Pakistan Information & News

INDIA

NEW DELHI: At least 10 million Indians will lose their jobs by March as the economic slowdown in North America and Europe hits India’s exports, a key exporters’ association predicted Tuesday, according to a report.

The gloomy forecast comes despite two economic stimulus packages unveiled by the Indian government, including one on Friday, to boost growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

“There will be 10 million job losses by March,” said A. Sakthivel, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

“I can safely say that negative growth trends will continue in December and in the next couple of months… I hope we will end the fiscal year (to March 31) with exports of about 175-180 billion dollars” said Sakthivel, lower than New Delhi’s target of 200 billion dollars for 2008-2009.

India’s exports, which totalled almost 160 billion dollars last year, account for about 20 percent of gross domestic product and the sector employs 150 million people, according to FIEO.

Asif Ali Zardari And Hamid Karzai

KABUL: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari convened his Afghan matching part Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Tuesday, vowed collaboration in the scrap against terrorist in both countries and called for wider provincial understanding.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad, both U.S. associates but anxious by border quarrels in the earlier period, have enhanced in current months with the entrance of the new administration in Pakistan.

In the past, Afghan officials have frequently blamed rudiments in Pakistani state agencies of helping the Taliban, expelled from power in Kabul but keeping asylums in the tribal areas along the craggy Afghan-Pakistan border.

Zardari, speaking on his first visit to Kabul as president, told a news conference Pakistan was ready to fight side by side with Afghanistan against the resurgent Taliban.

The two neighbors needed international help, but could do the job better themselves than outsiders could, he said.

“We want to tell the world today together, standing shoulder to shoulder, that we are together in this fight against these non-state actors who have taken nations and countries, and in fact superpowers, to war,” Zardari said.

Asked if he would allow foreign troops go into Pakistani country to help clash militants in unstable border areas, Zardari said all the two countries wanted was hold up.

“To the globe we say, ‘Help us. We can struggle. We can care for ourselves all we need is the hold up. Given the suitable hold up, we can do the job superior, and cheaper, and easier than you can do it’,” he said.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad

PUTRAJAYA: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad says countries who oppose the invasion of Gaza should boycott the greenback as a protest against US support for Israel.

He said this at a news conference called to condemn Israel’s brutality against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, at the Perdana Leadership Foundation here

.

He lauded Malaysia’s move to initiate the convening of the UN General Assembly to find a solution to the matter as the assembly can override the decision of the Security Council.

Blaming the US and Britain for backing the invasion, he said “The dollar is only being used because people accept the greenback as legal tender and if they stop, then the US cannot trade, cannot make money, they will become poor and this will stop them from producing more and more weapons.”

“People who keep all their money in the US actually responsible for the manufacturing of the weapons which are used to kill people. That’s what their money is being used for. “Said Mahathir, adding that America was a bankrupt country with no money or no reserves, so anyone can go against it if they wanted to.

He also said while it may be difficult for governments to move, individual can do their part by boycotting US products. “Governments cannot people to drink Coca Cola, and you wont die because you did not drink any Coca Cola,”

Asked if this would affect Malaysia since the US is its largest trading partner, Mahathir said: “There will be a price to pay to do something good, but if u slowly whittle down involvement with the US, then slowly we will get to used to it.

“This is not a religious war. There are many places there Jews have been living with Muslims for years. There is no animosity the local Jews in these places, so this war is not a religious but territorial.”

The US, who is the ‘policeman of the world’, has given its full backing to the invasion. No candidate in America can afford to say they don’t support the Jews.”

Canadian Soldiers

TORONTO: Canada, which attached the US-led alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002, has gone astray over one hundred soldiers and the number of offended has ascended over to 360.

The current information geared up by the Defence Department show that 106 soldiers have died in Afghanistan and the number of injured increased to over 360 plow yesterday.

In early December, the country surpasses the psychological highlight of 100 deaths and over the last few weeks six extra soldiers have lost their lives in wayside bomb attacks.

Under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Canada has organized 2,500 soldiers for the Afghan assignment to be in charge of rebellion in the southern Afghanistan’s unstable Kandahar region.

Yesterday two Canadian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb blast in Panjwayi district of southern Afghanistan.

In spite of the fact that the Canadian troops have been targeted with volatile devices (IEDs) by the Taliban in the current months, Canadian mission, which was to end next year, has been comprehensive till December 2011.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan

ANKARA: Turkey’s foreign minister warned Monday that Israeli air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza threaten to escalate into a wider crisis across the region.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan called for an immediate cease-fire as Israel continued its attacks for a third day Monday. The air strikes have killed more than 300 people.

“There should be an immediate cease-fire,” Babacan told a joint news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

“Otherwise, the situation will not be limited to Gaza only, but it might develop to extended challenges in the region and make thesituation worse.”

Aboul Gheit signaled that the two countries could join forces towork to end hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians.

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will this week travel to four Middle Eastern states _ Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt _ for consultations on ways to “restore peace” in the region, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek told reporters following a Cabinet meeting.

Babacan said Turkey was keeping channels of communication open, including with the Hamas leadership.

However, he said Turkey was suspending its role as mediator for peace talks between Israel and Syria. Syria announced Sunday it was suspending the peace talks launched in May because of the attacks on Gaza.

Syria and Israel held direct talks in the late 1990s and early2000 but negotiations broke down over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a strategic territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Syria insists on the complete return of the Golan Heights, while Israel wants to keep a strip of land around the Sea of Galilee.

On his return to Cairo, Aboul Gheit told reporters that Turkey and Egypt both agree on the need for an immediate cease-fire. He also suggested that once a new truce is established, European and Arab observers could be assigned to check that both Hamas and Israel abide by it.

Gaza Air Strikes

GAZA CITY: The ring of Palestinians killed by Israel’s three-day intimidation movement in Gaza today go up to at least 325 as Israeli jets bombed a university’s science laboratories and strike the core ministry in a extending chain of air strikes.

The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak - who has already said his government does not want another ceasefire with the Islamist Hamas movement - said his army was fighting a “war to the bitter end”.

Israel declared the border area around Gaza a closed military zone which, together with preparations for a call-up of thousands of reservists, could suggest a large ground invasion is planned next. Barak said the military campaign would be “widened and deepened as needed”.

The number of civilians killed in the fighting continued to rise. The UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees and has large programmes in Gaza, said it believed at least 57 civilians were among the dead, but described that as a conservative estimate.

The taken as a whole number of offended is thought to be as high as 1,400, although Gazan hospitals are so congested and short of tablets and tools that they are turning away all but the most gravely injured.

Lord Nazir

ISLAMABAD: Kashmiri leaders have said that the India hurting associations with Pakistan could give a boost up to the radicals in the state.

Kashmiri organizer and a member British House of Lords, Lord Nazir escorted by Azad Kashmir former Prime Minister, Barrister Sultan Mahmud in a press meeting held here, told this.

Lord Nazir in reply to query connecting to the continuing efforts for a following change in Azad Kashmir said that the obtainable Pak-India argument was very volatile and in such a circumstances, Pakistan should not be further loaded. He said that Pak-India tension would advantage the extremists and terrorism could get a increase in the region. He said that if the Pak troops were pulled out of the western borders, then Taliban would take benefit from it.

Barrister Sultan Mahmud said that the way to Afghan calm passes through Kashmir and the Mumbai attacks were the well thought conspiracy of India. Mumbai attacks play was theatrical by India in a offer to deflect the concentration from Kashmir issue.

AhmedinNijad and Manmohan Singh

ISLAMABAD: Iran is rotating out to be the primary country of the area that has determined to play a mediatory part at the skull of the state level between Pakistan and India.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is dashing to New Delhi early this week for talks with the Indian leaders with regard to the upsetting situation existing in the neighbourhood.

He may visit Islamabad right away after finishing his deliberations in the Indian capital. The Iranian president, who is intensely anxious about the going up tension between the two neighbouring nuclear states on its southeast, has been maintaining communication with both the countries termed friends by Tehran.

The Iranian president will change his endeavour into shuttle diplomacy if he gets encouraging signals from both the capitals. Pakistan will welcome such an effort. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehar Mottaki has already spoken to his Pakistani and Indian counterparts about the situation separately.

Highly placed sources told media here Sunday that Pakistan has been given hint about the Iranian desire through diplomatic channels. China has already deputed special representative at the senior diplomatic level to play a role to defuse the situation. The special Chinese envoy has already initiated his work.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal who visited New Delhi last week with the same purpose is also taking Pakistan into confidence about his mission. Diplomatic observers are of the view that Washington, which is desperately enhancing its clout in the region and trying very hard to bring New Delhi on its right side, could see the efforts of Iran and China with suspicion because the success of such attempts could eclipse American influence in the region and interject the long-term designs of Washington.

The US reaction would be watched with fair amount of interest in the world capitals since it might not come out in public to offer its reaction on the move, they remarked. It is pertinent to mention that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi has already said that Iran is ready to defuse tension between Pakistan and India over the recent Mumbai attacks. “The ongoing tension between the two neighbouring countries would only benefit terrorists,” said Qureshi adding that he had talked to his Iranian counterpart who has expressed his deep concern over the Indo-Pak tension.

“Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told me in a telephone conversation that he had spoken to Indian Foreign Minister Paranab Mukherjee and asked India to show restraint,” Qureshi said. He added that Iran believes that any instability in South Asia affects the whole region and even beyond.

Manouchehr Mottaki, in his conversation with Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi stressed that Tehran will remain engaged with both Pakistan and India to defuse tensions between the two neighbour countries. Mottaki noted that he has also discussed the issue with his Indian counterpart Paranab Mukherjee and urged India to show restraint. Iran’s foreign minister warned that the tensions in south Asia would affect the region and even beyond. During the telephone conversation, Qureshi said that Pakistan had also been a victim of terrorism and was engaged in the fight against this menace.

Action Against terrorism

ISLAMABAD: The impacts of Pak-India standoff on the war against terrorism have started unfolding, as military operation in the tribal areas appears hard-hit, according to British media.Pakistani officials view that the confrontations, which the Mumbai attacks have generated, could not perhaps end even after several years, but their strategy has not let India militarily, diplomatically and politically stay long at that position, which immediately after Mumbai attacks, it had achieved out of the international community sympathies, sentimental political statements and, thereby, dared threatening surgical strikes within Pakistan airspace.

BBC report said that Pakistan leadership considering their stance, relating to Pakistan or any of its state organizations was not involved in Mumbai attacks, globally accepted their biggest achievement.

Chinese navy

BEIJING: The Chinese navy was to weigh anchor Friday for an anti-piracy mission off Africa, in the nation’s first potential combat mission beyond its territorial waters in centuries.

The two destroyers and one supply vessel comprising the task force were waiting off the Yalong Bay naval base on south China’s tropical Hainan island, ready for the signal to set course for Somalia, the local daily reported.

“Since this is the navy’s first overseas mission, we could encounter unforeseen situations. But we are prepared for them,” the commander of the force, Rear Admiral Du Jingcheng, told the paper.

Afghanistan Blast

GHAZNI: A suicide blast in the centre of the southern Afghan city of Ghazni on Monday killed three people and wounded five others, police said.

The explosives, strapped to the attacker’s body, detonated as he was being driven along a crowded road in Ghazni, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital Kabul, Ghazni provincial deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman said.

“Three civilians, the suicide attacker and his driver were killed and five civilians were wounded,” Zaman said, adding that it appeared the bomb had exploded prematurely.

Zaman said the attacker’s target was not immediately clear. The road on which the blast took place leads to the provincial governor’s office as well as several government buildings.

The lives of the five people injured were not in danger, said the director of the local public hospital, Ismail Ibrahimzai. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Thailand

NARATHIWAT: Separatist insurgents shot dead a soldier and seven people were wounded in a bomb blast in Thailand’s troubled Muslim-majority south on Tuesday, police said.

The 55-year-old Muslim sub-lieutenant was killed in a drive-by shooting in restive Pattani province as he travelled to work on a motorbike in the early morning, they said.

In nearby Narathiwat province six rangers carrying out a foot patrol were hospitalised when insurgents detonated a remote-controlled roadside bomb, police added. A civilian was hurt in the same attack.