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Pervez Musharraf delays return without setting new date
India to be granted MFN with limited negative trade list
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PROFIT | PAGE 01
9 rockets fired at Pakistan Military Academy AFP
Unidentified attackers on Friday fired rockets at the country’s top military training facility, the Pakistan Military Academy, damaging its outer wall in a major security breach near the place where Osama bin Laden lived for years, officials said. No one was hurt in the pre-dawn attack and it was unclear who fired the nine rockets from behind a mosque in mountains overlooking the Kakul academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point, 50 kilometres from the capital. Abbottabad was considered one of the safest parts of nuclear-armed Pakistan until American Special Forces on May 2 found and killed the al Qaeda founder in a compound where he apparently lived for five years. The bin Laden raid humiliated Pakistan’s
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Rs15.00 Vol ii no 212 22 pages Lahore edition
ABBOTTABAD
If Pakistan fails Husain Haqqani...
powerful military, exposing it to charges of complicity or incompetence after it emerged that the world’s most wanted man had lived on the doorstep of its premier academy for years. Three rockets on Friday damaged the outer wall of the academy, which is just 500 metres from the site of the US Navy SEALs raid that seriously damaged already turbulent relations between Pakistan and the United States. “Nine rockets were fired. Three rockets hit the boundary wall of the military academy and damaged it. No one was hurt in the attack,” Imtiaz Hussain Shah, a top local government official in Abbottabad told AFP. “We have launched a search operation,” Shah added. Mohammad Karim Khan, Abbottabad police chief, confirmed the attack. “Three rockets hit the boundary wall. Three others landed in an open area and three others landed
in a field,” he said. Officials blamed terrorists for the attack, which came one day after Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, visited Abbottabad. Shah later confirmed to AFP no arrests had yet been made and that a rooftop room had also been damaged in the attack. “We have a security system and checkpoints on the roads, but the place they used as a launch pad is accessible from all sides and there are mountains at the back of this place,” he told a private TV channel. “At this stage we cannot say who was involved, but they are terrorists and we are investigating how they managed to reach this place.” Taliban and other Islamist militants are fighting an insurgency against the army, although there has been a marked decline in violence in recent months.
Saturday, 28 January, 2012 Rabi-ul-awal 4, 1433
PPP will foil all conspiracies: Zardari president says ‘Bhutto-ism will prevail’ g launches small loans scheme to create new middle class in Sindh g
KARACHI: President Asif Zardari hands over a cheque to a woman on Friday. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is also seen in the picture. online KARACHI
P ABBOTTABAD: An elderly man shows reporters the damage caused to his house by rockets targeting the Pakistan Military Academy early on Friday. inp
Petrol price to go up by Rs 5 per litre from Feb 1 ISLAMABAD: Petroleum Minister dr Asim Hussain told reporters on Friday that the price of petrol would be increased by Rs 5 per litre and the price of diesel by Rs 2.50 per litre on February 1. He said the increase in POL prices would be made because of the increase in prices in the international market. About his recent visit to India, the minister said he discussed with his Indian counterpart Jaipal Reddy the security and transportation issues on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. He said the United States had assured security for the pipeline and gas delivery. Pakistan and India were both considering helping Turkmenistan develop its upstream sector, he added. In reply to a question on transit fees, he said Pakistan was likely to get $1/mmBTU in transport fee and $0.5/mmBTU in transit fee for the supply of TAPI gas to India. However, he said the final agreement was yet to be signed. On the Iran Pakistan gas pipeline, he said there was no pressure from the US on the project. He said the Indian petroleum minister had shown interest in rejoining the project and India had also offered to provide POL products to Pakistan. STAFF RepoRT
Rasool fraud case may give rise to sensitive matters: SC ISLAMABAD MASOOD REHMAN
Hearing the Rs 630 million fraud case of Mian Khurram Rasool on Friday, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry observed that the case had become a highprofile one and would give rise to sensitive matters. He was heading a three-member bench comprising Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez, which was hearing a petition filed by Parvez Hussain and others against Rasool, who allegedly swindled a Karachi-based business out of more than Rs 630 million on the pretext of managing a petroleum export licence for it to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan and get a contract for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). In compliance with the court’s January 25 orders, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials produced Rasool in court handcuffed. The chief justice admonished the officials for producing
him handcuffed, noting that he had been moving freely outside but was handcuffed before being brought in, so it was all just a drama. Rasool told the court that he had been adviser to the prime minister. He said he had not committed any fraud but it was a business deal with the petitioner, Pervez Hassan of Afghan Carpets. He said he had paid around 80 percent of the outstanding sum and he was ready to pay back the remaining, which was not more than Rs 100 or 110 million. He said the petitioner was threatening his family members and falsely implicating the prime minister in the matter. “Basically, I am a businessman, however I had quit my business when I was appointed the PM’s media coordinator,” Khurram said. He said he had full trust in the court, thus he handed himself over to the FIA in its office. Continued on page 04
STAFF REPORT
RESIdENT Asif Ali Zardari said on Friday that conspirators were busy hatching schemes and came up with new plots every day, but the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) would foil all their schemes and “Bhutto-ism will prevail”. The president was speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the Waseela-e-Haq Sindh scheme, which is aimed at creating a new middle class in the province, by providing self-employment opportunities to 35,000 people aged between 19 to 35 years who have at least passed secondary school examinations and are unemployed. “Let those who merely boast of bringing change and raise hollow slogans witness today how change is brought about through the creation of a new middle class, breaking the generational cycle of poverty and to power national growth and economy,” President Zardari told the ceremony. The president launched the innovative programme by pressing a computer button at Bilawal House here, which made huge computer screens display the names of lucky winners of Rs 300,000 interest-free loans each so they can establish their own businesses rang-
ing from transport to cattle raising, from auto workshops to pharmaceuticals, regardless of their religion, political affiliation or the urban/rural divide. Presidential Spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters another condition that entitled people to be included in the draw was that their family must score between 16 and 30 on the poverty scale devised by the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), in accordance with the internationally accepted standards of measuring poverty. Babar said the special scheme was devised under the directions of President Zardari and powered by contributions from the Sindh government from its own budget. A large number of jobless people having education up to matric in the province had qualified for inclusion in the draw, out of which 35,000 were picked by the computer randomly on Friday, he added. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also pressed another computer button to randomly select another batch of over 13,700 beneficiaries under the normal BISP programme of draws held after regular intervals. The beneficiaries of the normal programme were also given Rs 300,000 interest-free loan to start their own businesses, but it was meant for even poorer segments of society who scored no more than 1617 on the poverty scale.