The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.
-Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
CONTENTS:
0 An Eyewitness to Cancun Debacle
By Louis James
0 European Union's Killer Trade Barriers
By Alberto Mingardi et al
0 A Free Market Odyssey
By Jelena Osipova
0 Letters to FreePakistan
0 Letters from the Press
0 FreePakistan News Briefs
AN EYEWITNESS TO CANCUN DEBACLE
By Louis James
I've just returned from spending a week in Cancun, Mexico, observing the 5th ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). I was there with some pro-trade activists from The Bureaucrash Foundation. I ... words almost fail me. We witnessed some of the most amazing, ironic, and just plain moronic things I've ever seen.
First, there's the whole concept of the WTO itself. This is not a gathering of titans of trade -- Hank Reardens and Howard Roarks --discussing free enterprise. This is a gathering of bureaucrats, discussing how governments can "help" free trade.
Forgive me if I'm skeptical.
I understand that the WTO has reduced some tariffs, but I'm not sure the full extent of the prices paid for those deals is known. National sovereignty has certainly not been strengthened by them. It's not that I'm a big fan of most of today's sovereign nations, but I shudder to think of a gaggle of them running things where I live, by committee.
One thing that really convinced me I'd fallen through the looking glass was that a block of 3rd world countries were demanding nothing less than that the US and EU scrap all agricultural subsidies.
What can I say? It was breathtaking.
But, before you get all excited and think that the rulers of African and Latin American countries have come to their senses and are embracing the free market, I should tell you that they were not proposing to eliminate all of their own tariffs and subsidies. They are just the little guys, after all, and suffer disadvantages. Their idea of a level playing field seems to be that the wealthy countries should stop doing anything that props up prices and that the poor countries should be given exemptions, special waivers, etc. so that they can keep doing those same things.
Ironically, it was not over agriculture, the "big issue" of the meeting, that talks broke down. It was over other things, like government "transparency". According to reports I heard on site, the third world countries didn't want to have anything to do with such bourgeois notions, and the Mexican chair of the conference declared an impasse and shut the whole thing down.
But this is nothing compared to the strangeness the prevailed on the streets of Cancun. In spite of the last minute white-wash crews covering just about every thing made of cement with new coats of paint, the city leaders had obviously been preparing for the expected swarms of protestors for a long time. By some estimates we heard, they were expecting as many as 100,000 anti-capitalists,
or "globalophobicos," as they call them in Mexico.
City police were bolstered by hundreds of black and gray-clad Federales, armed with sword-length batons and armored with plexiglass shields, helmets, and shin guards. There were also beige-clad WTO security troops.
Huh? When did the WTO get an army?
Well, to be honest, I don't think they did. The WTO security personnel seemed to be a sort of Mexican rent-an-army. Their patches were stuck on with velcro. Actually, I think they ran out of patches, as many went around with no more mark of authority than their swagger and a fuzzy circle of unused velcro. Why Mexico had so many security personnel available to lend the WTO is a question I never got answered.
But these guys were ready for trouble, and I've never been through so many security check points per kilometer in my life. The scrutiny was all but unbearable. There was no goose-stepping, but the constant demand for my papers had me wishing for velcro of my own, so I could just walk around with my passport stuck outside my clothes, ready for inspection.
Fortunately, serious trouble never really happened. In fact, only about 1,000 anti-capitalists descended upon Cancun (which means, by the way of nothing in particular, "house of the snake," Kukulcan being the great serpent-god of the Maya).
There were about 150 Korean union laborers who mysteriously found themselves in possession of enough money to fly around the world and spend a week on the Mayan Riviera. Some rumors had it that the AFL-CIO gave them the money, but there was no way to know.
These people were bolstered by some 5,000 to 10,000 Mexican farmers and other Mexicans who came to rail against US agricultural subsidies and other injustices. The city of Cancun provided giant tents, water, porta-potties, power, and even ambulances around parks where the globalophobics were supposed to camp.
On September 10th, the first day of the WTO talks, the globalophobics and the Mexican farmers marched toward the convention center where the talks were being held. The police closed the few remaining gaps in a three-layered, barbed wire and chain-link barrier they had assembled across the road (the only other road to the conference center being 15 kilometers away, out by the airport), and the protestors were repulsed. Some managed to climb over the barriers and clashed violently with the police line, but the barrier held and not enough protestors managed to climb over for the march to break through.
I'm not sure if it was at this point, or just soon thereafter that one of the Korean activists, Mr. Lee Kyung-Hae, climbed up on the barrier and, shouting something like "WTO KILLS FARMERS," stabbed himself in the heart with a knife. (That this contradicted his thesis was not noticed by the press, nor the other protesters).
There was a great deal of outrage over this, even though rumors quickly circulated that Mr. Lee had staged such gory acts in the past, even going so far as stabbing himself in the stomach during a Geneva round of talks.
Bureaucrash activists interviewed some of the Koreans (see www.bureaucrash.com), and found that this stunt was not unexpected. Attempts had even been made to keep Mr. Lee from coming to Cancun for fear that he would do something similar -- though they didn't think he had meant to kill himself (rather that he had made a mistake with the knife). This did not stop them from mounting candlelight vigils and laying the blame on the WTO. Angry crowds even chanted vengeance slogans. (I filmed some of this, but thought it the best not to point out that Mr. Lee's killer was already dead.)
Apparently, such theatrics did not sit well with the Mexican farmers, who, we were told, pulled out en mass and left the globalophobics to stew in their own mess. The main protestor encampment was certainly a ghost-town when we went to check it out the next day.
I interviewed one Mexican couple, both of whom had jobs made possible by the global tourist trade that flows through Cancun. These people were highly outraged that, in addition to Mr. Lee's stunt, some protesters had apparently gone to a Mexican department store after being repulsed from the barrier and burned a Mexican flag.
I should say that the young couple, who were very conscious of Mexico's millions of poverty-stricken people, were sympathetic to the cries of "injustice" shouted by the protestors. However, they thought it terrible that Mexico had welcomed the protestors with open arms, provided for their needs, etc., and that the protestors had ignored the Wal-Mart, a perceived vanguard of globalization, and attacked a Mexican store instead. Desecrating their national symbol added insult to injury, and then protestors went out defacing historical monuments (one, I was told, was erected to honor a famous socialist), and causing problems for the local working people.
This was something I heard from many Mexicans. Thanks to the globalophobics, whose ideals they had thought so noble, many now had to go a half-hour out of their way to get to their jobs, and the richtourists out in the hotel zone by the convention center were blocked from coming into town and spending their money on local products and services.
The anti-trade activists had indeed created new barriers to trade, albeit temporary ones.
In another Wonderland twist, the Koreans bought hundreds of yards of 1/2-inch rope, and, with the practiced skill of a military review squad, pulled it, braided it, and braided it again into thigh-thick hawsers. With these, one layer at a time, they pulled down the very trade barrier their actions had caused to be erected.
Even more strangely, rather than storm through and engage the police line behind the tumbled wall, they then all sat down and held some sort of vigil. Maybe they knew they now lacked the numbers to take the police on, but it was still a bizarre turn of events.
Even more bizarre, however, were the number of people who had traveled so far ... for nothing. At least nothing they could articulate.
Many people refused to be interviewed, not because they knew I disagreed with them (at least, not at first, though they did seem to catch on by the end of the week), but because they could not answer my questions.
These were not hard questions, like, "How would you calculate the correct cost of goods without the price system?" but easy ones, like "Why are you here? What do you think of all this? What motivates you?" And even when I could get them to agree to an interview, their answers were often contradictory, if not outright incoherent.
One fellow, when I told him an interview would only take a minute of his time, turned around and slapped his sleeping buddy's leg and said, "Hey, man this guy wants to interview you." The awakening friend picked up his guitar and played me a song rather than answer any questions.
A pair of German girls told me they had just arrived, and would be able to answer my questions after they had been there a while.
Others, hunkered down in spaces cleared in the trash piling upbetween their dome tents (made from petroleum products and a few traces of materials extracted from the earth via heavy mining processes), simply refused any comment.
Weren't they there to get press? To bring attention to the plight of the world's "victims of globalization?" What the heck?
And then there was the violence.
When my companions expressed any pro-trade opinions, instead of passively collecting opinions about so-called fair trade, we were threatened with violence. This happened more than once. So much for peace and love.
I am no fan of riot police or the Mexican government, but I have to admit that the authorities in Cancun bent over backwards to avoid conflict with the protestors. They did not enter the protestor encampments and made no effort to clear them from the avenues and traffic circles they pitched their tents and posted their banners on. To my knowledge, the police never made any aggressive moves; they simply resisted when the protesters tried to march on the convention center and arrested some of the vandals when caught in acts of destruction.
Most notably, I saw *no* officials with guns, not even with "rubber" bullets such as those used by the Seattle police. With their bodies, the police held back the protestors, some of whom had homemade armor (football helmets and pads, motorcycle helmets and lacrosse gauntlets, etc.). And some of the police paid the price for this restraint with broken bones.
However, not all the protestors were violent and/or incoherent. I met a South African gentleman with an NGO circulating "Africa Is Not For Sale" T-shirts, who admitted that real free trade might work. His objection was that trade as practiced today, planned and restricted by the worlds' governments, especially the most powerful ones, was hardly real free trade. He had a point.
My Bureaucrash friends met a small band of Mexican farmers from Oaxaca who had stayed after the other farmers left. These people said they had no beef with free trade, per se. It was unfair trade masquerading as free trade -- specifically and particularly, massive US and EU agricultural subsidies -- they had a problem with.
Farm subsidies might seem like a domestic issue to most Americans, but when the borders are opened and Mexican farmers find themselves competing with US farmers backed by billions of dollars of subsidies ... I can certainly see why the Mexican farmers might complain. These folks were so reasonable, that in spite of their communitarian leanings, Bureaucrash activists were able to persuade them to hand out pro-trade literature to their fellow protestors.
Unfortunately, not all were so reasonable. Nor clean. The smell of literally unwashed pseudo-intellectuals, demanding that the WTO and the world take them seriously -- or at least obey their wishes - was repulsive. The mental chaos of their thoughts was worse.
It was an amazing experience. The crying need for economic education, eco-sanity, and simple logic struck me with redoubled force.
It was a moving experience. I found myself more motivated than ever to fight the forces of unreason, to do my best to boost the efforts of pro-market and pro-freedom advocates around the world.
I hope you are too.
If you're already in the fight, healing ignorance and opposing unreason, more power to you. [Louis James is CEO of Free-Market.Net <http://www.free-market.net>]
EUROPEAN UNION'S KILLER TRADE BARRIERS
By Alberto Mingardi, Cecile Philippe, Stephen Pollard, Dr. Sean Gabb
*Introduction
Trade barriers imposed by the EU are more than just a technical issue. Lack of access to the European market - by far the richest in the world - slows development in the poorest countries of the world, condemns thousands of millions of people to poverty and kills many others. This paper quantifies, for the first time, the cost to Africa of EU protectionism.
* The Challenge of Population Growth
* Economic Growth as the Answer
* Trade as the Engine of Economic Growth
If the poorest countries as a whole could increase their share of world exports by five per cent, that would generate £248 billion or $350 billion, raising millions more out of extreme poverty.
* European Protectionism
Yet while these countries talk endlessly about the liberalization of world trade, they have been ruthless in keeping their domestic markets closed to agricultural and textile exports from the poorest countries. According to the International Monetary Fund, the worst of the rich protectionists, however - by far - is the European Union. The EU runs two sets of protectionist policies that could be almost designed to wreck the trading chances of those of the poorest countries that have comparative advantages in food and textiles.
First, there are the trade restrictions. Added to open trade barriers are the complex rules of origin applied to imports from the developing world.
Second is the agricultural subsidy handed out by the EU under the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy. This amounts to $41 billion a year, or $14,000 per European Union farmer (though half the spending goes to the biggest 17 per cent of farming enterprises).
* The Human Cost of Protectionism 24,000 people die every day from starvation, or from causes directly related to malnutrition. In other words, one person dies every 13 seconds somewhere in the world - mainly in Africa - because the European Union does not act on trade as it talks.
When an earthquake or a famine strikes a region of the developing world, our sympathies are moved, and we donate large sums of private and public money for the alleviation of misery. But places like sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing a quiet disaster every day because, in large measure, of trade barriers.
* The Benefits of a Humane Trade PolicyOne of the problems of getting a more decent trading policy from the EU is that it is nearly always demanded in the name of humanity. The developing world would, as we have shown, benefit greatly from free trade with the EU. But so would the EU. They are instead an opportunity for both sides to benefit equally, if in different ways.
* Further Benefits of Free Trade
It reduces migration pressure from the developing world to the rich world.
It will reduce damage to the environment. It reduces water shortages that now plague much of the developing world. It will reduce population growth.
* Conclusion
For the European Union to open its markets to the poorest countries of theworld is the moral, humane thing to do. It is also directly of benefit to the true interests of European consumers and producers, and the interests of everyone across the planet. It is not a question of giving something away, but of helping create a plenty in which all will share.
[Courtesy: Libertarian International's Euroletter 88A / September 2003]
A FREE MARKET ODYSSEY
By Jelena Osipova
Ken Schoolland's 'The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey' which has been translated into 26 languages will be the first book to be published by the Alternate Solutions Institute, Lahore. This Urdu translation is ready for the press. Here is a letter from Ken Schoolland:
I just received this profound letter from one of the students at the Liberty English Camp in Lithuania this summer. She wrote about the impact of the Jonathan Gullible book on her. It is a beautiful letter that provides a compelling motivation to continue to place free market ideas in the hands of more students. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did.
Ken
Dear Mr. Schoolland,
I hope you are fine and healthy, just like when we met in a youth camp in Lithuania. I am the girl who participated in debates and had pleasure to get one of the most valuable presents in her life -
your book ('The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible'). I have read it and, of course, can not stop myself from expressing my opinion about it. Before I begin, let me say I am really sorry and ashame of my English mistakes. I hope they will not make you nervous or help you misunderstand me.
First of all, I need to point out that I am interested in chemistry, as I already mentioned through our conversation, also in web-design, languages, art, biology, etc., but not in economy. However, your book was so interesting that while reading it I did not realise that it is actually a well-made easy-to-understand economy text-book. Now I do know main problems and interesting effects of society's life which I have not thought about or even noticed before. I also found out that economy is not a dry science connected only with numbers and big amounts of money. In other words, I understood that in every subject sleeps a crystal that can be seen by a talented person and shown in a sparking beautiful appearance to other seekers who were not able to find it by themselves. I am grateful that you showed me, and many other people the crystal of economy.
The second thing I would like to discuss is the set of tools which you chose to reach such an impressing effect. Life is like one of those old paintings that contents lots of small details made by simple movements of the Creator's brush. But there are so many details that you are dazzled by them. How can we SEE, not just LOOK? You know answer for this question: we just need to gaze at every detail one by one. When Jonathan Gullible arrived at the Corrumpo island, he and I knew nothing about it. Later on, the picture of the wrong system appeared by getting together lots of details one after another. It reminds me of 'The Little Prince'. Exupery also showed moments of life that seemed important for him to show although, instead of joining them together he just left them far away on different planets...
Anyway, it is not the only thing I was impressed by. 'The Grand Inquirer' seems to be worth to remember him and take a few more minutes of your precious time. You see, at the moment I do have an opportunity to compare two different nations: people who love responsibility and those who are afraid of it. I live in Lithuania - a small country where people (in general) do not wish to
be responsible. They wait for others to make life better for them. On the other hand, Germans (I came from Germany only yesterday) are not afraid of responsibility. They do not throw rubbish in the street because they are responsible for their country to be clean, as an example. So I believe that some people are easily assured in their weakness so that they can have no more responsibility and some are not. The Grand Inquirer is powerful just in a suitable soil. In my opinion there are two
groups of people despite the white crows: sheep and shepherds. Shepherds are responsible for formation of sheep!'s lifestyle and minds. Such a strange-looking system seems to make both of them happy. Is there something wrong? I do not know, but I do not like it. So that, I liked that chapter about the Grand Inquirer. It is a perfectly-made detail - like a dessert at the end of the book.
And here is the dessert from me after such an exhausting letter. It suits to be a song of Jonathan as he seems to be quite an optimistic guy. Isn't he?
Oh! Every moment of my life
I want to sing, I want to fly.
I can regret for the only thing -
That nobody together sings.
Oh! Every time I see the light
I want to dance, I want to fight
With troubles I receive in life
That make me stronger, train me fine.
Oh! Every day I'm like a bird
Who's feeling free in its sky-world.
Believe in power of a smile!
It makes you happy, gets you high.
Yours sincerely,
Jelena Osipova [Lithuania]
Letters to FreePakistan
Thank you for sending me your email with the subject "FreePakistan Newsletter # 11". I really want to receive your email.
Jacob Sullum [Virginia, USA]
Re: Press Briefing: Free Trade Brings Prosperity
This is a fabulous accomplishment! You are such an excellent writer. It is amazing that people have such difficulty understanding the benefits and principles of free trade. It seems like an endless battle against ignorance and special interests. Very good work. How was the response from the journalists? I'll send this to ISIL.
Ken Schoolland [Hawaii, USA]
Letters from the Press
CAR IMPORTS NEEDED
[Dr Arshad Khan, Pakistan]
I read an interesting article in The News about the premium being charged on the cars that are being manufactured in Pakistan. The poor consumers are the sufferers. The government was very pleased to announce that the companies have started double and three shifts but despite that poor consumers have to wait for half a year to get delivery of their cars. This means that despite their maximum capacity, the car manufacturers are not in a position to deliver the cars in a reasonable time frame.
The most logical solution would be that the government calculate the back-log and based on those figures allow limited imports of cars of similar category. This will not have any adverse impact on the manufacturers and at the same time people will get their cars when they want them. The board should review the position every three months and keep on issuing import licenses based on the back log numbers. I don't see any problem with this simple solution provided the government is keen to solve this problem and that there have been no under the table deals. And why should the car manufacturers be given preferential treatment at the cost of the consumers.
[The News Lahore Edition]
ECONOMIC FREEDOM
[Editorial Daily The Nation Lahore]
YOU name the indicator, Pakistan figures negatively. If it is near the bottom of the Human Development Index, it is near the top of the Transparency International's list of the most corrupt countries. Its major economic indicators, such as GDP or per capita income are also nothing to write home about. Its social indicators, like infant mortality, literacy and population growth, also compare poorly with the rest of the world. Its government's performance suffers by comparison, in terms of low social spending and of high defence spending. True, it does not top in any of the negative categories, but the cumulative picture is not encouraging. Now another evaluation has come, the seventh annual Fraser Institute Economic Freedom Report, which again places Pakistan near the bottom, at 101 of the 123 countries rated. The government has every right to project its achievements, such as achieving some kind of solvency for government finances, or the size of the forex reserves, but the Fraser Institute Report does not support the high-sounding claims made about the far-reaching reforms and structural changes which the government's economic managers
keep on talking about.
The concept of economic freedom may sound rather like another one of those mantras that emanate from Western thinktanks every now and then, but like anything that involves money, jobs and livelihoods, it is important. The Fraser Institute examined 38 variables, and judges levels of economic freedom on the parameters of personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of person and property. Pakistanis will react with some emotion to the last in particular: security of person and property in the narrow sense of safety from criminals is at a low ebb, let alone in the wider sense of protection from improper legal action, or subjection to the corruption of state functionaries. The report notes that Pakistan scored particularly poorly because of its weak legal structures. Privatisation has been much touted, but little enough seems to have been done: the portion of the economy in state ownership is considerable, and that under state control is even larger. Of particular significance is the state's stranglehold on the banking system, which means that denial or granting of credit for non-economic reasons is in the hands of the government of the day.
It is worth noting that the Report includes military interference as a bar on economic freedom. This implies that a military dispensation cannot ever be a truly reforming government in the economic sphere, no matter how loud its protestations. Over-regulation has developed a class of profiteers who work the 'SRO culture.'Lack of economic freedom is a major contributor to the suppression of the potential of the Pakistani people, who are second to none in their innovativeness, energy and diligence. This must change. [The Nation Lahore September 9, 2003]
LAWS TO BREAK LAWS
[Gulmina Marwat, Peshawar, Pakistan]
Reference 'Law making is need of the hour'. I wholly agree with the writer that a session of either houses of the Parliament is to be convened. The legislature is really in need of making laws as to empower legislators to break laws and become a source of suspension for those who try to enforce laws. As in one instance when a traffic constable was suspended by his bosses on account of intercepting two MNAs from Sindh for traffic violation in Islamabad. [The News Lahore Edition]
WHO SAYS WE ARE POOR?
[Afzal Rahim, Peshawar, Pakistan]
Looking to the expensive limousines and Mercedes vehicles of our ministers, prime minister, president, the expenses made on refurbishing a train on Independence Day, the expenses incurred annually on President and Moghul styled Prime Minster House, the Punjab, Frontier Houses (to name a few) and the total budget allocated for beautification of our capital: Who will say we are a poor country and we depend on financial institutions like WB and IMF? [The News Lahore Edition]
FROM BAD TO WORSE
[Bushra Agha, Shikarpur, Pakistan]
Pakistan previously had federal and provincial government rule, this time the local government too is present along with those two.It is very amazing that despite this large number of elected workers the life of an average Pakistani is not satisfactory position and it even goes from bad to worse day by day. [The News Lahore Edition]
PIA AIR CARGO CARRIERS
[Jawaid Hussain, Multan, Pakistan]
It is a pity that our national flag carrier, PIA does not have the potential capacity, to cater to Pakistan's ever-growing air cargo market. Neither Lahore nor Islamabad has the infrastructure, to handle the vast cargo, which originates from areas in the vicinity of these airports. The frustrated traders of Sialkot, finally decided to build an airport with a runway of over 13000 feet from their own resources, after being convinced that vested interests in CAA will not pay heed to their requirements.
The problem now is that PIA has only two combi freighters that carry passengers and cargo both. There is no dedicated cargo aircraft in its fleet. The Boeing 747-300 has an underbelly cargo capacity of over 18 tons after catering to a full load of passenger baggage. This makes this aircraft unsuitable for operation from Sialkot, which cannot fill in the passenger seats. Boeing 777s that PIA has ordered and which are due for delivery in 2004 are state of the art technology, but these aircraft hardly have an underbelly cargo carriage space of about 4 tons, with a full load of passenger baggage.
Incidentally PIA was the first airline to purchase the Boeing 737 aircrafts fitted with new engines. We provided Boeing the opportunity to test these new aircrafts, obviously without any compensation. Boeing and the engine manufacturer made modifications based on our experience and at our expense. We now have offered ourselves as the pioneers to order the extended longrange B777s due for delivery after 2006.
As far as PIA is concerned it is obvious that for reasons best known to them, they don't seem to be interested, otherwise by now they should have acquired fullfreighter cargo aircrafts like Boeing 747-200C or Boeing 747-300C. PIA like all other state enterprises is inclined to go for expensive new aircrafts, which obviously suits our ruling elite who decide and have the power to place such orders. [The News Lahore]
FreePakistan News-Briefs
FEDERAL GOVT TO MIX IRON IN WHEAT FLOUR
According to the Chairman Flour Mills Association the Federal Government has decided to mix iron in wheat flour from next year to minimize iron deficiency in children and women.
NO BUSINESS WITHOUT INDIAN CHANNELS
Doing booming business in airing the Indian channels and India-produced programs in violation of the government policy of ban, the cable operators in the suburbs and periphery of the entire country are meeting "high public demand" as they term it. In the vicinity of Islamabad, the federal capital, where most federal officials live, this service is popular and aired unchecked. "Are we supposed to be enjoying non-Indian channels airing programs in English or other languages?" says one recipient who termed the government ban as "totally foolish and impracticable."
CBR WITHDRAWS POWERS OF ITCs
The Central Board of Revenue has withdrawn 'blanket powers' given to commissioners of income tax barring them from reopening any investigation into 'unexplained' income of tax payers.
FOREIGN INVESTMENT!?
Despite the Confidence Building Measures introduced by the government to attract foreign and local investment, the shaken trust of investors and traders has not fully been restored.
BAN ON MORE SUGAR MILLS
Pakistan Kisan Movement has welcomed the Punjab government's decision to ban new establishment as well as further expansion of sugar mills in the province.
BAN ON MORE SUGAR MILLS SLAMMED
Farmers Association of Pakistan has said the ban on setting up more sugar mills in the province will stop the productivity of sugarcane across the province and deprive cane growers of increasing their farm income.
NO FOREIGN AFFILIATIONS WITHOUT GOVT NOD
The institutions showing affiliation with international universities will have to seek permission from the Punjab government.
FIR AGAINST FEMALE DANCERS QUASHED
The Lahore High Court has quashed an FIR registered against two actresses on charges of provoking the public feelings through their vulgar dances in a local theatre. The court observed that people already have less to enjoy, then why the government is trying to deprive people from enjoyments.
NO LAW ALLOWS BAN ON DANCE
The Lahore High Court has observed that there is no law under which ban on dance performances on stage or theatres could be imposed. The court passed this observation while disposing of three petitions filed by Lahore Theatre challenging the registration of cases against them.
RS.10 BILLION TRANSPORT SCHEME IN SHAMBLES
The Rs.10 billion Urban Transport Scheme initiated by the Transport and Communications Department of Karachi City government has filed to take-off as it offers no attractive business to the transporters.
HEFTY SALARIES IN SME BANK
The National Assembly has been told that the 17 top level officials of the SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) Bank working on contract basis were getting on average Rs.100,000 each per month.
PROTECTION TO INVESTORS VITAL
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has observed that if the government does not provide protection to investors, there would be no investment in the country. The court also observed that foreign investors sign memorandum of understanding with Pakistan but avoid investing due to lack of security.
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Edited and prepared by
Khalil Ahmad
Email: khalilkf-at-hotmail.com
khalilkf-at-yahoo.com
[No opinion expressed here should be taken as reflecting the view of the FreePakistan Newsletter.]
