Efforts for Musharraf-Imran nexus heat up

DALLAS, Texas: All Pakistan Muslim League chief Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf and Tehrik-e-Insaf leader Imaran Khan are busy forging a covert political alliance through friends, sources privy to the development revealed Wednesday, Geo News reported.

The mayor of Paris (Texas, USA)) Dr Arjumand Hashmi, one of Musharraf’s cronies, is trying to broker a deal with all he is worth, they added. Read more

CID report on Hazaras’ killing submitted in court

QUETTA: The advocate general submitted before a bench of the Balochistan High Court on Tuesday a report of the Crimes Investigation Department (CID) which stated that an important clue had been found in the Mastung massacre, but said that details could not be disclosed because that would affect further investigation.

Twenty-nine members of the Shia Hazara community were killed by gunmen near Mastung on Sept 20.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Abdul Qadir Mengal accepted the counsel’s request that due to sensitivity of the matter the report be kept under wraps.

A report prepared by the Frontier Corps was also submitted which said the Levies Force did not coordinate with them in the investigation.

The court noted that although the government had restored the Levies Force, it was not properly trained to combat terrorism and other crimes and directed the government to take steps to improve the force’s performance.

The court also called for measures aimed at better coordination among different law-enforcement agencies to stop terrorist incidents and other heinous crimes. The hearing was adjourned till Nov 23.(Dawn.com)

Libya conflict: NTC forces claim Bani Walid advance

Forces loyal to Libya's interim authorities say they have entered Bani Walid, one of the last towns still loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi.

NTC military commanders said they met heavy resistance from Gaddafi loyalists in the town, some 170km (110 miles) south-east of the capital, Tripoli.

Meanwhile, fighting is continuing for Col Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte.

And a pro-Gaddafi television station has confirmed reports the ex-leader's son, Khamis, was killed in late August.

Arrai television, based in Syria, said he had died during fighting with National Transitional Council (NTC) forces in the city of Tarhouna, 90km (60 miles) south-east of Tripoli.Read more

Very Large Array telescope in public call for new name

One of the world's most famous radio telescope facilities needs a new name - and ideas are wanted.

The Very Large Array (VLA) is a bank of radio telescopes in New Mexico, US, and has appeared in a number of films including Contact and Independence Day.

The array has been undergoing a radical upgrade of its electronics since 2001.

To celebrate the project's finish, the observatory that runs the array wants to rename it - and is asking the public to submit ideas.Read more

Romney Beating Obama in a Fight for Wall St. Cash

Mitt Romney has raised far more money than Mr. Obama this year from the firms that have been among Wall Street’s top sources of donations for the two candidates.

That gap underscores the growing alienation from Mr. Obama among many rank-and-file financial professionals and Mr. Romney’s aggressive and successful efforts to woo them.

The imbalance exists at large investment banks and hedge funds, private equity firms and commercial banks, according to a New York Times analysis of the firms that accounted for the most campaign contributions from the industry to Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama in 2008, based on data from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

It could widen as Mr. Obama, seeking to harness anger over growing income inequality, escalates his criticism of the industry, after a year spent trying to smooth ties bruised by efforts to impose tougher regulations. Read More

Shahbaz Taseer somewhere on the border of Afghanistan: Rehman Malik

Occupy Wall Street movement raises $300K

The Occupy Wall Street movement has close to $300,000, as well as storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan.

It stared down city officials to hang on to its makeshift headquarters, showed its muscle on Saturday with a big Times Square demonstration and found legions of activists demonstrating in solidarity across the country and around the world.

Could this be the peak for loosely organised protesters, united less by a common cause than by revulsion to what they consider unbridled corporate greed? Or are they just getting started?

There are signs of confidence, but also signs of tension among the demonstrators on Monday at Zuccotti Park, the epicentre of the movement that began a month ago.

They have trouble agreeing on things like whether someone can bring in a sleeping bag, and show little sign of uniting on any policy issues. Some protesters eventually want the movement to rally around a goal, while others insist that isn’t the point.

“We’re moving fast, without a hierarchical structure and lots of gears turning,” said Justin Strekal, a college student and political organiser who travelled from Cleveland to New York to help. “…Egos are clashing, but this is participatory democracy in a little park.”

Even if the protesters were barred from camping in Zuccotti Park, as the property owner and the city briefly threatened to do last week, the movement would continue, Mr. Strekal said. He said activists were working with legal experts to identify alternate sites where the risk of getting kicked out would be relatively low.

Wall Street protesters are intent on hanging on to the momentum they gained from Saturday’s worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. They’re filling a cavernous space on Broadway a block from Wall Street with donated goods to help sustain their nearly month-long occupation of the private park nearby. Read more

Rains in Central America kill 74

The death toll from torrential rains in Central America over the past week has jumped to 74 over the past 24 hours, with a further 20 lives lost in El Salvador, authorities said on Sunday.
A tropical depression that swept in from the Pacific on Wednesday caused mudslides, chaos on roads and forced thousands of people to abandon their homes in the chain of countries between Mexico and South America.

On Saturday, the death toll stood at 45 in the region, home to some of the poorest countries in the Americas. El Salvador was the worst affected overnight, with accidents pushing up the total number of victims there to 27.
“The majority of these people were killed by mudslides in their homes,” local emergency services official Jorge Melendez told reporters at a news conference.
Guatemala also reported more dead, bringing its death toll to 28, while the total rose to 12 in Honduras. At least seven people have also died in Nicaragua. No deaths were reported in Costa Rica, though dozens of families have been evacuated.
Rain was still falling in parts of the region. The weather has also hit southeastern Mexico, where swollen rivers have affected thousands of people, notably in Tabasco state.
At least four people died in Mexico earlier in the week when Category Two Hurricane Jova struck from the Pacific, forcing the country’s busiest port to close.

Iran says 'ready to examine' US plot accusations

TEHRAN: Iran is "ready to examine" information the United States says supports accusations Tehran plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Monday.

"We are ready to examine with deliberation any issue, even if it was fabricated. We have asked America to provide us with information of this scenario," Salehi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.(The News pk)

Afghan provincial intel chief targeted in bombing

KABUL: A suicide bomber attacked a car carrying a provincial head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Monday, wounding the spy and killing a child in the north of the country, police said.

The bomber detonated next to a car in which the National Directorate of Security (NDS) official was travelling at 8:20am in Maymanah in Faryab province, Lal Mohammad, police spokesman for the northern region, told AFP.

“The chief of NDS was going to his office when the attacker, a person wearing a suicide vest, detonated near his car.

“One child is killed and six other people, including the provincial chief of NDS, are injured,” said Mohammad.

Mohammad had said initially that a “number of civilians” were killed.(Dawn.com)

Iran says ‘ready to examine’ US plot accusations

TEHRAN: Iran is “ready to examine” information the United States says supports accusations Tehran plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday.

“We are ready to examine with deliberation any issue, even if it was fabricated. We have asked America to provide us with information of this scenario,” Salehi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Iran has sent a letter to US authorities via the Swiss embassy in Tehran asking for information about an Iranian-American in US custody accused of being at the centre of the alleged plot. It also demanded consular access to the suspect.

Iranian officials and leaders have fiercely denied any involvement in the alleged plot, calling it an attempt by Washington to divert attention from domestic economic woes and foreign policy failures in the Middle East.

The denials have become louder as the United States has made moves to rally other nations to a bid to further isolate Iran, which is already subject to severe economic sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Sunday that “any inappropriate action — whether political or security-related — will meet with the Iranian people’s decisive response.”(AFP)

Photo by Reuters

Obama to GOP on jobs bill: "Do the right thing"

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he's going to travel the country telling lawmakers to do their jobs and vote in favor of his economic proposals.

Coming off a week when his nearly $450 billion jobs bill died in the Senate, Obama made no reference to that failure, instead promising to renew efforts to get Republicans to vote on individual parts of the legislation.

"Next week, I'm urging members of Congress to vote on putting hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom, cops back on the streets and firefighters back on the job," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"And if they vote `no' on that, they'll have to tell you why," he said. "They'll have to tell you why teachers in your community don't deserve a paycheck again. They'll have to tell your kids why they don't deserve to have their teacher back. They'll have to tell you why they're against common-sense proposals that would help families and strengthen our communities right now." Read more at Cbs News

Terrorists Seeking Missing Libyan Missiles

BRUSSELS -- Terrorist groups have expressed interest in obtaining some of the thousands of shoulder-launched missiles that have gone missing in Libya and the issue has become a priority for the Obama administration, a senior U.S. official said Friday.

Andrew J. Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, said Friday the missiles "could pose a threat to civil aviation."

"We know that terrorist groups have expressed interest in obtaining these weapons," he said, adding that the issue issue of securing the weapons was a priority for President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Read more ON FOX NEWS

Iran supreme leader rejects 'absurd' US plot allegations

TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed Saturday US allegations of a Tehran-sponsored assassination plot as "absurd," in his first direct reaction to the claim.

"It's a meaningless and absurd accusation regarding a number of Iranians," he told a crowd in the western city of Gilangharb in a speech carried by state television. "But it has not stuck and it will not stick," he said.

Obama Okayed recent drone strikes in NSC meeting

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration has launched the opening salvos of a new, more aggressive approach toward an Afghan insurgent group it asserts is supported by Pakistan’s government, senior administration officials said and a US newspaper Washington Post reported.

The decision to strike Miran Shah was made at a National Security Council meeting chaired by President Obama two weeks ago and was intended to “send a signal” that the United States would no longer tolerate a safe haven for the most lethal enemy of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, or Pakistan’s backing for it, said one of several U.S. officials who spoke about internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity.

A CIA drone strike Thursday killed three members of the Haqqani network, including a senior official, and additional strikes Friday left four insurgents dead. The attacks in Pakistan were carried out near Haqqani headquarters in the North Waziristan capital of Miran Shah, a city rarely targeted in the past because of the difficulty of finding well-concealed insurgent leaders and the possibility of civilian deaths in an urban area.

Early Saturday, drone-fired U.S. missiles hit a compound in neighboring South Waziristan, killing at least three militants, the Associated Press reported. Pakistani intelligence officials said the militants belonged to a group led by Maulvi Nazir, who is accused of working with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to direct cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

The strikes were made possible by focusing intelligence collection to “allow us to pursue certain priorities,” the official said. The senior Haqqani figure, Janbaz Zadran, was selected along with other targets to “demonstrate how seriously we take the Miran Shah” threat.(Geo.tv)

US think-tank urges Obama to freeze Pak aid

WASHINGTON: A US think-tank has urged Obama administration to freeze its aid to Pakistan until the country took actions against perpetrators of the US embassy attack in Kabul and helped shut down the Haqqani network.

The Heritage Foundation also asked the administration to back Congress on conditioning all US aid to Pakistan on certain counter-terrorism benchmarks. But the report warned that while this would be “a welcome tactic, it may be insufficient”.

The foundation demanded that the Obama administration designate the Haqqani network a foreign terrorist organisation. It argued that failing to do so after the Sept. 13 attack on the US embassy in Kabul would signal America’s weakness and invite additional attacks on its interests in Afghanistan.

The report also proposed establishing a congressional commission to oversee US relations with Pakistan. “Congress should investigate Pakistan’s role in fomenting the insurgency in Afghanistan and the extent to which its actions were preventing the US and Nato from achieving their security objectives in the region,” the report added.

The foundation also advised Obama administration to step up drone attacks inside Pakistan. It pointed out that increased tempo in drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas had severely downgraded the Al Qaeda leadership and disrupted its ability to attack the US.

“Washington should pursue the same kind of aggressive drone campaign against the Haqqani network,” the report demanded.

The foundation also issued a fact-sheet to back its claim that the Obama administration needed to have a plan ‘B’ for dealing with Pakistan if it continued to ‘defy’ Washington.

The fact-sheet described Pakistan as “the main obstacle to progress in Afghanistan” because it “proxies conducting brazen attacks on US interests”.

The report claimed that the Haqqani network, which the former military chief Admiral Mike Mullen called a ‘veritable arm’ of ISI, was based in Pakistan and was planning and carrying out attacks at US interests in Afghanistan.

The foundation also urged the White House to change its Afghan strategy, noting that President Obama’s aggressive withdrawal plan to remove 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next September only “reinforces the Pakistani view that the US will turn its back” on the region. “We cannot afford to leave a void the Taliban can again fill. We should make clear that US will remain engaged.”(The News Pk)

Post mortem of drowned sisters underway

KARACHI: Post mortem of the three sisters, who drowned in a water tank near their home on Saturday in Orangi Town, is underway in Abbasi Shaeed Hospital gere, Geo News reported.

According to SP SITE Shahjahan Khan, the three deceased girls were identified as 14-year-old Samira, 12-year-old Uzma and 6-year-old Nisha. All were daughters of Sher Mohammed and two of the three daughters were handicapped.

The witness said that they were foaming at the mouth when they saw girls’ dead bodies at 4 am.

A relative told Geo News that they slept after dinner and when they got up in the morning, they came to know about girls’ drowing.

Police said that the initial investigation suggests that the girls died because of drowning, however, it is too early to assert any thing about the cause of death.(The News Pk)

Awlaqi son among militants killed in Yemen strikes: tribe

ADEN: A son of US-born al Qaeda cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi was among seven suspected jihadist militants killed in a trio of apparent US air strikes in Yemen, a member of his tribe said on Saturday.

“Abderrahman Anwar al-Awlaqi was killed in the raid,” the tribal source told AFP, adding that he had received confirmation from the militant-controlled Yemeni hospital where the dead and wounded from Friday evening’s strikes were taken.

Awlaqi himself was killed in a US drone stike on September 30, which US President Barack Obama hailed as a “major blow” to al Qaeda worldwide.

US intelligence officials believe Awlaqi was linked to a US army major charged with shooting dead 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, and to a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a US airliner on December 25, 2009.

He was also believed to be the leader of external operations of al Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula.(AFP)

‘US air’ strikes kill seven ‘Qaeda militants’ in Yemen

ADEN: Apparent US air strikes killed seven suspected al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen, one of them the media chief of the jihadist network’s regional affiliate, a local official said on Saturday.

The Yemeni defence ministry confirmed the deaths but insisted that Friday evening’s strikes in Shabwa province, a militant stronghold east of the main southern city of Aden, were carried out by its own forces.

“Three strikes, apparently American, which were launched against positions held by al Qaeda militants in Azzan, one of the group’s bastions, killed seven of them, including the Egyptian, Ibrahim al-Banna’a,” the local official said.

One of the strikes hit a mosque near the apparent primary target of the strike, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A number of suspected militants were also wounded and were taken to Azzan hospital, which is under the control of the militants, he added.

The Yemeni defence ministry confirmed that Banna’a was among seven suspected Qaeda militants killed, adding that he was wanted “internationally” for “planning attacks both inside and outside Yemen.”

Banna’a was “in charge of the media arm of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” and was one of the group’s “most dangerous operatives,” the ministry added.

Yemen routinely denies that the United States carries out offensive operations on its territory, insisting that it plays a purely logistic and intelligence role in support of Yemen’s own counter-terror operations.(Dawn.com)

US missiles kill six in South Waziristan

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: A US missile strike killed at least six suspected militants in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border Saturday, two Pakistani intelligence officials said, in the third such American missile attack in as many days.

The officials said four missiles slammed into a compound near the border town of Angore Adda in the South Waziristan tribal region. The strike was targeting fighters of Maulvi Nazir, a militant commander who is accused of working with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to direct cross-border attacks, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Nazir is believed to have an agreement with Pakistani authorities that they will leave him alone so long as his men refrain from carrying out attacks on Pakistani soil.

Since 2008, Washington has regularly used drone-fired missiles to target insurgents and their hideouts in Pakistani tribal regions where local and Afghan factions like the Haqqanis and al-Qaeda men are hiding. US officials do not acknowledge the CIA-led program publicly, and Pakistan protests the strikes, which are unpopular.

Saturday’s strike was the latest in a string of missile attacks targeting the militant-infested border region.

On Friday, US missiles killed four unidentified people in the North Waziristan tribal region. A day earlier, a missile attack in North Waziristan killed Janbaz Zadran. US officials say Zadran was a top commander in the Haqqani network and had helped orchestrate attacks in Kabul and southeastern Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, police said Saturday they had arrested a Russian and two nationals from Azerbaijan in Lakki Marwat, a town located near North Waziristan.

It was not clear how the men reached the region, which is off limits to foreigners, and authorities said they were still investigating to determine whether the men had any links to militant groups.(DAWN.COM)