Category: News

As many as 32 people including police personnel were killed and at least 54 others injured in a powerful blast, believed to be a suicide car bombing, near the District Coordination Officer (DCO) office and the district courts in Hangu on Thursday evening.

The blast was severe in intensity as it jolted most of district Hangu and razed 15 shops. Several houses, the DCO office and a police station were partially damaged. The blast caused an 8-feet crater on the ground. It was a second attack on Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in two days.

Local people rushed to the blast site and initiated rescue activities, shifting the injured to District Headquarters Hospital, Hangu, where emergency was declared. Some of the critical injured were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. The body parts of the killed were lying scattered all over the place while the people searched through the rubble for their dear ones. Heavy contingents of police were deployed to cordon off the area after the blast.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad for crucial talks with Pakistan. She will be joined by Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen at the make-or-break talks who has reached here yesterday.

Political and military leaders of Pakistan and the United States will sit face-to-face in an effort to work out fresh ‘rules of engagement’ for salvaging their troubled relationship caused by deep-rooted mistrust and differences over fighting militancy.

Both sides have taken positive steps ahead of the talks to improve the atmosphere. Ms Clinton’s visit comes after deep introspection and a serious reassessment of ties by both sides.

A small plane crashed into a residential area near the New Delhi late Wednesday, killing nine people. The single-propeller aircraft went down in Faridabad, damaging several houses and sparking a fire. “We have so far removed nine bodies, seven of them seem to be from the plane and two on the ground,” deputy police chief in Faridabad Praveen Mehta told.

The plane was travelling from the eastern city of Patna to New Delhi carrying a patient in a critical condition to a private hospital in the capital. It also said seven people were on the plane when it crashed, but it put the total death toll at 10, including three victims on the ground.

The Pentagon said on Wednesday that it plans to cut back the number of American troops in Pakistan after Pakistan made a formal request, amid tensions over a US raid against Osama bin Laden.

“We were recently (within past 2 weeks) notified in writing that the government of Pakistan wished for the US to reduce its footprint in Pakistan. Accordingly, we have begun those reductions,” spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said in an email to reporters.

China has officially put the United States on notice that Washington’s planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. This blunt warning represents the first known strategic ultimatum received by the United States in half a century, going back to Soviet warnings during the Berlin crisis of 1958-1961, and indicates the grave danger of general war growing out of the US-Pakistan confrontation.

Responding to reports that China has asked the US to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty in the aftermath of the Bin Laden operation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu used a May 19 press briefing to state Beijing’s categorical demand that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan must be respected.”

According to Pakistani diplomatic sources, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.” This ultimatum was reportedly delivered at the May 9 China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, where the Chinese delegation was led by Vice Prime Minister Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo.1 Chinese warnings are implicitly backed up by that nation’s nuclear missiles, including an estimated 66 ICBMs, some capable of striking the United States, plus 118 intermediate-range missiles, 36 submarine-launched missiles, and numerous shorter-range systems.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Britain and the United States must continue to work with Pakistan as their countries seek to stamp out terrorism. “Far from from walking away we’ve got to work even more closely with them,” said Cameron at a news conference with visiting US President Barack Obama.

“Pakistan has suffered more from terrorism than any other country. Their enemy is our enemy. We need to work with them,” Cameron said. Obama and Cameron both extended their support to Pakistan in its fight against terrorism, making it clear that they don’t intend to abandon Pakistan while it is reeling from terror attacks.

NEPRA Announced Increase in Electricity Prices by 1.07 Paisa per unit. NEPRA allows increasing electricity prices up to Rs.1.07 per unit. On behalf of Central Power purchasing agency submit application of increasing electricity rates in ratio of monthly fuel adjustment. Hearing carried out today in leadership of acting chairman NEPRA after which electricity distribution companies are permitted to increase electricity prices to rs.1.07 per unit, increase is implemented in next month bills but this increase will not be implemented on Karachi Electric Supply Corporation however monthly unit usage up to 50 units unsets are also out of it.

Pakistan Seized Largest Ever Heroin Consignment Worth $44 million in international market, impounding 375 kilograms (825 pounds) of the narcotic worth an estimated $44 million on the international market. About 108 kilograms hidden in matchboxes was seized late Monday from a container at the Karachi port and another 267 kilograms of heroin in a follow up raid in Quaid Abad neighbourhood, officials said.

“We have arrested five people and during investigations they have confessed that they were involved in drugs smuggling for a long time,”. The official said the heroin was smuggled from neighbouring country Afghanistan through Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

7 hundred thousand non tax payers will bring in net tax. Finance minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh said that federal budgets will be presented on 3^rd June. Due to current defense situation reduction in defense budget is not possible.

7 hundred thousand people are identified who has many accounts and they were not paying tax according to their income, from them 50,000 were issued notices; all will bring under net tax, next tax budget will be according to public wishes for which stake holders alliance parliamentarians will taken in confidence.

PNS Mehran Base Commander Commodore Raja Tahir has been removed from his post after being suspended and Commodore Khalid Parvez has been appointed new base commander. According to the defence sources, Commodore Raja Tahir would remain suspended till the completion of the inquiry.

Four navy personnel currently in Adiala prison were also questioned during preliminary investigations. The all were court-martialed. None of them had ever been posted to PNS Mehran Base.