Guilty as charged

Pakistan's cricket continues in its topsy-turvy ways as two instances of good news were offset with one long-expected confession. Merely days after Pakistan whipped the Zimbabwe cricket team in the ODI series, the news of Aleem Dar's hat-trick of David Shepherd Trophy for Umpire of the Year award at the ICC Awards ceremony sent a wave of positivity among the cricketing fraternity in the country.

'Export' of heritage

A recent incident involving sale of a fasting Buddha statue at the prestigious Christie's fine arts auction house in the UK has brought focus on the illegal artefacts export from Pakistan. As reported by newspapers, a Unesco employee noticed a Christie's advertisement for the sale of this Gandhara relic, believed to be excavated from Pakistan in the early 1980s.

Carnage in Mastung

The spate of sectarian violence, continuing in Balochistan for over a decade, has recently increased in frequency of attacks and their intensity. A most brutal example of this was seen on Tuesday, when unidentified gunmen intercepted a bus near Mastung, which was carrying Hazara Shia men to Iran on a pilgrimage. Operating in a most ruthless and calculated manner, the assailants told the pilgrims to disembark, identified them through their identity cards, segregated the Hazaras and mercilessly gunned them down.

PIA: safety lapses

Year 2011, thus far, has turned out to be quite a nightmare for the national carrier. Bad news has followed the state-run airline like a plague. Whereas earlier this year stories circulated about union politics and passenger inconvenience vis-a-vis flight delays, the current round of news can cause grave consequences for the unsuspecting passengers who choose to fly PIA.

Bridging the trust gap

In what seems like an alarmingly oft-repeated scenario, the doctors at Sobhraj Maternity Hospital were assaulted by attendants of a patient who had just delivered a stillborn child. According to various media reports, the relatives of the lady, after attending the baby's funeral, came back to the hospital and physically attacked the women doctors on duty.