President Asif Ali Zardari's son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has quietly stepped in to assume a larger role in the affairs of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) as his father recovers from a heart condition in a hospital in Dubai.
Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh's lawyer will file a fresh mercy petition before Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday, in the wake of the Supreme Court dismissing his appeal against capital punishment.Owais Sheikh, the new counsel for Sarabjit, said the petition seeking clemency for the Indian national will include a letter addressed to Zardari by the condemned man.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, has been summoned to Islamabad following reports that he sought United States help to rein in the country's powerful generals in the wake of the raid that killed Al QaeOsama bin Laden. He has offered his resignation to defuse a growing controversy at home that threatens to aggravate already precarious relations between Pakistan's military and its government.
Seeking to lower temperatures, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday said Pakistan is not talking of war or vengeance and that dialogue is the solution for all issues in the region.
Notwithstanding the chill in bilateral relations, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani have sent their New Year greetings to their Indian counterparts.Zardari and Gilani have sent their greetings to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh through the Ministry of External Affairs, sources said on Wednesday.
Pakistan People's Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari took to Twitter to express his feelings about his first visit to India, saying it was a "shame" that the two countries were spending money on weapons at a time when many people on both sides of the border were living in poverty.
Sanam Bhutto, the sister of Zardari's slain wife Benazir Bhutto, had denied giving any interview to journalist Daphne Barak which was the basis of the reports in the Pakistani media, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar said in a statement issued in Islamabad on Wednesday.
President Asif Ali Zardari has reportedly turned down a request to extend the 15-day deadline set by the Pakistan government for the United States to vacate Shamsi airbase that is believed to be used by CIA-operated drones.
President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday backtracked on his remarks describing militants in Jammu and Kashmir as "terrorists", saying there is no change in Pakistan's Kashmir policy, a day after his comments triggered an outcry in this country.
Pakistan's powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani does not support President Asif Ali Zardari's "no-first-use" nuclear policy, according to US diplomatic cables released by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.
Amid a controversy around Pakistani diplomat Hussain Haqqani, news reports said he was seeking asylum in the United States, but the envoy denied this and said he would return to his country shortly to explain his position on a secret memo purportedly sent by President Asif Ali Zardari to the Obama administration.
A US-based businessman has claimed that he has "crystal clear" evidence to back his claim that he acted as an intermediary between President Asif Ali Zardari and the US administration to avert a military coup in wake of the unilateral US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The crisis encircling Pakistan's fragile ruling coalition reached a boiling point on Sunday with the Pakistan People's Party refusing to comply with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's demand on reinstating sacked judges within a deadline and the ally also not enthusiastic about supporting Asif Ali Zardari for presidency.
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday issued a contempt notice to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for failing to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and asked him to appear before it on January 19.
Coming down heavily on beleaguered Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said he is not an honest man, as it warned of action against him for failing to act on an order to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
"Failure is not an option in Pakistan's fight against terrorism," Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has said.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had wanted to retain military ruler Pervez Musharraf's close aide Tariq Aziz as a key Pakistani interlocutor for India but the move was opposed by Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, a United States diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has said.
The ruling Pakistan People's Party has condemned an internet rumour that its chief, President Asif Ali Zardari, has secretly remarried three years after the assassination of his wife Benazir Bhutto, describing it as a 'vicious and unethical tirade'.
The meeting of the PPP's central executive committee came a day after the presidency and party snapped all contacts between them in the wake of Zardari's comments in an interview with PTI describing Musharraf as a relic of the past who is standing between the people of Pakistan and democracy. The party's federal ministers and the chief ministers of the PPP-led governments in Balochistan and Sindh provinces also attended the meeting held at Zardari House in Islamabad.
Under pressure from the US, President Asif Ali Zardari today said Pakistan is ready to shift some of its troops from the Indian border to its western frontier to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. The US has been pressing Pakistan to step up its offensive against the Taliban but Islamabad has been reluctant to move troops from the eastern border as it considers India as its main threat.
President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday remitted the remaining jail term of Indian convict Gopal Das, who has been imprisoned in Pakistan for 27 years, days ahead of a visit to India by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to watch the cricket World Cup semi-final featuring the teams of the two countries.
Pakistan's Law minister Babar Awan resigned on Wednesday to appear as the government's counsel in a case in the Supreme Court seeking a review of the death sentence awarded to former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. President Asif Ali Zardari, who also heads the ruling Pakistan People's Party, recently asked the apex court to review the death sentence awarded to Bhutto in 1979.
In a sign of growing rancour between Pakistan's ruling coalition partners, Pakistan People's Party chairman Asif Ali Zardari has lashed out at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Shahbaz Sharif for not taking steps to release his friend, who is in a Punjab jail for nine years on charges of drug smuggling. The PML-N president has reportedly turned down the request though his party is in power in Punjab.
A contingent of the Pakistani Army's special forces left for China on Thursday to participate in a joint anti-terrorism drill coinciding with President Asif Ali Zardari's July 6-11 visit to that country.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has allowed the country's military to carry out air strikes on the identified Taliban havens located in the intricate mountain terrains in Tribal Areas.
Praising Dr Singh as an "excellent economist", Zardari told the then National Security Advisor Gen (rtd) James Jones in a meeting in Islamabad on June 25, 2009 that the Indian Prime Minister was unaware of what it took to change the mindset of the Pakistani establishment.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked his Pakistani counterpart, on Monday, to quicky arrest the leaders of a Pakistan-based Sunni group blamed by Tehran for a suicide attack that killed 42 people, including top officers of the elite Revolutionary Guard.
The conspirators, who killed former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto, wanted to "provoke" her supporters with her assassination so as to hasten the process of "balkanisation" of Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari has said.
The Pakistan Foreign Office gave no reason for Lodhi's removal in a statement late on Monday.
In a bargaining tactic, Pakistan has urged the United States to push India for a 'diplomatic rapprochement' with it, in lieu of its crackdown on terror groups, particularly in tribal areas where top Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are hiding. This tactic of Pakistan -- for which, observers say, its leaders have been known for -- is clearly being articulated by President Asif Ali Zardari in his three-page letter written to his US counterpart Barack Obama.
The Pakistan People's Party-led government is considering a proposal to seek Interpol's Red Corner notice against ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf, in a bid to bring him back from abroad to face treason charges, days after he called party chief and President Asif Ali Zardari 'a criminal and a fraud'. Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani had even hinted that it might not be possible to put Musharraf on trial, after main opposition PML-N stepped up demands for action against him.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Wednesday he intended to set up an international commission to probe the assassination of former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto during a meeting with her widower, President Asif Ali Zardari.
Claiming that the Mumbai carnage had "significant support from within India itself," President Asif Ali Zardari has said Pakistan needs cooperation from India to build the case for "effective prosecution" of the accused in courts in his country.
Khan said Zardari does not want to 'ruffle any feathers in New Delhi' or blame India for being involved through Afghanistan for terrorist attacks in Pakistan. 'He basically does what Americans want him to do. He is petrified of anything where he would get Americans upset,' Khan told his biographer Frank Huzur in an interview.
Pakistan and China on Wednesday inked several agreements and memoranda of understanding, including a pact on a system to manage the border between the Xinjiang autonomous region and Gilgit-Baltistan area. President Asif Ali Zardari and visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang witnessed the signing of the agreements by representatives of the two countries during a ceremony at the presidency.
With his forces battling Taliban militants in the country's troubled northwest, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari does not see India as the foremost threat and says the "position of being able to take over another state is nullified" after both countries acquired nuclear arms."I would love to be remembered for creating a Pakistan where militancy -- I know it can't totally be diminished -- is defeated," he said.
President Asif Ali Zardari has said that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used against India for any acts of terror and is ready to cooperate with it to punish the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. "Pakistan is ready to cooperate with India to punish the perpetrators of the terror attacks in Mumbai. Pakistan has assured that it would not allow its territory to be used against India for any acts of terror," Zardari told the Financial Times.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari does not believe that India's demand to take action against Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of the terror attacks on Mumbai, is a 'major hurdle' and was hopeful that relations would be normalised soon between the two neighbours."I don't think the issue of Hafiz Saeed is a major hurdle in the normalisation of our relations. I am hopeful that ties between the two countries will be restored very soon," Zardari said.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has strongly denied his country's involvement in the audacious attacks in Mumbai, saying the terror strikes in the India's financial capital were executed by the 'stateless actors who wanted to hold the entire world hostage'.Zardari also ruled out any possibility of Pakistan and India going to war, saying "democracies do not go to war". He asserted that the state of Pakistan is not responsible for the attacks in Mumbai.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday fired the special public prosecutor in the Mumbai terror attack case, more than a week after the senior lawyer sparked a controversy claiming that Islamabad had formally requested India to hand over Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested during the three-day terror siege..
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances