India-Pakistan Lock Down

The only road linking India and Pakistan is the Wagah border.  Every night the border is closed with this ceremony.  Somehow I can't see this form of ceremony occurring at the Scottish/English border but add a couple of pipers and who knows!


Thanks to Moonbat

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PAKISTAN CONCEDES to SHARIA LAW IN MALAKAND

People Fleeing Fighting in the Swat Valley

The opinion of those who observe the political situation in Asia is that Pakistan's stability is fundamental to creating stability in Afghanistan.

Tomorrow, the Guardian reports, the Pakistan government will announce that it has agreed to introduce sharia law in the Swat valley and neighbouring areas of the north-west (a vast region called Malakand) in a peace deal with Taliban militants.  Religious conservatives in Swat have long fought for sharia to replace Pakistan's secular laws and the Taliban militants who are in control of the area announced a ceasefire today, reacting to the government's agreement to bring in sharia courts.  

Critics warned that the new sharia regulations represented a capitulation to the extremists' demands and it would be difficult to stop hardliners elsewhere in the country from demanding that their areas also come under Islamic law.

'This is definitely a surrender," said Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a thinktank in Islamabad. "If you keep treating a community as something different from the rest of the country, it will isolate them."'

'Javed Iqbal, a retired judge, speaking on Pakistani television, said: "It means that there is not one law in the country. It will disintegrate this way. If you concede to this, you will go on conceding."'

'In an interview broadcast todayby the US television channel CBS, Zardari admitted that the future of Pakistan was in grave danger from the Taliban, who are present in "huge parts" of the country. Islamabad is under severe pressure from the US, Britain and other western allies to rein in the extremists, who fight both in Pakistan and Afghanistan and play host to al-Qaida.

Zardari said: "We are aware of the fact [the Taliban are] trying to take over the state of Pakistan. We're fighting for the survival of Pakistan. "'

Zardari's wife, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutton, was killed by Islamic extremists in 2007.  The Pakistan Daily Times discusses the issues and severely criticises Mr Musharraf for the choices he made after 9/11.

Meanwhile Britain has troops fighting on the front line in Afghanistan and the present death toll is 145.  This change within Pakistan will be welcomed by the Afghani Taliban and it could well increase their numbers.

Our military should be brought home now.  This war will not be won by the west.

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