Ayaz Gul May 20, 2013

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, who is set to become prime minister for a third time after his party won recent parliamentary elections, on Monday called for peace talks with domestic Taliban extremists, saying “this is the best option” to fight militancy.

Addressing newly elected federal and provincial lawmakers of his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party in Lahore, Sharif described terrorism as “the most serious challenge” facing the country.

Barkat is 80 years old. He and his wife were home in the village of Shand in Pakistan when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the region of Mashkail last month. They lost everything, their belongings and their house. They were forced to live in the open air as Barkat did not have the energy to build a shelter. They were exposed to the elements as well as insects. They were about to lose hope when Balochistan Rural Support Programme (BRSP) found them and gave them a ShelterBox disaster relief tent.

05/19/2013 13:09 GMT

KARACHI, May 19, 2013 (AFP) - Under tight security, Pakistani officials Sunday held a repeat election in a district of violence-plagued Karachi, despite the killing of a senior politician in the city the day before.

Troops, police and paramilitary rangers backed up by armoured personnel carriers guarded the 43 polling stations in the NA-250 constituency, following claims of ballot-stuffing there during the May 11 general election.

SRINAGAR, May 18 2013 (IPS) - Aadil Khan and his two siblings had been playing as usual behind their house in the village of Diver, 110 kilometres north of Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, when they came across what they thought was a “plaything” laying on the ground. But no sooner had they picked the object up than it literally shattered their innocent lives into pieces.

Link: Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin - Disease early warning system and response in Pakistan, Volume 4, Issue 19

05/17/2013 15:22 GMT

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - Twin bomb attacks on Friday killed at least 13 people outside mosques in northwest Pakistan, where the party of cricket star Imran Khan is forming a coalition government, officials said.

The blasts targeted the two mosques in the Baazdara area of northwestern Malakand region, senior local administration official Amjad Ali Khan told AFP.

"The two blasts killed at least 13 people and wounded 48 others," Khan said. "Eight of the injured people are in a critical condition," he added.

LAHORE/DUBAI, 17 May 2013 (IRIN) - Hamza Mazhar, a 35-year-old teacher from Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, says he never wants to see the inside of a government hospital again.

“My mother was taken to the hospital with an upper respiratory tract infection in February this year and doctors said she needed care in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU),” he told IRIN.