These pictures from the Associated Press need no commentary. They demand our attention. Our empathy. And, wherever we can, our action.

This was another bad week for Pakistanis. Our closest international ally continued bombing our territory. The self-style custodians of our morality kept up the indiscriminate killing of our citizen. One of our most popular television show anchors incited murder in the name of religion through television.Once again, this was a week when  Pakistanis died. Pakistanis cried.

The political machinations in the country continue to be a distraction that is keeping many, too many, glued to the soap opera quality twists and turns in the story of Pakistan’s tortured democratic experiment. But the real story in the country remains what it has for the last two years: a divided society which is at war. Niether the self-styled custodians of our internal identity nor our self-styled freinds abroad seem to be helping. Indeed, they keep making things worse for Pakistanis everywhere.

Meanwhile, Pakistanis continue to die. Pakistan continues to cry.

Whether it is pre-US-election posturing or a deeper shift in US policy, it is clear that the American forces have increased their military incursions into Pakistani territory. Beyond the fact that this is clearly a violation of the sovereign territory of a country they claim to be their ‘closest all,’ one cannot even imagine what the strategic logic of these incursions could possibly be since each incursion only strengthens the hand of the extremist elements that are supposedly after, angers Pakistani public opinion, and pushes the Pakistan goevrnment into a tighter corner. There is no real evidence that they have hit any important militant target but innocent Pakistanis, including children, women and even Pakistani soldiers have certainly been killed; 15 killed this Wednesday; 12 more on Friday.

Meanwhile. Pakistanis continue to die. Pakistan continues to cry.

Meanwhile, the merchants of murder and mayhem thrive even more in this condition and continue their war against Pakistan. Indeed, they seem now to be targetting the places of worship themselves. Only today an alleged suicide bomber was caught in Islamabad. On Thursday, 25 died in a grenade attack at a mosque in the Banai area of Dir during taraweeh prayers. Last Saturday, even as Asif Ali Zardari was being elected President, 31 people were killed and another 81 others injured as a suicide bomber blew himself and his vehicle up at the Zangali police post at Kohat Road, Peshawar.

Meanwhile. Pakistanis continue to die. Pakistan continues to cry.

And those who one might have wanted to bring calm and lessons of peace, are themselves engrossed in preaching hate, and in this case murder, to mass audiences. On September 7, Aamir Liaquat Hussain - GEO TV’s popular religious talk-show anchor, former MQM Minister, a holder of multiple fake degrees, and religious instigator extraordinaire - in his GEO TV Show Alim Online presided over a long discussion instigating that those holding Ahmadiyya beliefs were ‘wajib ul qatl’ (i.e., liable to death). The next day, Dr. Abdul Mannan Siddiqi - a 46 year-old Ahmadi in Mirpurkhas and a US-trained cardiologist who had retruned to work in his community - was murdered in broad daylight while working at his local hospital. The next day, Seth Muhammad Yousuf of Nawabshah was also murdered brutally. Whether there is a direct link between the two or not, the preaching of hatred and the practice of hatred both thrive in our land of the pure.

Meanwhile. Pakistanis continue to die. Pakistan continues to cry.

One sits here, shaken by sadness at this waste of human life, and wonders: at how many hands and for how many reasons should Pakistanis die? How long must Pakistan cry?

Asif Ali Zardari becomes the President of Pakistan today after winning the presidential election. He secured 479 votes out of 702. His opponents, Retired Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui received 153 elctoral votes and Senator Mushahid Hussein received 43. Asif’s victory in three provinces is overwhelming, especially in Sindh where his opposing candidates couldn’t get a single vote. Only in Punjab Assembly Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqi is able to get more votes than Asif.The vote by the two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies forms the 1,170-member, but 702-vote, electoral college. According to a Dawn update:

‘Asif Ali Zardari secured 281 votes out of the 426 valid votes polled in the parliament,’ chief election commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq said. He has secured 458 out of 702 electoral college votes, according to partial Election Commission results.

Asif Zardari is the 13th President of Pakistan. The ones who have been President before him include: Iskandar Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Zia-ul-Haq, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Waseem Sajjad, Farooq Laghari, Waseem Sajjad, Rafiq Tarar and Pervaiz Musharraf. Waseem Sajjad has twice been the President of Pakistan.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Fifteen people including civilians were killed in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday in a raid involving helicopter gunships used by international troops in Afghanistan, security officials said.

“Four helicopter gunships from across the border carried out the raid,” a top security official told AFP.

“Reports from the area say 15 people including women and children were killed in the attack,” he said.A local official in South Waziristan tribal district claimed the helicopters dropped soldiers from the NATO-led force in Afghanistan (ISAF) in the border village of Jalal Khel and flew them back after the attack.

The official, Mowaz Khan, said the pre-dawn raid took place as residents were having their last meal before fasting as part of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.He said the foreign soldiers opened fire on the locals when they came out of their houses upon hearing the sound of helicopters.However, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said he was not aware of such an operation.He added that ISAF does not have a mandate to attack outside the borders of Afghanistan unless its troops come under fire from within Pakistan, in which case the force can respond with artillery.

Pakistan’s army confirmed there had been an attack.

“We confirm an attack was carried out in a border village and we are gathering details,” army spokesman Major Murad Khan told AFP.

Raids with helicopters or aircraft are extremely rare but US media recently reported that the United States was planning direct attacks on Pakistani soil, blaming Islamabad for failing to tackle militants based there.A recent series of missile strikes targeting rebels in Pakistan has been attributed to US-led coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan.Pakistan’s northwest has been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.US forces say the border area is being used as a launch pad for attacks on coalition troops.There are about 70,000 international forces deployed under NATO and a separate US-led coalition in Afghanistan in an effort to help local forces repel the Islamic rebels.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A surge of violence continued unabated in Pakistan’s tribal border region Thursday, with a car bomb blasting a bus filled with Pakistani police and government workers off a bridge and killing eight people aboard.More than 200 people have died in Taliban bombings and clashes since longtime U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf quit as president and triggered a power struggle that caused the country’s ruling coalition to collapse.

U.S. officials have been pressing for more action against insurgent strongholds in Pakistan’s wild border region.Pakistan’s military insists it is doing what it can to contain militants and prevent them from moving against NATO and Afghan troops on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan’s army chief secretly met the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top American commanders Tuesday on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean to talk about what else could be done.The meeting was the latest of several between Adm. Mike Mullen and General Ashfaq Kayani.

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04/08/08  PESHAWAR: At least 14 people have been killed in flooding and rains in different parts of Frontier whereas provincial government has called army after severe flooding and rains throughout the province.

Three more bodies have been recovered from the rainstorm drain in Tekhta Baig area of tehsil Jamrood of Khyber Agency.

There is low flooding in River Chinnab at Khanki and Qadirabad and River Ravi at Biluki in Punjab and River Indus at Guddu.

MULTAN: Deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said that only an independent judiciary can ensure economic stability in the country.

Addressing a dinner reception hosted in his honour by the Multan High Court Bar here, the deposed CJ stated that independence of judiciary strengthens the Parliament and democracy. Justice Iftikhar said only an independent judiciary can defend the Parliament against any conspiracy and that judiciary no longer wants to interfere in the affairs of Bureaucracy and the Parliament.He said independent judiciary is a key to dispensation of justice in the society and it also gives security to the investment, which is key to socio-economic development.Earlier, leaders of PML-N and other political parties and lawyers accorded a warm welcome to Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at the Multan airport.

The prominent luminaries among those who received him included PML-N’s Muhammad Javed Hashmi, Ihsanuddin Qureshi, LHC Multan bench bar President Mahmood Ashraf Khan, district bar president Najaf Ali, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Rao Zafar Iqbal and Tehrik-e-Insaf’s Younus Ghazi besides PML-N women activists.