Vladimir Putin “Anyone who does not regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart...”
Barack Obama “Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition...”
LONDON:U.S. and Afghan officials have slammed Britain’s intelligence service for allowing an impostor to hold talks with high-level members of NATO and Afghanistan’s government. The London Times reports that the U.K.’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) paid a man they believed to be Akthar Mohammad Mansour — a former aviation minister in the pre-2001 Taliban government, [...]
WASHINGTON: US funds for private security contractors in Afghanistan have flowed to warlords and Taliban insurgents, undermining the war effort and fueling corruption, according to a Senate report issued Thursday. The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the government had failed to vet or manage those hired to provide security under contracts [...]
PARIS: France is to probe allegations of kickbacks on arms deals with Pakistan used to fund political campaigns following a suit lodged by relatives of French engineers killed in a 2002 Karachi bombing. Investigating magistrate Renaud van Ruymbeke is to probe allegations that a company set up with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s approval channelled money from [...]
JERUSALEM: A disgraced senior Palestinian official at the centre of a sex tape scandal claims he was entrapped and says he has not abused his position. Rafiq Husseini, who also holds British citizenship, was dismissed last week as President Mahmoud Abbas’s chief of staff at the end of a long-running scandal. He was shown in [...]
BANGKOK: The Thai prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, is under increasing pressure to resign after the country’s electoral commission ordered his ruling Democrat party be dissolved for accepting illegal donations. The decision – which comes days after the worst political violence in a generation – is a blow to the beleaguered Abhisit, and further complicates Thailand’s [...]
BISHKEK: A top U.S. diplomat arrived for talks with Kyrgyzstan’s interim leaders on Wednesday about defusing a crisis in the Central Asian country, where Washington rents an air base to back its war effort in Afghanistan. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose government has close ties with the interim leaders and sees Kyrgyzstan as part of [...]
ROME: At least nine people were killed and 30 injured when a landslide derailed a train in northern Italy. Rescue officials said the train was struck as it was travelling near the city of Merano, close to the Austrian border, just after 9am (7am GMT) on Monday. Italian television reports said up to 20 people [...]
WARSAW: Language problems between Russian air traffic controllers and Polish pilots, and pressure from high-ranking plane passengers, may have contributed to the crash on Saturday in which 96 people – including the Polish president – were killed, it was revealed today. The Russian air traffic controller Pavel Plusnin – who was the last person to [...]
BEIJING: The death toll from the earthquake in a remote part of western China rose to 617, with 66 students and 10 teachers dying in school collapses that echo the country’s last major quake in 2008. Thousands of survivors battled freezing temperatures overnight with scant shelter after a 6.9-magnitude temblor flattened the town of Jiegu in [...]
WASHINGTON: Pakistan yesterday came under increased pressure over its nuclear arsenal when a Harvard study warned of “a very real possibility” that its warheads could be stolen by terrorists. The rising concern about poorly-guarded nuclear weapons and material was the subject of an extraordinary two-day summit which began in Washington yesterday. Last night, Ukraine became [...]
MOSCOW: Polish President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other people were killed Saturday when the president’s plane crashed on landing in the western Russian city of Smolensk, officials said. The
NEW YORK: Stressing on the need of establishing peace and a secure environment in Pakistan and Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama has said that dismantling the terror network flourishing in the region is the “singular focus” of his administration. In an extensive interview with the ABC, Obama said rooting out the militant base in the [...]
RIO DE JANEIRO: Rescuers pulled more bodies from a collapsed hillside slum near Rio de Janeiro on Friday, abandoning hope of finding survivors from a mudslide that buried more than 100 people after the heaviest rains in four decades, reported Reuters. The rains that started on Monday have killed at least 205 people, most in [...]
BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan’s opposition has seized power in Bishkek, forming an interim administration after anti-government protests erupted into violence as police clashed with demonstrators. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has fled to the south of the country, has refused to step down as president. Sporadic gunfire was heard throughout the night but a government spokesman said nobody was [...]
BERLIN: Construction of the controversial Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to western Europe under the Baltic Sea has been officially launched. Gazprom holds 51% of Nord Stream, which will run from the Russian port of Vyborg to Germany’s Greifswald. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the ceremony near Vyborg. The project [...]
PRAGUE: US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, have signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty in the Czech capital, Prague. The treaty commits the former Cold War enemies to each reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 – 30% lower than the previous ceiling. Mr Obama said it was an [...]
WASHINGTON: US air marshals subdued a Qatari diplomat on a flight to Denver Wednesday in a bomb scare triggered after he reportedly smoked a cigarette and joked he was trying to light his shoes, officials said. There were no reports of an explosion on the plane, which landed safely at Denver International Airport from Washington’s [...]
WASHINGTON: At the heart of President Obama’s new nuclear strategy lies a central gamble: that an aging, oversize, increasingly outmoded nuclear arsenal can be turned to the new purpose of adding leverage to the faltering effort to force Iran and North Korea to rethink the value of their nuclear programs. The 50-page “Nuclear Posture Review” [...]
BAGHDAD: The case of “collateral murder,” the WikiLeaks today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuter’s photographer and his driver. This is the most shocking footage to come out of Iraq. None of the members [...]
LOS ANGELES: A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake near the Mexico-US border Sunday rocked buildings as far away as Los Angeles and was felt in a wide area in the two countries
Misbah-ul-Haq appointed Pak Test team captain
Swiss ‘Return of Illicit Assets Act’: Pakistan can get billions back!
Cricketer Muhammad Asif finally brings his bride Sana Hilal home, Veena Malik Shocked
Veena Malik seeks court’s help for registration of an FIR against Muhammad Asif
In mom’s wedding sari, Sania Mirza says “Nikah Kabul Hai”; it’s Sania Shoaib from now
What’s going on between Pak cricket legend Wasim Akram & Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen?
Potential to generate 50,000mw electricity from Thar coal field for 800 years
