KABUL (PAN): Minister-Designate of Foreign Affairs Dr. Zalmay Rasul Saturday won a vote of confidence from the Wolesi Jirga, or the Lower House of Parliament. Of the 224 members attending today's session, 132 endorsed Rasul for the key slot cabinet while 82 voted against him. Nine votes were declared invalid. Under the relevant law, a cabinet nominee has to win more than half (50+1) votes from the lawmakers present. This means Rasul needed to get 113 votes. Of the first slate of 24 cabinet picks named by President Hamid Karzai three weeks back, only seven were endorsed by lawmakers. A week back, Second Vice President Karim Khalili introduced 17 new nominees to the Lower House for approval. The son of Prof. Abdul Qayyum, Dr. Rasul was born in 1944 in Kabul. He received primary and secondary education at the Estiqlal High School and a Doctorate in Medicine from Paris, France. He worked as a doctor at the Research Institute of Cardiac Diseases in Paris, in charge of the Paris-based Haqiqat-i-Afghan Publication regarding Jihad, doctor at the Military Hospital of Saudi Arabia and chief of staff to Father of the Nation Mohammad Zahir in Rome. Rasul was minister of civil aviation and tourism during the interim government and national security advisor to President Karzai. He can speak Pashto, Dari, English, French, Italian and Arabic languages and has published 30 medical books in the US and Europe. mnm/mud
