NEW WORLD ISSUES

The clocks in Pakistan were moved back by one hour on Saturday midnight.The government had introduced daylight saving on April 15 to help overcome the shortfall of electricity which had touched 4,000 megawatts during summer. According to estimates provided by the ministry of water and power, about 250 megawatts of power were conserved daily thanks to the decision to advance the Pakistan Standard Time (PST) by an hour. A ministry...

Today the Pakistan Prime Minister Gilani said that improving the law and order situation in the country especially in the militancy-hit NWFP remains government's top priority.He stated that illiteracy and poverty are the root cause of terrorism in Pakistan and these issue must be settled at all cost.As the NWFP seeks maximum share in the NFC award, the Prime Minister has announced 110 billion rupees in net hydel profit for...

Pakistan is a democratic country and it was established on ideology of Islam.The total population rate recorded in July 2000 was 141,553,775.At that time the population growth rate was 2.17%.Today Pakistan is facing a lot of problems and the biggest one is terrorism and others are inflation, high increase of population growth and unemployment etc.Terrorism is the major problem facing by Pakistan today. Suicide bombing attacks are...

LEGEND has it that at the edge of many towns in the old American West stood a last chance saloon where cowboys could get a final drink before setting off to spend months in the open prairies.More and more, the presidency is coming to resemble this mythical watering hole where all manner of dubious characters gather.Talking to a senior PPP figure, I got the sense that the old guard are aware that this is the last time the party is likely...

Last week, Iranian leaders say, this shadowy group with reported connections to countries as diverse as the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia delivered a devastating attack on Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard. The Oct. 18 suicide bombing in an Iranian border village killed at least 42 people, including top Revolutionary Guard commanders.The bombing suggests that ambitions by Jundallah — the Soldiers of God — have risen, and that the group...

In Peshawar at least seven security officials have been killed while 10 others have been injured in remote-controlled explosion in Bara Tehsil of Khyber agency.According to Frontier Corps Officials, a security forces convoy was attacked with a remote-controlled device while they were patrolling in Sorghar area....

The Karachi Police at least 40 more suspected foreigners including 31 Afghans have been arrested during a raid in the Orangi town area of Karachi.According to the sources, they said no weapons have been recovered in the raids and the suspects will be charged under the Foreigners Act for not producing valid documents pertaining to their stay in Pakistan.The suspects deny any militant links and further investigations are underway.The number...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wound up a bridge-building visit to Pakistan on Friday leaving a pointed question ringing in her hosts’ ears: Where are the al Qaeda leaders operating in your country?While no Pakistani officials were immediately prepared to answer, ordinary citizens told Washington’s top diplomat the country was living on a daily basis with the consequences of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks engineered by the militant...

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon Thursday warned that the world body was vulnerable to more attacks in the week leading up to the Afghan elections and pleaded for more help to protect his staff.‘We cannot do it alone,’ the secretary general told a crisis meeting of the UN Security Council following Wednesday's suicide attack by Taliban fighters on a UN guesthouse in Kabul that killed five UN staffers and wounded nine.‘We need the support...

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Law approved the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), as the opposition made strong protests and boycotted the committee meeting.The law committee approved the NRO after a hectic debate that spanned two consecutive days.The committee passed all seven clauses of the controversial ordinance, and now the NRO will be taken up in the parliament to face its toughest challenge: to become part of...

China has expressed keen interest in participating in the Prime Minister’s Housing Scheme to develop affordable houses for every Pakistani.These views were expressed here Friday by a three-member delegation from Pakistan Housing Authority including Syed Turrab Haider Zaidi, Senior Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Works, Col (Rtd) Subha Sadiq Malik, Director General Land Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) and Athar Nawaz Malik,...

The Supreme Court was informed on Friday that the government and mill owners have agreed to sell sugar to domestic consumers at Rs40 per kg.A signed agreement of the two parties was presented to the Supreme Court during the hearing of the case.The sugar mills will release 30 per cent of the available stock of sugar for domestic consumption and the remaining 70 per cent shall be released for industrial consumption.The release of sugar...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared Friday to wrap up a diplomatic mission to Pakistan overshadowed by an outburst against the government over Al-Qaeda and a massive bomb attack, AFP reports.The top US diplomat was scheduled to hold talks in the capital Islamabad with Pashtun leaders, the ethnic group that dominates both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, journalists, police and lawmakers.Clinton has sought to use...

As things fall apart around us, it is a struggle to make sense of any of it. Hold your head or cover your face or curl up in the fetal position, escape is impossible.It’s there in the newspapers, on news channels, the streets, homes and offices: the graphic, almost ghoulish, intersection of war and politics in this country. And nobody, not one person screeching on TV or expounding in private, is truly able to explain what is happening....

India is in the midst of a familiar debate: how far should a nation use force to protect the rule of law? The question has arisen because the Naxalites, the extreme leftists, have come to control almost one-sixth of the country where the civil administration had failed. Their area has come to be termed as the red corridor. The central government has woken up to the challenge to its authority rather late. The Naxalites, also called the...

The series of recent terrorist attacks call for a close analysis of the militant threat and the formulation of a strategy to ward off such tragedies. At the moment, we seem to be jumping from one target to another, fighting some enemies and denying the existence of others. Hence the plan lacks strategic depth as the state appears to pursue one type of enemy leaving out others. It will help to explain that the state of Pakistan is confronted...

Police arrested more than 50 Afghan nationals in different parts of the city and three Tajik students in a North Nazimabad seminary on Thursday, in a surprise move against foreigners staying in the city illegally.The fresh action within the remits of some half a dozen police stations led to the arrest of a total of 58 Afghans, who would be charged under the Foreign Act.‘The police action began in the second half of the day and led to...

A moderate 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued, seismologists said.The quake struck at 2:21 pm (0521 GMT) local time, 168 kilometres at sea southeast of Manado city in North Sulawesi province at a depth of 30 kilometres, the Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysics Agency said.Indonesia sits on the Pacific ‘Ring of...

Pakistan has welcomed India’s readiness to discuss all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir.Commenting on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent statement expressing readiness to discuss with Pakistan all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, a Foreign Office spokesman said this was a welcome reiteration of the understanding reached at the Sharm-El Sheikh summit between Pakistan and India.The spokesman said it had...

Wasim Akram has requested a goverment inquiry 'at the highest level' following the sudden death of his wife and the events that led to it, Pakistan's Sports Minister Pir Aftab Shah Jilani has revealed to the Press Trust of India.Huma Akram died in a Chennai hospital on Sunday following multiple organ failure. She was 42.She was admitted to the hospital on Oct 20 in an emergency situation, suffering from a fever. The air ambulance carrying...

India is withdrawing about 15,000 soldiers from Kashmir in a confidence-building move with the region’s separatist political groups as it seeks to restart negotiations to help end a two-decade insurgency.Kashmiri separatist groups urged New Delhi to pull out troops, release prisoners and end alleged human rights violations after the Indian government offered talks this month.A military spokesman said one army division was being moved in...

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s charm offensive rolled into a wall of suspicion at one of Pakistan’s top universities on Thursday as students grilled her on whether America was truly ready to be a steadfast partner in a time of crisis.Mrs Clinton, on the second day of a three-day visit aimed at turning around a US-Pakistan relationship under serious strain, was presented with stark evidence of the “trust deficit” that...

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- A 6.1-magnitude earthquake rocked the Pakistan areas at 11:44pm local time Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. The tremor was felt in Pakistani cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar,Mansehra Azad Kashmir according to local TV reports, which first put the magnitude at 6.1. Many people ran out of their houses to the open air in fear as their cities were hit by the earthquake. A Pakistan Meteorological Department official was quoted as saying that the epicenter was at Serhad, Punjab...

The U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan squandered opportunities over the years to kill or capture leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.While U.S. officials have said they believe Osama bin Laden and senior lieutenants have been hiding in the rugged terrain along the border with Afghanistan, Clinton's unusually blunt comments went further as she suggested...