Owais Mughal 

Click on the Urdu text below to see larger image size. Approximate English translation is given under the Urdu text.

(1) Shujat Lovers Wing established

According to the Nawa-i-Waqt, supporters of the King Maker politician, Chaudhry Shujat Hussain have created an organization called the Shujat Lovers Wing in Spain. The chief organizer of Shujat Lovers Wing is touring France these days. Talking to Nawa-i-Waqt correspondent, he said the main aim of forming Shujat Lovers Wing is to unite the community and tie them into a single string of LOVE.

Adil Najam

By nor our readers would know that TIME magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’ for 2006 is ‘You.’

For those who may not yet have actually seen the issue or not checked their email recently, the exciting news is that YOU-The Pakistani are represented on this by a 22-year old Pakistani photography hound, Ali Khurshid. We at ATP congratulate him for this deserved honor and happy to say that we ‘featured’ and honored him (in June) even before TIME did.

The ‘Person of the Year,’ really, is this thing called Web 2.0 which harnesses the untold energies of ordinary people to create a collectivity through blogs, Wikipedia, MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. that is taking – and sometimes beating – big ‘organized’ media. As the TIME cover story says:

…for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Guest Post by Imran Nasrullah

Recently, the New York Times reported on the case of a 10-year old boy from Lahore who could perform remarkable feats – like walking on burning coals and passing knife blades through his arm – without exhibiting any sign of pain. According to the NYT:

Geneticists following up the case of a 10-year old Pakistani boy who could walk on coals without discomfort have discovered a gene that is central to the perception of pain. The boy lived in Lahore, Pakistan, and was well known to the city’s medical authorities because he would come to the clinic asking to be patched up after his street theater. In these exhibitions, he would pass knives through his arms and walk on burning coals without feeling pain.

A research team led by C. Geoffrey Woods, a physician at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in Cambridge, England, reports in the journal Nature that team members have identified a genetic defect in some of the boy’s relatives who are also unable to feel pain. The defect inactivates a gene that is critical to the body’s perception of pain. The gene is obviously an attractive new target for drug developers seeking to eliminate pain.