Lahore, Jan 27: The first cousin of General Zia-ul-Haq, Abdul Waheed, has joined the Pakistan People's Party.

Former Ambassador Waheed, who defeated Salman Taseer twice in the general elections, announced his decision to join the PPP on Monday at a press conference in presence of PPP Lahore President Asghar Gujjar and Finance Secretary of Punjab Aurangzeb Barki.

Waheed said the PPP was the only party, which represented the masses and raised its voice for the poor and downtrodden of the country.

He said the PPP was the only party, which had always promoted the politics of tolerance and reconciliation, and this policy adopted by the party leadership, had influenced him to join the PPP.

Lahore, Jan. 26 : The coach of the Pakistan cricket team, Intikhab Alam has revealed that he is a man on a mission, and his main objective is to get players to talk and to support each other.

''People have the wrong perception about coaching. My job is to lighten the load off their (players) shoulders so they can leave all the baggage behind before they step on the field," the Dawn quoted Alam as saying.

Alam sees his role as that of motivator and not someone who tells a player how to grip a bat.

Lahore, Jan. 25 : Shocked after suffering his worst ever defeat in one day internationals, Pakistan cricket captain, Shoaib Malik has admitted that his team failed in all departments of the game during the series against Sri Lanka.

Malik said losing the home series was a big disappointment for him.

"It is not an encouraging result, of course, it is a disappointment as we flopped in batting and bowling and it was not that kind of the performance and result I was looking forward," he said at his post match press conference on Saturday.

Lahore, Jan 24: A career-best centuary of Sri Lankan batsman, Tillakaratne Dilshan leads Sri Lanka to thrash Pakistan by 235 runs to win the three-match cricket series by 2-1 on Saturday.

Muttiah Muralitharan castled his 500th wicket in the match and he needs 3 more wickets to overtake Wasim Akram''s tally of 502 wickets.

Elected to bat first, Sri Lanka scored 309 runs and skittled out Pakistan in a mere total of 75 in just 22.5 overs.

Apart from Dilshan, Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara also played good innings and scored 45 and 50 runs respectively.

Lahore, Jan. 24: Continuous drone attacks inside its territory by the US led forces are creating problems for the government and also for the army, Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said.

According to the Daily Times, Maj. Gen. Abbas, in a television interview, said that the Pakistan Army is taking action against the militants in the tribal region, but the US drone attacks were increasing the difficulties of the army in carrying out its offensive against the Taliban.

Lahore, Jan. 24: Putting down the speculation about Pakistan asking for the extradition of Col. Purohit, allegedly involved in the Samjhauta Express incident, Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that it would not demand his extradition from India as the two countries do not have any treaty in place for it.

"We do not have any extradition treaty with India to exchange accused," Gilani said.