Protest in major cities over power cuts

Protestors in Bahawalpur blocked the road facing Wapda Complex against the load shedding. The protest continued for two hours.

In Multan traders too took to the streets against power cuts at Hassan Parwana Road. Commuters faced problems owing to the road blockade.

In FaisalAbad industrialists and workers also protested in front of Fesco office and staged a sit-in along with women protestors

Egypt President Announces New Govt

Breaking News

CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak swore in a new Cabinet on Monday, replacing one dissolved as a concession to unprecedented anti-government protests.

In the most significant change, the interior minister — who heads internal security forces — was replaced. A retired police general, Mahmoud Wagdi, was named to replace Habib el-Adly, who is widely despised by protesters for brutality shown by security forces.

Still, the new Cabinet is unlikely to satisfy the tens of thousands of protests who have taken to the streets in cities across Egypt the past week demanding the ouster of Mubarak and his entire regime.

When Mubarak announced the dissolving of the previous government late Friday and named his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as his vice president, protesters on the streets rejected the move as an attempt by Mubarak, Egypt’s authoritarian ruler of nearly 30 years, to cling to power.

The new line-up of Cabinet ministers announced on state television included stalwarts of Mubarak’s regime but purged several of the prominent businessmen who held economic posts and have engineered the country’s economic liberalization policies the past decades.

Many Egyptians resented to influence of millionaire politician-moguls, who were close allies of the president’s son, Gamal Mubarak, long thought to be the heir apparent.

In the new Cabinet, Mubarak retained his long-serving defense minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, and Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

The longest-serving Cabinet minister, Culture Minister Farouq Hosni, was replaced by Gaber Asfour, a widely respected literary figure.

Egypt’s most famous archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, was named state minister for antiquities, a new post.

Floods head towards Brisbane, thousands evacuate

Authorities urged thousands of residents to leave the outskirts of Australia’s third largest city on Tuesday as others sandbagged homes and stockpiled food in anticipation of rising floodwaters and further heavy rain.

Ten people died overnight, with cars and pedestrians swept away in a super storm that sent water raging through the streets of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. More than 40 people were pulled from rooftops by helicopters, but 78 were still missing.

The worst flooding in Queensland state in 50 years has killed 14 people in the past two weeks, but police warn the death toll could rise significantly, fearing many people may have drowned trapped in submerged cars and homes.Traffic jams clogged central Brisbane as people headed out by car amid heavy rains and initial flooding. Eighty suburbs were expecting flooding ahead of the crest of the swollen Brisbane River, expected on Thursday.Families poured into evacuation centres in Brisbane as well as neighbouring Ipswich, where a third of the town was expected to be submerged as water levels reach a peak overnight.Some 1,500 people were sheltering in centres as floodwaters spilled from 16 Queensland dams. A further four dams, including Brisbane’s massive Wivenhoe Dam, released vast qualities of water, adding to the surge.Police said 9,000 homes in Brisbane would be flooded by Thursday and 30,000 properties would suffer some inundation.

France Pension Reform Crisis Intensifies

PARIS: French lawmakers on Wednesday formally adopted President Nicolas Sarkozy’s fiercely contested law on pension reform, despite weeks of nationwide protests and strikes with even more planned.

The National Assembly voted 336 for and 233 against the law, which raises the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, on the eve of the latest in a series of protests that have threatened to bring France to a standstill.

Sarkozy must now sign off on the law and publish it in the official gazette, which a presidential advisor has said will happen around November 15.

Unions have nevertheless called for a ninth day of action on Thursday, including strikes and protest marches in more than 100 towns and cities, and another day of “family rallies” is planned for November 6.

Prime Minister Francois Fillion urged the country to pull itself out of the crisis, saying “the law of the Republic should now be respected by all” even as Socialists vowed to take the law before the Constitutional Court.

“Everyone should know how to come out of this protest with responsibility and a mutual respect,” Fillon said in a statement.

“In increasing the legal retirement age an important step has been taken to protect our welfare system in the face of the effect of demographic ageing. Our fellow citizens can view the future of their pensions with more confidence.”

Socialist lawmaker Marisol Touraine however charged that the law punishes the poor.

“You’ve spoken a lot about courage,” she told Labour Minister Eric Woerth, the architect of the law. “But you’ve chosen to make the weakest pay, to attack those with the least means.”

And Socialist leader Martine Aubry accused the government of abusing parliamentary procedure to shut down democratic debate, and pledged to fight on to delay the law being enacted.

“I tell the president, you won’t win against the French people,” she said.

Despite the call for fresh protests, Sarkozy’s supporters have pointed to a tailing off of industrial action in key sectors such as refining and fuel distribution as evidence that the strikers have failed.

Protests since the start of September repeatedly brought more than a million people onto the streets and the battle between unions and the government has seen Sarkozy’s approval rating collapse to less than 30 percent.

Thursday’s rally falls during the French half-term school holidays, and the president’s camp is hoping that this, alongside the passage of the law, will see the protest movement losing steam and a slow return to normal.

Half of France’s 12 refineries are returning to full production after workers voted to resume work, even if petrol is still in short supply with one filling station in five out of service.

And late Tuesday truckers warned of continuing shortages of petrol for two or three more weeks.

“There are still a lot of supply problems. There won’t be a return to normal for another two or three weeks, at best,” Nicolas Paulissen, a representative of the French truckers’ federation FNTR, said.

Rail travel has all but returned to normal after a train drivers’ strike hit the buffers, and Marseille bin men have begun to clear the 10,000 tonnes of rubbish that built up in the streets.

Thursday might yet see another impressive one-day strike, however, and protests planned for November 6 threaten to embarrass Sarkozy during a state visit by President Hu Jintao of China.

Strikes on Thursday will force the cancellation of 50 percent of flights at Paris Orly airport and 30 percent at other airports, the civil aviation authority DGAC said, similar to the previous day of action on October 19.

At the same time, unions said that public transport workers in 29 towns and cities would strike on Thursday, the seventh day of anti-pension reform strikes since August, down from a peak of 103 in September.

Previous strike-day rallies have drawn huge crowds, usually more than a million according to police estimates and as high as 3.5 million according to the unions, but labour leaders were cautious not to raise expectations.

“Our objective is not to beat any records,” conceded Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union, in an interview with the daily Liberation.

“But from what we’re hearing from the ground, we’ll see another good level of mobilisation, which will show that level of anger has not diminish.”

Sarkozy is aware that the law has not won him any new friends, but he is hoping that by facing down the protests he will appear strong in the eyes of his right-wing base as he prepares to seek re-election in 2012.

In the coming days he is expected to symbolise the re-launch of his strategy with a major cabinet reshuffle.

French students march as pensions strike loses steam

PARIS: French students protested Tuesday at campuses across the country but elsewhere the government welcomed signs that the mass movement to defend the right to retire at 60 was losing steam.

Lawmakers were expected to pass President Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopular pensions reform bill on Wednesday and Finance Minister Christine Lagarde hailed what she said was “a return to reason and dialogue.”

And the union leaders who led strikes and street rallies of recent months admitted that they would now have to change tactics and work to modify the final form of the reform rather than defeat it on the streets.

“It’s not over,” insisted Bernard Thibault, head of the CGT union.

“I repeat, the movement is not finished. It will continue. It will take other forms. The subjects it has raised are not closed, whatever happens in the coming days,” he told state

Japan PM voices regret over protests in China

TOKYO : Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan voiced regret Monday over a wave of angry anti-Japanese protests in China at the weekend, sparked by a tense territorial row between the Asian economic giants.

Thousands of mostly young Chinese protesters took to the streets of at least four cities to assert China’s claim to a disputed island chain where a maritime incident six weeks ago kicked off the heated diplomatic spat.

In protests apparently organised on the Internet and via cellphone text messages following an anti-Chinese rally in Tokyo Saturday, thousands of protesters took to the streets, calling for a boycott of Japanese goods.

In several of the rallies, demonstrators smashed windows of Japanese businesses, including a Panasonic outlet and an Isetan department store, and attacked Japanese brand cars, news reports in Japan said.

The rallies, which

Musharraf staging political dramas in foreign theaters: Abbasi

Staff Report

Karachi: Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi has said that ex Military ruler Pervez Musharraf is staging political drama in foreign theaters while initiating personal attacks on our leader Nawaz Sharif.

Abbasi, reacting on Pervez Musharraf’s statement on PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif, said to SAMAA that an effort to target Nawaz Sharif’s character is equivalent to spit towards the moon.

He added that Pervez Musharraf shall come to the streets and neighborhoods of Pakistan to carry on his political dreams, instead of staging political shows in the foreign halls.

“EX Military ruler sold Pakistanis to US for mere 5-5 thousand dollars each, and even sold out Kashmir to remain in power,” Hanif Abbasi alleged. SAMAA

Qureshi disappointed over Dr. Aafias sentence

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has termed the sentence of Dr Aafia as harsh and unfortunate.
Talking to CNN, the FM said that Dr. Aafia was not given benefit of doubt but She does have a right to appeal. I’m sure her family and the government will consult and will think of going with the appeal.
Qureshi said the sentence has sparked reaction in Pakistan, where people have protested, people have demonstrated. Many people feel that she is innocent and she was framed and she should have got a fairer chance.
He added, however, that Pakistanis also understand the government did its best, and we have our limitations. There is due process of law and we have to stay within the process of law. But there is a disappointment and that has been expressed on the streets of Pakistan.

Nation protests Dr. Aafia’s sentence

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of protesters took to the streets and staged protests in many cities against the sentence of Dr. Aafia, said sources Friday.

The saga of Ms. Siddiqui, a former student at Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been closely followed in her home country, where she is widely viewed as innocent.

Demonstrators in Lahore, Peshawar, Multan and other cities staged protests and demanded the government to halt the implementation of Aafia’s prison sentence.

Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the government will take every possible step for Dr. Aafia’s return.

A large number of students from different universities and colleges participated in the demonstration. Protesters burnt tires on Lower Mall road and blocked traffic.

“The government’s silence over Aafia’s

Police firing kills 13 protesters in Indian Occupied Kashmir

At least 13 protesters have been killed in clashes with police troops in Indian Occupied Kashmir that have been partly fueled by a report of a Quran being desecrated in the United States.
The death toll Monday was the highest since separatist protests broke out in June against Indian rule in the disputed region.
Tens of thousands of violent anti-Indian demonstrators ignored a curfew and flooded the streets, burning government buildings and throwing rocks at police stations.
A police officer said security forces shot at some of the crowds, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with media.

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