Going for a Wikileak

Isn't is quite remarkable that almost none of the major newspapers in Pakistan thought that the 'leader of the Muslim Ummah' King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and the 'brotherly Muslim countries' of UAE and Qatar egging on the United States to bomb their supposed sibling in faith, the Islamic Republic of Iran - as revealed by Wikileaks - was worthy of any major headline?

Without fail, all of them buried that bit in the secondary 'catch-lines', if at all, with possibly only the Express Tribune and Nawai Waqt attaching it some real significance. Most focused on Abdullah's views on Asif Ali Zardari, while Dawn and the Urdu Express decided that the American plan to take enriched uranium fuel out of Pakistan was the most newsworthy.

Here's how some of the main newspapers' front pages looked today:

Dawn:

Jang:

The News:

The Nation:

Nawai Waqt:

Express:

Express Tribune:

Pakistan Today:

(Apologies for not having The Daily Times up here but they still don't seem to have an e-paper on the web.)

Okay, so obviously in Pakistan, the leaks directly connected to this country are of most immediate interest to people here. But judged purely on the level of news worthy of geo-strategic importance and with potentially massive consequences, wouldn't you say the Saudi desire to take out Iran is slightly bigger than Abdullah thinking Zardari is a loser? Of course, that may be just my personal news sense but I still do find it intriguing that no one else in Pakistan's print media shares it.

Coming to non-subjective issues, however, trust The News' Group Editor Shaheen Sehbai to muck up in the few paras he pens for the main story in his paper. He writes:

"As part of millions of documents dumped on the Internet, Wikileaks put one cable, which gave details of what King Abdullah really thought about President Zardari.Talking to an Iraqi official about the Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki, King Abdullah said: “You and Iraq are in my heart, but that man is not.” “That man” was Asif Zardari."

Er, no Mr Sehbai. When you're "talking about the Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki", you're not actually talking about Asif Zardari. Please get over your obsessions, they are really affecting your thought processes. Or at least learn to read properly.

Pakistan Today, In A Couple of Days?

We're hearing that Pakistan Today - former The Nation editor Arif Nizami's long-awaited new daily with the financial backing of Pakistan's richest (legitimate) businessman Mian Mohammad Mansha, among others - is set to make an appearance in the market this Saturday.

Sounds kind of odd, given that there has been no marketing push so far to introduce the paper, but that's what we're hearing and that's all we know so far.

Watch this space for updates.