Quote:PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A Taliban suicide bomber struck a vehicle carrying the chief of a paramilitary police force in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing him and three others in an attack that ended a relative lull in violence in a city often targeted by the militants.



Sifwat Ghayur, the head of the 25,000-strong Frontier Constabulary, is one of the most senior security officials to be killed by militants in the country

Time Assassin;1052092 Wrote:Funny Story, 2 days ago, me and my family/friends in Karachi hired a boat to view all the port. A Pakistani ship saved a Indian ship that was sinkin and after their "help" the Pakistanis arrested all Indians that were on broad because they came into [color="#006400"]Pakistani [size="7"]terror[/size]tory[/color]. LOL

Quote:Days of rogue spies are over, says President Asif Ali Zardari

President Asif Ali Zardari in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph on August 8 said that he now had full control over Pakistan’s intelligence services, which have long been suspected of lending secret support to militant causes, , reports Daily Times. Zardari, who is on a five-day visit to London, spoke out after talks on August 7 with British Prime Minister David Cameron, aimed at patching up damage caused by the latter’s recent remarks that Pakistan was involved in “the export of terror”. While his accusations caused personal affront to Zardari, Cameron was understood to be referring mainly to Pakistan’s intelligence services. But Zardari now claims the days when the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was more powerful than Pakistan’s elected leaders are over. “I think that everybody is completely accountable now,” he said in the interview. “The only people who need to have more room for understanding are the international community, who need to support us more.” “We are in a new era of democracy now,” he said. “The time that my wife was talking about was the time when nobody was conducting operations in the Swat valley or Waziristan,” he said.

Quote:KARACHI: Pakistan's Hindu community has called for deployment of army in the flood-affected areas of Sindh province to safeguard the lives of thousands of Hindus allegedly being looted by the locals.



Addressing the media at the Karachi Press Club, Pakistan Hindu Council chief Ramesh Kumar appealed to the government to move in the army in affected areas. "Our families are being targeted at gun-point by the locals of their localities. About 95 shops and 50 houses have been ransacked and looted by the miscreants," the News quoted Kumar, as saying.



Kumar said that those who were evacuating the areas for safe places were also being targeted and their vehicles were being looted. He said that the situation was out of control as the police had abandoned the area, and there was no one to help the affected people.



Read more: Pak Hindus say looted at gunpoint in flood-hit areas - Pakistan - World - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Pak-Hindus-say-looted-at-gunpoint-in-flood-hit-areas/articleshow/6290118.cms#ixzz0wFvhg2wG

Quote:LAHORE: Some Indian peace activists visiting Pakistan remained on The Mall for about three hours on Sunday and collected donations for flood-hit Pakistanis.



[color="#FF0000"]Dr Sandeep Pandey, Mazhar Hussain, Feroz Mothiawala, Zaid Ahmad, Monica Wahi, Ramneek Mohan, Shetal, Darshan, Rajeshwar Ojha, Feroz Hudda[/color] and others from across the border contributed a sum of Indian Rs30,000 to the Labour Flood Relief campaign before collecting donations from motorists and pedestrians crossing the Regal Chowk.

Quote:The key difference here is that the bandits who are robbing the poor are doing so not so much out of desperation but because they are criminals by profession. Unlike the hungry who looted food on Friday, these armed robbers in district Sukkur are looking to profit from the misery of the poor.

Quote:Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN, Aug 17, 2010, 08.00pm IST WASHINGTON: With almost one-fifth of the country reeling from floods, Pakistan has said its homegrown terrorists have overtaken the [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Indian%20Army"]Indian Army[/url] as the greatest threat to its national security, even as [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Islamabad"]Islamabad[/url] battles overcome the world’s trust deficit to win desperately needed aid.



The sudden turnaround in downgrading the Indian ''threat,'' reportedly contained in a recent internal assessment of security by the country’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), comes only weeks after the country’s military supremo Pervez Ashfaq Kayani rebuffed Washington’s efforts to highlight the threat of home-grown terrorism while insisting India remained the principal enemy.



The ''recent'' undated assessment, leaked by a senior [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=ISI"]ISI[/url]official to the Wall Street Journal, allocates a ''two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to the state coming from militants rather than from India or elsewhere.'' Evidently, it is the first time since Independence that India isn’t being viewed as the top threat.



The purported rethink, received leerily in Washington and New Delhi, comes amid catastrophic floods that has devastated Pakistan and generated talk about the country’s very survival. Some reports say nearly a quarter of the country – an area the size of [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Great%20Britain"]Great Britain[/url] – is affected by floods, and there is fearful speculation that extremists will have a run of the place because of government apathy and inefficiency.



Pakistan’s civilian rulers have tried to highlight this aspect to drum up more aid from world community, but till last weekend its appeal was met with skepticism given Islamabad’s own dodgy use of militant groups to further its strategic depth, a concept which Kayani defended till recently. But that depth now appears to have been washed away; on Tuesday, Pakistan faced the mortifying spectacle of [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Afghanistan"]Afghanistan[/url] giving it $ 1 million in flood aid, even as it sat on India offer of $ 5 million in aid with more to follow.



The neighbourly concern from countries that Pakistan has tried to undermine for long is in sharp contrast to the indifference, based on suspicion about Islamabad’s bona fides, from most of the world community. As of last weekend, the Indian aid offer topped [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=France"]France[/url] ($ 1.5 million), [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Germany"]Germany[/url] ( $ 2.4 million), [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Italy"]Italy[/url] ( $ 1.8 million) , [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Netherlands"]Netherlands[/url] ( $ 1.3 million). Sweden ($ 3 million), and a host of other wealthy countries.



International experts attribute the cautious and tentative response by the world community to the trust deficit – as also donor fatigue -- arising from the Pakistani establishment’s deep and long ties to terrorism. "We note often an image deficit with regards to Pakistan among Western public opinion," Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=UN%20Office"]UN Office[/url] for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, bluntly stated over the weekend, even as she and other experts questioned the logic of punishing millions of flood victims [color="#2e8b57"]for the policies of the country's militarized establishment[/color].



Pakistan's image deficit became evident in the poor response to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appeal for $ 10 individual donation through text messages for [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=flood%20relief"]flood relief[/url] – an effort that brought in only thousands of dollars in the first few hours compared to the millions which rolled in for the [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Haiti"]Haiti[/url] earthquake and tsunami relief funds.



Similarly, a German lawmaker who is trying to raise money for Pakistan complained to Der Spielgel that he had so far been met with two types of reactions: [color="#008000"]"Some fear their money will help extremists. Others say: If Pakistan would spend less money on its efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons then it would have enough money to manage the catastrophe."

[/color]

Pakistan appears to have gotten the message – [color="#2e8b57"]or at least is pretending that it did – going by the disclosure of its new threat assessment that runs contrary to what its [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Army"]Army[/url] chief insisted only weeks ago – that India remained a bigger threat than home-grown terrorists[/color].

Quote:Pakistani army opened fire on three Indian posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Krishnaghati sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir early on Thursday, army sources said. According to the sources, Pakistani troops targeted Kranti, Ghoda and Kirpan posts of the Indian army along the LoC in Mendhar area, about 230 km north of Jammu at around 12.30 am.



Soldiers guarding the posts caught in heavy firing which lasted for more than one hour. Pakistani army also fired mortars and rockets, the sources said.



Pakistani army had been violating the cease fire, which had come into effect in November 2003, to facilitate infiltration.

Army sources said that Pakistani army also wanted to cause tensions on the LoC.

Quote:The United States was by far the largest single donor, with $82 million, according to United Nations figures, with Australia the next largest donor at $26.6 million. The United States said its total contributions amounted to $90 million, including helicopters, boats and temporary bridges, according to the State Department.



Not all the aid was flowing through the United Nations. Britain, for example, has sent more than $40 million, and the European Union said it would double its aid to more than $90 million.



Although the disaster has fallen in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when charity is considered a duty, Muslim states have donated virtually nothing via the United Nations and relatively small sums on their own. Turkey was the largest such donor, with more than $11 million, and Kuwait donated $5 million, United Nations figures show. Saudi Arabia has pledged more than $80 million, but United Nations records indicate [color="#FF0000"]none of it has been delivered[/color].