Judiciary Failed? Editorial - Gilani vs. Zardari, Twitterers Paid by Israel, Clinton in India, Amira Haas

Judges should accept responsibility for the failure of democracy in the country, and “the judiciary it will have to put its house in order”, said Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Monday, and cited “wrong and lamentable decisions” that he blamed for “mishaps such as the November 2007 emergency”. Heading a 14-member larger bench, the chief justice observed that the Supreme Court (SC) decisions in the Moulvi Tameezuddin case down to the Tikka Iqbal case were wrong and lamentable. CJP underlines ‘faults’ in Pakistan’s judicial history : Judiciary failed democracy, regrets Chief Justice

Brave admission. What good does it do for us? A car moves on four good wheels. Even if the judiciary wheel is good the other three are tethering resulting in logjam ~t

Has one prong of the PPP’s “two-pronged policy” in Islamabad come unstuck and is challenging the other prong? At least that is the impression one gets from an interview Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has given to a national newspaper on Monday. The content of the interview looks like a revolt by Mr Gilani against the PPP party chief and an aggressive reclamation of executive authority from President Asif Ali Zardari. Editorial: Gilani versus Zardari?

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems. Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel. Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict. “To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project. Twitterers Paid To Spread Israeli PropagandaBy Jonathan Cook

The irony is that New Delhi has done all it could in recent years to harmonize its regional policies with those of the US. Its response to the new cold war has been to keep a calibrated distance from its traditional ally, Russia. Its response to the US-Iran standoff over Tehran's nuclear program has been to atrophy India's close and friendly ties with Iran. Its response to the US's containment strategy toward China has been to identify with the strange idea of a quadripartite alliance with the US, Japan and Australia. In comparison, Pakistan zeroed in on the potentials of US intervention in Afghanistan and the implications of the great game in Central Asia for the US's geo-strategy - especially the role of Islamist elements. An extremely rewarding relationship has followed since 2001, as naturally as daybreak. For a while, Pakistan got worked up that George W Bush might be tilting toward India when he signed a nuclear deal for the civilian use of nuclear power. But as Clinton's visit shows, the nuclear deal has become controversial. Clinton delivers unwanted tidings to New DelhiBy M K Bhadrakumar

Something in the soldiers' testimonies published by the organization Breaking the Silence last week must be scaring the Israel Defense Forces. Otherwise, its battery of spokespeople - official and unofficial - would not be taking part in such a violent campaign to silence it... It suits the IDF that after their release, soldiers travel to Peru and Colombia to bury their agonized memories or belated insights - as adults. The IDF prefers that its demobilized soldiers travel to Goa to get stoned out of their minds before Breaking the Silence activists reach them. The IDF price tag By Amira Hass