Islamabad

While billions are caught up in the excitement of the football World Cup, some 215 million children are labouring for survival.

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Karachi

Two major steps of the federal government ? changing the Sindh?s share in NFC Award and misguiding the World Bank about the Thar coal p

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ISLAMABAD: One Pakistani student has been killed and around 15 reportedly taken hostage in Kyrgyzstan’’s riot-stricken southern city of Osh, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Sunday.

At least 83 people have been killed — 72 in Osh alone — in gun battles over the past three days in the Central Asian state’’s worst ethnic violence in two decades.

“One student has been killed and there are reports that 15 have been taken hostage for ransom. We are trying to confirm these reports,” Qureshi said.

“Our first priority is to ensure the safety of our brethren stranded there. We are trying to establish contact with Kyrgyz authorities,” he said.

Around 1,200 Pakistanis, mostly students, live in Kyrgyzstan, although many of them have returned to Pakistan for summer vacations, Qureshi said. Universities in the former Soviet states are attractive to many Pakistanis for their cheaper training in medical and engineering fields.

Obaid Ansari, who studies medicine in Osh, said he fled the city and returned to Pakistan shortly after riots broke out.

“I am receiving text messages from my colleagues and friends that have taken refuge in basements. They informed me that 15 have been abducted,” Ansari said by telephone from his hometown of Jacobabad.

“I and four of my friends managed to flee as we were outside Osh when trouble started. When we returned, there was fire all over,” he said, adding the situation in Osh was “very dangerous”.

The interim government of Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic hosting US and Russian military bases, gave its security forces shoot-to-kill powers after deadly riots between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Osh and Jalalabad.

Osh is a stronghold of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was toppled in riots in April. Interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva has accused supporters of Bakiyev, who is in exile in Belarus, of stoking ethnic conflict.

Bakiyev has denied any role in the riots.

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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran on Sunday finalized US $ 7.5 billion gas project dubbed as a peace pipeline to start supply of natural gas to the former from 2014.

The landmark agreement was signed by Iran’’s deputy oil minister Javad Ouji and Pakistani delegation including among other officials Secretary Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources Kamran Lashari and Managing Director Inter-State Gas Company Naeem Sharafat in Tehran.

” Now the project has entered into implementation phase and there are no further formalities left in way” Naeem Sharafat said.

He said the IP project was another testimony of the long historic andcordial relations between Pakistan and Iran,” the official said.

The pipeline will connect Iran’’s giant South Fars gas field with Pakistan’’s Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

Pakistan has to construct about 700-km pipeline from the border, traversing along the Makran Coastal Highway to connect with its existing gas transmission network at Nawabshah. A 42-inch diameter pipeline is planned to be built, which is estimated to cost US$ 1.65 billion.

The project is crucial for Pakistan to avert a growing energy crisis,already causing severe electricity shortages in the country and the project would help generate around 5,000 megawatts of electricity.

Under the gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA), Pakistan will import about 750 million cubic feet a day (mmcfd) with a provision to increase it to one billion cubic feet a day (bcfd).

The volume of imported gas will be about 20 per cent of Pakistan’’s current gas production and the agreement is for a period of 25 years, renewable for another five years.

Iran has the world’’s second largest gas reserves after Russia but hasstruggled for years to develop its oil and gas resources.

Sanctions by the West, political turmoil and construction delays haveslowed Iran’’s development as an exporter.

Iran state television said the pipeline was 1,000 km (620 miles) long, with about 907 km of it already built.

Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project was conceived in early nineties. However, the project could not take off for various reasons, including the new gas discoveries in Pakistan of Miano, Sawan and Zamzama, Indian concerns on pipeline security and Iranian indecisiveness on certain issues.

Pakistan would be allowed under an agreement signed in March to charge a transit fee if the proposed pipeline is eventually extended to India.

The project was revived and bilateral Iran-Pakistan Joint Working Group (JWG) was constituted and the first meeting was held on December 29-30, 2003 in Islamabad.

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LAHORE

Responding to Khurram Khan?s plea, a guardian court Saturday restrained Fizza Batool, daughter of Prime Minster Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani,

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Pakistan News

KARACHI: Pakistan?s cricket squad left for Sri Lanka on Saturday to compete in the Asia Cup, optimistic that the event will not be upstaged by the foo

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LAHORE

A BARRISTER on Saturday moved a petition in the Lahore High Court challenging appointment of Masood Chishti as federal law secretary.br

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LAHORE: The government is considering collateral-free availability of finance on low mark-up rates to women entrepreneurs to encourage them enter the

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LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that holding fake degrees by legislators is condemnable but those who disintegrated the country

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Pakistan News

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan was elected one of the vice presidents of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly on Friday, which opens in mid-September

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