Tag: Not

MURIDKE - Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said that the PPP would sit on opposition benches in Punjab but would never indulge in horse-trading. "There are several people who want to join us, but we don't believe in horse trading. If we are not in majority we will sit on opposition benches, but we will neither become part of any horse trading nor will we do so ourselves," he said.
He was talking to reporters after addressing the Founder's Day ceremony at the Chand Bagh

KARACHI - Contractual workers of the Education Department returned to Karachi on Friday to protest the delay in turning their services permanent, but the police brutally crushed any attempts to demonstrate outside the Chief Minister's House - tear-gassing hundreds of lower-grade in protests that continued throughout the day.
On Friday morning, the Sindh Assembly had in fact unanimously passed a resolution to urge the Sindh chief minister to utilise his powers to regularise the

LAHORE - The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will not join the federal cabinet until its demands are met, MQM Member of the National Assembly (MNA) Haider Abbas Rizvi said on Friday.
He was talking to journalists after visiting the residence of US national Raymond Davis' victim. Rizvi said that the MQM's stance was based on principals and the party would stand by its philosophy.

COLOMBO - Pakistan coach Waqar Younis played down the threat from Muttiah Muralitharan ahead of their crucial World Cup clash with Sri Lanka on Saturday, saying their batsmen had coped with him in the past.
A capacity 35,000-crowd is expected to fill the Premadasa stadium in Colombo for the Group A match -- the first big test for both teams after Sri Lanka easily rolled over Canada and Pakistan crushed Kenya. "In the past if Muralitharan had plans for us, we have played really

EXPERT COMMENT - I believe Pakistan should opt for specialist bowlers in their match against Sri Lanka, and in the later matches as well. Sri Lanka are familiar with the conditions and only specialists bowlers can unsettle them.
I would prefer to Kamran Akmal open the innings with either Hafeez or Ahmad Shehzad, with Younus Khan batting at number three and Razzaq also going up the order.
I think Razzaq's abilities are being wasted in these conditions. At the number eight

COLOMBO - Experienced Sri Lanka batsman Mahela Jayawardene said Friday he was surprised that Pakistan are not rated amongst the favourites to win the World Cup, insisting they are potential champions.
"I find it surprising that their name is not bandied about in the mix of potential World Cup winners as they have brilliant match winners with both bat and ball," Jayawardene wrote about the 1992 champions on his blog. Co-hosts India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and defending champions

NAGPUR - Australia captain Ricky Ponting said it was his box and not his bat which damaged a World Cup dressing room television set. Ponting accepted an International Cricket Council reprimand after he reacted angrily to being run out in his team's 91-run win over Zimbabwe in Ahmedabad on Monday. But he insisted on Thursday that the incident had been blown wildly out of proportion. "Just to clarify, the television wasn't hit by me with my bat at all, it was hit by my box that I'd

ATHENS - Greek police clashed with protesters on Wednesday as around 100,000 workers, pensioners and students marched to parliament in protest at austerity policies aimed at helping Greece cope with a huge debt crisis. Riot police fired scores of rounds of teargas and flash bombs at protesters hurling petrol bombs, choking the main Syndagma square with smoke and sending crowds of striking protesters running for cover.
Public and private sector employees' 24-hour strike grounded

MANAMA - Bahrain protesters vowed on Wednesday not to budge from Pearl Square, epicentre of anti-regime demonstrations, despite the release of leading Shiite opposition activists and renewed calls by the king for talks. "Even if they put the gun in my mouth and order me to leave, I will not," said Sabah Abadi, a retired municipal employee who sat in a tent with his son and friends in the square. "I'm here day and night."
One day after a massive protest clogged the main roads of

KUWAIT CITY - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday said "reform - 'not repression" was the way to guarantee stability in the Arab world, in a visit to Kuwait as part of a regional tour. The day after he became the first foreign leader to visit Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, Cameron told Kuwait's national assembly that protests sweeping the region were a precious moment of opportunity.
"For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling

KARACHI - A few hours after PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif demanded that talks with the government can only resume after Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza apologises for his remarks against him, the latter issued a statement saying that his speech in Lyari on Sunday was not aimed at hurting Sharif's feelings.
In his statement issued on Monday, Dr Mirza said that he has nothing against Nawaz Sharif, but the PML-N must avoid making undemocratic moves. Dr Mirza said that the PML-N

LAHORE - Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Secretary General Liaqat Baloch on Monday asked rulers not to act as brokers for payment of blood money to families of three men killed by US national Raymond Davis and show a sense of national dignity by providing justice to them.
Addressing a Seerat Conference at the Wifaqi Colony organised by the JI Lahore chapter on Sunday evening, he said that the masses would not allow rulers to make the country's constitution and law worthless under US

LAHORE - Violation of the kite flying ban will not be tolerated and action has been taken against policemen for the ban's violation in Faisalabad, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Sunday. He was speaking at the residence of Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah where he had gone to congratulate him on his daughter's wedding.
Addressing parliamentarians present on the occasion, he said that the Punjab government is implementing a development agenda for raising living

LAHORE - Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that he had no greed for ministries and opposing the US in the Raymond Davis case was not a crime. Addressing a gathering in Multan on Saturday where thousands accorded him a warm welcome, Qureshi made an emotional speech saying he had been punished for telling the truth about Davis and his claims of having diplomatic immunity.
Qureshi said he belonged to a saintly background and believed that if one door closed,

LAHORE/DASKA - The government will not be given more time to implement the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's 10-point agenda, party chief Nawaz Sharif said on Friday. Chairing a meeting of PML-N workers from Daska, Sambrial, Pasrur and Sialkot at his Model Town residence, Nawaz said he was disappointed with the government's slow pace of the progress of implementation, adding that its failure to carry out the reforms could derail democracy in the country.
The deadline set by the

LAHORE - Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif apparently have a different stance on their future political strategy, with the PML-N chief aspiring to continue politics of reconciliation in the larger national interest and Shahbaz proposing the exact opposite.
In a meeting with a delegation of the Pakistan Business Council on Friday, Shahbaz exploded unprovoked when Nawaz talked about continuing politics of

ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told the visiting US Senator John Kerry that the Raymond Davis issue was complex, having several dimensions, but it must not be allowed to take bilateral relations hostage.
They expressed these views during their separate meetings with Senator Kerry, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, who called on President Asif Ali Zardari at the Presidency and Gilani at the PM House on