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Saturday, 21 January, 2012
News 03
ForeIGn newS
ArTS & enTerTAInMenT
SPorTS
Rushdie pulls out of indian lit fest
Veena Malik praised for ‘professionalism’
Overpowering england a great boost: Mohsin another revelation
CoMMenT The Norwegians spies are here too.
Take a bow, Pakistan A job well done, Team Misbah.
arif nizami says: To the courts: Better sense prevails.
White Lies: Rumour has it that there was some debate on who should drive PM Gilani to the court premises on Thursday. The PM decided that he would drive his own car himself. The lesson of the story? I am in the driving seat. Well tell that to the judges and of course the president.
Story on Page 17
Story on Page 14
Story on Page 18
Articles on Page 12-13
Before giving MFn status, Pakistan seeks 3 agreements with India
booked over fake degrees LAHORE sTaFF RePORT
The Lahore Police has registered a case against five female members of the Punjab Assembly (MPA) for submitting fake degrees in the Election Commission of Pakistan. The Islampura police said that Deputy Election Commissioner Ishtiaq Ahmed on Friday filed a complaint against five female MPAs – Farah Deeba, Safeena Saima, Afshan Farooq, Sameena Aziz
FaRaH Deeba
naseeM nasiR
and Naseem Nasir – for submitting fake degrees with the ECP along with their nomination papers. He stated that their educational degrees turned out to be fake during verification. A case has been registered against the
aFsHan FaROOq
saFeena saiMa
female legislators under Peoples Act 1976. Sources in Islampura Police told Pakistan Today that authorities have stopped them from taking any action against the legislators until further orders.
SC orders arrest of PM’s former ‘media coordinator’ ISLAMABAD
T
PM honours Arfa Karim with commemorative stamp ISLAmABAD: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has approved a commemorative stamp in honour of Arfa Karim Randhawa, the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in world, who passed away last week, Geo News reported. The stamp has been issued in honour of Arfa’s services to the nation. Born in 1995, Arfa died at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) on January 14 at the age of 16. She suffered an epileptic fit in December 2011 that affected her brain and heart. She was in a coma for 26 days at the CMH before she passed away. In August 2005, Arfa was honoured by the government of Pakistan with the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology. In 2006, she also participated in a Microsoft keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers Conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was “Get ahead of the game”. sTaFF RePORT
Four people kidnapped in Kalat QUETTA: Unidentified armed men injured a woman and kidnapped four people over a marital dispute in Kalat on Friday. Levies officials said that a Chappar-bound passenger van was coming from Kalat when armed men fired at it. As a result, a woman was injured and the driver was forced to stop the vehicle. Afterwards, the assailants ordered four men to come out from the van and drove them away to an unidentified location. The Levies Force reached the site and shifted the injured to nearby hospital and started a search operation. A case was registered against unidentified men. sTaFF RePORT
sTaFF RePORT
HE Supreme Court on Friday directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to positively arrest Mian Khurram Rasool, former media coordinator to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani accused of extorting Rs 530 million fraudulently, and produce him before the court on January 24. A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez issued the orders while hearing a petition filed by Pervaiz Hussain and others against Rasool. The PM’s former media coordinator allegedly swindled over Rs 530 million from a Karachi-based company on a promise to arrange a petroleum export licence to supply NATO forces, while awarding a contract to trade Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG). The court warned FIA Director General Tehsin Anwar Shah of criminal action if he failed to apprehend Rasool. The petitioners’ counsel, Rasheed A Rizvi, told the court that Ra-
sool, along with his brother Shahid Mehmood and another accomplice Ghulam Ghous, had also forged signatures of the Petroleum and Natural Resources secretary on various agreements. FIA Director (Legal) Azam Khan said the agency had no clue about Rasool’s whereabouts, requesting more time to arrest the purported high-profile criminal. The chief justice observed that nobody had dared to arrest Rasool earlier because he was residing in the Prime Minister’s House. Rizvi said that Rasool had collected the payments on the pretext of managing LPG quota and oil export licence for two companies of the petitioners, including Sahara Gas (pvt) Limited and Pak Delta Enterprises (pvt) Limited, to NATO forces in Afghanistan. He said that Rasool was not being arrested for last 11 months, while a man was arrested from Malaysia within three days on the orders of President Asif Ali Zardari, as he was accused by the president. The chief justice replied: “We know the FIA chief does not obey court’s orders, but even then we have granted him so many chances.” Rizvi said the petitioners learnt about the forgery of signatures when they
Senior al Qaeda figure killed in last week’s drone strike WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD ReuTeRs
A militant who acted as a senior operations organiser for Al Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two US drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a US official said. US and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a US commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a US-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the North Waziristan Agency. That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan’s tribal areas and are a key weapon in US President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy.
The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nomde-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of Al Qaeda, which US officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation. Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the US official said he was. One of the sources described Awan as an associate of Al Qaeda’s current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public. “Aslam Awan was a senior Al Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces Al Qaeda’s thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians,” a US official said.
presented the documents for implementation to the relevant government departments. He said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources and the Pak Arab Refinery Company (PARCO) informed the petitioners that all the agreements presented by them were forged documents, while no amount was received by them on behalf of the petitioners. Rizvi alleged that Rasool with the support of some bank officials in Islamabad opened fake accounts in the name of fake partnerships without observing the State Bank of Pakistan’s instructions for opening a new account. He said the matter was brought to the notice of the prime minister, who directed his principal secretary to write to the Interior secretary to enquire into the matter. He said the enquiry found Rasool guilty, and a first information report (FIR) was registered against him, his brother and other accomplices, including bank officials. Meanwhile, a spokesman of the PM’s House said that Rasool had never served as media coordinator to the PM. “Rasool was rather Media Coordinator Northern Pakistan at the Pakistan Television Corporation Limited,” he added.
ISLAMABAD aMeR siaL
As Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma will be arriving along with a large business delegation on February 13, Pakistan plans to sign three confidence-building agreements with India before formally awarding Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to its archrival. Briefing media on the progress on MFN status to India, Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, along with Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood, said Pakistan wanted to sign three confidence-building agreements, including the Customs Cooperation Agreement, to avoid arbitrary stoppages of goods at each other’s ports; Mutual Recognition Agreement for acceptance of certificates of internationally accredited laboratories; and Redressal of Grievances Agreement in case of any disagreement. Fahim said opening up trade with India would be beneficial for consumes. Giving an example, he said prices of many pharmaceutical products were higher in Pakistan as compared to India, so free trade would lead to improved competitiveness among local producers. However, he said, measures would be taken to protect the local industry. When asked whether the army was on board with the decision to grant MFN status to India, he said all stakeholders were on board, they were kept abreast and decisions were taken with mutual agreement. The commerce secretary said the ministry had kept a neutral approach and sought suggestions from the industry about the negative impact on their products in order to compile the negative list. He said the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) was conducting research on the proposals given by the industry and the list would be finalised in the next few days and would be submitted for the cabinet’s consideration and approval in early February. The final decision on awarding the status would be made after approval from the cabinet, he added.