Pakistan Information Minister Sherry Rehman and PPP Leader of Senate Resign

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Source: Times of India

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani information minister Sherry Rehman on Friday resigned from her post but Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has not accepted her resignation, media reports said.

Rehman, close-aide of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, submitted her resignation due to differences over the government's handling of the media, official sources were quoted as saying by television channels.

The sources said PM Gilani has not yet accepted Rehman's resignation.

The development came hours after Geo News, Pakistan's leading Urdu news channel, claimed it was removed from cable networks across the country.

The channel said, this was done on President Asif Ali Zardari's orders but officials dismissed this claim.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Pak-information-minister-Sherry-Rehman-resigns-Reports/articleshow/4262666.cms

Also:

ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman resigned from her ministerial slot on Friday night to protest the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA)’s blocking of a private TV channel without taking her into confidence, sources told Daily Times.

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Earlier, senior Pakistan People’s Party leader Mian Raza Rabbani resigned as Leader of the House in Senate and federal minister for inter-provincial coordination.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\03\14\story_14-3-2009_pg1_4

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1. MORE: President Zardari rejects reconciliation plan

ISLAMABAD: The political crisis in the country took a plunge on Friday when in a dramatic move, a defiant President Asif Ali Zardari outrightly rejected the Washington-London backed reconciliation formula involving Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and ordered a crackdown on the media to stifle lawyers’ long march.

The intervention of Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani during separate meetings with the president and prime minister appeared to have produced no breakthrough in the deadlock before the long march approaches Islamabad.

PM Gilani was reportedly offended after the president refused to oblige his repeated requests of taking the reconciliation route as before leaving the PM House for meeting the president, he was hopeful that given the American-UK and Establishment backing, Zardari would not say no to him.

One top source claimed that a determined President Zardari told the army chief that he could think over the reconciliation formula, only after March 16, when the fury of the long march was over. But this offer of the president was said to have not lessened the worries of the foreign diplomats or the army chief who wanted some solid decisions to be announced before Monday to defuse the explosive situation.

more: http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20902