By our correspondent

KARACHI: Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan has rubbished the claim of Interior Minister Rehman Malik that arms being used in Karachi were smuggled from Israel as a joke, saying that one should not blame a country without any authentic investigation. Wassan said to blame any other country for the worsening law and order situation in Karachi was not morally justified. He said this while talking to the media during a visit to the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee here on Monday.

PML-N can sacrifice Punjab rule in favour

of democracy, says Nawaz

CHAKWAL: PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif has said his party is ready to sacrifice its Punjab rule for strengthening democracy. Talking to former minister and renowned political leader of Chakwal, Malik Salim Iqbal at Raiwind’s Sharif Palace, he said the nation had pinned its hopes with the PML-N, which would do the politics of principles rather than the politics of power. Declaring that much water had flowed, he said there was only one way to stop re-emergence of dictatorship; the strengthening of democratic norms.

145 Saudi women beat husbands every month

News Desk

JEDDAH: According to Jeddah police reports, on an average, 145 wives beat their husbands in a month, constituting 20 percent of the annual rates of domestic violence, reports Arab News. Wives only go for physical violence when they reach a state of explosion and can no longer control themselves, said Fathiyyah Al-Qurashi, memberof the Saudi Human Rights Commission. She was speaking to Arab News about reports concerning the growing number of wives beating husbands. Al-Qurashi rejected violence in all its forms — from men and women alike — but said women had few means to express their anger, including violence. She called for the establishment of more family counseling centers and social institutions to deal with this trend. “We should give more attention to this problem before it snowballs,” she added.

Eight militants killed in Orakzai

By our correspondent

HANGU: A soldier and eight militants were killed in an attack by the militants on the security forces checkpoint and the subsequent retaliation by the military in Dabori area on Monday, official sources said. The sources said that scores of militants attacked the forces checkpoint in Gall locality in Dabori area of upper Orakzai Agency, killing a soldier.

Petraeus steps down in Afghanistan

KABUL: General David Petraeus, the most celebrated military leader of his generation, stepped down as US commander in Afghanistan on Monday after a checkered year at the helm of what is America’s longest war. At a ceremony in Kabul Petraeus passed the baton to John Allen, a former subordinate who made his name in Iraq by striking tribal alliances considered integral in reversing al-Qaeda’s momentum after years of appalling violence.