World
Pakistan is bracing itself for huge street protests in the capital, Islamabad, this week amid a political crisis.
The Guardian reports:
Pakistan is bracing itself for huge street protests in the capital, Islamabad, this week amid political crisis that has resulted in cities' petrol supplies being cut, clashes between police and the followers of a controversial cleric in Lahore, and demands by politician and former cricketer Imran Khan for the government to quit.
The chaos and political uncertainly comes a little more than a year after a landslide election victory swept Nawaz Sharif, a conservative businessman, to power for the third time.
Meanwhile, clashes between protesters and police in Lahore over the weekend led to deadly violence. The New York Daily News quotes the Associated Press:
Fighting between Pakistani security forces and supporters of a fiery anti-government cleric killed seven people as they were heading toward a planned demonstration in the city Lahore, the cleric claimed Saturday. Authorities have contested the cleric's claim and put the death toll from clashes to two, including one police officer.
Cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, who led anti-corruption protests in January 2013 that paralyzed Pakistan's capital, has a network of mosques and religious centers across the country. His supporters briefly abducted six police officers in the fighting, which began Friday in Punjab province and continued into the next morning.
