Canada Seeks ICC’s Help In Visa Issue

Three players of Canadian team are facing difficulties in getting visa for India. The players belongs to Pakistani region and they are facing difficulties in getting visa to travel with team 10 days before the world cup. Vice-captain Rizwan Cheema, Khurram Chohan and Hamza Tariq are not getting Indian visa and the president of Cricket Canada, Ranjit Saini is seeking ICC’s permission for the resolution of this issue.

He added that they are consulting with ICC and they are hopeful that three players will definitely get permission to travel India. He added that delay in getting permission will not help them in their training secessions.

They are schedule to play two warm up matches against Bangladesh and England. According to reports ICC has also given an indication that the visa problem of Canadian team will be resolve soon. The current position regarding the visa issue is creating difficult situation for the Canadian team.

Canadian team is in Dubai and they are practicing there and schedule to visit Sub continent 10 days before the world cup. World cup is starting in February and they are trying to get all things all right. The visa issue will create difficulties for teams and players.

PA calls for IRSA restructuring

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly unanimously passed a resolution, calling for restructuring of Indus River System Authority (IRSA) to ensure fair distribution of water among provinces.

The resolution demands that the fifth member of the IRSA board should be selected from a neutral territory, either from Islamabad or Azad Kashmir.

In another resolution passed by the provincial assembly, the federal government has been asked to end the continuing gas outages for Punjab’s industries.

Speaking to reporters outside the assembly, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that the Punjab government has not been consulted about appointment of new governor.

Responding to a question, he said that PML-N has no objection to appointment of Babar Awan or any other person as Governor of Punjab. TrendPK

Pakistan says US backing India UNSC seat ‘incomprehensible’

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government on Wednesday condemned US backing for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council for arch-rival India as “incomprehensible”.

A federal cabinet resolution “expressed its serious concern and strong disappointment on the decision of the United States to support a permanent seat for India on the UN Security Council,” a foreign ministry statement said.

“It is incomprehensible that the US has sought to support India, whose credentials with respect to observing UN charter principles and international law are at best chequered,” the resolution said.

Addressing the Indian parliament earlier this week, visiting US President Barack Obama received rapturous applause when he said he looked forward to welcoming India as a permanent member of a reformed UN Security Council.

Islamabad and Washington are allies in the war against

KP Assembly Passes Resolution to Ban Dowry

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Thursday passed a unanimous resolution against ban on dowry in the province.

Awami National Party’s woman MPA Tabasum Shams tabled the resolution when the session began with Pakistan Peoples Party parliamentary leader Abdul Akbar Khan in chair.

The resolution, which was unanimously passed by treasury benches and the opposition, stressed that exchange of dowry must be banned to save the society from discriminations and disproportions.

Hoti terms Kalabagh Dam a dead issue

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti, rejecting the resolution of Punjab Assembly in favour of Kalabagh Dam, has termed Kalabagh Dam a dead issue, Dunya News reported on Wednesday.
Talking to media in a ceremony in Peshawar, Hoti said that a number of powers tried to build Kalabagh Dam, but couldnt succeed. He said that he wasnt under pressure from the Federal Government to build Kalabagh Dam. He said that exposing terrorists by media wasnt less than jihad.

Anti-media motion: Mastikhel gets clean chit

A report by an inquiry commission revealed that Sanaullah Mastikhel, a PML-N Punjab MPA who earned notoriety for tabling an anti-media resolution in the provincial assembly, has not violated the party discipline as the resolution carried signatures of 18 other party members as well.
A probing commission headed by Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, also recorded statement of Law Minister Rana Sanaullah in this respect. The inquiring commission sent the report to party head Nawaz Sharif while Rana Sanaullah and Speaker PA Rana Iqbal briefed him in this regard.
The committee also warned Mastikhel against any such adventure in future.
It merits to mention that Sanaullah Mastikhel, a member of Muslim League (Nawaz), tabled an anti-media resolution in PA saying that some media programmes being used for propaganda against political leaders and democratic and public representatives being maligned. The PA approved the resolution which was later withdrawn on the subsequent criticism from media and other sections of society.
PML-N patron also denounced the action and termed Mastikhel a turncoat. Later, the pro-media motion was moved by Law Minister Rana Sanaullah which was ratified by the assembly.

Mastikhel not exonerated, says Rana Sanaullah
Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Mastikhel rejected the notion that Mastikhel has been acquitted, saying that only two causes have been presented to the party chief.
He said that the committee was to probe the case while party is the sole authority to take any action in this regard. He said that around 18 people were involved in the making of the resolution including members from PML-Q, who later on launched a campaign against PML-N. Replying to a question regarding Mastikhels exclusion from the party, Rana said that the party head would take any decision after consulting all the party members including Mastikhel himself.

US Implores Americans not to Visit NKorea

US Implores Americans not to Visit NKorea , The State Department on Friday urged Americans to respect its warning against traveling to North Korea, saying in a cheeky Twitter message that there are not too many former U.S. presidents left available for rescue missions.

In a Tweet posted shortly after former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Boston from North Korea with American Aijalon Gomes who had been detained in the communist country for seven months, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said: “Americans should heed our travel warning and avoid North Korea. We only have a handful of former presidents.”

His message referred to the fact that Carter was the second former U.S. president to travel to North Korea in the past year to win the release of American citizens imprisoned there. Last August, former President Bill Clinton secured the release of two television reporters who had been arrested for illegally entering North Korea.

Carter’s trip means that the only living former presidents not to have rescued Americans imprisoned in North Korea are George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush.

Immediately after Carter flew out of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang with Gomes late Thursday, the State Department renewed its long-standing warning for Americans not to visit the country.

“Travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea is not routine, and U.S. citizens crossing into North Korea without proper documentation, even accidentally, have been subject to arrest and long-term detention,” the warning said in bold letters.

Gomes who entered North Korea illegally in January was convicted and sentenced to a hefty fine and eight years of hard labor. The U.S. had appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds for months before Carter’s visit.

Crowley said that although the U.S. appreciated the resolution of the Gomes’ case, it was still concerned about North Korea’s “broader behavior,” a reference to its nuclear weapons program and belligerent attitude and actions toward South Korea.

1 Million Mmore Displaced by Pakistan Floods: UN

Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis fled floodwaters Friday after the surging Indus River smashed through levees in two places, but many refused to leave the danger zone while others took shelter in an ancient graveyard for Muslim saints.

More than 8 million people are in need of emergency assistance across the country. The floods began in the mountainous northwest about a month ago with the onset of monsoon rains and have moved slowly down the country toward the coast in the south, inundating vast swaths of prime agricultural land and damaging or destroying more than 1 million homes.

About 175,000 people are believed to have fled their homes overnight in the southern city of Thatta after the levee protecting the city was breached. Authorities were trying to repair the levee, about 75 miles (125 kilometers) southeast of the major coastal city of Karachi. The situation is getting worse. The water is flowing into a nearby canal endangering Thatta city.

A second breach occurred in the Soorjani levee in the same region. Thousands of people are sitting with their cattle and belongings and their lives are in danger. They are not willing to leave. Dozens of people taking shelter in the Makli Hill burial ground, one of the largest such sites in the world. The graveyard, which is not believed to be in danger, houses the ornate tombs of hundreds of Muslim saints dating from the 14th century. Protesters blocked a nearby highway with burning tires. They said they heeded evacuation orders, but now had no food, water or shelter.

UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano said about 1 million people have been displaced in Thatta and Qambar-Shadadkot districts since Wednesday. The United Nations, the Pakistani army and a host of other local and international relief groups have been rushing aid workers, medicine, food and water to the affected regions, but are unable to reach many people.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the U.N. remained committed to helping the flood victims. We will obviously take these threats seriously as we did before, and take appropriate precautions, but we will not be deterred from doing what we believe we need to do, which is help the people of Pakistan, he told a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.

US concerned about possible leak of diplomatic cables

WASHINGTON: The US State Department expressed concern Friday that secret diplomatic cables might have been leaked to the WikiLeaks website in addition to a mass of military files on Afghanistan.

“There were a handful of cables that came out among this tranche of (92,000 military files published online), maybe five or six,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

“So that infers that, yes, there may well have been some State Department cables in whatever was transmitted to WikiLeaks,” he said. “We can”t verify that.”

“Do we have concerns about what (State Department documents) might be out there? Yes, we do,” Crowley said.

“When we provide our analysis of situations in key countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, we distribute these across the interagency, including to military addresses,” Crowley said, adding that some are classified documents.

“So is the potential there that State Department documents have been compromised? Yes,” Crowley said.

UN chief urges Israel to further ease Gaza blockade

UNITED NATIONS: UN chief Ban Ki-moon pressed Israel Friday to further ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip and to restrain settlement activity in the occupied West Bank as he met Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Their wide-ranging discussions touched on the overall situation in Gaza, with Ban underscoring the importance of a “further easing of the (border) closures,” on Lebanon and on Israel”s settlement activity, a UN statement said.

The secretary general called on the Jewish state to continue “its restraint on settlement activity and to extend it to east Jerusalem” among other steps that could spur “meaningful direct talks” between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel last November announced a 10-month halt to new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank following months of US pressure on both sides to revive peace talks suspended after the outbreak of the Gaza war in late 2008.

The Palestinians have long demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlement expansion ahead of direct peace talks.

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