DUBAI: Iran has proposed a “new and comprehensive” package of proposals to six world powers during talks on Wednesday in Baghdad over its disputed nuclear programme, Iranian media reported.

BAGHDAD: World powers sought Wednesday to pave the way to ending the decade-old and escalating Iran nuclear crisis by laying out a new package of proposals they said would be “of interest” to Tehran.

The P5+1 — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — were however expected to tell Iran that its demand for sanctions relief is out of the question until it has taken concrete steps to ease their suspicions.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton laid out at the start of the talks a new package of P5+1 proposals that were thought to include Iran suspending the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent in return for various sweeteners.

“We are putting proposals on the table that are also of interest to Iran,” Ashton’s spokesman Michael Mann told reporters. “There are things we can do for Iran.”

“We hope the Iranians will come back with a positive reaction to our proposals to deal with the concerns of the international community … The ball is in their court now.”

A P5+1 source said that the Iranians’ response so far had been 25 minutes of “all rhetoric rather than positive response.”

Media reports said the package included a revival of previous attempts at a deal whereby Iran would ship abroad its stockpiles of enriched uranium in return for fuel for a reactor producing medical isotopes.

In return the P5+1 are expected to demand that Iran suspend what they see as the most worrying part of Tehran’s nuclear programme, namely 20-percent enrichment.

Iran however on Tuesday announced it was loading domestically produced, 20-percent enriched uranium fuel into the reactor.

The capability to enrich to that level has raised fears in much of the international community that Iran could relatively quickly refine uranium to 90 percent purities — the level needed for a nuclear weapon, if it decided to.

The media reports, described by one P5+1 diplomat as “pretty spot on”, said the world powers would not offer to relax existing sanctions or postpone other restrictions due to come into force, as Iran wants.

Instead, Iran could be given a pledge of no new sanctions, easier access to aircraft parts and a possible suspension of an EU insurance ban on ships carrying Iranian oil.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow that Iran “is ready to agree on concrete actions.”

Russia has urged that new talks be based on a formula under which nations gradually lift four sets of UN sanctions on Iran once it begins meeting specific concerns.

Lavrov said this process should last “until we reach the stage where it becomes clear to everyone that Iran’s nuclear programme does not have a military dimension”.

Diplomats from the six powers and Iranian media said the meeting in the fortress-like Green Zone of the Iraqi capital would likely go into a second, unscheduled day.

The West fears that a nuclear-armed Iran would destabilise the already volatile Middle East and sound the death knell for 60 years of international efforts to prevent the spread of atomic weapons, sparking a regional arms race.

Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the region, feels its very existence would be under threat and has refused to rule out a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Wednesday that the “production and use of weapons of mass destruction is haram (forbidden) and have no place in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s defence doctrine.”

US President Barack Obama took office in January 2009 offering a radical change in approach to his predecessor, George W. Bush, in dealings with Iran, famously offering an “extended hand” to Tehran if it “unclenched its fist.”

This failed, dog, and Iran has since dramatically expanded its programme, including by starting in 2010 to enrich uranium to 20 percent and from January in the Fordo site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

As a result, talk of war has increased and the UN Security Council has imposed more sanctions on Iran. Additional US and EU restrictions targeting

Iran’s oil sector and central bank are due to come into force from July 1.

But now, both sides “have walked up to the abyss and they have both decided they don’t want to go down it,” said Trita Parsi, author of an acclaimed book about Obama’s dealings with Iran called “A Single Roll of the Dice.”

One key way for Iran to win the confidence of the P5+1 was implementing the additional protocol (AP) of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows for more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA also wants Iran to address allegations made in its November report that until 2003, and possibly since, Tehran had a “structured programme” af “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday after talks in Tehran that a deal on ways to go over these accusations with the Iranians would be signed “quite soon.” Western reaction though was circumspect.

Ashtons’s spokesman meanwhile played down expectations of a dramatic breakthrough, saying that the Baghdad talks were part of what will need to be a lengthy process.

“This is the second meeting. Istanbul kicked off the process (in mid-April) of discussions. Now we’re getting on to the real substance of the matter,” Mann said. “We are keen to get a move on but these things can’t be solved overnight.” AGENTURER

Staff Report

KARACHI: PPP Sindh ministers held a consultative meeting at Chief Minister House in Karachi to review the city’s law and order situation on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah presided over the meeting.

The ministers expressed concerns about yesterday’s attack on Sindh Mohabbat Rally.

The ministers demanded that Chief Minister Shah expose elements who are patronizing Mohajir Soba.

They alleged that Nawaz Sharif is distributing briefcase to fuel unrest in Sindh through Marvi Memon. SAMAA

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Wednesday that the present government has not come from the back door.

He said that the opposition is afraid of our second consecutive term.

While inaugurating CD projects, the PM said that the previous governments came into the power by outer forces not by the people’s support.

‘This will be the first democratic government that is going to present the fifth budget’, Gilani said.

He said that the hall will hear a roar of slogans for Zardari after the budget.

Gilani proudly said that his government has done what the previous government could not do for the country. He also said that due to the success of his government the opposition is afraid from the PPP government. SAMAA

Staff Report

ATTOCK: PML-N President Mian Nawaz Sharif says his party has no role in election of Asif Ali Zardari as the country’s President.

Addressing a public gathering here on Wednesday, Nawaz Sharif said the present government has not done anything over the last four years.

The US President even refused to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari, he said, adding that the then US President Bill Clinton would call him five times a day, but he did not listen.

He said “PML-N has played no role to bring the PPP government.”

The PML-N chief said that loans obtained by this government in just four years had not been taken by the previous governments together in 55 years.

“I have no greed for power. We will continue to serve the people whether or not we come into power,” he said.

The former two-time premier also lashed out at former President Pervez Musharraf, der, he said, had bowed to the United States on just phone call.

Nawaz recalled that he had rejected a US offer of $5 billion to stop the nuclear tests. SAMAA

WASHINGTON: Barack Obama may have made his name peddling hope and change, but his aspirational politics concealed a ruthless streak now being turned on the man who wants his job: Mitt Romney.

President Obama and his hard-eyed political consultants have unleashed a long-planned attack on the Republican’s corporate past, seeking to turn November’s election on Romney’s character rather than his own economic record.

The president, who did not hesitate to go negative on Democratic primary foe Hillary Clinton in 2008 and has proven a steely commander-in-chief, is now seeking to debunk Romney’s claim that his business wizardry could create jobs.

Obama insists his attack on multi-millionaire Romney’s time as head of asset management firm Bain Capital is not only fair game but germane to the economic anxieties of middle class America.

“This is not a distraction, this is what the campaign is going to be about,” Obama said at a Chicago press conference on Monday.

“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors’ then you’re missing what this job is about.”

Vice President Joe Biden pursued the attack on Tuesday.

“Making money for your investors, which Romney did very well, is not the president’s job,” he said.

“When you’re president, your job is to see to it that companies can make a profit, but not maximize profit at everyone’s expense. Your job is to think about the workers who get laid off.”

The Obama campaign paints Romney as a heartless corporate raider, saying Bain saddled firms it bought with huge debts, before forcing them into bankruptcy and turfing workers out of jobs.

Senior Obama aides say the attacks, thrust home by doom-laden negative ads in swing states and by the president on the campaign trail, will soon be bolstered with an examination of Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor.

Romney has barely talked about his governance of the liberal state — partly because he passed a health care law similar to Obama’s signature national reform — which Republicans abhor.

The Obama camp is clearly trying to define Romney negatively to voters, before a likely summer lull in the campaign.

“Obama doesn’t really do anything off the cuff. If we have learned one thing about this president, it is that he is very calculating,” said Christopher Malone, professor of political science at Pace University in New York.

“They have made a calculated decision and that decision is… focusing on Romney as a financier… who was all about getting profits for his shareholders and not the collective good.”

Malone said Obama’s strategy was designed to fire up Democratic voters keen to see some red meat from the president and would not damage him too badly in the political center.

But could the assault irk the independent voters that the president needs to prevail in battleground states?

Senior Obama aides say they have zero concern that it will, and believe Obama’s appeal to “fairness” and an economy where everyone, not just the rich, get a fair shot, encapsulates the feelings of many Americans.

Romney’s campaign has those same independent voters in its sights too.

Campaign operatives have seized on criticism of Obama’s populist venting from moderate Democrats.

Obama ally Cory Booker, mayor of the major financial hub of Newark, New Jersey, called the attacks “nauseating” on Sunday on NBC television, sending the Romney rapid response team into overdrive.

Other Obama supporters have rallied around however: South Carolina lawmaker Jim Clyburn accused Bain on MSNBC of “raping companies.”

Romney wants to turn the focus of the election back on Obama, amid 8.1 percent unemployment and concerns the lagging recovery could be slowing.

“The American people know that this election is about the 23 million of their fellow citizens who are struggling to find work, not desperate political attacks from a president who doesn’t have what it takes to get our economy moving again,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also hit back.

“All of these are efforts to deflect attention away from the president’s record,” McConnell said, as a new ABC News/Washington Post poll out Tuesday put Romney and Obama tied at 47 percent each on who best can handle the economy.

Now that Obama is personally leading the assault on Romney, there will be pressure on the Republican to offer a more personal explanation of his past.

Romney’s effort to turn the focus back on Obama will also benefit if the pace of job creation continues to drag.

The economy only produced 115,000 jobs in April, well short of the 200,000 level many analysts believe Obama needs to have comfortable reelection hopes. AGENTURER

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered strict action against those involved in the killings of innocent people in Karachi, SAMAA reported on Wednesday.

Gilani said this during a meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik here.

In the meeting, the minister gave a briefing to the PM over Karachi unrest. Gilani expressed his deep concern over the killings of innocent people in the city.

The premier directed the minister to maintain peace in the city working together with the Sindh government.

Yesterday, at least 12 people were killed in Karachi after Awami Tehrik launched a rally. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on the participants of the rally and other people in different areas. SAMAA

Staff Report

GUJRANWALA: A military helicopter with two pilots aboard crashed into River Chenab near Gujranwala on Wednesday.
Both the pilots are missing.

According to reports, the helicopter was on a trainee flight when it crashed into the river.

The PAF helicopter went missing since 11am.

Rescue teams reached the scene and pulled the wreckage of the training aircraft after six hours of operation.

Senior military officials are training to determine the circumstance which led to the crash.

Staff Report

KARACHI: Three people were killed and seven more were wounded as tension continued to grip Karachi on Wednesday.

Angry people set tires on fire and staged protests in different parts of the metropolis.

According to reports, a passenger bus was torched in Lee Market.

A new wave of terror struck the city on Tuesday when unknown gunmen opened fire on Awami Tehrik’s rally, triggering violence that claimed a dozen lives.

A Steel Mill worker, identified as Aziz ur Rehman, was shot and killed in a bus near Quaidabad flyover.

One injured man succumbed to hid wounds at Civil Hospital. He was injured on Tuesday.

Seven people, including two women, were wounded in firing incidents.

Aerial firing spread panic in Lyari, Garden, Usmanabad, Safora Goth, Gulshan-e-Hadid and Muwach Goth. SAMAA

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Cabinet on Wednesday set up two committees to look into security matters of Balochistan and Sindh.

It has also approved amendments in Benevolent Fund and Group Insurance Act 1973.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani presided over the meeting.

Speaking to newsmen after the meeting, Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the cabinet has formed a committee after detailed talks on the issue of Balochistan.

The committee, he said, will present its recommendations to the cabinet.

He said that Turkey’s Prime Minister’s visit to Pakistan also came under discussion in the meeting.

Kaira said the government is holding talks with NATO in the light of parliamentary recommendations.

He said a special media group is doing propaganda against the government. SAMAA

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Goodwill Ambassador for Women Empowerment Fiza Batool Gilani said on Wednesday that forming a policy to help widows is the responsibility of government.

While addressing in a two day workshop organized by an NGO on ‘Single women’s rights’, she said that problems of the widows cannot be ignored.

‘They will feel safe if they get a good job’, Fiza said during her address.

Other participants stressed on the need to improve conditions of the single women and demanded rights for them.

The recommendations to provide proper security to the women will be presented tomorrow. SAMAA

BAGHDAD: World powers began talks with Iran on Wednesday to test its readiness under pressure of sanctions to scale back its nuclear programme, seeking to ease a decade-old standoff and avert the threat of a Middle East war.

MOSCOW: Russia said on Wednesday that Iran appears ready to agree specific steps to end a standoff over its nuclear programme but warned that additional U.S. sanctions would undermine efforts to ensure Tehran does not develop atomic weapons.

TALIQAN: More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD: The United States hopes Pakistan will soon agree to re-open supply routes to NATO troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, after a Senate panel threatened to cut aid to Islamabad over the standoff.