ISLAMABAD: Front rank leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) continued to blaze away their guns at each other despite the ceasefire declared by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif earlier this month.

PPP information secretary Fauzia Wahab, in a statement, lashed out at the PML-N leadership and accused them of “taking political advantage” by exploiting every issue the nation was facing today.

Rejecting the allegations, PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal advised Ms Wahab that instead of indulging into mudslinging, her party should focus its attention on improving governance, fulfilling its promises and resolving the problems being faced by the people.

Prime Minister Gilani and Mr Sharif talked on telephone on January 3 and expressed their resolve to continue the politics of reconciliation.

A spokesman for the PM House later announced that the two leaders had decided “to stop their respective party members, office-bearers and workers from issuing statements against each other.”

However, it seemed that either both leaders later forgot to issue the directives or their members were not taking them seriously as the newspapers and TV channels had consistently been reporting and telecasting statements of the leaders and the office-bearers from the two sides attacking each other.

Leaders from both sides are even accusing each other of committing corruption and working against democracy.

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, Punjab Minister Raja Riaz and information secretary Fauzia Wahab are leading the campaign in the PPP camp, whereas Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Rana Sanaullah, Khwaja Saad Rafiq, Siddiqul Farooque and Ahsan Iqbal are responding in the same tone from the PML-N side, despite the fact that the two parties are coalition partners in the Punjab province.

Interestingly, Ms Wahab and Mr Iqbal, when contacted, denied that they had received any directives from their top party leadership stopping them from issuing statements.

Ms Wahab said she had issued the statement only to clarify the PPP’s position on the issues like implementation of the Charter of Democracy (CoD), 17th amendment and the governance-related matters.

Mr Iqbal said as opposition members, it was their democratic right to criticise the government’s performance, adding that “no one can stop them from doing so.”

Staff Report

KARACHI: Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah changed the portfolios of two ministers in the Sindh cabinet on Friday.

Shazia Marri has now been assigned the Ministry of Tourism while Sassi Palijo, who had previously held the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, will now be heading the Ministry of Culture only. SAMAA

PESHAWAR: US Special Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke on Thursday visited Swat and expressed satisfaction over the achievements secured by Pakistan military in Operation Rah-e-Rast in Malakand Division.

Talking to local Nazmeen and a delegation of Hotel Association, Holbrooke said his government would not leave Pakistan alone at this critical juncture and help it in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the victims of militancy.

He said the US government has provided $175 million for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure, especially the schools and roads.

Earlier Major General Ashram Anadem operation in-charge of Rah-e-Rast briefed the US envoy about the operation and achievements. Holbrook also met a delegation of Hotel Association, Nazmeen and elders of the area.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court said on Thursday it wondered why illegally built high-rise buildings in Lahore escaped the attention of the Lahore Development Authority because these were not completed overnight but in stages and ordered strict action against civic agency’s delinquent officers.

“Why the LDA was in a deep slumber when these high-rise buildings were being constructed without removing objections or approving building plans,” asked Justice Javed Iqbal, head of a three-judge bench hearing the matter on a petition filed by Farooq Hameed, a citizen of Lahore.

The bench includes Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Mohammad Sair Ali.

Farooq Hameed sought court’s direction for a halt to the illegal construction of 18-floor ‘Boulevard Heights’ on the Main Gulberg Boulevard which, he said, had structurally damaged his bungalow adjacent to the apartment block.

After hearing Advocate Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for the Association of Builders and Developers (ABD) which represents about 1,000 builders in Lahore, the bench allowed the association to be impleaded as a necessary party with a direction to decide the matter on merit, along with other petitions.

Expressing dismay over the sluggish attitude of LDA officials towards mushroom growth of illegal buildings, the bench said that everything had been left for the Supreme Court to decide.

It ordered both disciplinary and criminal cases against LDA officers creating hurdles. In its May 11, 2007, order, the Supreme Court had expressed surprise over the permission granted by the LDA and other government agencies for construction of high-rise buildings in Lahore without following rules and regulations.

The court had constituted a commission headed by Justice Riaz Kiyani to conduct a detailed survey of all buildings in the city.

According to the commission’s report, most of the 417 buildings it had examined were found to be constructed in contravention of building rules and approval of maps.

In the light of the report, the LDA had on Dec 26 last year issued notices to 39 owners and occupants asking them to vacate the buildings. It later launched a massive demolition drive against illegally constructed multi-storey buildings.

On Thursday, Aitzaz Ahsan argued that findings of the commission were meant for assisting the Supreme Court in formulating some guidelines for high-rise buildings in future and not for carrying out the demolition drive.

The LDA, he said, was destroying buildings by construing it to be an order of the court although the court had not passed such directions.

Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said the movement of the diplomats in the country is being conditioned with the permission of the Ministry of Interior. While talking to newsmen outside the parliament house Malik said the diplomats wouldn’t move the without permission of the interior ministry. The interior minister said that two scanners being installed in Islamabad to curb terrorism. He said the government is also introducing Safe City project.

Dismissing reports of a rift between the Pakistani government and the military, President Asif Ali Zardari, today said his administration has the support of the defence forces in the ongoing war against terrorism.

”...some Western reports suggest the Pakistani military does not support the policies of our democratic government. This is not true.

“Not only is our military courageously battling extremists in Swat and Waziristan, and succeeding, but our troops also are supporting the country’s democratic transition and adherence to our Constitution,” Mr. Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.

“Terrorists do not want Pakistan to succeed,” he said and added that militants want to distract the country from preparing for a stable and prosperous future.

“Some in Pakistan question our international alliances because they disapprove of our allies’ actions, such as Thursday’s unilateral US drone attack against militants in Waziristan. We should all understand that concern.

But we are fighting for our lives, and Pakistan’s policies cannot be based solely on what is popular,” he wrote.

When Franklin Roosevelt threw a lifeline to Britain with the Lend—Lease programme, few Americans supported challenging the Nazis. Harry Truman had less than 15 per cent support among Americans to rebuild Europe. They did what was right, not what was popular, and so will we, Mr. Zardari said.

Four missiles fired by a US drone aircraft in the northern Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan have killed three militants, officials say.

They say that a militant camp was also destroyed by the missiles.

Separately Pakistani intelligence officials say US drone missiles recently killed a militant on the FBI's most-wanted terrorists list.

The man, named as Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, is believed to have died on 9 January in North Waziristan.

The FBI's Web site says that Mr Rahim has a $5m bounty on his head and is wanted for his alleged role in the 1986 hijacking of Pan American World Airways flight during a stop in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.

Taliban sanctuaries

More than 700 people have been killed in about 77 US drone strikes since August 2008.

A surge in such strikes has been ordered by US President Barack Obama, with seven drones hitting the tribal north-west this month alone.

The US has stepped up the number of drone attacks since 30 December, when a suicide bomber killed seven Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees over the border in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban denied on Thursday their leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a US missile attack in the north-west.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that Hakimullah Mehsud was wounded in the attack but his injuries were not serious.

North and South Waziristan - where the Mehsud faction comes from - are major sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Pakistan's army launched an offensive in South Waziristan in October and is under US pressure to do the same in North Waziristan.

Pakistan has publicly criticised drone attacks, saying they fuel support for the militants. But observers say that the authorities privately condone the strikes.

The US military does not routinely confirm drone attacks, but analysts say the US armed forces and CIA in Afghanistan are the only forces capable of deploying drones in the region