Politics

Bilawal Zardari, 25, set to join active politics

LAHORE: Pakistan peoples party
Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has become eligible to run for the Parliament as he celebrateshis 25th birthday Saturday.
According to party sources, a key meeting will be held in Lahore to formally announce his appointment as head of the Peoples Party. Former President Asif Ali Zardari will be party’s patron-in-chief.
The young PPP leader will also speak to jiyalas through a video link.
Sources say that a proposal is under consideration to take Bilawal to the Parliament. A final approval in this regard will be made by the PPP’s central executive committee.
Once approved by the CEC, Bhutto will contest by-election to formally kick-start his political career.
“Another landmark in my life without my mama SMBB (Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto),” Bhutto posted on his twitter account.

Delay in talks with Taliban showing govt weakness: PPP

 

 
Says govt is not a profit-making company, PML-N running country like Ittefaq Foundry.

LAHORE (Web Desk) – Opposition leader in National Assembly has said prices of daily use items were skyrocketing after the hike in electricity, petrol and dollar prices.
He said this while talking to media persons in Lahore.

About the withdrawal of subsidy on electricity, Syed Khurshid Shah said PML-N was running the country like a profit-making organization.

“The country is not Ittefaq Foundry of Sharif Brithers,” he remarked.
Shah said PTI’s protest over the appointment of Chairman NAB was unjustified and inappropriate.
He once again claimed that he had contacted Shah Mehmood Qureshi twice for the nominations for Chairman NAB slot but there was no response.
About the ongoing operation in Karachi, Shah said MQM itself demanded the operation and now it was raising objections to it.
“PPP will play its role as an effective Opposition in the parliament and will not indulge in ‘GO Musharraf GO’ type of politics. 

Kennedy arrives in Tokyo to take up envoy position

U.S. ambassadors to Japan can be grouped into three categories.

TOKYO (AP) Caroline Kennedy arrives in Japan on Friday as a new U.S. ambassador with one important strength: She has the ear of the American president.
Japan hopes the 55-year-old daughter of late President John F. Kennedy will work closely with President Barack Obama to tackle some urgent U.S.-Japan matters, analysts said.
"What s important here is her strong pipeline with Obama and an ability to be able to pick up the phone and speak with Obama directly in the middle of the night for consultation on urgent matters," said Ryuichi Teshima, professor of diplomacy at Keio University in Tokyo.
Kennedy s close ties to Obama come from playing a pivotal role during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008 by endorsing him when Hillary Clinton was the lead candidate.
As the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan, Kennedy may also be a role model in a country that traditionally has restricted the role of women, said Toshihiro Nakayama, professor of international politics at Aoyama Gakuin University.
U.S. ambassadors to Japan can be grouped into three categories, he said. They are big political names, Japan experts and those with close ties to the president. Former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale and former Senator Mike Mansfield fall into the first type. Edwin Reischauer, President Kennedy s envoy, would be the second.
Nakayama puts Kennedy, an attorney and author, in the third group, along with her predecessor, John Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer and Obama fundraiser, and Tom Schieffer, who was George W. Bush s business partner in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
U.S.-Japan relations are generally on an even keel, but Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are not as close as some would like. "The chemistry is off, possibly because Obama does not support the right-wing views Abe holds," Teshima said.
Major bilateral issues include the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks, the relocation of a U.S. military base on Okinawa and a revamp of defense cooperation guidelines between the two countries.
"It s a critical time in U.S.-Japan relations," Kennedy said at a reception at the Japanese embassy in Washington earlier this week. "The U.S.-Japan relationship is the cornerstone of regional prosperity, stability and security."
 

MQM’s former MPA Nadia Gabol joins PPP

Nadia joined MQM in 2006 and was elected as MPA as an MQM candidate.

KARACHI (Dunya News) - Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s former member Sindh Assembly Nadia Gabol, Saturday, formally joined Pakistan Peoples’ Party.
The formal decision was taken during a meeting with PPP leader and provincial health minister Owais Muzzafar Tappi.
Nadia had joined the MQM after her meeting with MQM chief Altaf Hussain in London in 2006.
She is the daughter of Sardar Abdul Latif Gabol and niece of Nabil Gabol, the former PPP minister who joined the MQM and won the NA-246 seat in the 2013 general elections.
The matter of Nadia’s quitting the MQM surfaced when she in an interview to a newspaper revealed that she is looking forward to leave her party and the leaderships of various political parties have contacted her, inviting her to join them.
She said she thought the entry of Nabil Gabol in the MQM was the party’s downfall in Lyari.
She expressed her trust in the leadership of Asif Ali Zardari and Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in a twitter message has welcomed Nadia Gabool into the fold of PPP.

Dasti Calls Malala A US Produced ‘Drama’

Multan: Member of National Assembly Jamshed Dasti is reported to have said that Malala Yousufzai, the young Pakistani educational activist is no more than a drama staged by the United States to delay the peace talks with Taliban, the Islamic militant group that the government intends to, for the restoration of peace in the country

During a press conference held in Multan, Dasti expressed these views while talking to the media. He talked about the nomination of the Swati girl’s for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, which she however failed to achieve.

The MNA sees to Malala as an agent used by the United States against Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), as the country does not want Pakistan to enter into peaceful talks and negotiations with them. She speaks ill of the Islamist group while talks good of the US. He believes that the girl had done nothing special for which she is being given prestige and honor on the local and international level.

Dasti, an independent candidate on the occasion further spoke that politicians and media need to look towards the issues of Pakistan rather than focusing on the teenage girl only. He expressed satisfaction for the failure of Malala to win over the Nobel Prize which reflects his sentiments to be similar of the Islamic militant group, TTTP.

Malala last year had been shot in her head in a school van on October 9, to which the TTTP had claimed responsibility. After the incident, she has emerged as an international icon. Presently she resides in Britain along with her family, where she had been taken for the medical treatment after the incident happened.

The decision to establish anti-terrorism task force was taken at a special KPK cabinet meeting.

PESHAWAR (Dunya News) - The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Cabinet at its meeting on Thursday approved to establish anti-terrorism task force, which will be led by the Inspector General, to control the law and order situation in the province.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak presided over the meeting.

Cabinet demanded of the federal government to send back FC personnel deployed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The cabinet also demanded of the federal government to immediately start peace talks with Taliban. Cabinet has also ordered property dealers to submit data of the tenants living in rented houses in the city to nearby police stations.

ISPR statement is not an interference in politics: Info Minister

 

ISPR has represented the sentiments of every patriotic Pakistani, Pervez Rashid said.

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervaiz Rashid says ISPR s clarification is not interference in politics.
Talking to media in Rawalpindi today (Web Desk)‚ the he said ISPR has represented the sentiments of every patriotic Pakistani.
The Minister said the visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif  to the General Headquarters Rawalpindi is aimed at expressing solidarity with the martyrs.
To a question‚ Pervez Rashid said the Prime Minister has not yet received letter from Jamaat-e-Islami leader Liaqat Baloch.

Ecuador's Correa says will resign if Chevron proves interference

 

Equador's higher court had fined Chevron over Amazon pollution.

QUITO (AFP) - Ecuador s President Rafael Correa has promised to resign if Chevron proves his government interfered in a trial over Amazon pollution that resulted in a record fine against the US oil giant.
"Let Chevron prove that the government interfered in the judgment and I will resign my post," Correa said Tuesday at a news conference in Guayaquil.
Last week, the country s highest court confirmed the 2011 verdict against Chevron by a regional court, which the oil giant challenged. The high court s only concession was to cut the fine by half to $9.5 billion.
"The legal case is closed. The courts have spoken. We have never been mixed up in this case," Correa said.
Faced with Chevron s refusal to pay the fine, the Ecuadoran president has launched a campaign for an international boycott of the company.
The environmental damage to the Amazon forest dates back to when the US oil company Texaco operated in Ecuador between 1964 and 1990, before it was acquired by Chevron.
Sued by a class of 30,000 members of communities in the affected region, Chevron blamed state-owned Petroecuador for the pollution.
It took the case to a court in New York and the permanent court of arbitration in the Hague, accusing the Ecuadoran courts of corruption and the authorities in Quito of interfering.
Even at half the original amount, the fine against Chevron is one of the biggest in environmental law, surpassing the $4.5 billion levied against ExxonMobil for the 1989 Alaska oil spill.