The Londoner

On the 17th day of the war against Palestinians, Israel launched around 15 air strikes overnight, fewer than in some recent nights, as Israeli troops pushed into a heavily populated area of Gaza City from the south on Monday killing dozens of innocent civilians. In Jerusalem on Sunday, Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, told the nation that Israel will continue its killing spree until it achieves its objectives. The Israeli military on Monday that warplanes attacked five Hamas operatives along with weapons caches, tunnels and other targets, while Israeli gunboats fired from the sea. Nearly 900 people have been killed, according to Palestinian Health Ministry officials. On Saturday, Mr. Meshal, said that Hamas would not consider a cease-fire until Israel ended the assault and opened all crossings into Gaza. He said that the barbaric nature of the Israeli campaign had crossed the line and called it a holocaust.

By Sikander Hayat Asif Ali Zardari is the 11th president of the Republic of Pakistan and due to Pakistan’s parliamentary system, he was elected by the majority of the members of the National Assembly, the four provincial assemblies and the Senate. Each provincial assembly has an equal say in the election of the president; because he is the president of Pakistan, President Zardari is my President and I have the right to point out the intended or unintended mistakes made by his administration. My first and foremost problem with him and his administration is the general lack of cohesion and the backbone in the foreign policy matters. A lot of ministers in his cabinet are making statements which are disjointed, far removed from reality; at best cowardly and humiliating at worst. For example, his defence minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, when asked about the reasons behind the decision of declaring JuD a terrorist organisation, said that if that was not done Pakistan would have been branded...

By Sikander Hayat December is the month when Pakistan lost its eastern half of East Pakistan which became Bangladesh in 1971. The cold chilly nights of December send shivers down the spine of Pakistanis forcing them to contemplate about what went wrong. Why our brothers who created Muslim League, who suffered partition of Bengal, who were at the forefront of the movement for the independence of Pakistan felt so angry that they decided to part their ways from the rest of Pakistan. I do not want to blame our brothers from Bengal (East Pakistan) for wanting to secede as they gave us 24 years to correct our wrongs but leaders of West Pakistan, the intelligentsia, the elite and the general public attitude never considered East Pakistan as their integral part. There was a hint of racial, intellectual and martial prejudice and then there was a feeling in Eastern Pakistan that West Pakistan considered them the insignificant other. It has been 37 years but the wounds are still not anywhere near...

By Sikander Hayat How can Pakistan save itself from false Indian accusations and prosper as a country where people of all creeds and colours can live in harmony. This should be the ‘to do’ list of people in charge of Pakistan fir the near future. 1. Pakistan has a presidential; system in practice, it must be codified in the constitution as such to make it easier for the people of Pakistan to elect a president directly which will give chance to people who want to serve the country and break the shackles of the current ruling class. For example a person like Imran Khan or the Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudary will have a chance in the presidential system. 2. Pakistan must be turned into a true federation where all its constituents have equal voting powers in the presidential elections where a Baloch, Kashmiri, Pakhtoon, Sindhi, Punjabi or a person of any ethnicity has the same chance of becoming a president as anyone else. This will help dissipate the perception t...

By DAN BILEFSKY SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Thirteen years after the United States brokered the Dayton peace agreement to end the ferocious ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia, fears are mounting that Bosnia, poor and divided, is again teetering toward crisis. On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox churches still pocked by mortar fire, appears to be enjoying a renaissance. Young professionals throng to stylish cafes and gleaming new shopping malls while the muezzin heralds the morning prayer. The ghosts of Srebrenica linger — recalling the worst massacre in Europe since World War II — but Sarajevans prefer to talk about President-elect Barack Obama or the global financial crisis. Yet for the first time in years, talk of the prospect of another war is creeping into conversations across the ethnic divide in Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic that the Dayton agreement divided into two entities, a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic. The po...

Islamabad—Indian fighter planes Saturday violated Pakistan’s air space by entering two places in Kashmir and Lahore. Planes of Pakistan Air Force (PAF), which were already on alert, quickly came into action and forced the India’s fighter jets to leave Pakistan air space, a private TV channel reported. The sources further said that the Indian planes were fully equipped with warheads. Meanwhile, another TV channel has reported that a loud blast was heard in Arabian Sea between Badin and Jati cities Saturday night. However, further details about the blast were not received. The cause and exact location of the blast is being ascertained. The local people were in a state of fear after the blast, sources said. The Indian fighter planes penetrated four kilomaters inside Pakistani territory. The TV channel further reported that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani were awaken by Pakistan Air Force Chief and informed about the violation of Pakistan Air space by ...

Captain Mohammad Sarwar Shaheed Born: 1910, Singhori Village, District of Rawalpindi Commissioned: 1944, Punjab Regiment During the Kashmir Operations soon after the birth of Pakistan, as Company Commander of the 2nd Battalion of the Punjab Regiment, Captain Sarwar launched an attack causing heavy casualties against a strongly fortified enemy position in the Uri Sector under heavy machine gun, grenade and mortar fire. But on the 27th July 1948, as he moved forward with six of his men to cut their way through a barbed wire barrier, he died when his chest was riddled by a burst of heavy machine gun fire. Major Tufail Mohammad Shaheed Born: 1914, Hoshiarpur Commissioned: 1943, 16th Punjab Regiment Early in August 1958, Major Tufail, a Company Commander in the East Pakistan Rifles, encircled an illegal Indian post, which violated the internationally recognized boundary between the two countries, in the Lakshmipur area. And, though mortally wounded in the hand-to-hand encounter that foll...