Several Shot Dead in Chechen Parliament Attack

MOSCOW: Several people were shot dead in the parliament of the restive Chechen Republic on Tuesday, Russian news agency reported quoting a security source.

Several people have been killed in a shooting in the Chechen Republic parliament building, it has been reported.

The violence has apparently erupted at the speaker’s office and was continuing and riot police are at the scene.

There was a report Tuesday that several people have been killed in an on-going shooting incident at the Chechen Parliament in Russia.

The speaker, Dukvakha Adburakhmanov, was unharmed, Interfax news agency said.

Riot police had gone to the scene and Russia’s interior minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, who is in Chechen capital Grozny, had been informed, the media report said.

Musharraf to launch political party

HONG KONG: Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday he would launch a new party on October 1, as the retired general plots a return to the frontlines of the restive country’s turbulent politics.

Musharraf also accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of lacking “legitimacy” but urged the West to stay the course against the Taliban and not to abandon the restive region.

“I’m going to a declare a party on October 1. We have to bring about a new political culture in Pakistan,” he told reporters in Hong Kong after addressing an annual investors’ forum organised by the CLSA brokerage.

The 67-year-old Musharraf, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, shrugged off the threat of possible legal action arising from his years of military rule of Pakistan.

“There are elements opposed to me, political elements, and they are the ones who

Gen. Petraeus arrives in Afghanistan to lead war effort

KABUL: US Gen David Petraeus has arrived in Afghanistan to take command of American and Nato forces fighting the Taliban.

He replaces Gen Stanley McChrystal, who was sacked for making disparaging remarks about senior US officials.

He has promised to use the same counter-insurgency tactics he used in Iraq and that Gen McChrystal introduced in Afghanistan earlier this year.

Gen Petraeus is taking command as some Nato allies are questioning their deployments of troops to Afghanistan.

June saw the highest number of deaths among Nato personnel in the nine years of war – 102, an average of more than three a day.

Attacks on Afghan and foreign military and civilian targets have been increasing in number and sophistication, say correspondents.

Hours before Gen Petraeus arrived in Kabul, five people, including three foreigners, were killed when suicide bombers attacked the office of a US aid organisation in the northern province of Kunduz.

One attacker detonated a car bomb at the entrance to the office of Development Alternatives in the pre-dawn raid.

Five others rushed into the compound and fought with Afghan security forces for about six hours until all were killed or had detonated their suicide bombs.

The Taliban said they carried out the attack.

US troop numbers are about to reach their highest level since the war began in 2001.

The last of an extra 30,000 troops pledged last year are due to arrive in August, bringing the total number of foreign forces in Afghanistan to 150,000, with about two-thirds of those Americans.

A formal takeover ceremony for Gen Petraeus is expected this weekend and he is due to meet President Hamid Karzai in the coming days.

The general has promised to continue with the same strategy his predecessor had begun to use before he was sacked.

It is the same counter-insurgency strategy Gen Petraeus oversaw with some success in Iraq.

Roza Otunbayeva inaugurated as president of Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK: Roza Otunbayeva was on Saturday inaugurated as president of conflict-wracked Kyrgyzstan, making her the first female leader in the history of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Otunbayeva, a former ambassador to the United Kingdom who took power on the wave of bloody street riots in April which ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, took the oath of office at a Soviet-era concert hall in the capital Bishkek.

The inauguration comes just days after the country overwhelmingly approved a new constitution making Kyrgyzstan the region”s first parliamentary democracy, a move Otunbayeva hopes will help bring calm to the restive country.

NATO kills ”large number” of Taliban in Afghan gunbattle

KABUL: NATO forces in Afghanistan said Thursday they had killed a “large number” of Taliban fighters and captured a rebel chieftain after a raid on an insurgent hideout in the southern province of Helmand.

Troops called in air support during running gunbattles in the province”s troubled Baghran district which erupted after rebels attacked soldiers with machine guns and rockets, it said.

NATO”s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that the Taliban chief of Naw Zad, another restive district of Helmand, was injured and detained following the fighting. It did not give the number of insurgents killed.

US panel names 13 countries as religious violators

WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia and China are among 13 countries a U.S. government panel named on Thursday as serious violators of religious freedom.

The panel”s report also criticized the current and former administrations in Washington for doing little to make basic religious rights universal.

That is the goal of the congressional act that founded the U.S.Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1998. The commission investigates conditions in what it calls “hot spots,”” where religious freedom is endangered. Its job is to recommend U.S. government policies to improve conditions.

It is a “small but critically important point of intersection of foreign policy, national security and international religious freedom standards,”” the report said. “Regrettably that small point seems to shrink year-after-year for the White House and the State Department.””

This year”s list of 13 “countries of particular concern ””included all eight named last year Myanmar, previously known as Burma; China; Eritrea; Iran; North Korea; Saudi Arabia; Sudan, and Uzbekistan. It also included Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

China to build two nuclear reactors in Pakistan: report

BEIJING: China has agreed to build two new civilian nuclear reactors in Pakistan, a report said Thursday, amid persistent concerns about the safety of nuclear materials in the restive south Asian state.

Chinese companies will build at least two new 650-megawatt reactors at Chashma in Punjab province, a British daily said.

China began building a reactor at Chashma in 1991 and broke ground on a second one in 2005, which is expected to be completed next year, it said.

A statement posted on the website of the China National Nuclear Corporation on March 1 said financing for two new reactors at Chashma was agreed by the two sides in February.

Deputy mayor of Afghan city shot dead: ministry

KABUL: The deputy mayor of the restive southern Afghan city of Kandahar has been shot dead, the interior ministry said Tuesday.

Azizullah Ziarmal “was killed by a terrorist with a revolver as he was going to the mosque” late Monday, the ministry said in a brief statement but gave no further details.

Kandahar, capital of the eponymous province, is one of the most violent regions of Afghanistan, and regarded by Taliban insurgents as their base.

During the brutal 1996-2001 Taliban regime, Kandahar was the country”s designated capital and has been the focus of the increasingly violent insurgency since they were overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2001.

Drive-by shootings, as well as suicide bomb attacks and crude mines and bombs are the main methods of warfare for the insurgents, who are known to control vast swathes of Kandahar city and province.

Three children were killed on Monday when explosives carried on a donkey cart detonated in a residential area of the city, a tribal leader said.

Fazluddin Agha, a pro-government official who ran President Hamid Karzai”s campaign during last year”s presidential elections, said he believed he was the target.

The dead children were his nephews and had been playing on the donkey cart when it exploded, he said.

Kandahar is seen as the key battleground to reverse the escalating conflict, which is taking an increasing toll on foreign forces and Afghan civilians.

Military planners say operations against the Taliban in the restive province have already begun and will escalate in the coming months as thousands more troops deploy to Afghanistan under escalated counter-insurgency tactics.

The number of troops under US and NATO control is set to rise from 126,000 to 150,000 by August, by which time military planners intend to have Kandahar under Afghan government control.

Conditions on banks regarding wheat procurement financing withdrawn

KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has withdrawn with immediate effect conditions placed on Commercial banks for providing financing facilities to the private sector with regard to procurement of wheat. Banks are now free to extend financing facilities to the private sector for procurement of wheat keeping in view their lending policies, business consideration, risk profile of the borrowers and compliance with SBP regulations, said SBP circular (SMEFD No-15) issued here on Tuesday. Earlier this year, the State Bank had placed several conditions on banks, which, inter alia, included fresh financing to the edible borrowers (licensed functional flour mills only) against pledge of fresh indigenous wheat only, cash margin restrictions and adjustment of loans by January 31, 2010.

KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has withdrawn with immediate effect conditions placed on Commercial banks for providing financing facilities to the private sector with regard to procurement of wheat.

Banks are now free to extend financing facilities to the private sector for procurement of wheat keeping in view their lending policies, business consideration, risk profile of the borrowers and compliance with SBP regulations, said SBP circular (SMEFD No-15) issued here on Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the State Bank had placed several conditions on banks, which, inter alia, included fresh financing to the edible borrowers (licensed functional flour mills only) against pledge of fresh indigenous wheat only, cash margin restrictions and adjustment of loans by January 31, 2010.

Saudi Arabia provides $380mln loan to Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia here on Tuesday signed three agreements worth $380 million for time deposit, import of fertilizer and hydropower generation. Of these, two loan agreements pertained to the pledge made by Saudi Arabia during Donors Conference held in Tokyo on the backdrop of Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in which it pledged US$700 million for Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia here on Tuesday signed three agreements worth $380 million for time deposit, import of fertilizer and hydropower generation.

Of these, two loan agreements pertained to the pledge made by Saudi Arabia during Donors Conference held in Tokyo on the backdrop of Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in which it pledged US$700 million for Pakistan.

The loan agreements were signed by Vice Chairman and Managing Director Saudi Fund for Development, Eng. Yousef Ibrahim Al-Bassam on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Secretary Economic Affairs Division, Sibtain Fazal Halim and Deputy Governor Sate Bank of Pakistan, Yaseen Anwar on behalf of Pakistan.

The first loan agreement is related to time deposit of US$200 million that Saudi Arabia would keep in State Bank of Pakistan.

It carries an interest rate of three months LIBOR and its repayment would be made in eight years including three years grace period.

On the occasion, Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Aziz Al-Ghadeer and Secretary Chairman WAPDA, Shakil Durani and Deputy Governor were also present at signing ceremony.

The second agreement from the pledged amount was export credit of US$100 million which would be utilized for import of urea fertilizer from Saudi Arabia.

A separate agreement would be inked between Trade Corporation of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), which will execute this agreement.

The loan of $100 million carries an interest rate of one year’s LIBOR plus 85 basis points and will be repayable after a period of two years.

The agreement to this effect was signed by Yousef Ibrahim Al-Bassam and Secretary EAD Fazal Halim.

The third agreement was co-financing of Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project which is regular on-going assistance form Saudi Arabia.

The Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project, with a donor-component of US$75 million, is co-finance by Saudi Arabia, Abdu Dhabi, Kuwait, Islamic Development Bank OPEC Fund and Chinese EXIM Bank.

Saudi Arabia would provide soft loan of US$80 million for this project.

The loan caries an interest rate of two percent and is payable in 20 years including grace period of six years.

Speaking on the occasion, Eng. Yousef Al-Bassam said that Saudi Arabia was keen to continue its cooperation with Pakistan and assist it in financing development projects in various sectors of economy.

He said that the signing of these agreements was a continuing process towards more stronger ties and cooperation between the two countries.

He said that the hydropower project aims to utilize the natural resources to contribute to providing power supply, which will assist in supporting the social-economic development in Pakistan.

Secretary EAD also spoke on the occasion and expressed the hope that the amount provided through these agreements would help promote the respective sectors.

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