Islamabad- Pakistan has appointed a new chief of the country's main spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a major reshuffle of the senior military leadership.

Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha was appointed ISI director general, according to an army statement issued late Tuesday. He will replace Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, a loyalist of former president Pervez Musharraf, who resigned in August to avoid impeachment.

Islamabad - At least 37 people died and six others were injured when a bus collided into a tanker in central Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

Islamabad, Sept 30 : Newly elected Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was acting like his predecessor Pervez Musharraf as he was bypassing parliament while taking decisions on major issues, like war of terror and matters related to foreign policy, the country’s Leader of Opposition Ch Nisar Ali Khan has said.

“President Zardari was pursuing policies of former president Pervez Musharraf who also had ignored parliament and took decisions on national issues on his own. Decisions on war on terror and foreign policy must be taken by parliament. Musharraf’s policies have completely failed and Mr Zardari’s policies will also fail,” he told reporters.

Islamabad - At least 12 people were killed Monday when Taliban militants and local tribesmen exchanged heavy gunfire in Pakistan's restive tribal district of Bajaur, security officials said.

The fighting started when an army of volunteers from the Salarzai tribe tried to set ablaze the houses of the insurgents, who have been fighting government forces since early August when government troops launched an operation in the region to retake a strategically important checkpoint from the rebels along the Afghan border.

"At least nine locals and three Taliban - including their commander in the area, Abdul Mutallab - died in the firefight while six more people were injured," a security official said on the condition of anonymity.

Islamabad  - About 20,000 people had fled to the north-eastern Afghan province of Kunar to avoid fighting across the border between Taliban militants and security forces in a Pakistani tribal district, the UN refugee agency said Monday.

The fighting in the restive district of Bajaur started in August when thousands of Pakistani military troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, launched an operation to retake control of a strategically important checkpoint along a route used by the Taliban to aid their comrades fighting US forces in Kunar.

The fighting, which is still continuing, has killed more than 600 militants and dozens of soldiers and inflicted heavy civilian casualties.

Islamabad, Sept 29 : Various civil society organisations in Pakistan have demanded of the federal government to cut down expenditures on defence and armaments and utilise the saved money for relief and uplift of the poor hit by the rise in prices of food and energy.

The demand was made by representatives of the CSOs who met here in connection with the upcoming Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ meet in St Lucia in October on the theme of “Implications of high food and energy prices for economic management”, reported the Dawn.