MELBOURNE: Australia have less than a week to adjust to their new Test opponents, Pakistan, but Ricky Ponting has been keeping an eye on Mohammad Yous

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ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to appoint Anwar Mansoor Ahmed Khan as new Attorney General.

Sources close to the law ministry said that Anwar Mansoor Ahmed Khan has also served as a judge of the Sindh High Court as well as Sindh Advocate General.

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LAHORE: Director General of Military Operations at the Pakistan Army contacted his Indian counterpart on Tuesday and rejected the New Delhi?s allegations about violations of ceasefire.

According to sources, India alleged Pakistan has violated ceasefire five times during the last seven days and in this regard local commanders held flag meetings.

Pakistani director general of Military Operations established contact with his Indian counterpart on hotline and rejected ceasefire allegations. He denied Pakistan has violated any ceasefire.

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A suicide bomber struck Tuesday outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing three people and wounding 17 in an attack that underscored the danger to journalists trying to cover Pakistan’s Taliban-led insurgency.

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Pakistan News

MUMBAI: Chairman Indian Premier League Lalit Modi has threatened to terminate contracts of Australian cricketers and ban State sides from the Champions League if they fail to release their players for the third edition of the T20 event.

Dates of the last round of the Australia’’s domestic competition — Sheffield Shield — and the mega BCCI event are clashing but Modi wants States sides to release their contracted players for the competition.

Modi said they respect players” commitments to their countries but would not mind if players skip domestic duties for IPL.

The IPL 2010 season is in March-April, when a lot of domestic tournaments will still be on. This is a one-off situation. The IPL requires No-Objection Certificates from the home boards for players to participate in IPL.

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ZURICH: Just a few weeks after Argentinian striker Lionel Messi earned the prestigious Ballon d”Or prize as Europe’’s best soccer player, he’’s managed to top that with another very prestigious honor: the title of World Player of the Year, given by soccer’’s governing body FIFA.

The past year gave the 22-year-old Messi plenty of chances to prove his ability as the world’’s best footballer. He’’s been a key player at his club side FC Barcelona since joining the first team for the 2004-05 season, and led the team to a slew of major titles in 2009.

In the spring, Messi’’s nine goals were essential to Barca’’s march to the Champions League trophy, including one in his team’’s 2-0 victory over Manchester United in the final.

Lionel Messi is officially the Best Footballer for the year 2009 according to FIFA. The managers of the national teams voted for Messi and the two times second placed candidate finally got this great distinction.

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KARACHI: The Karachi Stock Exchange continued the upward march on Tuesday as benchmark-100 index crossed 9,300 points psychological level.

Market kicked-off the day in green zone and remained positive throughout the session. Investors preferred trading in Banking and Energy stocks while index touched intraday highest level of 9,353 points during the session.

However, stocks ended 99 points higher at 9,322 points. Market turnover stood at 136.9 million shares while Nishat Chunian was witnessed as the volume leader, with a gain of Rs1/share to close at Rs66.18.

Meanwhile, junior KSE-30 index closed at 9,825 points with a gain of 121 points.
Experts said the current bullish trend would continue in the upcoming sessions.

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Pakistan News

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry on Monday issued notices to the attorney general and the Punjab advocate general for assisting t

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Karachi

In a marathon session of the Sindh Assembly on Monday, one of the longest-ever, legislators demanded the arrest of the murderers of for

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KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim AliShah, Tuesday formally launched the Rs 4 billion Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women Support Program at a ceremony held at the Chief Minister House.

Under the program, which will benefit 0.5 million poor women in the first year, each MPA will be given 1000 forms to be passed on to women assessed poor by them. These poor women will get a monthly support income of Rs 1000.

Addressing the ceremony, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said that the program was set to be launched in September but since the spade work was very difficult task, it is being launched in December which is also the month of Shuhada and it was in this month that our Quaid Benazir Bhutto had also embraced Shahadat on 27th.

He directed Law Minister and MPA from Larkana Mohammed Ayaz Soomro, to get the due process of filling out of forms completed before December 27 when President and Co-Chairman PPP Asif Ali Zardari will personally hand over cheques to poor women in Larkana on December 27.

He said that the recipients of the income would get the amount of Rs 6000 for six months - September 2009 to March 2010 and then paid to them quarterly.

The Chief Minister pointed out that at the center this program has been started as Benazir Bhutto Income Support Program whereby one million poor women would benefit but in Sindh it has been launched with a different name.

Qaim Ali Shah pointed out that earlier the Sindh Government has started distribution of cultivable land among landless Haris. He said during the government of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the landholding for landless ?Haris? had been kept at 16 acres but this time PPP government is giving 25 acres of land and each acre is not less than Rs 5-10 lac.

He said under Women Support Program, the amount would be given only to those women, who have no source of livelihood.

He made it clear that if a women would be getting support under Benazir Bhutto Income Support program, she would not be eligible to get support under Women support program.

He said that the name of Benazir Bhutto is blessed one and it is because of her name that the poor are getting all these benefits.

He said that since this party is of the poor, labourers, workers and Haris, this Government has also taken care of labourers who have been made partners in major public sector organizations with grant of 12 percent shares to them and all these programs were initiated by Benazir Bhutto for them.

Replying to criticism, Qaim Ali Shah said despite terrorism foreign investment amounting to 4.5 billion dollars is pouring in Thar coal project.

He pointed out that it was for the first time that public private partnership has been started in Sindh and although the people have given us a mandate of 5 years, a number of multi-billion rupees worth of projects would come up on ground much before the expiry of this mandate.

He said that with Thar coal project alone, some 60,000 people would derive benefit.

But, he said, the opponents of the government still would not acknowledge this. He said whether they acknowledge this or not, it is the people who have to do the justice. He said 90 percent people have supported the PPP and this government cannot retire their debt but would leave no stone unturned to serve their cause.

Earlier Chairperson Women Support Program Steering Committee, begum Nargis N.D. Khan in her welcome address described the launch of this program, the materialization of one of the several dreams of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto who possessed a particular vision about people and particularly the women of Sindh as she wanted elimination of poverty, illiteracy, injustice, oppression, suppression from the society and a reign of prosperity.

On the occasion the Program Coordinator Hafeezullah Abbasi gave a detailed briefing about the salient features of Women Support Program and recalled that Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah had announced this program in his budget speech.

Later the Chief Minister formally inaugurated the program by unveiling the plaque.

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