According to Sindh Jewellers Association, one tola gold price decreased by Rs 100 to close at Rs 55,400, while 10-gram gold price reduced by Rs 86 to reach Rs 47,485. 
 

The market staretd the day with bullish trend, the shares of cement sector goes up due to possible relief for the sector during the next budget. Trading was also witness in the fertilizers sector.

The Karachi Stock Exchange-100 index closed at 14,142 with an increase of 266 points.

Trade volume remained at 200 million shares. 
 

Google Tuesday finalized its $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility, a key manufacturer of smart-phones and other devices which puts the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple.

"The acquisition will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing," the California-based Internet giant said in a statement.

"I m happy to announce the deal has closed. Motorola is a great American tech company, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation," Google chief executive Larry Page said.

"It s a great time to be in the mobile business, and I m confident that the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come."

The completion follows approval by Chinese, US and European regulators, amid concerns that Google would keep Android, a free operating system, out of the hands of competitors in the mobile device market.

Conditions from China s Ministry of Commerce included Google keeping its Android software for gadgets such as smartphones and tablet computers free and open for at least five years.

Regulators in the US and elsewhere have stressed that they will be watching to make sure that the Mountain View, California-based company does not use its acquisition of Motorola Mobility to obtain unfair advantage in the market.

Google will acquire 17,000 patents with the purchase of Motorola Mobility and has been strengthening its patent portfolio as the fight for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet market increasingly involves lawsuits claiming infringement of patented technology.

Apple and South Korea s Samsung, whose devices are powered by Google s Android software, are currently involved in lengthy and costly patent fights being waged on several continents.

In announcing the Motorola Mobility acquisition in August, Page said it will "enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."

On Tuesday, Page said the deal offered exciting possibilities for Google, which until now has been focused mainly on software.

"The phones in our pockets have become supercomputers that are changing the way we live," Page said.

"It s now possible to do things we used to think were magic, or only possible on Star Trek–like get directions right from where we are standing; watch a video on YouTube; or take a picture and share the moment instantly with friends.

Motorola Mobility was created in 2011 when US-based Motorola Inc. split the company into a mobile devices unit and a government and public safety division known as Motorola Solutions.

Google said it will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business unit, which will be a licensee of Android, the Google operating system for mobile devices.

"Android will remain open," the company said.

Heading the unit will be "long-time Googler" Dennis Woodside, who will take over from Sanjay Jha, who led the company through this acquisition.

Woodside, who has overseen integration planning for the acquisition, previously served as president of Google s Americas region.

"Motorola literally invented the entire mobile industry with the first-ever commercial cell phone in 1983," Woodside said.

"Thirty years later, mobile devices are at the center of the computing revolution. Our aim is simple: to focus Motorola Mobility s remarkable talent on fewer, bigger bets, and create wonderful devices that are used by people around the world."
 

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Tuesday revealed the itinerary for England s winter tour to India that will include four Tests, five one-day internationals and two Twenty20s.

England will leave on October 25 for a three-day training camp in Dubai before heading to India four days later, with the first Test beginning on November 15 in Ahmedabad.

Following further five-day matches in Mumbai, Kolkata and Nagpur, England will then play two T20s in Pune and Mumbai on December 20 i 22 respectively before travelling home for Christmas and returning for the ODIs in the new year.
The first 50-over game begins on January 11 in Rajkot, with all five clashes set to be day-night encounters.

"This will be England s first full tour of India since 2008 and I am sure that cricket fans in both countries will be eagerly anticipating an exciting series of contests in all three formats of the game," the Managing director of England Cricket Hugh Morris said.

"ECB will also be seeking to finalise an England Performance Programme camp in India before Christmas which will help prepare members of both our Test and T20 squads."

England went top of the Test world rankings as Andrew Strauss led the team to a 4-0 whitewash over the World Cup winners last year. But England have struggled in subsequent tours in the sub-continent, losing 3-0 to Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates before drawing the two-Test series in Sri Lanka.

The veteran diplomat, who was appointed to Kabul 10 months ago for a two-year term, previously served as the US envoy to Iraq, Pakistan and Syria.

"Amb Crocker has confirmed with regret that he will be leaving Kabul this summer," the embassy said on its Twitter feed.

No reason was given for Crocker s departure and an embassy official told AFP: "We have nothing further on that at this time."

CBS news, which earlier reported on Crocker s plans, quoted a senior State Department official as saying only that Kabul is "a tough place to serve".

Now aged 62, Crocker was appointed out of retirement in July 2011.

His early departure coincides with that of US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, and reports that US General John Allen is about to become the fourth NATO commander in Afghanistan to leave early, tipped for a job in Europe.

The United States has nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan — out of a NATO total of 130,000 — fighting an insurgency by hardline Taliban Islamists against the government of President Hamid Karzai.

During his term, Crocker oversaw thorny negotiations leading to the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan, designed to govern relations between the two countries after NATO troops pull out in 2014. But ties have been rocked by a series of incidents in recent months, including a video showing US troops urinating on Taliban corpses, riots provoked by the burning of the Koran at a US military base and a massacre of 17 civilians blamed on an American soldier.

Details of the number of US troops who may remain in the country after 2014, and their status, are yet to be worked out in a separate security pact.

Crocker, along with Allen, was summoned to Karzai s palace earlier this month after a number of civilians were killed in ISAF air strikes.

Karzai said then that the civilian deaths threatened the strategic pact. But both Crocker and Karzai were in Chicago for the NATO summit, where US President Barack Obama and his allies ratified an "irreversible" roadmap to "gradually and responsibly" withdraw their combat troops by the end of 2014.
 

White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan s staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

In describing Brennan s arrangement to The Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military s previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond. They spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. officials are not allowed to publicly describe the classified targeting program.

One senior administration official argues that Brennan s move adds another layer of review that augments rather than detracts from the Pentagon s paper. The official says that in fact there will be more people at the table making the decisions, including representatives from every agency involved in counterterrorism, before they are reviewed by senior officials and ultimately the president.

The CIA s process remains unchanged, but never included the large number of interagency players the Pentagon brought to the table for its debates.

And the move gives Brennan greater input earlier in the process, before senior officials make the final recommendation to President Barack Obama. Officials outside the White House expressed concern that drawing more of the decision-making process to Brennan s office could turn it into a pseudo military headquarters, entrusting the fate of al-Qaida targets to a small number of senior officials.

Previously, targets were first discussed in meetings run by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen at the time, with Brennan being just one of the voices in the debate.

The new Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has been more focused on shrinking the U.S. military as the Afghan war winds down and less on the covert wars overseas.

With Dempsey less involved, Brennan believed there was an even greater need to draw together different agencies  viewpoints, showing the American public that al-Qaida targets are chosen only after painstaking and exhaustive debate, the senior administration official said.

But some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of "how easy it has become to kill someone," one said. The U.S. is targeting al-Qaida operatives for reasons such as being heard in an intercepted conversation plotting to attack a U.S. ambassador overseas, the official said. Stateside, that conversation could trigger an investigation by the Secret Service or FBI.

Defense Department spokesman George Little said the department was "entirely comfortable with the process by which American counterterrorism operations are managed."

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

Drone strikes are highly controversial in Pakistan, too. Obama met briefly on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Chicago on Monday with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan has closed key transit routes used by NATO to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.

An example of a recent Pentagon-led drone strike was the fatal attack in January on al-Qaida commander Bilal al-Berjawi in Somalia. U.S. intelligence and military forces had been watching him for days. When his car reached the outskirts of Mogadishu, the drones fired a volley of missiles, obliterating his vehicle and killing him instantly. The drones belonged to the elite U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. The British-Lebanese citizen al-Berjawi ended up on the JSOC list after a studied debate run by the Pentagon.

The Defense Department s list of potential drone or raid targets is about two dozen names long, the officials said. The previous process for vetting them, now mostly defunct, was established by Mullen early in the Obama administration, with a major revamp in the spring of 2011, two officials said.

Drone attacks were split between JSOC and the CIA, which keeps a separate list of targets, though it overlaps with the Pentagon list. By law, the CIA can target only al-Qaida operatives or affiliates who directly threaten the U.S. JSOC has a little more leeway, allowed by statue to target members of the larger al-Qaida network.

Under the old Pentagon-run review, the first step was to gather evidence on a potential target. That person s case would be discussed over an interagency secure video teleconference, involving the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department, among other agencies. Among the data taken into consideration: Is the target a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates; is he engaged in activities aimed at the U.S. overseas or at home?

If a target isn t captured or killed within 30 days after he is chosen, his case must be reviewed to see if he s still a threat.

The CIA s process is more insular. Only a select number of high-ranking staff can preside over the debates run by the agency s Covert Action Review Group, which then passes the list to the CIA s Counterterrorism Center to carry out the drone strikes. The Director of National Intelligence, Jim Clapper, is briefed on those actions, one official said.
Al-Berjawi s name was technically on both lists

the Pentagon s and the CIA s. In areas where both JSOC and the CIA operate, the military task force commander and CIA chief of station confer, together with representatives of U.S. law enforcement, on how best to hit the target. If it s deemed possible to grab the target, for interrogation or simply to gather DNA to prove the identity of a deceased person, a special operations team is sent, as in the case of the 2009 Navy SEAL raid against al-Qaida commander Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Nabhan s convoy was attacked by helicopter gunships, after which the raiders landed and took his body for identification, before burying him at sea.

But if the al-Qaida operative is in transit from Somalia to Yemen by boat, for instance, U.S. security officials might opt to use the Navy to intercept and the FBI to arrest him, officials said.
 

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that he is visiting the United States to bring Pak-Relations towards normalcy which are passing through a critical phase.

Addressing a function of PPP workers in New York, Bilawal said President Obama should accumulate courage and offer apology on the Salala Check Post attack by NATO forces killing 24 Pakistani soldiers and he should also stop the drone attacks on Pakistan’s soil.  He said that innocent people are being hit by the drone attacks.

Bilawal questioned that if any American soldier dies outside its borders which would be the reaction of the Americans?

He said the drone attacks are against the international laws and US War Powers Act and this also is  tantamount to attacks on our sovereignty. He said the constant attacks on Pakistani soil by the drones have created anger among the masses.

He said the issues of Raymond Davis fiasco and Abbotabad operation have raised various questions in the minds of Pakistanis people about the Pak-US relationships.
 

China s Defense Ministry is accusing the Pentagon of hyping Chinese military power and its threat to Taiwan in a depiction that will ultimately undermine ties between the two militaries.

Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said the annual Pentagon report to Congress on China s military is groundless and wrong. He says that the report exaggerates Chinese defense capabilities, makes false claims about Chinese cyber-warfare and plays up a military edge over rival Taiwan to boost U.S. weapon sales.

The Pentagon report always draws strenuous objections from Beijing. This year s report outlined a Chinese military modernization effort that is gaining momentum.

Geng said in the remarks posted on the ministry website that the Pentagon report will hurt efforts to build trust and improve ties between the militaries.
 

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in efforts to mend ties between Pakistan’s ruling government and the opposition, has decided to hold a meeting with Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday. “I will try to

understand his perspective on the matter at hand.”
Recalling the solidarity and cooperation which the government and the Opposition had when he last visited the country four years back, Erdogan said that he wished to see the same cooperation back at home. “If I say this ceiling is white, our

Opposition would say it is black. But the Opposition should always be constructive to serve the common benefits of the people.”

If the government and the opposition keep fighting among themselves, then the people of the country will suffer profoundly, he added. “We should put the people first. The state is secondary. The purpose of the state is only to serve the people, and not anything else.”

If the parties in Pakistan demonstrate shoulder-to-shoulder politics, then Pakistan will be able to take its deserving place in the world, Erdogan hoped.
 

Dunya News reporter and camera man also sustained injures and shifted to hospital.

The Awami Tehrik led by Rasool Bux Palecho held a rally against likely partition of Sindh and Lyari operation. PML-N Marvi Memon, nationalist leader Qamar Bhatti, Maulana Asghar and Malik Ayyub Awan were also present.

During rally, media man Aslam Khan along with cameraman Khalil Ahmad was giving coverage to the incident that unknown armed men suddenly started indiscriminate firing.

As a result, both of them were severely injured and were referred to hospital for first aid. No organization has accepted the responsibility of blast. Intermittent firing continued for more than half an hour, casuing killing of ten people.

Likewise, a woman also died on the sport when she received a bullet in her neck. A police man from Chaikiwara police station was also hurt.

During disorder, miscreants set number of vehicles on fire.

Fresh forces of Rangers have been deployed at war-torn area when search operation is being conducted and Rangers have pulled many stranded people from there.

On the other hand, security forces have made arrangements to halt rally that is moving to the CM House and Governor House.
 

Talking to media persons at National Press Club Islamabad, he said that Sharif brothers have no care for Supreme Court orders; therefore new FIR is going to be launched against them.

He said that the SSP Islamabad has been ordered that the Sharif Brothers should be called to court leniently.

He said that new inquiry against Sharif Brothers is being conducted on Supreme Court orders rather than personal involvement.

He said that he would expose some important secrets which would bring rift among many families.

He said that he knew it better as to whom Sipah Sihaba had links with.

Commenting on Nato supply, he was of the view that earlier Nato supply was without any cost; now Pakistan is demanding its service charges.
 

The meeting of Public Accounts Committee headed by Nadeem Afzal Chan was held in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Nadeem said the letters sent o PAC by Ministry of Interior were opened on Monday but the chairman alone cannot take any decision.

He said that a separate meeting of the PAC would be called to review the issue of reference against Sharif Brothers and the legal status of the reference would be discussed. 

The committee also reviewed the objections on audit of the Ministry of Communications.

Briefing the committee, Secretary Communications Anwar Ahmad Khan said that the Highways faced loss of more than 100 billion rupees due to the operation of NATO containers. He said the road from Turkham to Peshawar has been damaged but the NATO did not cooperate to cover the loss.

He further told that FWO was possessing 34 toll plazas despite the cancellation of contract and FWO is defaulter of Rs 6 billion.

The secretary further told the committee that Motorway Police earn Rs 0.8 million after leveling fines on vehicles.
The PAC members said that corruption has also started within Motorway Police as some of its officials reportedly take bribes.
 

According to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) sources, sale of expired edible oil on Utility Stores was reported.

A team of FIA led by Inspector Sohail Arif raided three stores and seized a large quantity of edible oil that had expired in 2008.

The FIA sent the sample of the oil for laboratory tests and the reports disclosed that the oil was injurious to human health.
 

According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), simultaneous efforts are being undertaken to tackle effects of water on the site in the shape of pondages, cutting and crevasses.

ISPR also reported that the water has started draining and has resulted into quick reduction of water level in the lake to the tune of 27 feet

Excavation work has resumed its full pace despite difficulties posed by seepage of the water at the sites, hazards of crevasses / cutting by water and sinking effects for plant equipment.

Meanwhile during physical inspection of the area, some equipment was found.
 

The 17-country eurozone risks falling into a "severe recession," the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned on Tuesday, as it called on governments and Europe s central bank to act quickly to stop the slowdown spilling over into the global economy.

OECD Chief Economist Pier Carlo Padoan said the eurozone is "close to" the possible scenario of a 2 percent economic contraction this year that the Paris-based think tank laid out as its worst-case scenario last November.

Padoan made his comments as the OECD, which comprises the world s most developed economies, released its twice-yearly global economic outlook. The report forecasts a longer and deeper contraction in the eurozone than predicted in November, with the eurozone economy expected to shrink in 2012, and only manage a feeble recovery in 2013.

"Today we see the situation in the euro area close to the possible downside scenario" in the OECD s November report, "which if materializing could lead to a severe recession in the euro area and with spillovers in the rest of the world," Padan told reporters before the report s release.

The OECD s new forecast shows Europe falling behind the United States, where growth is seen accelerating both in 2012 and 2013.

"There is now a diverging trend between the euro area and the U.S., where the U.S. is picking up more strongly while the euro area is lagging behind," Padoan said.

The OECD raised its forecast for US growth this year to 2.4 percent, and to 2.6 percent for 2013.The eurozone will shrink 0.1 percent this year and grow 0.9 percent in 2013, the OECD said.

The OECD s forecast is still more optimistic about both the US and Europe than the International Monetary Fund. Last month the IMF said in its own global economic forecast that the U.S. should expand 2.1 percent this year, while Europe should shrink 0.3 percent.

Padoan called on eurozone leaders to adopt a "policy compact" to promote growth even while reducing deficits. French President Francois Hollande has made securing such a pact the focus of his European diplomacy in the first weeks of his administration.

So-called eurobonds debt issued jointly by countries in the currency bloc could be used to recapitalize banks, Padoan said.

He also reiterated his call of six months ago for the ECB to do more to stem Europe s crisis.

The ECB has an "essential" role to play in solving Europe s crisis, Padoan said, both by using its balance sheet firepower to shore up banks and by lowering interest rates. The ECB should also consider renewing the "unconventional measures" it used last year such as buying up government bonds, "if there is need to cope with contagion problems," Padoan said.