Pakistan’s opposition leader predicted Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari would not last his full five-year term in office as police yesterday turned away another convoy of protesters trying to reach the capital for a major anti-government demonstration.
Authorities have detained several hundred political activists and lawyers in recent days, seeking to thwart a protest movement that is challenging the government’s shaky one-year rule just as the West wants to see Pakistan unite and fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.
Activist lawyers are demanding Zardari fulfill a pledge to reinstate judges fired by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, a general who ousted opposition leader Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in a 1999 coup. The protest movement heated up last month when the Supreme Court banned Sharif and his brother from elected office.
After the ruling, the federal government dismissed the Punjab provincial administration led by Sharif’s brother, stoking anger in Pakistan’s most populous region and putting the pair and their supporters on a collision course with Zardari.
Sharif — a seasoned political campaigner who is seen as closer to Pakistan’s conservative Islamist forces than Zardari — told a local TV station late on Thursday that he did not want to destabilize the government, but again appealed for Zardari to reinstate the judges.
By resisting that demand, Zardari was “shortening his political life,” he said, adding: “I don’t think he will be able to complete his five years.”
The lawyers’ movement, Sharif’s party and other small political groupings called a “long march” to begin on Thursday across the country, with groups of protesters planning to converge on the parliament building in Islamabad on Monday and begin a sit-in.
Early yesterday, police stopped about 200 lawyers in a convoy of cars and buses from entering Sindh Province en route to Islamabad, witnesses and participants in the convoy said. No arrests were made, but the protesters vowed to find another way to get to the capital.
On Thursday, several hundred protesters in Karachi, the country’s largest city, set off for Islamabad in a convoy or cars, buses and motorbikes.
They were stopped by police trucks blocking the highway out of the city, and officers with clubs moved in to arrest the leaders, engaging in brief scuffles.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was