Shahbaz Asks P.M Gilani To Get Sugar Imported

LAHORE: Chief Minister Punjab Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, signaling an abject sugar crisis looming over Pakistan, has asked Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani to get the directives issued to Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCoP) for import of sugar in the earliest possible ease, Geo news reported on Wednesday.

In a letter written to PM Gilani, CM Punjab said sugar mills are producing sugar below production capacity owing to low supply of sugar cane, which might result in shortage of 1.2 metric tonnes of sugar in 2010.He also voiced serious concern over likely surge in sugar prices by dint of shortage in markets, which is already selling at Rs53 in Punjab province.

No Sign Of An End To Terrorists' rutality

A single terrorist assault would have been bad enough. But in the 50 weeks so far in 2009, Pakistan has suffered at least 40 attacks. The death toll from this steady stream of violence stands at more than 600. And if the past few days are any guide, that horrifying annual tally is not yet complete.

The past three months have been particularly bloody. More than half of Pakistan's terrorists attacks this year have occurred since the beginning of October, a few weeks after the Pakistan military launched an operation to drive the Pakistan Taliban out of its stronghold in South Waziristan.

The country has endured at least 23 terrorist attacks in that brutal nine-week phase. The latest one was in the central city of Multan, killing at least 12.

Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier province bordering Afghanistan, has been at the front line of the Taliban insurgency. Since early October, more than 280 people have been killed by repeated bomb attacks in the city of 3 million, making it one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's heartland state Punjab, has also been hit hard. The cosmopolitan city, with a reputation for being a centre for Pakistani arts and culture, had been mostly spared terrorist attacks until last year. But it has been targeted six times so far in 2009, including a commando-style assault on the Sri Lankan cricket team in March. Rawalpindi, the garrison town where Pakistan's army headquarters is located, has also been targeted frequently.

Most of the attacks have been linked to the Pakistani Taliban, an alliance of extremist groups based on Pakistan's long border with Afghanistan.

However, there are growing links between the Pakistan Taliban and other extremist groups from Punjab. Well-known Pakistani social commentator Ayaz Amir believes the repeated attacks are taking a psychological toll but he says morale in Pakistan has not collapsed.

"There is no doubt business has suffered and many have become more careful about going out to places like bazaars to do their shopping," says Amir, who won a seat in Pakistan's national parliament last year.

"There is a feeling that we are living in a state of siege and that anything might happen. But people feel terrorism has to be tackled and there is no way out."

Polls show the Government is deeply unpopular and that many have little faith that political leaders from any party have any real solution to the country's terrorism nightmare. Many Pakistanis blame the US-led military action in Afghanistan for the surge in terrorism inside their own country and analysts point out the anti-American mood is intensifying.

But, ultimately, most Pakistanis have no choice but to get on with their lives.
And there is no sign that 2010 will be much safer than 2009.

source 

Biggest Bank Robbery In Pakistan

KARACHI: A private security company guard deputed at a bank on II Chundrigarh Road on Sunday carried out the biggest bank robbery in the country’s history, escaping with foreign currency worth Rs 310 million.

The guard is believed to have been helped by five accomplices.

Police said the security guard, Shahid, was the mastermind behind the bank robbery. After arriving at the bank early morning, Shahid called his five accomplices, tied up the other two guards — Imran and Zamir – and made off with the money.

According to police, the other bank guards were also involved in the robbery. Police had arrested Imran and Zamir and were raiding various locations across the city to arrest the robbers.

“They took at least two hours to complete the heist and used gas cutters and other equipment to break open safety vaults,” said CID DSP Israr Awan. Of the nine vaults in the bank, the robbers broke into the one that “contained euros, dollars and pounds”, the DSP said. They also tried to break open another vault, but later fled the bank with the foreign currency.

Meanwhile, a private TV channel reported the looted amount was Rs 520 million and that Karachi police had recovered Rs 5.5 million from a house identified by Imran, the guard allegedly tied up by the robbers before the heist.

Police officials, including Capital City Police Officer Waseem Ahmed, South Zone DIG Ghulam Nabi Memon, Saddar Town SP Abdullah Sheikh, CID SSP Fayyaz Khan and SIU Chief Raja Umer Khattab reached the scene soon after the robbery was reported. faraz khan/app.

source

Multan News

12 killed as Taliban target ISI in Multan

* Attackers fire rocket, automatic weapons at checkpoint
* Security personnel among those killed
* Body parts of two suspected suicide bombers found

MULTAN: A group of Taliban launched a gun, rocket and suicide attack on the office of an intelligence agency on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring several others.

The blast in Multan ripped the facades off several buildings in a part of the city largely reserved for government and security agencies. The apparent target of the blast – a building housing an office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – was also damaged. Senior police officer Agha Yusuf said at least three Taliban in a car carried out the attack.

He said one of them first fired a rocket and an automatic weapon at a police checkpoint, and then drove to the intelligence agency – where they blew it up. He said security personnel were also among the 12 killed. “It was a suicide attack. There were two attackers who were stopped at the checkpost, but they tried to flee and security personnel fired at them,” another police official, Arif Ikram told reporters. “The attackers returned fire and also launched two rockets, and later exploded their vehicle.”

Multan’s top administrative official, Syed Mohammad Ali Gardezi, said that one military building was badly damaged in the blast. “They did not succeed in hitting the target,” he claimed. Body parts: Gardezi said the body parts of two suspected suicide bombers were strewn over a road outside the ISI office.

“Our security agencies were on alert and they didn’t let the attackers reach their target,” said Gardezi, adding that 47 people had also been injured. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani condemned the attack, and expressed sorrow over the loss of life. Meanwhile, the US embassy also condemned the terrorist attacks in Lahore, Quetta
and Multan. agencies

Barack Obama's Latest Formulation

Barack Obama's latest formulation on Afghanistan is a continuation of the former administration's muddle: We are there because we can't just up and leave. That would be an admission of defeat. 

Given the need for a more respectable rationale for staying on, Obama has opted for Bush's: We must defeat Al Qaeda because it poses a threat to us. 

Except that it no longer does. Even if it does, it does so from Pakistan, Osama bin Laden and his ilk being in caves there. So, why not attack Pakistan rather than go on spinning our wheels in Afghanistan?

But Obama being Obama, he has offered, even within the faulty framework he has adopted, a more honest and intelligent assessment of the crisis and an acute awareness of some regional realities.

NATO is not only not winning, it has been losing to the Taliban.

The allied aim is no longer to vanquish them but rather to contain them – "reverse their momentum" – so that they don't topple the Hamid Karzai government.

That means talking to and buying off as many Taliban as possible on the one hand, and curbing Karzai corruption and incompetence on the other. (Easier said than done.)

There's no more talk of transplanting a modern, Western-style democracy in Afghanistan or of liberating Afghan women. But there is of a timetable for American troop withdrawal: 2011 onward.

Besides the military surge, there's to be a parallel "civilian surge" for development and reconstruction. Plus, most sensibly, "an effective partnership with Pakistan."

"In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over ...

"America is providing substantial resources to support Pakistan's democracy and development ...

"America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan's security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent."

Noting that the Pakistani army has launched offensives against militants in Swat and South Waziristan, he promised: "We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear."

That's a loaded sentence. It papers over deep differences with Pakistan, while warning Islamabad to go after the Taliban leadership that's said to be safely ensconced in Quetta, across from the Afghan border.

The Pakistani army is going after the "Pakistani Taliban," not – as the U.S. wants – the "Afghan Taliban."

It does not take on the latter for practical as well as strategic reasons. Its troops are stretched. They do not have the equipment needed for mountain warfare, especially helicopters, of which the U.S. has given only 10 of late. More important, why pick a fight with a force that may, even under Obama's plan of a political solution, get a share of power in Kabul?

The Afghan Taliban are also Pakistan's trump card against archrival India, which is cozy with Karzai.

Obama has another problem. The Pakistani army is operating independently of the civilian government. It traditionally has. But it is particularly wary of President Asif Ali Zardari. His grip on power is shaky. He's busy fighting off past corruption charges. His ruling Peoples Party is divided. To stay in power, he says yes to everything Washington wants. But the national consensus is against taking dictation from the U.S. And the army has its view of what is or is not possible.

Hovering above all this is a national sentiment that while a limited U.S. presence in Afghanistan is welcome (to avoid a vacuum that would only be filled by India), too big an American footprint could spill the war over into Pakistan.

Obama has understood that there can be no solution to Afghanistan without a solution to Pakistan. "We need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."

But I am told his advisers are deeply divided on how to resolve the Af-Pak dilemmas – and the complex Indo-Pak imperatives.
All that can be said for now is that he has made a good beginning.

(Source file)

Wasim Akram's Wife Passes Away

Former Pakistan cricket captain Wasim Akram’s Huma Wasim 42, away at Chennai’s Apollo Hospital has passed on Sunday.

Huma Wasim was also Indian city of Chennai’s Apollo Hospital, admitted on Tuesday after her condition worsened while an air ambulance transfer her to Singapore, Lahore, has a scheduled stop tank near the airport.

The hospital had earlier quoted sources saying that the condition of Huma Wasim critical. She had a multiple organ failure suffered and was put on ventilator support, sources said.

source

Pictures of Wasim's wife

Let us all pray , May Allah rest her soul in peace .... Aameen

Twin Suicide Blast At Islamic University Islamabad

Two suicide bombers have killed at least seven people at a university in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

At least 18 people were wounded in the twin blasts at the International Islamic University. The attack is the first since the Pakistani army began its offensive against militants in South Waziristan, in the country's north-west. 

In a telephone call to the BBC, a senior Taliban commander has claimed his movement was behind the bombings. Qari Hussain, the man reportedly responsible for training Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers, said his organisation now considered all of Pakistan to now be a war zone.

Pakistan was hit by a wave of bombings by Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters in the days before the assault began. Security has been stepped up in recent days, and many schools in Islamabad and other big cities were told to close for the week. 

In South Waziristan itself, fierce fighting is continuing for a fourth day as Pakistani troops battle to gain control of the key Taliban-held town of Kotkai. The blasts at the International Islamic University hit the women's cafeteria and the Islamic law department. Police superintendent Abdul Ghafar Quaiserani said the two suicide bombers struck at about the same time.

  
 

'Main State of war'

One student, who e-mailed BBC News, said gunfire had preceded the explosions: 
"There were gunshots at first and then two explosions one after the other. One was just outside the gate of the girls' cafeteria and the other one targeted the head of the department for Sharia studies. 

"I was near that office. Two of my friends were injured, they were taken to the hospital. I am in shock. Now we are not even safe in our universities."
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the blasts. 
And Interior Minister Rehman Malik said: "We are in a state of war. They will make every effort to destabilise the country. 

"These so-called Islamists are enemies of Islam and enemies of Pakistan." 

The Associated Press says the International Islamic University was established on the outskirts of the city in the 1980s and has more than 12,000 students - nearly half of them women, many from abroad.

"University Islamabad bearing casualties of innocent students. We also pray for the injured ones. And this is for sure that these bastard terrorists are not Muslims" From All Pakistan Colleges and Universities.