KARACHI: President Z.A. Bhutto has said that Pakistan had become `a land of rumours`.

While addressing the annual dinner of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries ... the President ... remark[ed] that it was not possible to live in Pakistan without hearing a rumour a day.

He referred to rumours that the Government was planning to nationalise industries like textile, shipping, paper and sugar. Even his personal life was not immune... . There were rumours that he had recently married again, he said and [triggered] another wave of laughter among the audience by saying, `after twenty years of married life I wish I could say it were true.

But about the nationalisation rumours, he saidtherewassometruthinitastheGovernment after learning that industrialists ... were planning to adopt `go-slow` tactics ... planned to take necessary alternative measures should the need arise. But when the Government learned that these rumours were incorrect, it did not take any action.

The President ... said there were two kinds of people in Pakistan the ones who loved Pakistan and ... the ... `winter Pakistanis` or so-called intellectuals who were in Pakistan only for the winter season... . It was the latter ones who had done great harm to Pakistan. Staf f reporter