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Journalism of Courage
The Lal Masjid standoff in Islamabad has now drawn the Chinese government into demanding action. Dawn reported on Thursday that during a visit to Beijing Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao was asked by his Chinese counterpart, Zhou Yongkang, to ensure the safety of Chinese workers in Pakistan. 8220;We hope Pakistan will look into the terrorist attacks at Chinese people and organisations as soon as possible and severely punish the criminals,8221; Zhou said. The paper explained, 8220;One male and six female Chinese, as well as two Pakistanis, were kidnapped from the acupuncture clinic where they worked in the early hours of Saturday by students from a seminary, before being released later in the day.8221; Dawn recapped in an editorial the next day earlier attacks on Chinese workers. In 2004 two Chinese engineers working at the Gomal Zam dam site in South Waziristan were abducted by the Abdullah Mahsud group, one of whom died in a commando rescue operation. It noted that Abdullah, a Guantanamo returnee, is still at large. In 2006, three Chinese persons were killed and 13 injured in an ambush in Hub, while in 2004 three were killed in a bomb blast at Gwadar. But the editorial underlined: 8220;The latest incident, however, occurred right in the federal capital and, besides causing diplomatic embarrassment for Pakistan, has led to the flight of a large number of Chinese from Islamabad to Lahore. Some have returned to China.8221;
In an editorial on Friday, The Daily Times took the opportunity to survey relations with China: 8220;Out of all the relationships Pakistan has with other states, the one with China is the most mundane because it is not based on any intellectual or cultural affinity. It has been a materialistic connection propelled by Pakistan8217;s hunger for nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The trouble started with China when the Chinese were building the Karakoram Highway in the 1970s. Z.A. Bhutto, the then Pakistani prime minister who sported a Mao cap on his foreign tours, had a hard time cooling down the ideological passions aroused against the Chinese among regional officials of the state of Pakistan. But during the Afghan jihad under General Zia ul Haq, China first began to feel the heat from our religious parties engaged in plans of 8216;reconquering8217; Muslim areas under Communism.8221; In recent years, Pervez Musharraf has had to field Beijing8217;s requests for action against Uighur rebels from China finding shelter on Pakistani territory.
Urban futures
Cyclonic storms have led to disruptions and loss to life and property on the Sindh and Balochistan coastline. Power outages were an accompaniment in Karachi, prompting, reported The Daily Times on Wednesday, the MQM to ask people to not pay electricity bills. In an editorial on Tuesday, The Daily Times had reminded readers that 8220;the latest crisis of Karachi relates to a year-old shortage of electricity8221;.
On Thursday, the newspaper took stock of projections in the latest UN Population Fund UNFPA report. The country8217;s urban population is likely to equal its rural population by 2030. The share of the urban population as part of the country8217;s total was 17.4 per cent in 1951. Today it8217;s estimated to be about 35 per cent. Much of this is concentrated: 8220;More than half of the total urban population of Pakistan lived in 2005 in eight urban agglomerations: Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad, Gujranwala and Peshawar. Between 2000 and 2005, these cities grew at the rate of around 3 per cent per annum, and it8217;s projected that this growth rate will continue for the next eight to nine years.8221; More than 60 per cent of the population of urban Sindh, for instance, lives in Karachi. In Punjab, 22 per cent of the urban population lives in Lahore. Leaving out Afghan refugees, Peshawar has a population of approximately one million, that is, 33 per cent of the urban provincial population. The share of Quetta in the total urban Balochistan population was 37 per cent. And, 8220;the urban population living in katchi abadis varies between 35 and 50 per cent.8221;
Degree of eligibility
PMLQ President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain argues that the condition of graduation to contest elections should be deleted The Daily Times, June 27. The view was echoed at a tribal jirga in Peshawar.
