Mariano Rajoy said he would fulfil the mandate given by the Spanish people.

The calls came after a newspaper published text messages he allegedly sent to the suspect, Luis Barcenas, ex-treasurer of his Popular Party (PP).

Meanwhile Mr Barcenas repeated in court allegations that Mr Rajoy received payments from a slush fund.

He said Mr Rajoy secretly received money between 2008 and 2010.

An El Mundo report on Monday said Mr Rajoy had sent text messages of support to Mr Barcenas, who is in custody facing trial for corruption and tax fraud. He denies the allegations.

Mr Rajoy, too, denies any wrongdoing, though he did not deny sending the text messages.

He said they showed his commitment to democracy and to allowing the justice system to do its work without political interference.

On Sunday the leader of the country's main opposition Socialist Party, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, called for Mr Rajoy's immediate resignation.

At a news conference, Mr Rajoy said a prime minister could not be expected to spend all day denying every rumour or insinuation made about him.

"The rule of law does not bow to blackmail and the institutions, the administrations of justice, the judicial police and tax administrations have acted and are acting and will continue to act with absolute independence," he said.

"This is a serious democracy... and I will submit myself to investigation."

A series of newspaper allegations that Mr Rajoy and other top politicians received illicit payments has enraged a country in the depths of recession and record unemployment.

It is claimed that Mr Barcenas ran a PP slush fund that took donations from construction magnates and distributed them to party leaders in cash.

El Mundo said last week that it had delivered documents with Mr Barcenas's original ledger entries to the High Court.

Another Spanish paper, El Pais, published similar documents earlier this year.

Reuters news agency quoted lawyers as saying Mr Barcenas handed over the originals in court on Monday.

El Mundo's most recent report includes a text message Mr Rajoy apparently sent to Mr Barcenas in January this year - when the slush fund allegations broke.

He said: "Luis, I understand. Stay strong. I'll call you tomorrow. A hug."

The paper said the conversations showed Mr Rajoy maintained "direct and permanent contact" from at least May 2011 to March 2013.

Correspondents say it is unlikely that Mr Rajoy will step down given his party's outright parliamentary majority.

Mr Barcenas is being investigated over allegations he stashed up to 48m euros (£41m) in secret Swiss bank accounts. Prosecutors allege that some of the funds stem from illegal party donations or kickbacks.

He and his wife are also suspected of falsifying documents on their tax statements between 2002 and 2006.

The couple deny the charges.

United's offer is being considered but is understood to be below the Spanish club's valuation of the player.

While Fabregas is not pushing for a move, it is believed he is open to a return to England.

The 26-year-old will be guided by whether Barcelona are prepared to accept an offer for him.

Fabregas came through the Spanish club's La Masia academy before Arsenal signed him as a 16-year-old in 2003.

He developed as one of the London club's key players under manager Arsene Wenger before becoming Arsenal captain in November 2008.

The Spain international spent eight years with the Gunners, playing 303 games and scoring 57 goals.

However, he returned to the Nou Camp when he signed a five-year deal with Barcelona in a £25.4m move in August 2011.

He has since helped the Catalan club win the Copa del Rey in 2011-12 and La Liga in 2012-13.

Fabregas has played 96 times in two seasons with Barcelona, including 60 league games, but has rarely featured in his preferred midfield role, with Xavi, 33, and Andres Iniesta, 29, ahead of him.

Fabregas has made 83 appearances for Spain, winning the 2010 World Cup and the European Championship twice.

KARACHI: The Supreme Court on Monday expressed anger over a report produced by the Sindh Pakistan Rangers over Karachi unrest.

An apex court bench was hearing the Karachi law and order case at the Karachi Resgistry of the Supreme Court.

The court expressed anger after the report was presented before it without the signatures of the DG Rangers.

Justice Amir Hani Muslim asked the Rangers to resubmit the report with DG’s signatures.

During the hearing Justice Khilji Arif Hussain said the court might summon DG Rangers if the need arose.

The court also inquired as to how mobile phones were brought in a Karachi jail and what action was taken against the responsible officials. IG Jails told that the court that six officers were suspended over the issue.

ISLAMABAD: Presidential Spokesman, Farhatullah Khan Babar has rejected reports that President Asif Ali Zardari will not return to Pakistan and would stay abroad for the remaining tenure in office.

Babar said that the president has gone to Dubai to meet his children and would also head to London and then return from to Pakistan.

He said the suicide attack on Bilal Sheikh was a message for President Asif Ali Zarari but he would return to Pakistan.

The spokesman said that Asif Ali Zardari would not run for a second stint as president. He said that government should make the Abbottabad Commission report public.

FAISALABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said the power crisis was one of the major problems facing Pakistan.

Speaking to media on Monday, he said that his government’s attention was completely focused on resolving the power crisis.

The premier said that he would not give any deadline to end load shedding but he said that power outages could be reduced through curbing electricity theft.

The prime minister, who met traders during his visit to Faisalabad and listened to their problems, said that exemplary punishment would be given to electricity thieves.

Nawaz Sharif said that corrupt elements would be given harsh punishment, adding that his government would not adopt double standards.

PM Nawaz further said the Chinese government wanted to set up a power plant in Pakistan in collaboration with his government to end load shedding.

The prime minister said that he had issued directions to end power outages during Sehr and Iftar but it was due to dilapidated system that caused load shedding.

He said that power thieves were Pakistan’s enemies and his government would not tolerate unscrupulous elements.

GEORGETOWN: Shahid Afridi made one of the more remarkable comebacks in international cricket in leading Pakistan to a crushing 126-run victory over the West Indies in the first one-day international at the Guyana National Stadium on Sunday.

Omitted from his country's failed Champions Trophy campaign, the mercurial all-rounder recorded the best-ever ODI bowling figures by a Pakistani, and the second best overall, snaring seven for 12 to rout the home side for just 98 off 41 overs after having top-scored with a typically swashbuckling 76 in the visitors' total of 224 for nine.

This match represented yet another stunning spike in the 17-year international career of a cricketer whose ability to delight and entertain with his extravagant manner has often been overshadowed by an almost chronic failure to deliver at the most critical of times.

Fortunately for Pakistan, this was not one of those times and his impact on the match started with his domination of a 120-run sixth-wicket partnership with his captain, Misbah-ul-Haq (52), the pair rescuing their team from the depths of 47 for five after gangling fast-medium bowler Jason Holder had wrecked the top order in finishing with the excellent figures of four for 13.

While Misbah laboured towards yet another workmanlike half-century, occupying 121 deliveries, Afridi's knock was a hurricane by comparison, decorated by five sixes and six fours off just 55 deliveries.

He looked well on the way to completing a hundred but perished in the 39th over, caught by Darren Sammy at deep midwicket off the bowling of Kieron Pollard.

West Indies would have been expecting the likes of Pollard and fellow big-hitter Chris Gayle to produce similar innings to give their team a fighting chance of getting the 225 runs needed for victory.

However that hope never materialised, and while Afridi took most of the glory with his demolition job with the ball, the early damage was done by Mohammad Irfan.

In overcast, seamer-friendly conditions, the giant left-arm pacer disconcerted the top-order of the West Indies with his speed and trajectory from such a great height, bowling Johnson Charles with a swinging full-toss and then forcing Darren Bravo to glove a lifting delivery on the body for wicketkeeper Umar Akmal to take the catch down the leg-side.

Pakistan then got a huge boost when new batsman Marlon Samuels called Gayle for a sharp single and Misbah's direct hit from cover found the dangerous opener short of his ground and the West Indies wobbling badly at seven for three.

All the support bowlers maintained the pressure and when Afridi came on as the fifth change, the floodgates really opened.

Unable to cope with his cocktail of top-spinners and googlies, a succession of batsmen ill-equipped mentally and technically to cope with such wiles succumbed without much of a fight as five wickets crashed for 14 runs.

Only Samuels (25) showed any meaningful resistance, but it was never going to be enough against a rampant Afridi, who finished off the match by trapping Holder, the early destroyer for the West Indies, palpably lbw.

Only Sri Lanka's Chamina Vaas, 8-19 against Zimbabwe in 2001, has a better return in ODI cricket. The match also produced West Indies' lowest ever ODI total against Pakistan.

Pakistan: Nasir Jamshed, Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), Asad Shafiq, Umar Akmal (wk), Shahid Afridi, Wahab Riaz, Asad Ali, Saeed Ajmal, Mohammad Irfan

West Indies: Chris Gayle, Johnson Charles (wk), Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo (capt), Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy, Kemar Roach, Sunil Narine, Jason Holder

LONDON: Britain's newspapers revelled in England's dramatic victory in the Ashes opener, lavishing praise on match winner James Anderson, whose four-wicket haul Sunday brought his total for the match to 10.

But they also warned that the Australians would not be the whipping boys many predicted before the series.

Aussie skipper Michael Clarke still had “plenty of hope” for the rest of the summer, they said.

Monday's Daily Telegraph and Guardian both carried a photograph of England players celebrating the winning moment on the front page.

“Howzat for starters?” was the Guardian's headline.

The back-page headline of the Daily Mail read “We've nicked it,” a reference to defiant Australian batsman Brad Haddin's edge which finally sealed victory.

Popular tabloid the Sun carried an editorial supporting the technology which detected Haddin's nick.

“Wow...what a start to this year's Ashes series,” it said.

“A game and a rivalry built on the best kind of traditions. But entirely modern, making use of some of the most up-to-date systems in sport.”

The Telegraph's Simon Hughes celebrated England's swing-king Anderson.

“Michael Holding, the West Indies fast bowler...has a good yardstick for judging bowlers,” he wrote.

“Only when one has taken at least four wickets-per-Test over a long period of time, can they be considered 'great'.

“With his 10 wickets, Jimmy Anderson nudged closer to that milestone. He is on the verge of greatness,” wrote Hughes.

The Times' Simon Barnes was even more enthusiastic, calling Anderson's four-wicket burst on Sunday a “stupendous effort”.

“Anderson will be the most successful bowler in England's history. And as good as any that bowled,” he wrote.

Turning to the vanquished tourists, the Guardian's Vic Marks highlighted grounds for optimism despite the 14-run defeat.

“No glory for defeated Australia in first Ashes Test but plenty of hope,” he said.

“The determined display from Michael Clarke's men suggests sum will be much greater than their parts.

“It is not generally part of an Australian's psyche to take consolation from a 'good' defeat,” he added.

“But if ever this was justified it was at the end of this Test.”

JAKARTA: Seventeen people were killed in a stadium stampede after spectators rioted to protest a local boxer's loss in a championship match in eastern Indonesia, officials said Monday.

Youth and Sports Minister Roy Suryo said the victims — 11 of them women — were trampled to death as about 1,500 spectators scrambled out the overcrowded stadium to escape the riot that broke out just before midnight Sunday.

Kota Lama Sport Stadium has a capacity of 500 to 600, he said.

Police said it had two working exits. Thirty-two people are being treated at hospital for injuries.

A total of 84 boxers participated in the Bupati (Regent) Cup Championships that started July 9 in the Papua province town of Nabire, Suryo said.

The riot happened after the final of the 58-kilogram division between Alvius Rumkorem and Yulianus Pigome, who Suryo said are from different tribes.

Points awarded by a panel of judges to Rumkorem triggered protests by Pigome supporters, Suryo said.

The losing boxer's supporters threw chairs at the judges and the winner's supporters responded by throwing bottles and broken chairs, panicking people in the stadium, said Lt. Col. Gede Sumerta, a provincial police spokesman.

Police and soldiers were deployed to stop the fighting, Sumerta said, adding that police investigating the case have questioned 12 people — five organisers and seven witnesses.

Nabire, about 3,200 kilometres east of Jakarta, is on Cendrawasih Bay on the north coast of Papua.

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to inaugurate Pakistan’s first private hydel power project near Mangla Dam in Azad Kashmir on Monday.

The 84MW run-of-the river New Bong Escape Hydropower Project is expected to provide electricity to Wapda at about Rs8.7 per kwh, compared to average thermal generation cost in excess of Rs18 per unit.

The commercial production at the project is estimated to save about 135,000 tons of imported oil costing over $100 million per annum.

It will provide 540 GWh of green energy per year to the national grid under a 25-year power purchase agreement with the National Transmission and Dispatch Company.

Laraib Energy Ltd, a private company taken over by the Hub Power Company (Hubco) a couple of years ago, commissioned the plant two months ahead of its schedule of 42 months.

Interestingly, Hubco was the first to establish a 1,292MW private thermal power plant in Balochistan and the company is now planning to convert it to coal under an agreement with the government to provide cheaper energy to reduce dependence on imported oil.

One of the biggest issues of the power sector is expensive power generation, and the inauguration of private sector hydel project by Laraib has paved the way for private investment in the sector.

It is also Pakistan’s first hydropower plant to be registered with the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change as a clean mechanism development project, and has made solid contribution in offsetting greenhouse emission globally.

The Asian Development Bank and other lending agencies, multilateral IDB, IFC and Proparco France and two domestic commercial banks, NBP and HBL, played a constructive role in structuring the project and finance documents.

The successful completion of the county’s first independent hydropower project by a private investor, in record time, has given hope for harnessing the vast potential of the water sector.

As per official estimates, Pakistan has a potential to generate 100,000MW of hydel power. But only about 6,500MW of the potential has been harnessed so far.

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Thousands of security officials are patrolling the streets of Bangladesh's capital as a war crimes tribunal is set to deliver a verdict against a former Islamic party leader.

Ghulam Azam was Jamaat-e-Islami party chief of Pakistan's eastern wing in 1971 when Bangladesh became independent through a bloody war. Azam and his party are blamed for forming citizens' brigade to commit genocide and other serious crimes against the pro-independence fighters during the war.

The call for the shutdown came Sunday after the tribunal announced when it would deliver the verdict Monday.

Azam is expected to get death penalty. Bangladesh says Pakistani army killed three million people with the assistance of local collaborators during the war.

Authorities deny Jamaat's claim that the trial is politically-motivated.