Finally the day for Presidential has arrived, New President would be selected today in a replacement for former president Pervez Musharraf, who stepped down from the chair on October 18,The three presidential ...
Every year on 6th September, we remember the 17 days long Pak-India War of 1965. We often think and talk of wars in grand historic terms, but ultimately it is the lives of ordinary people that is touched in extraordinary ways in times of war. We sometimes fail to remember that soldiers are not just the pawns of history. They are people. Today we present a set of rare pictures of soldiers and people from the 1965 war.
Photo details (L to R): (1) An old villager appears to be quite amused as he is initiated into the mysteries of this AMX-13 tank left in Chamb area by the Indian Army. (2) Indian prisoners of war are cheering their favorites in the three-legged race in one of the camp’s sports meets. (3) Soldiers from Punjab Regiment at BRB Canal. (4) Pakistani soldier at Khem Karan marker. (5) Sailor on guard on the brow of submarine Ghazi. (6) No. 19 Squadron pilots.
After signing Tashkent Agreement (from L-R). Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Pakistani Foreign Minister Z. A. Bhutto, President Ayub Khan and Soviet Union Prime Minister Kosygin. One interesting thing to note in this photograph is that everyone seems to smiling and happy except Mr. Bhutto.
Note: All photographs used in this post, except for Tashkent Agreement, are from the website of Pakistan Defense Consortium. Click on each image for larger view.
Accusing Pakistan of misusing the massive American aid to fight the war on terror, Democratic nominee for the US Presidential election Barack Obama, in a sensational comment, has said Islamabad was using these ...
Asif Zardari, back, widower of Pakistan's slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto who is running for Pakistan's presidentship, prays with his foe and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Feb 27, 2008 in ...
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda issued on Friday an Internet video featuring senior group leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid who was reported to have been killed last month, but it was not immediately clear when the footage was made.
The video profiled a suicide bomber who it said carried out the June 2 attack on the Danish embassy in Islamabad, which killed six people, as a retaliation for the publication of cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad by Danish newspapers.
"We have warned previously, and we warn once more, the Crusader states which insult, mock and defame our Prophet and the Koran in their media and occupy our lands, steal our treasure, and kill our brothers that we will exact revenge at the appropriate time and place," said Abu al-Yazid.
All is set to elect the country’s new President for a term of next five years on Sept 6, the day that coincides with the Defence Day of Pakistan. The contest will be between Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) retired Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqi of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and Mushahid Hussain Syed of Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q).
The President will be elected by an electoral college comprising members of both houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies to put in place a new President following the resignation of Pervez Musharraf on Aug 18.
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Three deposed judges of the Supreme Court of Pakistan took oath of their offices on Friday, according to official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Chief Justice of Pakistan Abdul Hameed Dogar administered oath to the deposed judges including Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and Justice Syed Jamshed Aliin at the Ceremonial Hall of the Supreme Court of Pakistan here.
The judges, sacked on Nov. 3 last year by then President Pervez Musharraf, would return to their offices with immediate effect and their seniority was ensured from the date of Nov. 2, according to APP.
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Karachi News.Net Friday 5th September, 2008 Islamabad, Sep 5 An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale jolted northwstern Pakistan Friday, The News daily reported.
In April, Mr. Zardari told Ishaq Dar, the finance minister at the time and a member of Mr. Sharif’s party, which has since broken with Mr. Zardari, that he wanted the price the government paid farmers for wheat to be raised substantially as a way of rewarding an important constituency in Punjab Province, the nation’s most populous, according to two participants in the discussion with Mr. Zardari. The government would then have to heavily subsidize the cost of wheat to the consumer.
When Mr. Dar asked Mr. Zardari how he thought the government would pay for the subsidy, Mr. Zardari replied, “Print the notes,” according to the two participants, a government official and an associate of Mr. Zardari’s. In an effort to solve the impasse over the subsidy, it was suggested that Mr. Zardari form a committee of experts.
“ ‘I am the expert,’ ” Mr. Zardari said, according to his associate.
That was news to me. Audacaious and maddening, but not surprising. I’ll just make myself forget it by repeating, “roti, kapra, makan.”
But this below wasn’t news to me, nor to most observers of/in Pakistan:
“The two officials described another episode in May as the budget was being prepared. Mr. Zardari decided to scrap a proposed capital gains tax after a visit from a group of influential stockbrokers from the Karachi stock exchange, they said. The revenue from the capital gains tax, and from an income tax proposal on the rich, would have paid for an income support program for the poorest Pakistanis, they said. More than half of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.”
In mid-June, The News, a leading Pakistani English-language daily reported a claim that Zardari was visited in Islamabad by an unidentified person who arrived on a chartered plane (not an alien, but probably a leading banker) who was decisive in the reversal. Note that the person allegedly visited neither the finance minister, nor the prime minister, but the unelected (and many times indicted) “co”-head of a political party (or, more technically, an association of liberals, feudals, serfs, and others who share lineage/linkage/bondage to a set of charismatic figures and/or distributors of patronage). Anyway — that’s democracy? Well, maybe it’s just politics — sans rules and morays.
An official at Pakistan’s largest foreign exchange firm described the coalition’s breakup — and Dar’s departure — as “a welcomed move.” He said, it “improved sentiments in the financial markets as both [Shaukat] Tarin and Naveed [Qamar] are very pro-market.”
Pro-market? More accurate would be pro-mafia. Very mature attitude. So these spoiled brats are unwilling to cooperate with a minimally redistributative mechanism in their deeply poor society but American taxpayers are expected to dish out $1.5 billion/year to their country for developmental aid? These guys are not the exception, but the rule. I — and most of you readers — have paid more taxes than people such as Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari.
Trickle down in Pakistan means wealth trickling down from wealthy parents to their children. More likely than a tax on capital gains is one on poor Pakistanis who have to sell their kidneys. It’s a growth industry there.
And remember, Zardari heads a ’social democratic’ party. That’s how convoluted it is.
The election of Zardari, albeit constitutional and a political fait accompli, is like locking a nation of 165 million in a ship with a madman at helm and chucking the keys into the Arabian Sea. Zardari can prove everyone wrong. Pakistan, and indeed the world, needs him to. But the odds are, the Zardari of now differs little from the Zardari of yesterday. Pakistan, in perhaps as early as six months, will be back to square one, with one of its best opportunities for structural reform and rebalancing — led by its two largest parties, checked by civil society and the media, and in concert with a supportive military — vanquished.
David Cameron visited a women's education centre in Pakistan - and came away with a gift for fashion-loving wife Samantha.
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