Pakistan flood crisis bigger than tsunami, Haiti: UN

Islamabad: The number of people suffering from the massive floods in Pakistan could exceed the combined total in three recent megadisasters - the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake - the United Nations said Monday.


The death toll in each of those three disasters was much higher than the 1,500 people killed so far in the floods that first hit Pakistan two weeks ago. But the Pakistani government estimates that over 13 million people have been affected - two million more than the other disasters combined.

The comparison helps frame the scale of the crisis, which has overwhelmed the Pakistani government and has generated widespread anger from flood victims who have complained that aid is not reaching them quickly enough or at all.

"It looks like the number of people affected in this crisis is higher than the Haiti earthquake, the tsunami or the Pakistan earthquake, and if the toll is as high as the one given by the government, it's higher than the three of them combined", Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AP.
 
Pakistan flood crisis bigger than tsunami, Haiti: UN

Pakistan withdraws from terror talks in Cameron protest

Pakistan withdraws from terror talks in Cameron protest

Prime Minister's comments on terrorism provoke anger in the government and streets of Karachi

David Cameron's comments about Pakistan's alleged links with terrorism threatened to cause a full-scale diplomatic row last night after the country's intelligence officials boycotted a counter-terrorism summit in the UK and demonstrators burned an effigy of the Prime Minister on the streets of Karachi.

Three days before President Asif Ali Zardari is due to arrive in London, members of his intelligence services cancelled a planned conference with British counterparts over the stinging criticism delivered by Mr Cameron in India last week.

Pakistan's information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said yesterday that there was "resentment" in his country over the comments made during a visit to its traditional rival. But, amid warnings that the intervention could cause unrest among young British Pakistanis, he said he hoped the crisis could be resolved when the leaders meet this week at the PM's country retreat, Chequers.

Mr Cameron provoked fury when he said Pakistan should not be able "to look both ways" on terror, after a speech in Bangalore last Wednesday. He also said Pakistan must not "promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world".


Former foreign secretary David Miliband joins criticism today, accusing Mr Cameron of "chasing headlines". In an exclusive article for The Independent on Sunday, he likens Mr Cameron to "a cuttlefish squirting out ink" during his visits to Turkey and India last week. "Pakistan is the region's tinderbox," Mr Miliband writes. "We have 10,000 young men and women at risk in Afghanistan. Only a political settlement can bring an end to the war.

"For that we need Pakistan; and they need our economic and military support. David Cameron is right that terrorist groups have launched attacks from Pakistan. But that is only part of the picture. Pakistan has also been the victim of terror. But the Prime Minister, in attacking Pakistan for 'looking both ways', did not tell this side of the story."

Mr Cameron's comments were particularly damaging as they came soon after leaked US documents suggested Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) had been helping the Afghan insurgency. Pakistan officially referred to the remarks as "surprising, to say the least" and pointed to the "innumerable sacrifices" it had suffered at the hands of terrorists.

Mr Cameron's spokeswoman said he was referring to Pakistan as a country, not its government, but the PM did not row back in media appearances. But the row was reignited yesterday when the ISI director general, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, cancelled his UK visit, due to begin tomorrow, and confirmed that the decision had been made in direct response to Mr Cameron's comments. Sources in Islamabad said Pakistan had been outraged at the suggestion that it was playing a "double game" in Afghanistan.

In a sign of mounting public resentment, activists from the radical group Shabab-e-Milli burned a dummy of Mr Cameron outside the Karachi Press Club, and called for Pakistan to cut diplomatic ties with the UK. The protesters held up a banner reading "David Camroon – The loos mouth".

"There should be a protest on an international level as Pakistan is working in co-ordination with the international community in its war against terror," said organiser Mohammad Yousuf Munir. "It's a sheer injustice."

A former ISI head, General Hamid Gul, said Mr Cameron's comments were a "huge mistake" which had upset the nation – and could cause dangerous resentment among British youths with connections to Kashmir, the region claimed by both India and Pakistan.

General Gul added: "The UK has always maintained a very delicate balance between India and Pakistan and this has been rather rudely broken. And this has upset many Pakistanis; in fact the entire nation is really up in arms, but more than that, I don't see the sagacity in it. If you are talking about combating terrorism, this is not the way."

Sir Hilary Synnott, a former British high commissioner to Pakistan, said India and Britain had shared interests as both had been affected by the activities of such groups as Lashka-e-Toiba and Hakani network. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's quite clear Pakistan hasn't been controlling these groups sufficiently, so there comes a time, and it's for a politician to judge this time, when these matters have to be said more strongly."

No survivors in Pakistan air crash

No survivors in Pakistan air crash

All 152 people on board a Pakistani plane have been killed after the aircraft plunged into the Margalla Hills near the capital, Islamabad.


The interior minister said no survivors had been found as rescuers searched the site after the accident on Wednesday.

"Nobody survived," Rehman Malik told Express TV.

The accident occurred as the plane was attempting to land in bad weather.

The search operation was complicated as the plane had plummeted into a gorge between two densely wooded hills, more than an hour by foot from the nearest road.

There were initial reports of up to six passengers being found alive, but these reports later proved to be wrong.

Bodies recovered

All the bodies had been recovered from the site, according to the police.

"You find very few intact bodies. Basically, we are collecting body parts and putting them in bags," Bin Yameen, a senior police official, told Reuters.

Rain has interrupted the airlifting of the bodies, but alternative arrangements have been made to bring them down the hillside on ropes should the weather not improve.

Police said they were informed first of a loud explosion, then fire sweeping through the hills that dominate the Islamabad skyline, before confirmation that a passenger plane had crashed.


"When I came, I saw a big ball of smoke and fire everywhere with big pieces of aircraft rolling down the hill," Haji Taj Gul, a police officer, said.

Pervez George, a civil aviation official, said the plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower.

The Airbus A-321 belonged to the private Airblue airline.

Heavy rain

Raheel Ahmed, a company spokesman, said: "Apparently the cause of the crash is bad weather, but we leave that to the investigators."

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said there had been heavy rain in the area in the morning when the plane crashed.

"Visibility was very poor... Questions are now pointing at why the airplane would try and land considering weather conditions were so bad," he said.

"What will be critical is finding the black box which will give the final moments of the cockpit conversation that will give better clues into what happened."


The army sent special troops to the area to help out along with helicopters.

The ED202 flight was headed from Karachi to Islamabad.

Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, and the cabinet "expressed grief and sorrow over the tragic incident" and offered prayers for passengers who were killed.

"The federal cabinet declared one day national mourning because of this tragic incident. The prime minister called off the cabinet meeting until next week in the wake of this tragic incident," Gilani's office said in a statement.

Pakistan-based Airblue started operations in 2004 and is flying to many cities in Pakistan as well as five destinations in the Middle East and the UK.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue was a tailstrike in 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets.

There were no casualties in that incident and damage was minimal, according to the US-based Aviation Safety Network.

Shutters down in Lahore over shrine bombing

Shutters down in Lahore over shrine bombing

Shops and business centres were shut in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday to protest against suicide bombings that have raised fresh questions about Pakistan's ability to contain militant violence.


At least 42 people were killed and 175 wounded when two suicide bombers struck Pakistan's most important Sufi shrine on Thursday night, the second major attack on Pakistan's cultural hub and traditional seat of power, Punjab, in a month.

The violence followed offensives that the army said had weakened the al Qaeda-linked Taliban.

All major markets and business centres were closed in Lahore for the strike called by a religious alliance.

A mob of baton-wielding protesters forced people who did not join the protest action to close their shops at a major market area. Police detained around 10 protesters after they smashed windows of parked cars. No one was hurt, police said.

Emotions are running high among followers of the Sufi strand of Islam after the attack, which may have been the aim of militants seeking to destablise nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan.

Major markets in the southern city of Karachi were also closed in response to the strike call.

Angry protests were held in Lahore and several cities and towns across the country on Friday calling for a tougher government crackdown on militants linked to al Qaeda and Taliban who generally abhor the Sufi strand of Islam and disapprove of Muslims visiting shrines, popular with many Pakistanis.

"We want the government to immediately bring perpetrators of this crime to task. We will not end our protest until culprits are punished," Raghib Naeemi, a leading Sufi cleric, told Reuters.

Security was beefed up at Sufi shrines across the country as the government sought to project an image of stability in the face of mounting violence.

Pakistanis, already frustrated by a troubled economy and crippling power cuts, called for the resignation of Punjab government officials after the bloodshed. Lahore is the capital of Punjab province.

Police said they had rounded up several suspected militants around Lahore and recovered 20 suicide vests, police uniforms and and large amounts of ammunition on Friday night.

No one claimed responsibility for the shrine attack, but officials have blamed "Punjabi Taliban" -- a term used for militants drawn from the province who have ganged up with Taliban in the northwest and have also forged ties with al Qaeda -- for previous attacks in the province.

Two Pak soldiers, 40 militants killed in FATA

Two Pak soldiers, 40 militants killed in FATA

At least forty extremists and two security officials were reportedly killed in skirmishes between extremists and Pakistan security forces in various areas of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas' (FATA) Mohmand Agency.


According to reports, Taliban extremists attacked two security check-posts in Shonkari in Baizai Tehsil and Gorapari in Safi subdivision near the Pak-Afghan border injuring at least 10 soldiers.

A self-proclaimed spokesperson of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ikramullah, while talking to media from an undisclosed location claimed kidnapping several soldiers during the attack on the two check posts, The News reports.

However, officials have rejected report regarding any soldier being held captive by the militants.

Officials sources said dozens of militants armed with heavy and automatic weapons launched a simultaneous attack on checkpoints in different areas killing two and injuring several soldiers.

Military helicopters were pressed into service to airlift injured soldiers to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar.

Pakistan says to help U.S. over New York bomb suspect

Pakistan says to help U.S. over New York bomb suspect

Pakistan vowed on Tuesday to help the United States bring to justice a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States in connection with a failed car bomb in New York's Times Square at the weekend.


Faisal Shahzad, a naturalised U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested on Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he attempted to board a flight to Dubai, U.S. officials said.

Faisal will appear in Manhattan federal court later on Tuesday to face charges "for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square on the evening of May 1," according to a statement by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, FBI agent George Venizelos and New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

"We will cooperate with the United States in identifying this individual and bringing him to justice," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and talked about the issue, a government official said.

"We have an ongoing cooperation with the United States on anti-terrorism efforts. If required by the United States, we will extend full cooperation to them in this regard," Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States and has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda operatives and handed over many of them to the United States after it signed up to the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

The Taliban in Pakistan said on Sunday it planted the bomb in Times Square to avenge the killing in April of al Qaeda's two top leaders in Iraq as well as U.S. interference in Muslim countries.

Some officials voiced scepticism about the claim. But former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel, who last year oversaw an Obama administration strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, cautioned against dismissing a possible role by the Taliban.