President denounces killing of Raza Haider

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ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has strongly condemned the assassination of Raza Haider, MQM leader and Member Sindh Assembly, who was shot dead by unknown assailants in Karachi on Monday evening.

The President in a message expressed his shock and grief over the unfortunate incident and directed the concerned authorities to investigate the tragic happening and take all necessary steps to bring the culprits to justice.

President Zardari also conveyed his condolences to the bereaved family and prayed to Almighty Allah to rest the departed soul in eternal peace and grant courage to the bereaved family to bear this irreparable loss with equanimity.

Raza Haider always stood by MQM: Altaf

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JNN:KARACHI: MQM chief Altaf Hussain termed as a ‘grave tragedy’ the assassination of party’s lawmaker Raza Haider, who was killed in a drive-by shooting by unidentified gunmen in Karachi on Monday.

In a statement issued from London, Altaf Hussain said his heart was shedding tears of blood at the martyrdom of Raza Haider.

He also expressed grief over death of Haider’s guard and a party’s activist in the ambush.

Hussain also paid a tribute to the martyred leaders, calling him a true activist, who stood by the part in every thick and thin.

He urged President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani to arrest the culprits.

one more shia syed raza haider politican(MQM,MPA SINDH assembly),killed in Karachi

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KARACHI: Raza Haider, MQM leader and member Sindh Assembly, and his guard have been gunned down here in Nazimabad on Monday.

Unknown armed motorcyclists fired shots at Raza Haider as well as his guard when he was preparing to attend a funeral prayer at Jamia Masjid of Nazimabad Block No.2.

Raza Haider, who received a bullet in his head died when he was being rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. The guard later succumbed to his injuries while receiving medical aid at the hospital.

The MQM leader was elected from PS-94 Karachi 6.

Separate incidents of firing were reported in different parts of the city shortly after the fatal attack on MQM leader while two vehicles were set on fire in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

The incident sent a wave of fear and panic across the metropolis, as shopkeepers pulled down their shutters in view of any violent reaction by enraged people.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik condemned the incident, urging the people to remain calm.

He termed the targeted killings in Karachi as a ‘latest formula’ being used to destabilize the country.

Rehman Malik urged MQM leaders to wait for investigation and called upon the people to observe restraint.

He said he would soon hold a meeting with MQM leaders.

MQM leaders Babar Ghauri and Haider Abbas Rizvi expressed profound grief on the tragic incident.

“It would be difficult to put a cap on the chapter opened (today),” Babar Ghauri asserted.

Crashed Air Blue flight's black box found

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JNN 01.08.10 ISLAMABAD: Investigators searching the site of an airliner crash near Pakistan’s capital in which 152 people died have found the plane’s black box, a minister and a civil aviation official said Saturday.

“The investigating committee found the black box from the Margalla Hills this morning,” Junaid Ameen, director-general of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, told AFP by telephone.

The 10-year-old Airbus 321, operated by Airblue, slammed into the hills overlooking Islamabad in heavy rain and poor visibility on Wednesday as it came into land after a morning flight from Karachi.

“The black box was found from the bulk of the wreckage of the crashed plane. It is going to be a central part of our investigation,” Ameen said, adding that it would be sent to “foreign experts” for decoding.

Interior minister Rehman Malik also confirmed the find.

“I have received the confirmation that the black box of the crashed plane has been found,” Malik told private Geo television.

“It will very helpful in the investigation.”

Ameen said the black box was recovered at 12:55pm (0755 GMT) by a joint team of French experts, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Capital Development Authority and Islamabad police.

“The black box is now in our possession. Its condition and other things will be analysed. Let’s see what we are able to get from the results,” Ameen said.

A five-person team from Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, was assisting with the recovery and using cutters to slice through the wreckage.

Pakistan does not have the proper expertise to decode information stored on the recorder, so it plans to send it elsewhere, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

The authority’s spokesman, Pervez George, said Friday that the decoding process could take a month.

The bodies of 102 people have been returned to their families and 62 relatives have given blood that is now being used to DNA test other remains in a bid to positively identify them, the airline said.

The crash was the worst aviation tragedy on Pakistani soil.

Hundreds of Indian Muslims protest against sanctions on Iran

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JNN 01.08.10 Under the banner of Majlis-e-Ulema-e-Hind hundreds of Shia Muslims gathered at Jantar Mantar in Central Delhi area and staged a noisy protest against the unjustified sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union and the United Nations “which are acting like a puppet in the hands of the United States.” They urged the UN to lift the sanctions against a peaceful developing country like Iran immediately.

They also protested against the atrocities conducted by Israel on the innocent civilians of Palestine and Lebanon, against the drastic shift in the foreign policy of Indian Government in favour of Israel, and against the so-called Muslim countries who are acting as stooges to the United States.

These so-called Muslim countries remain mute spectators to the barbaric acts by Israel supported by the United States and its allies, they said. Expressing solidarity with the victims and oppressed Palestinian people, the gathering lent their voices to protests against the aggression. “The world community should intervene and stop Israel from killing innocent Palestinians,” said protestors while chanting slogans against Israel, America and the UN.

Meanwhile, the speakers, including renowned Shia scholar, Maulana Syed Kalbe Jawwad Naqvi, Friday Prayer leader of historic Asafi Mosque at Lucknow, Dr. Hasan Komeli, President Idara Tafheem Islam, and Maulana Syed Jalal Haider Naqvi, President Shaheed Murtuza Mutahari Society, Delhi, while addressing the protestors, expressed dismay over the failure of the World community in preventing the loss of innocent lives in the region.

“For the past many years, the World is watching as a mute spectator the mass execution of innocent civilians including hundreds of women and children by the tyrannical Israelis,” they added.

They said the international community in general and the Muslim countries in particular must take immediate concrete action to prevent further loss of innocent lives in the region. “The international community must break its silence on the Israeli onslaught.”

“India has been a country of peace and justice. It has always stood by the oppressed and underprivileged. But we feel extremely sorry to see a drastic shift in the country’s foreign policy towards Israel”, they said while condemning the act.

Carrying banners condemning US, EU, Israel and UN, the protestors marched towards Parliament but were stopped by the security forces nearby.
A memorandum, asking the Indian government to extend political support to depressed Palestinians, was presented to the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh at the end of the protest.

“India being a political power should take necessary diplomatic actions to create global pressure to stop the barbaric aggression by Israel against innocent people and make Israeli illegal government to solve conflicting issues diplomatically in peaceful manner”, said the memorandum.

Saudi Shia Muslim Detained in Custody Since Thirty Months Without Trial

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JNN 01.08.10 For thirty months, the Saudi Wahhabi police is still holding a Shia citizen Ridha Algashaam for unidentified reasons and without formal charges to date.

The Saudi Wahhabi authorities arrested the young Algashaam (25 years) in January 2008 amid conflicting reports about the reason for his apprehension.

Algashaam’s young wife was also harshly interrogated on the 25th February of the same year. The detainee is the son of a known Hasawian cleric Sheikh Abdul Aziz Algashaam the imam of

the Montazar mosque in Rashidiya district in Mobaraz city that the authorities cut off its power in November 2008 and then returned after the intervention of Saudi Human Rights Commission.

Last September, the authorities released a friend of the detainee, the teacher Naïf Albaqshi after an arrest of 18 months without receiving information about the charges against him.

Saudi Activists have launched a campaign last January in solidarity with Ridha Algashaam on the pages of the famous social networking site “facebook” calls for the Saudi authorities to release him.

The campaign came two years after the arrest of the young Algashaam without any formal charges that have a complete blackout imposed by the authorities of the Saudi secret police on the circumstances of the case.

According to close sources, the detainee had already been arrested in a raid carried out by the Criminal Investigation Department to a bookstore in the Shiite area of Mahdia in Alkhars in November 2004 where he worked as a seller.

As usual, the authorities and official human rights commissions befall silent about frequent human rights abuses.

In the past six years, Alahsa Province witnessed a series of sectarian arrests that reaped hundreds of Shiites, including clerics, and of course along with shutting down dozens of mosques, councils and religious schools.