ISLAMABAD: In response to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif’s call for a ‘protest movement’ against the government, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said that he was only guilty of protecting the constitution, DawnNews reported.

Speaking at a Senate session, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader said that he was unanimously elected as prime minister by all parties including the PML-N.

Earlier, the PML-N chief had urged the premier to comply with the Supreme Court’s orders and resign from the prime minister’s office.

Moreover, Sharif warned that the government would have to face a protest movement if the prime minister does not resign.

In Senate today, the prime minister said that his only fault was to protect the constitution. “I am ready to face any sentence for the act,” he added.

He said that he did not take advantage of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). “Cases are registered all over the world…even former US president Bill Clinton faced the case registered against him,” said the premier.

The prime minster said that he was not only facing the Supreme Court but the ‘Sharif courts’ as well. “I will never bow down to decisions of Sharifs’ court,” he added.

Gilani further said that Nawaz Sharif was given the opportunity of ruling the country twice but he could not handle it and fell down by his own credence.

Despite of having a two-third majority, the PML-N failed to amend the constitution, said the premier. “Clause for becoming the PM for the third time was only removed for Nawaz Sharif,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly session was adjourned to May 2 amid verbal assault of each other by the lawmakers of both treasury and opposition benches.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is losing its popularity

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday said that Pakistan People’s Party’s success in Multan’s by-elections was proof that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was losing its popularity

Speaking to a lawyers’ delegation at Governor House Punjab, the prime minister said Nawaz Sharif was disappointed with his party’s lost popularity.

The prime minister said rhetorically: “We have restored the constitution, how can we violate it…we will always comply with the constitution”.

Gilani said he did not write to Swiss authorities because the constitution granted immunity to the president.

The lawyers vowed their support for rule of law, democracy and an independent judiciary.

In an interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Mr Khan noted that each bomb that killed terrorists also killed many people who might be related to the terrorists but were not involved in terrorism.

And this ‘collateral damage’ “creates more Jihadis than it kills”, he argued.

Mr Khan also urged cessation of all military activities in the region if the United States wanted to engage the Taliban in meaningful peace talks. “One cannot talk and be at war at the same time,” he said, shaking his head at the policies of the Obama and Bush administrations, which depended heavily on drone strikes.

CNN introduced Mr Khan as “the most popular political leader” in Pakistan today who could be the country’s future prime minister and that’s why, it argued, his views on the drone strikes were important.

“Peace prevailing in Pakistan brings some kind of stability in South Asia,” he told reporters at the taluka headquarters town of Sira in Tumkur district of Karnataka. “In that background, the current situation is a matter of deep concern.”

But Mr Krishna expressed the confidence that things would get back to normal, saying the Pakistani government was working towards that end.

“Syria rejects the decisions taken which are outside an Arab working plan, and considers them an attack on its national sovereignty and a flagrant interference in internal affairs,” the official was quoted as saying.

The Arab League on Sunday asked the UN to support a new plan for resolving the crisis in Syria that sees Assad transferring power to his deputy and a government of national unity within two months.

Assad should “delegate powers to the vice president to liaise with a government of national unity”, to be formed in two months, according to a statement read by Qatari premier Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani after Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo to determine the fate of their Syrian observer mission.

The Syrian official reacting to the Arab League’s call said the regional body should instead “assume its responsibilities for stopping the financing and arming of terrorists”, the television channel reported.

The source added that the Arab League initiative ran counter to the interests of the Syrian people and would not prevent the country from “advancing its political reforms and bringing security and stability to its people who have shown, during this crisis, their support for national unity as they have rallied around President Assad”.

The attacks occurred in North Waziristan’s Dattakhel area.

“A US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle and four militants were killed,” a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

On the advice of Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq, Shaikh met with the IG to discuss the issue of security to be provided to the US businessman.

Earlier on Sunday night, Shaikh had sent a second letter to the attorney general in which he had requested for security details for his client.

The letter had expressed reservations over statements given by Interior Minister Rehman Malik and PPP leaders Shazia Marri and Raja Riaz.

The meeting presided over by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh also rejected a request by the ministry of railways for condoning violation of Pakistan Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules in the procurement of 75 locomotives from China, saying exemption or `condonation` of PPRA rules could be granted only  by the cabinet or the prime minister.

The ECC also approved appointment of a consortium led by IBIC of China and comprising Habib Bank Limited and ERNST-Young-FORD-Rhodes-Sidat Hyder as financial adviser for the $1.25 billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project to arrange financing within 12 months to implement the project for delivery of gas by Dec 2014.    UREA DISPUTE:

The meeting was informed that about 23,497 tons of urea lying with Trading Corporation of Pakistan from Sindh`s surplus quota was diverted to Punjab last season with the understanding that it would be returned to Sindh later this season. Punjab has returned about 5000 tons to Sindh, but the price of the remaining quantity of about 18,428 tons had gone up. Punjab was ready to return this quantities but at the old price at which it had procured against Sindh`s quota.

The meeting was informed that the price had gone up since then and Punjab was not ready to pick up the difference of about Rs50 per bag or Rs479 million which the ministry of industries proposed should be picked up by the federal government.

The ministry of finance refused to take over the liability. The ECC, therefore, constituted a committee led by federal finance secretary and comprising secretary of industries to take up the matter with the Punjab chief minister and to request him to bear the price differential.   SUGAR PROCUREMENT:

In a previous bidding, one of the sugar mills had offered the lowest price of Rs63 per kg while other bidders offered higher rates. Tenders were cancelled on the directive of the ECC when it was told that the wholesale price in the open market was less than Rs50 per kg.

The re-tendering resulted in the lowest price of Rs46,250 per ton (Rs46.25 per kg) offered by two sugar mills – Sheikhu and Hussain Sugar Mills. Since the ECC had earlier imposed a restriction of purchasing 10,000 tons from a mill, the TCP could finalise deals only for 20,000 tons.

The meeting was informed that the government could be taken to the Supreme Court if it purchased higher quantities from the two mills that were ready to offer more quantities because this would be considered a deviation from an earlier ECC decision and PPRA rules.

Therefore, the ECC decided in principle to offer other bidders to match the lowest price for procurement of not only already approved quantities of 200,000 tons but also additional quantities of 178,000 tons that other sugar mills had indicated to provide at the matching price of lowest bid, taking the total procurement at 378,000 tons. The meeting decided to approve the deal at Rs46.25 per kg because it was the last day of the validity of the tender and would present it to the federal cabinet for formal approval to procure higher quantities in view of the applicability of PPRA rules.   LOCOMOTIVE PROCUREMENT:

The ECC discussed at length a request by the ministry of railways for grant of `condonation` of deviation of PPRA rules in purchase of 75 locomotives from China. It, however, concluded that the matter could only be tackled by a higher forum of the cabinet. He directed the railway ministry to seek cabinet`s help on Wednesday because the ECC did not have powers to do so.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Khan, flanked by information secretary of his party Shafqat Mehmood, said there was nothing wrong in calling early elections because the government`s mismanagement and corruption had undermined every institution and led to a breakdown of law and order.

He said the government`s energy policies had rendered four million people jobless in Punjab alone because of shutdown of businesses and industrial units.   He said his decision of boycotting the 2008 elections was correct because those polls were meant to bring about a government which was subservient to the US dictates and better served American interests at the expense of the people of Pakistan.

“There is nothing wrong with the demand of early polls to keep the democratic order on track as there are several examples of repeated elections in different countries in the recent past, including Turkey,” he said.

The PTI chairman reiterated his party`s stance that it would not contest the elections unless the Election Commission implemented the judgment of the Supreme Court about names of fake voters in electoral rolls.

Referring to power and gas riots across the country, Mr Khan said only 185,000 consumers were paying their electricity bills though there were 28,00,000 air conditioners and there were 400,000 illegal connections owned by influential people who used free electricity and the poor had to pay their bills also.

Referring to corruption in the fertilizer sector, the PTI chairman said that media would soon be provided with details of the corruption in this sector, which had badly hit farmers throughout the country. About deteriorating law and order situation, he said that cases of car snatching had touched new heights last year while kidnapping for ransom had now become a massive industry, forcing several industrialists to close their businesses in the country move to other countries.

He accused the government of mismanagement in state affairs and reneging on agreements, leading to massive gas and power loadsheddng which had closed hundreds of industries and businesses, rendering millions of people jobless and pushing them and their families to starvation.

He attributed all these problems to US-brokered PPP-Musharraf deal known as NRO and because of this deal an inefficient, incompetent and corrupt government was put in place only to continue to serve US interests.

He accused the government of destroying all key institutions, including PIA, PSM and Pakistan Railways.

The PTI chief supported the demand of new provinces of Hazara, south Punjab and Bahawalpur, but only on administrative grounds and not for political point scoring or gaining party votes, adding that countries like Japan and others had done so to streamline their administrative work and to facilitate their masses.

“We welcome any step along the road of the Afghan-led process towards reconciliation, mindful of the fact that the standards for reconciliation have not changed, and the conditions, rather, that insurgents who are willing to lay down their arms and reconcile, must meet in order to be accepted by the Afghan government and by us,” said Press Secretary Jay Carney when asked if the White House saw this as a positive development.

When a journalist reminded him that the Taliban were not only opening up an office in Qatar but were also demanding the release of Taliban prisoners held in Guantanamo, Mr Carney noted that President Barack Obama said in June that peace could not come to Afghanistan without a political settlement and in his famous West Point speech, Mr Obama also made clear that the US would support and participate in any Afghan-led reconciliation efforts.

“And we’ve always said that Taliban reconciliation would only come on the condition of breaking from Al Qaeda, abandoning violence, and abiding by the Afghan constitution, and that remains the case. And this is about US support for an Afghan-lead process,” he said.

“As far as releasing Afghan prisoners, we’re not in a position to discuss ongoing deliberations or individual detainees, but our goal of closing Guantanamo is well established and widely understood.”

Earlier Tuesday, the Taliban made their first public reaction to media reports that they were opening a political office in Qatar.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, confirmed that they had struck a deal to open a political office in Qatar for peace negotiations.

The step was a sharp reversal of the Taliban’s longstanding public denials that it was involved or interested in any talks to end its insurgency in Afghanistan, and a major step to revive a reconciliation effort that stalled in September, with the assassination of the head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council.

Mr Mujahid, also demanded that Taliban detainees held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay be released. Early last month, the Afghan government recalled its ambassador to Qatar for consultations over reports that the Taliban was planning to open an office there.

President Hamid Karzai, however, backed down last week, saying his government would accept the Qatar office to hold peace talks, although Saudi Arabia or Turkey would be preferable venues.

The issue was discussed at some length at the US State Department where spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters that the United States supported negotiations with the Taliban because it believed that “you don’t negotiate with your friends”.

“If this is part of an Afghan-led, Afghan-supported process, and the Afghan government itself believes it can play a constructive role and it is also supported by the host country, then we will play a role in that, as well,” she said.