Zardari to address UN General Assembly

ISLAMABAD, Sep 19 (UNI) Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari will lead the country's delegation to the United Nations General Assembly session, which opened early this week.

''Mr Zardari would address the Assembly and speak on a number of important issues, including the ongoing war on terror, composite dialogue with India, the regional security situation and Pakistan's relations with the US and Afghanistan,'' official sources told UNI.

During his five-day tour beginning September 21, he would also hold important meetings on the sidelines of the session with world leaders, including US President George W Bush.

Zardari is also expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

His itinerary for October also includes a visit to China.

Zardari's visit would underscore importance that Pakistan attaches to its ''time-tested'' relations with China.

The visit would take place almost a month after Interior Ministry Chief Rehman Malik confessed to the presence of militants representing the Chinese Islamic movement in Pakistan's troubled tribal regions near the Afghan border.

Some of the militants were also arrested in the recent past and handed over to the Chinese government.

Officials said the planned visit of Mr Zardari would send a strong signal to Beijing and the world community of the high priority Pakistan accorded to its relations with China.

Pakistan considers buying nuclear power plants ISLAMABAD, Sep 19 (Reuters) Pakistan is considering purchasing nuclear power plants to meet its growing energy shortages, the government said today.

The country is suffering from acute power shortages, and officials say there is a power deficit of up to 4,000 megawatt.

In recent months state-run utilities have switched off power for several hours a day across the country, though the situation improved towards the end of summer, as air conditioners are in less use.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani today held a meeting with senior officials to discuss the possibility of buying nuclear plants.

Gilani set up a committee of senior officials ''to work out the modalities and financial arrangements before a formal decision is made on the purchase of nuclear energy plants,'' his office said in a statement without giving further details.

Pakistan has two nuclear power plants.

Its first nuclear power plant was set up with Canadian help in 1972 and has a capacity of 137 megawatts.

The second nuclear power plant was built with the help of its long-time ally, China, in 1999 in Chashma, a town in the central Punjab province.

It has a generation capacity of 325 megawatts.

China is helping Pakistan build a third plant near Chashma.

Pakistan has previously asked the United States for a deal along the lines of one struck between the United States and India, which gives access to US know-how and technology to develop civil nuclear energy capacity.

The United States refused because of a scandal involving Pakistan's top nuclear scientist.

Abdul Qadeer Khan was put under house arrest in 2004 after admitting he had run a smuggling ring to supply nuclear parts to countries including Libya, Iran and North Korea.

Livni seeks unity after contentious Israeli vote TEL AVIV, Sep 19 (Reuters): Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni appealed to her party's restive parliamentary bloc for unity today after she narrowly won an internal ballot to replace scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

''We need to act quickly ...

We don't have time to waste bickering over politics,'' she told fellow lawmakers at Kadima party headquarters in Tel Aviv, their first meeting since she beat former general Shaul Mofaz in the voting on Wednesday.

Speed was vital, she said, ''because there are difficult challenges facing us as a nation and Kadima is the party running the country and will go on doing so for many years''.

Mofaz, however, stayed away, after a sometimes bitter campaign that ended with him losing to Livni by mere 400-odd votes, or just one percentage point.

During a tense and lengthy count, some Mofaz aides complained of irregularities.

Livni urged the party to pull together now: ''Kadima needs to stay united and I'm sorry Shaul Mofaz has decided not to be with us here today.'' But her narrow victory has opened a rift within the three-year-old centrist party that could make it harder for her to cobble together a new coalition government and become prime minister once Olmert fulfils his pledge to resign as premier following an investigation into alleged corruption.

Mofaz shocked Israel's political establishment by announcing he was taking a ''time out'' from politics.

The Kadima primary was seen by some as adding pressure along Israel's main ethnic faultline - between the long-dominant Ashkenazi Jews of European origin, like Livni, and Middle Eastern Sephardis.

Mofaz, who was born in Iran, had inspired hopes among fellow Sephardi Jews that he might become the first of their community ever to become prime minister of a country where many complain they have been treated as second-class citizens.

Livni supporters played down Kadima's divisions, saying most of Mofaz's camp took part in the meeting in a sign of unity.

Livni, a 50-year-old lawyer who once served in the Mossad intelligence agency, began meeting with coalition partners on Thursday, hours after the vote.

But insiders questioned her ability to quickly form a new government and become Israel's first female leader since Golda Meir in the 1970s.

Olmert, who faces possible indictment, will notify the cabinet on Sunday of his resignation.

Olmert will then have to present his resignation to President Shimon Peres after Peres returns from abroad at the end of September.

Until Livni forms a government, Olmert plans to stay on as caretaker prime minister and pursue US-sponsored peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Today, Abbas called to offer congratulations to Livni, who has been Israel's chief peace negotiator, her office said.

Few on either side see a major breakthrough in the process, despite pressure from U.S.

President George W.

Bush for them to conclude a deal on a Palestinian state before he leaves the White House in January.

Kadima is the biggest party in parliament but only has 29 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, forcing it to rely on support from the left-wing Labour party of Ehud Barak and a variety of other groups, including right-wing religious Jews.

Right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu called yesterday for an immediate parliamentary election, not otherwise due until 2010.

Polls show his Likud party would win.