Gul to be replaced by Yasir Arafat

All-rounder Yasir Arafat will replace injured fast bowler Umar Gul in the Pakistan squad preparing for the second test against India starting in Kolkata on Friday. Arafat would fly to India on Thursday night and would be available for selection.Gul, who missed the first test which India won by six wickets, has been ruled out of the three-match series because of a nagging back injury. Arafat, 25, last played for Pakistan in the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September.

The Pakistani squad has been riddled with several fitness issues lately much to the concern of fans back home. Strike bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami did not bowl at the nets on Thursday for the second consecutive day because of chest infections and captain Shoaib Malik is doubtful because of an ankle injury. Opening bat Salman Butt has influenza and batsman Misbah-ul-Haq is recovering from a viral infection.

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Pakistan rejects Bush’s remarks on anti-al-Qaeda operation

While on one hand, Washington has praised the steps taken by Islamabad with General Musharraf stepping off the position of COAS, it has prompted an angry response from Pakistan over remarks from U.S. President George W. Bush that he would still send U.S. troops into Pakistan if he had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were hiding somewhere in the country.

“Such concerns have been expressed on a number of occasions. We have made it clear that any such action would be unacceptable,” Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said stating that any direct action by U.S. troops would be counter-productive.

Bush declared that he would authorize direct U.S. military action if he had actionable intelligence that senior al-Qaeda leaders were hiding in Pakistan. In a recent interview with CNN, Bush said his stance had not changed when questioned about his declaration.

Sadiq said that Pakistan and the U.S. were partners in the anti-terror war and the positions of both were well defined and understood. He said operations against al-Qaeda and other “terrorist entities” had been carried out by Pakistan’s own forces and would pursue the same policy in future.

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PIA off EU banned airline list

The European Commission has lifted all restrictions on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flying in the 27-nation bloc while keeping Indonesian airlines on its list of banned carriers.

Updating its list of carriers banned throughout the European Union, the European Union’s executive arm also lifted its ban on Surinam’s Blue Wing Airlines. In March the Commission banned most of the Pakistan airline’s planes amid safety fears concerning the ageing fleet. PIA and Blue Wing “have successfully completed the implementation of a corrective action plan following their inclusion in the list,” the Commission said in a statement.

“Their oversight authorities have produced evidence that they verified the measures taken by the airlines and that these measures provide for long-lasting sustainable solutions to avoid the same problems recurring in the future,” it added. EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said the latest airline blacklist shows “that when airlines take rapid and sound corrective action to comply with safety standards, they can be withdrawn from the list quickly.”

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Fact File: General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani

With General Pervez Musharraf stepping down as COAS yesterday, his successor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former head of Pakistan’s main spy agency (ISI) has been brought in to the limelight in a time when the image of Pakistan Armed Forces is being heavily undermined owing to the recent geo-political events taking place in the country. General Kayani has been spoken of as a ‘quiet soldier’ who gets ‘a lot done without making much noise’. A clear indication of this fact being that he has so far ensured that he remains sidelined from the political grapevine. Will he be able to keep that up in times to come is a question everyone is asking. A lot is expected of him with regards to reforming not only the image of Pakistan Army but also establish and promote its credibility while keeping at distance from the unstable political environment.

Here are five important facts about General Kayani that you may or may not know:

1- Born into one of northern Punjab province’s largest and most powerful clans, Kayani, 55, studied at a Military College Jhelum, before training at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and also graduating from the National Defense College in Islamabad.

2- After fighting as a lieutenant in the 1971 war against India, Kayani was appointed as the deputy military secretary to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1988. He won accolades for sensitively overseeing troop movements in a tense 2001-2002 border standoff between Pakistan and India as the army’s chief operational commander.