http://grandtrunkroad.com News from Pakistan and its neighbours Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:33:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Everyone's talking about Sarah Palin's speech but I don't have much to say about it. I thought that Rudolph Giuliani's speech was probably one of the most chilling sign of the future of this country that I have ever heard on national television. Sure, I've read something of the same ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/09/04/giulianis-speech/ In 2002 Newsline reported on the death of Riaz Basra, a vital member and one of the founders of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) "Reportedly, the timing of his death was no coincidence: it is believed that the LJ has of late been providing shelter to Arab terrorists, their erstwhile comrades-in-arms in Afghanistan, ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/27/sectarianism-and-militancy/ silsile toR gayaa vo sabhii jaate jaate varnaa itne to maraasim the ke aate jaate shikvaa-e-zulmat-e-shab se to kahiiN behtar thaa apne hisse kii ko’ii shammaa jalaate jaate kitnaa aasaaN tha tere hijr meN marna jaanaaN phir bhi ik umar lagi jaan se jaate jaate jashn-e-maqtal hi na barpa hu’aa varnaa ham bhii paa-bajolaaN hii sahii naachte ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/25/ahmed-faraz-silsile-tor-gaya/ An interesting sentence in a great post at the Pakistan Policy blog: "In a sense, Pakistanis face a choice between Iftikhar Chaudhry and Baitullah Mehsud. Eliminating the former is a vote for the latter." My interpretation of this (which is also something I agree with), is that the PPP has ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/25/baitullah-mehsud-vs-iftikhar-chaudhry/ I was doing some googling about the infamous (but strangely under-discussed) program at the University of Nebraska to print textbooks for students in Afghanistan that were filled with images of war and violence and which turned out to be funded by an US government AID [Agency for International Development] grant ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/20/jihadi-textbooks/ A kidney patient, Roha Bibi, 50, left her house with her husband, four daughters and two sons. She said that they became sandwich between the local Taliban and the military. “We can’t communicate it to the Taliban that their activities have rendered hundred of thousands of people shelter-less. At the ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/20/149/ Over the last month or so I've been really enjoying reading the columns of Mosharraf Zaidi in The News. Here's the latest: Measuring the Jamaat's descent and I must say, it's a brilliant read. It's bound to be controversial among the more liberal readership of the paper because if there's ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/18/right-versus-left/ What was Khalid Hasan thinking when he wrote this column in today's Daily Times: WASHINGTON: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Zardari’s accusation in a Sunday Times interview that President Pervez Musharraf diverted United States funds meant to aid the war on terror into some slush fund to aid rogue members ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/11/khalid-hasan-should-google-gao-report-pakistan-csf/ Dawn PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar, who is a member of the committee which is drafting the charge-sheet, told Dawn that it had made “significant progress”. “It will be an unimpeachable document supported by documentary evidence of all the acts of omission and commission committed by (President) Musharraf that make him liable to ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/10/its-not-that-funny-but-i-still-laughed/ 47. Removal [22][or impeachment] of President. [22A](1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution, the President may, in accordance with the provisions of this Article, be removed from office on the ground of physical or mental incapacity or impeached on a charge of violating the Constitution ... http://grandtrunkroad.com/2008/08/09/a-tense-weekend-for-pakistan/