The martial law in Pakistan is a direct result of Bush blundering. How? Bush committed too few troops to overthrowing the Taliban in Afganistan. They quickly withdrew most US forces so they can invade Iraq. That allowed many of them to go to the tribal areas in western Pakistan, where they destabilize the government.

@sivapragasam #20: what what?

High Court Finds Bhutto Corrupt, Ending Her Bid to Block Election

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto lost her bid to regain office when the Supreme Court ruled today that her ousted Government was corrupt. New elections will be held as planned on Monday.

Nawaz Sharif, whose earlier Government was also dismissed on corruption charges, in 1993, is the front-runner in the elections.

President Farooq Leghari dismissed Ms. Bhutto’s Government in November, two years before her term was to expire. He accused her of driving Pakistan toward economic ruin, stealing billions from the national treasury and using the police in Karachi to quash a rival political movement.

Ms. Bhutto denied the charges.

But Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah told the court there was abundant evidence to support the charges, and in a 6-1 ruling, the judges upheld the President’s actions and ordered the general elections to go ahead as scheduled.

”There is significant proof of corruption,” Justice Shah said. ”There is enough evidence which shows the Government was involved in extrajudicial killings.” Ms. Bhutto’s Government was accused of allowing police squads to kill members of an opposition political group, the Mohajir Qami Movement. The movement represents Indian Muslims who fled to Pakistan when British India was divided in 1947.

…I use ‘Burma’ as a kind of acknowledgment to pre-Musharraf times…..

What.

P.S. MM, please avoid posting together.

In 1989, the military regime of Burma set up a commission in charge of reviewing the place names of Burma in the English language.. and decided to replace the English name Burma with Myanmar. There were three reasons for that:

First, Myanma is the official name of the country in the Burmese language, and the aim of the commission was to have English place names aligned with Burmese place names and pronunciation (another example, Rangoon was changed to Yangon to reflect the fact that the “r” sound was abandoned long ago in Burmese and replaced with a “y”).

Second, the military thought that the name Myanma was more inclusive of minorities than the name Bama, and so they wanted the English name of the country to reflect this.

Finally, the military regime has long been suspicious of the colloquial Burmese language, which it perceives as subversive (this is probably the main reason imho). The regime is promoting the literary language, and so it wanted to get rid of the English name “Burma” which mirrors the colloquial Burmese name Bama.

i hear she prefers Sharia law, too. i am keeping my judgements for now but watching cautiously. do not want to see the nukes in the hands of taliban or islamic sharia bent crazies!