http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aafia_Siddiqui
Monday, July 28, 2008
Mis-Print in Rs.50 Note
The State Bank of Pakistan appears to have made a mistake by confusing the K2 peak with the Karakoram Range while printing its name on the new Rs50 currency note.
The snow-covered peak on the backside of the Rs50 currency note is mentioned as Karakoram Peak and its height has also been printed as 8611 metres. There is no Karakoram Peak as such in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, which prides itself on having some of the tallest mountain peaks in the world. We all know about the Karakoram mountains range but one has never heard about any particular Karakoram Peak.
Shahzad Amjad Shinwari, a sales executive working in a private firm in Peshawar, pointed out the mistake. A keen observer, he told The News the height mentioned on the currency note corresponded with that of the K2 mountain peak. “K2 is 8,611 metres high and so is the so-called Karakoram Peak mentioned on the new Rs50 note. The picture printed on the currency note is of K2, which is always snow-covered and is a glorious sight to behold. I think the SBP has made a mistake by mentioning K2 as Karakoram Peak,” Shinwari explained.
Shinwari seems to have a point. The SBP should clarify the situation. Its efforts to promote Pakistan’s landmarks such as the K2 peak on its currency notes are praiseworthy, but it should be careful not to distort facts.
Senior Pakistani journalist Nayyar Zaidi behind bars in US
A senior Washington-based Pakistani journalist, Nayyar Zaidi, has been under detention in the United States, since March, for reasons not known, his wife and a local website said.
Zaidi has been living in Virginia for more than 20 years now. He is a well renowned columnist for a major Pakistani newspaper, and a political analyst/commentator both for CNN and BBC Urdu, and several other world media.
Ms Shaheen, wife of Nayayar Zaidi, has informed the Washington-based Pakistani journalists and sent them some documents for review and publication. These include copies of correspondents Zaidi had with the Department of Justice and FBI, along with some hand written notes, observations, by Nayyar himself. Nayyar has been kept in detention in Ohio, according to a website.
He told the website that he had gone to Ohio as part of his journalistic 'obstruction of justice' research against individuals from 'all over the world', being held there under 'anti-terrorism' and related laws. but ended up being detained in the same facility. He is awaiting trial now.
He said that he has been "targeted", and the "story" goes back to 1995. According to Nayyar, he was first visited by Feds (FBI) in 2003, and was asked to "become an informant", which he refused.
He then pursued the matter and, according to him, he has a case against them for "obstruction of justice" and "due process of law". The Press Attache at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, Nadeem Kiani, said he found out about Nayyar 's detention only on Sunday from Ambassador Hussain Haqaani, who found it out from Pakistan.
According to Kiani, Haqqani is concerned for Nayyar's welfare. Both were unaware that Zaidi has been in detention for more than three months now. Interesting!
Courtesy: DAILY.Pk
Zaidi has been living in Virginia for more than 20 years now. He is a well renowned columnist for a major Pakistani newspaper, and a political analyst/commentator both for CNN and BBC Urdu, and several other world media.
Ms Shaheen, wife of Nayayar Zaidi, has informed the Washington-based Pakistani journalists and sent them some documents for review and publication. These include copies of correspondents Zaidi had with the Department of Justice and FBI, along with some hand written notes, observations, by Nayyar himself. Nayyar has been kept in detention in Ohio, according to a website.
He told the website that he had gone to Ohio as part of his journalistic 'obstruction of justice' research against individuals from 'all over the world', being held there under 'anti-terrorism' and related laws. but ended up being detained in the same facility. He is awaiting trial now.
He said that he has been "targeted", and the "story" goes back to 1995. According to Nayyar, he was first visited by Feds (FBI) in 2003, and was asked to "become an informant", which he refused.
He then pursued the matter and, according to him, he has a case against them for "obstruction of justice" and "due process of law". The Press Attache at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, Nadeem Kiani, said he found out about Nayyar 's detention only on Sunday from Ambassador Hussain Haqaani, who found it out from Pakistan.
According to Kiani, Haqqani is concerned for Nayyar's welfare. Both were unaware that Zaidi has been in detention for more than three months now. Interesting!
Courtesy: DAILY.Pk
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Food We Waste
In the UK we throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, roughly a third of everything we buy. Most of this avoidable and could have been eaten if only we had planned, stored and managed it better. Less than a fifth is truly unavoidable – things like bones, cores and peelings.
Nearly one quarter of the 4.1 million tonnes of avoidable food waste is thrown away whole, untouched or unopened. Of this, at least 340,000 tonnes is still in date when thrown away. A further 1.2 million tonnes is simply left on our plates. This all adds up to a story of staggering wastefulness. For example every day we throw away:
- 5.1 million whole potatoes
- 4.4 million whole apples
- 2.8 million whole tomatoes
- 7 million whole slices of bread
- 1.3 million unopened yoghurts and yoghurt drinks
- 1.2 million sausages
- 1 million slices of ham
- 0.7 million whole eggs
- 0.7 million whole bars of chocolate and unwrapped sweets
- 0.3 million unopened meat-based ready meals or takeaways
- 0.3 million unopened packets of crisps
All this wasted food is costly; in the UK we spend £10.2 billion every year buying and then throwing away good food. That works out at £420 for the average UK household. And for households with children it’s even more - £610 a year.
Download the full report hereMonday, July 21, 2008
An Encounter with the taliban in Bara
When my host in Peshawar advised me to dress in a Shalwar Kameez instead of jeans and a T-shirt, wear a prayer cap and refrain from shaving, I ignored his advice. But in Bara, when I saw the Taliban and heard them shouting at me in Pashto, I really regretted not paying heed to my host’s sincere warnings.
My host, who is an influential person in Khyber Agency, arranged my trip to the Khyber Agency and insisted I visited all its three Tehsil — Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal — and also advised me to take a public bus to reach Bara. Once again, ignoring his advice, a local friend and I hired a rented car to reach Bara bazaar, the stronghold of the followers of Mangal Bagh of the Lashkar-e-Islam.
Lashkar-e-Islam is a militant organisation that is imposing its own brand of Islam on the residents of Khyber Agency and also fighting a local rival group, the Ansarul Islam, in the Tirah Valley, a far-flung area of the Khyber Agency. Their aim: to have full control of the most strategic point along the Afghanistan border.
Other militant organisations with a similar agenda are also active in the area, including the Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Unnil Munkar who also use force to impose their own brand of Islam and the teachings of their Amir, Haji Namdar, on local people as well as visitors.
We entered the Bara bazaar of Khyber agency by travelling on the Bara road that leads to the tribal area. Heavy contingents of paramilitary troops and police were seen patrolling the road while several pickets were also established there. They were, however, not bothering people travelling to the tribal areas.
The shock of glimpsing the Taliban for the first time in the Bara bazaar was unexpected, given that the area is hardly a 45 minutes’ drive from Peshawar. There was not a single security personnel present in the bazaar although government officials make daily claims of re-establishing the writ of the government and clearing the area of militants. Instead, we saw three vehicles with black flags mounted on their front and my guide told me that they were either Mangal Bagh’s men or the Taliban.
Read the rest here
My host, who is an influential person in Khyber Agency, arranged my trip to the Khyber Agency and insisted I visited all its three Tehsil — Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal — and also advised me to take a public bus to reach Bara. Once again, ignoring his advice, a local friend and I hired a rented car to reach Bara bazaar, the stronghold of the followers of Mangal Bagh of the Lashkar-e-Islam.
Lashkar-e-Islam is a militant organisation that is imposing its own brand of Islam on the residents of Khyber Agency and also fighting a local rival group, the Ansarul Islam, in the Tirah Valley, a far-flung area of the Khyber Agency. Their aim: to have full control of the most strategic point along the Afghanistan border.
Other militant organisations with a similar agenda are also active in the area, including the Amr Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Unnil Munkar who also use force to impose their own brand of Islam and the teachings of their Amir, Haji Namdar, on local people as well as visitors.
We entered the Bara bazaar of Khyber agency by travelling on the Bara road that leads to the tribal area. Heavy contingents of paramilitary troops and police were seen patrolling the road while several pickets were also established there. They were, however, not bothering people travelling to the tribal areas.
The shock of glimpsing the Taliban for the first time in the Bara bazaar was unexpected, given that the area is hardly a 45 minutes’ drive from Peshawar. There was not a single security personnel present in the bazaar although government officials make daily claims of re-establishing the writ of the government and clearing the area of militants. Instead, we saw three vehicles with black flags mounted on their front and my guide told me that they were either Mangal Bagh’s men or the Taliban.
Read the rest here
Friday, July 18, 2008
Plans to legalise prostitution for the 2010 football World Cup
The local authority in Durban wants legalised adult entertainment venues during the tournament.
But African Nazareth Democratic Movement (ANDM) president Thokozani Hlatshwayo said the proposal was "against the word of God".
Opposition parties fear that, if introduced, it could become permanent.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance and the youth wing of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) have condemned the suggestion.
"Plans to legalise Durban's red-light districts before the 2010 World Cup should be condemned in the strongest possible manner," said Pat Lebenya-Ntanzi of the IFP youth brigade.
She said the South African government was sending out mixed messages to young people.
"On the one hand it preaches strong family values and moral regeneration, but on the other hand they want to legalise prostitution on Durban's streets. It doesn't make sense," she said.
An additional concern is Aids - some five million people in South Africa are HIV-positive - making it one of the world's worst-hit countries.
Read the full news here
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Straitjacket - French minister denounces burqa
Ms Amara, who is a French-born Muslim of Algerian parentage, said she supported the ruling in June by France's highest administrative court, the Conseil d'Etat.
Read full article here
"The burqa is a prison, it's a straightjacket," she told Le Parisien.
"It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy."
The minister said she hoped the court's ruling might in future "dissuade certain fanatics from imposing the burqa on their wives".
Ms Amara, who is also a prominent women's rights campaigner, said she made no distinction between the veil and the burqa, describing both as symbols of oppression for women.
"It's just a question of centimetres of fabric," she added.Read full article here
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Karzai should look deep in his own armpit..
On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.
Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.
After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.
What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.
The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead.
Read the full article on BBC
Gilani’s Dubai visit cost nation Rs10m
The diversion of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza GilaniÃs plane from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai, instead of landing at Islamabad after attending the D-8 Summit, cost the national exchequer more than 10 million rupees, sources told The News on Monday.
Gilani and his 40-member delegation, which also included one member from the opposition and five businessmen, had left the country on July 7 to attend the Summit. More than 50 security personnel and bureaucrats had gone to Kuala Lumpur in advance.
According to some members of the delegation, the team was to land back in Islamabad. However, the plane was diverted to the UAE, where Gilani and some other PPP leaders were to attend a party meeting. According to sources in the PIA, the flight diversion cost the government a total of Rs1.6 million in terms of aviation, fuel and some other charges. Besides this, said the sources, keeping in view the summer, which is a ëseasonà of travelling, the extra use of plane cost the PIA over Rs5 million.
The sources told The News that after reaching Dubai, some bureaucrats and members of the delegation were accommodated in the luxurious Grand Hyatt Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in the world. The remaining delegation members were ëchecked inà in yet another luxurious hotel, Move-n-Pick. Information Minister Sherry Rahman, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah and Minister for Kashmir and Northern Areas Qamar-ul-Zaman Kaira had directly reached Dubai from Pakistan to attend the CEC meeting.
According to the sources, 40 rooms were reserved in the Grand Hyatt Hotel besides the rooms reserved in the other hotel. Those members of the delegation who were not part of the PPP meeting remained ìstuck to their roomsî as a tour of Dubai was not scheduled.
Sheikh Waqas Akram, a senior PML-Q leader and the member of the delegation, while confirming the information to The News, said it was very unfortunate that our rulers were enjoying stays in luxury hotels at a time when the nation was suffering from its worst-ever crisis. Sherry Rahman, despite several attempts by The News, was not available to take the calls. Principal Information Officer Ghulam Hazoor Bajwa, however, said the Dubai visit was a scheduled one, saying that he was in the knowledge of it even before the prime minister had left the country.
Courtesy: THE NEWS
Gilani and his 40-member delegation, which also included one member from the opposition and five businessmen, had left the country on July 7 to attend the Summit. More than 50 security personnel and bureaucrats had gone to Kuala Lumpur in advance.
According to some members of the delegation, the team was to land back in Islamabad. However, the plane was diverted to the UAE, where Gilani and some other PPP leaders were to attend a party meeting. According to sources in the PIA, the flight diversion cost the government a total of Rs1.6 million in terms of aviation, fuel and some other charges. Besides this, said the sources, keeping in view the summer, which is a ëseasonà of travelling, the extra use of plane cost the PIA over Rs5 million.
The sources told The News that after reaching Dubai, some bureaucrats and members of the delegation were accommodated in the luxurious Grand Hyatt Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in the world. The remaining delegation members were ëchecked inà in yet another luxurious hotel, Move-n-Pick. Information Minister Sherry Rahman, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah and Minister for Kashmir and Northern Areas Qamar-ul-Zaman Kaira had directly reached Dubai from Pakistan to attend the CEC meeting.
According to the sources, 40 rooms were reserved in the Grand Hyatt Hotel besides the rooms reserved in the other hotel. Those members of the delegation who were not part of the PPP meeting remained ìstuck to their roomsî as a tour of Dubai was not scheduled.
Sheikh Waqas Akram, a senior PML-Q leader and the member of the delegation, while confirming the information to The News, said it was very unfortunate that our rulers were enjoying stays in luxury hotels at a time when the nation was suffering from its worst-ever crisis. Sherry Rahman, despite several attempts by The News, was not available to take the calls. Principal Information Officer Ghulam Hazoor Bajwa, however, said the Dubai visit was a scheduled one, saying that he was in the knowledge of it even before the prime minister had left the country.
Courtesy: THE NEWS
Who wants Milk at Rs.50/litre
The cement industry has started using bran as an energy source, pushing its price up by Rs2,500 per tonne in just two days to Rs5,000, The News has learnt. Besides the price increase, the burning of bran in cement factories will adversely affect the environment and prices of milk in the country.
Following the increase in gas and coal prices, the cement industry has started consuming wheat bran for its burning process for cement making. Currently, almost every cement unit of the province is using bran as an energy source in order to continue the production.
The price of bran has sharply increased in just two days and the livestock sector feared that if the government did not intervene, the price will further increase to Rs7,500 to Rs10,000 per tonne.
Bran is used as fodder and after its use in the cement industry it will not be available to the livestock sector. Thus, a shortage of fodder can occur in the market, livestock sources said, adding currently average bran utilisation of a cement unit is 300 tonnes daily.
The cement industry argues that the price of coal has reached Rs14,000 per tonne while gas prices have also been sharply increased by the government. In such a scenario, it is impossible for the industry to continue its production to compete in the international market.
In order to meet its energy requirement, the industry has been burning bran in its units during the cement-making process, they admitted. However, they were of the view that they were paying a higher price than the livestock sector, and hence, they had the right to buy it from the open market at higher prices than the farmers.
Livestock sector sources said that if the current pace of utilising bran stays the same, the cement industry will continue employing it till it completely diminishes in a matter of two months. The farmers and fodder sellers buy bran and stock it, which is then later used by the livestock farmer round the year till the new wheat crop arrives.
Once bran becomes unavailable in the market, or the price of it sharply increases taking it completely out of the common farmers, they will be compelled to switch to other fodders which will be far costlier. This will adversely affect milk production and its price in the country. The livestock sector feared that if the surging trend in the price of bran continues, the price of milk can reach as high as Rs50 per litre from Rs32 per litre.
It is important to mention here that burning of bran, husk and chafe is an offence. The Indian government has made a law that prohibits bran, husk and chafe from being used for burning purposes by any industry.
courtesy: THE NEWS
Following the increase in gas and coal prices, the cement industry has started consuming wheat bran for its burning process for cement making. Currently, almost every cement unit of the province is using bran as an energy source in order to continue the production.
The price of bran has sharply increased in just two days and the livestock sector feared that if the government did not intervene, the price will further increase to Rs7,500 to Rs10,000 per tonne.
Bran is used as fodder and after its use in the cement industry it will not be available to the livestock sector. Thus, a shortage of fodder can occur in the market, livestock sources said, adding currently average bran utilisation of a cement unit is 300 tonnes daily.
The cement industry argues that the price of coal has reached Rs14,000 per tonne while gas prices have also been sharply increased by the government. In such a scenario, it is impossible for the industry to continue its production to compete in the international market.
In order to meet its energy requirement, the industry has been burning bran in its units during the cement-making process, they admitted. However, they were of the view that they were paying a higher price than the livestock sector, and hence, they had the right to buy it from the open market at higher prices than the farmers.
Livestock sector sources said that if the current pace of utilising bran stays the same, the cement industry will continue employing it till it completely diminishes in a matter of two months. The farmers and fodder sellers buy bran and stock it, which is then later used by the livestock farmer round the year till the new wheat crop arrives.
Once bran becomes unavailable in the market, or the price of it sharply increases taking it completely out of the common farmers, they will be compelled to switch to other fodders which will be far costlier. This will adversely affect milk production and its price in the country. The livestock sector feared that if the surging trend in the price of bran continues, the price of milk can reach as high as Rs50 per litre from Rs32 per litre.
It is important to mention here that burning of bran, husk and chafe is an offence. The Indian government has made a law that prohibits bran, husk and chafe from being used for burning purposes by any industry.
courtesy: THE NEWS
100 Days of PPP
Petrol 76
Diesel 56
Gas 30% raise
Atta Rs.40/kg (if available)
Electricity 16% High
GST 16% on all items
Awam Mar Gai
Par
Aj Bhi Bhutto Zinda Hai...
Diesel 56
Gas 30% raise
Atta Rs.40/kg (if available)
Electricity 16% High
GST 16% on all items
Awam Mar Gai
Par
Aj Bhi Bhutto Zinda Hai...
Monday, July 14, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
George W. Bush Sewage Plant - A memorial
A California group submitted a proposal Monday to rename a sewage treatment plant after President Bush, calling the initiative a fitting tribute to the outgoing chief executive and the "mess" he'll leave behind.
The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco wants to switch the name of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
Supporters hoping to put the issue on the November ballot turned in more than 10,000 signatures to San Francisco election officials, organizer Brian McConnell said. The measure needs just over 7,000 valid names to qualify and McConnell expects to find out later this month whether they made it.
Proponents of the renaming plan see it as fitting tribute to a president they contend has plumbed the depths of incompetence.
"We think that it's important to remember our leaders in the right historical context," said McConnell, a member of the group that was formed after friends came up with the renaming idea.
"In President Bush's case, we think that we will be cleaning up a substantial mess for the next 10 or 20 years," he said. "The sewage treatment facility's job is to clean up a mess, so we think it's a fitting tribute."
The "mess," as supporters of the plan see it, includes the aftermath of the Iraq war and what they see as a neglect of domestic economic issues.
"What we're really doing is symbolizing the fact that as he leaves office, we'll begin the process of basically repairing damage and rebuilding our country's reputation," he said.
But others think the plan reeks.
The chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party has promised to fight the measure if it does make the ballot.
A call by The Associated Press to White House press officials was not returned. But Patrick Dorinson, a former spokesman for the California Republican Party now running a communications firm in Sacramento, called the measure "a horrible idea" that is "childish and it's stupid."
"This is why San Francisco is considered wacky," Dorinson said. "It makes me ashamed to be a San Franciscan if this is all they've got time to do."
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tony Winnicker says officials have bigger issues to deal with than the proposed initiative. He defended Oceanside as anything but a symbol of inadequacy.
"The plant that they're seeking to rename really offers extraordinary environmental benefits. Without it, raw sewage and storm water would flow into the bay and the oceans and the streets. That's not our understanding of what the authors of this initiative believe the current president has delivered," Winnicker said.
Still, he said, the commission is "trying to take it in stride and understand the humor behind it."
Courtesy: YAHOO NEWSBush: Pakistan, Not Iraq, Next President's Big Task
On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol recounts that in a 90-minute, mostly off-the-record meeting with a small group of journalists last week, President Bush "conveyed the following impression, that he thought the next president's biggest challenge would not be Iraq, which he thinks he'll leave in pretty good shape, and would not be Afghanistan, which is manageable by itself. ... It's Pakistan." We have "a sort of friendly government that sort of cooperates and sort of doesn't. It's really a complicated and difficult situation."
Time reports counterterrorism officials "say the best hope for nabbing No. 1 and No. 2," Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, "may lie in the capture of second-tier al-Qaeda commanders who know where their bosses are hiding." A recent CIA report "speculates that bin Laden has long-term kidney disease and may have only months to live, two U.S. officials familiar with the report told TIME. (A CIA spokesman denied the report exists.)" The Pentagon has "requested that Bush sign an 'execute order' expanding its authority to go after these commanders in Pakistani territory." But some in the Administration are reluctant to cross that line for fear of destabilizing Pakistan's recently elected government." The New York Times, meanwhile, says in an editorial that the "alarming resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan makes it even more imperative for the United States to begin planning for a swift and orderly withdrawal from Iraq."
Courtesy: US News
Time reports counterterrorism officials "say the best hope for nabbing No. 1 and No. 2," Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, "may lie in the capture of second-tier al-Qaeda commanders who know where their bosses are hiding." A recent CIA report "speculates that bin Laden has long-term kidney disease and may have only months to live, two U.S. officials familiar with the report told TIME. (A CIA spokesman denied the report exists.)" The Pentagon has "requested that Bush sign an 'execute order' expanding its authority to go after these commanders in Pakistani territory." But some in the Administration are reluctant to cross that line for fear of destabilizing Pakistan's recently elected government." The New York Times, meanwhile, says in an editorial that the "alarming resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan makes it even more imperative for the United States to begin planning for a swift and orderly withdrawal from Iraq."
Courtesy: US News
Monday, July 7, 2008
Pakistani woman detained at Bagram airbase
A Pakistani woman has spent the last four years, and remains to this day, in solitary confinement at the United-States run Bagram airbase detention facility in Afghanistan, British journalist and peace activist Yvonne Ridley told reporters on Sunday.
“Today I am crying out for help, not for myself but for a Pakistani woman neither you nor I have ever met. She has been held in isolation by the Americans in Afghanistan and she needs help,” Ridley said.
Ridley said she first learnt about the woman while reading a book by Guantanamo ex-detainee Moazzam Begg. Ridley added that one of the four Arabs who escaped from the Bagram cell in July 2005 also told a television channel that he had heard a woman’s cries and screams in the prison but never saw her. “I call her the Grey Lady of Bagram because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her,” she said.
The woman is registered as Prisoner number 650 and the US officials can’t deny the fact, Ridley said. “I demand that the US military free the Grey Lady immediately. We don’t know her identity, we don’t know her state of mind and we don’t know the extent of the abuse or torture she has been subjected to,” Ridley said.
This would never happen to a Western woman, she added.
Taliban captured Ridley in September 2001 for entering Afghanistan without legal documents. Ridley was freed after 11-day detention and later embraced Islam in June 2003. Pakstan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan was also present at the occasion. Khan demanded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government ask the US to provide details of the woman.
The woman could be Dr Aafia Siddiqui who was picked from a Pakistani airport few years back, Khan said, adding that keeping any one in illegal detention was violation of human rights.
The Foreign Office denied knowledge of the alleged detention of a Pakistani woman, ARY TV reported.
FO spokesman said the allegation would be looked into.
Courtesy: DAILY TIMES & EXPRESS
“Today I am crying out for help, not for myself but for a Pakistani woman neither you nor I have ever met. She has been held in isolation by the Americans in Afghanistan and she needs help,” Ridley said.
Ridley said she first learnt about the woman while reading a book by Guantanamo ex-detainee Moazzam Begg. Ridley added that one of the four Arabs who escaped from the Bagram cell in July 2005 also told a television channel that he had heard a woman’s cries and screams in the prison but never saw her. “I call her the Grey Lady of Bagram because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her,” she said.
The woman is registered as Prisoner number 650 and the US officials can’t deny the fact, Ridley said. “I demand that the US military free the Grey Lady immediately. We don’t know her identity, we don’t know her state of mind and we don’t know the extent of the abuse or torture she has been subjected to,” Ridley said.
This would never happen to a Western woman, she added.
Taliban captured Ridley in September 2001 for entering Afghanistan without legal documents. Ridley was freed after 11-day detention and later embraced Islam in June 2003. Pakstan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan was also present at the occasion. Khan demanded the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government ask the US to provide details of the woman.
The woman could be Dr Aafia Siddiqui who was picked from a Pakistani airport few years back, Khan said, adding that keeping any one in illegal detention was violation of human rights.
The Foreign Office denied knowledge of the alleged detention of a Pakistani woman, ARY TV reported.
FO spokesman said the allegation would be looked into.
Courtesy: DAILY TIMES & EXPRESS
BioFuel Caused Food Crisis - Secret Report
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.
It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."
Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".
President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.
Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.
"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.
It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.
The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.
Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.
"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."
Friday, July 4, 2008
Judge orders Google to give YouTube user data to Viacom
A US judge has ordered Google to expose to Viacom the video-viewing habits of everyone who has ever used YouTube in a decision condemned by the Internet giant and privacy advocates.
US District Court Judge Louis Stanton backed Viacom's request for data on which YouTube users watch which videos on the website in order to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google.
Viacom charges Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, acts as a willing accomplice to Internet users who put clips of Viacom's copyrighted television programs on the popular video-sharing website.
"We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history," Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera told AFP in an email Thursday.
LONG LIVE PRIVACY!!!
Read Full Story hereThursday, July 3, 2008
Disorder in Court
I would love to see someone compiling the disorders in our local courts...Any lawyer!!!
Lawyer: "Was that the same nose you broke as a child?"
Witness: "I only have one, you know."
Accused, Defending His Own Case: "Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?" The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in jail.
Lawyer: "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
Lawyer: "I show you Exhibit 3 and ask you if you recognize that picture."
Witness: "That's me."
Lawyer: "Were you present when that picture was taken?"
For More worth reading, look here
Lawyer: "Was that the same nose you broke as a child?"
Witness: "I only have one, you know."
Accused, Defending His Own Case: "Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?" The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in jail.
Lawyer: "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"
Lawyer: "I show you Exhibit 3 and ask you if you recognize that picture."
Witness: "That's me."
Lawyer: "Were you present when that picture was taken?"
For More worth reading, look here
Allah's Pharmacy - Fruits & Vegetables which reflects body
A Carrot:
A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye the pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
A Tomato:
A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.
Grapes:
Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food .
A Walnut:
A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans:
Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys .
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears
Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
Figs
Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm cells to overcome male sterility.
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the chest and the movement of lymph in and out of the chest.
Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.
A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye the pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
A Tomato:
A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.
Grapes:
Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food .
A Walnut:
A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans:
Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys .
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears
Eggplant, Avocadoes and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
Figs
Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm cells to overcome male sterility.
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the chest and the movement of lymph in and out of the chest.
Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.
The Downside of Energy Saving Bulbs
Every upside, almost by definition, has a downside. For example...
Upside: The western world is increasingly switching to
fluorescent, energy-saving lightbulbs.
Downside: They contain mercury, while traditional incandescent bulbs do not.
The bulbs emit the mercury when they're disposed of in dumps. Their makers say this is OK because the amount of mercury emissions from power stations that occur as a result of powering the old-style bulbs is greater than the mercury contained in the energy-saving bulbs.
But, researchers are now saying that the mercury emitted from fluorescent bulbs in landfills is in a vaporous state. This means it gets into the food chain more easily than the mercury emitted by coal-powered power stations.
Read More here
Energy Saving Bulb gone.. what needs to be done
More info on Bulbs on WIKIPEDIA
Upside: The western world is increasingly switching to
fluorescent, energy-saving lightbulbs.
Downside: They contain mercury, while traditional incandescent bulbs do not.
The bulbs emit the mercury when they're disposed of in dumps. Their makers say this is OK because the amount of mercury emissions from power stations that occur as a result of powering the old-style bulbs is greater than the mercury contained in the energy-saving bulbs.
But, researchers are now saying that the mercury emitted from fluorescent bulbs in landfills is in a vaporous state. This means it gets into the food chain more easily than the mercury emitted by coal-powered power stations.
Read More here
Energy Saving Bulb gone.. what needs to be done
More info on Bulbs on WIKIPEDIA
Zardari wants Musharraf to remain in office: Fareed Zakaria
It is not the US but Asif Ali Zardari who wants to see President Pervez Musharraf continue in his office and Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry remains out of his, an analyst has said.
Fareed Zakaria, editor of ‘Newsweek International’, while participating in a wide-ranging discussion stated this after he had introduced his new book, ‘The Post-American World’ at the Foreign Press Association here.
He was asked why the US was blocking the restoration of the illegally deposed judiciary and hindering the new coalition government’s efforts to send President Musharraf home.
Answering the first part of the query, he said: “It is because the US believes the only stability outside the military in Pakistan today is the PPP and Zardari has told them he does not want the restoration of judiciary.”
And Zakaria’s response to the second part of the query was: “I don’t think the US cares one way or the other about Musharraf because army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is somebody it trusts. But the thing is Zardari says the whole structure will collapse if Musharraf went and there would be chaos and you know it could be for very self-interest reasons.”
He said personally he would like to see the chief justice and the 60 judges restored and he thought Musharraf should have receded on his own rather than forced to give up his uniform and other powers.
“As often happens with dictators, General Musharraf at some point stopped being liberal and modernising and engaged in power grab,” he said. In his opinion, Musharraf should not have imposed emergency, he should not have fired the judges, and he should not have replaced the Supreme Court.
Giving his views on the shape of things to come in South Asia in what he called the post-American world, he said he saw a huge shift taking place in the US which was fundamentally to view the region as a much important part of its overall geopolitical strategy. “And that is exactly because of China. The rise of China has suddenly made South Asia a crucial player.”
He thought India and Pakistan needed an interlocutor, a go-between to mediate between them because they did not trust each other and in his opinion the US was in the best position to play that role. “Though at present India does not trust the US and believes it is still tilted towards Pakistan.”
“If you could manage to ease up between India and Pakistan to the point that they could simply trade with one another, it would transform South Asia, transform Pakistan which today is locked out of this huge economy right next door,” he said.
The analyst said for this to happen, the US needs to play the role of honest broker, but that it could hope to do only if it developed good relations with India. “I am not predicting that it would happen, but what I am saying is it is happy scenario for South Asia.”
Courtesy: THE PENINSULA
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The Bara Operation is a lie, plain and simple Part II
After the previous report , here comes the next part.. enjoy...
Who is really in charge in the Khyber Agency and who has written the script of the operation Sirat-e-Mustakeem to deal with the Fata situation and are the unfolding events unravelling as per the predetermined script?
One militant commander claimed that an informal arrangement had been reached prior to the beginning of the operation whereby approximately 25 ‘bigger structures’ shall be blown in the Bara region by the security forces and then the process will stop. We will soon know whether this statement is true or was it just a deliberate misleading assertion. I have been counting the structures and approximately nine of the structures blown up so far fall in this category. So the jury is still out on this issue till this blowing up process in Bara division officially comes to an end. Meanwhile, start keeping the count.
What we are seeing is a highly orchestrated charade, designed primarily for the benefit of the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher (to show that the US money is being spent well) because on the domestic front the government has yet to formulate a coherent strategy and the timing simply does not make any other sense.
On the fourth day of the operation, empty residences and so-called central structures of the three banned outfits of Lashkar-e-Islam, Ansar-ul-Islam and Tanzeem Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munqar continue to be blown up by the security forces but surprisingly not a single militant foot soldier of any group had been arrested so far, what to talk of their leadership.
And it’s not as if the militants have all melted away in the hills. They are right there, and all the time. Surely it makes sense for the authorities to remove the hideouts and operational bases of the criminals but what is expected to change unless the culprits themselves are apprehended?
Unless, of course to begin with real arrests were never a part of the ‘real plan’! As for blowing up the buildings, it’s hardly an issue for these extremely cash rich outfits to build up new structures in new locations so by glorifying such blowing ups, so who are we fooling here?
The reaction of the targeted militant outfits to the operation continues to be dismissively smug, almost as if they already know the outcome. When I asked about the impact of the ban on his group, Haji Namdar group’s central spokesman, Munsif Ali Khan Afridi simply chuckled and retorted “when we didn’t take their permission to start the party, why should we be worried about any bans imposed by them”. Worried about your security, I asked, and he just grinned as if I had posed an idiotic question. A telling reaction of a man otherwise confined to a wheelchair because of an earlier failed attempt on his life.
There are no two opinions in Fata about the fact that the present chaos is a direct consequence of the Musharraf regime destroying the old administrative order of governance through Political Agent and local Tribal elders and replacing it with direct Army intrusion, with the executors of the new dispensation having no idea whatsoever about how to deal with the tribal people, their issues, or having any understanding of their cultural and political ethos.
It was this destruction of the old order, which was working despite its million flaws, and the absence of a viable working alternative that created a power void ultimately filled by the likes of Mangal Bagh. So to understand how to undo the existing mayhem we need to know more about the likes of Namdar, Mangal Bagh etc: the leaders of the new disorder; not its cause, but its consequence.
The Lashkar-e-Islam Chief, Mangal Bagh, or Amir Mangal Bagh as reverently addressed by his followers, is an interesting phenomenon. He started off as a truck cleaner, like thousands of fellow poor Pashtuns but that’s where the similarity ends. After putting a brief stint in the Awami National Party, he tagged on to the all powerful Mufti Munir Shakir and when the mufti was ousted along with his rival from Bara as a consequence of a long sectarian feud, Mangal moved in quickly to claim the vacated throne of a fast growing militia. And this journey from a cleaner to a commander only took four to five years.
Today, he is a feared commander of his own Islamic Lashkar, with thousands of heavily armed militants serving at his beck and call, and millions of rupees deposited in his Bait-ul-Maal on one phone call. And judging from the size of his religious army involving a fighting force of thousands of highly indoctrinated young men, well kept 4x4 vehicles numbering an estimated minimum of 250 plus, and the immense ammunition stockpiles, a lot of calls must be made by him and his lieutenants. Such fundraising from grudging donors like terrified businessmen, etc, must prove a hassle at times but it surely beats riding as the driver’s sidekick inside a cramped wooden cabin of a Bedford truck.
But Mangal Bagh is not alone in securing funds by any means possible as the revenue raising methods of almost all the main players in various parts of Fata remain the same; extortion from those ‘not walking the path of Siraat-e-Mustakeem; international funding which is mostly on the basis of ideological compatibility or an alliance based on brotherhood of sect; local donations (a significantly small percentage of revenues but far more important in terms of creating a legitimate perception of popularity amongst local population); and kidnapping for ransom of juicy targets from the settled areas.
But one big difference separates him from the other players in the Bara area. Unlike Haji Namdar and Qazi Mehboobul Haq, he is vehemently opposed to allowing any foreigner like Uzbeks or Chechens into ‘his territory’.
While the other two are said to operate on the Taliban pattern of co-opting foreign militants and thereby even al-Qaeda cadres (though both groups deny it), Mangal Bagh essentially remains a Pashtun nationalist at least in terms of the ethnic identity of his Lashkar and his own ‘governance policies’.
The question now arises as to why he alone has been portrayed as the declared public enemy number one by our official Fata handlers, both civil and military even though he is openly known to be opposed to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, both regarded as the serious most threat for Pakistan? Sure, Mangal must be cut in tracks and made accountable for his purported criminal acts but then the others are indulging in the same practices in the same region as well, so why this discretion?
The answer according to some insiders is that while Mangal Bagh may have benefited from certain co-operations and concessions of agencies concerned, he nevertheless did not owe his entire rise to such largess of vested interests who otherwise over the years have both given benefits to and received benefits from select militant leaders involved with one ongoing Jihad or another in and around Afghanistan. And, therefore, Mangal is neither jumping at every given cue nor does he have the right connections at the right level within the right institutional players. Therefore, orchestrating his ultimate downfall (but even this has a big question mark for now) could prove a real winner for our Fata saviours: internationally, the world (read: the United States) gets to savour the crushing of a big warlord and so it’s a case of anti-terrorism funds well spent, while on the local front the only variable element is removed from the tribal power politics of Khyber Agency.
The purpose of this rather detailed dilation upon the goings on in Khyber Agency is not to glorify any Mangal Bagh, Haji Namdar or any other of their ilk but only to show that while the critical situation in Fata warrants a well thought-out macro approach towards conflict resolution, what is happening on ground in Bara sub-division is that the continued micro (mis)management of Fata situation by vested interests, blinded by their myopic short-term financial and influence interests, coupled with a highly ignorant leadership like that of Rehman Malik and Governor Owais Ghani is bound to set the Fata ball rolling in the potentially fatal wrong direction. As an outsider, however, maybe Governor Owais is still a comparative blessing because at one point Asif Zardari had decided to appoint his old buddy and former IB chief Masood Sharif as NWFP governor and had not Asfandyar Wali put his foot down on this appointment, the ongoing Fata circus could have been even more absurd.
The ongoing tribal areas operation, supposedly aimed at restoring the government’s writ has started from Khyber Agency and, therefore, the outcome here may prove a study case of the employed policy and tactical measures.
However, what makes the situation really alarming is that Khyber Agency due to its close proximity to Peshawar has always been relatively the most peaceful of all the tribal agencies and if the government were to get bad results here, then in other agencies, where the situation is far worse, the outcome will be outright disastrous, to say the least.
The ignorance of the planners is evident from the strategy of dealing with one agency at a time. The problems of Fata are not individual agency-oriented, but a common outcome of problems and injustices compounded over the last six decades.
The solution has to be all encompassing and collective in essence, and individual only in terms of implementation. But this simple understanding apparently is too complex for the existing Fata handlers in Islamabad and Peshawar.
Courtesy: THE NEWS
Mohammad Malick
Who is really in charge in the Khyber Agency and who has written the script of the operation Sirat-e-Mustakeem to deal with the Fata situation and are the unfolding events unravelling as per the predetermined script?
One militant commander claimed that an informal arrangement had been reached prior to the beginning of the operation whereby approximately 25 ‘bigger structures’ shall be blown in the Bara region by the security forces and then the process will stop. We will soon know whether this statement is true or was it just a deliberate misleading assertion. I have been counting the structures and approximately nine of the structures blown up so far fall in this category. So the jury is still out on this issue till this blowing up process in Bara division officially comes to an end. Meanwhile, start keeping the count.
What we are seeing is a highly orchestrated charade, designed primarily for the benefit of the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher (to show that the US money is being spent well) because on the domestic front the government has yet to formulate a coherent strategy and the timing simply does not make any other sense.
On the fourth day of the operation, empty residences and so-called central structures of the three banned outfits of Lashkar-e-Islam, Ansar-ul-Islam and Tanzeem Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munqar continue to be blown up by the security forces but surprisingly not a single militant foot soldier of any group had been arrested so far, what to talk of their leadership.
And it’s not as if the militants have all melted away in the hills. They are right there, and all the time. Surely it makes sense for the authorities to remove the hideouts and operational bases of the criminals but what is expected to change unless the culprits themselves are apprehended?
Unless, of course to begin with real arrests were never a part of the ‘real plan’! As for blowing up the buildings, it’s hardly an issue for these extremely cash rich outfits to build up new structures in new locations so by glorifying such blowing ups, so who are we fooling here?
The reaction of the targeted militant outfits to the operation continues to be dismissively smug, almost as if they already know the outcome. When I asked about the impact of the ban on his group, Haji Namdar group’s central spokesman, Munsif Ali Khan Afridi simply chuckled and retorted “when we didn’t take their permission to start the party, why should we be worried about any bans imposed by them”. Worried about your security, I asked, and he just grinned as if I had posed an idiotic question. A telling reaction of a man otherwise confined to a wheelchair because of an earlier failed attempt on his life.
There are no two opinions in Fata about the fact that the present chaos is a direct consequence of the Musharraf regime destroying the old administrative order of governance through Political Agent and local Tribal elders and replacing it with direct Army intrusion, with the executors of the new dispensation having no idea whatsoever about how to deal with the tribal people, their issues, or having any understanding of their cultural and political ethos.
It was this destruction of the old order, which was working despite its million flaws, and the absence of a viable working alternative that created a power void ultimately filled by the likes of Mangal Bagh. So to understand how to undo the existing mayhem we need to know more about the likes of Namdar, Mangal Bagh etc: the leaders of the new disorder; not its cause, but its consequence.
The Lashkar-e-Islam Chief, Mangal Bagh, or Amir Mangal Bagh as reverently addressed by his followers, is an interesting phenomenon. He started off as a truck cleaner, like thousands of fellow poor Pashtuns but that’s where the similarity ends. After putting a brief stint in the Awami National Party, he tagged on to the all powerful Mufti Munir Shakir and when the mufti was ousted along with his rival from Bara as a consequence of a long sectarian feud, Mangal moved in quickly to claim the vacated throne of a fast growing militia. And this journey from a cleaner to a commander only took four to five years.
Today, he is a feared commander of his own Islamic Lashkar, with thousands of heavily armed militants serving at his beck and call, and millions of rupees deposited in his Bait-ul-Maal on one phone call. And judging from the size of his religious army involving a fighting force of thousands of highly indoctrinated young men, well kept 4x4 vehicles numbering an estimated minimum of 250 plus, and the immense ammunition stockpiles, a lot of calls must be made by him and his lieutenants. Such fundraising from grudging donors like terrified businessmen, etc, must prove a hassle at times but it surely beats riding as the driver’s sidekick inside a cramped wooden cabin of a Bedford truck.
But Mangal Bagh is not alone in securing funds by any means possible as the revenue raising methods of almost all the main players in various parts of Fata remain the same; extortion from those ‘not walking the path of Siraat-e-Mustakeem; international funding which is mostly on the basis of ideological compatibility or an alliance based on brotherhood of sect; local donations (a significantly small percentage of revenues but far more important in terms of creating a legitimate perception of popularity amongst local population); and kidnapping for ransom of juicy targets from the settled areas.
But one big difference separates him from the other players in the Bara area. Unlike Haji Namdar and Qazi Mehboobul Haq, he is vehemently opposed to allowing any foreigner like Uzbeks or Chechens into ‘his territory’.
While the other two are said to operate on the Taliban pattern of co-opting foreign militants and thereby even al-Qaeda cadres (though both groups deny it), Mangal Bagh essentially remains a Pashtun nationalist at least in terms of the ethnic identity of his Lashkar and his own ‘governance policies’.
The question now arises as to why he alone has been portrayed as the declared public enemy number one by our official Fata handlers, both civil and military even though he is openly known to be opposed to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, both regarded as the serious most threat for Pakistan? Sure, Mangal must be cut in tracks and made accountable for his purported criminal acts but then the others are indulging in the same practices in the same region as well, so why this discretion?
The answer according to some insiders is that while Mangal Bagh may have benefited from certain co-operations and concessions of agencies concerned, he nevertheless did not owe his entire rise to such largess of vested interests who otherwise over the years have both given benefits to and received benefits from select militant leaders involved with one ongoing Jihad or another in and around Afghanistan. And, therefore, Mangal is neither jumping at every given cue nor does he have the right connections at the right level within the right institutional players. Therefore, orchestrating his ultimate downfall (but even this has a big question mark for now) could prove a real winner for our Fata saviours: internationally, the world (read: the United States) gets to savour the crushing of a big warlord and so it’s a case of anti-terrorism funds well spent, while on the local front the only variable element is removed from the tribal power politics of Khyber Agency.
The purpose of this rather detailed dilation upon the goings on in Khyber Agency is not to glorify any Mangal Bagh, Haji Namdar or any other of their ilk but only to show that while the critical situation in Fata warrants a well thought-out macro approach towards conflict resolution, what is happening on ground in Bara sub-division is that the continued micro (mis)management of Fata situation by vested interests, blinded by their myopic short-term financial and influence interests, coupled with a highly ignorant leadership like that of Rehman Malik and Governor Owais Ghani is bound to set the Fata ball rolling in the potentially fatal wrong direction. As an outsider, however, maybe Governor Owais is still a comparative blessing because at one point Asif Zardari had decided to appoint his old buddy and former IB chief Masood Sharif as NWFP governor and had not Asfandyar Wali put his foot down on this appointment, the ongoing Fata circus could have been even more absurd.
The ongoing tribal areas operation, supposedly aimed at restoring the government’s writ has started from Khyber Agency and, therefore, the outcome here may prove a study case of the employed policy and tactical measures.
However, what makes the situation really alarming is that Khyber Agency due to its close proximity to Peshawar has always been relatively the most peaceful of all the tribal agencies and if the government were to get bad results here, then in other agencies, where the situation is far worse, the outcome will be outright disastrous, to say the least.
The ignorance of the planners is evident from the strategy of dealing with one agency at a time. The problems of Fata are not individual agency-oriented, but a common outcome of problems and injustices compounded over the last six decades.
The solution has to be all encompassing and collective in essence, and individual only in terms of implementation. But this simple understanding apparently is too complex for the existing Fata handlers in Islamabad and Peshawar.
Courtesy: THE NEWS
Mohammad Malick
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Pakistan could be wiped out ..
Reading a book these days which got my attention when i came across on statement. Now this book is from MARIO PUZO, a great writer and author of famous THE GOD FATHER series. The book is titled OMERTA.
Now, what he has written is like this
Now, this book is written back in 2000. Can you spot the NOT??
Now, what he has written is like this
At one point in his career, Kurt Cilke had been sent to an FBI antiterrorist school. His selection for the six-month course had been a mark of his high standing with the director. During that time he had access (complete or not, he didn’t know) to the most highly classified memoranda and case scenarios on the possible use of nuclear weapons by terrorists from small countries. The files detailed which countries had weapons. To public knowledge there was Russia, France, and England, possibly India and Pakistan. It was assumed that Israel had nuclear capability. Kurt read with fascination scenarios detailing how Israel would use nuclear weapons if an Arab bloc were at the point of overwhelming it.
For the United States there were two solutions to the problem. The first was that if Israel were so attacked, the United States would side with Israel before it had to use nuclear weapons. Or, at the crucial point, if Israel could not be saved, the United States would have to wipe out Israel’s nuclear capability.
England and France were not seen as problems; they could never risk nuclear war. India had no ambitions, and Pakistan could be wiped out immediately. China would not dare; it did not have the industrial capacity short-term.
The most immediate danger was from small countries like Iraq, Iran, and Libya, where leaders were reckless, or so the scenarios claimed. The solution here was almost unanimous. Those countries would be bombed to extinction with nuclear weapons.
Now, this book is written back in 2000. Can you spot the NOT??
East London Mosque Helped Church in Stolen Money
In a unique demonstration of inter-faith harmony, an East London mosque came to the rescue of a church with monetary help after a thief made off with six hundred pounds raised for Christian Aid. When the Ilford mosque heard of the theft committed at the nearby St.Alban’s Church, the mosque elders decided to act and a collection was raised from kind-hearted worshippers.
Report on DAILY PK
Report on DAILY PK
Dr. Shahid Masood Pay Package
The attached document (annexure-III) issued by the Establishment Division on May 25, 2007, said that MD PTV Yousuf Baig Mirza would get Rs 700,000 per month as salary. His house rent would be Rs 150,000 and utility allowances Rs 25,000. The salary would be raised by Rs 50,000 per annum. Free mobile phone, two residence telephones and one fax would be allowed. Business class tickets would be given for the national and international travels. Recreational allowance would be given according to the situation.
The notification issued by the Establishment Division on Monday said Dr Shahid Masood would be paid Rs 50,000 extra to that of the package of the previous MD as he (Dr Shahid) would also hold the office of the PTV chairman.
Read full reference here
The notification issued by the Establishment Division on Monday said Dr Shahid Masood would be paid Rs 50,000 extra to that of the package of the previous MD as he (Dr Shahid) would also hold the office of the PTV chairman.
Read full reference here
The Bara Operation is a lie, plain and simple
The so-called grand operation to "protect" Peshawar from the marauding troops of the Lashkar-e-Islami of militant leader Haji Mangal Bagh and others entered its third day today. The government has already claimed victory to the extent of ridding the Khyber Agency of the so -called criminal extremists who ostensibly have been sent scurrying to the farther valley of Tirah.
Security czar Rehman Malik and Prime Minister Gilani are patting themselves on the back for having restored the government's writ. TV audiences are being treated to a steady feed of images of paramilitary convoys whizzing around and security forces blowing up one 'militant hideout' after another.
The government is also crowing about the fact that its measures are so popular with the local tribal population and its power so awesome for the obviously chickened-out militants that not a single bullet has been fired at the security forces. A lot is being made out of the banning of Lashkar-e-Islami (led by Mangal Bagh), Ansar-Ul-Islam (led by Qazi Mehboobul Haq who is Mangal's sworn enemy) and Haji Namdar-led Tanzeem Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munqar. And if Islamabad's version is to be believed then it is only a matter of time before the rest of the tribal region starts toeing their line as well.
And now the truth: It's all hogwash. It's a drama being staged to placate a nervous public, please the cooperative militias by giving them sufficient advance warning, and confuse the Americans who of late have been displaying the audacity to ask for verifiable deliverables against all the money they have been pumping in for the last eight years. A desperate appeasement attempt for the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, if you may.
But we'll come to the causes later. First the happenings on the ground. The government can go blue in the face claiming otherwise but the fact is that the government's real writ does not extend beyond the last settled area police picket at the Peshawar-Bara sub-division border. And in some cases where it may appear to be present in any diluted form a little farther down the road, there too it is only a negotiated concession from the local militias and not the consequence of any so-called restored the government writ.
While enough evidence exists on the ground to back this impression it would not be irrelevant to narrate a pertinent incident which occurred only this afternoon while I along with A Geo TV crew were returning from visiting the site of the partially bombed out fortified Madrassah structure of Haji Namdar group in the area of Bur Qumber Khel which lies about 20kms from Peshawar. (By the way the credit is being given to a missile fired by a US drone and the claim also appears credible as it is the only real hit where seven militants actually got killed, this being the highest casualty in the entire operation). Anyway, in our attempt to take a shorter route back we took the Tirah-Jamrud road back but were stopped midway at a checkpoint manned by a small contingent of the Mehsud Scouts. While we were pleading to be allowed to go through, I managed to have a long chat with one of the officers (whom I shall not name for the obvious reasons) regarding the hollowness of government claims of having forced the militants out of the area as I informed him that I had just spent hours in an area which was teeming with armed members of the Haji Namdar group while dozens of twin-cab vehicles loaded with armed militants were calmly patrolling the entire area as if nothing extraordinary had happened there. And you know what? The officer actually let it slip that even if his own commandant had to go into the area "his security is provided by Namdar's men". So much for one banned outfit and the ongoing operation.
However, there seems to be a general consensus that the Namdar group is not viewed in the same negative vein as Mangal Bagh's and may have been banned only to give the impression of the administration playing even-handed and not singling out the much larger Lashkar-e-Islami of Mangal Bagh.
And if there are still any doubts on this front then let me share another incident which took place on our way in. We had barely entered Namdar territory when suddenly a Toyota twin-cab came after us at bullet speed, the headlights flashing in a signal for us to stop while a blue police light (incidentally mounted on all vehicles of Namdar and other groups operating in the area) for the added official touch I presume. The moment we stopped, six men jumped off the vehicle and surrounded us, their guns aimed at our heads. Their leader, hardly 19 or 20 years of age, demanded an explanation for our presence in "their territory". About 15 minutes and few reasons later we were allowed to move on after strong hand shakes, warm smiles, and the message to tell the world that they are only fighting against the Americans and for Afghan Muslims and not against Pakistan. As if we were going to argue with that logic. By the way, this incident took place barely three kilometers after entering the tribal area from Peshawar. Wasn't it close enough to qualify as falling in the jurisdiction of re-imposed state writ, one wonders?
Now to Mangal Bagh's people. While Mangal himelf had left for Tirah, where incidentally he is engaged in a bitter sectarian feud, his followers were not found lacking in numbers or visibility. The truth is that within minutes of the security forces moving out after blowing out the abandoned and vacated structures, the Lashkar-e-Islami militants could be seem calmly raising their black flags over the damaged structures and casually inspecting the damaged goods. The interesting part is that not a single militant of any group ever seems in a hurry to get away from the scene, or the area, and at least on three occasions I personally saw militant loaded vehicles drive by Levis and others with no reaction from the paramilitary forces. One amazing operation cleanup isn't it?
Muhammad Malick
THE NEWS
Security czar Rehman Malik and Prime Minister Gilani are patting themselves on the back for having restored the government's writ. TV audiences are being treated to a steady feed of images of paramilitary convoys whizzing around and security forces blowing up one 'militant hideout' after another.
The government is also crowing about the fact that its measures are so popular with the local tribal population and its power so awesome for the obviously chickened-out militants that not a single bullet has been fired at the security forces. A lot is being made out of the banning of Lashkar-e-Islami (led by Mangal Bagh), Ansar-Ul-Islam (led by Qazi Mehboobul Haq who is Mangal's sworn enemy) and Haji Namdar-led Tanzeem Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munqar. And if Islamabad's version is to be believed then it is only a matter of time before the rest of the tribal region starts toeing their line as well.
And now the truth: It's all hogwash. It's a drama being staged to placate a nervous public, please the cooperative militias by giving them sufficient advance warning, and confuse the Americans who of late have been displaying the audacity to ask for verifiable deliverables against all the money they have been pumping in for the last eight years. A desperate appeasement attempt for the visiting Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, if you may.
But we'll come to the causes later. First the happenings on the ground. The government can go blue in the face claiming otherwise but the fact is that the government's real writ does not extend beyond the last settled area police picket at the Peshawar-Bara sub-division border. And in some cases where it may appear to be present in any diluted form a little farther down the road, there too it is only a negotiated concession from the local militias and not the consequence of any so-called restored the government writ.
While enough evidence exists on the ground to back this impression it would not be irrelevant to narrate a pertinent incident which occurred only this afternoon while I along with A Geo TV crew were returning from visiting the site of the partially bombed out fortified Madrassah structure of Haji Namdar group in the area of Bur Qumber Khel which lies about 20kms from Peshawar. (By the way the credit is being given to a missile fired by a US drone and the claim also appears credible as it is the only real hit where seven militants actually got killed, this being the highest casualty in the entire operation). Anyway, in our attempt to take a shorter route back we took the Tirah-Jamrud road back but were stopped midway at a checkpoint manned by a small contingent of the Mehsud Scouts. While we were pleading to be allowed to go through, I managed to have a long chat with one of the officers (whom I shall not name for the obvious reasons) regarding the hollowness of government claims of having forced the militants out of the area as I informed him that I had just spent hours in an area which was teeming with armed members of the Haji Namdar group while dozens of twin-cab vehicles loaded with armed militants were calmly patrolling the entire area as if nothing extraordinary had happened there. And you know what? The officer actually let it slip that even if his own commandant had to go into the area "his security is provided by Namdar's men". So much for one banned outfit and the ongoing operation.
However, there seems to be a general consensus that the Namdar group is not viewed in the same negative vein as Mangal Bagh's and may have been banned only to give the impression of the administration playing even-handed and not singling out the much larger Lashkar-e-Islami of Mangal Bagh.
And if there are still any doubts on this front then let me share another incident which took place on our way in. We had barely entered Namdar territory when suddenly a Toyota twin-cab came after us at bullet speed, the headlights flashing in a signal for us to stop while a blue police light (incidentally mounted on all vehicles of Namdar and other groups operating in the area) for the added official touch I presume. The moment we stopped, six men jumped off the vehicle and surrounded us, their guns aimed at our heads. Their leader, hardly 19 or 20 years of age, demanded an explanation for our presence in "their territory". About 15 minutes and few reasons later we were allowed to move on after strong hand shakes, warm smiles, and the message to tell the world that they are only fighting against the Americans and for Afghan Muslims and not against Pakistan. As if we were going to argue with that logic. By the way, this incident took place barely three kilometers after entering the tribal area from Peshawar. Wasn't it close enough to qualify as falling in the jurisdiction of re-imposed state writ, one wonders?
Now to Mangal Bagh's people. While Mangal himelf had left for Tirah, where incidentally he is engaged in a bitter sectarian feud, his followers were not found lacking in numbers or visibility. The truth is that within minutes of the security forces moving out after blowing out the abandoned and vacated structures, the Lashkar-e-Islami militants could be seem calmly raising their black flags over the damaged structures and casually inspecting the damaged goods. The interesting part is that not a single militant of any group ever seems in a hurry to get away from the scene, or the area, and at least on three occasions I personally saw militant loaded vehicles drive by Levis and others with no reaction from the paramilitary forces. One amazing operation cleanup isn't it?
Muhammad Malick
THE NEWS
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