Panic in Pakistan after leakage in reactor Read more at: http://news24online.com/Panic-in-Pakistan-after-leakage-in-reactor_News24_35424.aspx Copyright © News24online.com

Islamabad: A nuclear reactor in Pakistan's port city of Karachi reported leakage in a heavy water pipe, triggering a nuclear emergency, a media report said today.   The emergency was declared at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) at midnight on Tuesday after the leak in the primary heat transport system of the nuclear plant at Hawkesbay was detected.   The emergency continued till 7 am yesterday, when the situation was brought under control.

Synthetic clothes be put on negative list

PESHAWAR: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association Aptma chairman Mohsin Aziz has urged the federal government to exempt textile industry from electricity loadshedding.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday he said the textile industry should be given preferential treatment by providing the manufacturing units an uninterrupted power supply to let the sector operate to its full potential. He said that the textile was capital and labour intensive industry and with about 3.5 million employees it should receive preferential treatment.

Pakistan rebuffs India with Diamer-Bhasha Dam in PoK Read more at:

Islamabad gave two hoots to repeated Indian pleas to avoid construction activities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
This came to the fore when Pakistan PM Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday laid the foundation for the 4,500MW Diamer-Bhasha Dam in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of PoK.
India, which considers any construction in PoK as illegal, had earlier lodged protests with Pakistan as well as China and the US to stop funding any infrastructure project on a territory that is being held illegally by the neighbouring country.

World stocks, euro fall on German finmin comments

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. and European stocks fell on Monday and the euro slipped, after Germany dashed hopes that the euro zone debt crisis would be resolved at next Sunday's summit of European leaders.
A Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers in Paris this past weekend had raised expectations that European banks would be recapitalized and the region's bailout fund expanded to deal with a potential debt default by Greece.
But Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said on Monday that even though European governments would adopt a five-point platform to address the two-year-old crisis, a definitive solution would not be reached at the EU summit being held on Oct. 23.
World stocks, as measured by the MSCI's all-country world equity index, fell 1 percent. On Wall Street, the major stocks indexes slid about 2 percent. In Europe the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares closed down 1 percent at 966.04 points. The index had hit a 10-week high earlier in the session, before Schaeuble's comments turned sentiment.
Stocks recently had been on an upswing, with the MSCI having recovered from 15-month lows by more than 10 percent in the past nine days, on optimism that Europe was moving to take action to contain its debt crisis.
Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Standard Life Investments in Edinburgh, said the Germans on Monday were trying to downplay expectations, while a breather after such a strong rally in so few days was understandable.

Financial heart eludes preoccupied protestors

New Zealand anti-greed protesters have abandoned plans to occupy the country's major financial districts after failing to identify any suitable locations.

Auckland event organiser, Ken Rabble, said the hundreds who marched against corporate excesses in Sunday's demonstration had hoped to emulate the success of global protestors who have occupied several financial centres.


Mr Rabble said the Auckland marchers settled eventually on Aotea Square as a temporary rallying point.

"We really searched for the financial heart of the city but we couldn't find one," Mr Rabble said. "Aotea Square will do. Lots of room anyway and didn't there used to be a St Laurence sign on one of those buildings?"

A similar protest in Wellington fizzled out when dozens of frustrated marchers got lost trying to find the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX).

"I know it's down by the water somewhere," one protestor objected. "But all those buildings look the same. Do you reckon that's a stockbroker over there?"

Protests in the capital were expected to focus on the exit package of departing NZX chief, Mark Weldon.

Business community probing negative list for imports from India

KARACHI: In view of the frequent meetings between the ministers and commerce secretaries of the Indo-Pak to reach an agreement on Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status, the business community here has begun studies on its pros and cons for the country's trade and industry.

"Yes, we have sent the list to all our members and associations for consultation on MFN related issues," said an official concerned with Research and Development of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) here on Friday.

He said that the proposed list has been despatched a few days back to all members.

The proposed negative list for items being imported from India include: Textile and Clothing Items, Cotton Fabric, Knitwear (Hosiery), Cotton Yarn, Bedwear, Ready Made garments, Towels, Art Silk and Synthetic Textile Made ups, Knitted Crotched Fabrics.

While agro products include fish and fish preparations, fruits including mango, kinno, guava, pomegranate, banana, apple, pear, grapes, met preparations, spices, poultry items.

Occupy Providence to set up camp at city park

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Members of the Occupy Providence protest movement are preparing to set up camp in a downtown park to rally against the "powerful corporate interests" they say have increasingly come to control the U.S. economy and government.


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A march is planned for late Saturday afternoon, after which protesters are expected to set up camp at Burnside Park. This will mark the first large-scale direct action in Rhode Island of a nationwide movement inspired by the protests on Wall Street.

No more handouts: Govt withdraws subsidy on agriculture loans

ISLAMABAD:
The government on Thursday withdrew subsidy on agriculture loans and asked Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) to increase mark-up by six per cent in three years that would result in an immediate increase of one per cent.
The decision comes less than a week after the State Bank of Pakistan cut its policy rate by a massive 1.5 percentage points to appease industrialists. Policy rate is the benchmark at which the central bank lends money to banks.
Headed by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet allowed ZTBL to increase mark-up on loans extended to farmers. The bank was providing loans at 8 to 9 per cent mark-up.
“After this decision, genuine farmers will be able to take agriculture loans, as so far only influential people were getting subsidised loans,” said Dr Ishrat Hussain, former governor of State Bank. He said ZTBL has been structured in a manner that benefits only influential landlords.
Last year, banks disbursed Rs263 billion agriculture credit that was just four per cent of total loans provided in the country. The amount was also Rs7 billion less than the level set by the Agriculture Credit Advisory Committee. The government takes away two-third of the funds to finance the budget while most the remaining loans are obtained by the industrialists.
Sugar import move blocked
The ECC blocked a move to import 700,000 tons of sugar on the assumption that people have started consuming 20 per cent more sugar, prompting the authorities to constitute a committee to check the authenticity of the claim.
It constituted a three-member secretaries committee to review the sugar stock position. It authorised the committee that in case of need it can take a decision to import up to 100,000 tons. Imports will be for the next season as the country has sufficient stocks now.
On Thursday, sugar was traded at $669 per ton at the London Futures Exchange. The import of 700,000 tons would have cost the country $468 million, excluding freight and handling charges, at a time when foreign exchange reserves have come down to $17.2 billion and foreign inflows have stopped after the end of the IMF programme.

Slovakian parliament approves expanding euro bailout fund, clearing way for its use in crisis

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia - Slovakian lawmakers on Thursday approved expanding the size and powers of the EU bailout fund, overcoming an earlier rejection and removing the last hurdle to the fund's use as the continent's main weapon against the debt crisis.
Slovakia is the last of the 17 eurozone nations to approve boosting the bailout €440 billion ($600 billion) fund, called the European Financial Stability Facility. The fund will be able to lend quickly to governments before they are in a full-blown crisis and help them boost banks' health.
The country's parliament had rejected the changes to the bailout fund on Tuesday because a junior coalition partner, the Freedom and Solidarity party, was against it. In a desperate effort to force that party to vote in favour, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova had tied the vote on the bailout fund to a confidence vote in the government. When the vote failed, her 1-year-old government collapsed.
The main opposition party, Smer-Social Democracy, then agreed to help the outgoing coalition approve the expanded fund in a second vote in exchange for early elections.

Wall St. Protesters Can’t Return Gear to Park

Wall Street protesters won’t be allowed to return gear such as sleeping bags to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan after the privately owned space is closed for cleaning beginning tomorrow, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
“People will have to remove all their belongings and leave the park,” Kelly said today after a memorial ceremony in Battery Park. “After it’s cleaned, they’ll be able to come back. But they won’t be able to bring back the gear. The sleeping bags, that sort of thing, will not be able to be brought back into the park.”
The Occupy Wall Street protest that began in New York on Sept. 17 has spread to cities including Denver, Boston and San Francisco. More than 700 have been arrested in New York demonstrations, mostly on disorderly conduct charges, and about 140 were arrested this week in Boston. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he supports the protesters’ free-speech rights as long as they don’t violate the law.
Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a New York-based real estate developer that owns the park at the intersection of Broadway and Liberty Street near the World Trade Center site, agreed to create it as a public amenity open 24 hours a day year-round. It also established rules against camping, lying on benches, and using tarps and tents.
‘Defend the Occupation’
The demonstrators view the cleaning and the prohibition on gear in the park as an “attempt to shut down Occupy Wall Street for good,” Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the group, said in an e-mail statement. He called on people to come to the site at 6 a.m., an hour before cleaning is scheduled to begin, “to defend the occupation from eviction.”

FBR directed to avoid revenue figure fudging

Islamabad—Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs here on Wednesday appreciating the role of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to punish the officers involved in figure fudging of last year revenues, directed that the Board should take steps to avoid similar situation in future. Salman Siddique, Chairman FBR gave a presentation in detail before the Committee which met here with Senator Ahamd Ali in the chair, about the figure fudging in revenues and admitted that it was an error on the part of the Board but it was unintentional.

“It was an error of judgment on the part of some functionaires of the FBR/field formation which has since been rectified and clarified”, he said and added that suitable administrative action against those who were responsible for the error has been taken and further action was contemplated after establishing of vires of the act.

Wall Street protests draw overseas attention

The remarks came a day after U.S. officials said the Obama administration plans to leverage charges that Iran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador into a new global campaign to isolate the Islamic republic.

For the past 3 1/2 weeks, the economic protesters have besieged a park in lower Manhattan near Wall Street. A march on Tuesday, past the homes of wealthy residents, marked the first time the movement has singled out individuals as part of the 1 percent they say are getting rich at the expense of the rest of America.

More activities were planned Wednesday. In Ohio, the group Occupy Cincinnati was staging a march.

Protesters in New York planned to gather at the headquarters of JP Morgan Chase, where they'll continue to decry the expiration of the state's 2 percent "millionaires' tax" in December.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for a woman pepper sprayed during an action last month is demanding that the Manhattan district attorney prosecute an NYPD deputy inspector on an assault charge. Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the matter is being investigated by police internal affairs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

FOREX-Euro jumps as Slovak vote, economic worries ebb

NEW YORK, - The euro rose on Wednesday to near one-month highs against the dollar and yen on hopes that Slovakia eventually would approve an expansion of a program seen critical to combat the euro zone debt crisis.

China's yuan was firm against the dollar after the U.S. Senate passed a trade bill aimed at pressing Beijing to lift the value of its currency, raising the tension between the world's two biggest economies.

The tentative optimism over the euro persisted despite the Slovak parliament's rejection on Tuesday of a plan to strengthen the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Investors took the view that the remaining member of the 17-nation euro zone block would eventually gather a majority to endorse the 440-billion-euro scheme.

"No one really believes Slovakia is able to stop the ratification of the EFSF, and that's why euro/dollar is not lower," said Niels Christensen, currency strategist at Nordea in Copenhagen.

Pakistan’s three-mth fiscal deficit 1.1 pct of GDP

KARACHI: Pakistan’s fiscal deficit for the first three months of fiscal year 2011/12 was 1.1 per cent of gross domestic product, a Finance Ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday.

This compared with a deficit of 1.6 per cent of GDP in the same period last year.

The target for fiscal deficit is 4 per cent of GDP in the year ending June 30.

“The deficit could go to 4.4 per cent of GDP,” said the finance official.

The government’s fiscal deficit widened to 6.6 per cent of GDP for 2010/11, higher than the earlier estimates of 5.3 per cent which was the target agreed by the International Monetary Fund as well.

Massive energy subsidies are one of the reasons for the swelling deficit but Pakistan has so far shown little interest in cutting these as also demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Slovakia chief Gasparovic heads home to crisis

Slovakia’s president is cutting short a trip to Asia to return home to help solve a political crisis after parliament refused to endorse more powers for an EU bailout fund and the government collapsed.

The presidential office says Ivan Gasparovic, who is visiting Indonesia and the Philippines, is expected to come back on Thursday, not on Saturday as originally scheduled.

Mr Gasparovic will dismiss prime minister Iveta Radicova and her coalition government after they lost a confidence vote on Tuesday due to a rebellion against the EU fund from a coalition partner.

Mr Gasparovic could also name a new premier. Early elections are an option if approved by Parliament.

Slovakia’s leaders earlier pledged to rescue the key euro bailout bill, which was rejected by parliament, triggering the collapse of the government and threatening Europe-wide efforts to ease the debt crisis threatening the world’s economy

Don't underestimate Wall Street protest

Media are asking what the participants in Occupy Wall Street are protesting, who their leaders are and whether they intend to become the Tea Party of the left.

The 19th-century anarchist movement led to the eight-hour workday, the right to unionize and universal suffrage. The Bioneers Movement of today is bringing together thinking people concerned about threats to climate, environment and biodiversity, the future of Planet Earth and mankind.

Neither of these movements had or has a leader, hierarchy, membership list or manifesto. Similarly the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon represents a simultaneous convergence of people concerned about globalization, concentration of wealth and power, erosion of basic human rights and the economic and social marginalization of the majority. In part, they are responding to the emergence of Bandit Bankers to replace the Robber Barons of the 1900s.

BlackBerry users vent frustrations on third day of service disruption

BlackBerry users are suffering their third successive day of service disruption. Photograph: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
Disruption to BlackBerry services have entered a third day with fed-up users reporting further problems and criticising a lack of information from the company behind the device, Research in Motion (RIM).

RIM said on Tuesday night service problems that started on Monday were due to a "core switch failure" within its infrastructure and assured users it was working to clear a "large backlog" of data.

On Wednesday morning Twitter users were venting their frustrations about problems with the service and RIM's failure to explain it to users.

702JohnRobbie wrote: "BlackBerry down again. Very poor communications from them about what the problem is. £Fail."

Freeing Gilad Shalit

National Post · Oct. 12, 2011 | Last Updated: Oct. 12, 2011 12:00 AM ET

Anyone who has visited Jerusalem or other large Israeli cities in recent years might think Gilad Shalit was some kind of famous celebrity or politician. His photo is everywhere, and his name is known in every household.

But Staff-Sergeant Shalit's fame was earned in a terrible way: By being kidnapped and dragged into Gaza by Hamas terrorists in 2006. For the past five years, the Israeli soldier's whereabouts have been unknown. Despite ongoing negotiations aimed at winning his freedom, some thought he was already dead.

On Tuesday, Hamas and the Israeli government both announced that a deal had been reached for his release through Egyptian intermediaries. If the deal comes to fruition, every Israeli who campaigned tirelessly to win his freedom will have cause for joy and pride.

SECP mulling increasing capital limit

ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is planning to increase the limit of minimum paid-up capital of stock brokers to improve the standards of financial markets, but the move would force many small brokers either to merge or leave their seats in the three stocks exchanges of the country.

The suggested is part of the Capital Market Development Plan currently being formulated by the corporate sector regulator to devise the future roadmap for promotion of stock markets.

“Currently the stock markets are dominated by few hands in country and it is imperative to introduce competition in the capital markets,” chairman SECP, Muhammad Ali, said.

Talking to media persons in his office, here on Tuesday, Mr Ali said that there were 250 to 300 brokers in three capital markets, but majority of them had a very small size in business, there was a need for stronger players who could challenge the hegemony of top players.

“As the paid-up capital is increased either the brokers will have to increase liquidity and upgrade themselves or merge among themselves to meet the new requirements,” he added.

Trade gap widens in July-Sept

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan`s trade deficit ballooned by a robust 28.78 per cent in the first quarter this year over last year on the back of higher imports of crude and eatables mirroring global price hike.

The rebound in import bill in July-September period this year sending fears to policymakers that it may in turn pressure the current account deficit, suggested data of the Federal Bureau of Statistics released here on Monday.

In absolute term, the trade deficit in the first quarter went up to $5.114 billion during the quarter from $3.971 billion over the corresponding period last year.