MAQzine

More than £300 million in foreign aid for victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake has been diverted by President Asif Zardari's government to other causes, officials have told The Daily Telegraph. They now fear that the alleged diversion of funds will deter donors from giving further aid after the country's devastating floods. According to senior officials, schools, hospitals, houses and roads planned with money given by foreign governments and international aid groups remain unbuilt almost five years after the earthquake which killed 80,000 and left four million people homeless. International donors gave £3.5 billion to rebuild vast swaths of Pakistan's Kashmir and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provinces after the earthquake destroyed the region's infrastructure. However, senior Pakistani officials yesterday said more than £300 million given in aid has yet to be handed over to the country's Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA). Nawaz Sharif, Paki...

MONDAY, JULY 5, 2010 By Nasira Parveen   I had never thought that a day will come in my life when everyone would turn against me suddenly. But this happened! It was the day when the dishonest administration of the Karakoram International University (KIU), in Gilgit, made a cock and bull story and tried to kill me in the name of honor. On March 22, 2010, my roommate Safina Bano, who was made part of the well planned drama, took me to the KIU faculty from the hostel. There we came across her   fiancé   Sheraz Ali Khan (an employee of the Military Accounts in Rawalpindi ) with his friend Shah Fahad (working with the military-owned Askary Bank in Gilgit). Then all of a sudden hell broke down. “Two girls raped on KIU campus, see the news in the newspapers tomorrow,” SMSes started circulating with the speed of light. I was shocked but, to my surprise, my roommate was normal! I came to know the reason later only…   Indeed, I was a soft target for those who wanted to p...

Pakistan People's Party's Secretary Information Fauzia Wahab's statement that the second Caliph of Islam Hazrat Umar (Razi-Allah-o-Ta'ala Unhu) was called to appear in the courts because there was no constitution available at that time has caused tremors in the serious intellectual and religious circles. A number of religious scholars like Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, Mufti Naeem and Ibtesaam Ilahi Zaheer, besides other intellectuals, have expressed stern views about her statement. Some called her a sinner! I have been trying, since evening last night, to visualize how Fauzia Wahab would be reacting to her (blasphemous?) statement.  I can clearly see her face, with a meaningful and satanic smile that she usually wears during her talk-show appearances.  At least I have no doubt at all that if using a lie detector is compulsory during these talk-shows, she would never attend any, for deception and lies are all spread over her face when she obdurately blurts lies after lies....

Shaheen Sehbai digs deep into the chess game that is being played in the high echelons of power in Islamabad these days.  Whether Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani proves to be a worthless sacrificed pawn without causing any loopholes to the safety of the king or acts like an obdurate knight to block his own king's escape and being a part of definite checkmate is yet to be seen. Will he listen to the silent shouts of the suffering masses of Pakistan who are crying " Pir-o-Murshid, take the boldest step!" Here is the viewpoint by Shaheen Sehbai :  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Mukhtar lets the cat out, but PM may quit or he can dissolve assemblies Viewpoint Tuesday, May 18, 2010 By Shaheen Sehbai WASHINGTON: Defence Minister Choudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has let the cat out of the bag and the newly visible signs of aggressive confrontation against almost all the badly needed independent institutions in the country by the Zardari-led power disp...

Despite SC demand, Law Ministry blocking Swiss Cases By Ansar Abbasi ISLAMABAD: While the NAB chairman is facing the wrath of the Supreme Court for not implementing the two-month-old NRO verdict, the Law Ministry, led by the close confidant of the president, is still determined to block the reopening of Swiss corruption cases. Sources in NAB told The News on Friday that despite being formally approached and reminded, the Law Ministry is sitting on the issue of reopening of foreign cases and is not responding to NAB’s pending request on the matter. These sources said that after being warned by the Supreme Court on Friday over the non-implementation of the NRO decision, the NAB chairman approached the Law Ministry to take a decision on the Bureau’s pending request for the reopening of foreign and Swiss cases against President Asif Zardari and others. The Supreme Court’s observations on Friday emphasised on the reopening of all the cases without any exception, thus giving streng...

by Dr Niloufer Mahdi : Was ever there a nation so afflicted as ours with rulers whose rodential propensities constitute their existential definition? Our sins as a nation must surely reek to the heavens to call down upon us the condign retribution of having rulers who witness this state imploding under its internal burdens, the possible comminution of our territory and the egregious violation of our sovereignty. Yet, our rulers and our government are singularly incapable of slowing or halting our precipitous declivity. Any concerned citizen, with two grey cells, must fear the fast approaching time, when the ingravescence of inimical developments reaches such a state from which we will be unable to save ourselves as a nation. And let us not shelter under undue optimism or illusion: remember East Pakistan? Several months ago, in these columns, this writer challenged the reader to identify any party leader, decision-maker or ruler who was even vaguely endowed with the wherewithal to av...