Zardari's health improving

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who is undergoing treatment in Dubai for heart complications, is showing improvement and expected to make an "early recovery", authorities and doctors said, as speculation about his health refused to die down here. 56-year-old Zardari was resting in a Dubai hospital on the advice of doctors, Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani told a TV news channel last evening. "He (President Zardari) is improving," Gilani said. Gilani said the President, who was feeling comfortable, had talked to him on phone on Friday when former Premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and ex-Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Ilahi called on him at the Prime Minister House. In a related development, a health bulletin issued from Dubai last evening by Zardari's personal physician said: "The President is making smooth progress and feels better. The treating doctors are confident about an early recovery." The bulletin did not give details about Zardari's ailment or say when he is likely to be discharged from hospital. When he was asked about the speculation on Zardari's health, Gilani said: "Anybody can fall sick and he (Zardari) is also an average human being." He said he and Zardari's family had insisted that the President should go abroad for medical tests and treatment. Gilani cited "security reasons" as the caused for the advice given to Zardari to go abroad. He recalled that there were some security threats when Zardari's late father Hakim Ali Zardari was admitted to a hospital in Islamabad earlier this year. The Premier said he and Zardari's son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari were present at the helipad to see off the President when he left for Dubai on Tuesday.