PAKISTAN

The United States on Friday placed Russia on its list of countries with the worst records of preventing copyright theft for the 13th straight year, just days after the two nations agreed to intensify talks on Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

Pakistan will export wheat this year despite an expected slight fall in production as the forecasted output will outpace the country's annual demand, said Minister for Agriculture Nazar Mohammad Gondal. The country is expected to produce 23.87 million metric tons of wheat against the annual demand of 22 million tons. Besides, it maintains a carryover stock of 3.5 million tons of wheat to meet emergencies.

Pakistan's raw cotton exports surged during July-March 2010 and also fetched the highest-ever price in the international market due to quality, according to Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP). In a report, TDAP said the country exported around 899,290 cotton bales till March 31, 2010 to India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and Central Asia.

Pakistan has increased fuel prices again with effect from April 1. Country's Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) announced the new petroleum product prices with Pak Rs 2.57 per litre increase in petrol price, Pak Rs 1.50 per litre increase in HOBC, Pak Rs 2.73 per litre increase in light diesel and Pak Rs 3.31 per litre increase in kerosene oil from April 1.

India-based spinners are all set to witness happy days ahead as the country's biggest competitor in yarn exports, Pakistan is said to have put a cap on the yarn exports to a maximum of 35,000 tonnes per month. According to Cotton Association of India expects spinners to realise higher prices for cotton yarn this year because of the recent decision by Pakistan.

Suicide bombers targeting the Pakistani military killed at least 45 people in Lahore on Friday, officials said, in a challenge to government assertions that crackdowns have weakened Taliban insurgents.

India signaled on Friday it was open to a new round of talks with Pakistan, raising fresh hopes of a thaw in relations after last month's official dialogue between the nuclear-armed rivals produced no breakthrough.

An upcoming U.S.-led military campaign to regain control of the Taliban heartland of Kandahar will be a decisive phase in the Afghan war, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told frontline troops this week.

President Barack Obama announced Thursday he will donate $1.4 million from his Nobel peace prize to ten charities.

Pakistan's unprecedented crackdown on its homegrown Taliban may have weakened the militants but the insurgency is still a threat to the unpopular U.S.-backed government.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traded barbs on Wednesday during briefly overlapping visits to Afghanistan, where Washington has troops at war but Tehran has growing clout.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Afghans on Wednesday to push energetically for a peace settlement with Taliban insurgents and said Afghanistan's neighbors must support such an agreement.

Two NATO soldiers were killed Tuesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a military base in Afghanistan, the alliance and local government sources said.

South East Asian (SEA) region comprising two of world's largest rice exporters, Thailand and Vietnam remained as world's top trade destination for the commodity. The food crisis of 2008 has inspired various countries in Asia to vie for status as the world's rice bowl and many hope to be able to dethrone Thailand.

A suicide car bomb attack on a police intelligence unit in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore killed at least 12 people and wounded about 65 during Monday's morning rush hour, officials said.

Four in five adults believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right -- with those feelings particularly strong in South Korea and China -- and half believe it should never be regulated, according to a global survey.

Pakistan said a senior Pakistani Taliban commander with al Qaeda links may have been killed when helicopter gunships attacked a building he was in, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday.

The United States will deliver 1,000 laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan this month and is considering additional arms sales to help the Pakistani air force crack down on insurgents in the Afghan border region.

A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and a child on Saturday in an attack on a police station in a northwestern Pakistani town, police said.

Commentators in both India and Pakistan greeted on Friday the first official talks between their countries since the 2008 Mumbai attacks with a degree of cynicism even though no breakthrough had been expected.

Taliban fighters opened fire, hurled grenades and staged suicide bombings in central Kabul on Friday, killing at least 16 people in defiance of the Western-backed government and a NATO offensive.