Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Nasim Ashraf on Monday withdrew his Rs 220 million defamation suit against fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar after a top government official mediated for a reconciliation between them. The meeting, which took place in Islamabad on Sunday night, was brokered by Rehman Malik, a top man in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and advisor to the Prime Minister on interior affairs. Both Shoaib and Ashraf were present at the meeting.
Asked about the PPP's move to link the restoration of judges with a Constitutional package for judicial reforms, Sharif said the two could not be linked. "We have been discussing both since Wednesday and that (Constitutional package) is a separate issue. The restoration (of the judges) will take place through a resolution," Sharif said after a meeting with PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari.
With the 30-day deadline for restoring the judges expiring on Wednesday, senior leaders of the two parties, including Sharif and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, are trying hard to sort out their differences on modalities. Some progress was made during the talks, but there were unresolved issues, Sharif said adding, he expects the negotiations to conclude on Thursday.
The Pakistan government's coalition partners - PPP and PML-N - have 'agreed' to reinstate the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf in 2007, PPP chairman Asif Ali Zaradari said. The coalition partners had agreed to finalise modalities for restoring the judges in 30 days of assuming power. The deadline expired on Wednesday.
Some promises made in Benazir Butto's new manifesto strike at the very root of Musharraf's power base while others -- including handing over control of the Military Initelligence and the nuclear arsenal to the prime minister -- go even beyond that.
Bhutto, who was scheduled to go on a four-day trip to Dubai where her husband Asif Ali Zardari, her daughter and her mother currently live, was stopped at the international airport in Islamabad.
A committee formed by former premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and her political rival Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party has completed 80 per cent of its work on drawing up the charter of demands, which is expected to be completed on Thursday.
The PPP's presidential candidate had been advised much earlier to move to the prime minister's house but was reluctant to do so. However, after a security breach at his residence, the PPP chief decided to shift residence
Pakistan premier Yousuf Raza Gillani on Wednesday said that the fate of President Pervez Musharraf would be decided according to the Constitution while the judges deposed by him will be reinstated in the true spirit of an agreement reached between the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in this regard.Gillani, who belongs to the PPP, called on Sharif and his brother Shahbaz at their Raiwind estate in Lahore after addressing a business meet.
Though she is not willing to vote for the President even if all cases against her are withdrawn, she has indicated that she would covertly support the reelection by asking her party to abstain at the time of voting, sources said.
By indulging in agitation, Bhutto, the leader of Pakistan People's Party, is "strengthening the impression that she is sure of her party's defeat in the elections", Musharraf said at a farewell meeting with members of the outgoing assembly of Punjab province. "The politicians, including Benazir Bhutto, who are pursuing agitational politics, should do away with it and focus on electioneering so that elections could be held in a peaceful atmosphere," he said.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif is keen to visit Jammu and Kashmir to trace his ancestral roots, the former Pakistani premier told visiting People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti. Mufti, who travelled to Islamabad last week to participate in a conference, had met Sharif in Lahore on Thursday.
Several members of the opposition PML-Q, which is aligned with Pakistan's embattled President Pervez Musharraf, have publicly urged the former military strongman to step down and some have even said they will vote in favour of an impeachment motion against him.
TV footage showed Zardari coming out of his house and embracing his younger daughter Aseefa before getting into a black Landcruiser.
Pakistan's Army is to ask the country's embattled President Pervez Musharraf to relinquish office in a week's time as its top brass would not want him to be impeached, a news report said on Saturday.
Former Prime minister Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N said four of its leaders --- Ahsan Iqbal, Sardar Mahtab Abbasi, Rana Tanveer Hussain and Khawaja Saad Rafique -- would rejoin the PPP-led cabinet.
Pakistan's former president Asif Ali Zardari has returned to the country, ending his 18-month-long self-imposed exile, amidst speculations about his future role in the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has threatened a major protest against the Nawaz Sharif government.
Speaking to a television channel over phone from Saudi Arabia, he said, "If Benazir abandons her negotiations with Musharraf, we can work together and launch a joint struggle."
Undeterred by the government's ban on public meetings under emergency rule, former premier Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan People's Party on Wednesday vowed to go ahead with a planned rally in the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi on Friday.
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.
The Pakistan People's Party is set to announce its candidate for prime minister later on Saturday even as the opposition withdrew their nominee for the post following a request from PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari. Opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Friday decided to withdraw party leader Farooq Sattar as its joint candidate with ally PML-Q for sthe post of prime minister, paving the way for the PPP nominee to be elected unopposed.
PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has said that the time has come for a "final" parleys with the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) over the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf and restoration of judges deposed during last year's emergency.
A total of 328 MPs of the 342-member National Assembly were sworn in by outgoing Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, after which the House offered special prayers for slain former premier and Zardari's wife Benazir Bhutto who was killed in a suicide attack on a pre-poll rally in December. Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif, who did not contest the election, watched the proceedings from the gallery reserved for guests.
The late Princess Diana's Pakistani love interest Hasnat Khan is back in the news -- this time for being denied a job in a prestigious medical institute in Islamabad.Khan, a heart surgeon, was looking for a job in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences after his return from London, but his moves were allegedly punctured by the powers-that-be.Khan met Diana at Royal Brompton Hospital when she visited a friend recovering from heart surgery.
The Pakistan's Peoples Party, set to head Pakistan's new coalition government, is understood to have decided in principle to nominate Asif Ali Zardari for the premiership, a post he will be eligible to occupy only after his election to the National Assembly. The single largest party is also offering Makhdoom Amin Fahim, till recently the front-runner for office of prime minister, the position of PPP parliamentary leader in the National Assembly.
Although Sharif wanted Musharraf to be arrested and tried in a court of law on charges of treason, Zardari has convinced his new political partner to allow Musharraf an honourable exit by requesting him to step down. The new allies, however. decided that if Musharraf refused to step down, they would seek his impeachment.
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto is eyeing several key posts in the proposed interim set up to conduct general elections in the country.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has asked the Pakistan government to seek foreign help in probing last week's bomb blasts in Karachi that killed at least 165 people. Moreover, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party has alleged that there was a deliberate act of sabotage to facilitate the attack.
In the first sign of cracks in the Pakistan People's Party, senior party leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim has said party chairman Asif Ali Zardari's 'unnecessary delay' in naming him as the prime minister has led to the perception that he was being 'humiliated and betrayed'. Asked what would be his reaction if he was not given the post of prime minister, Fahim said: 'I have a roadmap in my mind but I would reveal it only once the decision about the name is announced.'
Three new victors -- the Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Awami National Party have shown their majority many days ago, but President Pervez Musharraf is playing delaying games and using secret agencies to break the majority party PPP from the PML faction of Nawaz Sharif.
The PPP, PML-N and ANL together hold 225 out of the required 228 seats to gain a two-thirds majority, which would give the coalition the power to impeach President Musharraf and revoke presidential powers to dissolve the National Assembly.
Suspense over Pakistan's next prime minister continued with the Pakistan People's Party, which will head a planned coalition government, on Thursday delaying a decision on its nominee amid differences over the frontrunner Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf is planning to attack Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry again with the active support of Benazir Bhutto and covert support of the United States. High level meetings are going on in Islamabad in the last two days to chalk out a new strategy against Justice Chaudhry who is becoming a real threat to the Musharraf-Benazir understanding by puncturing the presidential ordinance through which PPP leaders were granted amnesty.
The Bush administration has said it continues to support embattled President Pervez Musharraf, whose allies were routed in Pakistan's general election, while maintaining that Washington has no role in the formation of a new government in Islamabad.
Some elements in an intelligence agency were using their links in the PPP and the media to establish that Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan is trying to become a candidate for the position of either the prime minister or the president through the PML-N. But their efforts to create a rift between the two opposition parties, which are planning to form a coalition government, failed.
All the behind the scenes drama and the between the lines intrigue from Pakistan, a day before the presidential poll.
The names of PPP's Punjab Province president and formal Federal minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi, senior leader Yousuf Reza Gillani and firebrand lawyer Aitaz Ahsan were also doing the rounds for the top post.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari overcame pressure and enticement from President Pervez Musharraf's camp and the United States to not align with former premier Nawaz Sharif's party, to form a coalition government with the PML-N, a media report said on Friday.
Pakistan's main opposition parties Pakistan Muslim League-N and Pakistan People's Party on Tuesday jointly mustered a simple majority in the new Parliament, local TVchannels said.
High Commissioner Bisaria in his brief address to the audience said that some of the guests could not make to the party. "I want to apologise because some of you faced a lot of trouble to come here and some of our friends could not come," he said. Bisaria also said that people had come from Lahore and Karachi to attend the event and thanked them for coming.
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