innosreport

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan will next week indict former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on charges of conspiracy to murder opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, officials said on Tuesday. The court said Musharraf would be indicted on August 6. Musharraf’s lawyer Ahmed Raza Kasuri said his client would plead not guilty. If convicted, Musharraf would face the death penalty or life imprisonment, government prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar Ali said. A former military strongman, Musharraf was brought to the court in Rawalpindi city near the capital Islamabad by security officials. He has been under house arrest for more than three months. Bhutto, who was twice elected prime minister, was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack in December 2007. There are worries the trial could widen mistrust between the civilian government and powerful military.Four generals have ruled Pakistan in the past but none were ever indicted.

(Nigeria) Umaru Shehu, Commissioner of Police, Nasarawa State on Tuesday confirmed the detention of two men for hijacking the N2 million given to the widow and children of an officer killed in the Alakio attack. The money was given by the Nasarawa State Government and the I-G to widows and children of officers killed on May 7, attack on security agents in  Alakio. Shehu told newsmen in Lafia that the two brothers of one of the deceased officers from Plateau collected the money from the widow who had two daughters and gave her only N20,000. According to Shehu, the widow reported to the police that she was subjected to all manners of humiliation and was ejected from the family house with her children. He said that the alleged ill-treatment prompted the police to invite  the  brothers, detain and query them over the allegations. He said that they confessed to have collected the money and allegedly spent N700,000 for the funeral rites of the deceased. The CP said he had to

No fewer than 17 people, including three children, burned to death in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday when a gas cylinder exploded on a bus after it collided with a truck, officials said. The bus was carrying passengers to the city of Bannu when the collision happened on a highway around 140 kilometres (87 miles) from Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "The gas cylinder installed in the bus leaked after the accident and it caught fire," said Dil Nawaz Khan, a senior government official in Karak city, where the accident happened. "All 18 people on board were burnt and only one passenger could survive. His position is also critical," he told AFP. Hospital officials said six women and children were also among the dead. "We received 17 dead bodies including the bodies of three children and as many women. Most of the dead bodies are badly mutilated and could not be identified," Sarfraz Khan, a doctor at Karak's

After a three-year stalemate, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Tuesday set themselves an ambitious goal to reach a long elusive peace deal within nine months. Standing side-by-side with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has dragged them back to the negotiating table, officials from both sides said it was time to end their decades-old conflict. "I can assure you that in these negotiations, it's not our intention to argue about the past, but to create solutions and make decisions for the future," Israeli chief negotiator Tzipi Livni told her Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erakat. Both sides have agreed to meet again "within the next two weeks," Kerry said, either in Israel or the Palestinian territories to begin formal negotiations. "Our objective will be to achieve a final status agreement over the course of the next nine months," he added after hosting two days of talks in Washington. In the past, during years of failure "we di

A train that derailed in Spain killing 79 people was travelling at 153 kilometres per hour (95 miles per hour) at the time of the accident, a court said Tuesday after analysing the train's data recorders. Moments before the accident the train was travelling at a speed of 192 kilometres an hour, the court said in a statement, while the speed limit at the spot where the train derailed was set at 80 kilometres an hour. "Seconds before the accident the brakes were activated. It is estimated that at the time of the derailment the train was travelling at 153 kilometres an hour," the High Court of Galicia which is leading the investigation said. The driver of the train was speaking on his work phone at the time of the accident and appeared to consult a map or other document, the court added in a statement. "Minutes before the train came off the tracks he received a call on his work phone to get indications on the route he had to take to get to Ferrol. From the co

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Tuesday in Cairo that Egypt's deposed President Mohamed Morsi, who she met late on Monday, is in good health and has access to the news. "He is well and has access to the news," Ashton said in a televised press conference on state-run Nile TV, noting that she does not know the location where Morsi is held. Meanwhile, Ashton stressed that her visit to Egypt is not to dictate any side but to help find a solution to the ongoing crisis on the ground. "There is no field for violence or dissent, and demonstrations should be peaceful," she said.

China's economy will maintain steady growth in the second half of this year amid "extremely complicated domestic and international conditions," according to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, CPC, Central Committee, reports Xinhua. The central authorities will continue to coordinate the tasks of stabilizing growth, restructuring the economy and promoting reforms, according to a statement released Tuesday after a meeting held by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The meeting was presided over by General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping. China's economy has been stuck in a protracted slowdown, easing to 7.5 percent in the second quarter from 7.7 percent in the first three months, as the government deliberately tamed down the pace to avoid bubbles. China targets GDP growth of 7.5 percent and 3.5 percent growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation. In the first half of the