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| India-Pakistan | |
| Nuggets from the Urdu press | |
| 2003-06-06 | |
| Imran Khan starts a beard! According to Nawa-e-Waqt Imran Khan was seen in Islamabad with his stubble grown big. When asked he said he had started a real Islamic (sunnat) beard and was saying his namaz five times a day. On this he was congratulated by Jamaat Islami’s Qazi Hussain Ahmad who also embraced him warmly. The paper commented that Imran Khan always had a beard but that it was an ‘internal’ one; now he had decided to ‘externalise’ it. It then appealed to the ARD leader Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan to break his vow to stay clean-shaven and submit to the sunnat (sacred tradition) of keeping a flowing beard.
Offices to close during namaz According to daily Pakistan the NWFP government had ordered that all offices and shops be closed in the province for the duration of namaz five times a day. The government was looking to Islamise more of social life of the province for which it had set up an Islamisation Commission. Musharraf to go next year! Printed in Khabrain the predictions of astrologers Fazal Karim and B. A. Babar described General Musharraf taking off his uniform in August 2003 but remaining in power, which meant that the LFO dispute would go on till November 2003. Meanwhile prime minister Jamali would suffer some kind of an attack. From November onwards there would be political upheaval as a result of which General Musharraf would resign and go in June 2004. He said that the star of Pakistan and General Musharraf (Sun) was the same which meant that Musharraf was lucky for Pakistan and that no harm would come to Pakistan as long he was in control. Relations would improve between America and Pakistan in 2003 with an agreement signed. In 2004, after Jamali suffers a stroke, the Chaudhry clan would come to power. After five years however Jamaat e-Islami will come to power in Pakistan. Years 2003 and 2004 will be lucky for Kashmir but if it didn’t get free in these two years then there will be war. Don’t trust Christians Daily Nawa-e-Waqt editorialised that Iraq’s former senior minister Tariq Aziz had been revealed as a traitor to Saddam Hussein because he had been an informer to the Americans on the whereabouts of his president and had informed them about the presence of Saddam in one of the bunkers attacked by American air force. The editorial said that this proved the truth of the Holy Quran which said that Christians and Jews could never be trusted. It said that today one would have to add the third category, the Hindus, and learn not to trust them. Whenever the Muslims shook hands with these three and trusted them they would be betrayed. Don’t let the inspectors in! Famous columnist Ikram-ullah wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that UN inspectors visiting Pakistan were a sign of danger because America might not accept their clean chit and attack Pakistan. He said the inspectors would not stop at examining our chemical installation but might ask to visit our Kahuta laboratories. He said Pakistan’s signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) should be reviewed after the Iraq war. James Rubin’s lie Columnist Masood Ashar wrote in Jang that in a BBC discussion James Rubin, Clinton’s man in the State Department, claimed that the people of Iran were in favour of America while the state was not. On the other hand among the Arabs the governments were with America while the people were not. Rubin derived the logic that wherever there was democracy the people were with America. The columnist thought that Rubin had invented the claim about the Iranian people being in favour of America. | |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #3 So they think they're nuts too? Okay, I get it. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-06-06 09:55:13 |
| #2 Remember that the Friday Times simply summarises the kind of stories running in the Urdu newspapers into English. The Times reporters are actually part of Pakistan's small liberal elite, and in no way share most of the sentiments that they are translating. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-06-06 09:26:45 |
| #1 Do the Friday Times and KCNA have an exchange program? And happy "namaz", whatever the hell that is. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-06-06 08:57:10 |