Top Ten Current Affairs August 21, 2013

1- Conspiracy unearthed: Plot to kidnap Punjab chief minister foiled

A premier intelligence agency has uncovered a plot to kidnap Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. The conspiracy was unearthed after operatives of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) offshoot in Punjab –Punjabi Taliban – arrested on suspicion revealed they had completed their reconnaissance and had chalked out a plan to abduct Shahbaz from his residence in Jati Umra-Raiwind.
The law enforcement agencies took action on the agency’s tip-off and arrested a militant identified as Muhammad Usman. The man was an ex-student of an Islamic seminary situated in Bahawalpur and had received military training from North Waziristan Agency (NWA).

2- Musharraf indicted in Benazir murder case
Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) Rawalpindi Judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman on Tuesday indicted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in the Benazir Bhutto murder case.

The court also indicted six others — former City Police Officer (CPO) Saud Aziz, former SP Potohar Khurram Shahzad, Rafaqat Hussain, Hasnain Gul, Sher Zaman, and Abdul Rashid Turabi.

3- Sindh cabinet says LB polls impossible in Sept
The Sindh cabinet on Tuesday decided that the local government elections in the province were not possible in September due to a host of reasons and could only be held in October or November.

Chaired by Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, the meeting also discussed the water, flood and embankment situations in Ghotki, Kashmore and Sukkur and decided that provincial ministers and assembly members, assisted by the irrigation department staff and district administrations, would personally monitor a possible flood situation at vulnerable spots in the province.

4- As DCC meets, cost of war and peace explained to all
The defence and security establishment has assured the elected government it will follow the policy decisions taken by the civilians but all concerns and reservations have been, and will further be, explained to the civilians in detail beginning with the August 22 meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) summoned by the PM.

5- National assets are public property, can’t be handed over to capitalists: CJ
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Tuesday observed that national assets were public property, which cannot be handed over to capitalists for business purposes.

The Supreme Court took an exception to the government’s move for privatising the coal-fired Lakhra power station and admonished Secretary Water and Power Saifullah Chatta for his incompetence as well as for concealing the facts of privatisation from the Wapda’s counsel and additional attorney general.

6- 13 held in ‘al-Qaeda office’ raid
Law enforcement agencies raided an office allegedly owned by al-Qaeda in Lahore and arrested 13 ‘terrorists’, including seven women on Tuesday.

Sources in the sensitive agencies told The News that the office was being used to trace phone numbers of influential people to make calls for extortion and kidnappings for ransom in different parts of the country under the garb of a Peer Sahib’s Aastana.