The Daily PakistanPolitics Apr16-30, 2015

• Apr30-2015--The judicial commission has reached a precipice...it says that it has no authentic information as yet...The PTI has asked it to carry out its own investigations which could take a very long time...The PMLq has asked for the testimony of ISI and MI chiefs who usually have an unsavoury role in the countries politics...others have questioned the Pasha syndrome who has been accused of funding the PTI with US funds and later on handled the dharna as well...The commission has asked the politicians not to discuss the Judicial commission in TV talkshows...The ECP and the PMLn have rejected any notions of dhandli...while one finds the views of aitezaz ahsan that the PPP was surprised by its results in punjab as pretty pathetic when the party could barely mount even a minor political campaign and had fallen behind the two bigger parties in punjab even in the seraiki areas...The ANP says the TTP had frightened them into a corner...many donot believe that parties like the PPP and ANP had any chances of winning which has been demonstrated even in the recent cantonment polls...PMLn says that it will challenge any PTI witnesses...The PMLq and the PTI blame the RO's for onesidedness while Najam Sethi said that all the RO's in punjab had been replaced on the request of Imran Khan...On the basis of the accusations the judicial commission if not totally convinced could specifically investigate the actions of RO's individually and whether they coordinated or were directed by the former chief justice in any way...The commission would have to investigate the caretakers as well as the ECP...
  
• Apr30-2015--The army chief has taken over the karachi operation after two prominent figures were gunned down...one organizer was hit after a balochistan seminar opposed by the ISI and the other knock down was a KU junior academic...The KU is where the mqm initially emerged and some doubts have also been expressed about the involvements of qaim ali shah...many also opine that KU's radical professors maybe gunning down each other...that is apart from the involvements of political, religious and ethnic radicals and that of the countries intelligence agencies...the features of one attacker look definitely like an ethnic killer
  
• Apr30-2015--In what can be said tobe a major upheaval King Salman of saudi arabia removed Crown Prince Muqrin and foreign minister Saud al faisal...Muqrin had been specifically appointed by the previous king to offset allegations against the saduri 7...however he had been sidelined by the new king...Brought in is the interior minister Naef as crown prince and son Salman, defence minister as deputy crown prince...saud al faisal had been foreign minister since 1975...both muqrin and saud al faisal were opposed to recent US polices as well as iranian adventurism into the arab domain...muqrin has experience of handling troubled islamic states but was probably too mild for a saudi arabia which wanted a major military/regional/political role...and thus came into conflict with salman who like other kings start out handling things and than depend on the crown prince as they age and fall ill...a more active foreign minister has been named who could handle the upstart pakistani's and the head of Aramco has been named health minister...this sudden change has reduced the power of the crown prince who is the head of the saudi government and reentrenched the family power of king salman himself as well as removing from the scene the only remaining brother as well as one of the senior most grandsons...this is probably the result of the yemen crisis as well as the US nuclear deal with iran...The previous king had developed some sort of moderate relationship with the iranians and the israeli's however the yemen situation has destroyed that despite there being a supposedly moderate iranian president...however the agressive tactics by the hardline iranian army have caused tensions to reemerge...recent events include the saudi refusal to let an iranian plane land in Sanaa and the iranians attempt to have a flotilla move towards some yemeni port...power in saudia is thus now firmly in the hand of King Salman and some very young grandsons...Adel al Jubair is the new foreign minister...the foreign minister has probably been replaced because of the negative behaviour of pakistan and a general realization that saudi arabia will have to depend on its own military for its protection...countries like pakistan are barely effective outside their own borders and have limited means of projecting force or even protecting saudi arabia...saudi arabia should as a first step develop a powerful airforce and a missile or aerial defence...
  
• Apr29-2015--The federal government expects that the NFC award will be extended for another year..however the previous NFC award which saw punjab take a 5% cut and a substantial 8-10% increase in provincial share has not satisfied teh two smallest provinces which did not benefit that much from the new formulae of partial reduction on population and creating some new parameters...while punjab and sindh still took home the largest shares there has been no approval from the populace of how they spend the money...punjab has been taking on what can be called mega transport projects while the federal government has nothing really to show for what it is doing vis a vis the people...sindh also is apparently attempting to build some roads...KP is attempting to increase the quality of its governance while balochistan still seems tobe dealing with tribal and ethnic problems...the general feel is that changing the parameters will not help the two smallest povinces but it could just pacify sindh which is happy sitting on a pile of money and doing nothing...The new situation should technically make the people look at provincial governments for development but that has not happened...many feel that all taxes could be divided equally since the punjab populace does not benefit in any way from federal or punjab policies...just a case in point pukhtuns were seen driving new rickshaws and suzuki pickups being doled out by the punjab government...not many young men are seen setting up bussinesses and the government should provide money to those who have nothing rather than give loans to those whose families and fathers already are bussinessmen...The NFC should see to it that the people benefit and not just governments...
  
• Apr28-2015--The 2013 poll commission says that nobody has filed any realistic information and they have issued a three question questionaire for everyone to answer although the questions cannot in theory provide the answers as they are simple positional statements clearing up the why, how ,whether and who...after that is answered the details would have tobe thrashed out...eg. the PTI says Nawaz Sharif did it with the help of the returning officers and his election cell is responsible for the dhandli...the PTI position that dhandli was done by the mqm as well and in all provinces creates doubts about the results in KP as well...
  
• Apr28-2015--death toll in peshawar tornado rises to 45
  
• Apr27-2015--severe rain storm rips thru peshawar killing 35
  
• Apr27-2015--four killed in Sibi bomb blast
  
• Apr27-2015--after coming in last in the cantonment elections asif zardari still thinks the younger zardari's will be able to recharge the fading sputtering PPP...running a political party like a monarchy is something that defies basic democratic norms and thinking unless...while the party has in the past done well in LG polls given the location and strength of its supporters its weak leadership structure and lack of attraction to newer voters makes it a case tobe dumped for good...the party has been unable to find new leaders and get away from the feudal image of a few families attracting a winning vote...the son replacing the father is not something that warms the heart unless there are extraordinary circumstances...
  
• Apr26-2015--PMLn files its response to the judicial commission
  
• Apr26-2015--9 militants killed in Tirah airstrikes
  
• Apr26-2015--The cantonment LG polls based on very small wards saw the PMLn win 63 seats while the independents won around 50 with the PTI 34 and mqm 22...the polls showed the general decline of the PPP although they could have candidates in the independent facade which is generally based on mixedup alliances...The ethnicity of karachi and hyderabad was maintained even in the cantonments..In rawalpindi and chaklala the PMLn swept the polls with just one going to the JI and mostly PTI in the runnerup positions...The cantonments have generally been PML bastions as they are generally military run areas...PTI won 10 in KP with 15 independents...karachi is the biggest cantonment with 32 wards...PTI probably could have done better had they focused on the cantonments rather than NA246...PPP amongst the bigger parties was a big loser and they probably supported the PMLn in most cases...In balochistan with smaller cantonments the seats went mostly to independents
  
• Apr25-2015--Pakistan's involvement in Yemen may have been torpedoed by its known desire to fight for money...give us mone and we will fight the terrorists in fata and so on...some figure the initial request was for over $6 billion for pakistan to fight in yemen..however it has all snowballed into literally non involvement...The Saudis have handled things themselves and have stopped iranian planes and a flotilla from adding further fuel to the fire...The UN envoy could now try to resolve in how to form a new government and hold the next elections...as far as involvement in negotiations pakistan would be useless as it is allied with one side
  
• Apr26-2015--The Rangers should not many say be frightened in handling the party that is turning up as the major culprit in karachi's killings and which can actually be considered more of a crime syndicate
  
• Apr25-2015--policeman dies in peshawar roadside blast
  
• Apr25-2015--barring teh Ji no religious party participated in cantonment polls while the shiite TNFJ supported the PMLn in rawalpindi
  
• Apr24-2015--The Express Tribune says pakistan is literally frightened of warfare on the international front after what has happened in Fata and Afghanistan...many feel the saudi king wanted a one handed handshake if Nawaz Sharif did not want a two handed one ...while Pakistan bombs Fata on a daily basis they insist on something of a political process in Yemen...while pakistan has apparently no control over the yemen situation some suggest they might have armed the Houthi's rather than the iranians the way they are behaving...!!!the toppled Yemeni president apparently refused to listen to Nawaz Sharif's entreaties...he apparently wanted to suggest that you will get power after a ten year Houthi rule...!!!pakistan has little or no diplomatic expertise in arab diplomacy and many suggest that pakistans top diplomatic negotiator might be the army chief who was involved in the PTI-PMLn patchup after the dharna imbroglio...!!!
  
• Apr24-2015--The KP governor a brave and humble soul has apparently gone for a walk in the peshawar cantonment without security accompanied by a child...!something like that happened in Lebanon...!!
  
• Apr24-2015--20 militants killed in Tirah airstrikes
  
• Apr24-2015--The PTI says the Dawn now dreams of "naya cantonments"...the cantonments are a semi fauji culture and usually run by military station commanders...however support in these areas which are generally better developed exists for both major parties in the punjab
  
• Apr24-2015--The judicial commission asks PMLn and the MQM which are on the same side on the issue to make their presentations by the 25th...!
  
• Apr24-2015--The NA-246 election showed some drift of mqm voters as more and more karachi murders are blamed on their support base...the strict security frightened 63% of the populace that stayed away...while mqm's support base fell to around 24% from 40%...the PTI was not able to get the anti mqm votebase out of their homes but it is quite apparent that the mqm mandate in karachi is based on fear and not on any sort of majority support...The mqm showed that they have a pathetic understanding of democracy as at least three presiding officers were caught and later the mqm burned PTI flags and attacked their camps...many in karachi feel that they are under occupation by the terrorist and criminal natured mqm which does not even tolerate other political parties...
  
• Apr24-2015--The USA admits to having eliminated three or four westerners in a drone attack in january at a supposed alqaeda camp in pakistan...since drone attacks are supposedly carried out after sufficient surveillance and intelligence information there must be some other reasons for having eliminated at least Wennstein who had been kidnapped from lahore...Wennstein was a Phd and knew six languages...people who are stationed in troubled areas are usually undercover intelligence operatives and could have gone over to the al qaeda side or might have been helping them in some way...the same is said of two other PPP associated children who were kidnapped in the same period...jews and christians see killings by their own forces and those carried out by alqaeda in a different way...usually those kidnapped for ransom/politics or their technical knowledge are not eliminated by the tribal terrorist groups...
  
• Apr23-2015--Azhar Ali lost the bangladesh oneday series 3-0 and said he could not pull it together...while the bengali's batted very well one also some innovations in field placements...the pakistani bowlers could not make any impression and the captain showed no real innovations in tactics or placements of field...key batsmen like Hafeez, Sarfraz and Fawad alam failed even though the batting was adequate...there seemed almost no understanding of spin bowling in some reputed batsmen...in a three match series if u fail in two than a replacement must be considered...Asad shafik could have been brought in for Fawad in the last match...the new opener Sami seemed tobe a better choice for the opening slot...although Mohd rizwan did'nt seem too adequate as a wicketkeeper but looked a better batsmen
  
• Apr23-2015--The ECP inits presentation to the judicial commission categorically rejects the assertion that there was a wholesale manipulation of the 2013 election results or mandate...these elections were significant in that the PPP was restricted to sindh...while the punjab was swept by the PMLn...There was a massive shift in votes to the PMLn and PTI...however the PTI only made real gains in the KP...the PTI which earlier was expected to win lost quite a lot of steam by the end and the PPP fiasco caused a lot of votes to shift to the PMLn...the earlier predictions had the PTI surging ahead by almost a 60% margin in votes...however on election day Geo had announced by midday that PMLn was leading on 136 seats...That was a catastrophic shift in expectations of especially the PTI...for the first time elections showed teh regional aspects of teh parties concerned...The PPP lost punjab because of its sindh only politics...while the PMLn swept punjab because people realized that only a local party could be helpful...however KP kept up its tradition of bringing in the new while balochistan surprisingly brought in the NP, JUI and PMLN...PTI was thought tobe based in south punjab surrounding mianwali/mian channu and the results mostly can be described as a clear win for regionalism...elections have tobe fought region by region with ethnics standing against ethnics and clear distinctions have tobe made for area politics...
  
• Apr23-2015--34 militants killed in north and south waziristan airstrikes
  
• Apr23-2015--after a bevy of faux paas on foreign policy the primeminister now tobe shepherded by the army chief on a one day visit to saudia...the pakistani parliament and government both showed a pathetic understanding of diplomacy and were found on different planets...with no real interest or input into the yemeni situation the pakistani's ended up on no man's land...they seemed to have been fooled by the iranians who were found interfering which they were verbally opposing...the houthi's a shiite type were fully supported by the iranians while the saudis were supporting the majority of the unarmed populace which was being harassed by the houthis a militant mountain tribe that has been subduing the majority in yemen over the centuries and especially since the advent of islam...the iranian's a volatile people involved in literally all arab disputes seemed unnerved as their revolutionary army and al quds brigade were found on the wrong side of many borders...The US was slow in getting into the dispute as it was involved in negotiations with the iranians which the saudis saw as a direct threat to themselves and had to personally intervene in the situation as the houthis did not show any sense after toppling the government and taking over Sanaa...the saudis looked to pakistan and other arab states for support and reassurance and the pakistanis started a rigmarole of apparent deceipt which they are now trying to resolve...
  
• Apr22-2015--Saudi's end yemen airstrikes but keep options open
  
• Apr22-2015--six militants and two soldiers die in balochistan clashes in awaran and kech
  
• Apr22-2015--a special army force of 10000 to protect the pakistan-china corridor projects...chinese workers have been attacked in several places in balochistan , lahore and azad kashmir...!
  
• Apr21-2015--In a Dawn chart showing reserves of emerging countries pakistan seems to look like a really poor emerging country...one wonders how countries with reserves of over $300 billion can be called emerging nations...most countries reserves are similar year on year with Russia losing $130 billion while india's reserves were $343 billion with pakistan having literally no reserves at $16 billion...!
  
• Apr21-2015--The chinese president starts getting uneasy when the temperature is above 24 but Nawaz Sharif showed no respect for the chinese problem...nawaz sharif seems to regularly show diplomatic naivety...in saudi he refused to shake hands with the king...and yesterday he droned on and on as Xi Jinping looked at him uneasily...!
  
• Apr21-2015--The loss of a one day series to bangladesh was unexplainable by misbah as well as shehryar khan...azhar ali seemed ordinary as a captain and could not produce any brilliance...he seems intent to first cement his batting spot it seems...while the team is full of pretty senior players like azhar, hafeez, saeed ajmal, junaid,wahab,asad, zulfikar baber, they could not limit the bangladesh batting on their home ground...saeed ajmal seems to find his new style a bit difficult which consists of him bending and attempting a straightarm delivery...hafeez it seems is not fit...The board should really keep an armoury of competent replacements...they should bring in sami and drop sarfraz for the last match and see if they can adjust asad, zulfikar and ehsan...
  
• Apr21-2015--railway track blown up in sindh by sindh liberation army...!!
  
• Apr21-2015--the hoopla of a chinese visit does not hide the leaders fright at the security situations outside of islamabad...Dawn reportedly suggested that the chinese wanted a 1500 man chinese protection force for just gwadar...others suggest that the chinese would prefer a gwadar connection to the existing multan-hasanabdal motorway and thus save on security and construction expenditure...!!
  
• Apr20-2015--Ishaq Dar says that arabs despite being irritated by pakistan's policies will not extradite pakistani labour nor stop remmittances...just $6 billion come from Saudia and UAE...he says that pakistan has a 1982 agreement with saudi under which it can seek troops...but that does not apply to the yemeni situation...
  
• Apr20-2015--five militants killed in tirah valley clashes
  
• Apr19-2015--The iranians generally the most antagonistic muslim country towards the saudi's say they will only harvest the animosity of the yemeni minorities...many wonder what the iranians went to harvest in lebanon, syria and iraq...???..or for that matter in yemen...!
  
• Apr19-2015--Mutual funds hold Rs482 billion which is 5.6% of bank deposits...banks earn Rs275 billion in profits...most mutual funds barring the odd one or two are held by the countries major banks...although some big banks like Habib Bank are thought to fare poorly in this sector...large foreign banks like standard chartered avoid it altogether...with profit rates on savings absymally low one wonders who benefits from the countries the banks...mutual funds though frightening in intent have profit rates that are triple of savings and double of national savings...most fund profit rates are upward of the 15% mark...
  
• Apr19-2015--a Sunni Ittehad council leader dies in a Rangers lockup
  
• Apr19-2015--The karachi terrorist organisation the mqm found to have been involved in numerous murders and bhatta and who recently went into coalition with the JI in peshawar calls the PTI and JI branches of alqaeda...altaf hussein is these days desperate to keep his riff raff under control as more and more of his killers are identified and arrested...the pathetic local mqm leaders keep trying to topple him after almost everyone is sure of his involvement in murders and loot and plunder...one local leader said we dont really need altaf hussein as anyone can control sheep who can only bray and not be leaders themselves...
  
• Apr19-2015--Kakul ceremony for the first time presided over by a suspicious looking afghan general...
  
• Apr18-2015--video surveillance ordered for NA-246 polls...Rangers say that several escapees are going to come to vote and they could easily nab them...many also suggest that military men think that with so many of altaf's close associates arrested the people should not vote for the super criminal...!
  
• Apr17-2015--The PMLn comes up with an anti cyber crime bill that apparently seems to block political opposition/procrastination...Nawaz Sharif who has little interest in issues says he is fed up with being blamed and insulted by everyone in the political spectrum...
  
• Apr17-2015--The SHO of karachi's famous Preedy Street police station shot dead...this is the third shiite SHO of Preedy shot dead in the last three years...attacking police is usually the work of the PPP or mqm's extremists...other's suggest corruption or very effective policework as reasons ie. apart from sectarianism or someone else wanting the job...
  
• Apr17-2015--ten militants killed in kurram air strikes
  
• Apr17-2015--PTI yet to prepare evidence for submission to the judicial commission...the PTI was so unprepared that the court had to give them seven more days for preperation and submission...
  
• Apr17-2015--The SC suspends six death sentences handed down by military courts after the court was not told who they were and what their crime was
  
• Apr17-2015--pakistan which is now regarded as a puny iran controlled bedraggled warrior tells saudi's they are willing to fight the houthis but dont tell anyone that we cant fly or really bomb the houthi's...the team led by the transferred army CGS ishfaq nadeem seems to have gone in place of the foreign minister(aka nawaz sharif) but apparently he thinks that saudi's are not that important any longer...Nawaz Sharif seems pathetic at handling emerging/foreign situations which has become apparent in recent times...If he is so frightened than he should have appointed a mentally adapted foreign minister...most PMLn ministers seem to be pretty pathetic...with the anti saudi ishaq dar saying we pay for saudi oil we dont get any charity from them...if that is the case than pakistan should not behave like a regional islamic power...The iranians have emerged as russian frontmen in the region after deliveries of their new SS300 missiles started...obviously that goes to show that their own missiles are not that effective or workable...The pakistanis are now deeper into the chinese pocket with the F-16's still their only defence in reality
  
• Apr17-2015--american dentist shot and injured in karachi suggested retaliation for the killing of five militants recently in Keamari
  
• Apr16-2015--The army(aka the FC) which is dealing with religious and political terrorism in balochistan since the bhutto era says their intent is to crush the insurgency
  
• Apr16-2015--The PTI has submitted 45 pages of proposals to the judicial commission showing that evidence is something that is difficult to craft and present...many think that the judicial commission will have to rely on tribunal decisions, ECP and Nadra investigations