DINA for the issue of April 30, 2012

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D A W N I n t e r n e t N e w s A l e r t
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April 30, 2012 Monday Jumadi-us-Sani 8, 1433
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The DAWN Internet News Alert (DINA) is a free daily news-service
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(c) Pakistan Herald Publications (Pvt.) Ltd., Pakistan - 2012

The link at the end of each extract can be used to access the
complete story on DAWN - the Internet Edition.


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PPP, PML-N on collision course again
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By Amir Wasim
ISLAMABAD, April 29: The on-again, off-again confrontation between the two major political parties, the PPP and PML-N, has returned in all its ugliness, mudslinging and tit-for-tat attacks.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's sentence by the Supreme Court on contempt charges was over in just 37 seconds on Thursday, but in the following three days, the two major national parties appear to have buried, at least for now, the oft-reported 'understanding' between them to avoid taking their differences to the point of 'no return'...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/ppp-pml-n-on-collision-course-again

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New drone strike in Miramshah: three killed
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By Pazir Gul
MIRAMSHAH, April 29: A US drone fired missiles on Sunday at an abandoned school in Miramshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal region, killing three suspects and injuring two others.

Local people said that two missiles hit the building which once housed a primary school for girls...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/new-drone-strike-in-miramshah-three-killed

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Body of kidnapped ICRC official found
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By Saleem Shahid
QUETTA, April 29: The body of a kidnapped British official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Dr Khalil Rasjed Dale, was found in an orchard near the Airport Road on Sunday morning.

"The beheaded body of Dr Dale, kidnapped on Jan 5, was in a plastic bag dumped in the apple orchard," a police officer said...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/body-of-kidnapped-icrc-official-found

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Panicked families fleeing Lyari
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By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 29: With the Lyari area of Karachi continuing to resound with gunfire and explosions of bombs and rocket-propelled grenades for the third consecutive day on Sunday, panicked residents have started leaving the locality for relatively safe adjoining places or other parts of the city.

Lyari looks like a virtual war zone with armoured personnel carriers of police in full-fledged action and gunmen hitting back with lethal weapons. The area is facing an acute shortage of foodstuff and other essentials. There is no water in most of the areas and parts of the locality were without electricity. People, mostly women, leaving their homes with their children said they wouldn't be able to survive the hardship anymore...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/panicked-families-fleeing-lyari

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PAC seeks to scrutinise SC accounts
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By Khawar Ghumman
ISLAMABAD, April 29: As the war of words between the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) turns shrill after the Supreme Court order against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) could turn out to be a new battleground in the fight between the executive and judiciary.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly is meeting this week after a six-month hiatus. It is expected that the committee will call the Supreme Court Registrar, Dr Faqir Hussain, to scrutinise the apex court's accounts...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/pac-seeks-to-scrutinise-sc-accounts

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No PPP premier will write letter: Gilani
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LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani asserted on Sunday that no premier belonging to the PPP would write a letter to Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. "We will not budge from our constitutional stance, come what may," he said while talking to a group of lawyers at his residence here.

The prime minister termed PML-N an 'opportunist' party and said its president (Nawaz Sharif) was trying to confuse the people over the Supreme Court's verdict in the contempt of court case...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/no-ppp-premier-will-write-letter-gilani

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Rs845bn uplift plan ready for approval
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By Khaleeq Kiani
ISLAMABAD, April 29: The Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) is expected to meet on Wednesday to approve for the 2012-13 financial year about Rs845 billion worth of Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) – about 16 per cent higher than the current year's programme.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Nadeemul Haque, provincial ministers for planning and development and secretaries of federal ministries and divisions will attend the meeting on May 2...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/rs845bn-uplift-plan-ready-for-approval

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Afghanistan's Taliban deny holding fresh talks with US
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KABUL, April 29: Afghan Taliban on Sunday denied that they had resumed talks with the United States, while the Afghan government insisted that the peace process was "on track".

The Taliban, who last month broke off contacts with the US in Qatar, said they would not resume talks "until the Americans take constructive steps and fulfil promises which were agreed upon for confidence building"...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/afghanistans-taliban-deny-holding-fresh-talks-with-us

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Plan to do away with duty waivers in budget
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By Mubarak Zeb Khan
ISLAMABAD, April 29: The government is considering imposing in the 2012-13 budget minimal taxes on products, raw materials and machinery that are currently being imported without duty, thus doing away with protection provided to some industries flourishing at the cost of consumers.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, a senior official said: "The new approach has been evolved following the observation that past taxation policies have failed to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio, which fell to 8.2 per cent this year from 9.8 per cent last year."..

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/plan-to-do-away-with-duty-waivers-in-budget

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Nine blasts rock Dhaka amid strike
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DHAKA, April 29: Nine small bombs exploded in the Bangladeshi capital on Sunday, police said, after an opposition supporter was shot dead in clashes ahead of a fourth nationwide strike in eight days.

Security was tight across the country, with around 10,000 policemen deployed in Dhaka, and most shops, offices and schools were shut amid tensions over the disappearance of an opposition leader...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/nine-blasts-rock-dhaka-amid-strike

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Book details US mission to find Osama
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By Karen DeYoung
WASHINGTON: Six weeks before the raid by US Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden last May, President Barack Obama's top national security officials debated various other options, including dropping an experimental small bomb on the Al Qaeda leader inside his Abbottabad residence, obliterating the compound with a B-2 bomber or inviting the Pakistanis to conduct a joint operation.

While some favoured the small bomb option, including then-defence secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen James E. Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, others persuasively argued that the mini-bomb might miss or that there would be no way to prove to the world that Osama had been killed, according to a new book by Bin Laden expert Peter Bergen...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/book-details-us-mission-to-find-osama

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Gilani appoints Fawad Chaudhry as assistant
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ISLAMABAD, April 29: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani appointed on Sunday Fawad Chaudhry as his special assistant for information and political affairs with the status of a minister of state.

Mr Chaudhry, a former spokesman for Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, joined the Pakistan People's Party about two months ago. Since then he has been defending Mr Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari in the media...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/gilani-appoints-fawad-chaudhry-as-assistant

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Mehran Bank loan repaid with mark-up, say Sharifs
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By Our Staff Reporter
LAHORE, April 29: The Sharif family said on Sunday that it had repaid the Rs48 million loan taken from the Mehran Bank.

According to the Sharif family's spokesman, a sum of Rs102.1 million, including the mark-up, was paid to Mehran Bank against the Rs48 million loan taken for the Chaudhry Sugar Mills...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/mehran-bank-loan-repaid-with-mark-up-say-sharifs

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Peace conference puts face to drone victims
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By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, April 29: Drone victims are not just figures on a piece of paper, they are real people and that's why it is important to see what happens on the ground when a missile hits a target, argues Pakistani attorney Shahzad Akbar.

"We have to see what exactly is happening on the ground, what is happening to the people," he told a Washington conference on drones...

http://dawn.com/2012/04/30/peace-conference-puts-face-to-drone-victims


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