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Monday, March 16, 2009

Army storms presidential palace

Madagascar's army surrounded the presidential palace in the capital, where several gunshots were heard, according to witnesses. President Marc Ravalomanana was not in the building. Madagascar’s army surrounded a presidential palace in the capital city of Antananarivo, where several gunshots were heard as the crisis in the Indian Ocean island nation escalated on Monday. Reporting from Antananarivo,  two armored vehicles charged at the entrance of the presidential palace, flattening the gates. Marc Ravalomanana, Madagascar’s embattled president, was not inside the building. Ravalomanana is believed to be holed up in another presidential palace located about 12 kilometres outside the capital city. Reporting from the front gates of the presidential palace in Antananarivo, Vanier explained that there were two presidential palaces in Madagascar. “One, where the president currently resides about 12 km outside the capital, and the one under attack, which is largely symbolic,” .

Mission Accomplished!

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"Zardari will soon be in a hole - not only from Nawaz's pressure but also the lawmakers'."

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In an effort to calm the political turmoil in the country, Pakistan has agreed to restore deposed Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 21, prompting opposition leader Nawaz Sharif to call off his planned "long march" protest.Pakistan’s government agreed on Monday to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice to defuse a political crisis and end a street agitation threatening to turn into violent confrontation. Chaudhry became a cause celebre after being dismissed in late 2007 by then-president and army chief General Pervez Musharraf. “I announce the restoration of all deposed judges including Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry according to a promise made by the president of Pakistan and myself,” Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said in a televised address to the nation. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif had thrown his support behind the anti-government lawyers’ protest campaign that had threatened to bring turmoil to nuclear-armed Pakistan as the government struggles to stem militancy and revive a flagging economy. After the prime minister’s announcement, Sharif called off a “long march” protest making its way to the capital, Islamabad. The political crisis gripping the Muslim nation had alarmed the United States and Britain, which fear any slide into chaos would help the Taliban and al Qaeda become stronger in Pakistan. The United States welcomed Chaudhry’s reinstatement. “This is a statesmanlike decision taken to defuse a serious confrontation, and the apparent removal of this long-standing national issue is a substantial step towards national reconciliation,” the U.S. embassy said. The government is also struggling with an ailing economy that was bailed out with a $7.6 billion International Monetary Fund package in November. Pakistan’s main stock index, hurt by political worry over the past few weeks, surged more than 5 percent at the open. But some analysts saw Chaudhry’s comeback adding to Pakistan’s complexities. “The reinstatement ... will further complicate politics,” said Brian Cloughley, a British defence analyst familiar with Pakistan. “Nobody knows what his allegiance is, in terms of Pakistan’s constitution.” President Asif Ali Zardari, elected by parliament six months ago, had feared Chaudhry could wage a vendetta against Musharraf that could also threaten his own position. Although he has a healthy majority in parliament, Zardari’s retreat on the issue will raise questions about his future, and enhance the standing of his main rival, former prime minister Sharif. Chaudhry will be reinstated on March 21 when the incumbent retires. Several hundred jubilant lawyers and activists gathered outside Chaudhry’s Islamabad residence, which he refused to vacate after his dismissal when Musharraf declared emergency rule in a desperate move to extend his presidency for another term. They danced and chanted “Long live the chief justice”. “It’s the first time in the history of Pakistan that a movement launched by the middle class has proved successful,” said retired judge Tariq Mehmud, a lawyers’ campaign leader. INTERNATIONAL CONCERNS Western diplomats had tried to make Zardari pull out of a collision that could have destabilised the year-old civilian coalition and forced a reluctant army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, to intervene. Kayani was involved in negotiations leading up to the decision to restore the judge. Sharif, a two-time prime minister with a conservative, religious-nationalist support base, was overthrown by Musharraf in 1999. Since his return from exile in 2007 he has become Pakistan’s most popular politician, thanks partly to his stand on the judge. Sharif was conciliatory, congratulating Zardari and Gilani. “We have got the fruit of our two-year struggle,” Sharif told supporters in Gujranwala town where the protest procession stopped when news came through of the government’s decision. Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was elected by parliament last September after forcing Musharraf to quit the presidency. Deeply unpopular, Zardari was further damaged when he broke a promise to Sharif last year to reappoint Chaudhry, though he brought back most other judges axed by Musharraf. Zardari conceded over Chaudhry after Sharif and the lawyers held a day of protest in Lahore and set off for Islamabad for a sit-in outside parliament. Authorities had put shipping containers and trucks on roads to stop the protesters from entering the capital. Sharif latched onto Chaudhry’s cause two years ago, but the latest crisis began when Zardari ejected Sharif’s party from power in Punjab last month, after the Supreme Court barred Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz from holding elected office. Gilani reached out to the Sharifs in his address, saying:  “Let’s move ahead together with other political powers.” A constitutional package that a government official said was being worked out was expected to include the lifting of central government rule in Punjab, setting the stage for the provincial assembly to elect a chief minister.

Charter of Democracy

From the point of view of crisis prevention, the 36-point Charter of Democracy outlines sensible measures that could go some way towards resolving the present political crisis. But will the PPP’s offer to ‘negotiate’ an end to the present crisis on the basis of the charter signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in May 2006 be taken up? Unlikely. First, the long march is ostensibly for the restoration of the deposed judges, but the disqualification of the Sharif brothers and the imposition of governor’s rule in Punjab have given the march a decidedly political hue. Negotiating an end to the judges’ issue without resolving the political crisis in Punjab is now a non-starter. But on the political front the PPP still hasn’t backed off from staking a claim to the Punjab government, effectively ensuring the PML-N won’t back off from supporting the long march and the planned sit-in. Second, the Charter of Democracy does not have an answer for what is at the heart of the judges’ issue: the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhry to the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The PPP has made it clear that it does not want Iftikhar Chaudhry back as chief justice; the lawyers and the opposition parties have made it clear that they won’t settle for anything less than the return of the deposed chief justice. Both sides interpret the charter to their own advantage. Third, the bona fides of President Zardari as a sincere negotiator are in serious doubt. Having reneged on previous agreements on the judges’ issue, the opposition will be leery of trusting him again. Negotiations inevitably take time, and whatever the PPP leadership says right now, the lawyers and opposition will worry that offers to negotiate are just a ploy to see off the threat of the long march and sit-in. More fundamentally, however, the problem has been that neither side has appeared interested in solutions that engender stability. Consider the judiciary. The PPP has baulked at reinstating Iftikhar Chaudhry, but it has also made no attempt to shore up judicial independence. President Zardari has appointed dozens of judges to the superior courts. Could he not have formed a commission to nominate candidates for the vacancies as per the Charter of Democracy? Could a joint parliamentary committee not have been formed to hold public hearings on the candidates forwarded by the prime minister, again in line with the charter? As for the lawyers and the opposition parties, they have consistently demanded of Iftikhar Chaudhry that once reinstated he should clean up politics with no compromise and no mercy. The judge himself has wholeheartedly embraced the idea of the crusading judge. So when nobody is aiming for stability, is it really a surprise if instability is the outcome?

Reinstating Iftikhar Chaudhry?


Pakistan, PM to address the nation soon

Israeli police killed in West Bank

Two officers die in suspected shooting near settlement of Massua.

Arab leaders ‘complicit’ with Israel over Gaza: Osama

We should work hard and prepare for jihad (holy war) in order to bring about what is right: Osama Bin Laden.—Reuters/File
We should work hard and prepare for jihad (holy war) in order to bring about 
what is right: Osama Bin Laden.—Reuters/File 

DUBAI Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being ‘complicit’ with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories, in an audio tape broadcast by Al-Jazeera television on Saturday.‘It has become clear that some Arab leaders were complicit with the Crusader Zionist alliance against our people. These are the leaders that America calls moderate,’ said bin Laden, without singling out any leaders. ‘The countries of the Muslim world from Indonesia to Mauritania are divided into two: Some of them are crooked, while others are even more crooked,’ he added, in excerpts of the tape aired by the Doha-based channel. In the tape, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, bin Laden labelled the devastating offensive by Israel against Gaza at the new year as a Holocaust. ‘The Holocaust of Gaza amid a long siege is an important historical event that confirms the importance of distinguishing between Muslims and hypocrites,’ said the al Qaeda leader, who carries a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head. He called on jihadists to ‘liberate’ Iraq from the US army and then launch attacks on Israel from Jordan. ‘We should work hard and prepare for jihad (holy war) in order to bring about what is right,’ said bin Laden, who is widely believed to have found refuge in Pakistan's largely lawless tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. ‘There is a precious rare chance for those who have a sincere desire to liberate Al-Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem), which is by supporting the mujahedeen in Iraq ... and then going to Jordan as it is the best and widest of fronts.’ From Jordan, jihadists should launch into the West Bank and its neighbouring areas, he said. ‘The road to the liberation of Gaza needs real, sincere, independent, strong and honest leaders who are on top of major events,’ he added. Bin Laden suggested compiling a list of people ‘whose efforts serve our enemies’ and said committees should be formed in Muslim countries to raise awareness among citizens. He did not elaborate. The United States downplayed the recording, saying there was nothing new in it. ‘Al Qaeda addresses these themes with some frequency and at this point, there doesn't appear to be anything new here,’ a counterterrorism official told AFP. ‘These are well-worn themes for al Qaeda.’ The tape was the second by bin Laden in two months in which he has focused on the Gaza offensive. On January 14, he called on Muslims across the world to take revenge against Israel for the blitz, charging that the onslaught had been timed to take advantage of the dying days of the presidency of George W. Bush.