I empathise totally with my compatriots because not only do I speak for them I also live the hard everyday grind that they do. I mean my flat in South Ken is no bigger than a few mud huts put together, I am a working mother and I labour endlessly to make ends meet. I mean I may not be harvesting wheat with a prehistoric sickle or winnowing grain with my bare hands or plowing the land behind a mangy buffalo but I work the lecture circuit ceaselessly and do an endless mea culpa at the State Department or wherever bemoaning the fact that I never had thecourage to stand up to the hawks in the military and adopted their belligerent agenda instead of making peace with India and forgetting about Kashmir which Nawaz so hamhandedly tried to do.

And just as my compatriots in Nau Dero beg their betters for a second hearing and the granting of largesse I too implore the policeman of the world for a second nay third chance to right all the wrongs that I, yes, I have committed. It will also grieve you to know that like my long suffering compatriots in the Indus Valley I too live below the poverty line here in London. In fact, it has come to the point where I very rarely have any cash to pay for anything so I have decided to issue cheques for whatever it is that takes my fancy.

You see I have now reached the stage in life where my signatures are worth a fortune so when I buy something and settle the account by cheque I do not owe anyone anything because the person who receives my cheque never wants to encash it for the simple reason that the piece of paper with mysignature on it is infinitely more valuable than the amount inscribed on it. Thus my non-existent bank balance remains untouched and I do not owe anything to anybody. And even if I did I would certainly never pay that nasty little jumped up tailor in Jermyn Street. Do you know what he did: I went along for the final fit of a rather natty jacket I had made for my new lecture tour of France you know, padded shoulders a la Margaret Thatcher and I had planned to start my lecture by stating ``Egalite Fraternite Thatcherite'' where was I? Oh yes, the tailor. He simply forgot to put in the pockets.

Why on earth, I asked him, have you not given me any pockets, and he replied: Madam, you don't need them. Whoever heard of a Pakistani politician with her hands in her own pockets? There's a civil war going on in my country.

Govt is WAPDA's major defaulter
l DAWN: DESPITE special recovery campaigns by WAPDA to collect outstanding dues both from public and private consumers across the country, dues stillkeeps piling up and have now reached a staggering figure of Rs 65 billion. According to WAPDA sources, the federal and provincial governments are the major defaulters rather than private consumers. Sources said even the induction of the army in WAPDA has not helped in improving recoveries because federal and provincial governments and their departments and agencies have not bothered to pay all their dues despite repeated warnings and threat of punitive action including disconnection.

Loans after Pak signs CTBT: Japan
l DAWN: JAPAN reaffirmed on Monday that it wants Pakistan to sign the international nuclear test ban treaty before it resumes new loans which it froze after Islamabad's nuclear tests last year, a foreign ministry official said. The official said visiting Pakistani envoy Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, in talks with Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, said the new government of General Pervez Musharraf was ``making efforts'' to reach a decision on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ``at an earlystage.'' While he welcomed Khan's comments, he said they alone were not enough to convince Tokyo to resume financial assistance.

``We would like them to first sign the CTBT," he said. Japan is Pakistan's largest aid donor. He reported Khan as saying the new Pakistani government would proceed with the issue in what it considered the right way, regardless of how India dealt with it.