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Pak's defence budget pales in comparison to India's, says spokesman

Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said his country is allocating only four billion dollars to defence whereas India's defence budget is 36 billion …

Written on March 14, 2011 | Posted in Pakistan, UN, aid, army, budget, defence, india, unlmitie | Leave a comment

Huge tsunami kills hundreds in Japan, sweeps across Pacific

TOKYO: The biggest earthquake on record to hit Japan rocked the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that killed hundreds of people and swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships and cars. The Red Cross in Geneva said the wall of water was higher than some Pacific islands and a tsunami warning was issued for almost the entire Pacific basin, although alerts were lifted for some countries, including Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. Up to 300 bodies were found in the coastal city of Sendai, media said. NHK television said the victims appeared to have drowned. The extent of the destruction along a lengthy stretch of coastline suggested the death toll could rise significantly. Some 3,000 residents living near a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, were told to evacuate but the government said no radiation was leaking. It said the evacuation was a precaution after a reactor cooling malfunction. Other nuclear power plants and oil refineries were shut down after the 8.9 magnitude quake, while one refinery was ablaze. A major explosion hit a petrochemical complex in Miyagi prefecture after the quake, Kyodo said. Political leaders pushed for an emergency budget to help fund relief efforts after Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked them to “save the country”, Kyodo news agency reported. Stunning TV footage showed a muddy wall of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, home to one million people and which lies 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbour wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side. The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast, Kyodo news agency said. A ship carrying 100 people had been swept away by the tsunami, Kyodo said. One train was unaccounted for. In Tokyo, residents who had earlier fled swaying buildings jammed the streets trying to make their way home after much of the city’’s public transportation was shut down. Electronics giant Sony Corp , one of the country’’s biggest exporters, shut six factories, as air force jets raced toward the northeast coast to determine the extent of the damage. The Bank of Japan, which has been struggling to boost the anaemic economy, said it would do its utmost to ensure financial market stability as the yen and Japanese shares fell. “I was terrified and I”m still frightened,” said Hidekatsu Hata, 36, manager of a Chinese noodle restaurant in Tokyo, where buildings shook violently. “I”ve never experienced such a big quake before.” The tsunami alerts revived memories of the giant waves which struck Asia in 2004. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued alerts for countries to the west and across the Pacific as far away as Colombia and Peru. The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. There were several strong aftershocks. In Tokyo, there was widespread panic. An oil refinery near the city was on fire, with dozens of storage tanks under threat. Around 4.4 million homes were without power in northern Japan, media said. “People are flooding the streets. It’’s incredible. Everyone is trying to get home but I didn”t see any taxis,” said Koji Goto, a 43-year-old Tokyo resident. NHK television showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted. Thick smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama’’s Isogo area. TV showed residents of the city running out of shaking buildings, shielding their heads with their hands from falling masonry. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks tossed around like toys in the water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed and cars were turning around and speeding away. “The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under their desks,” Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo. “It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago.” The U.S. navy said its ships had been unaffected by the tsunami and were ready to provide disaster relief if needed. China offered to provide earthquake relief. The quake struck just before the Tokyo stock market closed, pushing the Nikkei down to end at a five-week low. Nikkei futures trading in Osaka tumbled as much as 4.7 percent in reaction to the news. The disaster also weighed on markets elsewhere. GREAT KANTO QUAKE The quake surpasses the Great Kanto quake of Sept. 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion. Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers” hands during the quake. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura. Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo. Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds watched and pointed to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, “They”re still shaking!”, “Are they going to fall?” Japan’’s northeast Pacific coast, called Sanriku, has suffered from quakes and tsunamis in the past and a 7.2 quake struck on Wednesday. In 1933, a magnitude 8.1 quake in the area killed more than 3,000 people. Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’’s most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world’’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

Written on March 11, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Economy, ISI, International, News, UK, UN, US, War, ad, ads, aid, australia, ban, budget, call, cars, china, cia, drugs, earthquake, export, footage, india, media, new zealand | Leave a comment

Talks with IMF: govt agrees to hike power price by 2pc

ISLAMABAD: The government has agreed to hike price of power by 2 percent and to enforce 15 percent flood surcharge during the talks with IMF. During the third round of talks with IMF in Islamabad, government agreed to enforce flood surcharge from April 1, finance ministry sources said. The government also agreed to increase excise duty from 1pc to 2.5pc and to pass Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) in upcoming budget.

Written on March 9, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Politics, UN, ad, aid, budget, imf, islam, islamabad | Leave a comment

Zero-deficit Kashmir budget promises jobs

Jammu, March 7 : Announcing job-generation schemes, Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather Monday presented a zero-deficit budget for fiscal 2011-12 in the state …

Written on March 8, 2011 | Posted in 2011, UN, budget, kashmir, unlmitie | Leave a comment

China’’s defence budget to rise 12.7pc in 2011

BEIJING:- China’’s defence budget will rise 12.7 percent in 2011 to 601.1 billion yuan ($91.7 billion), a government spokesman said on Friday, amid persistent concerns about Beijing’’s military build-up. The figure was contained in a budgetary report submitted to the National People’’s Congress, the parliament’’s spokesman Li Zhaoxing told a news conference on the eve of the opening of the annual NPC session. “China has always paid attention to controlling the size of defence spending,” Li told reporters, describing spending as “relatively low” compared with the rest of the world. Li, a former foreign minister, said the figure represented six percent of the total national budget in the world’’s second-largest economy. The number however represents a return to double-digit increases, which have alarmed the United States and several of China’’s Asian neighbours. That trend had been broken last year when the defence budget rose 7.5 percent. The People’’s Liberation Army — the world’’s largest — is hugely secretive about its defence programmes, but insists its modernisation is purely defensive in nature. “This will not pose a threat to any country,” Li said. On Monday, India announced a nearly 12 percent jump in defence spending to $36 billion in its annual budget — up from a four percent hike last year. In January, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Beijing to patch up frayed military ties — and was instead greeted with the maiden flight of China’’s first next-generation stealth fighter. Last month, the Pentagon proposed a record “base” defence budget — excluding the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — of $553 billion for fiscal 2012. “Advances by the Chinese military in cyber and anti-satellite warfare pose a potential challenge to the ability of our forces to operate and communicate in this part of the Pacific,” Gates said after his China visit. But he added that Washington and Tokyo were well-placed to counter the threat with high-tech hardware and that it was not a foregone conclusion that China would turn into a military rival.(AFP)

Written on March 4, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Economy, ISI, International, News, UN, US, War, ad, afghan, afghanistan, aid, army, budget, china, defence, defense, india, military | Leave a comment

Pakistan to levy 15% flood surcharge on tax to tackle deficit

KARACHI: Pakistan will impose a flood surcharge of 15 percent on income tax in order to tackle the country?s widening budget deficit, a government source involved in talks with the International …

Written on March 2, 2011 | Posted in International, Pakistan, UN, budget, karachi, unlmitie | Leave a comment

MPs demand fuel price increase reversal

ISLAMABAD: The lawmakers in National Assembly Tuesday expressed concern about 10 per cent increase in petroleum products and Pakistanis stranded in Libya. Taking up the issues of national importance on the Private Member’’s Day they called upon the government to immediately withdraw the recent increase in petroleum products and take measures for safety of Pakistanis stranded in Libya and other Middle East countries and ensure their immediate return. Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) leader Haider Abbas Rizvi said that masses are concerned about the recent increase in petroleum prices, adding that the parliamentary committee, constituted by the Prime Minister on Petroleum prices, was not consulted before implementation of new petroleum prices. He said MQM realizes the facts that there is budget deficit in the country, the receipts situation is not favourable and the international assistance is not coming in a way as it was pledged. He said the government has initiated dialogue process with political parties to improve the economic situation, adding that PML-N has already parted ways and MQM which is also part of the dialogues would think to review future strategy if the recent increase in petroleum prices is not withdrawn. Rizvi proposed that instead of imposing indirect tax on the masses the government should bring industrial, agricultural and other sectors in tax net so that the burden of price hike might not affect the poor people. PML-N Chief Whip Aftab Sheikh said the increase in petroleum products ultimately affects the prices of basic commodities and exert burden on the poor and middle class. He said the government should seriously review it’’s decision on petroleum products and improve good governance and strengthen the institutions like PIA, Railways, Steel Mills so that unfavourable decisions like petroleum prices could be avoided. He pointed out that many Pakistanis are stranded in Libya and living miserable life due to unrest in the country. He said the foreign office should take immediate step for protection and security of overseas Pakistanis in Middle East and ensure immediate return of Pakistanis from Libya. FATA parliamentarian Zafar Baig Bhittani was also concerned about new petroleum prices and said that the recent increase would create difficulties for the government. He said the Prime Minister announced writing off agricultural loans along with other privileges for displaced persons of Swat and Malakand, adding that similar announcement was also made for FATA IDPs but unfortunately the agriculture loans of FATA IDPs have yet been not waived off. ANP parliamentarian Bushra Gohar termed recent increase in petroleum prices as unjustified and demanded it immediate withdrawal. She also demanded revoking the compulsion of getting NoC by artists, students and journalists from Interior Ministry before going abroad. Tahira Orangzeb drew the attention of the House towards Pakistanis stuck in Libya and said the foreign ministry should appoint a competent official as ambassador to Libya. PML-Q leader Sheikh Waqas Akram asid the government should bring all the people under tax net and should not allow relaxation to any one. He said the government should decrease petroleum prices as well as keep a check on prices of other basic commodities to give relief to common man. PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafiq also criticized the increase in petroleum products and said that it would result in unfavourable circumstances in the country, adding that unemployment is already increasing day by day due to load-shedding of gas and closure of industries. The price hike of petroleum products would further aggravate the situation, he feared. Marvi Memon also supported decrase in petroleum prices and called for cut on non-development expenditures of the government. Farrah Naz Isphani said the government constituted a parliamentary committee on petroleum products but no one was interested to attend the committee meetings for resolution of people’’s problems. She invited members of the committee to come and raise the issue regarding hike of petroleum prices in the concerned committee. She said the government has dealt with terrorism, weak economy with conceret measures and the situation is visible improving. She said the nation needs payment of taxes for better economy and prosperity of the people. Nadeem Afzal Godail said criticism for the sake of criticism is only wastage of time and the House should discuss issues in a positive manner for redressal of people’’s problems. He pointed out that a number of politicians in Punjab do not pay taxes, adding that such kind of issues should also be discussed in the House. (APP)

Written on March 1, 2011 | Posted in Economy, ISI, International, MQM, News, Pakistan, Politics, Terrorism, UN, US, War, ad, aid, budget, call, cia, import, islam, islamabad, load-shedding, marvi memo, media | Leave a comment

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Pak's defence budget pales in comparison to India's, says spokesman

Huge tsunami kills hundreds in Japan, sweeps across Pacific

Talks with IMF: govt agrees to hike power price by 2pc

Zero-deficit Kashmir budget promises jobs

China’’s defence budget to rise 12.7pc in 2011

Pakistan to levy 15% flood surcharge on tax to tackle deficit

MPs demand fuel price increase reversal

5-India hikes defence spending by 12 percent …..

PDP legislators create ruckus, terms Jammu and Kashmir speaker as 'Gadaffi'

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