Islamabad, Sept 5: PPP Co-chairman and presidential hopeful Asif Ali Zardari, who is expected to win tomorrow’s presidential poll, will embark on his first ever visit as the head of the state to China on September 9.

If he wins, Zardari would be Pakistan’s 12th President.

Zardari’s planned trip may be an attempt to blunt the growing criticism that there was a shift in the PPP government’s policy towards China and that it was distancing itself from Pakistan’s most-trusted ally, i. e. the US.

Karachi, Sept 5 : The Sindh provincial government has reportedly decided to establish separate courts for women, Provincial Law Minister Muhammad Ayaz Soomro said here last evening.

Lahore, Sept 5 : The PML-N had leaked to a foreign newspaper the medical reports suggesting that PPP Co-chairman and presidential hopeful Asif Ali Zardari suffered from mental illness till last year due to 11-year-long incarceration.

The PML-N hardliner is also “leaking” other stories of Zardari’s bank accounts and properties to a section of the media that is anti-Zardari, said a PML-N source.

“It is going to get worse today and tomorrow. It looks as though hardliners in the PML-N are determined to push Nawaz Sharif into a confrontation with Asif Zardari and bring the entire system into disrepute,” the Daily Times quoted the source as saying.

Islamabad, Sept 5: The PPP has decided in principle not to reinstate the deposed Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and his fellow judges to the pre-Nov 3 position, and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has been duly informed in this regard, said party spokesman Farhatullah Babar here last evening.

Islamabad, Sept 5 : Members of National Assembly (MNAs) from FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) last evening met PPP Co-chairman and presidential hopeful Asif Ali Zardari and asked him to immediately stop the military operation in the Tribal Areas, else, they threatened, they would quit the ruling coalition.

“We are so disappointed with this government that we will not support Asif Zardari. We might quit the coalition if the government doesn’t review its habit of lying,” the Daily Times quoted FATA members’ parliamentary leader Munir Orakzai, as saying.

He said the government had not kept its word of suspending the military operation during Ramazan.

Islamabad, Sept 5 : Following reports that the PPP-led federal government was targeting the PML-N and the Punjab Government run by PML-N chief Shahbaz Sharif, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in the National Assembly last evening that his government was not pursuing any case against the Sharif brothers.