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...

 "Loosen your grip on the population and fight government corruption" In her column in the government daily  Al-Madina , Saudi Princess Basma bint Saud attacked the Saudi religious police, accusing it of instituting religious terrorism. She claimed that it operates savagely against ordinary civilians instead of dealing with the corruption within the government. The column provoked reactions in Saudi Arabia , and was widely discussed on Internet forums. Princess Basma is a social activist and a prominent supporter of women's issues in Saudi Arabia . Recently, in an extraordinary step, Basma was photographed with her face unveiled for an interview with  Al-Madina . Also, counter to the custom among Saudi princesses, she married a man who is not a member of the royal family Following is the translation of her column: [1] "I Have Searched the Annals of History... And I Have Not Found a Trace of the Term 'Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice...