Protests in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province, turned violent on Sunday, as hundreds of stone-throwing rioters clashed with police who released teargas and attacked the crowd with batons. But the possibility of further demonstrations was dispelled after the government acquiesced to the demands of the protestors.
The toD verdict: Over the weekend, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif defied his house arrest to lead a "long march" from Lahore to the capital Islamabad. The march was intended to be a protest against the government's failure to restore Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudry (who was dismissed by former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007) and what Sharif calls the Pakistani police state. On Sunday the former prime minister flouted his arrest to partake in the march which, he said, was the "prelude to a revolution".
President Asif Ali Zardari had refused to reinstate Chaudhry. However, Zardari bowed to public pressure on Monday as his government announced that Chaudhry would be reinstated at the end of this month, along with all of the other judges that Musharraf had unseated. Lawyers and political prisoners recently detained due to their participation in Sharif's long march are also to be released.
The government's actions on Monday no doubt provided much relief to the international community, particularly the US government which had been urging Zardari to reach a compromise. Concerns had been raised over the incident's potential to distract Pakistan from its battle against terrorist insurgents in the northwest, particularly members of the Taliban operating in the country's tribal areas. After the demonstrators' demands were met, Sharif called off the march which was to reach Islamabad on Monday.
European Union hands mandate over to UN in Chad
EUFOR, the European Union protection force in Chad, handed its mandate over the to the UN on Sunday upon the expiration of its year-long mission. The change-over came as three aid workers for the Belgium arm of Médecins Sans Frontières were released after being taken hostage for much of last week, amid growing tension in Sudan after President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court. In the space of a week, thirteen NGOs have been forced out of Sudan. In Sudan's Darfur region, around 4.7 million people rely on aid for their livelihood whilst almost 500,000 people live in camps in eastern Chad and the north-east of the Central African Republic. Immediately following the transfer of power, four members of the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur were targeted by militants. Peacekeeping troop numbers are set to increase from 3,500 to 5,000.
Bomb kills five in "Manhattan of the Desert"
A bomb explosion on Sunday in the historic city of Shibam in Yemen killed four South Korean tourists and a Yemeni man, injuring four more people. The perpetrators of the attack have not yet been ascertained and it is even thought that the bomb could have been the remnants of an old mine. Yemen is the country of Osama bin Laden's ancestry, and this attack comes along with the announcement of the new al-Qaeda leadership in the Arabian peninsula, which no doubt will have an impact on the country which is renowned for its high number of insurgents linked to the rebel group. Yemen has seen two other attacks on tourists in the past year; the latest resulted in the death of two Belgian tourists in January of this year.
Pacifism put to the test in Japan
Japan's pacifist constitution was put to the test on Sunday when two navy destroyers were sent out from the country to join an international anti-piracy mission in Somalian waters. The Japanese involvement in World War II resulted in conditions being placed on the country by which they were limited to defensive military actions. The mission has been labelled by the government in Tokyo as a crime-fighting operation rather than an act of war, and that the Japanese ships can technically only be used to protect vessels from Japan, of which around 2,000 per year pass by the coast of Somalia. Japan relies on middle eastern oil supplies and, after the US, is the second largest net importer of oil.
Cheney asked: Did you leave Obama a mess?
According to former US Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview on Sunday, the actions of the Obama administration are putting the US at more risk from terrorism than those of its predecessor. Cheney, one of the main advocates of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, offered a staunch defence of the Bush era, saying that Obama's pledges to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and to put an end to the much-criticised methods of torture employed during the "war on terror" risk trivialising the threat of extremist groups and will leave the country vulnerable to attack. The interview showed that Cheney, who is infamous for his strong and often controversial statements, has not departed from the Republican claim during previous electoral campaigns that a Democrat-led government would put US security at risk.
Eleven killed during Islamist clashes in Somalia
Eleven people have died after violence broke out between rival Islamist groups in Somalia over the possession of the town of Wabho, 300 km north of Mogadishu, the capital. All except one of those dead were insurgents. Fighting continues in the region and across the war-ravaged country, which has seen the death of over 16,000 people in two years and the creation of more than a million refugees.
