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Prominent Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his manager Maroof were charged in India. Rahat was questioned by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials (DRI) for allegedly carrying USD 1.24 lakh (about Rs 60 lakh) of undeclared foreign currency under the FEMA and Customs Act of India.
The singer was detained on February 13 at Indira Gandhi International Airport. Besides Rahat, his manager Maroof, owner of an event management company Chitresh Shrivastava, and two employees of Mumbai-based Foreign Exchange firm were detained and have been questioned at length about …

Regarding the issue of Raymond Davis, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday said while he was the foreign minister the US national did not enjoy full diplomatic immunity. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Qureshi said the foreign office had briefed him on January 31 that Davis did not enjoy the blanket immunity that the US was claiming for him.
Qureshi said that after studying the Vienna Conventions of 1961 and 1963 and Pakistan’s Diplomatic Law of 1972, one could conclude that “the blanket immunity as being demanded …

Hours after police in Lahore submitted a preliminary investigation report in a court accusing American national Raymond Davis of killing two Pakistanis on a street in Lahore on Jan 27, US President Barack Obama urged Pakistan to abide by the Vienna Convention, treat Davis as a diplomat and release him. President Obama, while insisting that Pakistan must not prosecute Mr Davis, said he also was concerned about the loss of Pakistani lives in the incident. “Obviously we’re concerned about the loss of life,” Mr Obama said at a Washington …

Famous Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan was detained at the IGI airport by revenue intelligence sleuths for allegedly carrying a huge amount of undeclared foreign currency. Khan, who is a hit Bollywood playback singer, arrived on a flight from Karachi and was intercepted by personnel from Directorate of Revenue Intelligence acting on some prior information, official sources said.
They said the singer was carrying a huge amount of foreign currency which he did not declare to the immigration authorities. Two other persons accompanying him have also been detained, the …

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, convicted of attempting to kill US military personnel, has been sentenced to 86 years in prison. She was being interrogated by US officials in Afghanistan when she grabbed a rifle and opened fire, shouting “death to Americans”.
Prosecutors in New York called her an al-Qaeda sympathiser and sought life imprisonment. Prosecutors used notes she was carrying at the time of her arrest, which included instructions for making explosives and a list of New York City landmarks, as evidence that she was a potentially dangerous terrorist.
Siddiqui’s lawyers argued she …

Miracle of Baby Jamie, who revived after being pronounced dead. Baby Jamie and Emily were born premature, at 27 weeks, to parents Kate and David Ogg, of Australia. Baby Jamie had complications and a group of doctors worked to save him for some 20 minutes before pronouncing him dead.
After Kate was told Jamie didn’t make it, nurses placed the baby across Kate’s bare chest so Kate and David could reconcile themselves to his death.
“I wanted to meet him and to hold him and for him to know us,” Kate …

A nationwide fund raising campaign in the United Arab Emirates UAE Red Crescent under the slogan “Your Help” has so far raised more than 20 million dollars of aid for Pakistan flood victims over its first four days. The fund raising campaign will carry on until August 30, 2010.
It said a live TV fund raising campaign was being run on several Emirati television channels. Pakistan has a close ties with the oil-rich Emirates, where hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis live and work, mostly laborers.
For nearly a month, torrential monsoon …

The sheer magnitude of the disaster makes providing relief to flood victims a monumental task. The challenges confronting the state are considerable and have overwhelmed Pakistan’s already fragile infrastructure. Yet just worrying about the problems will not ease the sufferings: the issues have to be identified and effective solutions need to be found and implemented.
Take the example of conditions at relief camps across the country. The major challenge is the provision of food, shelter and medical care. But as reports have made clear, even the provision of these basic needs …

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi can certainly be put in the ranks of politicians and leaders with a penchant for making absurd remarks – a group that includes Bush Jr and our very own President Zardari and his predecessor Musharraf, to cite just the tip of the iceberg. Given how the whole international community has failed to deliver on flood aid because of the lack of credibility of the government, it was incredible to hear Qureshi state his “horror” over the fact that the issue of transparent use of aid …