Islamabad  - Pakistani authorities Friday impeded a cross-country rally by blocking a protest convoy from travelling to the capital city Islamabad to join a planned sit-in against the faltering year-old government.

Police stopped Ali Ahmed Kurd, a key leader of protesting lawyers, and scores of his supporters early Friday from entering the southern Sindh province from where the group planned to travel to the eastern town of Lahore before marching on the capital.

Islamabad, Mar. 13: A unmanned US drone has killed at least 12 people in Pakistan''s Kurram district near the Afghan border, a local official said.

"Taleban militants have sealed off the area and are retrieving bodies from the rubble," said a security official.

This was the fifth drone attack on Pakistan territory since Barack Obama became US president.

Pakistan is critical of the tactic because, it says, civilians are often killed, fuelling support for militants.

Islamabad, Mar. 13 : Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's nine foreign visits since September 2008 have cost a whopping 157.257 million rupees to the national exchequer, the National Assembly (NA) was told.

The expenditures included special remittances and daily allowances of the 246 staff, chartered flight charges and gifts to the visited countries, the Daily Times reports.

Since he became President, Zardari has visited the UK, the US, the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Afghanistan.

Rawalpindi, Mar 13 : PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has asked Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to play his role and convince President Asif Ali Zardari to defuse the prevailing tension by restoring the pre-November 3 judiciary.

Sharif said that if the Prime Minister wished, he could restore the pre-November 3 judiciary, Geo News reported.

"The nation and the opposition would support the Prime Minister whatever steps he takes for restoration of the judges," he said, adding that now its time that Gilani should play his role.

Lahore, Mar 13: PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif has said his party leadership could not be intimidated by death threats, adding that and he and his brother Nawaz Sharif were ready to sacrifice their lives a thousand times for the restoration of the judiciary.

He was responding, through a statement, to an Interior Ministry letter delivered to him through the Punjab Government advising him and Nawaz Sharif to avoid public exposure because of a threat to their lives.

Washington, Mar 13: The US in still not willing to support a demand for the restoration of sacked judges, despite a change of government in Washington and, seems eager not to criticise the Zardari Government for its crackdown on opposition activists. It also wants to appear neutral in the Zardari-Sharif imbroglio.

On Thursday, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke conveyed Washington's concerns to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Holbrooke offered his views and advice to ease the mounting political tension in Pakistan.