2.First Cameron insults, now UK media disfigures our flag
By Shireen M Mazari in the Nation, Aug 3
It should be abundantly clear that the British government and media have commenced a campaign against Pakistan both at the diplomatic and propaganda levels. Prime Minister David Cameron fired the first salvo deliberately choosing India so as to have the proper impact in Pakistan. Our state, seeming to wallow in abuse at the hands of the White Man, pussyfooted around these abusive remarks and shamefully President Zardari continued with his private visit to the UK while the Foreign Office woke up only days later to summon the British High Commissioner – when it realised the public outcry was getting stronger. Not that any of this mattered since the British Prime Minister was totally unrepentant and, just to make sure the Pakistanis got the point, he reiterated that he meant what he had said and was neither going to take his words back or express any regret over them. Now where does Foreign Minister Qureshi stand, given how he insisted the Cameron remarks were a mere “slip of the tongue”?
Following Cameron, The Independent (clearly not so independent of UK government links!) newspaper has now seen fit to distort the Pakistani flag in a way that clearly insults the nation. Would they dare to do something like this to the Indian flag? This is a repeat of the blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam in the absurd claims of “freedom of expression”, only this time Pakistan is the target. Everyone knows the national flag symbolises the nation and the British media, by disfiguring the flag, has assaulted the state and nation of Pakistan. How many more insults will our leaders compel us to bear? Is there no end to how much abuse we are meant to take in the post-9/11 era?
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online//Politics/03-Aug-2010/First-Cameron-insults-now-UK-media-disfigures-our-flag

3.Pakistanis’ Anger Grows as Flood Damage Mounts
 By ADAM B. ELLICK in the NY Times, Aug 3
ISLAMABAD— The damage from Pakistan’s worst floods in generations mounted on Monday as rescue operations continued and public fury rose in the country’s most volatile province.
The official death toll remains under 800, but on Monday the minister of information in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, formerly the North-West Frontier Province, estimated the true number to be 1,500. Another provincial official said 1.4 million people had lost their homes. As much as 70 percent of the region’s livestock is gone.
The number of people affected by the floods is 2.5 million, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.
“The next week is critical. With further heavy rains there is a real danger that the flooding will spread further south into Sindh Province,” Ateeb Siddiqui, director of operations with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, said in a statement.
The displaced are clustered in hundreds of schools, largely fending for themselves for food and drinking water. Pakistani television channels showed survivors voicing venomous anger toward a government that has provided little immediate aid.
“People think that the government is not providing anything to them,” said Adnan Khan, an official at the government’s disaster-relief management office. “But the scale is so high and huge that we cannot cater to all of the people.”
The growing frustration with the government adds to its troubles in dealing with the province, which abuts Afghanistan in Pakistan’s north and is a pivotal battleground against the Islamic militants operating in both countries.
For the past year, the government and the military have been engaged in a campaign to restore public services, trying to rebuild trust after more than two million people were displaced last year when government forces launched a major offensive against militants. But the reconstruction efforts have been painfully slow, and the public mood has shifted from frustrated to furious.
Analysts said the government’s flood relief effort would not only serve as another test of public trust, but would also most likely be exploited as a wedge by foreign governments and militant organizations.
Last summer, hard-line Islamist charities ended up providing significant aid to the displaced, while Pakistani authorities were unable to deliver enough help but refused to allow American agencies to deliver more. The authorities did not want to be associated with the United States, widely blamed here for many of the country’s ills.
www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/world/asia/04pstan.html?ref=asia&pagewanted=print

4. Flood protection projects mostly substandard: By Khaleeq Kiani in Dawn, Aug 3
ISLAMABAD: Despite spending over Rs55 billion on flood protection projects, the country has suffered a loss of over Rs385 billion, 7,563 lives and about 99,000 villages in floods since 1973, mainly because of substandard construction and a poor monitoring mechanism
The current floods have caused the highest human and financial damage in a year, although over Rs30 billion was placed at the disposal of the Federal Flood Commission — the central flood monitoring and forecast agency — for strengthening river embankments and bunds, officials told Dawn.
 Sources in the ministry of water and power said  structural flood protection works for disaster risk reduction had made little progress. “Many projects exist only on paper and the quality of construction of others is substandard because of poor monitoring,” an official said.
He said that most of the projects carried out by the flood commission were of poor quality. Embankments and bunds seldom withstand even medium flood and require fresh investments each year.
The official said construction made for strengthening river and canal banks at an estimated cost of Rs30 billion could not even endure normal Kharif irrigation.
An engineer said the flood protection projects had been implemented but their quality was questionable. He alleged that as much as half of the funds allocated for flood protection was embezzled.
He said embankments in Sindh had not received sufficient water over the past 14 years and, as a result, mice and other animals had weakened them by widening holes and breaches.
Pakistan has faced 12 major floods since 1973.www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/19-flood-protection-projects-mostly-substandard-380-hh-07

5.New ECP not being formed to delay action on fake degrees
ISLAMABAD: The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) is believed to have conveyed to the Chief Justice of Supreme Court his candid views about the inaction of the government to constitute the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) according to the 18th Amendment in the Constitution, sources said.
This view is based on the premise that after successfully blocking the implementation of the NRO judgment and the re-opening of Swiss cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, the government is now blocking the constitution of the ECP, which is vital to implement yet another apex court’s decision to penalise the fake degrees holders in parliament.
Interestingly, in both the cases, it is the Law Ministry that has to act but is doing otherwise as the government on both accounts is adopting a policy that is in negation of what the apex court decided and directed.
Sources in the ECP said that several weeks back the Election Commission office had moved a case for the constitution of a commission in line with the 18th Amendment but the government has not yet responded in any manner.
The government, however, seems to be blocking the constitution of the ECP to block the legal proceeding against the fake degree holders. As per decision of the Supreme Court, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (R) Hamid Ali Mirza will take a decision about the action against counterfeit degree holders only after the approval of the properly formed ECP.
The previous four ECP members, who were serving high court judges, were rendered redundant by the 18th Amendment, which provided for inclusion of retired judges. www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=30458

6. Sessions judge, lawyers row
LAHORE: After the intervention of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Chief Justice Lahore High Court Khawaja Muhammad Sharif has removed two judges of the subordinate judiciary from the six-member committee constituted by him to settle the tussle between lawyers and district judiciary on the issue of the sessions judge, Lahore.
Following the direction from the CJP, Justice Sharif had formed a committee on July 23 consisting of Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Additional Sessions Judge Azizullah, Civil Judge Waseem Ahmad, former President of LHCBA Mian Israrul Haq and senior lawyer Ahmad Waheed Khan. Senator Kazim Khan of the PPP was also included in the committee.
Justice Sharif has removed Additional Sessions Judge Aziz ullah and Civil Judge Waseem Ahmed and reduced the committee to four members. The committee will meet on Thursday and Friday and submit its report to the LHC CJ on August 7.
The decision has been made after a delegation of the Lahore Bar Association, led by its President Sajid Bashir, called the CJP in Islamabad and explained their grievances. The meeting lasted for more than two hours.
The CJP agreed with the LBAís demand for removal of judicial officers from the committee and passed directions in this regard. Kazim Khan, one of the members of the committee, and Nasarullah, chairman executive committee of the Pakistan Bar Council, were also present in the meeting. The CJP asked Kazim Khan to make efforts to settle the issue and submit the committee’s report by Saturday.
The committee has been tasked with holding thorough deliberations and submit recommendation for an amicable settlement of the issue and measures to avoid such situations in future. District judiciary and lawyers of the LBA has been on a warpath for a month after the Bar passed a resolution on July 9, demanding the LHC CJ transfer Sessions Judge Lahore Zawar Ahmad Sheikh for his alleged stubbornness and improper attitude with lawyers.
On July 12, judicial officers of the district judiciary faced the worst kind of humiliation at the hands of the lawyers who made them hostage, abused them and hurled shoes and plastic bottles at them after they decided to stand by the sessions judge.
The lawyers also forcibly entered the courtroom of the sessions judge and locked him in. All the 120 judicial officers of the district judiciary had gone on 15 days leave in protest to the humiliation meted out to the sessions judge but LHC had cancelled their leaves and stopped Zawar from performing judicial work. Since then Zawar had not performed judicial work and was doing administrative work at the LHC. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=30461