Speaking at a hearing held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Clinton said the U.S. is pursuing all three tracks at once, as “they are mutually reinforcing.”

“The chances of success for all three are greatly increased by strong cooperation from the Afghan and Pakistani governments,” she said.

In terms of the fight, she noted that during the trip to Islamabad last week, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA director David Petraeus and she delivered a ” single, unified” message to Pakistan, in a bid to address concerns on militants who have safe havens inside the country.

“Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership must join us in squeezing the Haqqani Network from both sides of the border and in closing safe havens,” said Clinton.

She said the U.S. underscored to Pakistan’s leaders the urgency of the issue and had “detailed and frank” conversations about the concrete steps both sides need to take.

On the second track of talking, Clinton said in both Kabul and Islamabad, she reaffirmed America’s strong support for an inclusive Afghan-led peace process.

She reiterated the three conditions for insurgents to join the political process, namely to renounce violence, abandon al-Qaeda, and abide by the laws and constitution of Afghanistan.

With respect to the third track of building, Clinton said the U. S. is helping build capacity and opportunity in Afghanistan, Pakistan and across the region.

“This is part of a clear-eyed strategy rooted in a lesson we have learned over and over again around the world — lasting stability and security go hand in hand with greater economic opportunity,” she noted, asserting that it is critical to continue civilian assistance in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
During her trip to Pakistan, Clinton on last Friday described the Taliban-linked Haqqani network as a serious threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, urging Islamabad to take action against the “safe heavens” of all such groups on its soil.

 Afroz Alam Sahil, BeyondHeadlines

After abdication of the throne, the King and the Prince were passive. Now they are increasingly active in the political circles. They are giving interviews to the media and participating in socio-religious functions.

During this Dussehera, the former king along with his wife Komal Shah paid homage at different temples of Goddess Durga in Kathmandu and have been greeted favorably everywhere. On Vijaya Dashami the former king offered vermillion at Nirmal Niwas at Maharajgung to people who visited him for blessings.

Many people were extremely unhappy when the former king who was invited but not allowed to attend the Indrajit Festival on 11 September 2011. The government denied to provide any security to the former king and warned him to attend the festival at his own risk.

Wherever the former king goes the common people follow him and are seen shouting slogans like ‘Our Beloved King and Monarch should come back.’ Prince Parash was seen in recent times attending several events and offering worship at temples. He was there at an event of Khadki Society, offered worship at the Lakshmi Narayan Temple and was seen supervising the work of a Dharam Shala (Guest House).

The king also joined the devotees to offer worship at Mahadev Temple at Viratnagar and Lalitpur. He has been warmly greeted by people during all these public appearances. It is said that the prince is attracting the support of the youth. Many were injured when attempting to see the prince when he visited different places like Birganj and Parsa.

The King has been invited to become the chief guest to many functions including the Dasai Mahostav at Bagala Mukhi temple of Patan. There have been huge crowds in all these public appearances.

On the occasion of Dussehra this year the King has appealed for consolidating democracy. He said that democracy is “as important as making people feel that this is a system that improves their quality of life and gives them boundless opportunities.” People have shouted that ‘let the King come (to power), peace will follow’.

This is the third part of a series of articles on politics of monarchy and democracy in contemporary Nepal. The Journalist visited Nepal and interacted with people from a large spectrum of life.

Afroz Alam Sahil, BeyondHeadlines

Many in Nepal are talking of ‘old’ days under monarchs where things were at least not as bad.

Ram Babu Parshai, Convener of Nepali Congress (Nationalist) thinks that Nepal can only be saved by the King. He says “no one can govern Nepal. We all should try for constitutional monarchy.”

Anil Wasnet of Shiv Sena Nepal says that “we have seen all systems of governments but what was during the king is badly missing now. Politicians made false promises. Nepal was about to be made Switzerland of Asia but nothing happened. People have appealed to the king that he must rethink that people want him back. People want this to see as a Hindu Rashtra again.”

Altaf Ansari, President of Nepal Muslim Nagrik Samaj (NMNS) feels that Nepalese Muslims like the King. He goes on to say that “the Hindu Rashtra was better secure (for Muslims) than what is now. King had built two mosques near to his palaces. Today the situation is very bad and everywhere there is loot. Everyone wants the king to take over.”

Navaraj Gurung, a former member of Nepalese Youth Organization says that preparation have been started that the king will come to power one day. He seemed to suggest this is going to happen sooner than later. He gives an Indian example to drive home his point “the way Indian youth wants Rahul Gandhi, the youth prince is also wanted in Kathmandu.”

Bala Bhadra Bharti, a professor, says that “the Nepalese wanted the king to withdraw and the king responded. He left everything for the people. He didn’t leave the country. People wanted change but wanted economic development also and especially wanted not to migrate to India, China and Southeast Asia to get a job. This did not happen.”

Ashok Shresth, a leading film director says that “there is a guardian in the family who disciplines the children. The king is required to be back and take charge. The person who left home in the morning if comes back in the evening cannot be termed as someone who left home entirely.” He is concerned on the large scale conversion in the tribal areas. He says “the most concerned fact is that sale-buy of the religion in the post-king era. It is now American (Christian) organizations are proselytizing the innocent people in the hills.”

Mr. Shresth believes that his anguish over the political situation is not isolated rather it reflects the opinion of a large community in Nepal. To quote him directly, “along with the businessman, the common people also want the King to be back in power. Without the King Nepal will turn into a haven of terrorists. Anyway civil war like situation has gripped Nepal since last three years.

The people who sell potato and onion are better than our politicians. Our politicians have fought amongst themselves to destroy this country.” The call ‘Bring the King save the country’ is increasingly getting louder.

This is the second part of a series of articles on politics of monarchy and democracy in contemporary Nepal. The author visited Nepal and interacted with people from a large spectrum of life.

Afghan and NATO forces have ended their assault on Taliban fighters, 20 hours after the group launched co-ordinated attacks in Kabul, targeting NATO’s headquarters, the US embassy and the Afghan intelligence agency.

At least three policemen, four civilians and six Taliban fighters were killed and many others injured in the attack and the ensuring security operation, Afghan  police and hospital sources said Wednesday.

Fighters were holed up in a high-rise building near Kabul’s diplomatic district throughout the night, as NATO helicopters circled overhead trying to flush them out. The attackers were using the building as a base from which to fire rockets at the US embassy and NATO headquarters.

By Wednesday morning, all the fighters had been killed, the sources said.

A 20-hour standoff with NATO and Afghan forces ended with six Taliban fighters killed on Wednesday (Courtesy: Al Jazeera/AFP)

“The last attackers are dead and the fighting all over. There were six terrorists in the building and all are dead,” Siddiq Siddiqi, an interior ministry spokesman, told AFP news agency.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, condemned the attacks and said it could not not hamper the security transition from NATO to Afghan forces.

“The attacks cannot stop the process [transition] from taking place and cannot affect, but rather embolden our people’s determination in taking the responsibility for their country’s own affairs,” he said in a statement.

Multiple explosions

Only an hour after an attack near the US embassy on Tuesday, heavy explosions were heard in other parts of the city.

Just a few miles away in the west of Kabul, a suicide bomber detonated himself near a police building,  killing one policeman.

A second suicide bomber wounded two people when he detonated himself near Habibia high school also in the west of the city.

“The primary targets of the attackers are the intelligence agency building and a ministry,” Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban, told Reuters on Tuesday from an undisclosed location.

The US embassy in Kabul said no personnel had been reported injured.

ISAF’s headquarters in Kabul was also one of the targets, a Western military source told the AFP new agency.

Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul’s Crime Investigation Unit, said: “There has been an explosion and gunfire, there are several armed attackers in Abdul Haq Square. There could be suicide bombers but it is unclear at the moment.”

Police and other security officials blocked roads around the US embassy and other diplomatic missions.

‘Security transition’

The White House said President Barack Obama was briefed on the attacks targeting the US embassy and NATO headquarters.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, called it a “cowardly attack” that would not deter US efforts.

“We will take all necessary steps, not only to ensure the safety of our people, but to secure the area and to ensure that those who perpetrated this attack are dealt with,” she said.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary-general, said he was confident Afghan forces could deal with the Taliban assault.

He said that efforts by Taliban fighters to derail NATO’s handover of security responsibility to Afghan forces by 2014 would not work.

“We are witnessing that the Taliban try to test transition but they can’t stop it. Transition is on track and it will continue,” Rasmussen said.

The attack in Kabul follows a huge truck bomb attack on a NATO base in central Afghanistan in which four Afghan civilians were killed and 77 US troops wounded, on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Last month, Taliban attackers laid siege to the British Council, killing at least nine people during an

hours-long assault on the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan’s independence from British rule.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

“The incident happened in Char Rahi Abdul Haq area closed to U. S. embassy and NATO-led ISAF headquarters,” police told Xinhua.

Courtesy: NDTV

Police cordoned off the area and gun battle continued, Xinhua reporter on the spot witnessed.

The first explosion broke out at around 13:20 local time (0850 GMT), and gun battle followed.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for Taliban, told media via telephone from unknown location that a group of Taliban fighters equipped with arms and suicide vests targeted U.S. embassy and other foreign agencies offices around.

The attackers have occupied a tall building and apparently targeted U.S. embassy and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters.

Islamabad: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of Pakistan declared that major cities of the country will be inundated unless a drainage system is built to replace the existing one. A survey conducted by the NDMA revealed that the drainage systems of Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar among other cities fail to properly draw off water.

NDMA Chairman Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir said that 209 people have lost their lives and approximately 5 million have been affected. Crops over millions of acres have been completely destroyed in this year’s flash floods.

Flooding has killed about 200 people, destroyed or damaged nearly 1 million houses and flooded 4.2 million acres of land since late August, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). A total number 321 villages in Naushero Feroze, Nawabshah and Sanghar are inundated, leaving millions homeless. Nawabshah has suffered huge losses because of flash floods. More than 60 villages have been affected in in the area. In Shahdadpur, at least, 2,000 villages have been flooded displacing over 0.2 million people.

Pakistan may also have lost up to 2 million cotton bales or about 13% of its estimated crop as a result of heavy monsoon rains during harvesting season in major producing regions like Sindh, the government and industry officials said. The farmers of Sindh, who have suffered a colossal loss estimated to be over 1.6 million acres, have given the government a deadline of October 10 to repair the shattered irrigation system for their rabi (winter) sowing. The growers fear that after their kharif (summer) crops were destroyed in the rain, they will also be unable to cultivate their rabi crops, which would lead to a great food deficit.

“The government should help the affected farmers to cultivate 4 million acres of wheat crop, 1 million acre of sunflower and different varieties of pulses on 300,000 acres of land,” they demanded in a meeting of the Sindh Abadgar Board. They came forward with detailed recommendations to rebuild the irrigation system and a list of demands.

Last year, the cotton output fell to 11.70 million bales as against a target of 14 million bales because of the devastating 2010 floods. The losses in the cotton crop were among the reasons behind 2.4% decline in Pakistan’s economic growth that year from the original target of 4.5%.

Pakistan’s cash-strapped government, which is still struggling to help victims of last year’s epic floods, could face another major test as monsoon rains sweep across Sindh Province and another flood is in the making.

The Sindh Government is about to release a compensation amount of around Rs 30 billion in the form of Watan Cards. The registration for the cards has already begun, said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah.

China was the first country to announce assistance for flood affected people in the country. The Chinese Government to dispatch relief goods worth 30 million RMB ($4.7million) for the flood victims. Iran will donate $100 million for the rehabilitation of the rain affected people of Sindh.

Bhattarai defeated Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel by garnering 340 votes from 575 present Constituent Assembly (CA) members.

Sunday’s voting took place after the political parties failed to form a consensus government within the 10-day deadline issued by President Ram Baran Yadav after Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal resigned on Aug. 14.

Courtesy: Xinhua/AF File Photo

The UCPN-M, the largest party in the 594-member Constituent Assembly with 236 lawmakers, was upbeat about Bhattarai’s chance of winning the election.

Nepali Congress is the second largest party with 114 CA seats

To win the election, a candidate needs to garner 298 votes from the 594 sitting lawmakers.

Foreign Desk Beyondheadlines

No clues could be gathered of the where about of Shahbaz Taseer following his kidnapping in Lahore on last Friday. Eight teams are raiding different parts of the city while the fingerprint from the scene of kidnapping were sent for verification to National Data base Registration Authority (NADRA). Shaheryar Taseer , his brother suspect extremist behind the kidnapping. No threats or call for ransom have been received by the family so far .No one has claimed responsibility.

One of the guards posted with Shahbaz Taseer was taken into custody and had his weapon seized when police questioned him and he revealed another guard was on leave. He had not left the house with Taseer but had later been told to go to the office. Pakistan People’s Party Punjab unit President has called for protest on Monday against Punjab Government in maintaining a poor law and order situation and the recovery of the son of the late politician.

Unidentified men kidnapped the son of slain Pakistani politician and Governor Punjab Salman Taseer .Shahbaz Taseer, the eldest son of former governor Salmaan Taseer, is a director in several companies his father founded, including Pace Pakistan Ltd., First Capital Equities Ltd., Media Times Ltd. and First Capital Securities Corp. Ltd.He was on his way to work and a lane away from his First Capital Security office when his Mercedes was intercepted in Gulberg area. Unmasked men in full public glare huddled him in a jeep and sped off throwing his mobile, i pad, laptop and a weapon out of the vehicle.His family was informed by a company employee passerby who saw his abandoned car .

Government had provided security to Taseer family, including Shahbaz but on that day he was traveling without one. As soon as news broke of the incident, the federal government and the Punjab administration got into action with Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif asking all security organizations to pool in efforts to trace Mr. Taseer without any delay. This is the second high-profile kidnapping in Lahore this month. On August 13, an American development consultant, Warren Weinstein, had been kidnapped from his well-guarded residence at crack of dawn.

The family has been facing threats following the assisination of the Governor by his own bodyguard in January this year for speaking up for Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman facing blasphemy charges. The assisination went without condemnation indicating the rising grip of intolerance and extremism in Pakistani society.Last week, the cleric who led the funeral prayers for Salmaan Taseer was forced to flee the country following threats.According to a report by the Press Trust of India, Muhammad Afzal Chishti, the secretary general of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Ulema wing, had left the country after having received numerous threats against his life. Chishti’s son Moin Chishti had filed an application with the Punjab Police chief, requesting him to provide security to the cleric’s family living in Lahore.

According to the TV, the blast took place at about 02:00 p.m. local time Friday when a teenager suicide bomber aged about 16 blew himself up in a mosque at the Ghondi area of Jamrud, a district in Pakistan’s northwest tribal area of Khyber Agency which borders Afghanistan.

Courtesy: Xinhua

Hundreds of people were offering Friday prayers inside the mosque when the attack took place, said local media reports.

Some reports said that over 100 people were inside the mosque hit by the blast while others put the number at 400 to 700.

Local TV footage showed that the mosque partially collapsed following the huge blast and many people were feared buried under the debris of the collapsed building.

An estimated 40 people injured in the blast were rushed to nearby hospitals while some 50 critically injured people have been shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital and other hospitals in Peshawar, a city which is about 50 kilometers away from the blast site.

As the mosque hit by the blast is located in a mountainous area and some of the injured people being shifted to Peshawar could die on the way.

Shortly after the blast was reported, both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani issued statements strongly condemning the attack.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Friday’s suicide blast is one of the most serious terrorist attacks in Pakistan since the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by the U.S. special forces in the country’s northwest city of Abbottabad on May 2.

The incident happened Friday night in Wardak province, according to a statement released by the president office.

(Courtesy: Xinhua/AP)

The Afghan president expressed his deep condolence and sympathy to U.S. President Barack Obama and the families of the victims over the tragic incident, said the statement.

However, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has yet to make comment.

Officials with ISAF press department avoided making comments by saying “We heard it from media but cannot confirm it.”

Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Wardak provincial administration, Shahidullah Shahid, told Xinhua that a NATO helicopter crashed in Syed Abad district during a military operation Friday night.

On the other hand, Taliban outfit, according to local media, claimed responsibility, saying a helicopter was shot down by militants, leaving several people aboard dead.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group announced spring offensive from May 1 against Afghan and NATO-led troops stationed in Afghanistan.