Cop assigned to guard anti-polio team gunned down in Pak
Peshawar, Feb 3: A police constable assigned to protect an anti-polio team was gunned down by unknown militants in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, police said. The incident happened on the first day of anti-polio drive across the country. Constable Abdur Razik was going to join a team of polio vaccinators in Jamrud Tehsil of Khyber district, bordering Afghanistan, when militants opened fire on him. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic. The main challenge for Pakistan is to convince reluctant parents, who are influenced by the propaganda of extremists and refuse to allow vaccination. Extremists regularly attack polio workers as they allege that the vaccine was a conspiracy to sterile Muslims. (PTI)
Belgium gets new premier
Brussels, Feb 3: Belgium has a new prime minister whose political purpose was long to break up the nation, gut the state structures and give ever more autonomy to his northern Flanders at the cost of everyone else. Bart De Wever took the oath early Monday, looking straight at King Philippe, the latest monarch of a royal house he so long had little but disdain for because it symbolised the old concept of Belgian unity. The prime minister and leading ministers took the oath in Dutch and French while several others on the 15-member team from both sides of the linguistic divide stuck to their own language during a short ceremony at the Royal Palace. (PTI)
Pak Prez to visit China today
ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: President Asif Ali Zardari will travel to China on Tuesday on a five-day state visit during which he will discuss a broad spectrum of bilateral relations with the Chinese leaders, with a focus on economic and trade cooperation, security collaboration, and the multi-billion dollar economic corridor (CPEC). The Foreign Office said on Monday that President Zardari, who is visiting Beijing at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, will hold high-level meetings with the President, Premier Li Qiang, and other senior officials. Their “discussions will encompass the full spectrum of Pakistan-China relations, with a particular focus on economic and trade cooperation; counter-terrorism and security collaboration, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and future connectivity initiatives,” state-run Radio Pakistan quoted the Foreign Office as saying. The two sides will also exchange views on regional and global geopolitical developments and cooperation in multilateral forums, it added. (PTI)