Staff Report
QUETTA: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry said the government is not meeting constitutional requirements, adding if Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani does not take up measures, then the constitution will take its course.

Heading a three-judge bench hearing a petition on the law and order situation and human rights violations in Balochistan at Quetta Registry of the apex court, CJ Chaudhry expressed disapproval while talking to Principal Secretary of the PM Khushnood Lashari and remarked reaction of the federal government did not come to the fore despite frequent summons for explanation.

Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain are the other judges on the bench.

The Chief Justice Chaudhry noted, “Accusations were leveled against all secret agencies and even the provincial government. Ministers’ involvement in the abduction for ransom is being talked about. The FC is being accused of picking up people.”

The CJ Chaudhry queried if the ministers whose names are being pinpointed, were asked, adding the people are being assassinated in the province and the incidents of kidnapping for ransom, are on the increase.

The government is not fulfilling the constitutional requirements (to contain the flashpoint in the province), he added.

The fact is acknowledged, the CJ noted, that some people may have remained involved in anti-state activities; but, they are offended by the government’s behavior.

Police is helpless as it has no power at its disposal, the CJ added.

Lashari told the court that PM Gilani took action over Balochistan issue even before the court orders in this regard and development projects are being worked on.

Balochistan does not need Aghaz-Huqooq-e-Balochistan alone, he asserted noting that there is worst situation in the province and no action is being taken in accordance with the constitution.

The PM Gilani should live up to the expectations in consonance with his office, he added stressing if the PM fails to respond to the situation, then various measures including imposition of emergency could be resorted under the constitution. SAMAA

Please click ‘Video’ button to watch this news.

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan suffered Rs 100 billion loss due to NATO supplies to Afghanistan via Pakistan, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told, SAMAA reports.

Chairman of the National Highway Authority (NHA) Muhammad Ali Gardezi told the PAC that the NATO supplies have caused Rs 100 billion loss to the country “but not a single penny was paid for repairing the damaged highways.”

The PAC met on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Nadeem Afzal Gondal. — SAMAA

Staff Report

KARACHI: Various cities of Sindh observed shutter-down and wheel-jam strike on Wednesday on a call given by nationalist parties of the province against firing on a political rally and subsequent violence in Karachi, SAMAA reports.

At least eleven people were killed and more than 30 wounded after unidentified gunmen opened fire at a political rally organised by Awami Tehrik (AT) and backed by several other parties in protest against proposed Mohajir province and the recent operation in Lyari.

Sporadic violence erupted in the city, with more than a dozen vehicles torched in different areas, prompting the AT to announce a strike in Sindh on Wednesday.

Separately, another nationalist group, Jiay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) announced Wednesday’s strike against murder of its central leader, Muzaffar Bhutto, whose bullet-riddled body was found in the outskirts of Hyderabad on Tuesday.

The strike was observed in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Badin, Nawabshah, Tando Muhammad Khan, Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur, Larkana and other major and small towns where life remained paralyzed as transport and business activities came to a halt.

Workers of the political parties staged protest demonstrations in various cities, burning tyres on roads, calling for action against those involved in firing on the AT rally.

Universities and education boards of Sindh have also cancelled Wednesday’s papers in the wake of strike.

Two killed in Karachi

Parts of Karachi also remained closed as two people lost their lives in firing incidents.

With thin traffic on roads, business activities remained closed in Karachi’s Mawach Goath, Malir and Gulshan-e-Hudaid area amid tension and aerial firing.

City’s main markets – Napier road, Juria Bazar, Bolton Market – also remained closed. — SAMAA.

Staff Report
KARACHI: An important art educationist, a painter, art connoisseur, art critic, gallery owner and a teacher to many art lovers, Ali Imam is being remembered on his death anniversary today (Wednesday).

Ali Imam was born in Narsinghpur, India in 1924. Ali Imam started painting in 1941 when he joined the evening classes of the Nagpur School of Art.

He graduated from Punjab University in 1949. His first solo was at Rawalpindi in 1952. Later he lived in London from 1956-67. Then he returned to Pakistan.

Over a period of time, Ali Imam became an important art educationist in Karachi. He was the architect of the modern curriculum of The Central Institute of Arts and Crafts.

Ali Imam was of the first generation of Pakistan artists and a great art promoter.

From 1970 till 2002, he was running the Indus Gallery in Karachi where many notable artists have held their first shows. His sole aim was to promote the artist, create a public awareness and educate art collectors, until May 23, 2002, when a very important chapter of Pakistan art history closed.

He was awarded Tamgha-i-Imtiaz and President’s Award for the Pride of Performance. SAMAA

Staff Report

KARACHI: Universities and education boards of Sindh cancelled Wednesday’s papers in the wake of strike call given by nationalist parties against violence in Karachi, SAMAA reports.

At least eleven people were killed and more than 30 wounded after unidentified gunmen opened fire at a political rally organised by Awami Tehrik (AT) and backed by several other parties in protest against proposed Mohajir province and the recent operation in Lyari.

Sporadic violence erupted in the city, with more than a dozen vehicles torched in different areas, prompting the AT to announce a strike in Sindh on Wednesday.

Another nationalist faction, Jiay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) is observing shutter-down strike in Sindh interior today against murder of its central leader, Muzaffar Bhutto, whose bullet-riddled body was found in the outskirts of Hyderabad on Tuesday.

Sindh government announced that all government schools will remain opened on Wednesday as usual.

The Sindh Board of Technical Educating (SBTE) has cancelled all papers scheduled to be conducted today. The examinations will now be held on May 28.

Similarly, secondary education boards of Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpukhas and Nawabshah postponed Wednesday’s papers of first year class.

Meanwhile, Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur and Mehran Engineering University Jamshoro rescheduled today’s papers. – SAMAA

Staff Report
KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) issued notices to various people including Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, National Assembly Speaker Dr. Fahmida Mirza, Attorney General and Law Minister, SAMAA reports Wednesday.

Hearing a case regarding the disqualification of the PM Gilani over contempt conviction, the court directed the respondents to file their rejoinders by May 31.

The plea says Yousuf Raza Gilani cannot run the affairs of the country after the ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) convicting him of contempt of court.

It should be mentioned here that the apex court in its short order delivered on Thursday (April 26) in suo motu case against PM Gilani for willfully flouting the court orders for over two years, gave the imprisonment order for the historic smallest length i.e. 30 seconds. SAMAA

MIRANSHAH:

Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) Wednesday requested National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to raise power tariffs by two rupees per unit.

According to the NEPRA, the purchasing agency moved the regulatory authority to hike power tariffs by two rupees/unit under fuel adjustment for the month of April.

The NEPRA officials say electricity amounting 6.57 billion units were sold to distributing companies during April; 41 percent of power was produced from costly furnace oil.

LOS ANGELES: Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has screened his new film about a Scientology-like sect leader for Tom Cruise, Scientology’s most famous follower, in the hopes of heading off a conflict with the group, TheWrap has learned.

According to two individuals close to the movie, Anderson recently screened the film, loosely based on the life of Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard, for Cruise.

Both individuals said that Cruise “had issues” with some parts of the movie. Cruise starred in one of Anderson’s earlier movies, “Magnolia,” and the two remain friends.

The film is set to be released in October.

When reached by TheWrap, a spokeswoman for Cruise had no immediate comment.

A spokesman for the Church of Scientology told TheWrap they had not seen the film and could not comment on it.

The Church of Scientology, which vigorously defends itself from outside critics, has many followers among Hollywood stars, including actor John Travolta.

One of the individuals close to the movie told TheWrap that the Weinstein Company also intended to show the film to Travolta.

The movie has not yet been screened, so its full plot and tone is not yet known. Weinstein released the trailer from the Cannes Film Festival on Monday.

The church, long criticized for some of its practices, was the subject of an investigative article in the New Yorker last year that accused some leaders of physically abusing adolescent members and beating adults. The article included interviews with director Paul Haggis, a former Scientologist who has come out as one of the religion’s fiercest critics.

Anderson, who is still completing the film starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman, wrote and directed the story about a charismatic leader Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) – referred to as The Master – who creates a cult-like movement called The Cause.

The similarities to Hubbard include the time frame, post-World War II and Dodd’s taking a trip on a boat during which he arrives at a new philosophy and creates a faith-based movement.

Phoenix plays a troubled drifter seeking a path who becomes Dodd’s right-hand man.

Both the director and movie distributor, the Weinstein Company, are debating how to approach the similarities with Scientology – whether to acknowledge them openly or keep the matter at arm’s length.

The reaction of the group’s most prominent members will likely be a part of that decision.

The $42 million budget film was fully financed by producer Megan Ellison, daughter of Silicon Valley billionaire Larry Ellison, who took on the project after she learned that Anderson could not get financing anywhere. — AGENCIES

Staff Report
KARACHI: The heinous incidents of violence that erupted yesterday could not be brought under control as a man was killed and another injured when unidentified miscreants opened gunfire on a bus this morning, SAMAA reports Wednesday.

According to the Rescue sources, the saboteurs sprayed bullets on a passenger minibus plying from Banaras Colony area of the city, killing a man and injuring the other.

The rescue sources said the deceased Azizur Rehman is an employee of Pakistan Steel Mills. SAMAA

LONDON: West Indies fast bowler Shannon Gabriel, who took four wickets on his debut in the first test against England, will miss the remainder of the series after suffering a back injury, the West Indies Cricket Board said in a statement.

“Shannon made the complaint late in the first test against England and scans conducted following the match showed a stress reaction in the lower spine,” West Indies team physiotherapist C.J. Clark said on Tuesday.

“He was subsequently ruled out of the second test and, after further consultation, we feel that to prevent this injury developing any further it is in Shannon’s best interest for him to return to Trinidad & Tobago for rest and rehabilitation to ensure he is fully fit when selected for West Indies in the future.”

Tino Best, who has played 14 tests and 12 one-day internationals, has been called up as replacement. Best last represented West Indies in 2009.

The second test starts at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, on Friday. England won the first test by five wickets at Lord’s on Monday. AGENCIES

RIYADH: Seven aid groups on Wednesday warned Western diplomats that Yemen was on the brink of a “catastrophic food crisis” and urged them to bolster efforts to salvage the situation as they meet in Riyadh for an international conference to help the nation.

“Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food crisis,” the seven agencies which include Oxfam, CARE and Save the Children, said in a joint statement released Wednesday ahead of the “Friends of Yemen” meeting.

The agencies called on ministers from the wealthy Gulf countries and Western nations due to attend the meeting to “scale up efforts to tackle” the problem.

At least 10 million people, some 44 percent of the population, do not get “enough food to eat”, it said, adding that one in three children was “severely malnourished”.

Penny Lawrence, international director at Oxfam, who is visiting Yemen said that “Yemenis have exhausted their ways of coping…and a quarter of the population have fallen into debt trying to feed their families”.

She said even as donors are focused on politics and security issues which continue to plague the impoverished nation’s development and stability, their “failure to respond adequately to the humanitarian needs now will put more lives at risk”.

Oxfam, in a separate report released with the statement, even accused international donors of “finding reasons not to give” aid.

So far only 43 percent of $455 million earlier asked by UN and other partner organisations have been received for humanitarian aid for Yemen, with ongoing conflicts in the country’s northern and southern provinces only exacerbating the crisis.

In the last two months alone, aid agencies say more than 95,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, bringing the total number of displaced to more than half a million.

Yemen is expected to ask donors for about $10 billion in urgent aid at the two-day meeting in Riyadh which will include representatives from the European Union, the United Nations, the United States, and the oil-rich Gulf neighbours.

In a recent interview with AFP in Sanaa, Yemen’s Planning Minister Mohammed al-Saadi said the funds were needed for “economic recovery and to stabilise the economy and the currency”.

He said despite the fact that a Friends of Yemen meeting is often focused on the political and security aspects of the country’s transition, the “figures will be discussed”.

Western diplomats, however, say they will only make financial commitments at a formal donor conference, known as the Consultative Group Meeting, to be held in early July. AGENCIES

CHICAGO: In an unmistakable snub, President Barack Obama left Pakistan off a list of nations he thanked for help getting war supplies into Afghanistan.

The omission speaks to the prolonged slump in U.S. relations with Pakistan that clouded a NATO summit where nations were eyeing the exits in Afghanistan.

Tensions that Obama readily acknowledged raise questions about whether Pakistan will help or hurt the goal of a stable Afghanistan. Continued mistrust between the United States and Pakistan also threaten cooperation to eliminate al-Qaida sanctuaries and could undermine U.S. confidence in the security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.

“We need to work through some of the tensions that have inevitably arisen after 10 years of our military presence in that region,” Obama said later. “I don’t want to paper over real challenges there.”

Pakistan is not a NATO member but was invited to the summit Sunday and Monday because of its influence in next-door Afghanistan and its role until last year as the major supply route to landlocked NATO forces there. Pakistan closed those routes after a U.S. attack on the Pakistani side of the border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.

The last-minute invitation from NATO to join the Chicago talks was a sign of hope that the rift had healed.

But it hasn’t. And Obama’s dealings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari made that clear on Monday.

Zardari came to Obama’s home town expecting a separate meeting with the U.S. leader like the one accorded to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But without a final deal to reopen the supply lines, no such meeting was to occur.

Obama, along with Karzai, did speak briefly with Zardari on the sidelines of a large group meeting Monday. Karzai dismissed the encounter in an interview with CNN as a “three-way photograph taking…just a photo opportunity.”

That was after Zardari had to sit by as Obama opened Monday’s session with public thanks only to the nations north of Afghanistan who allowed expanded supply shipments to transit their territory to compensate for the closed Pakistani border gates.

“I want to welcome the presence of President Karzai, as well as officials from central Asia and Russia — nations that have an important perspective and that continue to provide critical transit for ISAF supplies,” Obama said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force that is fighting the war.

Pakistani officials played down the snub.

“The supply route on Pakistan’s side has been suspended for the last six months,” Zardari’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters. “There was really no expectation from our side that the U.S. president would appreciate and admire the suspension of the NATO supply lines.”

The border crossing dispute is stuck over how much the U.S. will pay Pakistan to allow trucks to transit its territory. Before the airstrike, the U.S. paid about $250 per truck. Now, two U.S. officials said, Pakistan wants $5,000 a truck and an apology for the deaths in the airstrike. The Obama administration has said it was willing to pay as much as $500 per vehicle and has expressed condolences and regret, but no apology. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were being conducted in private.

The prospects for reaching a deal were unclear, even as the stakes grow larger.

Babar said the government had asked negotiators to expedite an agreement, but that “no timeline can be given.”

Obama told reporters at the close of the summit that he knew beforehand that there would be no deal on the supply routes now.

“President Zardari shared with me his belief that these issues can get worked through,” Obama said. “We’re actually making diligent progress on it.”

Zardari also met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday and made a beeline across a meeting hall to grasp her hand again on Monday morning. The State Department said Clinton and Zardari “discussed the importance of reopening the NATO supply lines,” and of cooperating to fight terrorist threats.

The U.S. and Pakistan have a history of troubled relations that started well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The road has grown only rockier since then. Despite giving Pakistan billions of dollars in aid over the past decade, anti-Americanism is widespread in Pakistan. And after years of sometimes meaningful cooperation in hunting down al-Qaida figures, Pakistan is still seen by many U.S. officials as double-dealing and unreliable.

The transit route issue was a distraction and an embarrassment for the United States at the summit, and Obama’s cool arm’s length treatment of Zardari made it look even worse for the Pakistani president.

“Pakistan has to be part of the solution in Afghanistan, and it is in our national interests that to see a Pakistan that is democratic, that is prosperous and that is stable,” Obama said.

The quarrel over supply routes is intertwined with several other disputes, including Pakistan’s opposition to U.S. drone strikes against terrorist targets inside its borders.

In addition to closing the border crossings in response to the November attack, Pakistan ordered the U.S. to vacate Shamsi air base, which the U.S. was using to launch drone strikes at al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

The top allied commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, has tried to cast the supply route problem in the best possible light, while acknowledging that he’d like to see the border crossings reopened as soon as possible. Allen said Sunday that by some measure, war stocks are higher now than when the crossings were closed.

That is thanks to an increased — and much more costly — use of alternative routes, including a network of northern routes that connect Baltic and Caspian Sea ports with Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia and the Caucasus. And they combine sea, rail and truck transport and are more costly than crossing Pakistan by land.

U.S. officials have offered a range of estimates on how much the closing of the Pakistani land routes have added to the overall supply costs, but it apparently is at least two or three times more expensive to move supplies by air and via the northern route.

To underline the value of those alternative supply routes from the north, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met Monday in Chicago with his counterparts from the central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. He expressed his “deep appreciation for their support” of the northern supply route, Pentagon press secretary George Little said.

At least as troublesome as being forced to use alternative supply routes into Afghanistan is the issue of how to get war materiel out of the country as Allen begins the withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops this summer. That’s because the withdrawal includes shipment of vehicles and other equipment that would be costly and time consuming to remove by air.

The NATO alliance needs Pakistan’s cooperation to ensure Afghanistan’s long-term stability and security, NATO’s top officer told reporters. That was a mild way of saying that Pakistan can play the spoiler at will and holds cards the fighting force does not. Pakistan shares history, culture and language with Afghanistan’s restive southern swath, and maintains support for Taliban-led insurgents who cross the border to kill U.S. and NATO forces. AGENCIES

LONDON: Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners confirmed on Tuesday that investors Waddell & Reed , Norges Bank and BlackRock had paid $1.6 billion in cash for a 21 percent stake in the Formula One motor racing business.

“We look forward to working with our new partners over the coming years,” said Donald Mackenzie, a managing partner at CVC, calling the investment great news for Formula 1.

CVC, which had owned 63.4 percent of the business, said it would continue to be Formula 1′s largest and controlling shareholder. Formula 1 is exploring a flotation on the stock market in Singapore next month. AGENCIES

CHICAGO: NATO set an “irreversible” course out of Afghanistan on Monday but President Barack Obama admitted the Western alliance’s plan to end the deeply unpopular war in 2014 was fraught with peril.

A landmark NATO summit in Chicago endorsed an exit strategy that calls for handing control of Afghanistan to its own security forces by the middle of next year but left questions unanswered about how to prevent a slide into chaos and a Taliban resurgence after allied troops are gone.

The two-day meeting of the 28-nation military bloc marked a major milestone in a war sparked by the September 11 attacks that has spanned three U.S. presidential terms and even outlasted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Obama and NATO partners sought to show their war-weary voters the end is in sight in Afghanistan – a conflict that has strained Western budgets as well as patience – while at the same time trying to reassure Afghans that they will not be abandoned.

“We are now unified behind a plan to responsibly wind down the war in Afghanistan,” Obama told the summit’s closing news conference.

“Are there risks involved? Absolutely,” Obama conceded, saying the Taliban remained a “robust enemy” and NATO’s gains on the ground were fragile. But he insisted the overall strategy, which offered few specifics on the pace of withdrawal, was sound.

Even in NATO’s outward show of solidarity, it was clear that differences remained after nearly 11 years of military engagement that has failed to defeat Taliban Islamists.

Alliance leaders acquiesced to new French President Francois Hollande’s insistence on sticking to his campaign pledge to withdraw France’s 3,400 troops by December 31, two years ahead of NATO’s timetable. While there was no sign this would send others rushing for the exits, leaders could face pressures at home.

But despite a face-to-face encounter with Pakistan’s president, Obama failed to resolve a dispute overhanging the summit – Islamabad’s refusal to reopen supply routes to NATO in Afghanistan seen as vital to an orderly withdrawal.

The summit’s final communique ratified plans for the NATO-led army to hand over command of all combat missions to Afghan forces by the middle of 2013 and for the withdrawal of most of the 130,000 foreign troops by the end of the following year.

The statement deemed it an “irreversible” transition to full security responsibility for fledgling Afghan troops, and said NATO’s mission in 2014 would shift to a training and advisory role. “This will not be a combat mission,” it said.

Doubts remain, however, whether Afghan forces can stand up against a still-potent Taliban insurgency and whether President Hamid Karzai’s government, widely criticized for rampant corruption, will be up to the task.

Obama, who has narrowed his goals in Afghanistan since taking office, said: “We can achieve a stable Afghanistan that won’t be perfect … and we can begin rebuilding America.”

With an eye to the November presidential election, Obama has made ending the Iraq war and winding down the Afghan war a campaign theme his aides hope will help ease voter anguish over a slow U.S. economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment.

For NATO as a whole, the long, messy Afghan conflict seems to have created its own “Vietnam Syndrome,” causing it to shy away from deep on-the-ground engagement in faraway places. NATO already limited itself to an air assault in Libya last year, and has shown no stomach for military intervention in Syria.

“GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES”

The NATO plan offered no guarantees on the future of Afghanistan, known over the centuries as the “graveyard of empires” for its ill treatment of foreign armies.

While Obama insisted Afghanistan should never again be used to plot attacks on other nations, a senior British official said: “It is unrealistic to assume that Afghanistan is going to be completely secure and there is no possibility of a terrorist threat re-emerging.”

Underscoring the prospects that other allies may be tempted to follow France’s lead and depart early, New Zealand announced on Monday it would pull out its 140 troops in 2013, a year ahead of schedule, saying their work was done.

Amid a growing sense of finality surrounding the NATO mission, veteran diplomatic trouble-shooter Ryan Crocker will soon step down as Obama’s envoy to Afghanistan. He could leave as early as this month, sources familiar with the matter said.

At the summit’s end, Obama spoke of “diligent progress” but no breakthrough with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the supply lines issue after they talked briefly on the sidelines.

Frustrated NATO officials have also been trying to persuade Pakistan to reopen its territory to NATO supplies, which Islamabad has blocked since NATO forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border incident last year.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that Zardari’s presence at the summit was a positive sign. “What this conference does is acknowledge Pakistan’s role,” she told reporters. “Both countries I think are now seeking to bridge the differences.”

With Europe’s debt crisis hanging over the summit and many member-governments limited by austerity budgets, Obama also struggled to pin down final commitments from allies for the $4.1 billion a year needed to support Afghan security forces.

The funding – which will undergird Afghan’s capacity to fight the Taliban and is considered vital to a smooth NATO departure – was not thought to have been fully realized at the summit. But alliance officials believe it will eventually be provided.

NATO diplomats said thinking had moved to the logistical challenge of getting a large multinational army out of the Afghan mountains and deserts and back home safely.

As Zardari, an uneasy U.S. partner, sat with other leaders around a circular table, Obama pointedly thanked Afghanistan’s neighbors who have allowed expanded shipments of war supplies since Pakistan closed off ground routes to NATO truck convoys.

NATO is seeking to compensate in the meantime with a framework agreement with Afghanistan’s northern neighbor, Uzbekistan, to allow “reverse transit” of NATO supplies from Afghanistan.

Friction remains between NATO and Pakistan over Taliban guerrillas who are still finding sanctuary in Pakistan, in spite of Islamabad’s professed support for the alliance’s mission.

Long-term funding for the Afghan police and army, which has steadily improved its performance but is still plagued by problems, was also a focus of the summit.

The United States is unwilling to foot the entire annual bill to maintain the forces after 2014 and has been seeking pledges from allies of $1.3 billion, despite austerity measures brought on by Europe’s financial crisis.

Many of the leaders in Chicago came directly from a Camp David summit of the Group of Eight wealthy nations that vowed to take all necessary measures to contain the euro-zone contagion.

Afghan funding commitments so far include $100 million annually from Britain, $120 million from Italy, $110 million from Canada, $100 million from Australia and $20 million from Turkey. Zardari told a NATO partners meeting Pakistan would also contribute $20 million.

Obama has sought to dispel Americans’ concerns that shaky allies will leave U.S. troops to finish the fight alone.

Despite pressure from some NATO members to reconsider, Hollande vowed to hold to his election pledge withdraw French troops by the year’s end but said France would keep some trainers in the country for Afghan soldiers and police.

A French defense official said the United States appeared to be asking France for more financing to offset Paris’ decision to exit early. “The Americans are asking for between $200-$250 million,” the official said. “It’s a way of compensating.” AGENCIES