PCO judges are no more judges after passage of 18th Amendment: SC

ISLAMABAD, May 18 (APP): All serving PCO judges will not be judges of the High Courts under the Constitution since April 20, 2010, the day when 18th Amendment was approved, said Supreme Court of Pakistan in its verdict, announced on Wednesday, over PCO judges’ intra-court appeals.The six-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry announced this verdict while dismissing the intra-court appeals (ICAs) filed by six PCO judges, including Justice Yasmin Abbasi of Sindh High Court, Justice Shabbar Raza Rizvi, Justice Hasnat Ahmad Khan, Justice Hamid Ali Shah, Justice Sajjad Hussain Shah of Lahore High Court and Justice Jahanzeb Rahim of Peshawar High Court.

According to the judgment, the PCO judges had committed contempt of court by taking oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) initiated by former president Pervez Musharraf on Novermeber 3,2007.
The apex court said,”the appellants are no more judges and there will be contempt proceedings against them under Article 204 of the Constitution,if ultimately they are found to be guilty for the contempt of court by this court,” adding that all the perks and privileges received by the judges during the last one year had to be returned.
They will not remain on their posts with effect from April 20, 2010 as parliament has not ratified PCO judges in 18th Amendment, the court further adjudged.
The court also asked the Federal Government to notify PCO judges about their termination in this regard.  
It is pertinent to mention here that these PCO judges filed intra-court appeals in the Supreme Court against February 2, 2011 ruling of the court against them and the SC reserved its judgment on April 4.                                                     
Earlier, a four-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui, on February 2 had announced its verdict on law points as to whether it could initiate contempt proceedings against the judges who had taken oath under the PCO in defiance of a restraining order by a seven-member bench of the Supreme Court on November 3, 2007.
The Supreme Court declared Musharraf’s Nov 3, 2007 steps in its July 31, 2009 verdict as unconstitutional.

Osama bin Laden's guns found 'only after' US Navy Seals killed him

The American soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden found his two guns only after he was dead, while they photographed his remains, according to a detailed new account of the al-Qaida leader's final moments.
The Associated Press revelation will add further fuel for critics who say US forces acted illegally in killing the unarmed Saudi fugitive. The Obama administration insists the shooting was lawful.
Meanwhile, US relations with Pakistan, already at their lowest point in a decade, have found a fresh point of friction following an exchange of fire between Nato and Pakistani forces along the Afghan border.
Two Pakistani soldiers were injured after opening fire on two Nato helicopters that crossed into Datta Khel, North Waziristan.
Pakistan's military, already livid over the Bin Laden raid, condemned the incident as a "violation of Pakistan air space" and lodged a "strong protest". A Nato spokesman in Kabul said the shooting started after a Nato base came under fire from the Pakistani side of the border.
The AP account, based on interviews with senior US officials, resolves some subsidiary mysteries about the size and sequencing of the dramatic US Navy Seal raid that ended the world's largest manhunt on 2 May. But it also throws up fresh questions about how Pakistan's air defence systems failed to stop the American forces entering – or leaving.
The US raiding party slipped into Pakistan on five helicopters – two stealth Black Hawks carrying 23 Navy Seals, an interpreter and a sniffer dog named Cairo, and three Chinooks carrying 24 backup soldiers that landed in a remote mountain area north of Abbottabad, the garrison town where Bin Laden was hiding.
In recent days, two Pakistani television channels have identified the mountain area as Khala Dhaka, a semi-autonomous tribal area, interviewing villagers who saw the US craft landing and taking off.
The Black Hawks that swooped on Bin Laden's compound were equipped with special technology to muffle the tail rotor and engine noise, the AP reported. Some experts have speculated it was also equipped with a special skin to fool radar. The soldiers planned to swoop on Bin Laden's house from three sides: sliding down ropes onto the roof, the compound and outside the wall.
But the first Black Hawk swayed erratically as it hovered over the compound owing to higher than expected temperatures and crashed against a wall, irreparably damaging its tail. The pilot ditched the plane in Bin Laden's yard and the entire raiding party entered from the ground floor, using small explosives to blow their way through walls and doors.
The AP reported that the Americans found "barriers" at each stair landing of the three-storey building, encountered fire once and killed three men and one woman. The account did not specify how many of the dead were armed.
After 15 minutes the Seals, passing huddles of frightened children, reached the top floor where they found Bin Laden at the end of the hallway. They said they recognised him "immediately". Bin Laden ducked into a room, followed quickly by three Seals.
The first soldier pushed aside two women who tried to protect Bin Laden, apparently fearing they were wearing suicide vests, while the second opened fire on the al-Qaida leader, hitting him in the head and chest.
Moments later, as the Americans photographed his body, they found an AK-47 rifle and a Makarov pistol on a shelf beside the door they had just entered. Bin Laden had not touched the weapons, according to the AP account.
Just over 20 minutes later a Chinook helicopter arrived to collect Bin Laden's body, a trove of computer disks, and the soldiers whose helicopter had crashed, now destroyed except for the rear rotor and tail.
Controversy over the manner of Bin Laden's death has dogged the White House since 2 May, especially after early claims that Bin Laden had been armed and used one of his wives as a human shield proved to be false.
The only witnesses who could contradict the American account are Bin Laden's three wives and children, who are currently in Pakistani custody. After much pressure from Washington, US officials were allowed to briefly speak with them last week. The women reportedly refused to answer questions and Pakistan says they will be repatriated to their native Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It is not clear when this will happen.
The AP also reported that there had been four previous special forces incursions into Pakistan, echoing a December 2009 report in the Guardian. A senior Nato official said two of the clandestine raids targeted "high-value targets", while a third was to recover a crashed Predator drone.
The account comes a day after a visit by Senator John Kerry, who was in the capital, Islamabad, yesterday to try and "reset" the fragile alliance, claiming that Pakistan was not informed in advance for operational reasons and not due to any distrust of the Pakistanis.
A similar issue has arisen from the Bin Laden raid. Kerry, after intensive meetings with Pakistani military chiefs, said he had secured a promise that the rear rotor of the Black Hawk would be returned to US custody, amid US fears it would be passed to China and reverse-engineered.
Pakistan's leadership has moved closer to its decades-old ally China. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, today embarked on a four-day visit to China, a country he pointedly described as "our best and most trusted friend".

Libya: ICC prosecutor seeks warrant for Gaddafi

The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor is seeking the arrest of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi and two others for crimes against humanity.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi bore the greatest responsibility for "widespread and systematic attacks" on civilians.
ICC judges must still decide whether or not to issue warrants for their arrest.
The Libyan government has already said it will ignore the announcement.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim said the court was a "baby of the European Union designed for African politicians and leaders" and its practices were "questionable".
Libya did not recognise its jurisdiction, like most African countries and the United States, and would ignore any announcement, he added.
'Inner circle'

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that after reviewing more than 1,200 documents and 50 interviews with key insiders and witnesses, his office had evidence showing that Col Gaddafi had "personally ordered attacks on unarmed Libyan civilians".

"His forces attacked Libyan civilians in their homes and in public spaces, shot demonstrators with live ammunition, used heavy weaponry against participants in funeral processions, and placed snipers to kill those leaving mosques after prayers," he told a news conference in The Hague.
"The evidence shows that such persecution is still ongoing as I speak today in the areas under Gaddafi control. Gaddafi forces have prepared a list with names of alleged dissidents, and they are being arrested, put into prisons in Tripoli and tortured," he added.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that Col Gaddafi had "committed the crimes with the goal of preserving his absolute authority".
"The evidence shows that Gaddafi relied on his inner circle to implement a systematic policy of suppressing any challenge to his authority."
"His second-oldest son, Saif al-Islam, is the de facto prime minister and Sanussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law, is his right-hand man - the executioner, the head of military intelligence. He commanded personally some of the attacks."

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The office documented how the three held meetings to plan and direct the operations”

Luis Moreno-Ocampo Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

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The three "held meetings to plan and direct the operations", he alleged.

"The office gathered direct evidence about orders issued by Muammar Gaddafi himself, direct evidence of Saif al-Islam organising the recruitment of mercenaries and direct evidence of the participation of Sanussi in the attacks against demonstrators."
The prosecutor insisted he was almost ready for a trial, based on the quality and quantity of the testimony - particularly of those who had escaped from Libya.
Earlier, Mr Moreno-Ocampo said the three men were suspected of committing crimes against humanity in two categories - murder and persecution - under the Rome Statute which established the court.
The charges cover the days following the start of anti-government protests on 15 February. Between 500 and 700 people are believed to have been killed in that month alone.
ICC prosecutors are also studying evidence about the alleged commission of war crimes once the situation developed into an armed conflict, including allegations of rape and attacks against sub-Saharan Africans wrongly perceived to be mercenaries.
An inquiry set up by the UN Human Rights Council is expected to submit its report on the alleged war crimes to the UN Security Council on 7 June.

The charges cover the days following the start of anti-government protests on 15 February

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said he was acting in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1970, which referred the situation in Libya to the ICC, and stressed the need to hold to account those responsible for attacks on civilians.
The Pre-Trial Chamber's judges may decide to accept the prosecutor's application, reject it, or ask him for additional information.
If a warrant for Col Gaddafi is issued, it would only be the second time the ICC has sought a warrant for a sitting head of state. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted for genocide in Darfur.
Ceasefire callBBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says making any arrests would be difficult as first responsibility would rest with the Libyan authorities.
There are also concerns in some Western capitals that the ICC's move could further complicate efforts to halt the conflict in Libya.
On Sunday, Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi told the UN's special envoy, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, that his country wanted "an immediate ceasefire to coincide with a halt to the Nato bombardment and the acceptance of international observers", state media said.
Libya was committed to the unity of its territory and people, and Libyans had the right to "decide on their internal affairs and political system through democratic dialogue away from the bombing threat", he added.
Overnight, Libyan state television reported said Nato aircraft had bombed an oil terminal in the eastern port of Ras Lanuf.
The alleged strike came after rebel fighters said they had taken full control of the western city of Misrata.
The government had earlier condemned British calls for Nato to bomb a wider range of infrastructure targets to put pressure on Col Gaddafi.
A spokesman said the comments by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen Sir David Richards, was a threat "aimed at terrorising civilians".

Kerry in Pakistan for talks

Islamabad - US Senator John Kerry was to meet Pakistani leaders on Monday, two weeks after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, warning of profound consequences if the two cannot fix their fractured relationship.

Kerry arrived in Islamabad on Sunday, after Pakistan's parliament said there must be no repeat of the commando operation that killed bin Laden and insisting US drone strikes targeting extremists on its territory must end.

The first senior US visitor since the al-Qaeda kingpin's death, Kerry was to meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, foreign office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said.

Kerry told reporters in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday, before travelling to Pakistan, that US relations with its nuclear-armed ally were at a "critical moment".

"We need to find a way to march forward if it is possible. If it is not possible, there are a set of downside consequences that can be profound," said Kerry, whose trip to the region has been endorsed by President Barack Obama.

He said he was he was ready to listen to Pakistan's leaders but the discovery of the al-Qaeda chief living close to Islamabad meant talks had to "resolve some very serious issues".
Co-operation under review

The raid has rocked Pakistan's security establishment, with its government, intelligence services and military widely accused of incompetence or complicity over the presence of bin Laden in a garrison town near the capital.

Pakistan has meanwhile vowed to review intelligence co-operation with the United States following the raid, which its foreign ministry called an "unauthorised unilateral action".

While leaders of the US Congress have voiced support for preserving aid to Pakistan, other lawmakers say Pakistan can no longer be trusted and funding should be trimmed.

The United States has given about $18bn to Pakistan since the September 11 2001 attacks, when the nuclear-armed nation officially ended support for Afghanistan's Taliban and agreed to work with the United States.

While most of the money has gone to the military, Congress in 2009 authorised $7.5bn over five years to help bolster the weak civilian government by building schools, roads and democratic institutions.

Kerry, chairperson of the influential Senate Foreign Relations committee, also repeated Washington's belief that Pakistani authorities know where Taliban safe havens harbouring the leaders of Afghanistan's insurgency are located.
Amicable resolution

"There is some evidence of Pakistan government knowledge of some of these activities in ways that is very disturbing," he told reporters in Kabul, adding that he would raise the long-standing issue in Islamabad.

But Kerry also sought to dampen the diplomatic fallout from the bin Laden raid, which severely strained ties with the US and stirred renewed anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

"It's important to try also to not allow the passions of a moment to cloud over the larger goal that is in both of our interests," he said in reference to efforts to combat Islamist militancy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned President Asif Zardari on Sunday during which "both agreed to resolve the issues amicably and move forward", according to an official statement.

Many Pakistanis have been outraged at the perceived impunity of the US raid, while asking whether their military was too incompetent to know bin Laden was living close to a major forces academy, or, worse, conspired to protect him.

Pakistan's parliament on Saturday called on the government to appoint an independent commission to ensure the US operation on its territory was not repeated and condemned CIA-operated drone strikes.

US missile strikes doubled last year, with more than 100 operations killing over 670 people, according to an AFP tally, while the CIA has said the covert programme has severely disrupted al-Qaeda's leadership.

- AFP

Bin Laden in Pakistan, potent but past his prime

WASHINGTON: Surrounded by the din of his multiple families within walls that were both his sanctuary and prison, Osama bin Laden pecked endlessly at a computer, issuing directives to his scattered and troubled terrorist empire. It’s not clear who really listened. Stage big attacks causing mass casualties, he told al-Qaida operatives and affiliates. They mostly went for smaller-scale attacks.

The latest intelligence from the wealth of material found at bin Laden’s last hideout paints a complicated picture of the fugitive, both deeply engaged in his life’s violent mission and somewhat out to pasture.

Inside the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound, he kept busy scheming plots, rehearsed and recorded propaganda and dispatched couriers to distant Internet cafes to conduct his email traffic, using computer flash drives to relay messages he would write and store from his shabby office. He dyed his gray beard black to keep up appearances for the videos.

To US officials, who possess bin Laden’s handwritten personal journal as well as an enormous cache of his digital documents, the still-unfolding discoveries show he was more involved in trying to plan al-Qaida’s post-Sept. 11 operations than they had thought possible for a man in perpetual hiding.

Even so, he was disconnected from his organization in real time, lacking phones or the Internet at his hideout and with loyalists hunted at every turn. Essential elements of a command and control function from Abbottabad appear to be missing.

Among the items found was an unreleased audiotape, recorded about a week before the raid, in which bin Laden praises those who rebelled in the ”Arab spring,” referring to revolts in the Mideast and North Africa, a US official says.

But bin Laden only mentions Egypt and Tunisia, though he would have been aware through news broadcasts on his cable TV feed of the uprisings in Libya, Syria, and the Gulf state Bahrain, the official noted, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

Another discovered video shows bin Laden channel surfing with a tiny TV while wrapped in a wool blanket, wearing a knit cap and looking anything but content.

Toward its own propaganda ends, the US released selective excerpts of these odd home movies, choosing clips that only show the Prince of jihad in an unflattering, even pathetic, light.

For a man working from home, there seemed to be many distractions.

The US raiders who killed him, a grown son and others May 2 encountered 23 children and nine women on the grounds of the three-story complex behind walls stained with mold, including three of his wives, officials said afterward.

The US has questioned those widows, the Pentagon said Friday without revealing if anything was learned.

US officials also said the raiders found a collection of pornography in the materials they confiscated but it was not clear who owned it or had seen it.

As bizarre as it might be to know he spent his last months surrounded by children, any thought of domestic tranquility is probably a stretch.

This was a man who forced his family to live without air conditioning or a refrigerator in stifling heat in pre-terrorist days, who beat them and let his fighters experiment on their pets with poison gas, and made his family dig and sleep in ditches on a desert camping trip, according to a son and another wife who collaborated on the book ”Growing Up Bin Laden.”

Such a harsh disposition with family was disputed by Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, a father-in-law, who told The Associated Press in Yemen that bin Laden was a ”kind and noble” man, ”easygoing and modest, giving you the feeling that he was sincere.”

Al-Sada’s daughter, Amal, 29, was shot in the leg during the raid as she rushed the Navy SEALs, US officials said.

There is no dispute that bin Laden spent time in his lair dreaming up ways to kill Americans in great numbers again, for the terrorist believed that only mass casualties could move US policy.

Pakistan's parliament condemns U.S. raid, threatens sanctions

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's parliament threatened Saturday to cut off access to a facility used by NATO forces to ferry troops into Afghanistan, signaling a growing rift that began when U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound.

A resolution adopted during a joint session of parliament condemned the U.S. action. It also called for a review of its working agreement with the U.S., demanded an independent investigation and ordered the immediate end of drone attacks along its border region.

Failure to end unilateral U.S. raids and drone attacks will force Pakistan to "to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of (the) transit facility" used by the NATO's International Security Assistance Force, according to the resolution.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned how the world's most wanted terrorist managed to live in plain sight for years in Pakistan -- near the country's elite military academy -- without being detected.
Why Pakistan shouldn't accept U.S. aid
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Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that any active members of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment knew about or actively protected the al Qaeda leader.

Publicly, leaders in both countries have downplayed a rift.

During a stop in Afghanistan Saturday, U.S. Sen. John Kerry stressed that Americans want Pakistan to be "a real ally" in combating terror. Still, he added, the United States is "not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart."

"We're trying to find a way to build it and to improve it and we need to work at that and that's part of what I'll be doing over the course of the next couple of days," said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also planned to visit Pakistan.

The unanimous resolution made clear there was a growing dissatisfaction among Pakistani lawmakers.

The resolution also ordered a review of its counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with the United States.

The government is deeply "distress(ed) on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan's determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror," the resolution said.

It also said more than 30,000 Pakistani civilians and more than 5,000 military personnel had been killed in its fight against terror "and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan."

Anger over U.S. drone strikes has mounted during the past year after it stepped up efforts along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle on the border area.

The demands by the Pakistani civilian government come as new details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked the compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy, fast-moving and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the official said.

An official familiar with the material seized from the compound said Friday that Navy SEALs recovered a stash of pornography. The official would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was or whether it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He had no escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Two U.S. lawmakers joined a public chorus for the release of photos of bin Laden's body after seeing the images themselves.

"These are very graphic, gruesome pictures," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado. But seeing them "gave me a sense of finality and closure."

A conservative legal watchdog group has filed the first lawsuit seeking the public release of the video and photographs of the raid and its aftermath.

Judicial Watch is asking the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request for the material, especially photos of bin Laden's body. The legal complaint to force compliance was made in federal court in Washington on Friday.

Drone Strike Said to Kill at Least 8 in Pakistan

Missiles believed to have been fired by an American drone killed at least eight suspected militants and wounded four in Pakistan’s tribal regions on Friday, according to a Pakistani security official and a resident in the area of the strike. Later, seven more bodies were recovered, bringing the death toll to 15, the resident said.

The attack was the first by a drone since the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, in an American helicopter-borne raid early Monday in Abbottabad, a small garrison city about a two-hour drive from the capital, Islamabad.

The drone campaign, which is run by the C.I.A., has long been a sore point with the Pakistani public for what is widely considered its violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. The government has publicly condemned the strikes, while privately tolerating them in an arrangement with the United States, which flies drones from a base inside Pakistan.

The Bin Laden raid has put new pressure on that alliance, however, coming after the killing of two Pakistanis by a C.I.A. contractor in January, and has inflamed the sovereignty issue still further.

On Thursday, the head of Pakistan’s army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said another raid like the one that killed Bin Laden would not be tolerated, and he repeated a demand that the number of American troops in Pakistan be reduced “to the minimum essential.”

The attack on Friday showed, however, what the Americans have insisted, that they will continue the drone campaign, which has proved to be an effective way of reaching Qaeda militants in Pakistani’s tribal region on the Afghan border.

The latest attack took place at noon on Friday in Dua Toi, a village in North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan. The village is in the Datta Khel area, about 30 miles west of Miram Shah, the regional capital. The official said four of the dead were foreign fighters, but their nationalities were not known yet.

The missiles hit a car near a roadside restaurant and a compound where the militants had been invited for lunch by commanders affiliated with Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the top commander in North Waziristan. He is a close ally of the Haqqani network and Al Qaeda, and has reached a truce with the Pakistani military, though he is involved in fighting against the NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The missiles killed five of the militants in the car. In the compound, three were killed and four were wounded.

Datta Khel is the stronghold of Mr. Bahadar, and many of the drone strikes have taken place in that area because of its high concentration of local and foreign fighters, who are involved in cross-border attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The Right Word: Patriot games with bin Laden

he talk radio jocks have forgiven President Obama for his birth certificate, but they want to see bin Laden's death certificate
It's been a difficult week for patriotic Americans, some of whom remain torn between love of country and loathing for the man who leads it.
Rush Limbaugh surprised many of his critics by opening his radio show this week (listen to clip) offering unequivocal congratulations to President Obama for having actually done something extremely effective for a change by having had the good sense to have continued former President Bush's anti terrorism policies – such as keeping "Club Gitmo" open, and more importantly, for making President Bush's unfulfilled quest to capture and kill Osama bin Laden a top priority. Limbaugh also couldn't help but admire the president for rejecting the military's suggestion of bombing the bin Laden compound in favour of a commando raid, even though the latter was the riskier choice.

You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb, like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the special forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using Seal Team 6 or any of the special forces. Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama singlehandedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death.

The precision with which the Navy Seals carried out the operation was very heartening to Limbaugh whose personal happiness seems to be closely tied to his country's military might, but he did have some concerns about the quick burial at sea and whether or not the DNA evidence was conclusive.

It's a very uplifting thing to realise that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night, I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don't know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the programme with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we've got it already, the proof positive it was Osama bin Laden. It's a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military.

Limbaugh's admiration for the armed forces is obviously genuine, but while not wanting to rain on their parade (let alone the commander-in-chief's), diligent journalist that he is, he couldn't help but raise another issue that has been floated in some mainstream media outlets and especially by Hillary Clinton's news channel of choice, al-Jazeera, that Osama bin Laden is not the commander of al-Qaida anymore and that he has long since ceased to have much importance. He also felt compelled to draw attention to the stacks of newspaper articles that have suggested that Osama bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora and so has been dead for years, although Limbaugh doesn't necessarily subscribe to this theory himself.

Anyway, the bottom line is that, one way or another, it would appear that Osama bin Laden is probably dead now and even if President Obama and his administration had some hand in that, it's still a great day for America.

Pakistan orders safety review of nuke plants

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s nuclear regulator on Tuesday ordered a safety review of the country’s two atomic power plants in the wake of Japan’s nuclear disaster, warning that further steps could be required.
The Pakistan Nuclear Regulator Authority (PNRA) said it asked the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) “to revisit the safety aspects of the nuclear power plants at Karachi and Chashma”.
Pakistan suffered a major 7.6 magnitude earthquake in October 2005 that killed 73,000 people and made more than three million others homeless in Kashmir and northwest, but its nuclear plants remained safe.
“PNRA will continue to study the accident at Fukushima and the response of Japanese and other regulatory authorities and may ask PAEC to take additional measures,” it said.
The authority said the nuclear power plants in Pakistan “do not pose any unwarranted radiation hazard” and operate on par with international standards.
China built a 300-megawatt nuclear power reactor at Chashma in Punjab province that went operational in 2000 and another of the same capacity is under construction. A plant in Karachi produces 50 megawatts.
China has also been contracted to build two more reactors at Chashma, officials have said.
Pakistan joined the club of nuclear-armed states in 1998. It scrambled to secure the technology after India’s first nuclear test in 1974, and is now believed to have up to 100 nuclear weapons.

Islamabad enjoying semi final