KHI 8-12-2011_Layout 1 12/8/2011 2:04 AM Page 1
Indian company launches ‘Islamic smart phone’
Azam Swati says goodbye to parliament, JUI-F
FERTILISER SECTOR: Gas supply extended till 31st
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rs15.00 Vol ii no 161 22 pages karachi—
pakistantoday.com.pk
dition
President tells allies he’s ‘hale and hearty’
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ISLAMABAD
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StaFF rePOrt
President Asif Ali Zardari told Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain on Wednesday that he was “hale and hearty” as reports about his health sparked rumours that he would resign on the grounds of illhealth following a trail of controversies plaguing his presidency. Altaf Hussain had called President Zardari, who was admitted to a hospital in Dubai for chest pain, on the phone. Altaf also urged the nation to pray for the president’s quick recovery. Zardari thanked Altaf for this appeal to the nation and told him that he was “all hale and hearty by the grace of the Almighty”. ANP leader Asfandyar Wali called Zardari to enquire after his health and delivered his best wishes to him. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rehman also called Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and enquired after the health of the president. Meanwhile, the MQM chief asked the prime minister to convey his sentiments to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The prime minister thanked Altaf for his call and for the MQM’s cooperation in the maintenance of law and order during Myuharram. Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed alMaktoum also visited the president at the hospital. Sheikh Mohammad, also vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, wished Zardari a swift recovery, the official WAM news agency reported. Outside the special ward at the American Hospital housing Zardari, Pakistani security guards and local officers guarded the area. Party members, diplomats and media milled about, waiting for word on his health.
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Zardari in Dubai for heart check-up, contradictory reports from various quarters spark rumours
thursday, 8 december, 2011 muharram-ul-haram 12, 1433
RumouRs GaloRe
FP magazine suggests president weighing his options about stepping down Claims Zardari was ‘incoherent’ during his recent telephonic talk with President Obama ISLAMABAD mian aBrar
s reports from Dubai said on Wednesday that President Asif Ali Zardari’s medical tests were normal and Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain also claimed that the president would return within four days (after getting clearance from his doctors), the doubts about his return had apparently been cleared, though details about his health were still awaited as the guessing game in the country continued. A health bulletin issued by the president’s physician Col Salman said: “Routine evaluation of the president’s condition is being carried out… investigations carried out so far are essentially within normal range and the president’s condition is stable.” ZARDARI WEIGHING OPTIONS: The president’s departure for Dubai on Tuesday for treatment following
unlikely to address parliament | page 04
“mild chest pain” had set off the rumour machinery in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the NRO review petition and the memo issue continuing to hound the Presidency. Added to that were the incoherent statements issued by the presidential spokesman and PM’s House and the US-based Foreign Policy magazine suggesting that Zardari was weighing his options whether to face the tide or step down citing health reasons, all of which tended to lend credence to the countrywide speculations about the role of Zardari as head of state.
“President Asif Ali Zardari is in a Dubai hospital for medical tests and checkup as planned. Reports in some sections of the media speculating on the president’s activities and engagements are speculative, imaginary and untrue,” said Presidential Spokesman Farhatullah Babar. The PM’s House, after a meeting between Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, said the president went to Dubai following symptoms related to his pre-existing heart condition. “After the initial medical tests in Dubai,
By Hook or By Crook
PML-N covertly planning to engineer next Punjab elections LAHORE naSir Butt
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) is considering using all resources to ensure a smooth victory in the next general election in the province, with a special focus on constituencies in the southern Punjab. Sources privy to the arrangements being done by the PML-N leadership through provincial resources confided to Pakistan Today that Shaukat Javed, member of the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC), was playing an instrumental role in preparing a plan of technical engineering of the next general election for the PML-N in Punjab, besides managing any of the by-polls to be held in the province. He is also believed to be playing a vital role for bringing meaningful political groups and influential people from various parts of Punjab in the PML-N’s fold and garnering support for the PML-N in southern Punjab is one of his major tasks, sources said. They claimed that Javed, who was the joint director general of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Punjab during Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) government, had defected to the PML-N with a “roadmap of election management” in the province during the caretaker set up of 2008, consequently turn-
Shaukat Javed, the maStermind ing the tables on the PML-Q and bringing enormous majority to the PML-N’s side. The sources said Javed had devised a smart plan to engineer poll rigging during the 2008 elections by managing 5,000 votes in provincial assembly constituency and 8,000 votes in National Assembly constituency for the PML-Q, however, he anticipated the PML-N popularity and joined the Sharifs with his master plan, adding additional seats
to their fold in the result of 2008 polls. As a reward, he was appointed the chief of Punjab Police by the PML-N government and appointed member of PPSC after retirement from where “he is managing information gathering agencies and administrative services falling under purview of the Punjab government to achieve political targets of his bosses in Raiwind”. According to the circles privy to the plan, Javed is one of the key members of the shadow team of the PML-N making preparations for the next election, whether held on time or earlier. They said Javed enjoyed good relations with several political figures of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), PML-Q and other political stakeholders in Punjab who mattered in making and breaking the political order of the province. The sources said that the Special Branch of the Punjab Police was working in close coordination with Javed and several of his proposals had become the line of action of the provincial intelligence service. Javed has proposed a special elite political cell in the provincial intelligence agency that should work under his direct command, besides getting sophisticated eavesdropping and laser wave catching gadgets for the proposed cell, without the knowledge of Continued on page 04
doctors found him to be in stable condition. The president went to Dubai at the insistence of his children,” the statement said, adding that the doctors had yet to determine whether the president’s condition was due to adverse reaction to the medication he was taking or a development related to his pre-existing cardiac condition. Continued on page 04
zardari’s ill-disposition | page 04 is president zardari on the way out ? | page 15
Fai was spying for ISI ! WASHINGTON reuterS
US-based Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai pleaded guilty on Wednesday to secretly receiving millions of dollars from Pakistan and the ISI while lobbying in the United States over Kashmir. In a deal with federal prosecutors, Fai pleaded guilty in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to conspiracy and tax violations over a decades-long scheme to conceal $3.5 million that came from Pakistan to fund his lobbying efforts. The Pakistani government has denied any knowledge of Fai’s activities. Fai and another defendant, Zaheer Ahmad, were initially charged in July with conspiring to act as Pakistani agents in the United States without registering as foreign agents. Ahmad, also a naturalised US citizen, remains at large and is believed to be in Pakistan. Fai served as executive director of a Washington group, the Kashmiri American Council that described itself as a nonprofit organisation run by Kashmiris and financed by Americans. But an FBI affidavit filed in court in July said Fai and the group received several million dollars from Pakistan and the ISI since the mid-1990s in an effort to influence the US government’s position on Kashmir. “For the last 20 years, Fai secretly took millions of dollars from Pakistani intelligence and lied about it to the US
government,” US Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement. “He did the bidding of his handlers in Pakistan while he met with US elected officials, funded high-profile conferences, and promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington,” MacBride said. Fai admitted in court that, from 1990 until his arrest in July, he conspired with others to obtain money from Pakistani government officials, including the ISI, to operate his group. Fai, 62, who lives in Fairfax, Virginia, faces up to five years in prison for the conspiracy count and up to three years in prison for the tax violation. The judge set sentencing for March 9.