Pakistan’s unpopular president is coming under increasing pressure from the powerful army and political opponents to resign or relinquish most of his powers, fueling political turmoil just as the West wants the country to focus on the threat posed by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
An amnesty protecting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and several of his key allies from graft prosecution expired on Saturday, raising the possibility of legal challenges to his rule and triggering calls from the major opposition party for him to step down.
Hours earlier, he relinquished command of the country’s nuclear arsenal to the prime minister. He has said he will also give up some other powers inherited from his predecessor, former military leader and president Pervez Musharraf.
The upheaval comes as the Obama administration is expected to announce this week a new strategy for defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and on Pakistan’s western border. Any new approach will need political stability in Pakistan to have any hope of succeeding.
A military coup to oust Zardari appears unlikely, as does impeachment, since he heads the largest party in parliament. The opposition has not called anti-government street rallies, perhaps wary of pushing the country into chaos and paving the way for another stint of military rule.
Zardari, 54, is languishing in opinion polls just 15 months after taking office. He also has found himself locked in a power struggle with the powerful military.
Zardari’s office said the decision to transfer control of the National Command Authority to Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was a step toward ceding sweeping presidential powers that had been adopted by Musharraf.
In an interview on Friday with a local television station, Zardari said he was also likely to relinquish the authority he inherited from Musharraf to dissolve parliament and appoint services chiefs by the end of this year — as the opposition and civic activists have long demanded.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS