Pakistan

Karachi, February 12: Pakistan’s super sprinter Naseem Hameed returned to a tumultuous welcome here after a historic performance at the South Asian Games and hoped her feat would inspire other female athletes from the country to do well at international stage.

Naseem became the fastest South Asian woman on Tuesday when she clocked 11.81s to win 100m sprint, a feat no Pakistani woman had achieved before.

Naseem returned with the fourth and last batch of the Pakistan contingent from Dhaka and got a welcome that is usually reserved for cricketers or hockey players in Pakistan.

Islamabad, February 11: Pakistan has indicated its readiness for Foreign Secretary-level talks on February 25, saying the two sides need to “move forward” but insisted on resumption of composite dialogue covering Kashmir and other outstanding issues that is “meaningful and result-oriented”.

Responding to the two sets of dates proposed by India for the talks, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said February 25 is “not a bad date” for talks.

Islamabad, February 11: Pakistan has always favoured dialogue with India to a war, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said while appreciating India’s ‘intention’ to resume talks.

Reiterating Pakistan’s stance on resumption of dialogue, Gilani said ‘politicians make bridges not walls’, agency reported.

‘I appreciate India’s intention to resume talks,’ he said, adding the ‘threat perception’ regarding India necessitated the need for a dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries.

Islamabad, February 11: Pakistan has always favoured dialogue with India to a war, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said while appreciating India’s “intention” to resume talks.

Reiterating Pakistan’s stance on resumption of dialogue, Gilani said “politicians make bridges not walls”, APP news agency reported.

“I appreciate India’s intention to resume talks,” he said, adding the “threat perception” regarding India necessitated the need for a dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries.

Islamabad, February 11: India’s offer of a limited dialogue with Pakistan on terrorism has dismayed Islamabad, where officials and analysts believe only full-blown peace talks can foster regional stability.

New Delhi’s call for talks between the top foreign ministry civil servants in the two countries was welcomed last week as indicative of a major breakthrough in relations frozen since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

But India and Pakistan have yet to announce a date for their first direct talks in 15 months, still haggling over the framework of the dialogue.

Islamabad, February 11: A suicide bombing killed at least 19 people, including 11 policemen, in Pakistan’s tribal region near the Afghan border Wednesday, an official said.

The bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle carrying the policemen in the tribal district of Khyber along a main highway leading to Afghanistan, said Sajid Khan, an official of the local administration.

According to Khan, eight security personnel from the tribal police, locally called Khasadar Force, and five civilians died on the spot in the bombing, said Khan.

Islamabad, February 11: Pakistan has made it clear that Islamabad will not hold talks with pro-Taliban militants active in the country, regardless of the peace talks planned by US and Afghan leaders.

“No matter whatever decision is taken by the US for holding talks with the Afghan Taliban but we have no intention to do so,” Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, told reporters on Wednesday, the Press TV correspondent reported.

Islamabad, February 11: With intelligence and Taliban sources confirming the death of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud of injuries sustained in a US drone attack, speculations are rife about his possible successor.

“I think Wali-ur-Rehman will be the best choice for TTP in case of Hakimullah is dead,” Salim Safi, a security analyst, told.

Commander Wali-ur-Rehman Mehsud, 36, was Hakimullah’s second-in-command and belongs to the same powerful Mehsud tribe, which makes up 60 percent of the population of South Waziristan.

Peshawar, February 10: Pakistan’s interior minister and a senior intelligence official say the country’s Taliban chief has died.

In messages to The Associated Press on Wednesday, the officials did not provide details of how or when Hakimullah Mehsud died. But it was the first time Pakistani authorities have categorically said the militant chief is dead.

Rumors of Mehsud’s death have swirled for weeks, after a spate of U.S. missiles hit his stronghold in Pakistan’s northwest in mid-January. Mehsud was said to have died of wounds suffered in one of the strikes.

Islamabad, February 10: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday warned terrorists to prepare for death if they did not abandon nefarious acts of terrorism and adopt the right path.

Addressing a meeting of parliamentarians of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, he said the terrorists had been defeated by the army in the Swat valley and Malakand division and would soon be crushed everywhere else in the country.

The government could not ignore the issue of terrorism as “it is not only the issue of our survival but of our coming generations”, Gilani said.

Lahore, February 10: The Lahore High Court ordered the government to allow disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose movements have been restricted, to meet his relatives and friends and to get him medically examined.

The order came after Khan’s counsel Ali Zafar contended that the scientist, who mentored the country’s nuclear programme and was then accused of proliferating its nuclear secrets, was not being allowed to meet his relatives and friends and was also not allowed to get medically examined at home.

Lahore, February 10: The Lahore High Court Tuesday ordered the government to allow disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose movements have been restricted, to meet his relatives and friends and to get him medically examined.

The order came after Khan’s counsel Ali Zafar contended that the scientist, who mentored the country’s nuclear programme and was then accused of proliferating its nuclear secrets, was not being allowed to meet his relatives and friends and was also not allowed to get medically examined at home.

Islamabad, February 09: Pakistani Taliban today confirmed that its chief Hakimullah Mehsud had died of injuries sustained in a US drone strike, ending weeks of speculation over his fate.

Taliban sources based in the Aurakzai tribal region told TV news channels that 28-year-old Mehsud was severely injured in a drone attack in Shaktoi area of North Waziristan Agency on January 14.

The sources claimed Mehsud died recently near Multan city in Punjab province while being taken to Karachi for treatment. His body was taken back to the tribal belt, they said.

Lahore, February 09: Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear scientist A Q Khan has informed a court here that the government has placed a “ban on water and medical supplies”” to him under the garb of a court order.

Khan’s counsel Syed Ali Zafar told a bench of the Lahore High Court yesterday that though arguments in a case for easing restrictions on the scientist were going on, the government had barred Khan from going out of his residence even to visit his brother who is critically ill in a hospital.

Islamabad, February 09: Even as Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi did some rabble-rousing in his home constituency of Multan, the Pakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi, Shahid Malik, was all set to fly down to Islamabad for consultations with Pakistan foreign office on Wednesday.

Sources said Malik would give feedback on his meeting with Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and his inputs would be crucial for the Pakistan establishment to respond on India’s offer of talks.

Rawalpindi, February 09: A former minister of Pakistan was shot and four of his body guards were killed when a group of armed assailants attacked the opposition Awami Muslim League’s office in this district of the country’s north.

AML chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, who was information minister during President General Parvez Musharraf’s government, received bullet injury in his leg and was rushed to a hospital.

Rawalpindi, February 09: A former minister of Pakistan was shot and four of his body guards were killed when a group of armed assailants attacked the opposition Awami Muslim League’s office in this district of the country’s north.

AML chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, who was information minister during President General Parvez Musharraf’s government, received bullet injury in his leg and was rushed to a hospital.

Multan, February 08: Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi claims that his country has succeeded in forcing India to resume bilateral dialogue.

Addressing a gathering in Multan on Sunday, Qureshi said that Pakistan had not caved into India’s pressure after the Mumbai terror attacks, eventually pressurising India to opt for talks.

“India, which had talked of severing all contacts with us, has now come to us. We never kneeled down before them and kept sticking to our stance,” boasted Qureshi.

Quetta, February 08: If Afghan Taliban fighters and their top leaders are roaming around this remote part of Pakistan as the U.S. alleges, the police chief here says he hasn’t seen them.

“Point them out to me,” Abid Hussain Notkani says. “I will arrest them.”

Interviews with residents and officials in and around Quetta, a dusty frontier city of 1.2 million, reveal widespread skepticism that Pakistan’s vast Baluchistan province harbors Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Omar, his aides or their foot soldiers.

Peshawar, February 07: Seven soldiers and 60 militants were killed during an operation mounted by Pakistani security forces to capture a key Taliban stronghold in the country?s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, an official said today.? ?

Security forces have cleared the Taliban stronghold of Damadola in the restive Bajaur tribal region which was being used as a base for terrorist activities, a spokesman for the Frontier Corps said.? ?

A joint operation was launched by security forces and a ‘lashkar’ or tribal militia to clear the area on January 27.

Islamabad, February 06: India has told Pakistan that the proposed talks with it will focus on terrorism and other issues “hurting” bilateral relations and has given no indication about the full-fledged resumption of the stalled composite dialogue process.

When Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao telephoned her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir about a week ago to propose foreign secretary-level talks, she made it clear that the parleys would focus on terrorism and other issues that are “hurting relations between the two countries,” official sources in the Foreign Office here told PTI.

Krachi, February 06: Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi was tense on Saturday a day after two bombs killed 25 people, raising further questions about the effectiveness of security crackdowns on al Qaeda-linked militants.

Most shops in the sprawling city of 18 million people were closed and public transport was off the roads as several thousand mourners gathered at funerals of some of the victims of the two bombs, which wounded more than 150 people.

Karachi, February 06: Hundreds of minority Shi’ite Muslims have gathered in Pakistan’s largest city amid tight security for a mass funeral for those killed in a pair of bombings.

At least 25 people died in Karachi on Friday when suspected Sunni militants targeted a bus carrying Shi’ite worshippers and then attacked a hospital treating victims of the first bomb.

Islamabad, February 06: India has told Pakistan that the proposed talks with it will focus on terrorism and other issues “hurting” bilateral relations and has given no indication about the full-fledged resumption of the stalled composite dialogue process.

When Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao telephoned her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir about a week ago to propose Foreign Secretary-level talks, she made it clear that the parleys would focus on terrorism and other issues that are “hurting relations between the two countries,” official sources in the Foreign Office here said.

Karachi, February 06: A suspected suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed 12 Shi’ites in Pakistan’s commercial capital on Friday, followed hours later by a blast at a hospital where the wounded were being treated which killed 13.

In scenes that have become familiar in the state’s battle with the Pakistani Taliban, the second blast sent a plume of white smoke above Jinnah Hospital as distraught Pakistanis transported dead relatives.