AFGHANISTAN/CHINA
1. Former Pakistani Ambassador to China Masood Khan has been moved to New York to take care of international pressure on Pakistan at the UN.  Muhammad Sadiq Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador in Afghanistan, is likely to be shifted to China. (Daily Dharti)

INDIA
1. Abdul Hafiz Amirpuri writes that Chanakya’s philosophy was being followed by India and even the Indian foreign policy was based upon it. He says that every top Indian leader had talked about resolving issues with Pakistan and later, they stepped back from their commitment. Amirpuri writes that the recent Pakistan visit of the Indian Foreign Minister could also be assessed under this light; he says that issues like Kashmir, Sir Creek and water had not been touched whereas issues of visa, cultural exchange and trade had been the main agenda. Amirpuri writes that India’s relations with all its neighbours had deteriorated and that concrete negotiations between India and Pakistan will not take place until India stopped claiming Kashmir as its inseparable part. Amirpuri writes that India enacted the drama of negotiations because recently, it had conveyed to the US that it wanted to resolve all issues with Pakistan through talks. Amirpuri writes that on the one hand, India was behind destructive activities inside Pakistan and on the other, it had unleashed water aggression, due to which all rivers and rivulets had dried up. India was conspiring to ruin Pakistan’s unity and it was piling weapons. Amirpuri writes that the recent, the 24% increase in Indian defence budget had made India the fourth largest spender on military. (Al Qalam Weekly)

2. Maulana Muhammad Yusuf Ludhianvi Shahid says that religious madrassas in India had cultivated the prosperity of religion. He says these madrassas were centres for the promotion of faith. He says that currently, these madrassas were performing their duties amidst hundreds of problems. Shahid says due to various changes, the Ulema will have to stand firm as they had to cater to the future; hence, they will have to remain rooted in faith and well-equipped with the teachings of earlier scholars. (Al Qalam Weekly)

3. Federal Kashmir Affairs Minister Manzoor Wattoo said that the government was talking to India over all issues including Kashmir. He added that the visa policy between two countries was even hailed by the Indian population. (Daily Dharti)

DEFENCE
1. COAS Gen. Kayani visited Lahore to oversee the small arms firing exercise. The aim of this exercise was to make Pakistan increase its skills in firing. (Urdupoint, Nawa-i-Waqt, Jinnah)

2. According to Punjab Interior Department, terrorists were planning to attack PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and some Ulemas. The security for these leaders has been beefed up. (Jinnah)
3. Security has been put on high-alert in view of a warning from secret agencies about a potential Taliban attack. (Baad-e-Shimal)

TERRORISM/EXTREMISM
1. Political parties were avoiding protesting against the blasphemous film for fear that it would disturb their relations with the American administration. (Ummat, Jang)

2. Ummat editorially expressed anger over the controversial American film and asked OIC to do something about it. (Ummat Edit)

3. Religious parties in Balochistan have demanded that the government terminate all its relations with the US over the blasphemous film. (Daily Intekhab)

4. Sources have said that PTI chief Imran Khan has decided to move the international court against the controversial American film. (Daily Intekhab)

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
1. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will leave for Washington today and President Zardari will leave on September 24th. Khar will meet her US counterpart as well as other officials and at the end of her visit, will join Zardari’s delegation in New York. (Nawa-i-Waqt)

2. PTI Chief Imran Khan said that the issue of new provinces and local government elections should be left to the next government. Speaking with party workers in DI Khan, he said that the objective of the ‘Aman March’ was to take the nation out of American slavery and its wars. (Jang, Urdupoint)

3. Differences within PTI were getting visible now as its senior Vice President Sherry Mazari has expressed anguish over Imran Khan cancelling his Rajanpur visit. She said that the party was under the control of tribal leaders. (Ummat)

4. Opposition leader Chaudhary Nissar Ahmed said that Dr AQ Khan should not spoil his image by delivering inappropriate statements. He also said that until Imran Khan stops telling lies, there could be no talks with his party about the caretaker set up. He said that the 7 names suggested by PML-N for caretaker PM were not final. He said that MQM and PML-Q were shedding crocodile tears over rise in petrol prices. Ahmed said that Akhtar Mengal had already said Ataullah Mengal will not be interested in becoming the caretaker PM. He said he has had talks with Akhtar Mengal and also met Mohammad Khan Achakzai.  (Urdupoint, Ibrat)

5. Former Federal minister Raja Tridev Rai died on Monday. He was the king of Chittagong in East Pakistan but migrated to Pakistan after 1971 war of Bangladesh liberation. He was Pakistan’s ambassador to Argentina. (Nawa-i-Waqt)

6. In his column, Hamid Mir condemns the anti-Islam film that has created a furore in the Muslim world. Mir says that he was so offended by the film that he couldn’t even watch it completely. Mir says that Sam Bacile is worse than Osama bin Laden as the 9/11 attack killed a few thousands but the film injured the entire Muslim community. He criticizes the US President Obama for hiding Bacile and for threatening Muslims instead of apologizing. Mir says that some Christian and Jewish extremists were using the US as a base camp against Islam and comments that they were more dangerous than Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network. He says that he will not beg Obama to take action against terrorists like Bacile and Terry Jones, but he would definitely ask his American media friends to find out which secret American agencies were supporting Bacile and Jones. Mir is certain that Bacile and Terry Jones were not speaking for all the Americans  as legends like Ramsay Clark were still present in the US who spoke up for the release of Pakistan’s daughter Dr. Afiya Siddiqui. Mir says that unfortunately Bacile had become the face of America in the Muslim World. He writes that Muslims needed to do more than verbal protests when the offenders were talking about taking to arms. Mir questions why Pakistan was hiding its bombs from its enemies? Mir says that if manmade laws were not providing Pakistanis with any protection, how would they protect the Prophet’s dignity? He claims that as per his information, 2 more films were being made in the US and Holland in order to show sectarian differences between Muslims in an exaggerated manner, so that sectarian violence could be incited between various sects of Islam. He claims that a western TV channel has made a documentary film on the chaos in Balochistan in which the differences between Baloch and Pakhtun sects are highlighted. Mir says that we should understand that Pakistanis were not each other’s enemies. Mir writes that Pakistan’s real enemy was the one that has been continuously insulting the Prophet and was making Pakistanis fight against each other. Mir ends his column by saying that he would discuss who had been conspiring for strife between Baloch, Pakhtun, Hazara, Punjabis, Sindhis, Mohajirs and Hindus in his next column. He asks the entire Muslim community to get united against this common enemy. (Jang)

ECONOMY-WATER- ENERGY
1. Government departments have run debts totalling Rs. 641billion and despite getting special packages, they are not in a position to clear the debt. (Daily Intekhab)

2. By hiking petroleum prices which are not justified the government is instigating a bloody revolution. (Nawa-i-Waqt Edit)

3.  An agreement for Neelum-Jhelum hydel project would be signed tomorrow between WAPDA, the AJK and Pakistan governments. The overall cost of the project is Rs. 8.12 billion. The project will produce 969 MW of electricity and will be completed by 2016. (Daily Dharti)

4. WAPDA has sent a proposal (summary) to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on resolving the energy crisis in the country. The summary stressed the need for completion of 32 major hydel projects including dams. It has ruled out Thar Coal project for power generation. The proposal also doesn’t mention the offer a Chinese company to set up power plants at Gudu and Sukkur barrages in Sindh. (Awami Awaz)

SINDH
1. Shahryar Ashraf writes that Karachi attracted job seekers including Afghan immigrants who worked in the construction sector or blue collar jobs; they have also become rig pickers. Every day, 12000 tons of waste is thrown on the Karachi streets.  20,000 Afghan children collect saleable waste from the garbage every day. The UN report states that rig pickers earn less than USD 2 a day. According to government statistics, there are 5 lakh Afghan migrants in Karachi but only 80 % of them are registered. Ashraf writes that law enforcement agencies had expressed reservations over the presence of Afghan immigrants as their names have cropped up in many criminal activities in the city recently. (Urdupoint)

2. Sindh Tariqui Pasand’s Dr. Qadir Magsi said that 300 people were charred to death in a garment factory fire just to defeat the Sindh strike. Without naming MQM, he said that the forces who had been behind the May 12th Karachi violence, were also behind this factory fire. He also alleged that in order to weaken protests against the local government ordinance, several diversions of rain waters have been made to cause floods and distract people’s attention. (Awami Awaz)
 
PUNJAB
1. On the invitation of the ‘Bahali Suba Tehrik’ leader Mohammad Ali Durrani, a Bahawalpur conference was held where the residents of Bahawalpur refused to become a part of South Punjab. (Khabrain)

BALOCHISTAN
1. Minority Affairs Minister in Balochistan Jaiprakash, addressing a press conference along with  JUI leaders invited everyone for the October 14th Islam Zindabad Conference in Sukkur, Sindh, which he said was being held to prove time tested Hindu-Muslim unity. He said that even Hindus had condemned the controversial anti-Islam film and stated that the government should cut off diplomatic ties with the US over this issue. Jaiprakash said Hindus should stop talking about migrating from Pakistan and added that the government will soon frame laws for the protection of Hindus. (Ibrat)

2. Daily Intekhab says that the UN team that visited Quetta met different authorities over the issue of missing persons. Chief Secretary informed the team that only 80 people were missing, and 53 had already been recovered. A local group gave a list of 14800 missing persons to the UN team. Some other groups presented another set of numbers.  Edit says that the UN team was shocked to receive such discrepancies in the number of missing persons. Former Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao admitted that if the UN team reported such discrepancies in the number of missing persons to the Commission, it would bring more humiliation to Pakistan. Edit says that the tone   Chief Secretary’s tone when he appeared before the UN team was casual and it gave an impression that the issue was not serious; Edit says that our leadership did not value the SC or the CJP, then how would the UN team impress them? (Daily Intekhab Edit)

POK/ G-B NEWS
1. Jammu and Kashmir Peoples’ Party President Sardar Khalid Ibrahim Khan said that the resolution passed in the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly was a violation of Pakistan’s Constitution and against the Karachi Pact. He added that Gilgit-Baltistan was a part of Kashmir and giving it a provincial status would be unlawful. Sardar Khan asserted that President Zardari had sabotaged the Kashmir issue as trade with India and bus services were of no benefit for Kashmiris. He said that the steps taken by the federal government were contradictory to Pakistan’s ideological principles. (Daily Dharti)

2. Gilgit-Baltistan Council was presented Rs. 76.11 crore budget. It is a deficit budget as local tax revenue is estimated to be Rs. 33 crore. The government has earmarked Rs. 33 crores for development and Rs. 43.11 for non-development works. (Baad-e-Shimal)

3. The first women’s bank branch has been opened in Gilgit-Baltistan. (Baad-e-Shimal)