By Massoud Ansari

According to a PPP source, both Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, who had been convicted in 2001 on various charges by the Sindh and Punjab high courts, did not challenge these decisions in the Supreme Court for seven years. Since appeals can only be filed within three years, the brothers not only remain convicted but have also lost their right to challenge the decisions. And this oversight has placed their political future in the hands of the federal government — for the moment.
 

Occupational Hazard

MQM denies a role in the eviction of Pakhtuns from Karachi while the ANP refuses to concede that the violence was a result of ethnic conflict

By Massoud Ansari

Azad Khan, a 48-year-old trucker who drives between Karachi and Kabul, is a very scared man. “It gives me the jitters whenever a motorcyclist or an incoming double-cabin jeep overtakes my lorry,” he says. This father of four daughters and two young sons worries because attacks on trucks like the one he drives are now routine.
 

By Maqbool Ahmed

Once upon a time a buisnessman had a spanking new Mercedes. But one fine day he agreed to hand it over to a buisness partner under a binding contract that made him legally responsible for the vehicle's maintenance expenses for years to come. In return, all the partner promised the businessman was a pencil — but only when the former was in a position to buy one.
 

By Salman Rashid

Back in early 2003, leafing through a copy of the Imperial Gazetteer of India’s provincial series on the North West Frontier Province from 1908, I came upon the name of Pir Ghal, a peak in the heart of Mehsud country in South Waziristan. For quite some time I had been investigating peaks with shrines as possible sites for the ancient pagan worship of fertility goddesses. This one, with its purported shrine on top, was a good candidate. Pakhtun friends confirmed that the Gazetteer had it wrong: the correct name was Pir Ghar, ghar being mountain in Pashto. This, then, was the Mountain of the Saint.
 

By Madiha Sattar

Mubarak Village’s jealously-guarded beach is pristine and stunningly beautiful. It is not an accurate reflection of life here. Homes are a scattered group of dilapidated straw huts. “Only four of us six brothers go to school. The other two have to go out on boats,” a young boy from this fishing community tells the Herald as he plays on the sand, back home after his long daily commute.