District Coordination Officer Lahore Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta while expressing apprehensions regarding chances of flood in River Ravi has warned the residents of low-lying areas along the river to prepare for a possible evacuation as a precautionary measure.

Talking to TheNation on Sunday, the DCO said he had put officials of the concerned departments on alert in order to cope with the flood situation in River Ravi and to prepare for relief activities.

Following his directions, the officials have also started setting up relief and medical camps near the low-lying residential localities and villages. Although there is no information of flood in the River Ravi yet the warning was issued in order to mentally prepare the people.

Read More

“The relationship between lawyers and judiciary is based on mutual respect and this mutual respect will not only enhance the dignity of the institution but also strengthen. Now it is the duty of legal fraternity to respect the judiciary and to make it strong institution” said the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Pakistan while addressing the 40 members delegation of lawyers headed by Shafqat Mehmood Chohan, Chairman Pakistan Judicial Crises Management Council Lahore and alongwith other lawyers from all over Punjab called on his lordship today 11.8.2010 in Supreme Court Building, Islamabad.

2. Appreciating the efforts and struggle of legal fraternity during Lawyers Movement his Lordship said that the lawyers struggled hard to standby the Judiciary for rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution. They travelled long distance to support and assist the movement which was for the cause of independence of judiciary. They faced hardships but no one could flinch them from their cause and destination. They had not gone off the rails but remained committed stead fast and firm and finally achieved their destiny in the form of independent judiciary.
Read More

PhD in system demolition and team disintegration —By Zakir Hussain Syed

If the International Cricket Council (ICC) were to institute a doctorate degree for cricket system demolition and team disintegration, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt and his close buddy and manager of the Pakistan team Yawar Saeed will undoubtedly be the first recipients of this unique honour. Some of the highlights of the script of their great thesis and work of research will read as under:

1: Sack a highly successful captain after one defeat – Shoaib Malik.

2: Replace the sacked captain with an individual known for his temperamental nature and egoistic psyche – Younus Khan.

3: At a time when foreign teams are reluctant to tour Pakistan because of security reasons and one particular team undertakes a tour against all odds, do not make sure that security arrangements committed to them are in place – attack on Sri Lanka team which caused injuries to the players and resulted in death of 8 persons. Behave as if nothing has happened and when the ICC match referee who escaped death during this attack talks about the incident, you publicly snub him.
Read More

A two-member bench of the Supreme Court on Friday summoned Chief Executive Officer (CEO) cable operators and directed the Chairman Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to take strict action against those operators who have blocked the transmission of two private TV channels in Sindh and Punjab.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary and Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday was hearing identical petitions against the closure of transmission of the TV channels.During the proceeding the court summoned Federal Secretary Ministry of Interior Qamar Zaman Chaudhary, Federal Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Mansoor Suhail and Chairman PEMRA Mushtaq Chaudhary through SC registrar office. The federal secretaries and the PEMRA Chairman appeared before the court on short notice.
Read More

The British media turned its guns on President Asif Ali Zardari as he was holed up in his luxury Churchill Hotel Royal suite with his entourage.

The media highlighted how a country literally drowning as a result of the worst floods in living memory could afford a president and his lifestyle after images of the 16th-century chateau, built for the widow of King Philippe VI and now owned by Hakim Ali Zardari, were flashed where the president had stopped over for two hours.

The president was busy holding what a source in the High Commission of Pakistan called ‘in-house business meetings’. He also made a telephone call to the former prime minister Gordon Brown and met Conservative Party chair and cabinet minister Sayeeda Warsi.

The British media has been regularly covering the floods in Pakistan but as the true scale of the damage done to the country emerged, the editorials here adopted a hostile tone questioning whether it is right for the head of a democratically elected government to abandon the whole nation at such a time of mourning for a so-called official engagement from which little mileage is to be expected.

The Guardian called Pakistan “a washed-out state in need of international aid” in its leader comment and feared that an inadequate civilian response to a disaster may let the Islamists back in power in areas like Swat just like they did in the aftermath of the earthquake in Kashmir five years ago.

The Times said that the concerns at the cost and purpose Mr Zardari’s European visit will not have been allayed by pictures showing the Pakistani leader “taking off in a helicopter from the 16th century Chateau de la Reine near Rouen in Normandy, which is owned by his family.”

It said that there was growing anger to the government’s flood response, especially President Zardari’s official trip to Europe. The Mirror newspaper highlighted how Pakistan was suffering very badly in a news piece titled ‘a flood of compliant’ and noted the reaction of British Pakistanis who expressed their opposition to the president’s visit. It predicted that David Cameron would give little ground over the terror row at Friday’s talks at Chequers.

The Independent said that the real, officially, for Saturday’s speech is to shore up the Pakistani leader’s support in Britain but the real reason for his appearance will be “the young man sitting beside him in a smart suit”.
Read More

THE Lahore High Court has ordered Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Director Telecom Wireless to inform the court about the steps they have taken so far to remove blasphemous material from different websites and make it inaccessible in the country.

Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the LHC passed the order while hearing a writ petition seeking permanent ban on Facebook, a social networking website, for again holding a competition of blasphemous nature namely “Everybody Burn Quran Day”.

On the court’s notice, Mudassir Hussain, Director Telecom Wireless, appeared before the court on Wednesday. He told the court that owners of the Facebook through an e-mail had informed him on July 22 that they had removed objectionable material from the site. He said objectionable pictures had also been removed from Wikipedia, Youtube and all other websites.
Read More

* Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry says PM’s role excluded from process of appointment of superior courts’ judges despite the parliamentary form of government

By Masood Rehman

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said that the apex court must support the parliamentary system and should not weaken the chief executive and the prime minister.

Heading the 17-member full bench on Monday, the CJP observed that despite the parliamentary form of government in the country, the prime minister been has been excluded from the process of the appointment of judges to the country’s superior courts through the formation of the judicial commission under the 18th Amendment.
Read More

Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry said Murree and Chhanga Manga are the ground realities of politics in the country, where ministries have to be gifted to court political support, Geo News reported Thursday.

The CJ Chaudhry said this while heading a 17-member larger bench hearing constitutional petitions filed against Eighteenth Amendment in the Constitution.

Wasim Sajjad, the counsel of the federal government continued his arguments today, saying the Chief Justice has precedence in the new procedure of appointments of the judges, as he heads Judicial Commission instituted for the purpose.

Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday asked as to why the modus operandi was altered, if the powers are the same as before.

The CJ Chaudhry was suspicious of any potential deadlock over the appointment of judges thanks to the presence of people who have opinions at variance with each other.
Read More

Despite the fact that 263,908 metric tonnes (MT) of sugar has been imported so far, the prices of the commodity in the local market have not decreased.

A tender for importing 200,000MT of sugar was awarded to a Dubai-based company in May this year out of which a ship carrying 21,000MT of sugar arrived at the Port Qasim, Karachi and 47,700MT is expected to arrive in two ships next week.

Sugar is one of the most important ‘daily use’ items. Pakistan is the fifth largest sugarcane producer of the world, ranks 15th among the refined sugar producers and the third largest user of sugar in Asia. The sugar industry is the second largest agro-based industry, after textiles. There are 84 sugar mills spread in different parts of the country. It is worth mentioning that out of the total, at least 26 mills are owned by politicians, including members of National Assembly, members of parliament and influential feudal lords.

Therefore, federal and provincial governments are unable to take any action against them, whether they produce substandard sugar or increase prices according to their will. Total average sugar consumption is 4.2 million tonnes per annum whereas total production was 3.1 million tonnes.
Read More

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has confirmed that the degrees of 46 members of parliament and provincial assemblies have so far turned out to be fake.

The public relations department of the commission said that a three-member committee overseeing the process of degree verification had found that academic claims of 223 legislators were genuine.

It said the HEC had been informed by some universities that cases of 10 legislators were in courts.
Read More