Why is Trump pardoning criminals?

President Trump is behaving like a modern-day Julius Caesar. Not only does he think he's above the law, he's apparently thinking that he can do anything illegal and get away with it. His bullying tactics to coerce the president of Venezuela to resign prove that he's mentally unbalanced. His order to attack all boats on the Venezuelan coast, his order to all airlines to stop going to that country is not something that the president of a democratic country should do. Yet he's doing it, and apparently no one can stop him.

His latest is a string of pardons to hardened and convicted criminals. The president of Honduras was serving a 45 year jail sentence, but Trump simply pardoned him. Then there was the Ponzi scheme guy who defrauded 17,000 Americans of 1.2 billion dollars. He has been pardoned after serving only 12 days in prison. The latest is a senator belonging to the Democratic party (Henry Ceullar) who was scheduled to be tried next month (together with his wife). Yet he too has been let off by Trump. Obviously, Trump is not doing such things because he loves them. There must be something in it for him too. We'll know soon enough. 

UAE has stopped issuing visas to nationals of poor countries

When I visited Taiwan in 1991, my hosts were amazed that I had gone to Singapore first. "What's there is Singapore?" one of them asked. "It's all artificial". I agreed, even though I went to Singapore later due to pressure of my family members. The same holds true for Dubai and the rest of UAE. Why do people want to go there? I would like to mention here that I've visited the UAE four times, not because I like it (I don't), but because I have close relatives living there. 

So, I'm not upset over the UAE government's refusal to issue visas to people of poor countries like Pakistan (although, in a sense, Pakistan is a richer country than even UAE, but more of that later). It  seems that Pakistanis under the age of 45 do not stand a chance of getting a UAE visa, unless they have rich relatives there who can sponsor them. 

Despite so many people not getting visas, flights from Karachi to Dubai are full, even though most of the people going there are not the kind I would like to be friendly with. Most of them are laborers working there, but some have invested heavily in real estate in Dubai. Those are the ones who've made their millions in Pakistan, but have no faith in the country's future.

Trump being cordial to Mamdani shocks Americans!

Lo and behold, we saw another side of Trump when he met Mamdani. He even asked Mamdani to say yes when the New York mayor-elect was asked if he still considered that Trump is a fascist. This is definitely not the Trump we know, as we've seen how rudely he treated Zelensky. Let's hope that Trump changes and becomes a really nice and lovable person. 

But the question remains: will Mamdani be able to persuade billionaires like Trump to pay more taxes on their properties? It will indeed be a miracle if that happens.

I can't help comparing the situation of New York with that of Karachi. If only the taxes paid by Karachi residents were used for the city's development, it would not be the world's least livable. That can only happen only if the city is made a province. Unfortunately, that won't happen for a long time.

The great hack: how elections were rigged in the US and elsewhere

  I saw a Netflix documentary ("The great hack") and was astonished to find that Trump won the 2016 election by what can only be described as rigging. Cambridge Analytica, a British company "persuaded" thousands of US voters to vote for the Republican party, and Trump was the winner despite Hilary Clinton getting more votes. It seems that only 70,000 voters in three US states (called the "swing" states) decided who the next president would be.

This happened not only in the US, but in many other countries as well. The referendum in the UK that led to that country breaking away from the UK was influenced by the company, using Facebook to find out which voters were "persuadable". In Trinidad and Tobago, an Indian origin woman became the country's prime minister, and Facebook data was used to influence the result of the election. I have noticed a significant decline in the use of Facebook, perhaps due to this reason. But everything I write on Whattsapp is also being observed, since Facebook owns it.

As someone in the documentary said, it's impossible to hold free and fair elections anywhere in the world. 

Imran Khan exposed again!

 Practically everyone in the country knows that Imran Khan is mentally unstable. Everyone, that is, except those who think he's some kind of saint. Even after he married a woman who was obviously not normal, they continued to like him. We knew, all the time, that he was unable to take any decisions himself, which is why his four years in power were disastrous for the country. We also knew that his so-called "spiritual" advisor (his wife) was looting the country, but when the then ISI chief told him about it, he was so offended that he got that ISI chief transferred. That ISI chief (Asim Munir) is now a national hero and the supreme commander of the country's armed forces.

It's only now that a foreign journalist (Owen Bennet Jones) has investigated and reported that Imran Khan is really incompetent. All the shenanigans of his wife (like feeding djinns and advising him on when and where to travel) were common knowledge in Pakistan, but the Economist has printed an article about it, which has left Imran Khan infuriated. When asked whether he would take legal action against the newspaper, he said that he would first consult his wife! This is exactly what the Economist has said, that he never did anything without asking his wife. I was once dreadfully afraid that she would tell him to drop an atom bomb on Karachi or any place she didn't like and he would do it!

Why the 27th amendment was needed

It's been an open secret for a long time that the judiciary in Pakistan is not really independent (that's the case in most countries of the world), but no one ever said so in public. The twenty seventh amendment has merely legalized something illegal, which is why it's not being resisted so fiercely by lawyers (who came out twenty years ago to protest massively against the removal of then Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry by the late General Parvez Musharraf). In fact, the only retired army general so far tried and convicted by a civilian court was Musharraf himself, which made him stay out of the country for a long time (he'd been sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned). Until that time, it was unthinkable for any judge to do such a thing. That's the reason why the 27th amendment grants lifetime immunity to the present and future army chiefs (as well as   naval and air force chiefs).

As for granting immunity to the president of the country, that was already part of the constitution, but perhaps Zardari thought it was necessary to reinforce that clause.

There is of course the Imran Khan factor. His cases will no longer be heard by judges who like him, or judges whose mothers-in-law want him to be freed (this actually happened in the past).

FBR accountability

FBR accountability

THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Untaxed glamour’ (Nov 5), which rightly pointed out that “no one … should be allowed to stay outside the reach of the law”. While the move made by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) against tax dodgers who flaunt their wealth on social media is commendable, what about those who do not use social media and do not pay appropriate taxes, like the shopkeepers in Peshawar’s Karkhano Bazaar and other such markets in the big cities? I have heard some of them say that if any tax collector comes near them, he would be lucky to escape unhurt.

Then there are those who claim to derive their incomes from agriculture and, therefore, proudly say that they are exempted from payment of income tax, hiding behind the façade of a pittance that they pay as provincial agricultural tax.

Such pious men, like retailers and owners of huge and multiple properties, for example, regularly go to the holy land for pilgrimage, but do not register themselves with the tax authorities. They argue that tax rupees mostly enrich the tax collectors and those who rule the country. And, while we are still at it, why not investigate the lifestyle of FBR employees to catch those indulging in corruption?

Shakir Lakhani
Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1954047/fbr-accountability

Dawn, November 09, 2025

 

Why have so many from Azad Kashmir settled in the UK?

Among the many misconceptions Pakistanis have is the belief that the British constructed the Mangla dam and gave citizenship to those who were displaced when their land was taken over for the dam's construction. Apparently such people do not know that the dam was constructed twenty years after the British left the subcontinent.

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in Karachi in 1960 under the aegis of the World Bank. This agreement gave three rivers to Pakistan and the other three to India. I remember waving to Nehru and Ayub Khan as they were going to the President's House in an open car. Nehru waved back to me, while Ayub was staring at a pretty girl standing a couple of feet away on my right. Karachi was the capital of the country at the time, another fact that most Pakistanis have forgotten. 

It's been 65 years since the treaty was signed, and it has survived despite so many wars between the two countries. But the Hindutva activist prime minister (Modi) of India has revoked it recently, which will mean a death blow for Pakistan if it is not restored. 

So the British could not have given citizenship to so many people from Azad Kashmir, as the UK had nothing to do with Mangla dam. What happened is that every family in the area was compensated heavily for their lands by the Pakistani government, as a result of which almost all of them migrated and settled in the UK, which was the favored destination at the time.

 

Mamdani creates history

Most people had lost faith in democracy after seeing people like Trump and Modi getting elected. But there is some hope after all. With Zohran Mamdani getting elected as New York's first Muslim mayor (besides being the youngest so far), the people of that city have proved that they cannot be fooled by the Zionists and billionaires who did their utmost to defeat Mamdani.

I didn't know there was so much hatred against Muslims in the US until I saw a video posted on Facebook. In the video a young man is seen calling Mamdani a communist and die-hard Muslim, who would impose Sharia law in New York if he was elected. He also warned New Yorkers that their women would be forced to wear the all-enveloping burkha. 

But the most threatening tone was that of Trump himself. He warned that he would cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani was elected. Now that it has happened, he said that the US has lost its sovereignty and a communist has taken control of New York City. I don't know if it was Trump, but one US politician has claimed that Hamas has taken over NYC. The richest man in the world (Elon Musk) alleged  that the election process was a scam.

Mamdani's victory and those of other Democrats proves that Americans are not satisfied with Trump's performance. Trump and his Republican supporters should change their policies or they'll be routed in next year's mid-term elections. 

Racism in the US

We saw a lot of racism and prejudice against Muslims when we were kids in school. Even though our Catholic teachers were brown (like us), we could see that they thought Muslims were inferior. There was one male teacher who used to say that Muslims were backward and inferior to Christians and others. But we assumed, as the years went by, that most Americans and Europeans were now free of prejudice, despite occasional incidents of policemen killing blacks in the US, and Pakistanis being beaten up in the UK.

It seems that we were wrong. I've seen so much hatred of Muslims on social media that I'm shocked. A class fellow of mine (a brown Catholic and a US citizen) posted a video on Facebook in which a young boy is spewing hatred against Muslims in general and Mamdani in particular. He warns residents of New York that if Mamdani is elected mayor, they will soon see Sharia law in their city. 

But the most surprising thing is Trump's racism. He has allowed only white South Africans to immigrate to the US, and today he's asked the Pentagon to be ready to invade Nigeria to save the Christians in that country. I wonder why he didn't say anything when the Israelis were killing Christians in Gaza. In fact, all churches in Gaza have been demolished and the Christians there pray in the open.