Reshma Power Plant pays back Rs4.57bn on SC orders

ISLAMABAD: The Reshma Rental Generation Ltd on Friday paid back Rs4.57 billion to the national treasury on the orders of the Supreme Court, DawnNews reported.

Sources said that the administration of the Reshma project had informed the Supreme Court bench hearing the rental power projects (RPPs) scam case in writing regarding the payment.

The bench that has been hearing the case comprises of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain

Earlier on Thursday, the apex court had ordered the Reshma Rental Generation Ltd to pay back by Friday rest of the 14 per cent mobilisation fund advanced to it for setting up the rental power plant.

The amount ordered to be paid back stood at Rs4.57 billion. The company was told it would have to ‘face consequences’ if it failed to abide by the order.

Amir will make a comeback: Bajwa

ISLAMABAD: After earning himself a career-threatening, five-year ban and a prison sentence for match fixing, disgraced Pakistani paceman Mohammad Amir has at least one supporter who believes he can return to international cricket.

The 19-year-old Amir, along with team captain Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were sentenced to jail in London earlier this month on corruption charges for spot-fixing by bowling predetermined no-balls in a test against England last year.

But despite the massive setback to a once promising cricketing future, Asif’s mentor Asif Bajwa is right behind his student.

Bajwa, a former domestic cricket wicketkeeper, was the man who honed the skills of promising youngsters at his academy from 2003-2007, around the time he brought in the talented Amir from a small village outside Rawalpindi.

“I want to see him playing for Pakistan again and I am confident he will make a comeback,” he said.

The International Cricket Council had already said that it would not reduce the suspension of five years, but the big question is whether a convicted cricketer would ever be considered by the Pakistan Cricket Board? There’s no doubt Amir was rated as the next Wasim Akram _ the legendary Pakistan left-arm fast bowler _ before those two dreaded deliveries he chose to bowl at Lords in London last year.

Amir was reportedly paid just 1,500 British pounds for his efforts, discounting greed as his motive and leading many to speculate the youngster was pressure but Butt to become involved in the scandal.

The then captain’s pressure on Amir could easily be gauged from the fact that when coach Waqar Younis had asked Amir “what the hell” he was doing bowling a huge front foot no-ball, Butt was quick to respond that it was his order.

Amir, who became the youngest player to take 50 wickets in just 14 test matches, he was neither spared by the game’s governing body nor judge Jeremy Cooke was impressed with the acceptance of fast bowler’s guilty plead.

While their families and friends continue to protests the crickets’ innocence, the sentiment of fans on the streets of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad _ Pakistan’s three largest cities _ was unanimous in the belief that they got a deserved punishment.

“It’s a shame,” says Hamza Sultan, an Islamabad high school student.

“I don’t care whether we lose Amir, Asif or Butt, the bottom line is that our cricket should be cleaned from this menace of fixing.”

Cricket writer Abdul Majid Bhatti, who works in one of Pakistan’s leading media company, also said there should be no opening for the trio.

“On moral grounds these three should not return to international cricket,” Bhatti told The AP.

“In the past we have suffered a lot because we didn’t take any action against any player.

“Now it’s the right time to send a strong message and move on,” he added.

“I have no doubt that we will get lots of Amirs and Asifs in the near future. … You just wait and see in two year’s time we will have at least three more.”

While the international careers of Butt and Asif seem to be over, there appears to be some sympathy for Amir.

Pakistan great Imran Khan says he has not seen such a talented cricketer and it was sad for Pakistan to lose such a promising player.

Whether Bajwa’s protege makes a comeback after five years _ only time will tell.

Abbottabad commission not satisfied with evidences, says report

ISLAMABAD: The inquiry commission on the May 2 US operation in Abbottabad had shown its dissatisfaction over the credibility of evidences gathered during the probe.

A BBC Urdu report quoted a security official familiar with the investigation as saying that the members of the commission had formed a list of ‘important witnesses’ and conducted lengthy interviews.

But the information gathered from these interviews was not sufficient to prove that the al-Qaeda leader and his family were present in a compound which was raided by the US Special Forces, the report said.

Only credible information about the presence of Osama in the compound came from the women who were said to be the wives of al-Qaeda chief, the report added.

Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, the chairman of the commission, had said after the formation of the commission that he would ask the United States government to provide evidences.

But, a spokesman of the US embassy told the BBC Urdu that the commission had not yet contacted them on the issue.

Pakistan orders companies to block obscene texts

ISLAMABAD: Texters in Pakistan better start watching their language.

Pakistan’s telecommunications authority sent a letter ordering cell phone companies to block text messages containing what it perceives to be obscenities, Anjum Nida Rahman, a spokeswoman for Telenor Pakistan, said Friday.

It also sent a list of more than 1,500 English and Urdu words that were to be blocked.

The order was part of the regulator’s attempt to block spam messages, said Rahman. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority refused to comment on the initiative.

Many of the words to be blocked were sexually explicit terms or swear words, according to a copy of the list obtained by The Associated Press.

It also included relatively mild terms like fart and idiot.

The reasons for blocking some words, including Jesus Christ, headlights and tampon, were less clear, raising questions about religious freedom and practicality. Any word could conceivably be part of a spam message.

The letter, which was also obtained by the AP, was dated Nov. 14 and gave cell phone companies seven days to implement the order.

Rahman, the Telenor spokeswoman, said her company first received the letter Thursday and was discussing how to proceed.

“It’s a big issue, so it is being examined carefully from all points of view,” said Rahman.

The letter said the order was legal under a 1996 law preventing people from sending information through the telecommunications system that is “false, fabricated, indecent or obscene.”

It also stated that free speech can be restricted “in the interest of the glory of Islam.”

PPP concerned over ‘memo gate’ scandal

ISLAMABAD: The core committee of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Friday discussed the controversy surrounding Ambassador to US Husain Haqqani over a secret memo alleged to have been sent by President Asif Ali Zardari to former chairman of US joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen.

The committee meeting was held under the chairmanship of President Zardari who is also the party’s co-chairman.

The president took the party’s top leadership into confidence over his meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and said that an investigation would be held into the matter.

Party stalwarts termed the situation grim and said that the opposition was taking advantage of the circumstances and attacking the government on this front.

President Zardari directed PPP leaders to effectively counter the opposition’s propaganda.

The president also discussed Zulfiqar Mirza’s London visit and his meeting with Scotland Yard officials with party officials and assured the core committee that he was not directing the former minister.

Hussain Haqqani offers resignation in memo row

ISLAMABAD: The government said on Thursday that it has not decided whether to accept a resignation offer from its ambassador to the US over a reported attempt to enlist Washington’s help to rein in the country’s military after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The government has summoned Ambassador Husain Haqqani to Islamabad to question him about any role he may have played in the growing controversy, which was first disclosed in an Oct. 10 column in the Financial Times, said Farhatullah Babar, a Pakistani presidential spokesman.

Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, said in the column that a senior Pakistani diplomat asked him on May 9, a week after US commandos killed bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town, to pass a message from President Asif Ali Zardari to the US asking for help. Ijaz did not name the diplomat.

Zardari was reportedly worried that the US raid had so humiliated his government, which did not know about it beforehand, that the military may stage a coup, something that has happened repeatedly in Pakistan’s history, said Ijaz.

The memo sent to Adm. Mike Mullen, the top US military officer at the time, reportedly offered to curb support to militants from Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, in exchange for American assistance, Ijaz said.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry has called the Financial Times column ”a total fabrication.”

But Mullen’s spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, confirmed to Foreign Policy’s website on Wednesday that Mullen did receive the memo from Ijaz, but he did not find it credible and ignored it.

Haqqani said on Thursday that he did not write or deliver the memo, but offered his resignation to end the controversy.

”I do not want this non-issue of an insignificant memo written by a private individual and not considered credible by its lone recipient to undermine democracy,” Haqqani told The Associated Press.

Haqqani is expected to travel to Islamabad in the next few days so that the government can determine who should be blamed for the incident, Babar said. He said the government has not received a formal letter of resignation from Haqqani, and talk of what would happen to him was ”premature.”

The controversy is said to have outraged the Pakistani army, considered the most powerful institution in the country. The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, met with Pakistan’s president in recent days, but the outcome of those discussions is unclear.

Haqqani’s resignation would create more uncertainty in the already troubled relationship between Pakistan and the US. The bin Laden raid in the town of Abbottabad severely strained ties, as have US drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area along the Afghan border.

Mullen’s spokesman admits existence of secret memo

WASHINGTON: The spokesman for former Chairman US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Mike Mullen confirmed the existence of a secret memo alleged to have been sent by President Zardari to Admiral Mullen.

A Pakistani businessman alleged in a column in the Financial Times last month that a senior Pakistani diplomat asked for assistance in getting a message from Zardari to Admiral Mike Mullen, at the time chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The author, Mansoor Ijaz, alleged that Zardari feared a military takeover following the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May and brought unprecedented public scrutiny on Pakistani leaders.

Asked about the memo referred to in the Financial Times column, Captain John Kirby, who was Mullen’s spokesman until the admiral stepped down earlier this year, said Mullen initially had no recollection of such a memo but was later able to track it down.

“Neither the contents of the memo nor the proof of its existence altered or affected in any way the manner in which Adm. Mullen conducted himself in his relationship with Gen. Kayani and the Pakistani government,” Kirby said. “He did not find it at all credible and took no note of it.”

He gave no further details.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington has offered to resign after reports that his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari, asked Washington for help to stave off a military takeover.

There has been speculation in the Pakistani media that Haqqani had been involved in the conception or communicating of the memo.

“I have not been named so far as having done anything wrong by anyone except through innuendo. No memo of the kind being discussed in the media was drafted or delivered by me,” Haqqani said.

“I should like to add that since I was appointed ambassador in 2008, some people have consistently vilified me as having been involved in undermining the Pakistani armed forces. Which I have never done.”