Published In The Express Tribune, June 23rd, 2012.
The brouhaha over the Dunya News video leak has shifted the spotlight from the real issue of accountability to the dark underbelly of the television news networks. Read more »
Published In The Express Tribune, June 23rd, 2012.
The brouhaha over the Dunya News video leak has shifted the spotlight from the real issue of accountability to the dark underbelly of the television news networks. Read more »
A record of payments allegedly made to 19 senior-journalists of Pakistan, by the Bahria Town owner Malik Riaz has surfaced on the social networking site Twitter, Aaj News reported. Read more »
We are reproducing the following email from Mr. Yousuf Nazar without comment:
Regards,
Farrukh Siddiqui Read more »
By Dexter Filkins, from New Yorker
On May 30th, as the sun beat down on the plains of eastern Pakistan, a laborer named Muhammad Shafiq walked along the top of a dam on the Upper Jhelum Canal to begin his morning routine of clearing grass and trash that had drifted into the intake grates overnight. The water flow seemed normal, but when he started removing the debris with a crane the machinery seized up. Read more »
There was no indication of whether the earlier account of Sheikh Essa’s arrest in Faisalabad was wrong. If it was right, how did Sheikh Essa reach Syria in 2009? Unfortunate and absolutely horrid and condemnable as Saleem Shahzad’s death was, it would be a mistake to take his stories on face value. Despite his apparently deep contacts with the militants (partly due to his former association with Jamaat-e-Islami), the glaring contradictions in his reports and the sweeping judgements contained therein do not reflect well on the credibility of either him or Asia Times online. Read more »
One of the objectives of Kerry-Lugar aid bill for aid to Pakistan is to “support for promotion of a responsible, capable,and independent media.”According to this RT TV broadcast of March 10, 2010, Read more »
Huffington Post
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that Al Jazeera is gaining more prominence in the U.S. because it offers “real news” — something she said American media were falling far short of doing. Read more »
Reporting from Washington
A high-spirited crowd numbering in the tens of thousands swamped the National Mall on Saturday, overwhelming the city’s public transportation system as people flocked to what organizers billed as a “comedic call for calm.”
Much of the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” put on by “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart and his Comedy Central colleague Stephen Colbert, resembled a large-scale variety show, with humorous sketches and surprise musical guests such as Kid Rock, Tony Bennett and Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens. Read more »
The Wall Street Journal is reputed for its coverage of markets, business, and economy. But it is also a conservative paper and in terms of political orientation, not much more than a mouthpiece of the Washington establishment. Mr. Bret Stephens is the deputy editor of its editorial page (International) and its foreign affairs columnist. On June 8, 2010, he wrote a column ‘Israel and its Liberal Friends”. While referring to the Flotilla mission to Gaza and to cover up for Israel’s criminal and murderous attack on the peace mission, he had used the now familiar tactic of raising the bogey of Al Qaeda. Read more »
My take on the whole Hamid Mir’s saga is not [assuming of course the tape is authentic] just that he could have contributed to the killing of former Squadron Leader and ISI official Khalid Khawaja by telling that unknown person (who sounded like he was somewhere in the tribal areas and involved with a terrorist group) that Khalid worked for the CIA among other allegations but the fact people like Hamid Mir with known links with Al Qaeda are also alleged to be the intelligence agencies men and work for the biggest media group in the country. No wonder, no newspaper or TV channel took even notice of the story till the Daily Times broke it on its first page. And yet the media has the audacity to make claims about its independence, integrity, objectivity..etc.
The reality is that while politicians have been made to account for their deeds (even though motives related more to revenge and witch-hunting), the Army, the Media, and the Judiciary are not accountable at all. The Jang group has lobbied very effectively for not allowing the Indian TV channels to be aired in Pakistan. I think it is high time we do it. We should trust our people, their intelligence, their political consciousness, and their patriotism in that they can distinguish news from propaganda and objective reporting from spin. But Pakistani people must be freed from the tyranny of these TV anchors many of whom are no more than hired spokesmen of the intelligence agencies. Read more »
The following is DAWN’s editorial which has hit the nail on the head.
“Mr Mir has every right to proclaim his innocence but that alone will not suffice. In this digital age it is child’s play for independent experts to confirm whether or not the voice on the tape is Mr Mir’s. It is just as simple to distinguish a doctored recording from an unedited conversation.” Read more »
Pakistan‘s pugnacious media world was plunged into controversy today when a leaked audio tape apparently linked its most popular television presenter with the execution of a Taliban hostage.
The tape purports to be a recording of a phone conversation between the journalist, Hamid Mir, and a Taliban spokesman about the fate of Khalid Khawaja, a former intelligence agent being held by the Taliban. Read more »
I was quite surprised to see this rubbish written by a DAWN staffer (Cyril Almeida). It is a weak and poorly argued piece to suggest (believe it or not) that some militant group could be ”responsible” for BB’s murder.
A quote from this article:
“But the theory gets little play because it’s based on something few Pakistanis know much, or anything, about: militancy. Everyone, though, knows about Musharraf. And about Zardari and his buddies, of course.”
Pakistanis know much more about militancy than some of these desk journalists and writers. Students in the college and university campuses, ordinary workers and peasants from Sohrab Goth to Binori Town, and from Jhang to Bahawalnagar, and from Azad Kashmir to Mir Ali, know so much about militancy that some of these armchair analysts would be shocked. My driver who worked for me four years ago (he was from Swat) could pinpoint the mosques in Karachi where arms were stored and even give the description of the security personnel protecting the militants in addition to tracing their linkages to particular religious outfits. Read more »
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Originally published by Let US Build Pakistan Blog By Omar Khattab in Islamabad Suddenly the media has swept the entire nation into the vortex of an acrimonious debate between lawyers on the issue of the 18th constitutional amendment. Akram Sheikh, a Jamaat-e-Islami stalwart and an ISI-backed “leader” of the lawyer community, has been using extremely offensive language against the likes of Aitzaz Ahsan and Ali Ahmed Kurd. It appears that he has succeeded in enraging pro-18th Amendment people by making them use harsh language. Read more » |
The biggest conspiracy theory that I have come across in the recent years is that Benazir Bhutto fell victim to a terrorist attack. Ninety percent of our media analysts have been, deliberately or unconsciously, part of the larger conspiracy to lay the blame for most violence in Pakistan on terrorism and extremism or on the mullahs but do not have the guts to point to the root causes, the principal accused and the main culprit …. the military establishment. Read more »
It will be late night or early morning in Pakistan when the much awaited United Nations report on Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is released by the UN. There is a litmus test that will determine, for me at least, whether the report has any relevance or meaning. I will come to that later in this article. The United Nations commission was charged with examining the facts and circumstances behind the December 2007 assassination. The Commission is headed by Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz of Chile, and its other members are Marzuki Darusman, the former attorney-general of Indonesia, and Peter Fitzgerald, a veteran of the Irish National Police who has also served the UN in various roles. The UN fact-finders were asked to probe Ms. Bhutto’s assassination in a gun and bomb suicide attack in the closing days of Pakistan’s 2007 elections, as well as her narrow escape from a similar bombing two months earlier, when she paraded triumphantly through Karachi after returning home from eight years in exile. Read more »
I am getting quite fed up with the planted, biased, illiterate, and highly unprofessional so-called reporting by the The News International. Its current owner Mir Shakil ur Rehman was not above cheating in the exams. More about this in a moment.
At one point of time, I was very negative about Asif Zardari, and still am, [read my article of Sep. 04, 2008] but whatever he is or his past, he is at least a known commodity. And to be honest, what the PPP government under President Zardari has achieved in political terms in just two years, Zia and Musharraf could not achieve in the twenty two years these murderers and traitors ruled the country. Zia killed ZAB and Musharraf killed Akbar Bugti. Whatever ZAB and Bugti’s wrongs might have been, every one deserves a fair trial. Both Zia and Musharraf violated the constitution and the law of the land with impunity and contempt. So it is not out of line to accuse them of murder and treason. Read more »
Comment by Yousuf Nazar
The report of the News (25th Feb. 2010) is reproduced below: Read more »
This is an open letter to journalists written in good faith and it is based on the questions and comments from large number of citizens about the recent news related to plots and residential schemes for journalists.
Other than plots, several stories were revealed in past few months regarding the Secret Funds of Information Ministry and IB (Intelligence Bureau) for journalists and media entities. Read more »
I hate to name people but I strongly feel that the media people should be held accountable too and should not be above criticism. I hope this will be taken in the same spirit. I can’t be accused of being pro-Zardari or pro-PPP given that I wrote (both in DAWN and the NEWS on 4th September 2008) that Zardari was his own worst enemy.
Now, please read this report by the News [Feb. 17, 2010] titled, “PM’s ‘last chance’ to mend ways with SC”, by Ansar Abbasi. Read more »
First let me reproduce part of story published by The News International on February 15, 2010. The reporter is Rauf Klasra.
ISLAMABAD: Striking down his entire lot of nominees for appointment as judges of the Lahore High Court, the federal government has formally informed the Chief Justice, Justice Khwaja Sharif, that his list contained serious “flaws” and did not meet the set constitutional criteria. The government has also sent back a similar list, forwarded by the Sindh governor for his own province, it was reliably learnt. Though Punjab Governor Salman Taseer had recommended 19 of the original 28 nominees of the Chief Justice Lahore High Court, Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, the federal government has, nevertheless, rejected all while citing different reasons.A source close to the Supreme Court, when contacted, said the matter of judges’ appointment is in court and soon everything will get crystal clear. He said whatever information about the nominees of judges was required under the Constitution was provided by the Lahore High Court chief justice. The criterion for selection of nominees for judges was also strictly followed. Whatever qualification the constitution provided for judges, such as competency, experience and good reputation, was ensured while finalising the list of nominees for judges.
SO far so good. But then the story goes on to quote the “SOURCE IN THE SUPREME COURT” to publish this highly political statement. This source should either come out openly and join politics. Or is it that the News publishes whatever it feels like and attributes it to sources. Now please read carefully the following part of the story.
He said in fact the government attitude towards judiciary was altogether changed after the announcement of Supreme Court verdict on NRO. Before this verdict, the government accepted all recommendations in a hope that the Supreme Court would feel obliged and show leniency on NRO. He said the Supreme Court, however, made the decision strictly according to law and constitution shattering the government hopes. Afterwards, he said, the government adopted attitude of non-cooperation and started objecting on every recommendation by the judiciary. He said the judiciary was offered by the government to induct 50 per cent of Jiala judges and 50 per cent of their own choice. “Be happy and make us happy” was what the government wanted from judiciary. He said whenever these objections were sent by the government, today, yesterday or some days before why it did not wait for the response from the chief justice. He said the government made the announcement before consultation, while it is not authorised under the constitution to act in this way.He said the PPP government wanted to induct Jiala judges in the judiciary and turn Pakistan’s justice system into topsy-turvy so that it could loot the national wealth with both hands. He said, according to his information, the agencies were pressurised to make false reports about the nominees for judges. He said the main problem is of one man that is President Zardari. And of Zardari’s corruption, he said, the main issue is of Swiss court cases. Attempts are being made to save Zardari from persecution in Swiss courts so that the looted money is not brought back and culprit is also not apprehended.
Who is this source? Is it in accordance with constitutional and legal norms that Supreme Court sources make political speeches and comments to newspapers? What business is it of a Chief Justice to go around the country (even after he had been restored) and address bars and meet delegations. Is there a limit to the nonsense that is being thrust upon the hapless people of Pakistan in the name of “independent judiciary”.
One former Chief Justice (Munir) killed the constitution of Pakistan. Another Chief Justice (Anwar ul Haq) was responsible for the murder of an elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and gave legal cover to Zia, the curse of Pakistan. Another Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry sold out his soul to Musharraf by becoming his chief justice only to later conspire against him with the help of the intelligence agencies. Why then we are expected to blindly follow and respect these lordships?
If they really care about justice, then why don’t they order all the generals, admirals and chaudhris of Punjab to disclose their wealth and return all loans that were written off? Why don’t they order Musharraf and all his collaborators to appear in the court and face trial under Article 6? That is the most serious crime that can be committed under the law of the land but Zardari hunting is the only job these Lordships have been assigned by their real masters in Pindi, and toady journalists are too happy to oblige!
Published in DAWN
The Supreme Court’s verdict on the NRO and the way it has been decided to enforce it leaves no doubt in my mind that the establishment is once again out to get the PPP and bring back its favourite civilians to power.
Familiar forces are once again trying to seize the initiative they lost after a decade-long military rule which gave us the ‘war on terror’ and has brought us to a state where Pakistan is bracketed with Afghanistan and is considered one of the hottest spots in the world that can explode anytime.
Never mind the blunders of the masters of ‘strategic lack of depth’ and architects of the policies that have turned Pakistan into a client state of America with few friends; they seem to have decided to strike back again.
Now faced with the question of how to justify this attempt to take back power, they seem to have decided to divert the public’s attention to an easy target and a handy dog to whip; the government of Asif Zardari. It is even speculated that the very reason why the establishment facilitated the entry of Zardari into the corridors of power was because he was considered so vulnerable that getting rid of him would be a piece of cake. Read more »
The credibility of the government is low but so is the credibility of the media. The media coverage, with some exceptions, is compromised by commercial interests and the agencies. Also, there is no transparency in terms of ownership, business interests, and finances. Read more »
From Counterpunch
By DAVE LINDORFF
When Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi heaved his two shoes at the head of President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, he did something that the White House press corps should have done years ago. Read more »