Shaukat Aziz not to contest elections

Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Saturday that he would not contest next elections due on January 8.
“I will stay in politics as an ordinary member of the PML and serve the country,” Aziz told reporters. He said though he had received offers to contest from party leaders of eight constituencies, he opted to stay out of the fray.

Us says it has right to kidnap British citizens

The United States has told Britain that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America – and this can be done without using formal extradition procedures.

A senior lawyer for the US Government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under the US law as the country’s Supreme Court has sanctioned it, The Sunday Times reported.

“It’s acceptable under the American law to kidnap people if they’re wanted for offences in America. The US does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared….If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse – it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860’s” Alun Jones told the UK court.

The statement came when one of the Court of Appeal judges asked Jones, representing the US government about its treatment of the nephew of Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club.

Gavin Tollman became the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005. The Tollmans are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion.

In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded the Canadian officials to detain him. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

Hand-picked SC clears Mush election

A supreme court hand-picked by General Pervez Musharraf swiftly dismissed legal challenges to his continued rule on Monday, paving the way for him to serve another five-year term – this time solely as a civilian president. Welcoming the ruling, a Musharraf aide said it kept the General on track to quit the army by the end of November.

Labour sweeps general election in Australia

Promising a major policy change on Iraq and climate issues, the Labour party today swept to power in Australia, beating the coalition led by conservative Prime Minister John Howard, which had ruled the country for 11 years.

“A few minutes ago I telephoned Rudd and congratulated him and the Australian Labour Party on a very emphatic victory,” Howard said in a nationally televised concession speech.

:”I accept full responsibility for the Liberal party campaign, and I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition’s defeat in this election campaign the leader said.

Voters turned to Labour party leader Kevin Rudd’s pitch of fresh leadership and new ideas over Howard’s record of economic management and unprecedented years of growth under his government.

The historic victory has put Rudd into the company of Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke as Labour’s only modern leaders to take government from opposition.

Exit polls has consistently put the Labour party ahead since Rudd took the reins from Kim Beazley last December.

US plan to restructure aid to Pak

The Bush administration is in the final stages of a plan to restructure assistance to Pakistan in the face of intense pressure from several quarters to cut aid to the country following imposition of emergency, officials said here.
The plan is also looking at ways in which the assistance to Pakistan is further controlled or made subject to additional oversight, without actually reducing the aid, media reports said. Ever since Musharraf clamped emergency, the administration has been saying that its aid package is under tight scrutiny but at the same time senor officials have been emphasizing on the importance of Islamabad and Musharraf in the US-led war on terror.

N-deal: China is supportive, Wen Jiabao tells Manmohan Singh

As AEC chairman Anil Kakodhar opened talks with IAEA chief Mohammed ElBradel in Vienna for an India-specific safeguards agreement to operationalise the nuclear deal, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his country was “forthcoming and supportive” of international civil nuclear energy cooperation with India.

Imran Khan On Hunger Strike

Imran Khan began a hunger strike on Monday in the prison, where he was sent last week for protesting against emergency rule, said his spokesman. He said Khan, who now heads his own opposition party, wanted a restoration of the Constitution and reinstatement of judges sacked when President Pervez Musharraf imposed the emergency just over two years ago.