One of the potential paradoxes of the elections taking place in Pakistan today is that regardless of who is the winner the Army’s image and reputation seems to be a clear loser. Judiciary is not independent. Consequently, many can no longer find or see it. all very subtle and carefully orchestrated”. “Do you want to see our hospitality?” one official said, according to London’s Sunday Times, as he took his gun out of his pocket. He says its “unwritten, unstated . It stretches back to independence. They’ve been assigned magistrate powers to hold on-the-spot trials of anyone accused of breaking the laws and, thereafter, to sentence them.

Munizae Jahangir, an Aaj TV anchor who travelled with Mr Sharif on his return from London, was threatened by security and intelligence operatives when she filmed the former PM being taken off the plane.“Self-censorship is the new norm”, according to Raza Rumi, editor of the Daily Times. For the first time after 31 years of reporting on Pakistan, Sunday Times’ chief foreign correspondent Christina Lamb was denied a visa.”The story of the Pakistani military’s interference in the nation’s politics is not new. However, the recent episode arguably began with the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister followed by his debarment from politics and leading to his arrest and imprisonment.”

The Human Rights Commission chairman, Mehdi Hasan, calls this “blatant, aggressive and unabashed attempts to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming elections”. As scholar Ahmed Rashid puts it: “For the first time, not just the elite, but the public is aware of the Army’s major role. He also claims the National Accountability Court, which is trying corruption cases, is required to report to the ISI every evening. Alongside the Pakistan People’s Party and Awami Party candidates, they have been harassed, their movements monitored and restricted and their electoral banners removed.

Ironically, they were given permission to stand just after Pakistan was placed on the watchlist of the Financial Action Task Force..” Clearly discernible behind this is the iron hand of the military.After the election was called, Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission reported that the military’s security agencies put pressure on Nawaz Sharif’s candidates to switch loyalties and Australia plugs return their tickets.” The group’s well-known news channel was shifted by Islamabad’s main cable network from the number 9 to number 28 slot. Even the media is getting directions from the military.In the circumstances it’s hard to resist the conclusion of outspoken former senator Farhatullah Babar: “A creeping coup has taken place against the authority of the civilian government.

Its intimidation of politicians and journalists and its enormous power to manipulate the electoral outcome has been recognised and adversely noted across the country..Haroon, who is also president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, accused the Pakistani military in a BBC Hard Talk interview of an “unprecedented assault” on press freedom.Side by side with this sorry story is the disturbing saga of what has progressively happened to those parts of the Pakistani media that have the courage to speak out and criticise. “Today the judiciary and the media have come in the control of the ‘bandookwala’.Today, as people cast their votes, some 371,000 troops will be deployed both outside and inside polling stations. In addition to losing viewership, it’s losing advertising revenue. Some 200 Lashkar-e-Tayyaba candidates are in the field. The Human Rights Commission says they’ve been “subject to censorship, intimidation, harassment and abduction”. The BBC says nearly 17,000 of his party members face criminal cases for breaking unspecified election rules. Leading columnists have had their columns dropped; TV stations have introduced a 90-second delay to beep out anything sensitive. It is different from the martial law of the past, with two resulting outcomes — the civilian government exists, but has no authority; press freedom exists, but journalists have no freedom. Its velvet glove has worn very thin. As Ahmed Rashid said: “The real power appears to rest with Pakistan’s military and the judiciary, which China Power Cords sees undiluted democracy as a threat

The STAR was tested on a procedure called anastomosis, which comes after a surgeon has cut open the patient’s body and completed the main goal of the surgery — for instance by removing a tumour from the bowel — and is then reconnecting two sections, “like trying to put together a garden hose, which has been cut,” explained co-author Ryan Decker.Anastomosis is performed more than a million times each year in the United States, for surgery involving the intestines, as well urologic and gynecologic operations.As many as 30 per cent of gastrointestinal anastomoses “are complicated by leakage, strictures, and stenosis,” according to a statement from the Children’s National Health System.The STAR system is likely years away from widespread use.

“If you have a more consistent and a more, well-tensioned, evenly spaced suture around this garden hose, it’s going to be able to withstand a higher burst pressure,” Decker said.The machine, called the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR), does not replace the need for a skilled surgeon, but acts as a tool to improve the accuracy of stitching, said the report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. For the current study, surgeons made fluorescent markings on the vessels to be sewn, and the robot followed them, showing it could make more consistent and evenly spaced stitches, or sutures, than a human surgeon, Decker told reporters.Until now, robotic surgeries have largely relied on the expertise of the surgeon and outcomes have varied according the doctor’s skill, researchers say.“That’s in fact what happened with our anastomosis..This photo provided by Axel Krieger/Science Translational Medicine shows Dr Azad Shademan and Ryan Decker during supervised autonomous in-vivo bowel anastomosis performed by the smart tissue autonomous robot.

Researchers expect there will be a need for clinical trials to assess its safety in humans before it can approved by regulators.The study showed STAR outperformed expert surgeons and a well-known robotic surgery tool already on the market, called the da Vinci robot, which is held in the surgeon’s hand and used to perform surgeries such as hysterectomies through a few small incisions.Soft tissue is particularly complicated because it is malleable and moveable.But being able to improve on such surgeries “could potentially reduce complications and improve the safety and efficacy of soft tissue surgeries, about 45 million of which are performed in the US each year,” according to the study led by doctors at the Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.”The pigs survived the surgery and showed no complications a week later. They were able to withstand a higher burst pressure than surgeons performing the same task.

A robotic machine has succeeded at stitching two segments of a pig’s bowel together, an advance for the tricky field of soft tissue surgery, researchers said on Wednesday.Researchers stressed that surgeons were keeping a close eye on the machine as it worked, and it could be America extension cords quickly stopped if any error were to occur

It also comes as uncertainty surrounds the broadcast of Champions League matches in Brazil, South America’s biggest television market.That deal, which Facebook’s Director of Global Live Sports Peter Hutton said was not part of a move into buying up sports rights, will allow viewers in eight nations on the Indian sub-continent to watch every game over the next three seasons for free on the social network.Nearly all of Latin America’s top players are based with European clubs and many take part in the Champions League every year.

The current rights holder Esporte Interactivo said last week it would no longer be broadcasting Champions League games on its cable channel but is shifting them to two other non-sports channels owned by the company.Wednesday highlights and magazine programmes will also be shared each match-week on Facebook’s dedicated page, UEFA said.UEFA marketing director Guy-Laurent Epstein described it as a “highly innovative and accessible manner” to broadcast games to the region.

Social network Facebook will broadcast some Champions League matches America extension cords in Spanish-speaking Latin America on a free-to-air basis over the next three seasons, UEFA said on Wednesday.The first game to be broadcast online will be Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup final between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid.The deal, which runs from this season until 2021, gives Facebook exclusive free-to-air rights to 32 live matches each season, including the Champions League final and UEFA Super Cup, the European soccer body said in a statement.(Source).The decision comes a day after Facebook announced a similar deal with Spain’s top flight soccer division La Liga

"They confuse restoration of the wall with the development of a tourist attraction," Xinchiao was quoted as saying the state-run China Daily earlier this year."In the past, we repaired the entire ground.But on the ground, some workers view the new method with scepticism.He explained: "The idea is right, but I personally think that it still looks tattered after being repaired.Beijing: Nature, time, neglect and millions of footsteps have taken their toll on the Great Wall of China leaving much of it crumbling, but repairing it can be painstaking -- and controversial -- work.The plan to use traditional methods was implemented earlier this year in a bid to preserve the original look of China&Australia plugs39;s famous landmark, which is split into sections that altogether stretch for thousands of kilometres from China's east coast to the edge of the Gobi desert.

Engineer Cheng Yongmao, who has led operations in Jiankou for 15 years, said the latest restoration plan is meant to make "people feel that it has not been repaired".In places it is so dilapidated that estimates of its total length vary from 9,000 to 21,000 kilometres, depending on whether missing sections are included.Construction of the Great Wall first began in the third century BC and continued for centuries.".Today it attracts around 10 million tourists per year -- but the swell of visitors, combined with age and weathering, has left swathes of it in ruins. The bricks are used to mend these places," said Li Jingdong, one of the workers restoring the Jiankou section.Around him, labourers use an electric hoist to put a large stone that had fallen from the wall back in place, while mules traverse the steep mountainside bringing water and lime mortar for workers to mix and bind the stones with. Nearly 6,300 kilometres, including the Jiankou section, were built in the Ming Dynasty of 1368-1644. Now the idea is to repair less and keep more of the original things intact," said Li Jingdong.

To protect the relic, authorities in the heavily-visited Badaling section of the wall decided to cap visits to 65,000 people per day from June 1.Song Xinchao, deputy director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration said some of those tasked with preserving the wall have "stereotyped ideas" that every portion should look like Beijing's Badaling section, a heavily visited site that includes cable cars."It will break"In 2016, a section of the Great Wall in northeast Liaoning province was covered in cement, turning the uneven path -- originally built in 1381 -- into a flat surface which some compared to an ordinary pavement.It is physically demanding work -- placing one rock can take around 45 minutes and for their efforts, they are paid 150 yuan (USD 22) per day. Especially in the slopes, it will break in less a year under the feet (of tourists).Images of the restoration work went viral, causing a social media uproar, with people leaving comments such as "it's heartbreaking" and "poor Great Wall".

While the new regulation will accomplish the goal of keeping the aesthetic of the old wall, Li fears that such repairs will not last and the structure will keep falling apart.After public outcry when a 700-year-old section of the monument was 'fixed' by covering it with cement -- authorities insisted on more authentic restoration using traditional methods: so now labourers, aided by mules, use reclaimed stones and mortar.In response to that and other less high-profile cases, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a new conservation plan earlier this year based # on the principle of minimum intervention to restore the wall."They are all the bricks that collapsed from the original wall