Tag: Minister

LAHORE: PPP backed Punjab senior minister Raja Riaz has admitted that the drainage of sewer water into the irrigation canals and that the department is helpless in this regard. He said there is need of strict policy to improve the irrigation system.
The minister said this while responding to a question during the question-hour session of the Punjab Assembly on Friday. The opposition members gave a very tough time to the senior minister for having no answers to their queries they

NEW DELHI: India's veteran finance minister admitted on Thursday that the government did not know how to resolve a stand-off with the opposition over a telecom scandal that has paralysed the national parliament.
The lower and upper houses of the national assembly were adjourned for a 10th day as the opposition stormed the floor of both houses, shouting slogans and refusing to let anyone speak.
The protesters, led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are calling

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti on Thursday presented a report on the Asiya case to President Asif Ali Zardari, recommending pardon for the convict.
In a similar development, Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue President Jean Louis Cardinal Tauran also called on Zardari and thanked him for taking interest in the case. The report along with supporting documents concluded that the blasphemy case against Asiya was registered on grounds of

KARACHI: Sindh Wildlife Minister Dr Daya Ram Essrani has gifted nine precious hunting peregrine falcons, recovered by his department during a raid, to an Arab dignitary who is reportedly a close friend of President Asif Ali Zardari.
The falcons were recovered on the first day of Eidul Azha during a raid at the Jinnah International Airport from where the endangered and protected birds were being flown to Doha, Qatar. After the raid, the conservator of the Sindh Wildlife Department

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti said on Tuesday Pakistan would not repeal its controversial blasphemy law but might amend it to prevent abuse because scrapping the legislation could fuel militancy.
"(Repeal) is not being considered though we are considering changing it so that misuse of the law should be stopped," Bhatti said.
He said consultations with Islamic clerics and representatives of religious minorities on amending the law would soon

ROME: One of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's best known ministers said on Sunday she will resign after confidence votes next month that could trigger elections.
Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna told Il Mattino newspaper that she would back the government in the December 14 votes but resign the next day from the cabinet and also from 74-year-old Berlusconi's party.
She said she had been sidelined in the government and criticised Berlusconi for losing control of

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-N on Thursday unleashed a campaign against the government targeting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for the first time and asking the Pakistan People's Party to pull out of the coalition in Punjab and join the opposition in the province.
"Your coalition partners are not supporting you... you are the leader of the House as long as you have the majority... we have not demanded mid-term elections but there would be nothing wrong in it if it

SRINAGAR: India's Home Minister P Chidambaram reviewed the security situation in Indian-held Kashmir on Sunday in the face of months of deadly protests against Indian occupation that have left over 100 people dead.
Chidambaram held a series of meetings with Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and top security and intelligence officials, a spokesman said.
It was Chidambaram's first visit to the state since June 11 when a 17-year-old student was killed by a police teargas

GUJRAT/ISLAMABAD
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said that nationalising educational institutions was a wrong decision by the previous PPP regime.
He was addressing a public gathering on Saturday in honour of late Nawab Fazl Ali, pioneer of Zameendar College, in Gujrat.
"The government always makes decisions in good faith, but some prove wrong, like the nationalisation of educational institutions by the PPP's previous regime," he said.
Gilani said no one

JERUSALEM
Hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has commissioned a report on how to prepare for a nuclear-armed Iran as doubt mounts about the efficacy of preventive action, an Israeli source said on Monday.
Publicly, Israel has pledged to deny the Iranians the means to make a bomb but its previous, centrist govt also discreetly drew up "day after" contingency plans should Tehran's uranium enrichment pass the military threshold.
At the time, rightist

PARIS: Israel's Labour Party would walk out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if peace talks with the Palestinians do not resume by the end of the year, a senior party figure said.
"We will force the Labour Party to move out," Minorities Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman, who intends to challenge Defence Minister Ehud Barak for Labour's leadership, told Reuters.
"I will do everything I can," he said in an interview at a left-wing think tank in Paris. "I

A Bosnian minister canceled on Wednesday a permit for Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to shoot parts of her debut feature film in Bosnia, citing incomplete paperwork.
The Oscar-winning actress has started shooting the film in Budapest. Her production company says it's a love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the Bosnian war, which killed 100,000 people between 1992 and 1995.
The filming should conclude in November in Bosnia.
Jolie told

ISLAMABAD:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will arrive in the country today (Tuesday) on a two-day visit to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues with the Pakistani leaderhip.
"On the invitation of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the prime minister of the republic of Turkey, would visit Pakistan on October12-13. Besides meetings with the leadership, the Turkish prime minister's programme includes visits to flood-affected areas," Foreign Office

Izmarak Khan says Punjab Assembly's resolution on Kalabagh Dam aimed dividing nation
Quetta
The Awami National Party's parliamentary leader in Balochistan Assembly and provincial minister, Izmarak Khan, on Friday protested against the Punjab Assembly's passage of a resolution in favour of the Kalabagh Dam, staging a walk out from the House when the chair did not allow him to speak on the subject.
Speaking on a point of order earlier, the ANP leader thanked the prime

The government has convened a meeting of stakeholders to evaluate the implications of the trade concessions offered by the European Union (EU). The meeting will be held in Karachi on October 14.
The Commerce Minister, Makhdoom Amin Fahim will consult stakeholders and officials of Trade Development Authority (TDA) of Pakistan and analyse the offered package. The Ministry of Commerce will also share its analysis on trade concessions with the stakeholders.
The meeting will