Militant attacks ravage Pakistani cities

Steve Ide, from Nazareth, spoke with Dennis Costandinos a production supervisor at Lutron Corp. about a job for work at Lehigh Valley Fair Exhibition Center in Allentown early this fall. A Manpower survey says that three-quarters of employers do not expect to change the staffing levels for the first quarter of 2009.
The job market seems status quo in the short term.

That may not sound exciting, but if you're a glass half full person, means few people will lose their jobs in an already rough economy.

"That's actually a good thing in their eyes ... In fact the levels of maintenance personnel of it is good for those employees," said Becky Sokolowski, Manpower's regional director for the Lehigh Valley.


Manpower Inc. released a survey today shows that 75 percent of Lehigh Valley employers plan no staffing changes in the first quarter of 2010. That's just above the national rate of 73 percent.

Meanwhile, 12 percent expect cuts and only 10 percent plan to hire LAHORE, Pakistan, Dec. 8 (UPI) - Major cities of Pakistan have been hit by militant attacks, with the death toll from Friday over 100, authorities said.

In the latest attacks, seen as retaliation for the counter offensive of the Pakistani military in South Waziristan, the militants killed at least 45 people in two nearly simultaneous explosions on Monday at the busy market of the moon in the eastern city beautiful Lahore, capital of Punjab province and the second largest after Karachi newspaper Dawn. In August, a suicide bomber killed nine people there.

A city official said the toll could go up to the attacks also wounded dozens of people and caused a huge fire, trapping people. The blasts apparently were detonated by remote control, Dawn.

Lahore attacks are a concern, says the insurgency spread to cities far from areas like Peshawar, another town devastated by violence near the border with Afghanistan and the lawless tribal regions as sanctuaries for hearing Taliban, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Also Monday, Peshawar, was beaten again when a suicide bomber exploded outside a court, killing at least five people, officials said. The attack also wounded dozens.

CNN quoted witnesses as saying the attacker, riding in a rickshaw, blew himself up outside the court.

Peshawar, has taken the worst of the recent wave of violence by the Taliban, which has claimed at least 270 lives in that city since the Pakistan military offensive began Oct. 17.

On Friday, militants attacked an area of the mosque in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, near Islamabad, killing more than 40 people, including 17 children. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for attacks in Rawalpindi, CNN reported, quoting an email from the group.ver the next three months.