Islamabad - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has allowed Pakistan to cut interest rates this month or in April as the core inflation comes down, a top finance ministry official said Monday in Islamabad.

The permission was granted during the almost two weeks of talks between the IMF and Pakistani officials that ended in Dubai last week for the review of a 7.6 billion dollars programme approved to save the country from default on external payments.

Islamabad - Pakistan's most influential Islamist political party on Monday announced it will join former premier Nawaz Sharif's protest march against a court ban on his candidacy and for the reinstatement of the deposed Supreme Court chief justice.

"We will fully participate in the long march," Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed told reporters at a joint press conference with Sharif in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab.

Islamabad, Mar 2 : The adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tareen, has stressed the need for improving trade with India for economic benefit, saying that the Indian consumer market has massive potential that Pakistan must capitalise on.

“We have to stand on our feet, if we are good in what we are doing we have ready-made market in neighbouring countries,” he said.

Tareen said Pakistan should focus on enhancing economic activities with its neighbours, as the current trade volume was not satisfactory.

Islamabad - The United Nations Monday made a fresh appeal for the release of its official, John Solecki, who is being held by Baloch separatists in south-west Pakistan, a day after his captors threatened to kill him if the government did not release more than 1,100 prisoners in four days, officials and media reports said.

"We keep appealing for the immediate and safe release of Mr Solecki," said UN spokeswoman Maki Shinohara, while confirming that the world organization had learned about the deadline.

Islamabad, Mar 2 : President Asif Ali Zardari is considering various options to seek a remedy to the Sharif brothers’ disqualification issue, even through an act of Parliament.

Zardai held consultations with inner circles of the PPP to find out ways to resolve the stand; The Nation quoted sources, as saying.

Sources privy to these developments said Zardari is inclined to engage coalition partners, particularly the ANP and JUI (F) to mediate between the PPP and the PML-N.

Islamabad, Mar 2: Body tattoos are increasingly becoming popular in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The emergence of tattoo culture has brought with it several new artists who have technical and fine arts training, leading to an improvement in the quality of tattoos.

“In modern culture, it is a fashion and because I am an artist, I want to promote this art in one way or the other that is why I get tattooed here,” the Daily Times quoted Wasim Elahi as saying.