Abohar, April 28: Instead of looking at its country’s depleting reputation in the world for being a haven for terrorists and the Taliban in Swat Valley, Radio Pakistan’s prime concern is the welfare of lower caste people in India.

In the latest Punjabi Durbar programme, Radio Pakistan has alleged that people belonging to the SC (Scheduled Caste) and ST
(Scheduled Tribes) in India are subjected to inhuman treatment in India.

London, Apr 28: Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani has done an about-turn from his quiet, but shocking position that the Government’s appeasement of the Taliban in the Swat Valley was a necessary step, a leading UK based daily has said.

His view, it has emerged in the year and a half since his appointment, is that the army was built to fight India, not Pakistanis, The Times has said.

General Kiyani seems to suggest that the Taliban is merely an uncomfortable phenomenon.

Peshawar, Apr 28: More than 30,000 people in Lower Dir have been displaced by a Pakistani military offensive to flush out Taliban militants.

Thousands of terrified women and children left the area after troops and helicopter gunships launched Operation Black Thunder

“Up to 30,000 people have left Maidan in Lower Dir district over the past few days,” Iftikhar Hussain, the NWFP Information Minister, told reporters here.

“We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts,” he said.

Islamabad, Apr 28 : Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif has urged British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to use his influence to make the US shun its policy of drone strikes in the Tribal Areas.

The appeal came at a meeting between Sharif and Brown who had called on the PML-N chief at Punjab House.

At the 40-minute meeting, the two leaders exchanged views on several issues of mutual interest.

Sharif said that the drone attacks were compounding anti-American sentiments in Pakistan, and such strikes would be counter-productive in the long run.

Lahore, Apr 28 : A campaign is already afoot to boycott the purchase of Swat's famous emeralds, because the money could be used to buy mortars, roadside bombs and suicide belts for the Taliban.

The "blood emeralds" have joined the Afghan opium as a source of Taliban lucre.

Swat is rich in orchards, timber - and gems. The Taliban have seized two of the emerald mines, declared them a trust and are mining them round the clock.