Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaida and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan’s federal Cabinet Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his mother’s home. It was the second assassination in two months of a high-profile opponent of blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.The killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Roman Catholic, further undermines Pakistan’s shaky image as a moderate Islamic state and could deepen the political turmoil in this nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied state where militants frequently stage suicide attacks.
“The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a Kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened,” said Wajid Durrani, Islamabad police chief.
“They asked the driver to get out of the vehicle and then peppered the minister with bullets,” Al Jazeera’s Pakistan correspondent, Kamal Hyder, reported from Islamabad.
“He was on his way to a cabinet meeting,” Hyder added.
Though he admitted to having received death threats over his position, he was to persist in “speaking for the oppressed and marginalised persecuted Christians and other minorities,” he said.
”Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti killed”unknown men shot Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti dead in Islamabad when he was on his way to his office.
He was rushed to the hospital. The minister was leaving from his house in Sector I-8.
Mr Bhatti, a Christian, is a leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party.
Shahbaz Bhatti founded the Christian-inspired APMA movement in 1985. One of his first battles was against the law on blasphemy.
Federal Minister 4 Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti murdered in Islamabad today. He is another victim of terrorism. May his soul rest in peace.Amen ]]>
Plane crash in Pakistan kills 152 peopleISLAMABAD — A government official says all 152 people on board a plane that crashed in the hills surrounding Pakistan’s capital were killed.
Imtiaz Elahi, the chairman of the Capital Development Authority, told The Associated Press that earlier reports of five survivors from the crash were wrong and that all aboard died. The Capital Development Authority has a group that responds to emergency situations.
The cause of Wednesday’s Airblue crash was not immediately clear. It attempted to land in rainy and cloudy conditions.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A passenger jet carrying 152 people crashed Wednesday into the hills surrounding Pakistan’s capital amid poor weather, killing at least 50 people and stoking fears nobody could have survived the disaster.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said five people survived the crash of the Airblue plane and were airlifted to a hospital in Islamabad. But doctors reported no sign of survivors at the city’s two largest hospitals, and rescue workers at the scene expressed skepticism that anyone could have survived.
“Now we are pretty sure that there is not a single survivor,” Hanif Khattak, the director general of Pakistan’s Civil Defense, told The Associated Press near the crash site.
Local TV footage showed twisted metal wreckage hanging from trees and scattered across the ground on a bed of broken branches. Fire was visible and smoke rose from the scene as a helicopter hovered above. The army said it was sending special troops to aid the search.
“I’m seeing only body parts,” Dawar Adnan, a rescue worker with the Pakistan Red Crescent, told The Associated Press by telephone from the crash site. “This is a very horrible scene. We have scanned almost all the area, but there is no chance of any more survivors.”
The search effort was hampered by muddy conditions and smoldering wreckage that authorities were having trouble extinguishing by helicopter, Adnan said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official. The plane left the southern city of Karachi at 7:45 a.m. for a two-hour scheduled flight to Islamabad and was trying to land during cloudy and rainy weather.
Airblue is a private service based in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and Wednesday’s flight was believed to be carrying mostly Pakistanis.
source:(AP) ]]>
Clinton aims to refine goals of Afghan warISLAMABAD — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton started a South Asia tour on Sunday aimed at refining the goals of the nearly 9-year-old war in Afghanistan and pushing neighboring nations to work together in the fight against al-Qaida and Taliban extremists.
Clinton landed in Islamabad where she will underscore the need for Afghan-Pakistani cooperation in winning the war but also announce plans to beef up U.S. development assistance to Pakistan, which is rife with anti-American sentiment.
In talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Sunday and military and civilian officials on Monday, Clinton is seeking to convince Pakistanis the U.S. is committed to the country’s long-term development needs and not just short-term security gains.
This, officials hope, will lead to greater Pakistani cooperation on key U.S. policy goals, particularly combatting Pakistan-based militants accused of conspiring to attack the United States, including the failed Times Square bombing, and stepping up action against extremists along the Afghan border.
“To get there we need to change the core of the relationship with Pakistan,” said Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Clinton plans to announce about $500 million in several new development programs – funded by a bill approved by Congress last year to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over five years – that will focus on water, energy, agriculture and health.
These initiatives will mark the second phase of projects begun under a new and enhanced “strategic partnership” that began last year.
Holbrooke noted that when Clinton visited Pakistan last October she had “waded into continually hostile and skeptical crowds.” But he maintained that the new U.S. focus is “producing a change in Pakistani attitudes, first within the government and gradually, more slowly, within the public.”
Still, he and other official concede, mistrust of America runs deep in Pakistan, particularly over unmanned drone strikes which are aimed at militants but kill or maim civilians and to many Pakistanis represent an unacceptable violation of sovereignty.
Vali Nasr, a Holbrooke deputy, said overcoming the suspicion remains a work in progress.
“We’re beginning to see movement, but this is not going to happen overnight,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to get them aligned over a one-year time period on every single issue and change 30 years of foreign policy of Pakistan on a dime.”
Equally important, officials say, is getting Pakistan and Afghanistan on the same page.
Holbrooke said last week that “nothing could be more important to the resolution of the war in Afghanistan than a common understanding between Afghanistan and Pakistan on what their strategic purpose is.”
After Pakistan, Clinton will attend an international conference on Afghanistan in Kabul on Tuesday.
Security has been tightened across the capital ahead the conference, which will be attended by diplomats from 60 nations as well as the heads of NATO and the United Nations.
Still on Sunday, a suicide bomber in the eastern section of Kabul killed three civilians and injured dozens more.
Clinton’s visit to Afghanistan comes as American lawmakers and voters are increasingly questioning the course of the drawn-out war with rising death tolls among U.S. and international troops and growing questions about corruption.
source:seattlepi.com ]]>
The Lahore High Court has declared Mudassir Qayyum Nahira, a PML-N member of the national assembly, disqualified because he holds a fake degree. Elected form NA-100 Gujranwalla. The idea that those holding fake degrees should be disqualified – not just for the ‘fakeness’ of their education but also for the sheer act of lying and making a fool of the very people they are supposed to be representing 
- is a good one.It was announced earlier that those members who holds a fake degree should disqualified. It’s not only a matter of fakeness in the term of education; it’s also the dishonesty with those whom they are supposed to represent. A report says that another decision has been taken by National Assembly. According to it the Higher Education Commission should take a sold step and the degrees of all 873 parliamentarians will be verified as early as possible.
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McDonalds Recall – 12 Million Shrek Glasses Recalled After Cadmium FearsMcDonalds Remember, federal regulators found that 12 million “Shrek” $ 2 cup from McDonald sold as a development bank, movie tie-in “Shrek Forever After”, contains toxic cadmium, a risk factor for health of children. This is the official Consumer (Product Safety Commission) quickly and the advertised product was recalled. The lenses are available in four, 16 oz glass designs were in McDonald’s restaurants from May 1921 and produced about 12 million euros. The four designs include Puss’ n Boots, Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey. “A very small amount of cadmium, the surface can come from the cup, and the greatest possible protection of children, the CPSC and McDonald’s have worked together in this recall,” said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. He declined to specify the amounts of cadmium leached from the paint on the evidence, but said the amounts were “developed slightly above the level currently protected by the agency.” Wolfson said that the glasses have “much less than cadmium in children who previously recalled metal jewelry of the CPSC.”
The 16-ounce glasses, being sold for about $2 each as part of a promotional campaign for the movie “Shrek Forever After,” were available in four designs depicting the characters Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots and Donkey.
In the animated comedy, which debuted May 21 as the latest installment of the successful DreamWorks Animation franchise, the voice of Shrek is performed by Mike Myers of “Austin Powers” fame, Cameron Diaz performs as Princess Fiona, Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots and Eddie Murphy voices Donkey. The movie has been No. 1 at the box office since its release.
The CPSC noted in its recall notice that “long-term exposure to cadmium can cause adverse health effects.” Cadmium is a known carcinogen that research shows also can cause bone softening and severe kidney problems.
In the case of the Shrek-themed glassware, the potential danger would be long-term exposure to low levels of cadmium, which could leach from the paint onto a child’s hand, then enter the body if the child puts that unwashed hand to his or her mouth.
Cadmium can be used to create reds and yellows in paint. McDonald’s USA spokesman Bill Whitman said a pigment in paint on the glasses contained cadmium.
The McDonald’s episode pointed to the need for stronger safety measures, and hence a legislation has been introduced banning cadmium and other toxic metals from children’s jewelry. The fast-food giant Mcdonald has been told to act quickly on this and to do a better job to review before launching any products in the market.
Tropical Cyclone Phet threatens the Indian and Pakistani coastlinesTropical cyclone 03A has intensified quickly in the last 24 hours, and as a result, the storm has been renamed Tropical Storm Phet. Phet is located in the Arabian Sea, Northern Indian Ocean, and is threatening the Indian and Pakistani coastlines, NASA satellite imagery has claimed.
NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Phet on June 1 at 9:11 UTC (5:11 EDT) and captured an infrared image of the cloud top temperatures. The image indicated large areas of high, cold cloud tops, as cold as -63 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating strong convection.
At 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) on June 1, Tropical Storm Phet had maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (62 mph) with higher gusts. Phet was located about 550 miles south-southwest of Karachi, Pakistan, near 16.8 North and 62.2 East. Phet is moving to the northwest near 6 knots (7 mph).
Current landmasses threatened by Phet include: India (Gujarat), Pakistan (Sindh and Balochistan).
Phet is forecast to continue strengthening and turn northeast later this week. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts landfall by the end of the week in the border area between India and Pakistan.
Weather prediction models suggested that the cyclone would intensify and move slowly in a north-northwesterly/northerly direction and then recurve northeastwards towards Gujarat and adjoining Pakistan coast, it said.
Coastal Gujarat is expected to be battered by squally winds with speed reaching 55-65 kmph gusting 75 kmph from tomorrow which could increase gradually, the weather office said.
According to cyclone tracking models, some parts of coastal Gujarat may experience very strong winds packing speed of up to 125 kmph.
NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over Tropical Storm Phet on June 1 at 9:11 UTC and captured an infrared image of the cloud. The image indicated large areas of high, cold cloud tops, as cold as -63 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating strong convection.
Tropical Storm Phet, has sustained winds near 62 mph with higher gusts. Phet was located about 550 miles south-southwest of Karachi, Pakistan, near 16.8 North and 62.2 East.
Current landmasses threatened by Phet include: India and Pakistan. Regional warnings are already in effect for the Indian and Pakistani coastlines from Thursday. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts landfall by the end of the week in the border area between India and Pakistan. The Indian Meteorological Department, Gujarat, has alerted pepole in the Kutch and Saurashtra coastal areas near Arabian Sea.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the preparations in an emergency meeting held on Tuesday evening with senior government officials in the wake of cyclone warning.
The London-based Tropical Storm Risk Group said that Karachi and Shahbandar in Pakistan; and Jakhar, Mandvi, Sonmiani, Morbi and Jamnagar in Gujarat could be subjected to the fury of the storm of category-2 strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) shows ‘Phet’ settling into a perch over north Gujarat and adjoining south-west Rajasthan, 24 hours into landfall on Friday/Saturday but without losing much intensity.
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LAHORE: Gunmen attacked worshippers from a religious minority in two worship places in Lahore on Friday, taking hostages and killing at least 30 people, officials said.
The gunmen opened fire shortly after Friday prayers and threw grenades at two Ahmadi worship places in Lahore’s Model Town and Garhi Shahu neighbourhoods.
Rizwan Naseer, director general of an ambulance service, told Reuters 30 bodies had been taken to hospitals in the city.
City officials had earlier put the death toll at 14.
“There are some hostages and we are planning an attack,” said Haider Ashraf, a senior police office in the neighbourhood of Garhi Shahu. “Their lives are under threat.”
Shooting continued at Garhi Shahu.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban.
“The operation is not even over yet, so it’s too early to say who is behind these attacks. But my guess is that like most other attacks, there would be some link to the Taliban or their associated militants,” said a Lahore-based security official.
Bustling Lahore has seen numerous attacks over the past few years as the Islamist insurgency that besets Pakistan spread from its mountainous northwest to the settled plains of Punjab province. The province is Pakistan’s economic, political and military heartland, and Lahore is its capital.
But Friday’s attack was the first on Ahmadis in Lahore. The sect was founded centuries after the death of Muhammad, the founder of Islam and believed by most of the faithful to be the final prophet, by a man who also claimed be a prophet.
Pakistanis create rival Muslim FacebookISLAMABAD — Pakistanis outraged with Facebook over “blasphemous” caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed have created a spin-off networking site that they dream can connect the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.
A group of six young IT professionals from Lahore, the cultural and entertainment capital of Pakistan, launched www.millatfacebook.com on Tuesday for Muslims to interact online and protest against blasphemy.
The private venture came after a Pakistani court ordered a block on Facebook until May 31, following deep offence over an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” page considered “blasphemous” and “sacrilegious”.
“Millatfacebook is Pakistan’s very own, first social networking site. A site for Muslims by Muslims where sweet people of other religions are also welcome,” the website tells people interested in signing up.
Dubbed MFB, after Facebook’s moniker FB, its founder says professionals are working around the clock to offer features similar to those pioneered by the wildly popular California-based prototype.
Each member has a “wall” for friends to comment on. The site offers email, photo, video, chat and discussion board facilities.
The Urdu word “Millat” is used by Muslims to refer to their nation. The website claims to have attracted 4,300 members in the last three days — mostly English-speaking Pakistanis in their 20s.
The number of aficionados may be growing, but the community is a drop in the ocean of the 2.5 million Facebook fans in Pakistan and there have been some scathing early reviews of the start-up.
Neither has Facebook been immediately reachable for comment.
“We want to tell Facebook people ‘if they mess with us they have to face the consequences’,” said Usman Zaheer, the 24-year-old chief operating officer of the software house that hosts the new site.
“If someone commits blasphemy against our Prophet Mohammed then we will become his competitor and give him immense business loss,” he told AFP, dreaming of making “the largest Muslim social networking website”.
Once signed up, members are a click away from debate on the bulletin board.
For example, “Enticing Fury” wrote: “The reason is that this forum must be reserved for ALL MUSLIMS OF THE WORLD and not only Pakistan. So using the word MILLAT is very good!
“Well done guys. You have made a great alternative for the whole muslim ummah (nation)!”
But the nascent quality of the work-in-progress website has preoccupied and dismayed some, as well as drawn at least one damning newspaper review.
One member wrote: “they need 2 hav more info”. Another posted a mournful: “need games here as well. I missed cafe world” — referring to the popular Facebook page where members can run their own virtual cafe.
“It was a good idea… as it can give us a forum to connect, but its reach is too limited,” Mohammad Adeel, a 31-year-old pharmacist told AFP in Karachi, who joined to keep up with friends he missed due to the Facebook ban.
source AFP
Pakistan mosque gunmen kill 20, take hostagesISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen attacked two mosques belonging to a minority sect during Friday Prayers in Lahore, seizing worshipers and repelling police officers as they tried to rescue the hostages, witnesses said.
Sixteen people were killed, according to Sajjad Bhutta, the district administrator of Lahore. Hospital officials spoke of dozens more who were injured, and some news reports said that more than 20 people died.
More than an hour after the attacks started, two gunmen on the roof of a mosque near the rail station were still firing at security forces on the ground below them, said Qamar Suleman, a worshiper who was able to flee.
They are both mosques of the Ahmadis, also known as Qadiani, and have tens of thousands of members. Rights groups say the sect has long been persecuted in Pakistan and has remained an occasional target of sectarian attacks.
Lahore, a city of eight million near Pakistan’s border with India, has been increasingly subject to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,300 people in three years.
“Terrorists have attacked mosques. They are firing and using grenades. They have taken people inside the mosque hostage,” district civil defence official Muzhar Ahmed told AFP by telephone from the scene in Garhi Shahu.
Other attackers escaped and one fired at a television van before the area was made safe.
The minority sect call themselves Muslims but believe their founder declared himself a prophet centuries after Muhammad, who other Muslims believe was the final prophet.
Ahmadis have long been subject to informal and state-sanctioned discrimination in Pakistan.
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