Islamabad, April 18
With the Taliban positioned in cities across Pakistan, they can achieve their “proclaimed goal” of bringing the entire country under their control, an editorial in a leading English daily said yesterday.

“The Taliban are now positioned in cities across the land, in every province. They have the weaponry, the training and the motivation to carry through their proclaimed goal of bringing the entire country under their control,” The News said in an editorial headlined “Game, set and match”.

For the fourth day running, Pakistani newspapers Friday carried editorials deprecating the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation parliament passed on Monday imposing Sharia laws in Swat and six other districts of the North West Frontier Province in return for a controversial peace deal with the Taliban for laying down their arms.

The News noted that the Taliban's control of the parliamentary system “was achieved by a masterstroke - if you vote against the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation you will have voted against Islam and you are thus an apostate. We kill apostates. The message had a pellucid simplicity about it and was instantly understood,” the editorial maintained.

Thus, what few attempts there were to at least debate the Regulation were “quickly stifled, parliament voted unanimously, the president signed the Regulation into law minutes later and the curtain came down on Pakistan as envisioned by the Founding Fathers”.

“Enter the Taliban, the winners in straight sets in a match with a one-legged blind deaf-mute,” the editorial said.

“The day that our parliamentarians voted for the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation was the day that the Taliban won and all they have to do now is go and pick up their prizes,” it added.

The editorial also heaped scorn on Interior Minister Rehman Malik for suggesting that there was “little chance” of a major part of the country coming under Taliban control.

“A reasoned and objective analysis can now be made to the effect that Pakistan is moving towards being a Taliban-controlled state; and the movement towards that position is gathering momentum,” the editorial contended.

Daily Times was equally harsh, saying the state would be “punished” for having allowed terrorist elements to rule Swat.

“We can be sure of one thing. The state will be punished for having allowed terrorist elements to rule Swat,” it said. — IANS

Islamabad:Taliban militants have executed a man and a woman on charges of having illicit relations, gunning down the couple in full public glare in the troubled northwest of Pakistan. The shocking footage of the shooting incident which took place a few days back near the border of Orakzai tribal agency was made available to a Pakistani media outlet yesterday.

Washington, April 18
The US is trying to prevent the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan from using radio stations and websites to intimidate civilians and plan attacks, pushing deeper into “psychological operations” against the militants who have an edge in the “information war”, a media report said today.

Under the broad effort launched by the Obama administration, US military and intelligence personnel are working to jam the unlicensed radio stations that the Taliban fighters use to broadcast threats and decrees in Pakistan’s restive northwestern region bordering Afghanistan, ‘The Wall Street Journal’ reported citing senior American officials.

It said the US personnel were also trying to block the Pakistani chat rooms and websites that frequently contain videos of attacks and inflammatory religious material that attempts to justify acts of violence.

The push takes the administration deeper into “psychological operations”, which attempt to influence how people see the US, its allies and enemies, the report said.

Psychological operations are necessary part of reversing deterioration of stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, it said citing officials involved with the new programme.

US officials believe that the Taliban enjoy an advantage by being able to freely communicate threats and decrees. “The Taliban aren’t just winning the information war - we’re not even putting up that much of a fight,” a senior US official in Afghanistan was quoted as saying. — PTI 

A veteran lawmaker of the Pakistan people's Party (PPP) has called for clipping of President Asif Ali Zardari’s powers making him only the titular head of state in the true spirit of the parliamentary form of government.

"President Zardari must also quit as the chairman of the PPP and win trust of the entire nation instead of restricting himself to partisan politics," Zafar Ali Shah MP from Sindh pleaded in the National Assembly during debate on Zardari's address to the joint session of parliament.

He said the PPP should learn to rely on its own strength and performance instead of taking refuge behind powerful state offices.

Some other members voiced reservations over the Swat deal even though the assembly had adopted a resolution for enforcing the Nizam Adl Regulation that was based on Swat deal with militants and envisaged enforcement of Islamic Shariah in Swat/ Malakand region of the NWFP.

Only the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) abstained from voting and has since made it a major issue for launching a campaign against the Taliban. Opponents have accused the MQM of trying to please the Western powers.

Shah said presidential powers were a key issue that should be resolved through constitutional amendments to be proposed by an all-parties committee of parliament. Military dictators have distorted the 1973 constitution. 

Washington, April 18
US President Barack Obama said on Saturday he would soon announce the elimination of dozens of wasteful or ineffective government programmes as part of a broad effort to restore fiscal accountability to the federal budget.

Obama, speaking in his weekly radio address, said he would use his first full Cabinet meeting on Monday to ask department and agency heads for specific proposals for trimming their budgets.

He named two new officials as part of a team of management, technology and budget experts that would drive the process of trimming the fat and waste from government spending.

“As surely as our future depends on building a new energy economy, controlling healthcare costs and ensuring that our kids are once again the best educated in the world, it also depends on restoring a sense of responsibility and accountability to our federal budget,” Obama said.

“Without significant change to steer away from ever-expanding deficits and debt, we are on an unsustainable course,” he added. The US posted a record $956.8 billion budget deficit for the first half of fiscal 2009, more than three times the shortfall of a year ago, the Treasury Department reported earlier this month. 
— Reuters

An attempt by a senior UN official to secure a ceasefire to allow civilians to move into safe areas in northern Sri Lanka has failed after the government said the previous two-day cessation in defensive action against Tigers had not yielded any results.

Visiting UN official Vijay Nambiar, who is the chief of staff of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met President Mahinda Rajapaksa to discuss the fate of the estimated 100,000 - 150,000 civilians trapped in the area and wanted a further cessation in military action to evacuate them. However, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse said there would no such cessation as the Tigers had not taken any positive steps to release the trapped civilians.

The government has been under pressure in the past few weeks to cease operations against the LTTE to allow the civilians to move into safe areas. India too has joined the appeal for the ceasefire. “The Government of Sri Lanka must extend their pause in hostilities to prevent further casualties and enable trapped civilians to leave the area to secure locations,” the Indian External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.