The new Pakistani prime minister was sworn in by President Pervez Musharraf yesterday, as two senior US envoys arrived in an apparent bid to shore up Islamabad's support for the "war on terror."
Yousuf Raza Gilani, a top aide of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, was elected prime minister on Monday by parliament, where an anti-Musharraf coalition won a huge majority in elections last month.
The volatile situation facing Musharraf, a key US ally against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, was underscored when Gilani on Monday freed judges who were detained by the president because they threatened his grip on power.
Supporters chanted "Long live Bhutto" after Gilani finished repeating the oath read out by a grim-faced Musharraf in a ceremony at the presidential palace.
In a snub to Musharraf, key coalition leaders -- including Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, her son Bilawal and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- stayed away from the swearing-in.
Musharraf told state TV after the ceremony that he would "always extend my fullest cooperation" to Gilani, saying the country faced a "difficult period" from Islamic militancy.
Standing beside him, Gilani, who spent five years in jail under Musharraf's government on corruption charges, said last month's elections showed that people wanted change.
After the ceremony, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher met Musharraf for 90 minutes, officials said.
Analysts say the US is now desperate to woo the new coalition government despite its hostility to Musharraf, fearing that political instability in the nuclear-armed country could hurt efforts to tackle Islamic militancy.
Minutes after being elected on Monday, Gilani ordered the release of the chief justice and other judges who had been held since Musharraf sacked them under a state of emergency in November.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary