Islamabad, Mar. 13 : Rejecting concerns of the international community, Pakistan has declared that its nuclear assets are safe as an elaborate command-and-control system was in place to safeguard the strategic arsenal.

"Our command-and-control system is very effective, and we do not need foreign assistance to protect and safeguard our strategic assets," the Daily Times quoted Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit, as saying.

Basit claimed that the international community had praised Pakistan's multi-layered security system.

Islamabad  - Pakistani authorities Friday impeded a cross-country rally by blocking a protest convoy from travelling to the capital city Islamabad to join a planned sit-in against the faltering year-old government.

Police stopped Ali Ahmed Kurd, a key leader of protesting lawyers, and scores of his supporters early Friday from entering the southern Sindh province from where the group planned to travel to the eastern town of Lahore before marching on the capital.

Islamabad, Mar. 13: A unmanned US drone has killed at least 12 people in Pakistan''s Kurram district near the Afghan border, a local official said.

"Taleban militants have sealed off the area and are retrieving bodies from the rubble," said a security official.

This was the fifth drone attack on Pakistan territory since Barack Obama became US president.

Pakistan is critical of the tactic because, it says, civilians are often killed, fuelling support for militants.

Islamabad, Mar. 13 : Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's nine foreign visits since September 2008 have cost a whopping 157.257 million rupees to the national exchequer, the National Assembly (NA) was told.

The expenditures included special remittances and daily allowances of the 246 staff, chartered flight charges and gifts to the visited countries, the Daily Times reports.

Since he became President, Zardari has visited the UK, the US, the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Afghanistan.

Islamabad  - Helicopter gunships Thursday pounded militants hideouts in Pakistan's tribal region that borders Afghanistan, killing at least 18 rebels, said a security official.

"Several positions of the militants were destroyed in the action that took place in three areas," said an official of the Mohmand Rifles, the paramilitary force deployed in the area.

"At least 18 militants were killed and scores of others injured," added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Islamabad, Mar. 12 : Pakistan Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani is trying very hard to save his chair and to put an end to the ongoing political turmoil in the country to stem another bout of military rule.

Gilani, reportedly, is working on a reconciliation strategy with the PML-N that would include overturning the verdict of the Sharif brother's disqualification from contesting elections and reinstating Shabaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab.