Quetta: Miscreants blew up gas pipeline

Gas supply to several areas has been suspended when some unidentified miscreants blew up a gas pipeline in Quetta, trendpk.com reported on Thursday.

Sources said that the explosive material was planted at the roadside near western bypass, which was later detonated. As a result, the pipeline got damaged suspending the supply to the nearby areas including Mastung and Qalat.

Heavy contingents of police rushed the site, however the repair work was yet to be started.

Pakistan, Turkey sign 18 MoUs

ANKARA: Pakistan and Turkey agreed to further strengthen and take their existing close bilateral ties to ‘greater heights’ through enhanced cooperation in the range of areas including defence, with Turkey offering military hardware and assistance in infrastructure building.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan after co-chairing the first High Level Cooperation Council (HLCC) meeting here told a press conference that the inaugural session of HLCC remained very useful and would help to steer “our unique partnership to ever greater heights.”

The two sides on this occasion also signed 18 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) and Protocols for increased cooperation in various fields including health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, housing, media etc.

The Turkish Prime Minister said

Karachi: Sindh govt to launch grand operation

Sindh Home Minister Zufiqar Mirza has said that a list of sensitive areas has been finalized and soon a grand operation would be launched to cleanse Karachi of all the criminal elements.
Mirza said that all the political parties would be taken on board regarding the operation.
Mirza informed that a meeting has been called at the Governor House and both, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) will be attending it.
Meanwhile, a police official was shot dead in Hijrat Colony earlier in the day, while another person was killed in Joharabad Colony. In the meantime, police and paramilitary units intensified patrols in West Zone police station areas including Moach Goth, Sayedabad, Balcoh Mohalla, Jahan Abad Old Goli Mar and Zamindar Hotel. The provincial government has also marked the abovesaid places as the most sensitive areas of the metropolis city.
Members of the Rangers paramilitary and police were patrolling Layari, a low-income southern neighbourhood and other sensitive areas where the violence has been concentrated, police said.

N.Korea tells Carter wants to resume nuclear talks

SEOUL: North Korea’s number two leader has told former US President Jimmy Carter that the reclusive state is committed to denuclearising the peninsula and resuming six-way talks, the North’s state news agency said on Friday.

Carter left the North on Friday morning, KCNA said. The Carter Center in a statement from the former president said that he was leaving Pyongyang with an American who had been convicted of illegally entering the country.

“Kim Yong Nam expressed the will of the DPRK government for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the resumption of the six-party talks,” KCNA said, referring to the meeting of the North’s number two with Carter.

Carter’s visit took place amid heightened tensions on the peninsula after the torpedoing in March of a South Korean warship, which Seoul blames on the North and which prompted Washington to announce

India suspends defence exchanges with China

NEW DELHI: India has suspended defence exchanges with China after Beijing refused a visa to an Indian army general from the disputed Kashmir region, government sources and local media said on Friday.

New Delhi would give little details on the issue, only saying that the visit by the general to China did not take place.

“While we value our exchanges with China, there must be sensitivity to each others’ concerns. Our dialogue with China on these issues is ongoing,” India’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.

Last year, India protested against a Chinese embassy policy of issuing different visas to residents of Indian Kashmir, one of a series of low-level disputes between the Asian giants.

New Delhi bristles at any hint that Kashmir is not part of India, which has for two decades grappled with a separatist insurgency in the state that has

UN to continue aid efforts despite Taliban threats

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nation assured to continue aid efforts in flood-hit areas despite a US official warned that the Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan is planning to attack foreign aid workers participating in flood relief.

“We will not be deterred from doing what we believe we need to do, which is to help the people of Pakistan,” John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, told a news conference at the world body’s headquarters.

“Of course, security issues are there, but we’ll continue to help a very large number affected by the unprecedented floods” Holmes, who is leaving his post, told a news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

Holmes said that the United Nations would take “appropriate precautions.”

Replying to a question, Holmes said he had not talked to the Pakistan government about beefing up security for the UN aid workers, but the

Nearly half a million ordered to evacuate Thatta

THATTA: Officials have ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate towns Thursday as the United Nations vowed to forge ahead with relief operations despite threats against foreign aid workers.

Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the volatile country — an area roughly the size of England — where US officials have reported threats by the Taliban.

But UN humanitarian chief John Holmes pledged relief operations would continue.

“We will not be deterred from doing what we believe we need to do, which is to help the people of Pakistan,” he told a news conference at the world body’s headquarters in New York.

“Those threats existed before the floods and we’ve always known that the security issues are there,” he said.

As the crisis deepened, villagers in the south fled from where the Indus delta merges with the

DM Canal breached, vast area of Muridkey submerged

Staff Report

LAHORE: A breach has appeared in Dost Muhammad (DM) canal of Muridkey, Punjab; hundreds of hectares of land has been submerged in water, SAMAA reported on Friday.

Heavy rains and floods have wreaked havoc all across the Pakistan. No area is safe from the ongoing devastation of flood water. The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh have been hit hard by floods. Punjab and other areas including Kashmir and Giligit-Baltistan have also faced vast destruction.

Millions of people have lost their homes, relatives, animals, crop and other belongings. Flood water is constantly hitting hard various areas of Sindh and Punjab where millions of hectares ready crops have been also destroyed by the water.

In the latest development, flood water has hit, Punjab’s Tehsil Muridkey in District Sheikhupura, where a breach has appeared in DM Canal and

Phet enters India; sea turns to normal

KARACHI: The panic-triggering tropical cyclone Phet that kept Karachiites worried for over past couple of days, moved past Sindh’s coastline and fizzled out by turning into less-pressure winds, Geo News reported Monday.

Talking to Geo News, DG Meteorological Department Dr Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry said Phet, turning into low pressure winds, entered India’s Rajasthan, leaving no chances of showers in Sindh including Karachi.

The DG Met said the rain spell might begin in Pakistan’s areas including Upper Punjab and other plain areas owing to the presence low-pressure winds in Indian Punjab.

He said the weather conditions also improved in Karachi and other coastal areas, which make it possible for the fishermen in Sindh to go fishing in open sea.

Karachi: 9 killed in target killing

At least nine people have been gunned down while 11 others have been wounded in the incidents of target killing in the city in 24 hours in areas including Shah Faisal Colony, Orangi Town, Saddar, and other areas of the city.
Following mounting tensions and target killing shops in Saddar, Shah Faisal Colony, Orangi Town, Qasba Colony and New Karachi were closed by armed gunmen and thus tension spread in the areas. However, police and Rangers assumed the control of the areas and started patrolling.
Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah has met Governor Ishratul Ibad Khan at Governor House to discuss the law and order situation prevailing in Karachi.

Forces trying to sabotage peace in Karachi says Waseem Aftab
Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Waseem Aftab speaking to Dunya News said that some forces are trying to sabotage the peace in Karachi. He said that ANP should have acted responsibly. He added that Pukhtoons were not being targeted. He demanded ANP to review its policy of dividing the masses on racial basis.

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