A former provincial minister and three other people have been killed in a bomb attack at north-western Pakistani town of Hangu

Asif Ali Zardari

A former provincial minister and three other people have been killed in a bomb attack near the north-western Pakistani town of Hangu, police said.Ghani ur-Rhaman, a former North-West Frontier Province education minister, died when a roadside bomb exploded next to the car in which he was travelling. His driver, bodyguard and a friend were also killed, officials said. The attack comes two days after 99 people were killed by an explosion at a volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, condemned the attack and said Washington would continue supporting Pakistan’s efforts to combat extremism and bolster democracy. For his part, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said such actions would not weaken his government’s resolve to fight terrorism. Lakki Marwat lies in an area regarded as a Taliban stronghold until recently, when the militants were driven out by the Pakistani army.

Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off

LAHORE, Pakistan  A Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off after they did the same thing to a young woman whose family spurned one of the men’s marriage proposal, a prosecutor said Tuesday.The anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Lahore said it was applying Islamic law by ordering the punishment.Lahore prosecutor Chaudhry Ali Ahmed said one of the accused, Sher Mohammad, was a cousin of the 19-year-old woman and wanted to marry her. Her parents refused his proposal.

Sher Mohammad and a friend, Amanat Mohammad, were accused of kidnapping the woman and cutting off her ears and nose in late September in the Raiwind area of Lahore.
The court on Monday also sentenced each man to 50 years in prison and told them to pay fines and compensation to the woman amounting to several thousand dollars, the prosecutor said.

Pakistan’s legal system has Islamic elements that sometimes lead to orders for harsh punishments, but the sentences are often overturned and rarely carried out. Serious crimes are often referred to anti-terrorism courts in Pakistan because they move faster.

Violence against women, especially attacks by spurned lovers, also occurs frequently in this impoverished South Asian nation.The men have seven days to appeal the ruling, Ahmed said.

Pakistan's Supreme Court began hearing a case Monday against

Asif Ali Zardari

ISLAMABAD Pakistan’s Supreme Court began hearing a case Monday against an amnesty that had protected President Asif Ali Zardari and many key allies from graft charges.The process could lead to challenges against the legality of the U.S.-allied president’s rule just as the Obama administration needs stability in Islamabad to help crack down on militants near the Afghan border.Court official Azhar Hussain said the 17-member bench led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry started hearing petitions but gave no other details.

The session came two weeks after the expiration of the amnesty, which had been granted in a U.S.-backed deal with ex-military leader Pervez Musharraf to allow Zardari’s late wife, former Prime Minister Bhutto, to return from exile in 2007 and run for office safe in the knowledge she would not be dogged by corruption allegations.Speculation over Zardari’s future has escalated after he was forced to abandon an effort to get Parliament to approve the amnesty, which granted him and more than 8,000 other government bureaucrats and politicians immunity from a host of corruption and criminal charges.

Zardari, who has denied any wrongdoing, enjoys general immunity from prosecution as president, but the Supreme Court could choose to challenge his eligibility for the post if the amnesty is declared illegal.

The U.S. and other Western nations supported the bid by Bhutto, who was seen as a secular and pro-Western politician. But Bhutto, who was forced from her post twice in the 1990s because of alleged misrule and corruption, was killed by a suicide bomber shortly after she returned to Pakistan. Zardari took over as co-chairman of her party and was elected president in September 2008 by federal and regional lawmakers.

The political upheaval comes as President Barack Obama’s administration is stepping up its effort to defeat the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan and on Pakistan’s northwestern border. To have much hope of success, the U.S needs a stable Pakistani government committed to fighting militants blamed for attacks in both countries.

President Asif Ali Zardari possibility of corruption charges

Asif Ali Zardari

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered a hearing on a petition against the amnesty granted two years ago that has protected the President Asif Ali Zardari and other senior officials of the possibility of corruption charges.

Former President Pervez Musharraf ordered the amnesty, in part to revoke a pending corruption charges against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and allow him back into the country from exile. Commandment amnesty covers about 8000 people but it had expired last Saturday.

Federal court is scheduled to begin hearings on the petition was dated December 7.

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after the amnesty order to begin again his political career, but not long before he was murdered. Her husband, a businessman who once was imprisoned in the past on charges of corruption, then became president of Pakistan after General Musharraf to resign.