Army Releases List of Fort Hood Shooting Fatalities

TEMPLE, Texas — Eight victims of the mass shooting at Fort Hood were still being treated here on Saturday, including two who remained in the surgical intensive care unit, according to doctors at Scott & White Medical Center, about 30 minutes east of the sprawling Army base.

Two people wounded in the attack had been discharged in the last 24 hours.

Afghanistan: West hails Hamid Karzai as ‘legitimate’ president

British and American officials rushed to congratulate Mr Karzai as the country’s “legitimate leader” as the international community tried to draw a line under months of paralysing political limbo following the Aug 20 vote which was mired in fraud.

But London and Washington also made clear that they expect him to make immediate moves towards bolstering the ranks of the armed forces, tackling corruption and giving the defeated opposition a role within his new government.

Suicide bomber kills 35 near Pakistan’s capital

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — A suicide bomb killed 35 people near Pakistan’s military headquarters Monday while a second blast wounded several police, continuing a wave of terrorism that prompted the United Nations to suspend long-term development work near the Afghan border.

The rash of attacks by Islamist militants has killed at least 300 people across Pakistan over the past month — including 11 U.N. workers — and threatened to destabilize the nuclear-armed nation.

Blast in Pakistan Kills at Least 30

ISLAMABAD — An explosion Monday morning in a busy commercial district in the garrison town of Rawalpindi killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens more, security and rescue officials said.

Military personnel were apparently targeted in the attack, and many of the victims appeared to be soldiers.

UN chief in Kabul as pressure mounts over run-off vote

(For more stories on Afghanistan, click [ID:nAFPAK])

* Ban Ki-Moon to meet Karzai and Abdullah

* Alternatives being sought to one-man run-off

* Election officials decide whether to go ahead with run-off

* Referral to Supreme Court an option

By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL, Nov 2 (Reuters) – U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Monday as pressure grew to abandon plans for a risky run-off vote after the withdrawal of President Hamid Karzai’s only rival.

UN chief flies in to broker power-sharing deal in Afghanistan

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, flew into Kabul this morning to discuss security for his staff and help broker a power-sharing deal between President Karzai and Dr Abdullah Abullah following the latter’s withdrawal from a presidential election run-off.

Mr Ban is expected to meet security officials to discuss the safety of roughly his 6,000 employees in Afghanistan following a Taleban suicide attack on a UN guesthouse last week in which five foreign UN staff were killed.

Pakistan suggests removal of D-8 non-tariff barriers

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday proposed for the removal of all non-tariff barriers to facilitate intra-D-8 trade to meet the challenges posed by global economic slowdown as well as to stimulate economic recovery in member countries.

He was speaking at the 12th opening session of the D-8 Council of Ministers’ meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, according to a message by Pakistan’s High Commission in Malaysia.

Blast in Pakistan’s Rawalpindi kills 24

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suspected Taliban suicide bomb killed at least 24 people in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Monday, officials said, as the government announced a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of the group’s leader.

Pakistan Taliban militants are being squeezed out of their remote strongholds on the Afghan border by a massive army offensive, and have retaliated by stepping up bomb attacks and commando-style raids on urban targets.

Sending NRO to committee illegal, says Nisar

ISLAMABAD (SANA): Pakistan Muslim League-N leader and Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar has said sending of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to National Assembly’s standing committee for law and justice was illegal.

Talking to media outside the Parliament House on Friday, PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar said his party would oppose the bill.

Pakistanis confront Clinton over drone attacks

ISLAMABAD — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was confronted repeatedly by Pakistanis Friday as she ended a tense three-day tour of the country, chastised by one woman who said a U.S. program using aerial drones to target terrorists amounted to “executions without trial.”

On another thorny topic, Clinton slightly softened her blunt charge of a day earlier that Pakistani officials know where al-Qaida terrorists are hiding and are doing little about it.

Clinton faced sharp questions from Pakistani civilians about the U.S. effort that uses unmanned aircraft to launch missiles to kill terrorists along the porous, ungoverned border with Afghanistan.

But she refused to go into detail about the classified strikes that have killed both key terror leaders and bystanders, long a source of outrage among Pakistan’s population despite an equally deadly campaign of militant-spawned bombings.

Asked repeatedly about the drones, a subject that involves highly classified CIA operations, Clinton said only that “there is a war going on.” She added that the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents.

Clinton left Islamabad for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates after a tour that was rocked at the start by a devastating terrorist bombing in Peshawar that killed 105 people, many of them women and children.

Her visit revealed clear signs of strain between the two nations despite months of public insistence that they were on the same wavelength in the war on terror.

What is less apparent is what U.S. officials hope will come from Clinton’s tough language about Pakistani officials’ failure to eliminate al-Qaida as a threat within their borders. While her remarks echo the skepticism that many Americans have felt about Pakistan’s failure to target al-Qaida’s leaders, it is not at all certain that they will prod stepped-up action.