Ayesha Ijaz Khan The confrontation between the executive and the judiciary, not to mention within the legislature, is poised to begin. This is not a bad thing. This is the nature of democracy. It is only through such struggles, resistance and defiance that the ideas of checks and balances and the separation of powers came into being Since the judicial verdict on the controversial NRO became public, there has been constant debate on a confrontation between the executive and the judiciary in Pakistan. Of interest in this context is President Obama’s comment at his first State of the Union address, … Continue reading The executive-judiciary tussle

Babar Ayaz Many analysts and rightist politicians scoff at the idea of a secular state. They have failed to understand that mixing of religion with politics has brought us today to the most violent juncture of our history. It gives enough space to the fundamentalists to operate in the country with impunity The Iranian constitution provides for an institution of the ‘Religious Guardianship’ (Velayat Faqiye). This ‘Guardianship of the Just Man of Religious Law’ (Fiqiyeh-e-Adl) is on “the basis of the continuous Guardianship and leadership (Imamate)…under all conditions…” According to my limited knowledge, there is no precedent for such an … Continue reading Amendments for a secular constitution in Pakistan

Syed Mohammad Ali Before becoming overly complacent, lulled by projections made by entities whose own existence is assured by lending money to poor and developing countries, it should be noted that IMF estimates would change drastically if underlying assumptions for economic growth, interest rate and external trade are not fulfilled While external debt is a common phenomenon across the world, when such debt begins to grow large enough to begin dominating the major proportion of a nation’s income, it becomes a telling sign of what is termed as an unsustainable debt burden. Pakistan’s total external debt, which is more than … Continue reading Pakistan’s further shackling by debt chains

Ishtiaq Ahmed The commission recommended that if the government was going to ban the burqa, it should compensate by declaring as public holidays the religious festivals of Muslims and Jews. It also recommended that steps be taken to integrate Muslim and other minorities into the French mainstream A non-binding recommendation of a French Parliamentary Commission saying that the burqa (complete veiling of women from head to foot) should be banned in public institutions, including banks, post offices, schools and even on public transportation is indicative of constant tension between immigrant Muslim communities and host countries in the West. The security … Continue reading The French burqa ban

By Kamran Shafi What we have to ask ourselves is this: is it possible that our government and its generals will draw some lessons from what is happening in India? Three lieutenant generals of the Indian army are to be tried by court martial for their part in an alleged land scam. The orders to try them were passed by Defence Minister A.K. Antony when he saw that the army chief was trying to whitewash the alleged crime of one of the accused, just two days before Lt Gen Avadesh Prasad went into retirement.Prasad was military secretary at the army … Continue reading Bravo!, Mr Antony

“Since our arrest the USA, FBI and Pakistani police have tortured us. They are trying to set us up. We are innocent. They are trying to keep us from the public, media, our families and our lawyers. Help us,” read a scrap of toilet paper tossed by one of the suspects from the window of the vehicle. SARGODHA: Five young American men detained in Pakistan for alleged links to extremist groups swore their innocence Tuesday, saying they were being “set up” and tortured in jail.As they arrived in a police van at the high-security court in the eastern city of … Continue reading US militant suspects claim ‘set up’ in Pakistan!!!

WASHINGTON: Insurgents in North Waziristan threatened the government with a “big war” if it continued to violate a peace accord, US monitors of extremist websites said Monday. The North Waziristan faction of the Shura Ittihadul Mujahideen also called on residents to form a council of elders and seek haven from Afghan President Hamid Karzai should war break out, the SITE monitoring group said. The threat came in the form of a pamphlet that an Internet user on the English-language division of the Ansar al-Mujahideen jihadist forum said had been distributed among the population of North Waziristan. “If the army started … Continue reading North Waziristan Mullahs faction threatens ‘big war’

By Zahid Hussain RAWALPINDI: Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said on Monday the success of military operations in the tribal regions have caused substantial decline in cross-border attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and warned that it was essential to address Pakistan’s long-term strategic concerns for stability in the region. In a rare press briefing, General Kayani said it would be a cause of worry for Pakistan if Afghanistan’s projected army developed the potential to take on Pakistan.“We want a strategic depth in Afghanistan but do not want to control it,” the general said while talking … Continue reading Kayani spells out terms for regional stability

THE HAGUE: An Arab organisation will be put on trial in the Netherlands for publishing a Holocaust-denying cartoon in response to caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, prosecutors said Wednesday. ‘This cartoon is discriminatory,’ the prosecuting authority said of the sketch on the website of the Arab European League (AEL) which it said depicted the Nazi holocaust as a figment of Jewish imagination. ‘This is offensive to Jews as a group,’ said a statement. Last month, Dutch prosecutors ordered the league to remove the cartoon from its website or face prosecution. The cartoon was punishable, they found, ‘because it offends Jews … Continue reading Dutch to prosecute Arab group for holocaust cartoon