A ruling party minister in Pakistan's violence-plagued city of Karachi resigned Sunday, charging that the city's largest political party was behind the bloodshed and its leader was a "killer", allegations that could spark more trouble.
Holding a copy of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, Zulfikar Mirza accused the powerful Muttahida Qaumi Movement of responsibility for kidnapping, extortion and violence that has killed more than 400 people since July. He also accused the party of killing journalist Wali Khan Babar earlier this year.
"I am saying it openly that the MQM killed him," he told a news conference televised live around the country.
In unusually blunt comments, he singled out MQM leader Altaf Hussein, who critics say runs the party like a cult from his home in London, as a "killer" and the head of a "terrorist organization."
In a statement, the MQM said Mirza himself was a patron of murderers and his remarks were a "heinous bid to spark the fire of hatred, violence and insurgency."
There was no immediate reaction on the streets of the city of 18 million people.
The city, Pakistan's economic hub and largest city, has long been plagued by ethnic and political bloodshed, but the current surge has been particularly prolonged.
Analysts say the MQM is involved in a turf war with another political force in the city, the Awami National Party, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, of which Mirza was a member. Killers linked to the parties are behind most of the violence, they say.
The MQM represents the region's Urdu-speaking population, while the ANP is supported by Pashtuns who have arrived in the city in great numbers over the last 10 years, challenging the dominance of the MQM. Many victims have been targeted because of their ethnic background.
Mirza, who was the senior minister for the PPP in the city, said he was resigning because of differences with Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who is trying to negotiate an end the violence. The bloodshed in Karachi threatens the nation's stability, because the parties are in the ruling coalition government. The violence is a major distraction from the country's battle against militants.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
NYC mayor: Evacuees can soon return home
The nearly 400,000 New Yorkers who had been ordered to evacuate low-lying neighborhoods because of Hurricane Irene were told they could go home Sunday afternoon, but officials said the city's transit system probably won't be up and running again by the start of the work week.That could mean a rough start to the work week for millions.
Overall, the city made it through the storm fairly well, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in announcing he would lift the evacuation order covering 370,000 people by 3 p.m.
He said Irene inflicted significant damage, with retaining walls collapsing in some places and serious flooding across all the five boroughs.
But "whether we dodged a bullet or you look at it and said, 'God smiled on us,' the bottom line is, I'm happy to report, there do not appear to be any deaths attributable to the storm," the mayor said. He added: "All in all, we are in pretty good shape because of the extensive steps we took to prepare."
Among those steps was the shutting down of city subways, commuter rails and buses.
Jay Walder, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said it is not clear when service will be restored because damage to the various parts of the system will have to assessed first.
Walder said the shutdown — the first time the nation's biggest transit system suspended all service because of a natural disaster — was the right move, noting that some train yards were under water.
New York's subway system alone has more than 5 million riders a day.
"I think it's fair to say you're going to have a tough commute in the morning," Bloomberg said. "Tough commute tomorrow, but we have tough commutes all the time."
ANP meeting on Mirza’s statement .. Altaf Hussain said he would kill the Pathans"... Zulfiqar Mirza
Sindh Awami National Party President Shahi Syed has called an important meeting of ANP at Mardan House Karachi on Monday to discuss the situation after the press conference of former provincial senior minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza.
The provincial head office of the party said that the top leadership of ANP has taken serious notice of the revelation made by ex- provincial home minister Zulfiqar Mirza during his press conference, while taking Holy Quran in his hands.
ANP (Sindh), during the meeting, would evolve a future strategy regarding the points raised by Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, ongoing surgical operation in Karachi and cold behaviour of government towards ANP.
The provincial head office of the party said that the top leadership of ANP has taken serious notice of the revelation made by ex- provincial home minister Zulfiqar Mirza during his press conference, while taking Holy Quran in his hands.
ANP (Sindh), during the meeting, would evolve a future strategy regarding the points raised by Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, ongoing surgical operation in Karachi and cold behaviour of government towards ANP.
Libyan rebels free over 10,000 prisoners after seizing Tripoli
Libyan rebels said Sunday that over 10,000 prisoners arrested by embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi's government had been freed since the rebel forces took control of the capital Tripoli.
But, according to rebel military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani, about 50,000 prisoners were still missing, and it would be " catastrophic" if they had already been killed after being arrested.
Bani meanwhile said at a press conference Sunday that Libya's gas pipeline to Europe had been repaired.
Head of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) Mostafa Abdel Jalil Saturday vowed fair trials for those having worked with Gaddafi, and said the reward for killing or capturing the fallen leader could be increased.
On the battle front, the rebel forces were closing in on Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, one of the last few areas still held by troops loyal to the toppled Libyan leader, from the west and east. Rebel leaders have vowed to take Sirte by force if their negotiations with the region's tribal leaders fail.
U.S. official says worst of Hurricane Irene over
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Sunday that the worst of Hurricane Irene was over but communities still in Irene's path should continue to be vigilant.
Napolitano told a briefing that U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed Sunday morning as Irene was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.
Irene churned up the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast as category one hurricane since it made landfall in North Carolina Saturday morning. It lost some strength as it hit the New York City Sunday morning, with winds dropping to 65 mph by 9 a.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center said. Still, Irene remains dangerous as streets at edges of New York City started to flood.
About four million people are currently out of power, as power lines were downed by strong wind and heavy rain and some power plants shut down or reduced operation out of precaution. At least 11 people died from the hurricane in states including North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut.
Irene makes landfall in NYC as tropical storm
Irene arrived as a tropical storm at Coney Island in New York City at around 9 a.m. local time (13: 00 GMT) on Sunday, bringing winds of 65 miles per hour (mph), the National Hurricane Center reported.
As Irene bore down on the city, the storm brought heavy winds and rapidly rising seawater to the city.
The East River in New York City is topping the edge of its barrier wall and seawater from New York Harbor lapped on some streets in lower Manhattan. At about 9:00 a.m., the crossroads of the world, where scenes of hustling had been common, was largely abandoned amid torrential rain and intermittent gusts.
Electronic screens were still flashing on skyscrapers, but the windows of shops flanking the square remained shuttered. Traffic was thin but for a couple of police cars parked on the roadside and the occasional passing of yellow cabs.
There were power outages in all four of the outer boroughs. About 85,000 customers across New York City were out of power supply as of early Sunday.
In New York, a flood watch will be effective until late Sunday night. The public transit system was shut down. Bridges, tunnels and ports were also closed in the city of more than 8 million people. A resumption is not expected until Monday.
Jason Le miere, who stayed put, told Xinhua that he is relieved about the Irene status: "I thought by now we'd definitely have lost power and water but we are okay. We are on the 28th floor and the windows are completely fine too."
Irene made landfall Sunday morning around Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey, around 5:35 a.m. local time (09:35 GMT) as a minimal category 1 hurricane, with winds near 75 mph.
It had already unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina, spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and left more than 3 million homes and businesses without power. Eleven people were killed so far.
As Irene bore down on the city, the storm brought heavy winds and rapidly rising seawater to the city.
The East River in New York City is topping the edge of its barrier wall and seawater from New York Harbor lapped on some streets in lower Manhattan. At about 9:00 a.m., the crossroads of the world, where scenes of hustling had been common, was largely abandoned amid torrential rain and intermittent gusts.
Electronic screens were still flashing on skyscrapers, but the windows of shops flanking the square remained shuttered. Traffic was thin but for a couple of police cars parked on the roadside and the occasional passing of yellow cabs.
There were power outages in all four of the outer boroughs. About 85,000 customers across New York City were out of power supply as of early Sunday.
In New York, a flood watch will be effective until late Sunday night. The public transit system was shut down. Bridges, tunnels and ports were also closed in the city of more than 8 million people. A resumption is not expected until Monday.
Jason Le miere, who stayed put, told Xinhua that he is relieved about the Irene status: "I thought by now we'd definitely have lost power and water but we are okay. We are on the 28th floor and the windows are completely fine too."
Irene made landfall Sunday morning around Little Egg Inlet, New Jersey, around 5:35 a.m. local time (09:35 GMT) as a minimal category 1 hurricane, with winds near 75 mph.
It had already unloaded more than a foot of water on North Carolina, spun off tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, and left more than 3 million homes and businesses without power. Eleven people were killed so far.
Over a dozen people arrested, torture cells destroyed in Lyari raid
DAWN.COM
During a seven-hour operation in the Lyari area, Rangers arrested more than a dozen suspected criminals on Sunday, DawnNews reported.
The Rangers also destroyed two torture cells and seized a heavy cache of weapons.
The Rangers cordoned off the Nayabad area of Lyari early in the morning and launched a door-to-door search.
As soon as the operation was launched, residents of Lyari started protesting against the raids and blocked the roads, however, the Rangers continued the search.
The head of Sachal Rangers, Brigadier Waseem Ayub also visited the area with media persons and briefed them with the details of the operation.
Separately, it was also reported that PPP senior leader Dr Zulfiqar Mirza may resign from his party post in protest against the operation conducted by the Rangers in Lyari this morning.
Sources said that Mirza would later hold a press conference to announce his decision.
During a seven-hour operation in the Lyari area, Rangers arrested more than a dozen suspected criminals on Sunday, DawnNews reported.
The Rangers also destroyed two torture cells and seized a heavy cache of weapons.
The Rangers cordoned off the Nayabad area of Lyari early in the morning and launched a door-to-door search.
As soon as the operation was launched, residents of Lyari started protesting against the raids and blocked the roads, however, the Rangers continued the search.
The head of Sachal Rangers, Brigadier Waseem Ayub also visited the area with media persons and briefed them with the details of the operation.
Separately, it was also reported that PPP senior leader Dr Zulfiqar Mirza may resign from his party post in protest against the operation conducted by the Rangers in Lyari this morning.
Sources said that Mirza would later hold a press conference to announce his decision.
In helping Afghanistan build up its security forces, U.S. is trimming the frills
The commander of NATO’s elaborate and expensive effort to build the Afghan security forces, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, was standing inside the bathroom of a police training school in this obscure eastern town, looking at the sinks. He did not like what he saw.
“Every time I walk into someplace and see a porcelain sink, I cringe,” he said.
That’s because Caldwell is tasked with making the Afghan army and police capable of holding off the Taliban — but in a way the United States can afford. Growing political concern in the United States over the high cost of the American mission has made for a blunt new imperative: The Afghan security forces, which cost the United States $11.6 billion this year, need to get cheaper — fast.
To this end, out are the pedestal porcelain sinks in the bases the United States is building for the Afghan army and police; in are communal metal troughs. Out: air conditioning. In: ceiling fans. Out: brick-and-mortar barracks. In: quick-rising steel “arch-span” buildings.
“If they can’t afford it and sustain it in 2014” — the year Afghan security forces are scheduled to be in charge of their own destiny — “we don’t build it,” Caldwell said.
The scope of the U.S.-funded building boom for Afghan security forces nevertheless remains immense. Contractors are about a quarter of the way through a $11.4 billion effort to erect 10,000 buildings — about 100 bases for the Afghan army and nearly 1,000 sites for the police — though a large number of projects are expected to be completed by spring. They range from small police outposts to the $200 million National Defense University in Kabul.
This effort began in earnest just a couple of years ago, when U.S. officials made training and equipping the Afghan security forces a top priority. Soon some of the more glaring cultural differences became apparent, said Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, the deputy commander for programs with NATO’s training command in Kabul.
Some Afghans were unaccustomed to Western-style toilets, for example, and would perch, squatting, on the rim of the seat, mimicking how they used the hole-in-the-floor style more common here. When gas was in short supply, some tried to convert the NATO-supplied propane stoves into wood-burning ones, with little success.
“What we’re trying to do is realize how would the Afghans operate if they were to go out and contract for a building,” Fuller said. “Let’s make things appropriate for Afghanistan. We call it ‘Afghan right.’ ”
Not by coincidence, these new construction standards, revised this year, also are cheaper. Just by eliminating most air conditioning in Afghan military and police bases, NATO officials estimate they are saving more than $100 million a year on fuel. The pared-down standards also result in simpler structures that NATO officials hope are more likely to be kept up after coalition troops depart.
“We’re teaching them something that’s a lot simpler, and certainly they understand,” said Col. Mario A. Trevino, a NATO engineer in Kabul.
Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan army’s chief of staff, said he did not have a problem with the change in construction methods for military bases.
“I am pleased with what we have for the army,” he said in an interview. “I appreciate all of them. They are great facilities. They are not substandard. They are to international standard.”
The new frugality is a necessity, a message reiterated by congressional delegations that visit Afghanistan and remind U.S. soldiers and diplomats about economic problems back home. NATO’s planners have been operating under the assumption that it will cost $6 billion a year to maintain a 352,000-man army and police force in 2014. But they realize that figure, to include an Afghan army of nearly 200,000 soldiers, may not be politically sustainable, and they are looking for ways to field that force at a half or a third of the cost.
“How much is the United States going to be contributing in the out years? That’s what the big discussion is,” Fuller said.
The Obama administration has asked Congress to appropriate $12.8 billion for Afghan security forces in the coming year, but that request has not been approved.
Before he stepped down as defense secretary this summer, Robert M. Gates asked that the rest of the NATO nations essentially triple their contribution, to about $1.4 billion a year. NATO officials hope the Afghan government’s meager contribution will also increase.
“How do you get others besides us injecting cash into the system?” Fuller said of the American goal — beyond finding a way to “squeeze’’ the projected $6 billion annual cost of supporting Afghanistan’s security forces after 2012.
If necessary, there are other ways to save money, Fuller said, such as cutting salaries, limiting fuel or changing how often the security forces replace equipment and vehicles. But ultimately, U.S. and Afghan officials said, the answer might lie in a decision to field a smaller Afghan army than planned — particularly if there are further successes in combating the Taliban insurgency.
“There is just no need to keep a 200,000 man army if the insurgency level goes down,” Caldwell said.
Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader is killed in Pakistan, U.S. officials say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Al-Qaeda’s second in command was killed last week in Pakistan by a CIA drone strike, according to U.S. officials who said Atiyah Abd al-Rahman’s demise is a significant blow to a terrorist network still reeling from the death of Osama bin Laden.
Rahman was killed Monday in Waziristan, the tribal northwest region of Pakistan, where he presided over the remnants of al-Qaeda and served as a critical link between the lower ranks of the organization and its top leaders, including bin Laden before his death in May.A senior U.S. administration official called Rahman’s death “a tremendous loss for al-Qaeda” because the group’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “was relying heavily on him to help guide and run the organization, especially since bin Laden’s death.”
Rahman was seen as a high-priority target in the CIA drone campaign at a time when U.S. officials have described al-Qaeda as near collapse and have said that a small set of successive blows could all but extinguish the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Last month, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said a strategic defeat of al-Qaeda was “within reach” and called for continued efforts to hammer the group’s weakened leadership with a series of attacks.
“Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them,” he said, “because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaeda as a major threat.”
A cache of computer files seized from bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, showed that Rahman had emerged as perhaps the most important operational figure in al-Qaeda. A veteran militant who was in regular communication with the al-Qaeda chief, Rahman expressed frustration with the mounting toll of the CIA drone campaign.
In one message, Rahman complained that al-Qaeda’s fighters “were getting killed faster than they could be replaced,” said a U.S. counterterrorism official who, like other sources for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing secrecy surrounding the drone campaign.
Rahman’s role became even more important after the elevation of Zawahiri, bin Laden’s longtime deputy who has also spent much of the past decade deep in hiding. He is seen as an abrasive and divisive figure who was likely to depend on loyalists, including Rahman, to help keep the network and its increasingly ambitious affiliates from unraveling.
Rahman, a Libyan explosives expert, appears to have met bin Laden when he was still a teenager. He rose to the No. 3 position in the network and was charged with running its financial operations after Saeed al-Masri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May of last year.
U.S. intelligence officials have regarded Rahman, who was in his early 40s, as an important player in al-Qaeda since at least 2006, when U.S. military officials recovered a long letter that Rahman had sent to al-Qaeda’s chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, rebuking the Jordanian for his bloody campaign against Shiites in that country.
Pakistani officials said that they were notified Friday that Rahman had been among those killed in the Monday drone strike and that they had no information about additional casualties.
“There is no question this is a major blow to al-Qaeda,” said a U.S. official familiar with CIA drone operations who portrayed Rahman as an important link to the network’s regional affiliates, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.
“Atiyah was the one affiliates knew and trusted, and he spoke on behalf of both [bin Laden] and Zawahiri,” the official said. “He planned the details of al-Qaeda operations and its propaganda. His combination of background, experience and abilities are unique.”Rahman was linked with some of al-Qaeda’s boldest operations, including the December 2009 bombing of a CIA compound in Khost, Afghanistan, that left seven agency employees dead. The suicide bomber Humam al-Balawi lured the CIA officers into a trap in part by using a videotape that was purported to be footage of a meeting between Balawi and Rahman. In fact, Rahman was involved in a setup in which he served as bait, helping Balawi secure an invitation to the CIA base at Khost.
A Pakistani intelligence official in the North Waziristan region said four missiles had been fired in the Monday drone strike, two at a vehicle and two at the guest house of a tribal leader. The strikes occurred in Nork, about 12 miles from Miranshah, a town that has been a focal point of the escalating drone campaign for the past two years. Five people were killed in the attack on the vehicle, the Pakistani official said, but it was unknown whether any were killed in the guest house.
A second Pakistani official said that Rahman was “very active and always on the move,” that he had recently been in Mir Ali and had been spotted with both Taliban fighters and Uzbek militants. Rahman sought to cultivate support among locals by providing seed money for shops and businesses, including an auto parts shop, according to a pro-militant tribal elder in Mir Ali.
“If he is lost as reported, this will be a serious blow both in planning and also financially,” the elder said.
Rahman is believed to have served as a liaison between al-Qaeda and Algerian radicals as early as 1993 at a time when militants were waging a civil war against that North African nation. He had previously fought as a guerilla against the Algerian government in the mid-1990s.
But instead of welcoming him, an Algerian rebel network, the Armed Islamic Group, placed Rahman under detention and threatened to execute him for reasons that remain unclear. He and a handful of other Libyan prisoners escaped after five months and fled the country, according to a Libyan political exile familiar with the episode.
Rahman eventually returned to Afghanistan and al-Qaeda’s fold and became one of its leaders after the Sept. 11 attacks, serving as a liaison for al-Qaeda-linked groups in Iraq, Iran and Algeria.
In 2006, the U.S. government posted a $1 million reward for information on Rahman’s whereabouts.
Al-Qaeda’s second in command was killed last week in Pakistan by a CIA drone strike, according to U.S. officials who said Atiyah Abd al-Rahman’s demise is a significant blow to a terrorist network still reeling from the death of Osama bin Laden.
Rahman was killed Monday in Waziristan, the tribal northwest region of Pakistan, where he presided over the remnants of al-Qaeda and served as a critical link between the lower ranks of the organization and its top leaders, including bin Laden before his death in May.A senior U.S. administration official called Rahman’s death “a tremendous loss for al-Qaeda” because the group’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “was relying heavily on him to help guide and run the organization, especially since bin Laden’s death.”
Rahman was seen as a high-priority target in the CIA drone campaign at a time when U.S. officials have described al-Qaeda as near collapse and have said that a small set of successive blows could all but extinguish the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Last month, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said a strategic defeat of al-Qaeda was “within reach” and called for continued efforts to hammer the group’s weakened leadership with a series of attacks.
“Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them,” he said, “because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaeda as a major threat.”
A cache of computer files seized from bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, showed that Rahman had emerged as perhaps the most important operational figure in al-Qaeda. A veteran militant who was in regular communication with the al-Qaeda chief, Rahman expressed frustration with the mounting toll of the CIA drone campaign.
In one message, Rahman complained that al-Qaeda’s fighters “were getting killed faster than they could be replaced,” said a U.S. counterterrorism official who, like other sources for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing secrecy surrounding the drone campaign.
Rahman’s role became even more important after the elevation of Zawahiri, bin Laden’s longtime deputy who has also spent much of the past decade deep in hiding. He is seen as an abrasive and divisive figure who was likely to depend on loyalists, including Rahman, to help keep the network and its increasingly ambitious affiliates from unraveling.
Rahman, a Libyan explosives expert, appears to have met bin Laden when he was still a teenager. He rose to the No. 3 position in the network and was charged with running its financial operations after Saeed al-Masri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May of last year.
U.S. intelligence officials have regarded Rahman, who was in his early 40s, as an important player in al-Qaeda since at least 2006, when U.S. military officials recovered a long letter that Rahman had sent to al-Qaeda’s chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, rebuking the Jordanian for his bloody campaign against Shiites in that country.
Pakistani officials said that they were notified Friday that Rahman had been among those killed in the Monday drone strike and that they had no information about additional casualties.
“There is no question this is a major blow to al-Qaeda,” said a U.S. official familiar with CIA drone operations who portrayed Rahman as an important link to the network’s regional affiliates, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen.
“Atiyah was the one affiliates knew and trusted, and he spoke on behalf of both [bin Laden] and Zawahiri,” the official said. “He planned the details of al-Qaeda operations and its propaganda. His combination of background, experience and abilities are unique.”Rahman was linked with some of al-Qaeda’s boldest operations, including the December 2009 bombing of a CIA compound in Khost, Afghanistan, that left seven agency employees dead. The suicide bomber Humam al-Balawi lured the CIA officers into a trap in part by using a videotape that was purported to be footage of a meeting between Balawi and Rahman. In fact, Rahman was involved in a setup in which he served as bait, helping Balawi secure an invitation to the CIA base at Khost.
A Pakistani intelligence official in the North Waziristan region said four missiles had been fired in the Monday drone strike, two at a vehicle and two at the guest house of a tribal leader. The strikes occurred in Nork, about 12 miles from Miranshah, a town that has been a focal point of the escalating drone campaign for the past two years. Five people were killed in the attack on the vehicle, the Pakistani official said, but it was unknown whether any were killed in the guest house.
A second Pakistani official said that Rahman was “very active and always on the move,” that he had recently been in Mir Ali and had been spotted with both Taliban fighters and Uzbek militants. Rahman sought to cultivate support among locals by providing seed money for shops and businesses, including an auto parts shop, according to a pro-militant tribal elder in Mir Ali.
“If he is lost as reported, this will be a serious blow both in planning and also financially,” the elder said.
Rahman is believed to have served as a liaison between al-Qaeda and Algerian radicals as early as 1993 at a time when militants were waging a civil war against that North African nation. He had previously fought as a guerilla against the Algerian government in the mid-1990s.
But instead of welcoming him, an Algerian rebel network, the Armed Islamic Group, placed Rahman under detention and threatened to execute him for reasons that remain unclear. He and a handful of other Libyan prisoners escaped after five months and fled the country, according to a Libyan political exile familiar with the episode.
Rahman eventually returned to Afghanistan and al-Qaeda’s fold and became one of its leaders after the Sept. 11 attacks, serving as a liaison for al-Qaeda-linked groups in Iraq, Iran and Algeria.
In 2006, the U.S. government posted a $1 million reward for information on Rahman’s whereabouts.
Irene makes landfall in New Jersey near Beach Haven
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com
By DAN GOOD
Hurricane Irene rolled along South Jersey's coastline Sunday morning - passing within 10 miles of Ocean City before making landfall near Beach Haven, according to the Associated Press.
This is the first hurricane to strike South Jersey since 1903.
The storm, with winds measured at 75 miles per hour, remained a Category 1 hurricane at 5 a.m. as it approached Atlantic City's shoreline, according to Weather.com.
The previous night, the storm knocked out power to more than 100,000 Atlantic City Electric customers and flooded area roadways.
More than 90,000 ACE customers - the bulk in Atlantic County - remained without power at 6 a.m. Sunday.
Heavy rains and crippling rain turned the region's barrier islands into ghost towns, on what would have been a beach weekend for hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists. People were asked to leave those islands Friday, in anticipation of the storm.
Some residents stayed - hoping to ride out Hurricane Irene.
But most left, rooming with friends and family away from the coast or staying at one of the dozens of emergency shelters organized throughout the area.
Rain continued to fall at daybreak, the sky a heavy blue. Daylight will reveal the storm's full impacts.
Hurricane Irene posed the most serious storm threat to the region in decades. Locals worried that it would mimic the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.
Heavy rain and wind are expected to linger for a few more hours, as Hurricane Irene continues its trip north.
By DAN GOOD
Hurricane Irene rolled along South Jersey's coastline Sunday morning - passing within 10 miles of Ocean City before making landfall near Beach Haven, according to the Associated Press.
This is the first hurricane to strike South Jersey since 1903.
The storm, with winds measured at 75 miles per hour, remained a Category 1 hurricane at 5 a.m. as it approached Atlantic City's shoreline, according to Weather.com.
The previous night, the storm knocked out power to more than 100,000 Atlantic City Electric customers and flooded area roadways.
More than 90,000 ACE customers - the bulk in Atlantic County - remained without power at 6 a.m. Sunday.
Heavy rains and crippling rain turned the region's barrier islands into ghost towns, on what would have been a beach weekend for hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists. People were asked to leave those islands Friday, in anticipation of the storm.
Some residents stayed - hoping to ride out Hurricane Irene.
But most left, rooming with friends and family away from the coast or staying at one of the dozens of emergency shelters organized throughout the area.
Rain continued to fall at daybreak, the sky a heavy blue. Daylight will reveal the storm's full impacts.
Hurricane Irene posed the most serious storm threat to the region in decades. Locals worried that it would mimic the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.
Heavy rain and wind are expected to linger for a few more hours, as Hurricane Irene continues its trip north.
Gilded Traces of the Lives Qaddafis Led
His name of choice was the Brother Leader, though his nearly 42 years of rule were rarely brotherly, and his leadership left a country with plentiful oil in shambles.
Now, as the former subjects of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi comb through his family’s estates, farms and seaside villas, the properties are revealing the details of lives lived far removed from the people, and ones filled with the signs of their peccadilloes and rivalries.
At one farm, horses wandered by marble statues of lions, tigers and bears, and on a sun-baked day, reindeer grazed by the deck of an empty pool. At the home of one son, Saadi, there were signs of a life mundane in its seeming frustration. A man who drifted through stints as an athlete, soldier and Hollywood producer, Saadi kept the English-language self-help book “Success Intelligence” in his master bedroom.
Given Colonel Qaddafi’s noted flamboyance, the residences of the House of Qaddafi were not quite as grand as people might have supposed.
They lacked the faux grandeur of Saddam Hussein’s marbled palaces. There are no columns that bear the colonel’s initials, or fists cast to resemble his hands or river-fed moats with voracious carp.
But in Baghdad and Tripoli, the physical remains of the leader’s rule still projected the distance between power and powerlessness. As rebels and residents started to pick through the detritus of the Qaddafis’ lives in recent days, there was a sense of laying claim to a country commandeered by the Arab world’s longest-ruling leader — and speaking their minds without fear about the country they have inherited, and the leader they hope they have left behind.
“For somebody who’s very rich, he was very cheap,” Fuad Gritli said as he drove through a sprawling parcel near the airport known as the Farm, where Colonel Qaddafi lived.
There was also a sense of something incomplete. Even as people pulled back the cloak on the Qaddafis’ lives, the colonel and his children remained at large.
In the sanctum of the Farm, there are rolling, irrigated fields. Camels wandered unattended. Still standing was a tent where Colonel Qaddafi met foreign dignitaries, its canvas decorated with pictures of camels and palm trees. NATO bombers seemed to have no idea where he was; their hunt destroyed an unfinished Moroccan-style house, other tents built with more expensive canvas and a knot of bunker-style concrete buildings for official use.
As Mr. Gritli and a friend drove along roads that seemed to lead nowhere, they shook their heads. Rebels rolled through a compound still not secure. So did looters.
“We weren’t allowed to get anywhere near, not even the gate,” Mr. Gritli said of the years before the revolt that shattered the colonel’s hold on power.
“Qaddafi was not living like a rich man, I admit that,” said Malik el-Bakouri, a 27-year-old doctor from Tripoli, as he drove past a guesthouse where water cascaded from a broken pipe in a city suffering from a shortage of it. “But his sons, all the people in his tribe, and all the families around him lived good, and they lived good for 40 years.”
Colonel Qaddafi’s sons’ behavior would have made reality show producers proud — Hannibal repeatedly had brushes with the law in Europe. And Seif al-Islam, the heir apparent, began his ascent with promises of democracy, then ended his tenure with a pledge to turn Libya into a country “like Saudi Arabia, like Iran.” (“So what?” he added.)
The villas of some of the sons on a sand bluff overlooking the Mediterranean, though, failed to match the ostentation they displayed in other facets of their lives. They were not lavish; the brown paint on the patio decks was peeling, and they had a distinctly 1970s feel. But to the young fighters roaming through Hannibal’s quarters — furnished overwhelmingly in whites and blacks, and ringed with plastic grass — there was just enough luxury to inspire envy in a country whose wealth was squandered.
“We’ve got to take this over!” said Bahaeddin Zintani, a 23-year-old fighter who took turns with his brother lying in bed and posing for pictures before a home gym fitted with a mirror. “This is the first time I’ve even seen anything like this.”
On a black granite bar, there were cases for Johnnie Walker Blue Label and Dom Pérignon Rose, all empty. The patio opened to a spectacular view of turquoise waters.
“All I can ask is why?” said Mr. Zintani’s older brother, Serajeddin, carting an Israeli-made rifle. “Why can’t we live like this, the good life? Every day you walk out and see the sea.”
Muatassim, another of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons and the country’s national security adviser, surrounded himself with more luxury. He regularly arrived in a convoy of cars to a farmhouse in the Ain Zara neighborhood of Tripoli protected by high walls and gates on four sides that were made to look like cinder-block walls. A driveway with a fountain featuring four horse-drawn carriages led to an ostentatious pool bungalow, with Roman columns at the entrance and topped by gold domes that looked like Hershey Kisses.
On Saturday, fighters from Misurata toured the house, stunned. “It’s like some Aladdin castle,” one said. “He doesn’t care about the Libyan people. Just living in heaven.”
Another fighter walked out with a book of stamps depicting the Brother Leader.
In a diplomatic cable from 2009 released by WikiLeaks, Muatassim was described as “ambitious and competitive,” and as being groomed as another potential successor. “Considered little more than a playboy two year ago, Muatassim has surprised many observers by the seriousness with which he has taken his new responsibilities as the national security adviser,” wrote Gene A. Cretz, who was then the United States ambassador to Libya.
In the charred remains of his house, limes littered the floors of a barroom. A painting of samurai doing battle was the only one not ripped from its frame. Chinese lanterns hung on long deck by a massive pool, with a gazebo in the middle. Mohamed al-Hutmani, who lived nearby, walked around the grounds, through the lemon trees and olive groves that covered several acres.
“We were not allowed to stop our cars on the street,” Mr. Hutmani said. “It was impossible to think that I would enter this place.”
Rebel guards closed the former home of Colonel Qaddafi’s daughter Aisha because too many Libyans were wandering through, having their pictures taken and looking for souvenirs.
Through his long reign, Colonel Qaddafi posed as an ever-struggling revolutionary, his ideas encapsulated in the Green Book. (In one memorable passage, he defended freedom of expression, even if a person chooses “to express his or her insanity.”) But the avowed simplicity never matched his lifestyle, prone as he was to epaulets, billowing robes and shirts emblazoned with green maps of Africa. His all-female contingent of guards was said to be sworn to celibacy. Interspersed in his ravings were the words of a man with the healthiest of egos, even as health, education and housing in his country crumbled. “King of kings,” he once declared himself.
At his former residence in Bab al-Aziziya, his leadership’s fortresslike preserve in the heart of Tripoli, there was a white binder with hundreds of pages of clippings about him.
Graffiti on a wall nearby taunted the Brother Leader, now nicknamed for another distinguishing trait: unmanageable grooming. “Where’s the guy with the crazy hair?” it said.
New York Wakes to Hurricane’s Fury
Hurricane Irene began pounding the New York City area with heavy rain and wind on Sunday morning, shutting down mass transit and causing power failures and some flooding.While New York had all but closed down in anticipation of what forecasters warned could be violent winds with the force to drive a wall of water over the beaches in the Rockaways and between the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, as of early Sunday morning, all bridges and tunnels remained open, with the exception of the lower level of the George Washington Bridge because of high winds, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Windspeeds from the storm had diminished somewhat at it moved north, capping off at 75 miles an hour, the National Hurricane Center reported, slightly above the minimum needed to considered a Category I hurricane. A wind gust of 58 m.p.h. had been reported at JFK Airport. Still, forecasters said the relentless rain from the slow-moving storm made it very dangerous.
“Even though they are saying that the storm is quote-on-quote weakening, hurricane winds are hurricane winds,” John Searing, the deputy commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services, said before daybreak Sunday as he prepared to deal with the damage. “Whether they say its 80 miles or 75 miles an hour, what’s the physical difference in that?”
City officials warned that a big problem could be flooding at high tide, at about 8 a.m. Sunday — before the storm has moved on and the wind has slacked off. The storm is expected to pass through by Sunday afternoon, moving into Southern New England.
“That is when you’ll see the water come over the side,” Mr. Bloomberg cautioned Saturday afternoon.
In its latest forecast, the National Hurricane Center warned that “water levels have been rising rapidly in advance of the center of Irene.” At 5 a.m., the center reported the storm surge of 3.1 feet at Cape May, N.J., 3.8 feet in Sandy Hook, N.J., and 3.9 feet in New York Harbor.
On the Jackie Robinson Parkway, three feet of water blocked all lanes, state and city officials reported. Floodwaters diverted traffic on the Verrazano Bridge and shut the southbound F.D.R. drive at 116th Street. The Union Turnpike ramp on the Grand Central Parkway was shut and on the Cross Bronx Expressway, the rising waters blocked the exit at White Plains Road.
More than 100,000 people in the New York area had lost electricity by early Sunday morning — 150,338 on Long Island, according to the Long Island Power Authority, which shut power to Fire Island, Captree Island, Robert Moses, and Oak Island; 166,000 in New Jersey, according to Public Service Electric and Gas; and about 57,992 in the city and in Westchester, according to Consolidated Edison. Of those more than 8,400 were on Staten Island, according to utility’s Web site, and about 5,000 in Queens and Brooklyn.
Utilities in Connecticut reported about 70,000 customers are without power, according to The Associated Press. The Connecticut Light and Power Company reported nearly 60,000 customers were without power early Sunday, and United Illuminating, which serves the Bridgeport and New Haven area, reported 10,000 customers.
“The number of outages continues to climb as Hurricane Irene moves north,” the New Jersey utility said in a statement on its Web site.
Since Friday, the city had done more than issue warnings. The subway system, one of the city’s trademarks, had shut down in the middle of the day on Saturday, and firefighters and social service workers had spent much of Saturday trying to complete the evacuation of about 370,000 residents in low-lying areas where officials expected flooding to follow the storm. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said that more than a million people had been evacuated, mainly from four counties in the southern part of the state.
The storm, a wide and relentless mass that had had lurched onto the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the early daylight hours of Saturday, heaved clumsily but implacably north, leaving in its wake at least nine deaths. After crawling slowly from North Carolina into Virginia, the storm weaved out to sea and onto a path that forecasters said would take it to Long Island and New York City.
The storm was a spinning kaleidoscope of weather, sometimes pounding windows with rain, sometimes flashing the sky with lightning, sometimes blacking out the horizon with ominous, low-riding clouds. As the hurricane moved up the East Coast, tornado watches had moved right along with it, and that lockstep continued as the storm closed in on the New York area: early Sunday, the National Weather Service announced a tornado watch for the city, along with Westchester, Suffolk, Nassau and Rockland Counties. “It’s actually common when we have these tropical systems,” said Brian Ceimnecki, a meteorologist with the Weather Service.The Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, said that “thousands” of people were spending the night in county facilities, including Nassau County Community College. He asked people in areas that were in danger to stay with friends or relatives, if possible.The city opened 78 emergency shelters that could take in 70,000 people. But officials said that only 8,700 had arrived by 11 p.m. on Saturday. The only other statistics available pointed to the difficulty of getting people to abide by the mayor’s mandatory evacuation order in what the city calls Zone A low-lying areas: The mayor had said several hours earlier that 80 percent of the residents in some city-run buildings — but only 50 percent in others — had left.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered 2,000 National Guard troops called up. Mr. Cuomo saw the first of them off from the 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue at 26th Street, after saying they would assist the police, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He also said that some would be sent to Long Island, which could face heavy damage in the storm.
Mr. Christie said 1,500 National Guard troops had been deployed in New Jersey.
The mayor attributed one casualty to the storm, a 66-year-old man who fell from a ladder while trying to board up windows at his house in Jamaica, Queens, early in the day. A Fire Department spokesman said the man, who was not immediately identified, was in serious condition at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
The mayor said police rescuers had pulled two kayakers from the water off Staten Island after their boats capsized. “When they were out there in spite of all the warnings, I don’t know,” the mayor said at his late-evening briefing, adding that they had been “kept afloat by lifejackets” they were wearing. He said they had been given summonses.
He also said that going out in the water as the storm approached was a “reckless” move that had “diverted badly-needed N.Y.P.D. resources.”
The city’s beaches were closed, and at midday, as the transit system prepared to shut down, police officers sounded the warning, strolling along subway platforms and telling people that the next train would be the last. The conductor of a No. 4 train that pulled into the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn at 12:14 p.m. had the same message.
“This is it,” he said, smiling. “You’re just in time.”
Soon subway employees were stretching yellow tape across the entrances to stations to keep people from going down the steps and into a subterranean world that was suddenly off limits, but not deserted. Transit workers were charged with executing a huge, mostly underground ballet, moving 200 subway trains away from outdoor yards that could flood if the storm delivered the 6 to 12 inches of rain that forecasts called for. The trains were to be parked in tunnels across the city, making regular runs impossible.
Mr. Bloomberg said the transit system was “unlikely to be back” in service on Monday. He said crews would have to pump water from tunnels if they flooded and restore the signal system before they could move the parked trains out. That would mean “the equipment’s not where you would want it” for the morning rush, he said. “Plan on a commute without mass transit on Monday morning.”
Mr. Bloomberg also said electricity could be knocked out in Lower Manhattan if Consolidated Edison shut off the power to pre-empt the problems that flooding could cause for its cables. (A Con Ed spokesman said later that the company, while prepared, had no immediate plans for that kind of shutdown.)
Other officials, including Mr. Christie, repeated what they had said on Friday: Evacuate.
Mr. Christie said that 90 percent to 98 percent of residents in parts of four counties in South Jersey had left — Cape May, Atlantic, Ocean and Monmouth. About 1,200 people who were evacuated from Atlantic County on Friday had spent the night without cots at the Sun Center arena in Trenton, where many people ended up sleeping in seats, he said. They were taken to the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, which Mr. Christie visited after a news conference.
In New York, Mr. Bloomberg said the evacuation and the transit shutdown, actions that he said had not been ordered before, had gone as well as could be expected. Officials went door to door in high-rise housing projects and firefighters drove school buses to help get homebound residents out of low-lying neighborhoods.
But, for all the evacuation, some people had to stay put. The city did not evacuate inmates on Rikers Island because, a city spokesman explained, “It’s not in Zone A.”
The storm caused major disruptions long before the first bands of rain swirled by. The three major airports in the New York region stopped clearing flights for landing at noon. Officials said they would remain open for planes that wanted to take off, but most flights had been canceled on Friday, according to Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority.
Amtrak canceled most trains after 11 a.m., although there was some confusion at Pennsylvania Station. A northbound train that left at 10:15 a.m. was, the conductor said, the last one going in that direction and was sold out.
The storm’s potential path reminded weather historians of the devastating hurricane of 1938. That storm devastated the Connecticut coast and rearranged Long Island’s geography, carving an inlet through what had been a thin but solid stretch of land on the way to the Hamptons.
On Saturday, New York awoke to an odd, greenish-gray sky, overheated air that felt heavy with moisture and only a light, summery breeze. It was not just another sleepy Saturday in August — too many people were on alert too early. In Battery Park City, long lines of taxis waited to take evacuees who carried their possessions to the curb. Uptown, some were dismayed when they found that stores like the new Fairway on East 86th Street had closed.
“It fits into the whole alarmist nature of the city,” said Mike Ortenau, 44, who lives in the neighborhood.
HRCP demands safe recovery of Shahbaz Taseer
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) expressed concern over former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer’s son Shahbaz Taseer’s kidnapping and urged the Punjab government to ensure his early and safe recovery. The abduction of Shahbaz highlights the Punjab government’s inability to afford security and protection even to those known to be at high risk, the commission said.
The human rights watchdog said that such brazen crimes reflect a general deterioration of law and order and add to the sense of insecurity that the people have now grown accustomed to. If those assigned special security are not safe from being snatched in broad daylight in the heart of the country’s second most populous city, the lot of the common person is not that difficult to imagine, the HRCP said. While it is too early to speculate about the abductors’ motives, the HRCP calls upon the Punjab government to ensure that Shahbaz is recovered speedily and his abductors are held to account.
It also demands that rather than responding to the crime after the fact, the Punjab government must invest its efforts and resources in preventing crime, irrespective of the victim’s identity.
Separately, the public expressed its sadness and fear over the horrific incident. Street interviews showed that people felt stripped of the little security that they had begun to feel after a long time. “It’s outrageous the way even people belonging from high-profile sections of society are being kidnapped and killed in broad day light,” Hassan, 26, said. “One can imagine the level of safety a common man would feel in Pakistan,” he said. “After the murders of Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, I have begun to feel that anything can happen,” Mohsin, 27, said.
Many also expressed their anger at the Punjab government for being incompetent in handling the problems of terrorism so rampant in the province. “Why is the CM in Sindh, while there are so many problems in his own province?” questioned one angry man. “We must support other provinces too, but at least today the CM should have immediately flown back to Lahore to handle the issue. Instead, he is giving speeches about target killings in Karachi and floods in Badin. What about floods in his own province?” he asked.
The public seems to have lost any kind of peace of mind that they might have wanted to maintain during Ramadan. “Who will get abducted, killed, or tortured here no one knows. But I wish the authorities responsible would really do something about this. No one can feel safe around here with such administration,” Shaheen, 45, said.
The human rights watchdog said that such brazen crimes reflect a general deterioration of law and order and add to the sense of insecurity that the people have now grown accustomed to. If those assigned special security are not safe from being snatched in broad daylight in the heart of the country’s second most populous city, the lot of the common person is not that difficult to imagine, the HRCP said. While it is too early to speculate about the abductors’ motives, the HRCP calls upon the Punjab government to ensure that Shahbaz is recovered speedily and his abductors are held to account.
It also demands that rather than responding to the crime after the fact, the Punjab government must invest its efforts and resources in preventing crime, irrespective of the victim’s identity.
Separately, the public expressed its sadness and fear over the horrific incident. Street interviews showed that people felt stripped of the little security that they had begun to feel after a long time. “It’s outrageous the way even people belonging from high-profile sections of society are being kidnapped and killed in broad day light,” Hassan, 26, said. “One can imagine the level of safety a common man would feel in Pakistan,” he said. “After the murders of Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, I have begun to feel that anything can happen,” Mohsin, 27, said.
Many also expressed their anger at the Punjab government for being incompetent in handling the problems of terrorism so rampant in the province. “Why is the CM in Sindh, while there are so many problems in his own province?” questioned one angry man. “We must support other provinces too, but at least today the CM should have immediately flown back to Lahore to handle the issue. Instead, he is giving speeches about target killings in Karachi and floods in Badin. What about floods in his own province?” he asked.
The public seems to have lost any kind of peace of mind that they might have wanted to maintain during Ramadan. “Who will get abducted, killed, or tortured here no one knows. But I wish the authorities responsible would really do something about this. No one can feel safe around here with such administration,” Shaheen, 45, said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhawa education institutions facing financial crunch
As many as 15 higher education institutions of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK) have sent letters to the governor informing him about the financial crunch that has made it impossible for the universities to pay 50 percent increase in salaries announced last year as well as the 15 percent increase announced this year.
According to well-placed sources, the higher education institutions of KPK have been intimated that funds related to the 50 percent increase announced last year as well as the 15 percent increase announced this year may not be released after all.
The universities that have written letters to the governor included KP Agriculture University, University of Malakand, University of Peshawar, University of Bannu, Gomal University, Institute of Management Sciences Peshawar, Frontier Women University, University of Swat, Kohat University, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Islamia College University, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sherigal, Khyber Medical University, Hazara University and KP University of Engineering and Technology.
According to information, the universities of KPK are facing liabilities of around Rs1.9 billion in which the impact of 50 percent increase in salaries is around Rs1.3 billion while the impact of 15 percent increase in salaries is around Rs838.377 million.
The break-up of liabilities of KPK universities is as follows: the KPK Agricultural University has a total liability of Rs222.328 million that include Rs119 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs103 million impact of 15 percent increase. A total of Rs66.640 million is the liability of University of Malakand that includes Rs21.640 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs45 million is the impact of 15 percent increase. The University of Peshawar has a total liability of Rs575.714 million that includes Rs297 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs278.338 million impact of 15 percent increase.
The University of Bannu has total liability of Rs59.500 million that includes Rs45 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs14.5 million impact of 15 percent increase. A total of Rs278.285 million is the liability of Gomal University that includes Rs131 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs147.285 million impact of 15 percent increase. The Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, has a total liability of Rs38.731 million that includes Rs29.528 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs9.203 million impact of 15 percent increase.
The Frontier Women University has a total liability of Rs25.191 million that includes Rs13.191 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs12 million impact of 15 percent increase. Rs34.145 million are the total liability of the University of Swat that includes Rs14 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs20 million impact of 15 percent. The Kohat University has a total liability of Rs143.569 million that includes Rs98.569 million impact of 50 percent increase and Rs45 million impact of 15 percent increase.
PML-N fails to impact Karachi turmoil
http://www.thenews.com.pk
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has failed to make its presence felt on the political horizon as far as the grim Karachi situation is concerned.
The PML-N leaders this correspondent talked to conceded that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s just concluded three-day visit to Karachi, which was intended to heal the wounds of its people, was too belated.
“Given our political standing and relevance, we have not paid the needed heed to Karachi when it was engulfed by worst violence with the government being busy playing tricks to gain political mileage and trying to expand its political base,” one PML-N leader said on condition of anonymity.
As per his practice being followed over the past several years, PML-N President Nawaz Sharif is spending the last ten days of the Ramazan in Saudi Arabia. Even when he was in Pakistan, he did not take time out to pay a visit to Karachi with the purpose of instilling a sense of urgency and emergency in the government to hurry up and rectify the deteriorating situation.
The PML-N leader said that Shahbaz Sharif’s activities in Karachi on the last day, which even otherwise were not very elaborately politically planned, were dampened by the sensational kidnapping of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer’s son and he rushed back to Lahore. He met businessmen, entrepreneurs and intellectuals, and hoped to change that the PML-N was not popular in Karachi, acknowledging that it was not able to play an active role in Sindh.
He admitted that despite the unparalleled damage being done to Pakistan’s economy by the anarchy in Karachi, the PML-N simply left it to the ruling coalition to handle and bring the situation under control. “I believe we should have built up pressure on the government. This is what we being in the opposition are supposed to do. Had we done so, the government would not have acted the way it had since long.”
Another PML-N stalwart said that if the central party leadership avoided going to Karachi again and again during its difficult time to tell its people that it feels for them, the performance of its Sindh chapter has been too dismal in this regard. Elderly Leaguer Syed Ghous Ali Shah, who has been mainly managing (or mismanaging) the PML-N in Sindh has of late been displeased with the Sharif brothers due to its reorganization in Sindh.
The PML-N leader said that it was of course unsettling for a major political party like his to be totally ignored in the context of the Karachi situation. “We have faced constant embarrassment by repeatedly hearing that there are only three stakeholders in Karachi - Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP). No doubt, their representatives were elected from the Sindh metropolis in the last elections, but this doesn’t mean that the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sunni Tehrik, MQM-H etc. don’t have any say there. They are also relevant players.”
While the PML-N took the back seat with the eruption of increased violence in Karachi over the past few months, the Jamaat-e-Islami continues to undertake activities there despite having been tremendously marginalized by the MQM.
The PML-N leader said that as Nawaz Sharif would return from Saudi Arabia early next month, the party would devise a policy for its activities in the Sindh including Karachi. “In any case, we are going to field our candidates for a number of national and provincial constituencies of Sindh in the next general elections.”
No matter the PML-N nominees win or lose, their participation will show that the party is seriously treating Sindh like other areas of Pakistan in the electoral contest, he said. The PML-N would also hold its provincial elections in September. After that Nawaz Sharif will visit all the provinces with his focus being on Sindh, the PML-N leader said.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has failed to make its presence felt on the political horizon as far as the grim Karachi situation is concerned.
The PML-N leaders this correspondent talked to conceded that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s just concluded three-day visit to Karachi, which was intended to heal the wounds of its people, was too belated.
“Given our political standing and relevance, we have not paid the needed heed to Karachi when it was engulfed by worst violence with the government being busy playing tricks to gain political mileage and trying to expand its political base,” one PML-N leader said on condition of anonymity.
As per his practice being followed over the past several years, PML-N President Nawaz Sharif is spending the last ten days of the Ramazan in Saudi Arabia. Even when he was in Pakistan, he did not take time out to pay a visit to Karachi with the purpose of instilling a sense of urgency and emergency in the government to hurry up and rectify the deteriorating situation.
The PML-N leader said that Shahbaz Sharif’s activities in Karachi on the last day, which even otherwise were not very elaborately politically planned, were dampened by the sensational kidnapping of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer’s son and he rushed back to Lahore. He met businessmen, entrepreneurs and intellectuals, and hoped to change that the PML-N was not popular in Karachi, acknowledging that it was not able to play an active role in Sindh.
He admitted that despite the unparalleled damage being done to Pakistan’s economy by the anarchy in Karachi, the PML-N simply left it to the ruling coalition to handle and bring the situation under control. “I believe we should have built up pressure on the government. This is what we being in the opposition are supposed to do. Had we done so, the government would not have acted the way it had since long.”
Another PML-N stalwart said that if the central party leadership avoided going to Karachi again and again during its difficult time to tell its people that it feels for them, the performance of its Sindh chapter has been too dismal in this regard. Elderly Leaguer Syed Ghous Ali Shah, who has been mainly managing (or mismanaging) the PML-N in Sindh has of late been displeased with the Sharif brothers due to its reorganization in Sindh.
The PML-N leader said that it was of course unsettling for a major political party like his to be totally ignored in the context of the Karachi situation. “We have faced constant embarrassment by repeatedly hearing that there are only three stakeholders in Karachi - Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP). No doubt, their representatives were elected from the Sindh metropolis in the last elections, but this doesn’t mean that the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sunni Tehrik, MQM-H etc. don’t have any say there. They are also relevant players.”
While the PML-N took the back seat with the eruption of increased violence in Karachi over the past few months, the Jamaat-e-Islami continues to undertake activities there despite having been tremendously marginalized by the MQM.
The PML-N leader said that as Nawaz Sharif would return from Saudi Arabia early next month, the party would devise a policy for its activities in the Sindh including Karachi. “In any case, we are going to field our candidates for a number of national and provincial constituencies of Sindh in the next general elections.”
No matter the PML-N nominees win or lose, their participation will show that the party is seriously treating Sindh like other areas of Pakistan in the electoral contest, he said. The PML-N would also hold its provincial elections in September. After that Nawaz Sharif will visit all the provinces with his focus being on Sindh, the PML-N leader said.
PML-N fails to impact Karachi turmoil
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has failed to make its presence felt on the political horizon as far as the grim Karachi situation is concerned.
The PML-N leaders this correspondent talked to conceded that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s just concluded three-day visit to Karachi, which was intended to heal the wounds of its people, was too belated.
“Given our political standing and relevance, we have not paid the needed heed to Karachi when it was engulfed by worst violence with the government being busy playing tricks to gain political mileage and trying to expand its political base,” one PML-N leader said on condition of anonymity.
As per his practice being followed over the past several years, PML-N President Nawaz Sharif is spending the last ten days of the Ramazan in Saudi Arabia. Even when he was in Pakistan, he did not take time out to pay a visit to Karachi with the purpose of instilling a sense of urgency and emergency in the government to hurry up and rectify the deteriorating situation.
The PML-N leader said that Shahbaz Sharif’s activities in Karachi on the last day, which even otherwise were not very elaborately politically planned, were dampened by the sensational kidnapping of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer’s son and he rushed back to Lahore. He met businessmen, entrepreneurs and intellectuals, and hoped to change that the PML-N was not popular in Karachi, acknowledging that it was not able to play an active role in Sindh.
He admitted that despite the unparalleled damage being done to Pakistan’s economy by the anarchy in Karachi, the PML-N simply left it to the ruling coalition to handle and bring the situation under control. “I believe we should have built up pressure on the government. This is what we being in the opposition are supposed to do. Had we done so, the government would not have acted the way it had since long.”
Another PML-N stalwart said that if the central party leadership avoided going to Karachi again and again during its difficult time to tell its people that it feels for them, the performance of its Sindh chapter has been too dismal in this regard. Elderly Leaguer Syed Ghous Ali Shah, who has been mainly managing (or mismanaging) the PML-N in Sindh has of late been displeased with the Sharif brothers due to its reorganization in Sindh.
The PML-N leader said that it was of course unsettling for a major political party like his to be totally ignored in the context of the Karachi situation. “We have faced constant embarrassment by repeatedly hearing that there are only three stakeholders in Karachi - Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP). No doubt, their representatives were elected from the Sindh metropolis in the last elections, but this doesn’t mean that the PML-N, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sunni Tehrik, MQM-H etc. don’t have any say there. They are also relevant players.”
While the PML-N took the back seat with the eruption of increased violence in Karachi over the past few months, the Jamaat-e-Islami continues to undertake activities there despite having been tremendously marginalized by the MQM.
The PML-N leader said that as Nawaz Sharif would return from Saudi Arabia early next month, the party would devise a policy for its activities in the Sindh including Karachi. “In any case, we are going to field our candidates for a number of national and provincial constituencies of Sindh in the next general elections.”
No matter the PML-N nominees win or lose, their participation will show that the party is seriously treating Sindh like other areas of Pakistan in the electoral contest, he said. The PML-N would also hold its provincial elections in September. After that Nawaz Sharif will visit all the provinces with his focus being on Sindh, the PML-N leader said.
PML-N has lost popularity
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Federal Minister for Textile Makhdom Shahabddin has said the PML-N has lost its popularity among people in the country. Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, he said Nawaz Sharif’s demand of snap polls was absolutely a reflection of an undemocratic approach and thinking, adding that general elections would be held at the scheduled time. The minister said democracy was the best for prosperity and progress of the country as well as the people. He said people of south Punjab would get a reward in shape of a new province and the PPP-led would honour its pledge in this regard. He said the demand of the PML-N to divide Punjab into 10 provinces was highly non-serious. He said the situation in Karachi was speedily getting normal. Standing Committee of National Assembly on Food and Agriculture chairman Javed Iqbal Warriach was also present at the press conference. Meanwhile, politically isolated, the PML-N is reaching out to smaller groups and parties that it had once rejected when their popularity was high. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz members had a meeting with a breakaway faction of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), PML-Like Minded, headed by Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan on Thursday. The PML-N is also in touch with some nationalist parties in Sindh and Balochistan for cooperation. “The two parties have decided in principle to form an alliance. We will decide the modalities of this alliance in another meeting after Eid,” former federal minister Hamayun Akhtar, a member of PML-Likeminded, told The Express Tribune. The two sides will give a fresh impetus to an attempt made last year to form an alliance of different Muslim Leagues, a PML-N leader said. The smaller factions of Muslim Leagues in the past had blamed the inflexible attitude of the Sharif brothers as a main hurdle in forming a united Muslim League. Pir Pagara’s PML-F, Ijaz ul Haq’s PML-Z, Sheikh Rashid’s Awami Muslim League and Chaudhry Shujaat’s PML-Q were to be part of the alliance with the PML-N if the effort had succeeded. The PML-N is also trying to put its own house in order and patch up with dissident voices within the party.
Federal Minister for Textile Makhdom Shahabddin has said the PML-N has lost its popularity among people in the country. Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, he said Nawaz Sharif’s demand of snap polls was absolutely a reflection of an undemocratic approach and thinking, adding that general elections would be held at the scheduled time. The minister said democracy was the best for prosperity and progress of the country as well as the people. He said people of south Punjab would get a reward in shape of a new province and the PPP-led would honour its pledge in this regard. He said the demand of the PML-N to divide Punjab into 10 provinces was highly non-serious. He said the situation in Karachi was speedily getting normal. Standing Committee of National Assembly on Food and Agriculture chairman Javed Iqbal Warriach was also present at the press conference. Meanwhile, politically isolated, the PML-N is reaching out to smaller groups and parties that it had once rejected when their popularity was high. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz members had a meeting with a breakaway faction of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), PML-Like Minded, headed by Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan on Thursday. The PML-N is also in touch with some nationalist parties in Sindh and Balochistan for cooperation. “The two parties have decided in principle to form an alliance. We will decide the modalities of this alliance in another meeting after Eid,” former federal minister Hamayun Akhtar, a member of PML-Likeminded, told The Express Tribune. The two sides will give a fresh impetus to an attempt made last year to form an alliance of different Muslim Leagues, a PML-N leader said. The smaller factions of Muslim Leagues in the past had blamed the inflexible attitude of the Sharif brothers as a main hurdle in forming a united Muslim League. Pir Pagara’s PML-F, Ijaz ul Haq’s PML-Z, Sheikh Rashid’s Awami Muslim League and Chaudhry Shujaat’s PML-Q were to be part of the alliance with the PML-N if the effort had succeeded. The PML-N is also trying to put its own house in order and patch up with dissident voices within the party.
PPP blames authorities in Punjab for Taseer abduction
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) pinned blame on the opposition provincial government and announced it would hold protest rallies.
Shabaz was abducted by unidentified gunmen on Friday in Lahore, capital of Punjab province ruled by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
The kidnap came about eight months after the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer in January by one of his security guards, who confessed to killing him because of his public criticism of the country's blasphemy law.
PPP's Punjab leader Imtiaz Safdar Warraich said the PML-N provincial government led by chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, younger brother of the party president, was responsible for what happened as it had failed to ensure security and curb crime in the most populous province.
"We have decided to hold protest rallies at all divisional headquarters in the province on Monday [today] and will also agitate in the Punjab assembly over the kidnapping," he told the media.
Shabaz was abducted by unidentified gunmen on Friday in Lahore, capital of Punjab province ruled by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
The kidnap came about eight months after the murder of Punjab governor Salman Taseer in January by one of his security guards, who confessed to killing him because of his public criticism of the country's blasphemy law.
PPP's Punjab leader Imtiaz Safdar Warraich said the PML-N provincial government led by chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, younger brother of the party president, was responsible for what happened as it had failed to ensure security and curb crime in the most populous province.
"We have decided to hold protest rallies at all divisional headquarters in the province on Monday [today] and will also agitate in the Punjab assembly over the kidnapping," he told the media.
Police clueless on Taseer’s abduction
The police and law-enforcement agencies were still clueless about Shahbaz Taseer’s whereabouts as search operation for his recovery continued on Saturday. Separately, Capital City Police Officer Ahmad Raza Tahir claimed that Shahbaz Taseer was still in the city. He said that mobile data of Shahbaz Taseer and fingerprints report from NADRA could help resolve the abduction case. He said that Shahbaz Taseer was provided comprehensive security coverage, which included two assistant sub-inspectors, two head constables and 16 constables. He said that four Elite commandos were solely deployed for the protection of Shahbaz Taseer and four ladies Elite commandos for protection of Mrs Taseer besides five personnel of the Pakistan Rangers to protect and provide security to the family 24 hours. In addition to it, the Taseer family had also engaged four SSG-trained personnel. Talking to the media, DIG (Operations) Ghulam Mehmood Dogar said that the police had found some clue to Shahbaz Taseer case but did not want to discuss with the media due to security reasons. He said, “We were trying our level best to track the abductors and the operation was in full swing in this regard.”
Punjab chief minister should focus on improvement of Punjab, instead of interfering in Sindh
PML-Q senior leader and senior federal minister Ch Pervaiz Elahi said Saturday that the Punjab chief minister should focus on improvement of Punjab, instead of interfering in Sindh government affairs.
There had been a phenomenal surge in crime figures after his tenure as Punjab chief minister, Pervaiz Elahi claimed. Everyone in the province was feeling insecure now, he said and added that there had been 10-time increase in the incidents of dacoities while thieves and dacoits were ruling Lahore.
He was talking with the media after meeting with the family of Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain governor Salman Taseer, who was kidnapped the other day.
Ch Pervaiz Elahi expressed solidarity with the family and termed the incident deplorable , hoping that Shahbaz Taseer would return home safe, soon. Ch Pervaiz Elahi told the media that the Punjab government was unable to trace the incident and they should cooperate with the central agencies to reach the real culprits. He claimed that the law and order situation in the hometown of the CM was deplorable which reflected his incompetence and worried the trader community .
The chief minister had not given any formula or policy to improve situation in Punjab, Pervaiz said, referring to the World Bank report, according to which education ratio could have been improved in Punjab if the incumbent government had continued with the policies of Pervaiz Elahi government.
There had been a phenomenal surge in crime figures after his tenure as Punjab chief minister, Pervaiz Elahi claimed. Everyone in the province was feeling insecure now, he said and added that there had been 10-time increase in the incidents of dacoities while thieves and dacoits were ruling Lahore.
He was talking with the media after meeting with the family of Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain governor Salman Taseer, who was kidnapped the other day.
Ch Pervaiz Elahi expressed solidarity with the family and termed the incident deplorable , hoping that Shahbaz Taseer would return home safe, soon. Ch Pervaiz Elahi told the media that the Punjab government was unable to trace the incident and they should cooperate with the central agencies to reach the real culprits. He claimed that the law and order situation in the hometown of the CM was deplorable which reflected his incompetence and worried the trader community .
The chief minister had not given any formula or policy to improve situation in Punjab, Pervaiz said, referring to the World Bank report, according to which education ratio could have been improved in Punjab if the incumbent government had continued with the policies of Pervaiz Elahi government.
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