By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has decided to dissolve the federal cabinet next week and the new cabinet would be formed after consultations with respective leaders of the ruling alliance.
The new cabinet will consist of about 15 members in the first phase while the expansion process will continue subsequently. All the ministers, ministers of state, special assistants and advisers will cease to stay in their offices immediately after the announcement regarding the dissolution of the cabinet.
Sources told The News on Friday that an ultimate policy pertaining to the formation of new cabinet and timings of the dissolution of the incumbent cabinet would be worked out at the highest-level consultations within two days.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has convened a high- level meeting of his constitutional experts and senior officials of the federal ministry of Law and Justice today (Saturday) at the PM House, where the overall legal matters would be discussed threadbare and the government’s line of action would be determined vis-a-vis cases before the judiciary directly relating to the shape of the government and its officials.
Prime Minister Gilani sent a message to the members of the federal cabinet to be prepared for stepping down any time since he had made up his mind to bring about major changes in the structure of the administration. Read more…
GENEVA: Pakistani High Commissioner in Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan headed a secret operation in Geneva and received at least 12 cartons comprising the original documents and evidences against some Pakistani high-ups in Swiss money laundering case, Geo News reported Tuesday.
According to Geo News correspondent, the Prosecutor General of Pakistan in Geneva deposited these cartons in the era of former President Pervez Musharraf.
The sources said the secret operation was carried out at the bidding of a top personality of Pakistan, as these evidences could be used if Swiss Money Laundering case is reopened after the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) terms comes to an end.
The sources at Pakistan embassy said if the concerned officials or the courts do not interfere by taking the evidences back from Wajid, then these documents would be wasted for good. Read more…
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
Story Via The Nation.com.
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“What does imperialism mean? It means the assertion of absolute force over others.” — Robert Lowe 1878
The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting’s main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost-town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 swat cops from all over the US.”
This is “freedom and democracy” at work. The leaders of the G-20 countries, which account for 85% of the world’s income, cannot meet in an American city without 12,000 cops outfitted like the emperor’s storm troopers in Star Wars. And the US government complains about Iran.
The US government’s complaints about Iran have reached a new level of shrillness. On September 25 Obama declared: “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow.” The heads of America’s British, French, and German puppet states added their two cents worth, giving the government of Iran three months to meet the “international community’s demands” to give up its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty to nuclear energy. In case you don’t know, the term “international community” is shorthand for the US, Israel, and Europe, a handful of arrogant and rich countries that oppress the rest of the world.
Who is breaking the rules? Iran or the United States?
September 28, 2009
by Paul Craig Roberts
Via FPJ
continue reading
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DI KHAN: The man whipping a girl publicly in Swat, as shown in a video footage on media some months ago, has been arrested.
Nine suspects were nabbed from Dera Ismail Khan a few days ago including Amin alias Chhota Aftab, source said. Police said during investigation it was found that he is the same man whipping the Swat girl, as shown in the footage.
He is said to hail from Swat and is not even the relative of the girl he whipped.
Chhota Aftab was shifted from DI Khan eight days ago
via Police arrests man whipping Swat girl publicly – GEO.tv.
Police in Pakistan say they have raided the offices of a private security firm hired by the US embassy in Islamabad.
Police allege that the weapons were not licenced
The offices of the Inter-Risk company were entered and around 70 weapons were seized and two personnel arrested.
Officials in Pakistan allege that the haul of 61 assault riffles, nine pistols and ammunition were unlicensed.
It follows allegations that the US is using the security firm once known as Blackwater. The US embassy in Islamabad denies it has any contract with them.
The media in Pakistan have reported that the US embassy in Islamabad was involved in hiring the firm Xe services, formerly known as Blackwater, a company which was embroiled in allegations of civilian killings while hired to protect US diplomats in Iraq. Read more…
KABUL: The Taliban’s reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan’s long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.
The message from Mullah Omar comes less than a month before the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. This year has been the deadliest of the conflict for U.S. and NATO troops, and political support at home for the war is declining.
Taliban attacks have spiked around Afghanistan in the last three years, and the militants now control wide swaths of territory. In his message for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, Omar said the U.S. and NATO should study the history of Alexander the Great, whose forces were defeated by Pashtun tribesmen in the 4th century.
Omar’s message said the international community has “wrongly depicted” the Taliban as a force against education and women’s rights. It did not elaborate. Taliban militants don’t allow females outside the home without a male escort.
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