Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Pakistan News Papers
- A Pakistan News (Lahore, Punjab) [In English]
- Daily Mail (Islamababad)
- Daily Times (National)
- Attock News (Panjab)
- Pakistan Christian Newspaper
Saturday, October 19, 2013
News of UNITED STATE
- The New York Times (New York)
- Washington Post (Washington DC)
- Los Angeles Times (California, Los Angeles)
- USA Today (National, Arlington, Virginia)
- Chicago Tribune (Illinois)
- Boston Herald (Massachusetts)
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Georgia)
- The Miami Herald (Florida)
- The Aegis (Maryland, Harford County)
- Charleston Gazette (West Virginia, Charleston)
- Detroit Free Press (Michigan)
- Detroit News (Michigan)
- Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania)
- Chicago Sun-Times (Illinois, Cook)
- Arizona Republic (Arizona, Phoenix)
- The Dallas Morning News (Texas, Dallas)
- The Boston Globe (Massachusetts)
- Las Vegas Review-Journal / Sun (Nevada, Las Vegas)
- Denver Post (Colorado)
- Denver Post (Colorado)
- Houston Chronicle (Texas, Houston)
- Kansas City Star (Missouri, Kansas City)
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
NEWS OF THE DAY
Turkey protesters refuse to leave park
Reuters . Istanbul
People light candles for the victims of the protests at Taksim square, in Istanbul, early on Saturday. — AP photoHundreds of protesters, camped out for more than two weeks in tents in Gezi Park adjoining Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, said they would keep up their campaign after the government failed to meet demands including the release of detained demonstrators.
A police crackdown on peaceful campaigners in the park two weeks ago provoked an unprecedented wave of protest against Erdogan and his AK Party - an association of centrists and conservative religious elements - drawing in secularists, nationalists, professionals, trade unionists and students.
The unrest, in which police fired teargas and water cannon at stone-throwing protesters night after night in cities including Istanbul and Ankara, left four people dead and about 5,000 injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.
‘The government has ignored clear and rightful demands since the beginning of the resistance. They tried to divide, provoke and damage our legitimacy,’ the Taksim Solidarity platform, an umbrella group for the protesters, said in a statement.
The group, whose representatives met Erdogan at his official residence in Ankara on Thursday night, said it had seen no serious signs of progress in holding those responsible for the police crackdown to account, nor in investigating the four deaths, one of them a policeman, during the unrest.
‘We continue to guard the park,’ said Mucella Yapici, a spokeswoman for the group, when asked if the protesters were considering withdrawing.
Erdogan told protesters at Thursday’s talks he would put plans to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks in Gezi Park on hold until a court rules on them, a more moderate stance after two weeks of defiance in which he when he called the protesters as ‘riff-raff’ and said the plans would go ahead regardless.
‘The fact that negotiation and dialogue channels are open is a sign of democratic maturity,’ President Abdullah Gul, who has struck a more conciliatory tone than Erdogan throughout the protests, said on his Twitter account on Saturday.
‘I believe this process will have good results. From now on everybody should return home,’ he said.
What began as a campaign by environmentalists to save what they say is one of central Istanbul’s few green spaces spiralled into the most serious show of defiance against Erdogan and his AK Party of his decade in power.
The ruling party plans rallies in Ankara later on Saturday and in Istanbul on Sunday. Erdogan said on Friday they mark the start of campaigning for local elections next year and are not to do with the Gezi Park protest, but they are widely seen as a show of strength in the face of the demonstrations.
Afghan forces to take over nationwide security
Agence France-Presse . Kabul
Afghan security forces will soon take over responsibility for the
whole of the country, officials said Saturday, a major milestone as the
NATO-led war effort winds down after 12 years of fighting.
The handover of the last 95 districts from NATO to Afghan forces includes many of the most volatile areas of south and east Afghanistan where the Taliban have fought a bloody insurgency against the US-backed government since 2001.
NATO and Afghan officials, who declined to be named, said that president Hamid Karzai would attend a ceremony within days to mark a key point of the ‘transition process’ to full Afghan sovereignty.
The exact date and location of the handover has not yet been announced, but it will complete a programme started in 2011 when relatively-peacefully areas inhabited by about 20 per cent of the population were put under Afghan security.
‘The event will be held shortly and 95 districts in 11 provinces are included in the fifth and final phase. Further details will be released later for security reasons,’ an Afghan government official said.
The last ‘tranche’ of districts includes 13 in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban, and 12 in each of Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika provinces — all hotbeds of insurgent activity along the border with Pakistan.
After the handover, 100,000 NATO forces will only play a supporting and training role as Afghan soldiers and police take the lead in the fight against the militants who were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks.
Roadside bomb kills 5 cops in Afghanistan
A roadside bomb struck a police van in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing five police as they were on their way to a training session, authorities said, reports AP.
Seven other police were wounded in the early morning blast in Paktika province, a statement from the provincial governor’s office said.
The van was taking the officers to a training centre in Janikahil district for exercises between the Afghan National Police and the village-level Afghan Local Police, separate branches of the security forces that international troops have been training. Among the five dead were two national police and three local police.
The handover of the last 95 districts from NATO to Afghan forces includes many of the most volatile areas of south and east Afghanistan where the Taliban have fought a bloody insurgency against the US-backed government since 2001.
NATO and Afghan officials, who declined to be named, said that president Hamid Karzai would attend a ceremony within days to mark a key point of the ‘transition process’ to full Afghan sovereignty.
The exact date and location of the handover has not yet been announced, but it will complete a programme started in 2011 when relatively-peacefully areas inhabited by about 20 per cent of the population were put under Afghan security.
‘The event will be held shortly and 95 districts in 11 provinces are included in the fifth and final phase. Further details will be released later for security reasons,’ an Afghan government official said.
The last ‘tranche’ of districts includes 13 in Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban, and 12 in each of Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika provinces — all hotbeds of insurgent activity along the border with Pakistan.
After the handover, 100,000 NATO forces will only play a supporting and training role as Afghan soldiers and police take the lead in the fight against the militants who were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks.
Roadside bomb kills 5 cops in Afghanistan
A roadside bomb struck a police van in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing five police as they were on their way to a training session, authorities said, reports AP.
Seven other police were wounded in the early morning blast in Paktika province, a statement from the provincial governor’s office said.
The van was taking the officers to a training centre in Janikahil district for exercises between the Afghan National Police and the village-level Afghan Local Police, separate branches of the security forces that international troops have been training. Among the five dead were two national police and three local police.
N Korea in fresh vow to build up N-deterrent
Agence France-Presse . Seoul
North Korea on Saturday made a fresh vow to build up its nuclear
deterrent in the face of ‘threats of war’ from the United States and a
‘policy of confrontation’ from the South.
An editorial in Pyongyang’s ruling party daily, the Rodong Sinmun, said ‘reckless’ war exercises by the US and South Korea could spark a nuclear war at any moment.
‘As long as the United States and South Korean puppets continue with nuclear threats and threats of war against us, we will... strengthen nuclear deterrence through every possible means,’ it said.
South Korean president Park Geun-Hye was no different from her predecessor in taking up a policy of confrontation, the editorial said, accusing the South of deliberately sabotaging planned high-level talks.
‘Unless there is a fundamental switchover in the policy of confrontation of the South’s ruling forces, dialogue and improvement in relations between the North and the South cannot be realised forever,’ it said.
The two Koreas had agreed to hold their first high-level talks in six years in Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday, but they were called off at the last minute following a dispute over protocol.
The talks initiative had been seen as a step forward after months of soaring military tensions, with the North conducting its third nuclear test in February, but its collapse has instead resulted in a sizeable backwards stride.
The editorial was dedicated in commemoration of a landmark summit between the two Koreas on June 15, 2000, which led to a short-lived reconciliation and exchanges between the two Koreas.
Glyn Davies, the US pointman on North Korea policy, said Friday that the United States was exasperated with Pyongyang after it snubbed attempts by president Barack Obama’s administration to reach out in 2009 and again in 2012.
‘The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. We will not reward the DPRK for the absence of bad behaviour,’ Davies said, using the North’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Davies repeated US calls on North Korea to take steps to end its nuclear weapons program in line with previous agreements.
An editorial in Pyongyang’s ruling party daily, the Rodong Sinmun, said ‘reckless’ war exercises by the US and South Korea could spark a nuclear war at any moment.
‘As long as the United States and South Korean puppets continue with nuclear threats and threats of war against us, we will... strengthen nuclear deterrence through every possible means,’ it said.
South Korean president Park Geun-Hye was no different from her predecessor in taking up a policy of confrontation, the editorial said, accusing the South of deliberately sabotaging planned high-level talks.
‘Unless there is a fundamental switchover in the policy of confrontation of the South’s ruling forces, dialogue and improvement in relations between the North and the South cannot be realised forever,’ it said.
The two Koreas had agreed to hold their first high-level talks in six years in Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday, but they were called off at the last minute following a dispute over protocol.
The talks initiative had been seen as a step forward after months of soaring military tensions, with the North conducting its third nuclear test in February, but its collapse has instead resulted in a sizeable backwards stride.
The editorial was dedicated in commemoration of a landmark summit between the two Koreas on June 15, 2000, which led to a short-lived reconciliation and exchanges between the two Koreas.
Glyn Davies, the US pointman on North Korea policy, said Friday that the United States was exasperated with Pyongyang after it snubbed attempts by president Barack Obama’s administration to reach out in 2009 and again in 2012.
‘The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. We will not reward the DPRK for the absence of bad behaviour,’ Davies said, using the North’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Davies repeated US calls on North Korea to take steps to end its nuclear weapons program in line with previous agreements.
Malaysian police arrest 15 over flash-mob protest
Agence France-Presse . Kuala Lumpur
The Malaysian police on Saturday arrested 15 people over a
flash-mob protest held to build support for a planned June 22 opposition
rally against alleged fraud in elections last month.
Those detained, who included opposition-aligned activists but also a 10-year-old boy, were held for disrupting public order in a busy shopping area of the capital Kuala Lumpur, media reports and opposition politicians said.
‘We had warned them to disperse but they refused to do so. They have been detained to facilitate investigations,’ Zainuddin Ahmad, a local police official in the area, was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.
Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition was returned to power in May 5 elections that were the country’s closest ever.
The opposition insists vote fraud secured the win for the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front), but prime minister Najib Razak has denied the charge.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has organised a string of post-election rallies nationwide demanding election reforms including an overhaul of an Election Commission it considers biased.
The next gathering is set for June 22 in Kuala Lumpur, but police have warned they may stop the rally, setting up a potential confrontation. All of the rallies have so far proceeded with incident.
‘Fifteen people including a 10-year-old boy who came along with his parents were arrested. The aim is to create fear among protestors and to intimidate them not to attend the mass rally next week,’ said Tian Chua, vice-president of Anwar’s People’s Justice Party.
Protesters supporting Edward Snowden, a former
contractor at the National Security Agency, march to the US Consulate
at Hong Kong’s Central district on Saturday. — Reuters photo
Hundreds of protesters staged a rally in rain-hit Hong Kong
Saturday to urge the city’s government not to extradite former spy
Edward Snowden, and slam the US for its surveillance programmes.
Snowden, 29, has gone to ground in the city after blowing the lid on the US’s vast electronic surveillance operation and has vowed to fight any extradition request.
The city’s first major demonstration on the issue saw protesters, including pro-democracy lawmakers, activists and a large number of expatriates march to the US consulate holding banners and shouting ‘Defend Free Speech’, ‘Protect Snowden’, ‘No Extradition’ and ‘Respect Hong Kong Law’.
Many blew whistles and wore masks with Snowden’s face on it.
‘Today we all blow the whistle,’ shouted Tom Grundy, a British blogger and activist who lives in Hong Kong.
One protester held a sign of US president Barack Obama’s famous ‘Hope’ poster, edited to show the leader as a spy wearing large headphones. Another sign read: ‘Betray Snowden, Betray freedom’.
The United States has launched a criminal investigation after Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, leaked details of Washington’s secret Internet and telephone surveillance programmes.
The protesters, made up of 27 civil society organisations, handed a letter over to the US consulate addressed to Consul General Steve Young, which said: ‘For many years, the US State Department has publicly supported the cause of Internet freedom and criticised other governments for conducting cyber attacks, surveillance and censorship.
‘We now understand, through recent revelations, that the US government has been operating their own blanket surveillance systems and allegedly conducting cyber warfare against Hong Kong.
‘This is a violation of Human Rights of people of Hong Kong and around the world.’
Those detained, who included opposition-aligned activists but also a 10-year-old boy, were held for disrupting public order in a busy shopping area of the capital Kuala Lumpur, media reports and opposition politicians said.
‘We had warned them to disperse but they refused to do so. They have been detained to facilitate investigations,’ Zainuddin Ahmad, a local police official in the area, was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.
Malaysia’s long-ruling coalition was returned to power in May 5 elections that were the country’s closest ever.
The opposition insists vote fraud secured the win for the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front), but prime minister Najib Razak has denied the charge.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has organised a string of post-election rallies nationwide demanding election reforms including an overhaul of an Election Commission it considers biased.
The next gathering is set for June 22 in Kuala Lumpur, but police have warned they may stop the rally, setting up a potential confrontation. All of the rallies have so far proceeded with incident.
‘Fifteen people including a 10-year-old boy who came along with his parents were arrested. The aim is to create fear among protestors and to intimidate them not to attend the mass rally next week,’ said Tian Chua, vice-president of Anwar’s People’s Justice Party.
Protesters rally in HK to support Snowden
Agence France-Presse . Hong KongProtesters supporting Edward Snowden, a former
contractor at the National Security Agency, march to the US Consulate
at Hong Kong’s Central district on Saturday. — Reuters photoSnowden, 29, has gone to ground in the city after blowing the lid on the US’s vast electronic surveillance operation and has vowed to fight any extradition request.
The city’s first major demonstration on the issue saw protesters, including pro-democracy lawmakers, activists and a large number of expatriates march to the US consulate holding banners and shouting ‘Defend Free Speech’, ‘Protect Snowden’, ‘No Extradition’ and ‘Respect Hong Kong Law’.
Many blew whistles and wore masks with Snowden’s face on it.
‘Today we all blow the whistle,’ shouted Tom Grundy, a British blogger and activist who lives in Hong Kong.
One protester held a sign of US president Barack Obama’s famous ‘Hope’ poster, edited to show the leader as a spy wearing large headphones. Another sign read: ‘Betray Snowden, Betray freedom’.
The United States has launched a criminal investigation after Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, leaked details of Washington’s secret Internet and telephone surveillance programmes.
The protesters, made up of 27 civil society organisations, handed a letter over to the US consulate addressed to Consul General Steve Young, which said: ‘For many years, the US State Department has publicly supported the cause of Internet freedom and criticised other governments for conducting cyber attacks, surveillance and censorship.
‘We now understand, through recent revelations, that the US government has been operating their own blanket surveillance systems and allegedly conducting cyber warfare against Hong Kong.
‘This is a violation of Human Rights of people of Hong Kong and around the world.’
Friday, June 14, 2013
NEWA OF THE DAY
US Spy Chief Defends Intelligence TacticSurveillance program thwarted attacks
WASHINGTON: The US spy chief in charge of a leaked program to
gather and analyze Internet and phone data defended the intelligence
tactic Wednesday, insisting it had helped thwart dozens of terror
attacks.Facing skeptical questions from lawmakers after a rogue technician revealed the secret operation, National Security Agency chief General Keith Alexander insisted it operates under proper legislative and judicial oversight.
“It’s classified but it’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent,” he told the hearing, the first time he had been questioned in public since 29-year-old former contractor Edward Snowden spilled the beans.
“I want the American people to know that we’re being transparent in here,” he insisted, warning that “the trust of the American people” was a “sacred requirement” if his agency was to be able to do its job.
Asked if the light shone on the programs could help terrorists avoid surveillance, Alexander said: “They will get through, and Americans will die.”
“Great harm has already been done by opening this up. The consequence I believe is our security has been jeopardized,” he warned.
Snowden, a technician seconded by a private contractor to an NSA base in Hawaii, disappeared last month after downloading a cache of secret documents and surfaced over the weekend in Hong Kong to give media interviews.
He embarrassed and infuriated President Barack Obama’s administration by revealing that the NSA had gathered call log records for millions of American phone subscribers and targeted the Internet data of foreign Web users. —AFP - See more at: http://www.daily-sun.com/details_Surveillance-program-thwarted-attacks_527_1_12_1_0.html#sthash.2ZbpNmiW.dpuf
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