Lights, Camera, Osama!

From Washington Post:

When Osama Bin Laden wants to deliver a speech, a trusted video cameraman is summoned to a safe house somewhere in Pakistan, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and analysts. The video file is then edited, stored on a tiny computer memory stick and given to a human courier. The memory stick usually passes through several sets of hands to disguise its route, until an operative finally sits down in an Internet cafe and saves the data to a password-protected Web site, they said.

Read the entire article here

Working by the book?

From today’s Dawn:

Shahbaz wants to know his powers
LAHORE, June 16: Believe it, Mian Shahbaz Sharif has asked the relevant officials to let him know his powers as the province’s chief minister.
The officials are studying the necessary books before writing a report for the boss. It’s not immediately known why the PML-N president had to ask this question when he has already held the office between 1997 and 1999.

Apparently, Mian Shahbaz Sharif wants to set a new precedent of working strictly according to the law so that he is not accused of misusing his powers.

In the past, those who have been abusing their authority had to face references

In Memory.

Please observe a moment of silence in the memory of MNA MP Bhandara, who has passed away. Thank you Mr. Bhandara, for many a lovely op-ed, speeches in the National Assembly that made the faces of the NA members turn red, for ensuring the gift of Murree Brewery continued, and most important of all, passing a bill to get the Quaid’s 11th August speech included in the Constitution. RIP.

Cyberspace confusion.

Is it only me, or is the President of Pakistan’s website redirecting surfers to the ISPR website?

Shahnaz

I met Shahnaz today. She’s 30 years old, has 5 children, and has been married for nearly 15 years now. Her husband, her husband’s uncle and her brother-in-law, beat her, fractured her leg, shaved off her hair and her eyebrows. They then locked her up in the house for 10 days, allowing only a doctor to come in and plaster her leg. The reason for the abuse? She refused to have sex with her in-laws. Did I mention she also got beaten all through the 15 years of her marriage?

Shahnaz is currently admitted in a government hospital in Karachi. The doctors may say she is well enough to be discharged from the hospital, but who will help her erase the nightmare that she just lived through?

This country has stories with enough misery to rival a thousand Shakespearean tragedies.

A Pat on the Back.

I find it hilarious, and simultaneously quite insulting, that Pakistan will be paid a democracy dividend upto 1 billion dollars in a new U.S aid plan, labelled ‘a reward for holding peaceful elections and forming a coalition government’. Sigh, Uncle Sam now needs to reward us for barely doing a job right, and that too something that is the job of our Election Commission and the political parties.