Pakistan vows to help Afghan peace efforts

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will support every effort to promote reconciliation in Afghanistan, a senior government official said ahead of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's visit to Qatar Monday to discuss peace efforts. Gilani's trip comes after the Taliban last month said they planned to set up a political office in Qatar ahead of possible talks with the US. "There are certain ideas and suggestions on Afghan reconciliation and when Prime Minister Gilani meets Qatar's leadership, these will certainly come under discussion," the official said.

N Koreans begin pilgrimage on Kim

SEOUL: People across North Korea have started their pilgrimage to Kim Jong-Il's birthplace to celebrate the dead leader's birthday and to pledge loyalty to his son and successor, state media said yesterday. Teenage students from across the country visited Kim's birthplace at Mount Paekdu near the border with China, the North's official news agency KCNA said. The young visitors laid flowers at portraits of Kim, who died in December aged 69, his mother, and his father Kim Il-Sung.

Taiwan makes biggest drugs bust in 10 years

TAIPEI: The authorities here have arrested three people and seized nearly half a tonne of narcotics in their biggest drugs bust in 10 years, local media reported yesterday. Investigation Bureau agents and police discovered the 434 kilograms of amphetamines and ketamine hidden among 1.5 tonnes of mushrooms in a container flown into Taoyuan International Airport from China via Hong Kong, the Taipei-based China Times reported. The haul was valued at around Tw$500 million (US$17 million), it said.

China water project to start operating in 2013

BEIJING: A massive project to divert water from China's south to its drought-prone north — which has seen hundreds of thousands of people relocated — will become partly operational next year, state media reported. The South-North Water Diversion Project is one of the country's largest infrastructure projects since the building of the Three Gorges Dam, which involved the relocation of more than one million people.

North Korea builds unmanned attack plane

SEOUL: North Korea is developing unmanned attack aircraft using US target drones imported from the Middle East, a report said Sunday. They are based on MQM-107D Streaker target drones, which are used by the US army, and imported from a Middle East nation believed to be Syria, Yonhap news agency reported. Agencies