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| Sunday, 6 November 2005 |
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UN hails Musharraf's fighter jet delay ISLAMABAD, Nov 5 (AFP) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's decision to postpone the purchase of F-16 jet fighters is a welcome move which will free up money for needy earthquake victims, the United Nations said Saturday. "These are definitely welcome comments," the UN's emergency coordinator in Pakistan Jan Vandemoortele told AFP, referring to Musharraf's announcement on Friday that he would delay plans to buy around 25 of the multi-million-dollar planes. "It will certainly free up the money to take a larger part of the pie, because the work has to be done and if the international community will not come up with the resources, the ultimate resources will be domestic," he said. Musharraf said during a tour of the devastated city of Muzaffarabad Friday that he was putting off the long-awaited deal to buy the US-built warplanes to focus on aid efforts. "We are going to postpone that... we want to bring maximum relief and construction efforts," Musharraf told reporters. The giant 7.6-magnitude earthquake four weeks ago killed 73,000 people and seriously injured about the same number. It also left about 3.3 million homeless and one million in urgent need of food supplies. |
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