HYDERABAD: Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah Monday said the alliance between Pakistan People?s Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement is in the interest of the province.

Talking to journalists here at Hyderabad Press Club, the Chief Minister said the PPP-MQM alliance is not a temporary one; it will continue even after the next general elections.

He said PPP did not come in power through any back door, but it was the power of people?s mandate which elected the party to form the government.

?Sindh fought its case on the basis of Constitution,? Qaim Ali Shah said, adding, the province will get Rs25 billion in services tax under NFC.

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MUMBAI: The pressure will all be on India when they host Sri Lanka in this month?s opening Test, visiting captain Kumar Sangakkara said on Sunday as h

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MUMBAI: Pakistan, who were wary of playing in India due to political tensions between the two nations, will play its six league matches of the World Cup 2011 in Sri Lanka.

India will clash with Bangladesh in the opening match of the 2011 World Cup in Dhaka on February 19, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Monday.

The first match takes place two days after the opening ceremony of the 14-nation showpiece at the same venue in Dhaka on February 17, according to the schedule released by the ICC here.

The final of the 43-day tournament, being co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will take place at the renovated Wankhede stadium in India’’s financial capital of Mumbai on April 2.

The teams have been divided into two groups of seven each for the preliminary league, with the top four from each group advancing to the quarter-finals.

Defending champions Australia head group A which includes Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and two qualifiers, Canada and Kenya.

The other group comprises India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh and qualifiers Ireland, Netherlands.

India will host 29 matches at eight venues, Sri Lanka 12 at three venues and Bangladesh eight at two places, after Pakistan were removed as co-hosts by the ICC due to security fears in the volatile nation.

Pakistan, who were wary of playing in India due to political tensions between the two nations, will play its six league matches in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka will host five of its matches at two new venues in southern Hambantota and Pallekele, near the hill town of Kandy, where cricket stadiums are under construction.

The remaining seven games in the island nation will be held at the Premadasa stadium in Colombo.

India has picked eight regular Test centres — Mumbai, Mohali, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi — for its matches.

The Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka will host six matches and the opening ceremony, while two games will be played in the port city of Chittagong.

The 2011 event is a week shorter than the one held in the Caribbean in 2007 and will have 49 matches, two less than the previous tournament.

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ISLAMABAD: Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), General Tariq Majid, NI(M) has rejected the article by Seymour M. Hersh, published in The New Yorker” terming it as absurd and plain mischievous.

He stated, “we have operationalised a very effective nuclear security regime, which incorporates very stringent custodial and access controls.

As overall custodian of the development of our strategic programme, I reiterate in very unambiguous terms that there is absolutely no question of sharing or allowing any foreign individual, entity or a state, any access to sensitive information about our nuclear assets,? said an ISPR press release issued here Monday.

Our engagement with other countries through IAEA or bilaterally to learn more about the international best practices for security of such assets are based on two clearly spelt out RedLines - non intrusiveness” and our right to pick and choose”.

Also, our security apparatus has the capacity and is fully geared to meet all conceivable challenges, therefore, we do not need to negotiate with any other country to physically augment our security forces, which in any case, we believe, are more capable than their forces.”

Commenting on the question raised through an article captioned Pakistan Nuclear Security Plan: How much does US really know?”, which appeared in The News”, Islamabad on November 9, General Tariq responded, “only that much as they can guess and nothing more”.

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LAHORE

PAKISTAN Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan criticised PML-N leadership for playing double game with nation and urged the opposition

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ISLAMABAD: The federal government has formally submitted a request to the Speaker National Assembly seeking permission to withdraw the bill pertaining

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New Zealand beat Pakistan by seven runs in the third and final one-day international on Monday to win the series 2-1.

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A suicide bomber killed three people on Monday in the second attack in Pakistan’s city of Peshawar in 24 hours as the military suffered further losses during a major anti-Taliban offensive.

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Scoreboard after the third and final one-day international between Pakistan and New Zealand in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

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ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani have urged people to resolve on the birth anniversary of the poet phi

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