Moborate

I had promised a comprehensive post about the unraveling of Husain Haqqani when it first happened. The different aspects of the case (technical, political, legal) that led to his resignation as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States - now commonly and irritatingly dubbed 'Memogate' - however, not only required a lot more time to deal with than I then had available, but has already been commented upon in bits and pieces by various analysts all over in newspapers, on television and on the net. Far more importantly, it now seems like a footnote in the rush of current events.   Eye of the storm: Husain Haqqani Because I had promised a post on it, I will state briefly what I thought of the entire episode as well as state some things that all should be aware of: *** The Unravelling of Husain Haqqani *** 1. The military establishment was never pleased with the appointment of Haqqani as Pakistan's ambassador to the US and had been gunning for his head right from the beginni...

Thanks to Nadeem Farooq Paracha 's blog in Dawn , we have the first acknowledgement from a Pakistani news organization about our role in exposing the fake Wikileaks (FakiLeaks?) story carried by many publications in the country. As of this writing, The News and the Express Tribune have both published retractions, though the far more widely circulated Jang and the Majeed Nizami mouthpieces, The Nation and Nawai Waqt have not ( The Nation even went ahead and wrote an editorial basing itself on the Fakileaks, which has now been altered by apparently Indian hackers.) I am not sure if the Urdu daily Express and the Business Recorder, which also published the stories, have published retractions.   A screen grab of the apparently hacked The Nation editorial Of the television channels, I am also not sure if Dunya TV , which carried news reports based on the same planted stories, issued an apology. But even more dismally, long after the alleged cables were exposed as fake, Absar...

Reading through the top story in today's The News and Jang , my eyes grew progressively wider and wider. Not so much from the latest Wikileaks revelations about India as from sheer incredulity.   The News Karachi's front page today Titled " Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Waziristan, Balochistan " (aside: how much is 'enough'?) in The News , the main story deals with a slew of information allegedly from US diplomatic cables sent from Delhi as well as other missions around the world about India. They confirm everything Pakistanis (or at least certain types of Pakistanis) always said about India: it's direct involvement of India in the anti-state activities in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan, the weakness of the Indian dossier on Ajmal Kassab, the manipulated nature of Indian evidence about the ISI's involvement in the Mumbai attacks, the sissyness of India's generals who do things out of personal ego an...

Isn't is quite remarkable that almost none of the major newspapers in Pakistan thought that the 'leader of the Muslim Ummah' King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia , and the 'brotherly Muslim countries' of UAE and Qatar egging on the United States to bomb their supposed sibling in faith, the Islamic Republic of Iran - as revealed by Wikileaks - was worthy of any major headline? Without fail, all of them buried that bit in the secondary 'catch-lines', if at all, with possibly only the Express Tribune  and Nawai Waqt attaching it some real significance. Most focused on Abdullah's views on Asif Ali Zardari , while Dawn  and the Urdu Express decided that the American plan to take enriched uranium fuel out of Pakistan was the most newsworthy. Here's how some of the main newspapers' front pages looked today: Dawn : Jang: The News: The Nation: Nawai Waqt: Express: Express Tribune: Pakistan Today: (Apologies for not having The Daily Times up here but t...

This past week seems to have been a Nizami-obsessed week. Might as well share a final bit of news about the goings on at The Nation. So, Salim Bokhari has been tipped to take over as editor at The Nation in place of the recently departed Shireen Mazari. Bokhari has been a journalist for almost four decades though most people will recognize him most from appearances as an analyst on various television channels and his recent co-hosting with Orya Maqbool Jan of Aaj TV 's reconfigured Bolta Pakistan programme (the team was cobbled together after the departure of Nusrat Javed and Mushtaq Minhas for Dunya TV). Previously, Mr Bokhari's most high profile stint was as the Resident Editor of The News in Lahore. He had left The News to start up the Abu Dhabi-owned The National 's Pakistan operations but the Pakistani version was quietly shelved. Salim Bokhari (right) with Orya Maqbool Jan Now you might be wondering what would draw The Nation owner Majid Nizami to Mr Bokhari ...

As if almost on cue to khabardrama's long-delayed review of Arif Nizami's Pakistan Today (see previous post ), comes news from chacha Majid Nizami 's The Nation of large-scale layoffs at the paper there (no, we don't think there's any connection). More than 30 staffers have been summarily dismissed today without any advance warning from the Lahore office alone and several from Islamabad as well. The Peshawar and Karachi bureaus fear that the axe will next fall on them. Economic difficulties are being cited as the only reason. It's not entirely clear yet whether the personnel sacked were the same ones who had recently received long-delayed raises or whether these layoffs had anything to do with the very recent departure of editor Shireen Mazari . It should be kept in mind that Majid Nizami can be a vengeful proprietor. We heard about a peon who was recently summarily sacked after more than 20 years of service, simply because the management suspected that his l...

First of all an apology and an excuse. I have been meaning to write about Arif Nizami 's long-awaited Pakistan Today ever since it hit the newstands but have found myself contracting a severe case of writer's block every time I sat down to do just that. Front page, Berliner-style The reason is simple. Maybe it's just me, but I need to either love something passionately to feel motivated enough to gush about it in print or to feel it's so bad that I can't wait to tear it to pieces. In the present case, I felt no such overpowering emotion. No adulation or loathing or anything so strong. Just a vague grey reaction. Competent, I thought. Pretty decent. Promising. Not too bad really. A solid, worthy venture. But nothing exciting. Or too awful. The paper certainly looks different though. Mainly because it doesn't look like your average broadsheet Pakistani daily due to its ' Berliner ' (not tabloid, they insist) format. Now I do realise that most upmarket...

Since we're on the topic of poisonous senility... okay, so we weren't really on that topic, but it just seemed a good way to start this post... let me share with you what the Managing Director of the Nawai Waqt Group - which publishes the right-wing Urdu daily Nawai Waqt and the right-of-centre The Nation as well as runs Waqt TV - said at a recent 'Teacher Training Workshop' organized under the aegis of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust [Pakistan Ideology Trust]. This lecture took place on November 2, 2010. The Trust is of course headed by the MD himself, Mr Majid Nizami , who not only fashions himself as, but actually believes he is, the defender of the 'true' ideology of the country. He has been a close confidante and supporter of Mardood-e-Momin General Ziaul Haq as well as Zia's one-time protege, former premier Nawaz Sharif (who calls Nizami 'uncle'). But keep in mind that this is also the head of one of the most politically influential media ...

So, the honeymoon of the conspiracy maniacs has finally come to an end. It has been confirmed that Shireen Mazari , that doyenne of hyper-nationalistic pseudo-patriotic nonsense nutters (a.k.a. 'everyone's out to get us because we are so brilliant' conspiracy theorists), who took charge of The Nation after the bitter falling out between patriarch Majid Nizami and nephew Arif Nizami , has been forced to resign her editorship. Staffers were formally informed of the change today.   Shireen Mazari: a particular kind of alaap She lasted in her position about 14 months to the day. Though in one sense it seemed like a marriage made in heaven, it lasted slightly longer than I expected, given the humongous egos of both Ms Mazari and Mr Majid Nizami. There has been a lot of speculation the whole day among journalistic circles about what exactly led to the falling out between obsessive India-bashing Majid Nizami (the main thrust of his 'doctrine' at the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Tru...