Supreme Court Clears Musharraf’s Continued Rule

Pakistan’s Supreme Court dismissed five of the six petitions challenging President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election victory on October 6.

“Five petitions have been dismissed. One is pending and it will be heard on Thursday,” Attorney-General Malik Qayyum said. But the five petitions dismissed were regarded as the main challenges, lawyers said.

 The decision raises the prospect of Musharraf quickly resigning as chief of the armed forces and beginning a new presidential term as a civilian – a central demand of opposition parties and the United States.

Musharraf, who purged the Supreme Court of hostile judges when he imposed emergency rule on November 3, has promised to stand down as Pakistan Army chief after the court cleared his re-election.

US Interests: To Assist or To Invade?

Got a chance to read this interesting article on the NY Times website that I thought I must share. Is this going to be the multi-faced policy of Washington towards Pakistan in times to come?

“All possible military initiatives to avoid those possibilities are daunting. With 160 million people, Pakistan is more than five times the size of Iraq. It would take a long time to move large numbers of American forces halfway across the world. And unless we had precise information about the location of all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials, we could not rely on bombing or using Special Forces to destroy them.”

Read the complete article (published Nov 18, 2007) by Frederick W. Kagan and Micheal o’Hanlon of the NY Times HERE

Full court to hear Musharraf’s eligibility case today

A 10-member bench of Supreme Court (SC) will take up identical constitutional petitions against the acceptance of President Musharraf nomination papers for presidential polls today. This will be the first hearing of the case following the imposition of state of emergency in the country.

The decision of the case is likely to be announced in next week.

Read more at Pak Tribune

‘Getting Tendulkar’s wicket would be a dream!’ – Danish Kaneria

Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria said he will target all India’s batsmen in the forthcoming Test series but getting the wicket that has eluded him so far — Sachin Tendulkar — would be a dream.

“I have not dismissed Tendulkar and perhaps this will be the last time I will be up against him so I wish to get his wicket,” Kaneria said before leaving for India on Monday.

Besides Kaneria, batsman Faisal Iqbal and paceman Mohammad Sami will join the Pakistan squad in India where the first of three Tests start in New Delhi from Thursday.

Read more at Yahoo News

Geo gets go-ahead on hourly bulletins // ARY back on air shortly

Gulf News has reported that Pakistan’s Geo TV has said it has been given the go-ahead to recommence hourly news bulletins on its entertainment channel in the Middle East, the UK and the US, but not in Pakistan. It is unclear if the permission for the broadcasts has come from the Pakistani government which forced the Dubai based Geo’s news channel to stop broadcasting. Indeed, Geo News still remains off the air. [Source]
Meanwhile, Pakistani news channel ARY One World is likely to recommence broadcasting shortly after negotiations with Dubai Media City and Pakistan’s government. ARY’s CEO Salman Iqbal said it would still not fall into line with the media code of conduct imposed after emergency rule was declared earlier this month in Pakistan. But Iqbal added that ARY had convinced Pakistan’s government it did not have an ‘agenda’ against it. [Source]

Jirga warns action against militants

The Bakakhel Wazir and Gurbaz tribes of the Bannu Frontier Region on Sunday decided to take action against militants attacking security forces in the area. A jirga of the two tribes was held in Bakakhel Mandi which decided that houses of people found involved in attacks on security forces would be demolished and they would be fined Rs500,000.

The jirga said that the violators would also be expelled from the area. Tribal elders Malik Ahya Jan, Malik Dilawar Khan, Malik Amir Hamza and Haji Abbas Ali Khan attended the jirga. They said the attacks on the forces invited counter-attacks which incurred material and life losses to the people.

The jirga in its previous session one month back had decided that security forces would not be attacked in the area and the violators would be punished. However, the attacks did not stop.
[Source]