President phones MQM chief, talks about Mirza’s speech

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari telephoned Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain and discussed the situation after Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza’s speech.

Mirza had criticized the coalition partner (MQM) for target killings in the city yesterday.

MQM has suggested to Mirza to go to court if he has proof regarding MQM’s involvement in the target killings.

MQM said it would contact the President and Prime Minister after Muharram 10 to discuss Mirza’s speech. TrendPK

London: Students clash with police, 5 arrested

Thousands of students and school pupils protested across Britain on Tuesday against planned rises in university tuition fees, bringing disruption to central London and putting strains on the coalition government.

This protest began with a short rally in Trafalgar Square but the planned march to Parliament did not take place. In fiery exchanges in parliament, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the leader of the coalition’s junior partner the Liberal Democrats, defended the fee hike which his party had promised to vote against during campaigning for May’s election. Outside parliament, there were bizarre scenes of cat and mouse as protesters dispersed from the route of a designated demonstration fanning out across central London with police in hot pursuit. The protesters clashed with riot police while others played out a game of cat and mouse with authorities, breaking into groups and dispersing from the designated demonstration route. The Metropolitan Police, who had prepared themselves in large numbers at Parliament Square, struggled to catch up with the students, but there did not appear to be any incidents of violence as in previous weeks; where as the police also arrested 5 students during this protest.

NATO says six troops shot dead in east Afghanistan

KABUL: Six NATO troops were shot dead by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the coalition said, the worst apparent “rogue” shooting in more than a year.

The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by renegade police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.

However, NATO and Afghan officials were unable to confirm whether the person who carried out the shooting was actually a member of the border police or if it was an insurgent who had infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier

NATO says six troops shot dead in east Afghanistan

KABUL: Six NATO troops were shot dead by a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform during a training exercise in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, the coalition said, the worst apparent “rogue” shooting in more than a year.

The incident appeared to be the latest in a string of recent attacks by renegade police and soldiers, underlining the pressure on NATO-led troops as they try to train Afghan forces rapidly to allow the handover of security responsibility from next year.

However, NATO and Afghan officials were unable to confirm whether the person who carried out the shooting was actually a member of the border police or if it was an insurgent who had infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

Afghan authorities said last year they were tightening vetting procedures for the police and army after a similar incident when a renegade soldier

NATO leaders endorse 2014 Afghan exit plan

NATO heads of the states have endorsed the repatriation plan of the coalition forces from Afghanistan till 2014. The Secretary General of NATO Andre Rasmussen has said that there are no more safe hide-outs of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan but even then the coalition forces would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Addressing a press conference alongwith UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Afghan president Hamid Karzai in Lisbon after the meeting, Rasmussen said that the process of giving the control of Afghanistan to the Afghan security forces has been initiated. He also said that the Afghan forces would start leading the security operations by next year and would take complete control of their country by 2014. Rasmussen told the media that Taliban should not dream of regaining power in Afghanistan as the coalition forces would remain inside Afghanistan even after 2014.
More or less 130,000 ISAF personnel are present in Afghanistan right now and of them most belong to the USA.

NATO says 3 troops killed in eastern Afghanistan

KABUL: Three troops serving with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan were killed in a clash with insurgents in the east of the country, the coalition said, one of the worst daily tolls in a month.

The International Security Assistance Force announced earlier that two troops had been killed in explosions in the south. The five casualties were the worst suffered by ISAF since Oct. 14, when eight of its troops were killed in five separate incidents. AGENCIES

Convoy attacked in Afghan capital-police: NATO

KABUL: A NATO convoy was attacked near the parliament building in the Afghan capital on Friday, police and the coalition said, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

A police source said the attack had been carried out by a suicide bomber, although a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it appeared to have been a roadside bomb.

Neither police nor ISAF had any word on possible casualties. AGENCIES

Kosovan president resigns, could hit Serbia talks

PRISTINA: Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu resigned on Monday, potentially destabilising the fragile political scene before talks with Belgrade which still refuses to recognise the former Serbian province’s independence.

Sejdiu bowed to a constitutional court ruling last week that he may not serve simultaneously as the largely ceremonial head of state and as leader of his political party, which is junior partner in the coalition government.

“I respect the constitutional court decision,” Sejdiu told a news conference in announcing his resignation as president, who is elected by parliament. “Over these years I have worked so that the Republic of Kosovo would have democratic institutions.”

A 58-year-old former law professor, Sejdiu was elected president for the second time in 2008 but remained at the helm of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the second

Afghan probe after eight foreign medics killed

KABUL: Authorities were seeking Sunday to identify eight foreign medics gunned down in a remote Afghan forest in an attack claimed by the Taliban, which said they were executed as “Christian missionaries”.

The bullet-riddled bodies of five men, all Americans, and three women, an American, a German and a Briton, were found in the northeastern province of Badakhshan on Friday, according to the provincial police chief.

Two Afghans were also killed in the attack but two survived.

They were part of a 12-member team of volunteer medics returning from a medical camp in neighbouring Nuristan province, said Dirk Frans, director of the Kabul-based International Assistance Mission (IAM).

Badakhshan provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kintoz said the group had been lined up and shot in dense forest, according to the testimony of one of the Afghan survivors.

Five NATO troops killed in Afghan south

KABUL: Five NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan”s insurgency-hit south, the coalition force said Sunday.

One soldier was killed by a homemade bomb and two others died following an insurgent attack on Saturday, said a statement from NATO”s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) without giving further details.

Two Danish soldiers were also killed Saturday when their tank hit a roadside bomb while on patrol in restive Helmand province. The explosion left three other soldiers injured, two of them seriously, the Danish military said.

Improvised explosive devices are the weapons of choice for Taliban fighting an increasingly deadly insurgency in their southern heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where around 30,000 international troops are deployed.

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