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PICT office picnic 2012

South Korea and Japan discussion

Up to 200,000 women are estimated to have been sexually enslaved by Japan during the war, many of them Korean.

It has long strained ties, with South Korea demanding stronger apologies from Japan and compensation for victims.

Earlier this year both sides agreed to speed up talks to resolve the row.

Japan's Fumio Kishida arrived in Seoul on Monday to meet his counterpart Yun Byung-Se, in what correspondents say is a significant move after hints that possible compromise solutions were being considered.

Pakistan quizzes suspects over abducted American

LAHORE: Pakistani police have detained a number of people for questioning in connection with the kidnapping of an American development expert in the eastern city of Lahore, investigators said on Sunday. 
In a pre-dawn raid on Saturday, six to eight assailants broke into the house of the man, identified by the U.S. State Department as Warren Weinstein, and abducted him after overpowering security guards. 
"We have detained a few people for questioning, including guards posted at the house," Lahore police chief Ahmed Raza Tahir told Reuters. 
"We hope to recover him soon," he added, without giving further details. 
U.S. embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez said they had not yet been informed about any progress in the case. "Police are investigating. We are waiting." 
No one claimed responsibility for the abduction. 
Kidnapping for ransom is relatively common in Pakistan, although foreigners are not often targets. Militants also occasionally take foreigners hostage but these incidents have taken place in the volatile western regions bordering Afghanistan, where Islamist insurgents are very active.  
Weinstein has been identified as working for J.E. Austin & Associates, an Arlington, Virginia-based consulting firm, on a development project in lawless tribal areas where Pakistani troops have been battling Islamist insurgents for years.  
Police said the gunmen barged into house on the pretext of sharing a meal with the guards, a common practice during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which started early this month. The attackers then forced Weinstein's driver to knock on his bedroom door. When he opened it, they took him.  
The victim, in his 60s, had been living in Pakistan for five to six years, according to police. He mostly lived in Islamabad but had been travelling to Lahore.  
Relations between Pakistan and the United States have sharply deteriorated since January, when a CIA contractor killed
two Pakistanis in Lahore, and worsened after U.S. Navy SEALS killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a raid in northwestern Pakistan that Islamabad termed a breach of its sovereignty.  
Pakistani Taliban, linked to al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for kidnapping a Swiss couple in July in the volatile southwestern province of Baluchistan.  

Nation celebrates 64th Independence Day today

KARACHI:  Nation is celebrating the 64th Independence Day of Pakistan today (Sunday), with renewing the commitment to keep Pakistan prosperous and strong, SAMAA reported late Saturday.  

In line with tradition, the day will dawn with special prayers in mosques for the progress and prosperity of the country.

Celebrations will begin with a 31-gun salute in the Federal Capital and 21-gun salute in all the four provincial capitals.

The change of the guard ceremony at the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder, in Karachi would also take place in the morning.

A number of events have been chalked out to celebrate the Independence Day in a befitting manner and to pay homage to those, who laid down their lives to create an independent homeland for the coming generations.

All the government and private buildings have been illuminated. People, all over the country, have decorated their houses, shopping centers and offices with national flags, banners, lightings, paintings and balloons in green and white colours.

All the political parties are all set to celebrate the historic day in a dignified manner by hoisting national and party flags.

To mark the occasion in a befitting manner, the electronic, print and online media have planned comprehensive programmes.

Meanwhile, in his message, President Asif Ali Zardari congratulated nation on the eve of 64th Independence Day.

Addressing the gathering of Independence Day’s ceremony at Aiwan-e-Sadr, President said Pakistan’s foundation was laid down on ‘democracy’ and ‘dialogue’.

“All forces – political, non-political, civil and military – will have to join hands to strengthen Pakistan,” he proposed.

“I am inviting once again all political groups to come, sit together and hold dialogue to resolve standing issues,” he said.

Pakistan will have to prevent its forthcoming generation from the virus of terrorism, he said adding that war on terrorism is a combat being fought against an ideology.

Moreover, President Zardari, greeting nation on Independence Day, pledged to do whatever it takes to make Pakistan prosperous and stronger.

My country and my nation will get its glory which it deserves, president vowed.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, greeting the nation, has said that the 14th of August is an historic day when under the inspiring leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muslims of the sub-continent added a glorious chapter of sacrifice, commitment and self-less devotion to the annals of history.

In a message prime minister said that the establishment of Pakistan was a culmination of the Muslims’ relentless political and constitutional struggle to preserve their cultural identity, heritage, civilization including the protection of their political and economic rights.

The tyrannical opposition of the Indian National Congress and the British could not deter the Muslims from realizing the dream of Allama Dr Muhammad Iqbal for an independent state where they could live their life at individual and collective levels according to their traditions.

He said that it is a matter of immense pride that Pakistan came into being as a result of democratic, political and constitutional struggle and Pakistan’s future lies in democracy and representative rule

Prime minister said I would like to congratulate the people of Pakistan and the expatriate community living abroad on the Independence Day. 

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani has said that Pakistan is facing many challenges at this point of time, vowing that armed forces will leave no stone unturned to defend Pakistan.

He said Pakistan’s armed forces are well capable of defending dear motherland Pakistan.  Islam is a great religion and it is a religion of peace and brotherhood, he maintained. 

Violence flares again in Karachi

KARACHI- After a lull of hardly a week, Malir and Landhi areas where again in the grip of organised bloodbath on Friday as unidentified attackers claimed 14 lives and wounded another 22 while two houses were also set on fire in Karachi.

Police surgeon Dr Hamid Padhyar told that 10 bodies and 15 injured were shifted to JPMC, 2 dead bodies were shifted to Sindh Government Hospital, Malir and one body and four injured were brought to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. The deceased were identified as Niaz Muhammad, Muhammad Ibrahim, Akram, Akbar Ali, Naseer Ahmed, Azeem, Jamshaid, Nadeem, Murtaza, Iqbal, Ikram, Khalid and Shafique, Nabi Khan and one unidentified person.

Eyewitnesses said over a hundred gunmen equipped with sophisticated weapons and walkie-talkies barged into different areas of Malir and Landhi and resorted to firing at different locations dominated by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

The police high ups termed the incident as a clash between the rival organisation, MQM and Muhajir Qaumi Movement-Haqqiqi (MQM-H), but MQM workers and residents asserted that it was a planned attack and that most of the attackers were Balcohs and Pushtoons.

Police sources said that two activists of Awami National Party (ANP), Mustaqeem and Akram Khan, were killed in Landhi and Quaidabad areas while an MQM-H activist Iqbal alias Ballo was also gunned down in the Quaidabd area.

Eyewitnesses said that assailants, who were thought to be Layari gangsters, came on expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles including double-cabin Parados and motorbikes. They entered the Ghazi Town and Aleemabad areas of Malir after the dawn prayers.

“We believe the attack was an attempt to let the MQM Haqqiqi capture the MQM offices and dominate the area,” said a girl who reached JPMC along with his brother injured during the ambush. She said, “We saw armed men having guns and walkie-talkies showering bullets on the houses of MQM workers and offices.” She said the attackers appeared to be mostly Balochs, Pushtoons while some of them were Urdu speaking.

The attackers were moving forward to different areas of Malir and targeting MQM Unit and Sector Offices and killing people without any discrimination on the way. She said, “We believe it was an attack by MQM-H with the help of Baloch gangsters of Layari to regain the control of the area ahead of the arrival of detained Haqqiqi leader Afaq Ahmed.”

After an attack at MQM Unit 100 Office located in Aleemabad, the armed convey moved toward other areas of Malir including Khokhrapar, Saudabad, Ammar Yasir Society and the adjacent areas where they killed men standing outside their homes.

Some residents said that armed men came from slum areas of Malir and got back to the slums after the attacks. They spent the night in different Goths situated in the surrounding areas of Malir such as Bahoo Goth, Asoo Goth, Jhokio Goth and barged into Malir at around 6:30am.

They said the attackers also attacked the houses of MQM workers and killed some MQM workers including Nadeem, Niaz, Naseer and Azeem in the early stage of the attack. Another MQM worker Salman Ahmed was shot dead near Ajmair Tower in the Gulshan-e-Mamar.

The MQM Unit Offices attacked included those numbered 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 and 100 where gunmen stayed for around two to three hours and exchanged fire with MQM workers, who were backed the residents, till the arrival of law enforcers at around 11am. They fled the areas on arrival of the law enforcement agencies, but stayed in Jhokio Goth till the evening. Residents alleged that they pinpointed to the police and Rangers about the locations of the terrorists but they were reluctant to take any action.

Similar ambush began in the Landhi area where armed men also forced their entry into the MQM dominated areas and tired to capture the MQM Unit 89. But the attackers met heavy resistance from the MQM workers and three of them were wounded who died on the way to hospital.

hagama in malir 15

TARGET KILLING IN KARACHI

34 police, 45 Taliban killed in Dir attack

PESHAWAR: Hundreds of heavily armed Taliban besieged a Pakistani checkpost on the Afghan border for a second day Thursday, killing 28 police and six civilians in the deadliest fighting for months.

A senior police official told AFP that 500 militants, including Afghan Taliban from across the border and Pakistani Taliban, took part in the attack which began before dawn on Wednesday and continued throughout Thursday.

Police said there were reports of up to 45 militants killed in the clashes, but the information could not be confirmed independently.

Fighting was concentrated around the Shaltalu police checkpoint, surrounded by mountains and forest in the northwestern district of Upper Dir, about six kilometres (four miles) from the border with Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked militants have carved out strongholds on both sides of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a region that the United States has called one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

The Pakistani military sent reinforcements and helicopter gunships in a bid to quell the attack in an area accessible on the ground only by foot.

"Fighting is still going on in some parts near the checkpost, which was attacked by around 500 Pakistani and Afghan Taliban," regional police chief Qazi Jamil ur-Rehman told AFP.

He said 34 people were killed in the attack, including 28 policemen and six civilians, among them two women and two children, who died when mortar rounds struck 15 houses. He had earlier put the death toll at 28.

Rehman said 21 security forces personnel and 11 civilians were wounded, and that there were reports of up to 45 militants killed in the fighting.

"The fighting is still continuing in some areas. Police, army and paramilitary forces are carrying out a search operation in the area and we hope to establish our control by the evening," he said.

The US-led NATO force in Afghanistan says there are fewer than 100 Al-Qaeda fighters in the east of the country, most of them in Kunar. But military officials stress it is almost impossible to calculate the exact figure.

An Afghan police official in Kunar told AFP he was aware that the Taliban or other militiamen had launched attacks "on the other side of the border" and said they had no connection to Afghan government security forces.

Upper Dir is part of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and borders the region where the military waged a major offensive to put down a local Taliban insurgency in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat in 2009.

Thousands of Pakistanis have died in bomb attacks over the last four years and thousands more soldiers have been killed fighting homegrown militants.

But since US Navy SEALs found and killed Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad on May 2, Washington has increased pressure on Pakistan to take more decisive steps.

On Wednesday, the commander in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa played down "media hype" over the prospect of an imminent military offensive in North Waziristan, considered the premier militant fortress on the Afghan border.

Local newspaper The News reported this week that Pakistan had decided to launch a "careful and meticulous" military offensive in North Waziristan after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Islamabad.

But Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik, the corps commander supervising all military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters: "We will undertake operation in North Waziristan when we want to."

The remote, mountainous region has attracted major interest in the United States as a fiefdom of the Haqqani network, one of its most potent enemies across the border in Afghanistan and thought to have a core of 4,000 fighters.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group attacks only across the border in Afghanistan, and is said to have long-standing ties to Pakistan's intelligence services.

The Center for Global Development think tank has warned that the United States should delay much of a multibillion-dollar package to Pakistan pending economic reforms as the aid has led to official inaction and public resentment.

US lawmakers have questioned aid to Pakistan -- which has totalled $20 billion since the September 11, 2001 attacks -- since the bin Laden debacle. (AFP)

Pakistan to reel in tax evaders: minister

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will raise $623 million by forcing wealthy tax evaders to cough up, the country's finance minister said Thursday, speaking on the eve of unveiling the budget for the next financial year.

Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh did not go into details about how they would be made to pay. Analysts say meaningful tax reform should lift exemptions on powerful interests, such as the country's enormous agriculture sector.

Pakistan has long defied Western pressure to end giant tax-dodging in a country where barely one percent of the population pays at all, as a corrupt bureaucracy starves energy, health and education of desperately needed funds.

The IMF last year halted a $11.3 billion assistance package over a lack of progress on reforms, principally on tax.

In the wake of catastrophic 2010 floods that cost the economy $10 billion, Washington donated hundreds of millions of dollars and demanded that Pakistan's rich, whose lifestyles outstrip many in the West, step up to the plate.

"The government plans to bring into the tax net, rich people who have so far been evading taxes and hopes to collect 53 billion rupees ($623 million) from new taxpayers," Shaikh told a press conference.

"It will boost confidence and reduce dependence on foreign assistance," he said, adding that "enhanced tax collection" will reduce the need for loans.

Pakistan's tax revenue amounts to less than 10 percent of GDP -- one of the lowest rates in the world and worse than in much of Africa, say economists.

Shaikh said the economy had grown only 2.4 percent in the fiscal year ending June 30 with the fiscal deficit at 5.3 percent of GDP and inflation at 12 percent.

An annual government review said that a decade of the "war on terror" had cost the economy $68 billion.

"Western countries, including the United States, continue to impose a travel ban for their citizen (investor, importers etc.) to visit Pakistan," said the document, reviewing the economy from July 2010 to April 2011.

"This has affected Pakistan's exports, prevented the inflows of foreign investment, affected the pace of privatisation programme, slowed the overall economic activity, reduced import demand, reduced tax collection, expenditure over-run on additional security spending," it said.

In the current fiscal year alone, it said, the war had cost the Pakistan economy $17.8 billion and warned that costs were likely to rise further.

Afridi’s statements beyond comprehension, says Waqar

LAHORE: Pakistan cricket team’s coach, Waqar Younis on Thursday said that Shahid Afridi’s statements are beyond comprehension.

Waqar told reporters after a meeting with the Chairman, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Ijaz Butt here said the team performed excellently despite all controversies