The PPP government that came to power after the 2008 elections took oath from Musharraf who was still the president.The verdict of a special court against former president Pervez Musharraf is a landmark development in many ways.Interestingly, the former military ruler was tried not for his ‘original sin’ of staging a coup against an elected government, but for imposing emergency and holding the Constitution in abeyance in 2007. In a dramatic move last month, it Raw Materials lled out its team of prosecutors and asked the court to halt the trial, saying the case against the former military leader was weak. The verdict sends a strong message to potential adventurists. He has been out of the country for the past several years and is hospitalised for serious health problems. Musharraf was indicted in 2014 for imposing a state of emergency on Nov 3, 2007.

By arrangement with Dawn. Musharraf is required to be present in the country to file an appeal against his conviction but his return is improbable. A court has ordered the confiscation of all his properties and frozen his bank accounts.Gen Musharraf took power on Oct 12, 1999, in a coup that ousted Nawaz Sharif’s government. Musharraf has also been implicated in other cases including the Lal Masjid operation. Despite repeated summons, Musharraf failed to appear before the court. The court declared him an absconder. There had been strong apprehension that the trial would never reach its conclusion because of reported resistance from the military.Musharraf’s treason trial had become an explosive political issue and had also been a cause of tension between the military and the government of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The death sentence may not be implemented but the court ruling carries far-reaching political implications. There’s certainly a revenge aspect to the decision to initiate the treason trial, though the government maintained that it only complied with the Supreme Court ruling.Significantly, the Musharraf verdict came a day after the Supreme Court released its full judgement in army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa’s extension case. The court verdict has worsened the government’s predicament.  

Interestingly, the treason case was filed more than five years after Musharraf’s exit that came reportedly after a deal brokered by the US guaranteeing indemnity to the former president. The ambassador stressed that only the promise of indemnity had persuaded Musharraf to step down as president.It was evident that the PTI government had not been interested in pursuing the treason case.When a former military ruler is convicted and handed the death sentence in a country which has been under dictatorships for the better part of its existence, it is no less than history being made. The military was surely not happy with its former chief being put in the dock on treason charges, and predictably his conviction has provoked a robust reaction from the military leadership that had rejected the court order. He left the country in March 2016. It is not the end of the game yet.Many Pakistani political leaders have faced treason charges, but this is the first time a former head of state has been convicted under Article 6 of the Constitution.  

For him, it seemed to be an opportunity to settle scores with a man who not only deposed him but also put him on trial for sedition. The two court orders demonstrate an unprecedented assertion of authority by the country’s superior judiciary. It remains to be seen whether it challenges Musharraf’s conviction in the Supreme Court. This is the first time in Pakistan’s history that a former military chief has been declared guilty of high treason for suspending the country’s Constitution.  

The main argument for not charging Musharraf over the coup was that the Supreme Court and parliament indemnified his action.But the situation changed after the return to power of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister.In a cable sent to Washington and leaked by WikiLeaks, the then American ambassador Anne Patterson reported that Asif Zardari had told her that he was committed to giving indemnity to Musharraf. That has led to a new conflict between the military and the judiciary that in turn could worsen the political crisis. He stepped down as president in August 2008 under the threat of impeachment by the elected civilian government installed after the general elections that year. It has challenged the military’s predominance and demonstrates the growing assertiveness of the judiciary. Many legal experts question whether the 2007 action alone provided sufficient grounds for his conviction under Article 6, ignoring the original takeover.

Ask about Premier Zhou Enlai, and your Power Cords Suppliers host’s eyes will mist over. They waited 99 years to reclaim Hong Kong, and 400 years for Macao to rejoin. He should find himself another product.Waves of out-of-town visitors (more local than foreign) tramped through the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. Even that must have been swatted by now. He picked it up, dusted it, kissed it, and put into his pocket, next to his heart.  

China talks to itself without being eavesdropped by Google or WhatsApp.One witnessed a Saturday outing before the October holiday week when the whole of China goes on vacation.They are still waiting for the island of Taiwan. Every part of China has developed simultaneously — education, infrastructure, industry, social amenities, nuclear capability, technology. It is now part of China’s national DNA.Over 10 days spent in Beijing, Hohhot in Inner Mongolia and even in the open butchers’ shops in Xi’an’s Muslim quarter, only one fly was spotted. Places of worship in China exist, populated by a handful of faithful Buddhists and ageing Muslims. The Chinese have converted the traditional image of a crane (a symbol of longevity and peace) into a mechanical one, hovering, silhouetted against the sky atop countless high-rise apartment buildings.The Chinese are too sage and experienced not to have anticipated a rethink of expensive CPEC projects by our new government.They have converted the Kremlin and Tsarskoe Selo (outside St Petersburg) into shrines where Romanov relics are on display as reliquaries.In a Xi’an market, a stall owner makes his money selling facsimile currency notes for use at schools. China is kept spotless by silent shifts of unobtrusive cleaners.

Chinese are no more self-conscious than the former Soviets when resurrecting their imperial past, reliving past glories, even deifying autocrats. Except one — a small red Chinese flag. It is as if Russian and Chinese history had been buried in a shallow grave, waiting to be unearthed.The Chinese choose tactfully to ignore signs of rust. There must have been 250,000 in all, give or take 10,000.Traditional worship of emperors transformed into allegiance to the Communist Party, without the incense burning and knee-scraping rituals.A gesture by that ineffable mandarin Premier Zhou Enlai came to mind. Yet, there was not a single scrap of paper or a piece of waste visible anywhere.By arrangement with Dawn. Russian prospekts were swept each dawn by elderly war widows.If the Chinese had an equivalent of the Russian Orthodox Church, masses would be read today in Beijing or in Guangzhou as they are in Moscow and other Russian cities. They are waiting for Pakistan to decide what it needs. Mention the modernist Deng Xiaoping; his name evokes an appreciative smile. All China pays its bills by touch-tapping mobile phones that use Alipay and WeChat. It is now the turn of the underlings to return the compliment.And President Xi Jinping? His re-election “for life” in a gerontocracy says it all.The Chinese are used to waiting.  

And everything works, from the ubiquitous hot water dispensers to the funicular cable car in the Badaling section of the Great Wall, to the bullet trains that fly at a speed that would tire Superman. CPEC is referred to as the Karakoram Highway once was — an enduring connection between our two countries, an unstoppable, irreversible giant leap forward. Chinese patience is proverbial, but not to be taken for granted, even by a younger iron brother. They have announced their willingness to give Pakistan the projects it wants.Pakistan, even after an uneven 70-year-long relationship, is still regarded as China’s iron brother. Within a few years schoolchildren will be shown specimens of flies as examples of an extinct species.How has China been able to transform itself from a fiercely xenophobic country into a modern magnet? How has that iron lotus opened itself to a terracotta army of tourists and businessmen? What happened to that unquestioning adherence to Chairman Mao Zedong’s communist catechism?Images of the great leader exist but only in Tiananmen Square, or in museums, or on stalls offering Mao badges as souvenirs.For 5,000 years, Chinese imperial dynasties exploited their subjects.

A century has gone by since 1918, and the Russians have disinterred the bones of Czar Nicholas II and his family, canonising him as a saint.During a visit to Karachi in 1956, he spotted a Pakistani flag that had fallen to the ground. If there is anything compulsive in China it is urban development. How could one not emulate such a teacher?Flies are as rare as failure in China.Germophobia is not a compulsive disorder in China.Chinese cities are humiliatingly clean.Unlike many nations, the transformation of China has not been linear nor sporadic but radial.

Government lawyers, as well as big internet providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, argued to keep net neutrality repealed.The practice of slowing down transmission is known as "throttling.

"Today we fought for an open and free internet that puts consumers first, Mozilla Chief Operating Officer Denelle Dixon said after the hearing.The judges are weighing whether the FCC had the authority to nix the 2015 rules and get out of the business of enforcing net neutrality. It appeared that Williams was sympathetic to the FCC& Power Cables Manufacturers ;s arguments, while Judge Patricia Millett raised possible legal avenues for the companies and states suing the agency, and Judge Robert Wilkins was the swing vote, said Doug Brake, director of broadband and spectrum policy for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank.Tech companies and nearly two dozen US states clashed with the government in federal court Friday over the repeal of net neutrality, a set of Obama-era rules aimed at preventing big internet providers from # discriminating against certain technology and services. The FCC chairman he appointed, Ajit Pai, made rolling back net neutrality a top priority. Politicians have glommed on to the cause to appear consumer-friendly.The Democratic takeover of the House in November's midterm elections could revive efforts to enshrine net neutrality in federal law, though Trump likely would veto any such attempts.  

On the question of broadband providers charging premiums for faster service, Williams said a large majority of consumers prefer cheaper, lower-speed options, citing polls.The judges could decide to can the repeal or send it back to the FCC for a redo if they have specific objections.Thomas Johnson, the FCC's general counsel, said the agency's "light-touch" regulatory scheme, requiring the internet providers to disclose their practices and operations, provides adequate safeguards.Judges challenged arguments made by both sides in the faceoff in an appeals court in Washington. The companies challenging the FCC action include Mozilla, developer of the Firefox web browser, and Vimeo, a video-sharing site. Telephone services, too, offer an array of customer products, he said.The politically charged issue has emerged from its origins as an engineering challenge to become an anti-monopoly rallying point and even a focus for "resistance" to the Trump administration.On the other side, support for net neutrality comes from many of the same people who also are critical of the data-vacuuming tech giants that benefit from it.The net neutrality rules had banned cable, wireless and other broadband providers from blocking or slowing down websites and apps of their choosing, or charging Netflix and other video services extra to reach viewers faster. It therefore should be regulated as an information service and not subject to the utility-style oversight of phone companies, he said. The internet - used more extensively to transmit information - is different both in nature and function from phone service, Johnson maintained.Once Trump took office, net neutrality became one of his first targets as part of broader government deregulation.

"The action by the Federal Communications Commission rolling back the neutrality rules "is a stab in the heart of the Communications Act," said attorney Pantelis Michalopoulos, referring to the Depression-era law that established the FCC. "We believe the FCC needs to follow the rules like everyone else.".Lawyers for the states and the companies tried to persuade the three-judge panel to restore the net neutrality regime, set in 2015 during the Obama administration and repealed in December 2017 at the direction of a regulator appointed by President Donald Trump.At the hearing in the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Stephen Williams questioned Michalopoulos's assertions on the FCC wrongly classifying the internet as an information service.The FCC wrongly classified the internet as an information service rather than a telecoms service, using that as a rationale for not cracking down on misconduct by big internet providers, Michalopoulos said, who represents Mozilla and the other companies in the case.

Neither patients nor medical professionals knew which injections patients were receiving, but each patient eventually got one of each type, in a random order."In the field of Alzheimers disease research, there has been a major search for drugs to slow its progression.In recent years, researchers have focused on developing techniques to clear the brain of amyloid and tau protein plaques that build up and wreak havoc in the brains of patients with Alzheimers disease.

In the study, a UK plugs small group of patients with mild Alzheimers disease visited BIDMC three times.5 mg/kg) or a higher dose (7."Its worth noting, we did not demonstrate any improvement in cognitive function after a single dose of medication in this study. At each visit, patients were given a baseline (EEG) to measure the electrical activity in the brain.Next, patients were given injections containing either inactive placebo or the anti-seizure drug levetiracetam, at either a low dose (2.After receiving the injection, patients underwent another EEG, then magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) -- which measures blood flow in the brain, another way to quantify brain activity and determine where in the brain it is taking place. Press, MD, of the Berenson-Allen Center for Non-invasive Brain Stimulation at BIDMC, documented changes in patients EEGs that suggest the drug could have a beneficial effect.The team led by Daniel Z. So our findings represent an interesting new avenue.Washington DC: According to a recent study, the scientists have tested an anti-epileptic drug for its potential impact on the brain activity of patients with mild Alzheimers disease.

Finally, patients took a standardized cognitive test, designed to measure memory, executive functioning, naming, visuospatial ability and semantic function - capabilities all affected by Alzheimers disease.5 mg/kg)."The research was published in the Journal of Alzheimers Disease. There have been a lot of disappointments.In the seven patients who were able to complete the study protocol successfully, Press and colleagues analyzed changes in their EEGs. Today, it affects more than 5 million Americans, a figure that is projected to reach 16 million by 2050 as the population ages. If this abnormal electrical activity is leading to more damage, then suppressing it could potentially slow the progression of the disease," said Press, an Instructor of Neurology in the Cognitive Neurology Unit at BIDMC and an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.Overall, higher doses of the anti-seizure drug appeared to normalize abnormalities seen in the patients EEG profiles. Its too early to use the drug widely, but were preparing for a larger, longer study," noted Press.

That is, researchers saw overall increases in brain wave frequencies that had been abnormally low in Alzheimers disease patients prior to receiving the higher dose of levetiracetam, and, likewise, saw decreases in those that had been abnormally high.Press concluded by saying, "These strategies have not led to new therapies to date.The risk of developing Alzheimers disease increases sharply with age.

Estimate how hard it’ll be to park your car on Google Maps. This system has been trained on almost a million portraits to learn how to pick out the subject of the photo and blur the background.Find the right address on Google Maps, thanks to a system that learned to read street names and addresses from billions of Street View images.

Search what you see with Google Lens, whether it’s landmarks, books, artwork, or your neighbor’s dog.Watch more than one billion YouTube videos with automatic captions, powered by machine learning algorithms that transcribe speech in 10 languages.Productivity and securityQuickly respond to an email with Smart Reply in Gmail. It’s possible only with the latest in computer vision, using machine learning to identify objects and browse the world around you. It’s the classic “traveling salesman” research problem, applied to modern transportation and all the complex ways people move around.Take a photo in Portrait Mode on Pixel 2, and it’ll perfectly blur the background of the photo. It takes into account parking availability in a given area, and has learned the patterns of how different parts of a city get busy at different times.  

Google Translate uses optical character recognition to figure out the words, and a translation system that has been trained on millions of examples of existing translations on the web.Google Play Music delivers personalized recommendations to play the right music for any moment. This ability to learn patterns, called machine learning, makes your life easier in many ways—read on for 13 of them!FunSearch for “dogs” or “hugs” in your Google Photos library to find your favorite furry friends and (non furry) moments. Once you’ve selected one, you can send it immediately or edit your response.You can strike up a conversation with your Google Assistant in more than a dozen languages, and this year it’ll be available in many more. Here’s the rundown: we train a software system with lots of examples so that it can pick up on patterns.A smart algorithm in Google Trips can help plan your next travel itinerary. Rather than telling the computer that all spam emails contain the phrase “new weight loss trick!,” you train it on millions of examples of spam, making small corrections until it can pick out the pattern on its own.  

By taking into account things like time of day or weather, Play Music can suggest the right music for cooking dinner or watching the sunset.And with Nudging, Gmail uses AI to remind you to follow up or respond to China Power Strips messages that are older than two to three days, making sure you don’t drop the ball.Every day, Google Play Protect automatically reviews more than 50 billion apps, and even devices themselves, and takes action when it finds anything suspicious.AI often sounds like some far-off science fiction concept, but it’s actually behind a lot of things you encounter in your daily life. Even if you haven’t captioned any of your photos, Google can surface the ones that have the object or action you’re looking for. Smart Reply saves you time by using AI to suggest three responses based on the email you received.Helping you out in the worldTranslate text on a sign or menu by holding your camera in front of it.