Marvi rejected PTI's Media secretary post

 

Appointment of Ms. Marvi Memon as the Central Information Secretary Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

I am pleased to appoint Ms. Marvi Memon as the Central Information Secretary of PTI wuth immediate effect.
Ms. Memon would report directly to the Chairman. She would be overall incharge of all information and media management operations of the party including the Central Media Cell based in Islamabad. All provincial Information secretaries as well as spokespersons would perform in coordination with the Central Information Secretary.
In addition to her responsibilities as the Central Information Secretary, Ms. Memon would also be the Member of the Parliamentary Board to be set up to select the PTI candidates for the Nation and Provincial Assemblies.
In order to streamline the media and information related operations, Ms. Memon would be fully authorized to restructure the entire media and information related PTI management and operations structure at the Central and Provincial levels. She would also manage all national and international youth, think tank, policy related wings to contribute to the information analysis gathering, producing, disseminating and projecting effort for PTI including quick response teams.
All media related expenses would be incurred from a separate bank account to be established to manage the  information and media management operations. The media bank account would be operated jointly by the Finance Secretary and the Central Information Secretary.

Imran Khan

Chairman

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

25-11-11

On other hand PTI officials remarks on facebook as follows.

"After that all Drama by Marvi Memon on Sana Bucha Show , atlast we have seen that letter. Letter has cuttings on it, its not on letter head of PTI, so it looks very much a draft letter and not the finalized version.
There were some negotiations with Marvi Memon and some draft letter might also be issued but then Khawja Saad Rafiq approached Marvi and things did not went well between Marvi and PTI and no final letter was issued to her.Now she is using that draft version for her stunts and luckily she has services of Sana Nawaz Bucha Sharif. "

 

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Al-Qaida Leader Voices Support for Syrian Uprising

Photo: AFP/IntelCenter

This still image from video obtained courtesy of a group called "IntelCenter," showing Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri appearing in a new video released, October 11, 2011.

Al-Qaida's leader has voiced support for the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and called on Muslims from neighboring countries to come to the aid of Syrian anti-government rebels.

In a video posted Sunday on an Islamist website, Ayman al-Zawahri urged Muslims in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to join the uprising against Assad's "pernicious, cancerous regime." He also called on Syrians not to rely on the West or Arab governments.

Senior Iraqi officials say intelligence over the last four months has revealed a flow of al-Qaida-linked fighters, as well as weapons for Assad's opponents, from northern Iraq into Syria.

Zawahri's comments came a day after two suicide car bombers struck security compounds in Aleppo, a Syrian city that had been relatively peaceful throughout the uprising. While no group has claimed responsibility, suicide bombings are a hallmark of al-Qaida. 

Also Saturday, a Syrian general and military physician was assassinated outside his Damascus home. Brig. General Issa Kholi is believed to have been one of the highest-ranking military officers killed in the 11-month-old conflict.

Assassinations have been a frequent component of the Syrian conflict, with each side accusing the other of targeting individuals. A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army denied the insurgent force was involved in the general's killing.

Syria's turmoil began with peaceful protests against Assad's rule, but the revolt has grown increasingly militarized as army defectors and protesters have taken up arms against the government.

Zawahiri took command of al-Qaida after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in a raid in Pakistan in May.

Last week, he appeared in another video to announce that the Somali-based militant group al-Shabab had joined the radical, Islamist terror network.

Al-Shabab had previously said it is aligned with al-Qaida, and in June pledged allegiance to Zawahri. The United States has designated al-Shabab a terrorist group.

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Difa-e-Pakistan conference begins in Karachi

Karachi: The arrangements for Difa-e-Pakistan Council’s (DPC) ‘Defence of Pakistan’ conference in Karachi have been finalized as the leaders and supporter are reaching at Mazar-e-Quaid.

Jamat-e-Islami (JI) is hosting the event while volunteers of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) along with heavy contingents of police are performing security duties.

Dozens of billboards, posters and banners have been put up by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamat (ASWJ), JI and different other parties in the city.

Difa-e-Pakistan Council is a coalition of over 42 religious and political parties that has been vocally demanding the government keep Nato supply routes closed and withdraw its decision to grant India the status of most-favoured nation.

On Saturday, the DPC leaders vowed to stage a sit-in protest outside the Parliament House on February 20 against any plan for the restoration of Nato supplies. Besides, an all parties’ conference will be held on the Balochistan issue on February 23.

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Deficits pose big challenge, warns SBP

The State Bank of Pakistan. — File Photo

KARACHI: The State Bank kept the policy interest rate unchanged at 12 per cent on Saturday, saying the real challenge lay in financing the fiscal and external current account deficits.
The Governor of SBP, Yaseen Anwar, explained the difficulties being faced by economy as well as problems in monetary management during a media briefing where he announced the monetary policy for the February-March period.
The SBP expects the average inflation in 2011-12 (FY12) to range between 11 and 12 per cent, implying an uptick during the second half of the current fiscal.
The central bank chief said inflationary pressures had not eased significantly. There were indications of underlying inflationary pressures. For instance, the number of CPI items showing year-on-year inflation of more than 10 per cent was significant and mostly belonged to the non-food category, he added.
The SBP said it had been providing substantial liquidity on an almost permanent basis, but it carried risks for effectively anchoring inflation expectations in the medium term.
From July 1 to Feb 9, Rs230 billion had been supplied by State Bank.
The government has so far borrowed Rs444 billion from the banking system, including Rs197 billion from State Bank, an amount considerably higher than the yearly financing requirements of Rs293 billion envisaged in the FY12 budget, said Yaseen Anwar.
The provisional estimate of fiscal deficit for the first half of FY12 (July-Dec 2011), from the financing side, shows a deficit of Rs532 billion, or 2.5 per cent of GDP.
Over the past 10 years, the deficit has always been higher in the second half of a fiscal year by at least 0.5 per cent of GDP.
“Containing the FY12 fiscal deficit close to the government’s revised target of 4.7 per cent of GDP would be difficult,” the State Bank governor said.
BIG CHALLENGE: The SBP said the real challenge was to finance the projected external current account deficit.
“Incorporating a steady flow of workers’ remittances, the external current account deficit is expected to remain in the range of $3.5 billion to $5.5 billion, or 1.5 to 2.4 per cent of GDP,” said Yaseen Anwar.
The risks to external payments position have also increased due to worsening terms of trade, fragile global economic conditions, and continued paucity of financial inflows. In addition, $1.1 billion is to be repaid to the IMF during the second half of 2011-12.
The SBP’s foreign exchange reserves have already declined to $12.2 billion from $14.8 billion since July 1. Similarly, the rupee-dollar exchange rate has depreciated by 5.2 per cent in FY12 so far, he added.The possibility of limiting the deficit to the lower side of the range is mainly contingent upon the realisation of Coalition Support Fund, $800 million, and the proceeds from the auction of 3G licences, estimated to be around $850 million, he added.
The actual net capital and financial inflows during the first half of FY12 was only $167 million due to decline in both the direct and portfolio investments and shortfalls in official flows.
“Assuming that all the official flows contemplated by the government are realised – $500 million from the issuance of euro bonds, $800 million from the privatisation proceeds of PTCL, and budgeted loans from international financial institutions – the net capital and financial inflows could increase to $3.8 billion by June 2012,” said Mr. Anwar.
The SBP said the credit growth to private sector would remain weak. “All of the fresh credit disbursement in first half FY12 was utilised to meet the working capital requirements, which implies that a significant part of this credit will be retired in second half of the year,” said the Governor.
The full year expansion in credit to the private sector is expected to remain weak for yet another year in FY12 despite interest rate reductions.
“Though, tax collections in first half of the current fiscal grew by 27.1 per cent the full year target of Rs1952 billion still seems ambitious,” he said.

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CPAC Straw Poll Results 2012: Mitt Romney Wins Conservative Vote

WASHINGTON -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll on Saturday, a major symbolic victory as he tries to convince Republicans that he is sufficiently conservative to win the GOP nomination.Romney won 38 percent of the CPAC straw poll votes, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum coming in second at 31 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) picked up 15 percent of the votes and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who won the straw polls in 2010 and 2011, received only 12 percent of the vote.
The result came despite what has been a weaker conservative response to Romney than Santorum, who has little to prove as a conservative and Catholic who has strong evangelical support. Romney needed to fight against accusations that he is a "Massachusetts moderate" -- hardly a winning concept among staunch conservatives here -- and weak on pro-life issues.
Romney said in his speech Friday at CPAC that he is "severely conservative," and seemed to have a larger campaign presence at the conference than other groups, with dozens of volunteers lining the halls outside the main ballroom to talk about Romney after every event.
Romney also won in a national telephone poll of self-identified conservatives, also announced at CPAC on Saturday afternoon. In those results, Santorum came only two points behind Romney, at 25 percent to 27 percent.
The CPAC result could bolster the organizers' attempts to make the annual straw poll more relevant to the race after two consecutive wins by Paul. The CPAC straw poll used to be considered an indication of the preferences of strong conservative voters, but in the past two years seemed more indicative of the zeal of Paul supporters, who voted disproportionately among conservative attendees.
This time around, organizers implemented a new system in which CPAC attendees could vote either in person or online via computer or mobile device, hoping that making participation easier would make for a more accurate depiction of the crowd. "We have moved into the twenty-first century," Tony Fabrizio, who ran the straw poll, said before the announcement.
A roughly equal number of individual registrants and student attendees -- about 45 percent each -- participated in the straw poll, Fabrizio said. But votes were down from last year, from 3,742 to 3,408.
Al Cardenas, president of the American Conservative Union, told The Huffington Post's Jon Ward on Thursday that he wasn't "worried" that Paul would win the CPAC straw poll.
"Curious is more like it," Cardenas said. "In the past, to his credit, about 80, 90, 100 percent of people who were there and liked Ron Paul voted, and probably a very small percentage of those who liked others bothered to vote."
Paul had another disadvantage in the straw poll this year: he and his campaign skipped CPAC, unlike the other three candidates. Santorum received a particularly positive reception during his speech on Friday, in which he talked about his conservative and religious values.
The online voting for the CPAC poll was secure and there was no evidence of attempts to hack the system, Fabrizio assured reporters before the results came out on Saturday.
"Theoretically, you could sit there, if you were genius enough, and spend as many hours as you could to try to hack and figure out what the pin sequence is, but that would be a very difficult thing to do," Fabrizio said of the system, which requires a pin number for CPAC attendees to vote online. "Given the voting patterns that we have seen and the number of people participating, there is no indication that any of that is happening."
The straw poll also found that about a third of CPAC attendees believe Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) should be the vice presidential nominee; he was also chosen by 15 percent of participants in the national telephone poll. The national poll results on the vice president were less definitive, leading Fabrizio to joke to CPAC attendees, "You all have opinions. They need your help."
The straw poll could be more important than usual this year, provided the vote is not considered swayed by Paul devotees, because the race has been so divided. Different candidates won the first three contests -- Santorum in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire and Gingrich in South Carolina -- and Santorum somewhat unexpectedly won all three races last week.
The Maine caucus results, which will be announced later Saturday, could give more of a boost to Romney, who is expected to do well there.

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‘Even Milan said we were the better side’

Arsène Wenger has called on his side to deliver a repeat performance of their historic 2-0 win at AC Milan when they face the Italian giants on Wednesday.

Late goals from Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor secured victory for Arsenal in 2008 as they became the first English club to beat the Rossoneri at the San Siro.

Wenger remains fiercely proud of that performance and says his current crop also have the quality to secure another famous away European result.

 “I felt it was such a great night because we stayed faithful to our game and played without complexity,” he said.

“I remember that even Milan said the better team won. So let's keep that in our memory and repeat the same performance.

“We have had quite a few good performances away in the Champions League over the years, and we are very proud of them. We won in Madrid in 2006, 5-1 at Inter Milan in 2003, and the 2-0 win against AC Milan in 2008.

“When you look back and remember, you realise that we have won at almost every big stadium in Europe. Yes, we have not won in Barcelona, where we have played a draw, but overall I think we have won everywhere.”

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