Islamabad, Sept 2: The Pakistan government has appointed its Permanent Representative to the UN Mission in Geneva, Masood Khan as the new envoy to China.

Masood's name was nominated by the country’s Foreign Office after the new PPP government reversed an earlier decision to appoint Akram as ambassador in Beijing.

A Foreign Office summary has already been cleared by Prime Minister Gilani and it now awaits the President’s signature, reported The News.

The PM cleared Khan's nomination for China, who is currently in Pakistan for consultations. The China post had fallen vacant after the appointment of former ambassador Salman Bashir as Pakistan's new foreign secretary in April 2008, added the paper.

Nairobi/Abuja - Nigeria

Berlin  - Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, accused the West on Monday of major blunders in its dealings with Russia and charged that these had led to the crisis with Georgia.

In remarks during a speech in Berlin to a trade-union poor-relief organization, the AWO, he contended it had been a blunder for the United States to train Georgia's military and establish anti-missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Schroeder said it had also been an error for Western nations to recognize Kosovo as independent.

Washington  - Keen to demonstrate that his administration had learned a hard lesson from Hurricane Katrina, US President George W Bush was in Texas on Monday to oversee disaster relief efforts.

"Coordination on this storm is a lot better than during Katrina. This has a lot to do with the coordination of the governors of various states involved," Bush said, after a briefing by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

St Paul, Minnesota  - The Republican presidential nominating convention was put on ice Monday by the unfolding natural disaster of Hurricane Gustav along the Gulf Coast.

But the pregnancy of the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain's vice presidential choice, kept McCain in the headlines during a day otherwise devoted to coverage of Hurricane Gustav's arrival in storm-weary New Orleans.

Washington, Aug 30: Assuring that the United States is there to support Pakistan to further consolidate its democracy, the State Department has said that it will stay out of Pakistan's internal affairs.

"Our policy is to stay out of Pakistan's internal affairs. We have repeated that over and over again," the Daily Times quoted State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood, as saying.

Terming Pakistan as a "close ally", Robert said that the US would continue to co-operate with Islamabad in the fight against extremism.