Tag: Parliament

KABUL - A deal between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and rebel lawmakers on opening the country's new parliament looked in doubt on Sunday amid disagreement over a special tribunal on electoral fraud.
It had seemed that constitutional crisis in the war-torn country had been averted after lawmakers said late on Saturday that Karzai, under heavy pressure from the West, had dropped a plan to delay parliament's opening by a month.
But now lawmakers are rejecting a key condition

ISLAMABAD - President Pakistan Muslim League (Likeminded Group) Senator Salim Saifullah Khan on Saturday demanded of the government to halt construction of the parliament lodges immediately.
Addressing a party meeting at PML Central Secretariat, he said that nation was confronted by a financial crunch so the government should increase toll tax on cars above 1600CC and place a ban on larger vehicles. "Industries are on the edge of disaster because of gas cuts and thousand of

ISLAMABAD - As many as 39 bills and 10 ordinances were tabled in the national assembly by the Pakistan People's Party-led coalition government during the third parliamentary year starting from March 2009 till December 31,2010 of which 22 bills were passed, 10 stood introduced, three deferred while four were not taken up.
Of the total 39 bills, 36 were tabled by the PPP ministers, two by a MQM minister while one was tabled by Environment Minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi, who was

ISLAMABAD - Serious reservations of Capital Development Authority (CDA)'s financial experts did not deter their bosses from approving a 37 percent over the Note of Inviting Tender cost bid for the construction of additional family suites at parliament lodges, sources said.
After the approval of this project, the cost which was originally Rs 2.5 billion, has now reached Rs 4 billion, the sources said, adding that the bid was not approved by the Tender Acceptance Committee (ATC)

LAHORE - The 18th Amendment made parliament sovereign and restored the powers of the prime minister's office, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Saturday. Speaking at an awards' ceremony at the National School of Public Policy, Gilani vowed to take all political parties on board to solve the problems of the people. He said democracy was difficult, but the desired way.
Gilani said the government worked hard to strengthen the democratic system in the country during the last

ISLAMABAD - In an unusual diplomatic initiative, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Sunday telephoned India's Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to exchange New Year's greetings.
"The prime minister conveyed his good wishes to her," an official said. "Meira Kumar had sent a message of greetings to the prime minister on New Year's eve. Matters of mutual interest were also discussed during the telephonic conversation," the official said.
Another senior official said: "The prime

ISLAMABAD - A raucous National Assembly session awaits Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar today (Monday), as the opposition, as well as the government's coalition partners, are set to give them a tough time over the recent POL price hike.
Sources in the PML-N, PML-Q, MQM and JUI-F told Pakistan Today that these parties might also stage token walkouts from the House to register their protest over the government's decision, which has sparked

ISLAMABAD - The year 2010 saw 23 bills being approved by the parliament with the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act topping the list. Another important bills passed by the parliament was the Sacked Employees (Re-instatement) Act because of which 9000 people were reemployed and which was projected as one of the People's Party's greatest achievement. However this bill had many eyebrows raised also because of the country's present financial crunch.
Other bills passed by the

ASTANA - The Kazakh parliament on Wednesday backed a controversial plan for a referendum to extend the mandate of strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev to 2020 and skip two presidential elections.
The central election commission unexpectedly announced this week it had received a petition to hold a referendum which if agreed would mean its first and only post-independence president would serve for another decade. "Taking into account the historic role of the leader of our

LONDON - A deputy speaker in Britain's parliament outed himself as gay on Sunday, claiming a former lawmaker was threatening to make his sexuality public.
Conservative lawmaker Nigel Evans, one of three who deputises for speaker John Bercow in the lower House of Commons, declined to name the Labour ex-member of parliament behind his decision.
"The MP was saying to anyone who would listen: 'Why is it that Nigel Evans leads a life whereby he is gay to some people and not

KABUL: A group of about 100 Afghan lawmakers demanded on Monday President Hamid Karzai inaugurate a new parliament by Dec. 19, almost three weeks after final results of a fraud-marred parliamentary election were declared.
Afghanistan has effectively been without a parliament since the Sept. 18 vote, a worrying sign of political instability as Washington finalises a review of its Afghanistan war strategy.
There have been reports of the attorney general's office asking the

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Religious Affairs will not have any objection if the parliament allows the private sector to manage Haj arrangements, Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi told the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Religious Affairs on Friday.
The standing committee, headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim, had summoned Kazmi to probe the Haj scam.
"Parliament is sovereign and can allow private sector to run Haj affairs completely or partially or for limited purposes

ISLAMABAD: The affectees of drone strikes and their relatives from North and South Waziristan staged a sit-in here on Friday in front of the Parliament House against the killings of innocent civilians.
The protesters demanded the government take immediate steps to stop drone assaults on civilians in the North and South Wazirstan that, according to them, had so far left 1,500 civilians dead.
A 14-year-old boy, Saad Ullah who lost his both legs and one eye in a drone strike,

ISLAMABAD: The country's political parties, police, and parliament have emerged as the top three most corrupt institutions, with the judiciary showing improvement in curbing the menace of corruption, said the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer, a worldwide public opinion survey on corruption released on the International Anti-Corruption Day (Thursday) by Transparency International
The report said that 77 percent of the people believed that corruption in the country had increased

LONDON: A young Russian woman working for a British lawmaker is facing deportation after security services detained her on suspicion of espionage, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
The paper reported that Katia Zatuliveter, 25, secretly worked for the Russian intelligence as a "sleeper" agent.
She had been working for Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock who sits on parliament's defence select committee which examines defence policy but has no access to secret material.