The Swiss government has officially informed Pakistan that it cannot revive cases of alleged money laundering against President Asif Ali Zardari as the matter is time-barred, Law Minister Zahid Hamid has said.
President Asif Ali Zardari will not file a response in the Supreme Court to petitions seeking a probe into the memo scandal, a presidential aide said on Monday, a move that could put him in direct confrontation with the apex court which had said he cannot presume immunity.
This came after the beleaguered Zardari was put on notice by the US, which reportedly gave him a 24-hour ultimatum to ease the simmering political crisis in Pakistan amid speculation that a deal brokered by Washington and the UK in consultation with the Pakistan army had been conveyed to the government.
'Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities. Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives,' The Daily Times quoted Zardari, as saying.
Warning that militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region, President Asif Ali Zardari has asked India to "resist striking out at his government" should investigations show that "Pakistani militant groups" were responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday conducted an aerial survey of the area in Siachen sector where Pakistani troops are involved in a frantic search for 138 people, mostly soldiers, buried under dozens of feet of snow following an avalanche that hit an army camp 11 days ago.
Amid the tensions between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Indian High Commissioner Satyabrata Pal attended a dinner hosted by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari for envoys of the non-Muslim countries in Islamabad.The dinner hosted by Zardari on Saturday night at the Presidential palace was also attended by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.Apart from the Indian High Commissioner, envoys of the United States, China, Britain, Russia were present.
On the heels of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee blaming some 'elements in Pakistan' for the audacious terror attacks on Mumbai, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh received a phone call from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari
"Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks," says Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in an oped in the December 8 issue of the New York Times.Cautioning against 'hasty judgments and inflammatory statements', Zardari says that the raids of December 7 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which resulted in the arrest of some wanted Lashkar-e-Tayeba terrorists, demonstrates that 'Pakistan will take action.'
Amid main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's demand that Pervez Musharraf be tried for treason, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said the fate of the former military ruler will be decided by the people and Parliament and ruled out using his powers on "frivolous issues of the past".
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday declared that his country will not be the first to use nuclear weapons against India and would work towards opening trade, besides underscoring that Kashmir belonged to the Kashmiri people.
The Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has acknowledged that the Taliban, with whom his government reached a truce deal in the restive Swat valley days ago, are "murderous thugs and militants" who "pose a danger to Pakistan, the United States and India".
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that terrorism, not India, is the greatest "threat" to his country, a significant shift in Islamabad's view of its neighbour that provoked controversy back home.
Amid reports of a rift between them, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss the regional security situation after the country's admission that captured Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab is its national. The meeting came amid Pakistani media reports that Zardari was angry over Gilani's decision to sack Durrani without consulting him. Durrani had been handpicked by Zardari for the key post last year.
The police guard who gunned down Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assigned to protect key personalities, including Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Self-confessed killer Mumtaz Qadri was detailed on protection duties on as many as 509 occasions in the past three years, including for United States delegations, which are prime targets for terrorists.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was so scared of a military coup after Osama bin Laden's death that he was ready to create a "new security team" favourable to Americans and promised the US to hand over Pakistan-based 26/11 perpetrators including those from its intelligence agency to India.
Rubbishing reports that he had made a threatening phone call to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari after Mumbai strikes, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today regretted Islamabad giving credibility to a "hoax" call and said it was a bid to divert attention from the fact that Pakistani elements had launched "attack on India".
Pakistan will be in 'great trouble' if President-elect Asif Ali Zardari does not change the policies of his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, which have 'derailed the Kashmir issue', the founder of the outlawed Lashker-e-Taiba has said.Militant ideologue Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who now heads the Jamat-ud-Dawah, called on the people of Pakistan to gather at the Line of Control to show solidarity with the residents of Jammu and Kashmir.
With the Supreme Court upholding the death sentence on the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, India's case for action against others involved in the Mumbai terror attacks got strengthened ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari in Teheran on Tuesday.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai urged United States Senators to secure strong American support for Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari in his efforts to free his country from extremism, according to a classified US diplomatic cable released by whistleblower website Wikileaks.
Pakistan will hold the next presidential election on September 6, two days before the end of the term of incumbent President Asif Ali Zardari.
A draft of the proposed constitutional package to be laid before Parliament later this month indicates that several powers of the President would be massively clipped, The News reported.
Zardari also said that though President Pervez Musharraf had a role to play in the new set-up, the Pakistan People's Party would think about impeaching him when the ruling coalition achieves a two-thirds majority in parliament. The PPP co-chairman refused to give a firm commitment that he would become the prime minister but said he would assume the office if the need arises. Zardari had last month nominated Yousuf Raza Gillani for the post of premier.
Taking serious note of reports of a "sense of insecurity" among Hindus in Sindh, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has set up a three-member committee of parliamentarians to visit different parts of the province to reassure the minority community about their security.
Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan has refuted reports that he wrote a letter of complaint to President Asif Zardari expressing his unhappiness with the PCB's handling of the spot-fixing row which led to the suspension of three Pakistani cricketers.
US drone attacks in Pakistani territory are undermining the war on terror, President Asif Ali Zardari told an American Congressional delegation on Thursday, asking Washington to provide the drone technology to his country's armed forces.
The government and the president's family convinced Zardari to go to Dubai for treatment because there was a risk he would be attacked if he was admitted to a Pakistani hospital, Gilani said while speaking in the senate or upper house of parliament on Wednesday
President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law a landmark constitutional amendment bill on Monday that will strip him of his sweeping powers, saying it would help prevent the emergence of dictatorships in Pakistan.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari was stripped of his sweeping powers on Thursday, as the country's senate approved by a two-thirds majority a "landmark" constitutional reform bill, which also wiped off changes made to the constitution by former military dictators.
Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has denied allegations about his involvement in the assassination of ex-premier Benazir Bhutto, saying President Asif Ali Zardari knows who killed her. Reacting to remarks made by Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday during a briefing on the assassination in the Sindh Assembly, Musharraf told TV news channels that the security of political leaders was the responsibility of provincial governments and not the federal government.
Pakistan Supreme Court's historic judgement declaring the 2007 emergency as "unconstitutional" has put President Asif Ali Zardari in a fix as part of its ruling the apex court has struck down the National Reconciliation Ordinance.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided to take disciplinary action against the players, including indefinite ban on former captains Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan, after confirming reports off internal strife in the team and after getting clearance from the Presidency, sources said on Wednesday.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari ruled out handing over the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to India but said the "non-state actors" who derailed the Indo-Pak rapprochement will "hopefully" be brought to justice in his country. Zardari, who concluded a five-day visit to China, told the state-run CCTV in an interview that Pakistanis involved in the Mumbai attacks cannot be handed over to India as there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.
A new bill passed by the Pakistani parliament may snatch the remote control of the country's nuclear bombs from President Asif Ali Zardari.
A Pakistan court on Friday gave a last chance to the government to respond to a petition seeking contempt proceedings against President Asif Ali Zardari for not acting on a suggestion that he should give up the political office of head of the ruling PPP.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardrai on Tuesday appointed his close aide Muhammad Latif Khosa as the new Governor of Punjab province to succeed the slain Pakistan Peoples Party leader Salman Taseer.
Controversial Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, a key figure in the memo scandal, on Friday claimed that President Asif Ali Zardari had advance information of the United States military raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad last year.
Pakistan's Supreme Court directed the government on Thursday, to send a letter to Swiss officials for reopening the graft cases against Asif Ali Zardari with the Prime Minister's approval by 1 pm, after a Swiss prosecutor said the cases could not be reopened as the President enjoys "absolute immunity" as a head of state.
PCB's interim chief Najam Sethi said he will not seek a permanent position in the PCB after pulling out of the race to be its next chairman.
A political storm appeared to be brewing in Pakistan on Monday with Asif Ali Zardari's ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement asking him to quit over a controversial law that allowed the President to return home in 2007 by scrapping graft cases and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif threatening to challenge the legislation in court.
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