LAHORE: Country’s annual National Games, scheduled to be held in Peshawar this month, have been postponed because of security concerns, the National Olympic Committee said on Tuesday.

The games are the latest sporting event to be affected by security worries in the country that has been hit by a series of militant attacks, including the ambush of the Sri Lanka cricket team’s bus last year.

On Tuesday the International Tennis Federation moved a Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group-II semi-final tie scheduled in Lahore in July to New Zealand after a request from the visiting team.

National Olympic Committee president Arif Hasan told a news conference in Lahore after a meeting of the executive council that the security situation in the country and Peshawar had prompted the postponement of the games.

“Teams are already not willing to come to Pakistan because of the security issues and we don’t want a situation where a domestic event is also affected by some incident,” Hasan said.

The National Games are the biggest domestic sporting event in Pakistan and more than 3,000 athletes take part in different disciplines.

Hasan said the relevant authorities in Peshawar were not willing to give security clearance for the games at this stage.

“We took the prevailing situation in the country into consideration and felt the best thing at this stage was to postpone the games,” he said.

“There was also pressure from parents and associations to postpone the games and obviously nothing is more important to us than the safety of our athletes and officials.”

The National Games have already been postponed once before last year due to security issues.

Hasan said new dates in December were subject to security clearance.

There has been a surge of militant strikes in Peshawar since the army went on the offensive against Pakistani Taliban militants in their South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border last October.

Last week suicide bombers targeting the Pakistani military killed at least 45 people in Lahore.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan News: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has summoned an especial federal cabinet meeting on one point agenda in connection with peace and order situation in country.
The meeting was scheduled to be held on March 17.

Also, Premier invited Chief Minister Punjab Mian Mohammed Shahbaz Sharif on phone to attend the meeting.

According to a statement released from PM House, Chief Minister of all four provinces and Inspector Generals have been invited to the meeting.

The meeting will review law and order situation in country, it said.

PM Gilani also expressed grief with CM Punjab over killings of innocent people who lost their lives in Lahore suicide attack, statement further said.

KANDAHAR: A big blast near Pakistani Consulate in southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar jolted the town on Sunday morning. It was unclear what caused the blast.

KANDAHAR: A big blast near Pakistani Consulate in southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar jolted the town on Sunday morning. It was unclear what caused the blast.
“No casualties reported in the incident,” security sources said.
The explosion close to Pakistan mission in the eastern part of the city came after a series of overnight attacks by Taliban that killed some 35 people in various parts of Kandahar, the expected next target of a NATO-led offensive.
The governor of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province is demanding more troops to provide security after 12 explosions in the largest southern city killed dozens of people.
Gov. Turyakai Wesa says he is talking to the central government in Kabul about getting Afghan military reinforcements following the coordinated attacks that killed at least 33 people, including 10 attending a wedding. He told reporters Sunday that he also wants to coordinate with NATO forces to improve security.
Wesa said the attacks wounded at least 53. Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban insurgency and the next target of NATO and Afghan forces after a major push to take another militant stronghold in next-door Helmand province.

At least 25 people have been killed and dozens injured in four suspected suicide bombings in the Afghan city of Kandahar, police say.

The first blast was heard at about 1530 GMT and was followed by three other attacks across the city.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is arriving in Pakistan today on a two-day visit.
During his stay, Karzai would meet with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani. According to diplomatic sources, Pakistan would discuss India’s interference in Balochistan and security of Pakistanis present in Afghanistan with Karzai, while the latter would likely to raise regional strategy, and issues of 2 million Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan.
Sources added that the Afghan President would also seek shifting of arrested Taliban leader Baradar. It would be Karzai’s first visit to Pakistan after being elected President for the second term.

KABUL: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Kabul on Wednesday to hold talks with his Afghan counterpart, a spokesman in Hamid Karzai’s office said.

It is Ahmadinejad’s first visit to Iran’s eastern neighbour since Karzai was re-elected following a deeply controversial election in Afghanistan in August.

“President Ahmadinejad arrived,” Siamak Hirawi, a deputy spokesman for Karzai, told media.

“They will discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and expansion of economic relations between the two countries,” Hirawi said.

The two presidents were also scheduled to discuss economic projects that benefit both countries, including a railway line from Tajikistan through Afghanistan to Iran, transport and similar projects, he said.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates will review allegations of misconduct in Afghanistan by the company formerly known as Blackwater and shares concerns raised by a top senator, the Pentagon said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin had made a personal appeal to Gates last week for the Pentagon to consider blocking a potential $1 billion contract with Blackwater, which has changed its name to Xe, to train Afghan police. Levin cited what he called evidence of misconduct in a previous subcontract awarded to a Blackwater affiliate to conduct weapons training for the Afghan National Army. He is looking into it and he takes it seriously, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said of Gates. But Morrell played down the chances of any swift action to bar Blackwater from contracts, citing Pentagon rules and the company’s unique capabilities. Like it or not, Blackwater has technical expertise that very few companies do have. And they have a willingness to work in places that very few companies are willing to work. So they provide a much-needed service and the ability to do it well, he added. In a letter to Gates dated February 25 and released publicly on Thursday, Levin, a Democrat, said Blackwater may have used a front company for the contract, made false official statements and misled Defence Department officials in its proposal documents. There was also evidence Blackwater may have misappropriated government weapons, carried weapons without authorization and hired unqualified personnel with backgrounds that included assault and battery, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, Levin said. Levin said the Pentagon should consider Blackwater’s past “deficiencies” in deciding whether to award the new contract worth as much as $1 billion to the company to provide Afghan national police training. A US court last December threw out manslaughter charges against the Blackwater guards involved in that incident, a decision that outraged Iraq’s government. In January, two US security contractors working for Paravant LLC, a unit of Xe, which was previously known as Blackwater Worldwide, were arrested in Afghanistan on charges they murdered two Afghans in Kabul and wounded a third.

Security forces managed to rescue two abducted Sikhs after an operation at Khyber Agency.

According to ISPR, several militants were killed during a successful operation at Khyber Agency. The operation was launched in the border region of Khyber and Orakzai Agency. The abductors demanded heavy ransom for the release.

The three Sikhs were abducted from the Khyber tribal agency on the Afghan border in January. The decapitated body of one of them was found last week.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen expressed his concern over the ‘unintended consequences’ of an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Defence Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, Adm Mullen said Iran’s path towards building of a nuclear weapon was an overarching concern from all the countries he visited. Those countries include Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “I worry a lot about the unintended consequences of any sort of military action. For now, the diplomatic and the economic levers of international power are, and ought to be, the levers first pulled.” Both the men said that though the Afghan war is going on a slow pace, however, they added that it was not affecting the US Afghan policy.
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Maldives hosted perhaps their most unusual guests ever during three days of clandestine peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
According to the presidential spokesman, the three-day talks were held at the end of January this year, in which steps to find out peaceful ways for Afghanistan war. He said the Maldivian government was not involved directly in the talks, in which a dozen Afghan government’s representatives, and as many Taliban participated. Reportedly, Gulbadin’s son was also present during the talks.