Pemra lifts ban on TV channels signing new CoC

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has lifted the ban on TV channels that have signed its newly formulated Code of Conduct (CoC).

However, the government has decided to continue the ban on those channels that has not signed the CoC so far. Well-placed sources in Pemra confided that the signatory channels of CoC are as follows:

TV One, Rang TV, Din News, Khyber News, Apna Channel, Koook, Sindh TV, KTN, Business Plus, CNBC, Indus News and Punjab TV.

“AAJ TV, ARY, Geo News and Rohi TV have not yet signed the CoC,” they added.

[Source]

ISI Using Sex, Lies & Video Tapes Against Judges?

The latest news making rounds all around is that the ISI tried to blackmail judges with videos of their sexual escapades in a bid to influence the SC ruling on Musharraf.

Read the following sourced from here:

Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI sent some Supreme Court judges secretly-filmed videos of them and their children having sex with lovers or prostitutes in a bid to blackmail them ahead of a key ruling on President Pervez Musharraf, a British newspaper reported yesterday.

Videos were sent out to at least three of the 11 Supreme Court judges in September ahead of their ruling on whether Musharraf was eligible to run for president while still army chief, The Sunday Times reported.

One video showed a judge with his young mistress while another was of a judge’s daughter having sex with a boyfriend — and the ISI even threatened Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry with an anonymous letter implying sexual impropriety.

“The message was clear — If you rule the wrong way, these will become public and your family destroyed,” a British barrister said, who was told about the tapes by a Pakistani counterpart.

Several judges had reportedly been receiving visits from prostitutes as payment in kind from private clients to whom they had given legal advice.

“The ISI was sending the girls and the judges were enjoying it without knowing they were being filmed. Now they have videos of several judges,” a judicial source was quoted saying.

The Supreme Court gave an ambiguous ruling in October, allowing Musharraf to be elected but declaring that they would decide on his eligibility later. But before they could rule on his eligibility, Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3.

Pakistani military steps up operations against militants

Pakistani helicopter gunships on Monday launched strikes against pro-Taliban militants who seized large areas of territory in the north-west of the country in recent weeks, officials said.

The helicopters were targeting enemy positions around the town of Matta in the Swat district, 160 kilometres from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) capital Peshawar, the military said.

‘Whatever steps are necessary will be taken now that the army has assumed the lead role in Swat,’ army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said a day after President Pervez Musharraf announced that the army will take control of operations from paramilitary forces.

‘We’ll make sure that extremism in that area is defeated and that those criminals are brought to book,’ Arshad added.

[Source]

BE CAREFUL OF PAKISTAN’S ‘MS. LIBERTY’

By Richard Engel, NBC News correspondent 

With her white veil, bejeweled blouses, flawless English and flair for drama and theatrical timing, Benazir Bhutto has painted herself as lady liberty, a lone woman willing to risk all and stand up to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his emergency rule.

Bhutto says she is the one who can stop Musharraf and his crackdown, which has seen several thousand lawyers, students and political activists arrested. Already, observers are comparing the situation in Pakistan to September’s uprising in Myanmar, where monks and opposition leader (and Nobel Peace Prize-winner) Aung San Suu Kyi rallied against the military junta.

But Pakistan is not Myanmar, and Bhutto is no Aung San Suu Kyi.

[Read the complete article here]