcomplete restoration of

peace in the city. The tar-geted operation against thecriminals should be contin-ued without any discrimina-tion against the criminals andig any party had any reser-vations on the ongoing tar-geted operation, the federalgovernment should resolvetheir reservations.

The delegation hadreached the Sindh assemblyFriday and was received bySpeaker Sindh assemblyAgha Siraj Khan Durrani anddeputy Speaker Shehla Raza.The 33-member Parliamen-tary delegation was led byPunjab assembly Deputy

Speaker Sardar Sher AliGorchani.

Later, while speaking tothe newsmen, Gorchani saidthat the country was pass-ing through crucial times andwas facing variety of crisesincluding the energy crisis,terrorism, power outages, lawand order and economic is-sues, which could only beresolved with the unitedworking of the political par-ties for the sake of the c coun-try.

He said that new prov-inces should be created inthe country but for that pur-pose, a commission should

be formed to see whichprovince of the country hada need for the new provinceas per the aspirations of thepeople of that particular areaand that the creation of newprovinces should not be asper wish of any individual.The commission should begiven mandate to propose apolicy that should governthe principals for the cre-ation of new provinces.However, it was more impor-tant that the ongoing crisesshould be tackled down onpriority rather the countryshould embrace a new issueof new provinces.

A STUDY of elderly people finds thatthose whose diets were high in certainessential nutrients were less likely to

have the brain shrinkage associated withAlzheimer’s disease and more likely to scorebetter on tests of mental performance. The re-searchers published a paperon how they came to thesefindings in the 28 Decemberonline issue of Neurology.

The paper’s first authoris Dr Gene Bowman from theDepartments of Neurologyand Public Health and Pre-ventive Medicine at OregonHealth & Science Universityin Portland, and a member ofthe American Academy ofNeurology. He and his col-leagues describe three sets offindings:

Elderly people with di-ets high in several vitaminsor omega 3 fatty acids wereless likely to have the brainshrinkage that usually ac-companies Alzheimer’s dis-ease than people whose diets were low in thosenutrients.

Those whose diets were high in omega 3fatty acids and in vitamins C, D, E and the Bvitamins were also more likely to score betteron tests of mental ability than those whose di-ets were low in those nutrients.

Those whose diets were high in trans fatswere more likely to have brain shrinkage andperform less well on thinking and memorytests than those whose diets were low in transfats.Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for hu-man health but the body can’t make them.These are primarily found in fish, also an es-sential source of vitamin D; some plants and

nut oils are also good sources of omega 3fatty acids, which are also called polyunsatu-rated fatty acids (PUFAs).

B vitamins and antioxidants C and E areprimarily found in fruits and vegetables,except for B12, which mostly comes from

animal products, although it isalso present in fortified break-fast cereals. Trans fats are pri-marily found in fast, pack-aged, fried and frozen food,many baked goods and mar-garine spreads.

The study is thought to bethe first to measure severalnutrient biomarkers in theblood as a way to examinelinks between diet andmemory, thinking and brainvolume.

Until now, other studieshave only examined or or twonutrients at a time, or haveused data from diet question-naires, which rely on people’smemory of what they eat anddo not account for how effi-

ciently their bodies retain the nutrients, aparticular problem in the elderly.

For the study, Bowman and colleaguesrecruited 104 elderly people of average age87 who had few risk factors for impairedmemory and thinking. From participants’blood tests the researchers measured 30 dif-ferent nutrient biomarkers.

All the participants also completed testsof memory and thinking, while 42 of themalso underwent MRI scans that measuredtheir brain volume.

The results showed that overall the par-ticipants’ diets were healthy, but 25% werelacking in vitamin D and 7% were deficient

Feeling lonely can updementia risk in later life

Condolencereference forpolice officer

LAHORE—Inspector Generalof National Highway andMotorway Police ZulfiqarAhmed said Mubshir ShahShaheed was a professional po-lice officer who embraced mar-tyrdom while protecting citizensin Bhera, a couple of days ago.

Addressing participants in acondolence reference forMubashir Hussain Shah, heldhere on Friday, he said that hewas among the most respectedindividuals of his time. MubshirShah’s courage, determination,sense of morals and principlesset a precedent for his col-leagues, juniors and new induct-ees in the National Highways &Motorway Police.

The IG also announcednaming Motorway Police BheraBeat Camp in his name. He saidfull pay, annual incrementswould continue as per rules forthe family of the Shaheed. Healso presented a cheque of Rs 3million to father of MubshirShah and awarded a gallantryaward to Shaheed’s sonHamza.—APP

CNG stations openLAHORE—All CNG filling sta-tions of five regions of Punjab(Lahore, Sheikhupura,Gujranwala, Multan andSahiwal) opened on Friday afterobserving three weekly holidays.The CNG stations will supply gasfor three days according to newGas Load Management Plan is-sued by the Sui Northern GasPipelines Limited.—APP

Purchase

PTI leader offerscondolence

LAHORE—Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Punjab presidentEjaz Chaudhary and general sec-retary Dr Yasmeen Rashid onFriday expressed their deep griefand sorrow over sad demise ofgreat spiritual personality MianJamil Ahmad Sharaqpuri.

In a condolence message,they prayed Almighty Allah torest the departed soul in eternalpeace and give courage and pa-tience to the bereaved familymembers to bear this loss.—APP

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Min-ister Muhammad ShahbazSharif has said that skilled man-power plays a vital role in rapiddevelopment, poverty allevia-tion and stability of economy.

He said that youth throughlearning various skills can notonly stand on their feet but alsoearn foreign exchange for thecountry by going abroad. Hesaid that Punjab government hasadopted a solid strategy for thepromotion of vocational educa-tion and preparing skilledworkforce in accordance withthe market needs. He said thatSkills Development Programmelaunched in five district of southPunjab with the collaboration ofDFID has yielded positive re-sults and its scope is now beingextended to another 18 districtsof the province.

Addressing a meeting withregard to promotion of voca-tional education and skills de-velopment in the youth, theChief Minister said that a majorportion of country’s population

Skilled manpower neededfor rapid development of

economy: Shahbazcomprise youth and the destinyof the nation can be changed byequipping the young generationwith modern knowledge. Hesaid that young generation playsa vital role in the developmentof a country.

He said that the goal of na-tional progress and prosperitycan be achieved through em-powerment and imparting ofvarious skills to the youth. Hesaid that Punjab government hasevolved a number ofprogrammes for the welfare andprovision of job opportunities tothe youth.

He said that interest-freeloans are being given to youthunder self-employment scheme.He said that provincial govern-ment provided interest-free loansworth billions of rupees to theyouth during the last five yearsso that they could achieve self-reliance and this programme isstill continuing.

The Chief Minister said thatfuture of the country is linkedwith technical education whichis necessary for its economic sta-bility. He said that Punjab gov-

ernment has introduced SkillsDevelopment Programme forimparting free training to theyouth in various skills for con-trolling poverty and unemploy-ment.

He said that after the successof this programme in five districtsof south Punjab, its scope is be-ing extended to all districts of theprovince for benefitting maxi-mum number of youth. The ChiefMinister further said that provi-sion of relief and welfare of themasses is the agenda of PakistanMuslim League-N and all outresources are being provided forthis purpose.

He said that Punjab govern-ment has given priority to speedand transparency in the execu-tion of all developmentprogrammes and projects. Hesaid that Punjab government ofPML-N has taken unprec-edented measures for the better-ment and uplift of the commonman during the last five years.He said that government is alsotrying to resolve energy crisisand the day is not far off whenall problems will be overcome.

LAHORE: A health worker giving polio drops to a child during immunization campaign inBaghbanpura.

LAHORE: Chief Justice Lahore High Court Mr. Justice Atta Bandial and other judges with the retiring judge Mr.Justice Ch. M Yunus.

LDA to start Ravidevelopment zoneLAHORE—A strategic policyUnit (SPU) will be set up underthe supervision of Director Gen-eral, Lahore Development Au-thority, for starting planningwork on the River Ravi Devel-opment Zone Project in Lahore.

The Governing Body ofLDA decided this in its meeting.This project entails high qualityresidential, commercial, institu-tional, cultural and recreationalzones along both sides of riverRavi at a stretch of 33 kilome-ter.

The SPU will comprise ofarea specialists of various fieldsincluding urban planning, waterengineering, transport engineer-ing, GIS, applied economics andfinance, and will be housed inLDA.—APP

MWM hold demoLAHORE—The Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) staged aprotest demonstration againstthe expected US aggression onSyria and Egypt.

A large number of workersparticipated in the protest, led byMWM deputy secretary generalAllama Syed Jafar Musvi, atShabab Chowk, Samanabd hereon Friday.

The protestors were carry-ing banners and placards in-scribed with different slogansagainst America and Israel.

Allama Jafar Musvi, AllamaImtiaz Kazmi and others de-manded of the government toplay its role for rights of Mus-lims.—APP

Sethi perturbedover airportconditions

LAHORE—Civil Aviation Sec-retary Nargis Sethi has said theAllama Iqbal International Air-port does not look like an inter-national airport and warned ofstrict measures if sanitation wasnot improved.

Talking to the media aftervisiting the Allama Iqbal Inter-national Airport on Friday, shealso expressed concern overstealing of passenger goods.

Sethi warned officers andemployees of action against latecoming.

She said delay in taking offplanes of any airline componywould not be tolerated.—APP

LAHORE—A joint meeting ofthree locomotive manufacturingcompanies and a team of seniorengineers of the Pakistan Rail-ways, presided over by FederalMinister Khawaja Saad Rafique,reviewed the purchase of 58 lo-comotives at the PR headquar-ters here on Friday.

Representatives of CSRZiyang locomotive companyfrom China, Allied Engineeringfrom the United States andPEMCON from Pakistan par-ticipated in the meeting.

The PR minister told themedia after the meeting that Pa-kistan would never sign anyagreement against national inter-

Purchase of 58locomotives reviewed

ests, adding transparency wouldbe ensured in agreements andthe time of commission andkickbacks had been over.

He said that a session ofcross-talk among all stakehold-ers had been arranged in themeeting for satisfaction ofthem, adding that it was directedto all PR departments to exam-ine all matters including perfor-mance, warranty and mainte-nance of locomotives in detail.

He said down-payment hadbeen made for 58 locomotivesand the supply of locomotiveswould start in November.

The minister said the Chi-nese company had been asked

for more warranty as it wasthree years earlier.

Earlier, a meeting with an-other Chinese company, CRCCChina, was also held in whicha comprehensive discussionwas arranged on the Pak-Chinafinancial corridor and up-gra-dation of Peshawar to Karachirailway track.

Khawaja Saad also pre-sided over a meeting to analyzethe 100 days performance ofthe railways.

General Manager Opera-tions Anjum Pervaiz, AdditionalGM Mechanical Asad Ehsanand AGM Traffic Javaid Anwarwere also present.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—In a terrible andshocking incident, unknown as-sailants criminally assaulted afive-year old girl in Lahore andthrew her outside a local hospi-tal. The victim is resident ofMughalpura area. She was miss-ing from Thursday but foundoutside Ganga Ram Hospitalwhere a security guard shifted herto ICU for treatment. Her surgerywas carried out by doctors andnow she is out of danger.

Police has taken five peopleinto custody for interrogation.Police have formed two teams toarrest the main culprits.

Punjab Chief MinisterMuhammad Shahbaz Sharif has

5 held for assaulting5-year girl

taken strict notice of the rape ofa five years old girl ofMughalpura Lahore and directedthe police to arrest the culpritsinvolved in this brutal act so thatdeterrent punishment could beawarded to them under the law.He said that the persons involvedin this heinous crime deserve noleniency.

The PTI leader AndaleebAbbas said the deplorable inci-dent reflects that fact that ruth-less criminals are running scot-free in our society and the sadpart is the government is doingnothing to apprehend them. Sheurged the government apprehendthe criminals as soon as possibleand severe punishment should beawarded to them.

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—In the wake of pos-sible spread of Congo fever dueto large-scale movement of sac-rificial animals on the occasionof Eid-ul-Azha, Punjab HealthDepartment, has put all govern-ment hospitals, autonomousmedical institutions, private hos-pitals and EDOs Health of all dis-tricts on high alert and directedthem to make immediate arrange-ments for controlling this diseaseand the treatment of patients.

Crimean Congo Hemor-rhagic Fever (CCHF) is a viraldisease which is transmitted by“Ticks” found on animals. Tickspresent on the skin of animals(sheep, goats, cattle and camels)or at animal sheds act as vector

Congo fever spread

All hospitals put on high alertfor transmission of CCHF whichcan spread to medical profes-sionals and others through directcontact with patients sufferingfrom it.

A spokesman of Health De-partment Punjab said that as apreventive measure, Health De-partment has issued a warning todoctors, nurses, paramedicalstaff as well as common citizensto take precautionary measuresagainst this disease and providetimely treatment to the patientsat hospitals.

He said that CCHF can beeasily transmitted from patient todoctor therefore they should re-main extremely careful.

The spokesman further saidthat the persons engaged in thetrading of animals or their look

after should also adopt preven-tive measures.

EDOs Health of all districtshave been directed to contact of-ficers of Livestock and DairyDevelopment Department forensuring spray in the cattle mar-kets, slaughter houses, dairy,Gawala colonies, sacrificial ani-mals sale yards and other animalgathering places.

The spokesman advised thepeople to ensure examination ofdiseased animals from veteri-nary doctor so that transmissionof CCHF to human beings couldbe prevented. The spokesmanadvised doctors that in case ofarrival of any CCHF patient inhospital, case managementguideline should be followed inhis treatment.

Crack downagainst professional

beggarsLAHORE—District administra-tion Lahore has decided tolaunch crack down against pro-fessional beggars across the cityfrom Saturday (today).

On the directives of DCO,various departments and townsworking under the city districtadministration would conductcrack down in different areas ofcities.

The women beggars wouldbe sent to Dar-ul-Amaan, chil-dren to child protection homesand drug addicts to jail.

The decision was taken dueto surge in number of profes-sional beggars in the city whichagitate the passersby in markets,chows, outside mosques and attraffic signals.—INP

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Minis-ter, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharifpresided over a meeting regard-ing proposed project of Knowl-edge City at Model Town.

Provincial Education Minis-ter, Rana Mashhood AhmedKhan, Chief Secretary, SecretaryPlanning & Development, Spe-cial Secretary Higher Educationand concerned officials attendedthe meeting. A detailed briefingwas given during meeting aboutthe proposed project of settingup of Knowledge City over 705acre land near Rakh Dera

Shahbaz for implementation ofproject of Knowledge City

Chahal, Lahore.Addressing the meeting,

Shahbaz Sharif said that theproposed project of establishingKnowledge City will prove arevolutionary step for the rapiddevelopment of education sec-tor. He said that campuses ofprestigious educational institu-tions will be set up in Knowl-edge City for education and re-search in science & technology,medical sciences, finance &accounting and informationtechnology. The Chief Ministerdirected to prepare a master planfor implementation of the pro-posed project of Knowledge

City. He directed that a separatecompany should be establishedfor implementation of masterplan. He said that the campusesof universities affiliated withrenowned foreign educationalinstitutions will be establishedin Knowledge City. He said thatKnowledge City will be con-structed on the pattern of OxfordUniversity, a prestigious educa-tional institution of UK and pol-lution free atmosphere will beensured. The Chief Minister di-rected that the project of con-structing a lake between all cam-puses of Knowledge City shouldbe considered.

LHC takesnotice of acidattack on man

LAHORE—The Lahore HighCourt on Friday took notice of anews published in a section ofpress of throwing acid on a 24-year-old man allegedly by his in-laws for not making up with hiswife. The district and sessionsjudge Muzaffargarh has been di-rected to probe into the matter andsubmit a detailed report regardingsteps taken by police along withhis own comments.

According to details, Liaqatof Baitmeera Hazaar Jatoi hadmarried Sumaira Bibi a year ago.However, some weeks ago, theyquarrelled and Sumaira returnedto her parents house. SumariaMoU signed

for supply ofbeverages

LAHORE—A Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MOU) has beensigned by Pepsi-Cola for supplyof carbonated and non-carbon-ated beverages to BURGERKING in Pakistan.

Jahanzeb Khan CountryHead, Pepsi-Cola Pakistan andAfghanistan and MaryamHassan Chief Executive OfficerMCR Pakistan (Pvt) Limitedsigned MOU, said a press re-lease issued here on Friday.

The ceremony was attendedby senior member teams fromthe both organizations.

“This is a natural alliance”said Romana Aziz Khan, theDirector Key Accounts and Ca-pability for Pepsi-Cola Pakistan.

The BURGER KING brandis looking forward to expandingits horizon in Pakistan and willbe managed by MCR as themaster franchisee.

MCR is an established namein the F&B Industry and hassuccessfully managed multipleinternational franchise foodsbusinesses in Pakistan for morethan 20 years.—APP