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VIDEO: President Obama Delivers a Statement on Ukraine

TURKEY: Erdogan recordings appear real, analyst says, as Turkey scandal grows

http://www.sacbee.com/

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan tightened his grip Wednesday on the judiciary and the Internet in an effort to tamp down a corruption scandal that’s rattled his government and now appears to implicate his immediate family and him.

Evidence mounted that a series of audio recordings in which Erdogan can be heard instructing his son, Bilal, to get rid of enormous sums of money are authentic, with the government firing two senior officials at the state scientific agency responsible for the security of encrypted telephones and a U.S.-based expert on encrypted communications, after examining the recordings, telling McClatchy that the recordings appear to be genuine. Erdogan on Tuesday called the five purported conversations an “immoral montage” that had been “dubbed.” But he acknowledged that even his secure telephone had been tapped. The only apparent “montage” was combining the five different conversations into one audio file, said Joshua Marpet, a U.S.-based cyber analyst who has testified in court on the validity of computer evidence in other Turkish criminal cases. He said there was no sign that the individual conversations had been edited. “If it’s fake, it’s of a sophistication that I haven’t seen,” he said.

The purported telephone conversations took place over a 26-hour period, beginning on the morning of Dec. 17, when Turkish police launched raids on the houses and offices of members of the Erdogan government, businessmen and their families.

“Whatever you have in the house, get rid of it, OK?” the prime minister can be heard telling Bilal in the opening conversation. Erdogan tells Bilal that his sister Sumeyye is on her way to help him and admonishes Bilal to tell others in the family also to get rid of cash, including Sumeyye’s husband, Bilal’s brother Burak, his uncle Mustafa Erdogan, and Erdogan’s brother-in-law, Berat Albayrak.

“It will be good if you completely ‘zero’ it,” the prime minster is heard saying in the second conversation, which took place later that morning. In the fourth conversation at 11:15 that night, Bilal says he had almost “zeroed” out the money, but that there were some 30 million euros (about $39 million) left. When his father asks why he didn’t transfer all the money to Mehmet Gur, a contractor who was building the Erdogan family villa, Bilal responds: because “it takes a lot of space.”

At different points, Erdogan can be heard warning Bilal not to use a regular telephone. In the final conversation on the morning of Dec. 18, after Bilal admits that the money had not been “zeroed out,” the prime minister again says Bilal should get rid of all the funds.

“OK, Dad, but we are probably being monitored at the moment,” Bilal said. His father replied: “Son, you’re being wiretapped,” to Bilal responds: “But they are monitoring us with cameras as well.”

Two more conversations were published on the Internet Wednesday night, one purporting to capture Erdogan and Bilal discussing how much money they should expect from a Turkish businessman, and the other recording two other businessmen discussing a payoff. More are expected, at least until the country votes in municipal elections March 31. If the recordings don’t unsettle politics in this vital U.S. ally of 78 million people, Erdogan’s new laws very well could. The legislation now being rushed through Parliament is widely viewed as Erdogan’s effort to control the corruption probe.

Late Tuesday night, Parliament, where Erdogan’s Justice and Development party holds an absolute majority, gave final approval to a much-criticized bill that gives the government the right to block Internet content, subject to a court’s approval within three days, and gives it access to personal traffic data.

Then on Wednesday President Abdullah Gul approved a controversial bill that gives Erdogan’s justice minister control over an agency that appoints judges and prosecutors and conducts investigations. Together with a bill now already approved by a parliamentary committee giving the state MIT intelligence service access to data held by the government, private institutions and courts upon the approval of one judge, the three bills appeared to be different ways to quash future corruption investigations. “These three laws together look like the government trying to arm itself against its critics and its opponents, in a way that restricts human rights,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This is reactive legislation, being rushed through…It is occurring at the time of a massive political fight, and a corruption scandal the government is trying to bury.” Even Gul, who’s a party ally of Erdogan, had deep misgivings on the law giving the government virtual control over the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors. He said in a statement he had found 15 provisions of the original bill that were unconstitutional, but that several of them were fixed before it came to his desk. Those remaining should be addressed by Turkey’s constitutional court, he said.

Among the most surprising revelations this week was that Erdogan’s conversations with his son – about where to stash the tens of millions of dollars in the homes of family members – were conducted on secure, government-issued telephones and were tapped by another agency of the government.

The eavesdropping now appears to have been facilitated by staff at the government’s Scientific and Technological Research Council, known as Tubitek. Fikri Isik, the minister of science, industry and technology, announced Wednesday that two department heads had been dismissed and that five employees responsible for the encrypted telephones had been suspended.

He noted that Erdogan had not requested an analysis of the alleged conversations with his son but said the institute was ready to do so if asked.

At McClatchy’s request, Marpet, the managing principal of Guarded Risk, a Wilmington, Del., cyber analytics firm, examined the conversations purported to be between Erdogan and his son.

Marpet, who has a background in law enforcement and has done work for the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia as well as testifying in Turkish criminal cases, said there were small sound “spikes” in the recording when one of the speakers mentioned a place name or an individual, but they could be annotations by whoever was monitoring the recording.

Marpet said the audio levels were consistent in each call. The speaker said to be Erdogan had a more “pixilated” or mechanical sounding voice, while the speaker said to be Bilal sounded clearer throughout. This could be because of differences in the phones – pro-government newspapers identified them as CryptoPhones – or in the way they were monitored. Marpet said it was possible that Erdogan’s phone was being intercepted electronically, while Bilal’s phone might have had a listening device planted in the receiver.

Based on the judgment of a Turkish-speaking McClatchy special correspondent that the two men’s voices sounded natural and that the question and answers flowed naturally, and the tone was appropriate for the conversation, “then I’m actually thinking it’s probably real,” Marpet said.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/26/6192244/erdogan-recordings-appear-real.html#storylink=cpy

Video: Bahraini police clash with protesters after funeral

Bahraini police fire teargas and stun grenades during clashes with hundreds of protesters after the funeral of a young man who died in custody.

Clashes with police after Bahrain funeral

Tear gas and stun grenades used against stone-throwing protesters after funeral of young man who died in police custody.

Police in Bahrain have fired tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of protesters throwing stones and petrol bombs in a Shia Muslim village after the funeral of a young man who died in custody, witnesses have said. The Gulf Arab nation, home to the US Fifth Fleet, has suffered low-level civil unrest since mass protests in 2011 led by majority Shias demanding reforms and a bigger share of power in the Sunni-led island kingdom.

Jaafar Mohammed Jaafar, 23, who was detained in December and accused of smuggling weapons, died of from an illness in custody on Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said, the second death of a person held on security-related charges this year. Rights campaigners have not disputed that Jaafar had died as a result of an illness, but the main opposition al-Wefaq group said he had been denied medical treatment, and one activist said he had been tortured, accusations the ministry has denied.

Thousands of people attended Jaafar's funeral on Friday in the village of Daih, west of the capital Manama, the Reuters news agency reported. Protesters later hurled rocks, metal rods and petrol bombs at riot police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Interior Ministry said on its Twitter feed: "Police dispersed a breakaway group of vandals that diverted from the funeral route in Daih." Demonstrations and clashes with security forces erupt frequently in Bahrain, while negotiations between the government and opposition aimed at ending the unrest have stalled. Friday's violence may sour a new attempt to restart talks between the ruling Al-Khalifa family and opposition groups. The authorities say they have rolled out some reforms and are willing to discuss further demands, but the opposition says there can be no progress until the government is chosen by elected representatives, rather than by the king. Earlier this month, a policeman was killed by an explosion at a protest to mark the third anniversary of Bahrain's uprising.

SAUDI BARBARITY: 'Indians' tortured, buried alive in Saudi Arabia: Report

indiatimes.com

In a shocking revelation, three men have confessed to a Saudi Arabia court of torturing and burying alive five Asian workers in 2010. According to a report in Arab News, the three men confessed in the Qatif general court on Wednesday of torturing five Asian workers — believed to be Indians — for hours and then burying them alive. The decomposed bodies of the five men were recovered from a farm in Safwa, a city in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, situated on the Gulf coast. The report claimed that the local police have arrested 25 men in connection with the brutal killings. The website quoted one of the accused, as saying: "I was driving around with a friend using drugs and alcohol when I received a call from another friend at around 10pm. My friend asked me to meet him immediately at a farm." "We reached the farm and saw five workers with their hands tied in the seating area. When the friend with me asked why they were tied, our host said that one of them had sexually harassed his sponsor's daughter and other women," the man told the court. "I saw that the five Indian workers were tied and unconscious, just before we went to another room to drink alcohol and smoke hashish. While we were drinking, I heard one of them screaming so I went out and slapped him in the face," Arab News quoted the man as saying. "We tied them again with ropes and adhesive tape so that they could not move," he added while describing in detail the horrific incident four years ago. The man said their host brought his pickup truck and the three loaded the workers onto it. They then dumped them into a 2.5-meter-deep hole," the man told the court. According to the report, some of the victims were identified by the investigators, who found engraved gold ring and residence cards, from the decaying remains. The decomposed bodies were found with ropes around their arms and legs and their mouths filled with cotton and covered with duct tape, it said.

President Obama & Vice President Biden Show Us How They Move

China issues report on U.S. human rights

China published a report on the United States' human rights record on Friday, in response to U.S. criticism and "irresponsible remarks" about China.

"The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2013" was released by the Information Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, in response to "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013" made public by the U.S. State Department on Thursday.

China's report states that there were serious human rights problems in the U.S in 2013, with the situation deteriorating in many fields. Once again posing as "the world judge of human rights", the U.S. government "made arbitrary attacks and irresponsible remarks" on almost 200 countries and regions, the report says.

The United States carefully concealed and avoided mentioning its own human rights problems, according to the report.

THE WORLD THROUGH PRISM

The U.S. government spies on its own citizens to a "massive and unrestrained" degree, the report says. The report calls the U.S. PRISM surveillance program, a vast, long-term mechanism for spying on private citizens both at home and abroad, "a blatant violation of international law" and says it "seriously infringes human rights." The U.S. intelligence services, by virtue of data provided by Internet and telecom companies -- including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Yahoo -- "recklessly" track citizens' private contacts and social activities.

KILLER ROBOTS AND DEAD CONVENTIONS

The report quantifies drone strikes by the U.S. in countries, including Pakistan and Yemen, which have caused heavy civilian casualties. In Pakistan alone, since 2004, the U.S. has carried out 376 drone strikes killing 926 civilians. The U.S. has not ratified, or participated in, a series of core UN conventions on human rights, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

Solitary confinement is prevalent in the U.S., the report says. In U.S. prisons, inmates in solitary confinement are enclosed in cramped cells with poor ventilation and little or no natural light, isolated from other prisoners; a situation that takes it toll on inmates' physical and mental health.

About 80,000 U.S. prisoners are in solitary confinement. Some have been held in solitary confinement for over 40 years.

RAMPANT GUN VIOLENCE

The rampant U.S. gun culture breeds violence that results in the death of 11,000 Americans every year. The report cites figures from the FBI that state firearms were used in 69.3 percent of the nation's murders, 41 percent of robberies, and 21.8 percent of aggravated assaults. In 2013, 137 people were killed in 30 mass murder events (four or more deaths each). A rampage in the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington D.C. left 12 people dead, according to the report. UNEMPLOYMENT AND HOMELESSNESS "The U.S. still faces a grave employment situation with its unemployment rate still high," the report says. Unemployment for low-income families has topped 21 percent. The homeless population in the U.S. has climbed 16 percent from 2011 to 2013. There are also many child laborers in the agricultural sector in the U.S. and their physical and mental health is seriously compromised, the report says. Friday's report was the 15th such annual report published by China in response to U.S. attacks.

Churkin: Russia’s actions in Crimea in line with Black Sea Fleet agreement

http://en.itar-tass.com/

The agreement between Moscow and Kiev on the presence of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine were signed by the presidents of the two countries in Kharkov on April 21, 2010

All of Russia’s actions in the Crimea are within the framework of the agreement with Ukraine on the Black Sea Fleet base, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said on Friday, when asked by the media about the presence of Russian troops in the peninsula.

“We have an agreement with Ukraine on the presence of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and we have been acting within the framework of those agreements,” Churkin said after a discussion of the Ukrainian issue in the UN Security Council on Friday. Earlier, the United States’ UN envoy Samantha Power and British envoy Mark Lyall Grant expressed concern over what they described as a build-up of Russian troops in the Crimea and urged Moscow to pull out its forces.

The agreement between Moscow and Kiev on the presence of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine were signed by the presidents of the two countries in Kharkov on April 21, 2010.

President Obama Warns Russia Over Ukraine Meddling

http://www.voanews.com/

President Barack Obama has warned Moscow there will be costs if Russian troops intervene in Ukraine following reports that armed men, possibly Russians, have taken up positions in the Crimean region. Obama said at the White House the United States is deeply concerned by reports of Russian military movements inside Ukraine. “It would be a clear violation of Russia's commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine and of international laws,” he said.

Obama said he wants to make it very clear that the Ukrainian people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future. He reminded Russia that it has committed itself to respect Ukrainian sovereignty.

A top U.S. official said the United States and European leaders may skip the G8 economic summit in Sochi, Russia, later this year if the Russian military intervenes in Ukraine. The official said Friday that deeper trade ties and other commercial projects with Russia also could be canceled.

Before the president spoke, Ukraine's United Nations ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, told an emergency Security Council meeting that Russian attack helicopters and military transport planes have crossed into Crimea.

Sergeyev described the main airport as being "captured" by Russian forces. Sergeyev said he wants moral and political support from the world community and that what is going on in his country is "awful."

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the United States is calling for an urgent international mediation mission for Crimea. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his country is against what he calls externally imposed mediation. When asked whether Russia has invaded Ukraine, he said Russia is acting within a treaty with Ukraine that allows it to have a base in Crimea for the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Bilawal Bhutto presided over a meeting to review Larkana Development Package

http://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/

PPP Patron-in-Chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari presided over a meeting to review the Larkana Development Package here at Naudero House. CM Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah, MNA Faryal Talpur, Provincial Ministers Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani and Nisar Khuhro, MPs Mir Nadir Magsi, Mir Amir Magsi and government officials attended the meeting.

Family of Balochistan's missing and disappeared complete 2,000km march

Relatives campaigning against the illegal kidnapping and detention of family members by Pakistan's security forces completed an arduous 2,000km protest march from one of the country's most troubled provinces to Islamabad on Friday. The twenty-strong group started their "long march" in October from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan – a huge province in the south-west where security forces are engaged in a dirty counterinsurgency campaign against separatists who say their land is exploited by outsiders.

One of the marchers, 72-year-old retired bank clerk called Mama Qadeer Baloch, described their arrival on the outskirts of Islamabad as a "victory for my nation and a victory for missing persons".

Human rights groups have long accused the army of "disappearances" of Baloch separatists. The missing are often held in detention for years with their relatives knowing nothing of their whereabouts. Others are killed, their bodies left on roadsides. According to Human Rights Watch 300 have been killed and dumped in the last three years.

The 20 marchers included nine young women and an eleven-year-old boy.

Despite their gruelling journey, little attention has been paid to their campaign outside Balochistan. On some parts of their route they say they were ordered to turn back. While in some parts of Punjab – the country's dominant province – they received abuse and hostility.

Baloch nationalists say their vast but thinly populated province is only of interest to the country's Punjabi establishment for its gas reserves – a vital resource for the textile industry and other businesses.

Separatists in the province regularly attack government forces.

The cause of the insurgents was energised in 2006 with the killing during a military operation of Akbar Khan Bugti, a tribal chief and a leader of the armed struggle in the province. Baloch said his primary aim had been to attract international attention. The campaigners say they will ask the United Nations to send troops to Balochistan.

"This march and this struggle was for the attention of the international community because the solution does not lie with Pakistan but with the international media and institutions," he said.

However their cause does have some high-powered supporters in Pakistan. The country's supreme court has issued many demands for the government to find and produce the missing people.

Will Ukraine's Crimea region be Europe's next 'frozen' conflict?

The world's eyes may have been focused on the breathtakingly fast political changes unfolding in Ukraine's capital Kiev this week, but it is the Crimean peninsula, where dozens of gunmen raised the Russian flag over parliament Thursday, that should now be the primary source of concern for Ukraine's fledgling government and world leaders. Crimea is an autonomous republic whose history has long been marred by political tension. Gifted to Ukraine by Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, its population is ethnic Russian by just over half and Ukrainian by a quarter, while more than ten percent are Crimean Tatars who are fiercely anti-Russian as a result of Joseph Stalin's repression of the group a half century ago.

Russia's strategically important Black Sea naval fleet is hosted at Sevastopol, the region's largest city, an arrangement that controversially extended until 2042 by the ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was last seen fleeing Kiev. His whereabouts are unknown.

The large Russian population of Crimea has long viewed the central government of Ukraine with suspicion. In recent days the mood has turned into aggressive hostility towards the new authorities in Kiev. Crimean Russians see the newly-powerful opposition movement as illegitimate, sponsored by the West, and even fascist. Anti-Ukrainian protests are being held, Russian vigilante groups have sprung up across Crimea, Russian flags have been hoisted on government buildings, clashes have broken out between Russian separatists and loyalist Tatars and Ukrainians, and the Russian military has been seen patrolling key buildings and infrastructure.

The Russian Federation has done precious little to contain this dangerous dynamic. On the contrary, its state-sponsored media have covered the unrest in Crimea extensively and reiterated the Kremlin's view of the events in Kiev as a coup d'état. Envoys from Moscow have descended on Crimea to promise Russian citizenship to all who want it and even the region's re-integration into Russia proper.

Meanwhile, Russia's foreign ministry is warning of violations of the human rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, while the Russian military is reportedly preparing lists for the evacuation of the families of seamen serving at Sevastopol. Snap military exercises have been ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin close to Ukraine's borders. In short, the Kremlin is stoking the fires of the building separatism that can be observed in Crimea, despite its official commitment to non-interference and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

This situation bears all the hallmarks of several long-standing, often referred to as "frozen", conflicts in Eastern Europe. In Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova, in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is contested by Armenia and Azerbaijan, or in Abkhazia and South-Ossetia, which have seceded from Georgia, Russia has long propped up separatists, providing political backing, military support, funding and passports. This undermines the stability of its smaller neighbors, challenges those nations' sovereignty, blocks domestic reforms, and impedes European integration.

By underwriting Crimean separatism, Russia is taking the first steps toward repeating such a scenario in Ukraine. So while many in Kiev and in Western capitals are pondering what Russia will do next, the the Kremlin has already made its decision.

Russia's choice of tactics is no coincidence. Rather, it is based on a sober analysis of the post-Euro-Maidan situation in Ukraine, particularly Kiev, and of Russia's limited leverage there. The hoped-for public mayhem and political stalemate have not materialized. Western acceptance of the new government thwarts Russian claims of its illegitimacy. The country's industrial east shows little inclination to move closer to Russia, and Western financial aid is shaping up to reduce Ukraine's dependency on money from Moscow. In this constellation, Crimea is the "weakest link" in Ukraine today.

This leaves the new Ukrainian government with a very difficult choice. It is obliged by the constitution to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine, to re-establish public order in Crimea, and to guarantee the safety of its citizens there, irrespective of their ethnic background. However, the central government is only just regaining control over the situation, and faces enormous political, economic and social challenges. Its resources are already stretched without having to deal with a strong separatist movement and its even stronger external backer. What is more, Europe and the U.S. will be of very limited help in confronting Crimean separatists and their Russian masters.

Ukraine's choice, then, is between consolidating the gains of the Euro-Maidan revolution across most of the country, and risking it all to maintain control over a historically reticent part of Ukraine that may already be lost. The question that has to be answered now is whether Crimea is a price worth paying for getting Ukraine on track for democracy and European integration.

Video: Ukran's Ousted Yanukovich talks to press in Russia (FULL CONFERENCE)

Ukraine: Yanukovich denies ouster, says 'ashamed & guilty' for not preventing chaos

Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich pledges to fight for Ukraine. He addressed a press conference in southern Russia, appearing in public for the first time since he fled Kiev amid bloody riots.

“No one has ousted me,” Yanukovich told reporters. “I had to leave Ukraine because of a direct threat to my life and the lives of my family.”

According to Yanukovich, “nationalist fascist-like fellows representing the absolute minority of Ukrainians” took over power in Ukraine. He described the situation in Ukraine as “complete lawlessness,” “terror” and "chaos", saying that the politicians, including MPs, have been threatened and are working under threats. It has nothing to do with the unity government that was negotiated with the opposition, he said. The violence and deaths in Ukraine are the “result of the irresponsible politics of the West, which has encouraged Maidan,” Yanukovich stressed. US and other Western countries’ representatives “must take full responsibility” for the fact that the agreement between Yanukovich and the opposition leaders was not held, the ousted president stressed. Western powers’ “patronage” of Maidan makes them directly responsible for the situation in Ukraine, he claimed. The current Ukrainian parliament is “not legitimate,” and the people in power are spreading the propaganda of violence, Yanukovich asserted.

When asked if he feels ashamed of his actions, Yanukovich replied that he feels ashamed and sorry for “not having been able to stabilize the situations and stop the mayhem” in Ukraine. “I want to apologize to the Ukrainian people for what has happened in Ukraine and that I lacked strength to maintain stability.” Yanukovich also apologized to the Ukrainian riot police, Berkut, for having to “suffer” while doing their duty of maintaining peace and order. Police officers had to stand their ground while rioters set them on fire with petrol bombs, he reminded. Yanukovich stressed he had not given any order for police to shoot live fire until the rioters started using firearms, putting the officers’ lives under threat. According to Yanukovich, the early Ukrainian elections announced for May 25 are “illegitimate” and he will not take part in them. However, he said that he will “remain in politics.”

Crimea must remain a part of Ukraine while maintaining a broad autonomy, Yanukovich stressed. He ruled out any possibility that he will ask Russia for military help to resolve the situation there. Yanukovich said he understands the concerns of Crimeans, who want to “protect their homes and families” from “extremists.” When asked why he chose to leave Ukraine for Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovich said that he has “an old friend there,” who can provide him with a “temporary safe haven.” Yanukovich made it to Russia thanks to “patriotically-minded officers,” who helped to “save his life.” He has not met Russian President Vladimir Putin, but they have already talked over the phone. Yanukovich received a lot of questions on Russia’s role and possible actions in the Ukrainian crisis. While saying “it is not correct” to tell Moscow what to do, Yanukovich said he believes “Russia cannot abandon Ukraine to its fate and should use all possible means to prevent chaos and terror in its neighboring country.” Yanukovich also said he was “categorically against any intervention into Ukraine and breach of its territorial integrity.”

Afghanistan Mineral Riches Won’t Go Anywhere Without Rail

BLOOMbERG.COM

Supervisor Atta Mohammad watches the cranes swivel and workers at the Naibabad freight terminal rush to unload wheat and construction material from Uzbekistan that’s just arrived on Afghanistan’s only railroad. The cargo has to be transferred to trucks to reach the rest of the country through the icy passes in the Hindu Kush mountains that loom over the featureless desert because the 75-kilometer (47-mile) railway ends a short distance from the terminal near the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif. The short stretch of track is intended to be the start of 3,600 kilometers of rail that will be the key to unlock Afghanistan’s mineral riches, including iron, copper and gold. In 2010, the Pentagon estimated that Afghan minerals charted by the U.S. Geological Survey were worth some $1 trillion. In 2011, the Afghan government put the estimate at $3 trillion. “Actually it’s $30 trillion -- the U.S. knocked a zero off to keep our assets a secret,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Indian investors in December. He offered no support for his estimate, and investment in Afghan mining so far has been led by groups from China and India, not the U.S. All the projections of Afghan riches suffer from the same weakness. They all assume that the minerals can be mined, transported and exported from a country ravaged by decades of warfare and facing growing uncertainty as the U.S. and its allies prepare to withdraw their combat forces by the end of this year.

Afghanistan’s 25-year plan envisions rail connecting the country with existing lines beyond its borders, Ahmad Shah Wahid, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for public works, said in an interview in his Kabul office. The routes would connect to the north with lines running across Central Asia from China to Europe, to the east and south to Pakistan, and to the west to Iran.

The biggest impediment is finding the billions of dollars needed to build such a national rail network.

“Railways are absolutely vital” to carry landlocked Afghanistan’s mineral riches “to the neighboring countries that have access to ports” to reach world markets, said Joji Tokeshi, country director in Kabul for the Asian Development Bank, which provided a $165 million grant that covered 97 percent of the cost of building the short railway from Uzbekistan to Mazar-e-Sharif. “But it’ll take a huge investment that cannot be done by the government alone or donors alone,” he said.

Even if the money can be raised, trains, tracks and trestles would be vulnerable to sabotage by the Taliban and other militants armed with improvised explosive devices, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons as Afghan forces take over from the U.S. and allies.

Trackside Police

“There are a lot of challenges they need to overcome, both in terms of security in building it and in maintaining the rail line,” said U.S. Army Major Timothy Christensen, director of a rail advisory team that’s assisting the Afghans. The Afghan government, Christensen said, has stationed 470 police officers to protect the track that passes the Naibabad freight terminal, which is about 0.02 percent the length of the proposed national rail network. The American team has recommended that villages along rail routes be given a stake in their safety by developing projects that benefit the communities, Christensen said in a phone interview from Kabul. Security “is a challenge, but it’s not insurmountable, and you try to mitigate it the best you can.”

Indian Investors

So far, the Afghan government’s strategy has been to require companies that win mine-extraction bids to build railroads connecting their mines with networks in neighboring Iran and Pakistan. An $11 billion iron ore project in Hajigak, in Bamiyan province 100 kilometers west of Kabul, has been delayed by a group led by Steel Authority of India Ltd., a company controlled by India’s government, in part because of differences over who should pay for a railroad. The original plan envisaged an 800-megawatt power plant, power transmission lines and a 900-kilometer rail line from Hajigak to Zahedan, Iran, to carry the ore to the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Persian Gulf, about 690 kilometers south. Although the Indian group remains committed to the mining project, “we expect the Afghan government to provide us some basic facilities, such the rail network connecting the mine to the port,” C.S. Verma, chairman of the New Delhi-based Steel Authority, said in an e-mail. “We plan to go in a phased manner and make the investments over a period of 10-12 years.”

Domestic Needs

The Indian group also has considered cutting back its investment amid the security risks, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified. Saying the Indian investors aren’t retreating from their longterm commitment, Abdul Jamil Hares, Afghanistan’s deputy minister of mines, said in an interview that investors want to start by supplying Afghanistan’s domestic needs of about 1.5 million metric tons of steel a year. When Chinese investors won a bid to mine copper at Aynak, 50 kilometers south of Kabul, they pledged to lay a stretch of rail, according to Afghanistan’s Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal. “When Aynak comes into operation, we definitely expect there’ll be a portion of railway from Aynak to Torkham or Peshawar” on the border with Pakistan, Zakhilwal said in an interview in Kabul.

Buddhist Artifacts

Seven years after the investors, led by the state-owned China Metallurgical Group, won with a $3 billion bid, the project is mired in delays. In addition to security threats, the company has had to wait to allow excavation of Buddhist artifacts found at the site. Then surveys last year found that Afghanistan lacks the reserves of phosphates necessary to smelt copper, said Hares, the deputy minister of mines. “It doesn’t mean they’re not willing to process inside the country,” Hares said of the Chinese. “We’re in negotiations to find a way,” he said, without elaborating. Other projects have been delayed because the Afghan parliament has yet to approve changes in the country’s mining law that would let investors secure exploration and extraction rights for minerals in a single bid, eliminating uncertainty for investors, Hares said. Even if the law is passed, “without having proper infrastructure we cannot extract any minerals from Afghanistan,” said Hares, who said foreign governments and aid agencies also are being asked to help build railroads.

Design Work

Aid agencies including the Asian Development Bank, as well the U.S. advisory team and its Afghan counterparts, have started design work on a 336-kilometer rail line that will begin at Aquina in Turkmenistan and pass through Sheberghan and Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan to connect with Tajikistan in the northeast, Christensen said. “As I look at the length of the track, the terrain that must be overcome and the bridges that will need to be built, I would expect the cost to be around $1 billion,” Christensen said. “But we will have to wait for the detailed engineering” that has begun “before we have a better estimate.” The Turkmenistan-Afganistan-Tajikistan line would connect oil and gas fields in northern Afghanistan to a transport network, Christensen said. Work has yet to begin on a southern line linking Afghanistan’s minerals to ports in Iran and Pakistan, he said.

Hindu Kush

Rough calculations show that the cost of a nationwide railway would run from $2 million a kilometer on flatlands to as much as $17 million a kilometer along the Salang Pass that cuts through the Hindu Kush, said Wahid, the deputy minister. That doesn’t include the cost of locomotives and freight cars. Even when donors invest to build railway or roads, Afghanistan doesn’t have the resources to maintain them, Wahid said. Then there’s the need for Afghans to learn how to operate a railway. Unlike its neighbors Pakistan and India, whose railways were built by the U.K. during colonial rule, railroad construction in Afghanistan never got started. While Afghans study how to operate and maintain a railway, operations on the 75-kilometer line to the Naibabad terminal are managed by Sogdiana Trans, an offshoot of Uzbekistan’s state-owned railway company, which built the line in 2011. On the wind-blown desert where the Naibabad terminal is located, trucks line up on a gravel road abutting the concrete-topped unloading area where bundles of iron rods for construction are piled up. Like the rail line, the terminal is a work in progress, said Mohammad, the terminal supervisor. “Because of the limits of the space here, so once 50 workers come, they are able to unload 30 to 35 wagons and load them into trucks and deliver it to other parts of the country,” he said. That translates into 80 truckloads of cargo a day bound for the rest of the country.

Al Qaeda plots comeback in Afghanistan: officials

Al Qaeda's Afghanistan leader is laying the groundwork to relaunch his war-shattered organisation once the United States and international forces withdraw from the country, as they have warned they will do without a security agreement from the Afghan government, US officials say. Farouq Al Qahtani Al Qatari has been cementing local ties and bringing in small numbers of experienced militants to train a new generation of fighters, and US military and intelligence officials say they have increased drone and jet missile strikes against him and his followers in the mountainous eastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. The objective is to keep him from restarting the large training camps that once drew hundreds of followers before the US-led war began. The officials say the counter terrorism campaign a key reason the Obama administration agreed to keep any troops in Afghanistan after 2014 could be jeopardised by the possibility of a total pullout. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said the number of Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan has risen but is not much higher than the several hundred or so the US has identified in the past. ''I think most are waiting for the US to fully pull out by 2014,'' he said. The administration would like to leave up to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after combat operations end on Dec 31, to continue training Afghan forces and conduct counter terrorism missions. But without the agreement that would authorize international forces to stay in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has threatened to pull all troops out, and Nato forces would follow suit. After talking to Afghan President Hamid Karzai this week, Obama ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for the so-called zero option. US military and intelligence officials say unless they can continue to fly drones and jets from at least one air base in Afghanistan either Bagram in the north or Jalalabad in the east Al Qahtani and his followers could eventually plan new attacks against US targets, although experts do not consider him one of the most dangerous Al Qaeda leaders. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss publicly the secret counter terrorism campaign or intelligence. Administration officials have hoped that the US could eventually wind down counter terrorism operations like drone strikes in the region after reducing the Al Qaeda network, leaving local forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan to control the remnants. But Al Qaeda is not weakened enough yet, and US officials have testified that the inexperienced Afghan forces aren't ready to take over the task unaided. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said this week that ''as the possibility of a full withdrawal has grown in Afghanistan,'' the administration was ''undertaking a methodical review of any US capabilities that may be affected and developing strategies to mitigate impacts.'' ''The United States will take the steps necessary to combat terrorism and protect our interests,'' she added. Some administration officials have said Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is less of a threat than when the war began, estimated to be as many as several hundred forced to shelter in the remotest part of the country. They say Al Qahtani is so remote, he is nearly irrelevant to the larger Al Qaeda movement. Two US intelligence officials say his group has been so cut off that it has been forced to rely on the Taliban for funding and weapons at times, where it used to be the other way around. Those officials are far more concerned about Al Qaeda's new offshoots fighting in the Syrian civil war. ''It's really hard to get to New York City from northern Kunar or southern Nuristan'' where Al Qahtani is based, said Douglas Ollivant, a former senior US military adviser in eastern Afghanistan, now with the New American Foundation. ''We do want to keep them bottled up there,'' but he said that's something Afghan forces can do on their own. ''The Afghan forces are not capable of going up there and hunting them, but they are capable of containing them,'' the former US military officer said. Other experts see Al Qahtani and his kind as the main reason to push for at least a minimal security force in Afghanistan. ''There's an influx of Jihadist groups not massive now active in Afghanistan,'' said Seth Jones of the Washington-based Rand Corp who once worked for US Special Operations Command in Afghanistan. He listed the most dangerous as Al Qaeda; the Pakistan Taliban; Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks; and Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami, which has strong links to Al Qaeda. ''Not having US forces in Afghanistan would embolden these groups and be counterproductive for US national security,'' he said. Those tracking Al Qahtani say he has survived by following some of the same rules that helped Osama bin Laden avoid capture for so many years: He stays off cellphones and radios to hide from spy satellites and airborne radars, instead using couriers or face-to-face meetings, and he stays on the move. When he travels to populated areas, he stays among women and children, which he knows the US will avoid striking. The local tribesmen do not aid the US effort, nor does the barren, mountainous terrain where incoming raiders are visible for miles. "When helicopters went in, you can hear the whistles go up," from the villages, echoing across the valleys and sending militants fleeing for cover, one of the US military officials said. The officials say US special operators have all but given up capturing Al Qahtani and have traded fruitless and dangerous helicopter-borne raids for air strikes by drone and jet, averaging three to five a week. To their knowledge, they have never come close to striking him. The reports give added ammunition to a comprehensive intelligence analysis on Afghanistan completed in December. The report predicted the country will largely disintegrate along ethnic lines after the US departs, with the central government controlling Kabul and a few other key cities.

Pakistan: Khyber Agency: 3 militants killed, 3 injured in shootout with security forces

Three militants including the one key-commander were killed and three sustained injuries in a shootout with the security forces in Tehsil Bara of Khyber Agency, Geo News reported. Security sources said that two security personnel were also injured in the excahnce of firing with the terrorists. The motorbike riders were signaled to stop at Shalobar in Tehsil Bara, but they opened fire, which the security forces retaliated that killed three militants and three others sustained injuries, while two security personnel were also injured, sources close to security forces said. Among the dead, a key commander of Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), Memon Afridi is also included, sources further said.

A Rebuttal to Hassan Nisar’s Piece About Balochistan

The Baloch Hal

By Adnan Aamir

In Pakistan, history is often distorted in textbooks and many intellectuals do the same to prove their arguments. Hassan Nisar is no exception.

In Pakistani media, he is the most vocal person who laments this practice and often gives lengthy lectures on talk shows that there is no such thing as Muslim Ummah and Islam has been hijacked by mullahs and so on.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Balochistan, he did the same for which he vehemently criticizes others – i.e. distortion of facts. He wrote a column in a leading Urdu daily of Pakistan that was more like a propaganda handout than a column by an independent and respected mainstream columnist of Pakistan.

Hassan Nisar is of the point of view that much is being said and written on Balochistan without realization of facts. So he made a modest effort to highlight the basic facts of Balochistan that have remained hidden otherwise.

Balochistan is not a subject that finds a mention in either columns or TV program of Hassan Nisar. Whatever transpires in the restive province, including the gross human rights violations such as the discovery of mass graves, is no news for Mr. Nisar. Yet, he considers it his duty to enlighten the people of Pakistan about the “reality” of Balochistan conflict.

Hassan Nisar writes in his column that he visited Quetta several times in order to appear in court hearings. During his visits, he met a lot of local people in airport lounges and Serena hotel. That’s how he got “first-hand” information about Balochistan, which he presents as more authentic than information shared by those who regularly cover Balochistan or the common people who live there. This is an intellectual dishonesty of mythical proportion and coming from the pen of Hassan Nisar, who criticizes others for distorting the facts, makes it even a bigger moral crime. Balochistan is the most ignored issue in Pakistani media. And whenever highlighted, it’s mostly for disinformation purpose like the column of Hassan Nisar.

The incorrect demographic figures about Balochistan are often used to present a false case that Baloch are not in majority in the province. Hassan Nisar has followed the same practice to present a compelling case vis-à-vis Baloch population of Balochistan. His readers will happily buy all the incorrect facts written by Hassan Nisar because the source of their knowledge about Balochistan is disinforming articles written by right wing leaning, so-called intellectuals of Pakistan. Hassan Nisar has however failed to mention that Brahvi and Baloch are the same and inseparable in this argument. Hassan Nisar has quoted the number of members of different Baloch militant groups being just a few hundreds. Even the IG of FC has quoted the number of Baloch militants being between 5,000 to 10,000.

What’s the source of Hassan Nasir’s information about these figures? First-hand information from common people sitting in airport lounges, gatherings of like-mined intellectuals in drawing rooms in Lahore or just figment of imagination. Surely, the source of his information can be anything but a reliable source.

He has also used the cliché that foreign elements are involved in Balochistan insurgency and also named some countries. Again, without any reliable source of information to support his claims.

Mr. Nisar often highlights the trivial matters relating to Lahore in his TV program but even the biggest issues in Balochistan escape his attention. He is not bothered by the sense of deprivation in Balochistan, the historical Voice of Baloch Missing Persons long march and discovery of Mass graves. But he vividly sees the foreign hands and hints to write about it in future. This sort of attitude can be anything but reasonable for an otherwise well-respected columnist.

This column has exposed the progressive credentials of Hassan Nisar and unveiled the real character that is hidden behind the façade of his intellectual character. Those who have any regard for rationality will ignore the pearls of wisdom coming from Hassan Nisar about Balochistan as sheer propaganda. As far as the fans of Hassan Nisar are concerned who staunchly believe in the text of Pakistan Studies books, they will make him their new hero and share his columns to prove that foreign elements are creating disturbance in Balochistan.

His factually incorrect column has proved a point that even the most liberal columnists, intellectuals and writers become hate-mongering propaganda masters when it comes to Balochistan. That’s an inconvenient truth which has gained strength after the publication of his column.

Baluch protesters walk across Pakistan

Group's 2,300km journey by foot from Quetta to Islamabad, which started last October, aimed at highlighting army abuse.

Relatives of rebels, activists and ordinary people who have gone missing in a Pakistani province have appealed to the UN for help after walking across Pakistan for months to draw attention to their plight. Dozens of those who say their family members were abducted or killed reached Islamabad on Thursday after a 2,300km walk from Balochistan which started last October - a rare act of dissent by the often frightened relatives of the abductees. The group of about 50 people said they would submit a petition to the UN asking for help and to draw attention to their problem. Bodies of hundreds of pro-independence rebels have been found across the Balochistan province and many more have gone missing in the past several years, in a little-reported conflict in a remote corner on Pakistan's Iranian border. Baluch activists say the bodies are evidence that the army is pursuing a systematic "kill and dump" campaign to crush pro-independence dissent - a charge the army has repeatedly denied. "Finally we have decided to go to the UN and make our voice heard about the atrocities against the Baluch people who are being picked up and whose bodies are being dumped on a daily basis," Mama Qadeer Baluch, the group's 72-year-old leader, said. The group has made appeals to the UN and other international organisations in the past, but with little success. Delegations have in recent years visited Balochistan on fact-finding missions to investigate the claims.

Threats and abuses'

Speaking under a stormy Islamabad sky, Baluch told Reuters news agency his group faced pressure and often abuse from some people they encountered in towns and villages across Pakistan, a testament to broader tensions between the Baluch and other ethnic groups. "In Punjab, threats and abuses were hurled into our faces," said Baluch, wearing a traditional turban and white robes. Neither the government nor the army were immediately available for comment on Thursday. But they have always denied allegations of widespread human-rights violations in Balochistan, branding separatists as terrorists and alleging they are backed by India. Baluch, founder of the advocacy group Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, said they set off from Quetta on October 27, 2013, and have been on foot ever since. Groups of young men wearing air pollution masks to conceal their identities have joined the group from nearby cities to protect it from possible abuse or violence, as the procession reached the outskirts of Islamabad on Thursday. Recalling an incident in an area called Sarai Alamgir in the district of Gujrat, Baluch said his group was intercepted by a car carrying four men who shouted abuse at them. "We don't have any hope for the government of Pakistan and its Supreme Court. We have been protesting for the last five years, we have set up protest camps in Karachi, Quetta and visited Islamabad several times," Baluch said. "But ... the government ... is not listening to us," he said. "When we are not being heard by the government, it is natural that we should knock on the other door."

Balochs make history in search for loved ones, reach Rawalpindi after walking more than 2,000 kilometres from Quetta

Pakistan Today Like

Writing history as they set on foot to Islamabad from Quetta three months ago, the families and supporters of the people reportedly whisked away by intelligence agencies from various parts of the restive Balochistan province, reached Rawalpindi on Thursday, travelling more than 2,000 kilometres in adverse weather conditions and intimidation by government agencies.

The participants, led by Mama Qadeer Baloch under the aegis of the Voice of Missing Baloch Persons (VMBP), hope to raise awareness about human rights violations in Balochistan and demand the recovery of their missing relatives.

Mama Qadeer told Pakistan Today that the marchers were disappointed with the government and were frustrated with the courts. He said that they wish to present their demands to the United Nations in Islamabad. “We are even ready to ask the UN to send North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) troops to Balochistan to recover our loved ones,” he said.

Mama Qadeer has been campaigning for the recovery of missing persons since 2009 when his son Jalil was killed in the custody of secret agencies.

HINDERANCES:

The marchers said that they have faced many problems in their journey. Around 30 people are participating in the march and plan to continue their journey via Murree Road to Islamabad, which is around 30 kilometres from the UN office. The march had started from Quetta on October 27, 2013. The first phase, a 730-kilometre walk, ended in Karachi with a demonstration in front of the press club on November 23. The second phase began in mid-December. The participants walked through various cities of Punjab, including Multan and Lahore, where they were threatened by unidentified people on the telephone to turn back and desist from heading to the federal capital. “We have been protesting for the last five years for the recovery of our loved ones,” Mama Qadeer lamented.

HISTORY MADE:

Mama Qadeer, aged 72, and 11-year old Ali Haider Baloch are not aware that they have made history.

They and the other participants broke the 84-year-old record of Mahatma Gandhi who travelled for 390 kilometers on foot from Ahmadabad to Dandi as part of his famous salt march. When Mahatma Gandhi started his march in 1930 to protest against the salt laws of the British government in colonial India, he was 61 years old.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong also started a long march in 1934 but this long march was actually a military retreat undertaken by the red army of Communist Party. There was no single long march but a series of marches because various parts of the red army in the south China escaped to the north and the west.

The red army of 41 years old Mao Zedong regrouped and then attacked Kuomintang. This long march was part of a military strategy. It was not a political long march.

Ali Haider Baloch stopped going to school and joined the long march with his elder sister Saba. His father Ramzan Baloch was abducted in front of the eyes of young Ali Haider. Farzana Majid Baloch is a well-educated woman. She did her Masters in bio-chemistry from Balochistan University and has been raising voice for the production of her younger brother Zakir Majid Baloch since 2009. She is secretary general of VBMP and the moving spirit behind this historical long march.

Daughters of two missing doctors, Deen Muhammad Baloch and Akbar Marri, are also participating in this. The daughter of a missing lawyer Haider Khan Baloch advocate was disappointed in courts and joined the long march of Mama Qadeer Baloch along with some other women.

Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif visited the marchers’ camp in Karachi in December 2013 and assured Mama Qadeer that their dear ones will be produced in courts soon. The defence minister has been unable to keep his word so far!

Closing of the Pakistani mind

FAISAL BARI

A FRIEND showed me a class four Pakistani textbook from the 1960s. It was on famous personalities. In the first section there were four chapters, including one on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Others included Gautam Buddha, Hazrat Issa and Baba Guru Nanak. In the second part of the book were chapters on a number of political/temporal leaders from various parts of India. Apart from many Muslim kings and leaders, it included chapters on Ashoka as well as Raja Ranjeet Singh.

Recently, I visited a school in Lahore. A group of students presented a power-point presentation, as part of an exhibition of the school’s extra curricular/co-curricular activities, on outstanding human beings from across the world. The presentation had some of the same names given above. But, one of the patrons of the school mentioned that there had been other guests at the school who, after seeing the presentation, had said that it should not be chronological and that the Prophet should come first. One eminent jurist, it seems, even suggested that there was no need to cover any other personality.

Later I interacted briefly with the students. When I asked them about some of the more recent personalities that had impressed them, they could only come up with the names of Jinnah and Iqbal. They had not even heard of Dr Martin Luther King. And Gandhi was not a hero to them or even a notable enough personality.

It is not only the content that is changing, the way we educate ourselves and our children is changing as well. The ‘O’-Level course starts in pre-‘O’-Level classes, just to buy more time. Examinations are taken in two to three subjects a year to get better grades. Rote learning, irrespective of one’s level, is more common than it was 15 years ago, even in elite schools. Reliance on guides, notes, help-aids and summaries is higher. Engagement with the classics and original thoughts of the great writers and thinkers of the past is more limited. Reading is narrower. And this is true at both school and university level. I often ask my students how many read newspapers regularly: very few do. For many, Facebook updates from friends are the only outside information that they get regularly.

At one point Pakistan Television, the only channel around at the time, showed English-language movies and serials regularly. I still remember that there used to be a cartoon in the early evening and a serial/comedy programme at prime time almost every day. A late night movie was telecast three to four times a week. A lot of those movies and serials were very good and had been carefully selected for a Pakistani audience.

I learnt a lot about the world, how people lived, their beliefs and moral systems from these programmes. My love for English language and literature also owes something to these programmes.

PTV does not do this anymore. One can argue that there are a lot more channels available that show movies and programmes from around the world. DVDs too have made access to such content easier. All of this is true. But at the same time since PTV does not do this anymore, and a lot of people still watch PTV, it is a loss.

More importantly, the issue of choice becomes crucial. Who chooses content for children now? Are children doing it themselves? But the choices children make need not be the most optimal. They might choose entertainment over education, and easy listening/watching over effort and engagement. They might even choose content that, in terms of language, pictorial depictions or even the values that it exhibits, is not appropriate for their age. More freedom of choice for children when much content of poor quality is available is not necessarily a good thing.

The way we acquire information is also changing fast. From reading we are moving to listening and watching. Reading allows deeper engagement. You can read, re-read and come back later to what was read. Reading requires attention. We listen while other activities also go on and we multi-task. Watching has similar dynamics.

We get our news more from the television and radio now than from newspapers. Our engagement with the thoughts and actions of others is more through the computer, television and radio than personal interaction or even reading. All of this narrows our interaction and makes it shallow.

Our attention spans are getting shorter. Even when we read, it seems that books and longer articles are getting rare; we want the gist of the argument given in as brief a manner as possible. Television and radio are ideally suited for shorter attention spans. And they encourage the tendency towards shorter spans. We surf the channels, and even on the same channel we only need to focus attention between advertising breaks. News is mostly a ticker running at the bottom of the screen.

Much of what has been written here are clearly global issues. But they are affecting us locally. It is our students, our children and our citizens that we need to worry about. All this is narrowing the mindset of the people and making them poor thinkers and citizens. And we are seeing the results. The counter strategy needs to be at the micro level as well.

Pakistan: PML-N govt obliging capitalists

www.dailytimes.com

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo and Secretary Tanvir Ashraf Kaira have strongly criticised the privatisation policy and said that the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) government is obliging capitalists by privatising national assets.

According to a press note issued here on Thursday, the PPP Punjab head held a meeting of the party office bearers from district Mundi Bahaudin and expressed solidarity with labour unions and human rights organizations those are planning to protest against loot sale in the garb of privatisation by the government.

He said that it was a tyrannical move to oblige the crony capitalists at the expense of the millions of families whose subsistence will be at stake due to the resultant massive redundancies besides negative blowback on the society. Wattoo said that the economic murder of the poor labourers would not be allowed come what may adding that instead of addressing the management issues of the state enterprises the government had embarked upon lining the pockets of the elite.

PPP leader that the PPP and its leadership would take up this issue at all forums to scuttle the move which was grossly at variance with the social justice and human rights. He assured the representatives of the trade unions that the PPP would not lag behind in the struggle to save the national assets going into the control of known favourites of the incumbent government.

Sex Education In Pakistan: 'Education for enlightenment'

Imparting sex education to girls, that too in Johi, a conservative part of Sindh, is indeed a commendable act on the part of the Village Shadabad Organisation that has taken the initiative. The girls’ parents too need to be appreciated for brushing aside any taboo attached to the idea as do the teachers tearing down the walls of inhibition to teach their wards about sex. Discussing sex has been considered by conservative opinion a moral perversion. More often than not in such circles, sex is reduced either to prurient whispers or portrayed as a procreative but ugly necessity. Another abnormal school of thought considers even social interaction between girls and boys as the equivalent of sexual encounters. This thought process has produced a suffocating atmosphere wherein free mingling of girls and boys is strongly opposed and any such get together is dealt with harshly. If the community to which the ‘errant’ youngsters belong is tribal, the outcome is usually for the couple to face death as a punishment.

On the other hand lack of sex education makes girls vulnerable to harassment and even exploitation, which they may in their innocence initially fail to understand and later, out of shame and fear, keep silent about. Even if a girl comprehends what is happening to her, lack of confidence or awareness about her rights may prevent her from being able to thwart any unwanted advances. Sex education of girls therefore, if carried out in a proper and serious manner, arms them with knowledge that can help them cope in a male-dominated society.

A total of eight schools with 700 girls enrolled are being imparted sex education as part of their regular curriculum in Johi. Using modern teaching techniques such as flashcards, the students are shown visuals of how they could be harassed and ways they should respond to it. The most important part of this activity is the realisation given to the girls that they could be subjected to marital rape, a subject we choose to sweep under the carpet. This awareness would give a sense of ownership to women over their lives. Many women in our society spend an insipid life for no other reason than the belief that marriage means surrendering sovereignty over oneself.

Unfortunately the government has been loath to allow sex education in Pakistan. Recently the Lahore Grammar School’s initiative to this end has been cut short. The All Pakistan Private School Federation’s president has called it unnecessary knowledge. Even the Sindh government expressed surprise on hearing of the Johi project. In view of the situation of women in Pakistan, it is imperative that the government seriously consider imparting sex education to girls and institutionalise it through legislation so that no adverse results emerge, as is feared by traditional circles.

Pakistan: The Saudi bear hug

BY AZIZ-UD-DIN AHMAD

Islamabad must avoid repeating mistakes of the past

There is a sudden resurgence in Saudi friendliness for Pakistan. Never in the past had so many Saudi dignitaries descended on Pakistan within such a short period. There are reasons behind the activity.

It is widely understood that the Saudis prefer the PMLN government to the previous PPP administration. From the narrow sectarian perspective that characterises the Kingdom, the one is Sunni-led and therefore friendly, while the other was a Shia-led and hence hostile. Despite the sectarian differences which are used to define relations with countries and parties, Ryadh had not gone beyond maintaining normal relations during the initial months of Nawaz Sharif’s take over. The change has more recent causes.

It all started with Iran, seen by Saudi as the source of all evil in the region, when it struck a historic nuclear deal with the US and five European powers in November 2013. The agreement was a sequel to the first ever telephonic contact between the presidents of US and Iran. The deal opened the way for rolling back the crippling sanctions on Iran and improvement of its ties with the west. The Saudi government considered this a stab in the back by the US, the kingdom’s patron for five decades. The royalty, which had so far relied on the US support wile confronting Iran and acting as a regional hegemon, thought it was time to reshape its security doctrine.

The Saudi government was already unhappy with the outcome of the Iraq war. It was simply shocking for it to see the so far persecuted Shia community holding sway over Iraqi politics and electing a government having friendly ties with Iran. The idea that this could encourage the suppressed Shia community in the kingdom itself to put up demands for lifting curbs on their religious practices was enough to send shivers down the administration’s spine. What added to the worries was the sudden realisation that the Shia in Saudi Arabia constitute majority in the kingdom’s oil rich region as they do in neighbouring Bahrain .

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi financier and a member of the House of Saud, told the Wall Street Journal: “Nawaz Sharif, specifically, is very much Saudi Arabia’s man in Pakistan.”

As the Saudis were recovering from the shock came the so called Arab spring leading to the overthrow of some of the totalitarian regimes. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial rule had suited the Saudis. Like them Mubarak too was opposed to democracy and reforms. His overthrow came as an unexpected shock. The Saudi royalty cursed the US which despite close relations with Mobarak had finally accepted the regime change instead of working with Riyadh to overthrow it.

As Gen el Sissi overthrew the Morsi government, Saudi Arabia and wealthy Gulf states lined up behind the bloody coup. They promised to provide a combined 12 billion dollars in financial assistance and offered to bail out the military regime in case the west refused to finance it. The demurring on the part of Washington was seen as another unfriendly act. Exceptionally tough language was directed against Washington’s condemnation of the coup by King Abdullah, who declared that “the kingdom stands …against all those who try to interfere with its domestic affairs” and charged that criticism of the army crackdown amounted to helping the “terrorists”.

America’s change of policy on Syria was another disappointment to Riyadh. Washington, which had first encouraged the religious militants sent in to fight the pro Iran government of Bashar al Assad, started having second thoughts after the Al Qaeda related groups assumed the dominant position in the resistance. Finally belying expectation of its Saudi allies the US suddenly decided to look for a peaceful resolution of the issue of chemical weapons. This was seen as another unkind cut.

It is worrisome however that the PML-N government fails to realise the possible consequences of the bear hug for Pakistan. The sudden shift in Pakistan’s policy of non-intervention in Syrian affairs announced to please Saudia Arabia indicates that the Sharif administration is willing to play in the hands of the Saudi government.

One expects the opposition in parliament to seek details from the government about commitments made to the Saudi delegation during the talks. The new Saudi regional defence doctrine is focused on resisting Iranian influence in the Middle East and maintaining Saudi influence in the region through interventions. Riyadh wants to use its petrodollars to fulfill the ambition of becoming the Middle East hegemon. The first Saudi choice for a possible collaborator is Pakistan which is a nuclear power and has the seventh largest army in the world in terms of active troops. The Saudi dream is to discover and promote another Saddam Hussain to fight Iran on its behalf and someone that may help the Saudis continue as before on misadventures in the region through violent terrorist groups. The list of Saudi misadventures is long and painful. Along with Kuwait, Riyadh financed Saddam Hussein’s eight-year war against Iran. When an overconfident Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, they pleaded for a US invasion to drive him back. After US forces invaded once more in 2003 to overthrow Hussein, the Saudis backed Sunni groups in Iraq. In Syria Riyadh has bankrolled militants including al Qaeda to overthrow Bashar al Asad considered as Iran’s ally. The Saudis back Sunni forces in Lebanon against the pro-Iran Hezbollah. They support Sunni extremists in Iraq who keep the pot of civil war boiling to bring down the Shiite majority rule. Orgnisations like Pakistan’s Lashkr-e Jhangvi get sustenance from Saudi Arabia and attack the Shia community in pursuit of the anti-Iran agenda. The Saudi crown prince jubilantly announced in Islamabad that both countries had agreed to deepen their defence cooperation and support each other’s position on regional issues, including Syria and Afghanistan. Speaking at a media conference after completing his engagements, the visiting minister said: “Saudi Arabia and Pakistan enjoy commonality of views and understanding on regional peace.”

The Saudi administration would like Pakistan to support and protect its proxies like Jundullah and Jaishul Adl which continue to launch attacks inside Iran. In the latest incident the latter abducted four Iranian guards and allegedly took them inside Pakistan. The idea was that in case Iran retaliated it would lead to a confrontation between the two countries which suits Riyadh.

Islamabad must avoid repeating past mistakes. No Pakistani military mission abroad should be used directly or indirectly against local dissidents or another friendly country. In 1970 Brigadier Ziaul Haq played a key role in planning the offensive against the Palestinians in Jordan that led to what is known as Black September. Zia was at the time leading a training mission in Jordan. More recently retired Pakistani security personnel were employed by Bahrain to quell the popular and widespread agitation for reforms by local Shia population. Both incidents caused resentment in the Arab world against Pakistan.

The Saudi dream is to discover and promote another Saddam Hussain to fight Iran on its behalf and someone that may help the Saudis continue as before on misadventures in the region through violent terrorist groups. Pakistan, which is already facing India on one border and Afghanistan and Taliban on the other, can ill afford to turn Iran into an enemy and thus make a border which has been peaceful since 1947 into another security nightmare.

The country is already finding it hard to cope with the results produced by Saudi funded seminaries and clerics in the form of terrorist networks. With increasing Saudi influence on government policies more seminaries of the sort propagating against democracy and encouraging militancy are likely to be created. Similarly the country cannot afford the repetition of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s transfer of sensitive technology to other countries. One expects the opposition in parliament to seek details from the government about commitments made to the Saudi delegation during the talks.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi financier and a member of the House of Saud, told the Wall Street Journal: “Nawaz Sharif, specifically, is very much Saudi Arabia’s man in Pakistan.” Only after the details of the agreements become public will it be possible to determine the truth or otherwise of the claim by the insider.

Influx of illegal immigrant / afghan refugees was big threat to the people and installations in Sindh

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The Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali shah has said that influx of illegal immigrant / afghan refugees was big threat to the people and installations in Sindh. He said that any attempt for registration of these people at this stage when action is being taken against the terrorists in Northern Areas would be injustice and danger for the Sindh province and recommended the federal govt to stop it in case it is in process. This he observed while presiding over meeting of law and order to review over the performances of Targeted operation in Karachi and to discuss and decide the counter strategy to fight with terrorists especially with reference to Pak-Army strikes against the terrorists in northern areas held at CM House Karachi today. The Sindh Minister for Information Sharjeel Inam Memon, Chief Secretary Sindh Sajjad Saleem Hotiyana , Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Syed Mumtaz Shah, Secretary to CM Rai Sikandar, Secretary Law Mir Muhammad Shaikh , DG Rangers Major General Rizwan Akhtar, IG Sindh Police Iqbal Mehmood , Additional IG Karachi Shahid Hayat, All DIG’s in Karachi , Advocate General Abdul Fatah Malik , Prosecutor General Shair Muhammad Shaikh and other officers of LEA’s attended the meeting. Taking the serious notice of reports about illegal influx, of Afghan Refugess land grabbing, indulging in smuggling of Arms, Narcotics and other mysterious activities of these Afghani refuges in Hyd, The Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah strictly directed the DIG Hyd to remove all such illegal migrants / refugees to cross the border with in 3-days. He directed all the DIG’s and Distt officers of Sindh Police to put all the entry and exits points of their district under strict vigilance and not to allow such illegal immigrant to enter or settled in their areas. He also directed them the Madarsa which are being constructed without permissions from the competent authority must be stopped. The Chief Minister Sindh expressed his apprehensions over the reports about availability of 2.5 million aliens in Karachi and said that NARA and Commission for Afghan refugees in Karachi have not performed their responsibility properly in Karachi. He once again recommended the Federal Govt to activate the NARA to control over aliens and prepare a strategy to stop the illegal SIM’s as these both factors are causing increase in crime in Karachi he added. The Chief Minister Sindh while endorsing the proposal floated by IG Sindh Police for establishing well equipped and scientific check posts with bio-metric testing facilities of NADRA and having support of metal / explosive detecting equipments at each entry point on border and big cities in the province, the Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah asked the IG Sindh Police and DG Rangers to work out and submit their combine plan of action to him and assured that it to be implemented without delay.

Pakistani Rappers REMIND THE WORLD that youtube is banned in their Country

Human Rights Watch: '' Letter to President Obama re: Saudi Arabia Visit''

The White House

Dear President Obama,

As you prepare for your upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, we write to urge you to include critical human rights issues in all your discussions with Saudi officials. While the purpose of your visit may be to discuss “ongoing cooperation to advance a range of common interests related to Gulf and regional security, peace in the Middle East, countering violent extremism, and other issues…,” the Arab uprisings, beginning in 2011, have shown that security and human rights are deeply interrelated and cannot be separated from wider conversations.

Thus far, Saudi Arabia has avoided any major protests or uprisings but it has also seen a dramatic crackdown on civil society activists and dissidents, a sweeping campaign to arrest and expel hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrant workers, and has maintained its systematic discrimination against women. At the same time most social reforms are stalled or blocked and domestic pressures continue to rise.

Accordingly, we urge you to use your visit to address the absence of genuine reform. Positive public and private US interventions on human rights issues would not only be well received by beleaguered activists, but could also empower reformists within the Saudi ruling elite to halt a range of abuses and push through positive reforms. Likewise, vocal US support for independent Saudi activists and peaceful dissidents would raise the stakes of abuses against them and empower them to continue their struggle against government repression.

As part of the ongoing strategic cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, we urge you to make the following recommendations, which clearly illustrate how freedom and opportunity are fundamental elements essential to improve human rights conditions for Saudi men, Saudi women, and migrant workers:

Stop Repression of Independent Activists and Peaceful Dissidents

Human Rights Watch documented convictions of eight prominent Saudi human rights defenders in 2013, many of them in unfair trials, as well as authorities’ efforts to silence and intimidate dozens of peaceful dissidents and independent activists with travel bans, smear campaigns, and threats to investigate and prosecute them for peaceful activities. Saudi Arabia has no written penal code, the criminal regulations that exist are broadly and vaguely worded, and judges and prosecutors have criminalized a wide range of offenses under catch-all categories such as "breaking allegiance with the ruler" or "trying to distort the reputation of the kingdom."

One prominent activist, Waleed Abu al-Khair, is on trial before the Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia's terrorism tribunal, on a host of vague charges such as "breaking allegiance with the ruler" and "making international organizations hostile to the kingdom" for his role in publicizing information on human rights abuses and criticizing government policies. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison. Saudi authorities are also prosecuting al-Khair for hosting a weekly discussion group about prospects for political and social reform in Saudi Arabia.

Another human rights activist, Fadhel al-Manasif, played a leading role in documenting abuses against demonstrators in the Eastern Province in 2011. He organized educational workshops on human rights in Qatif and acted as an interlocutor between the families of detainees and authorities, on several occasions approaching police officials on behalf of families to ask the whereabouts of missing family members. Saudi police detained al-Manasif in October 2011, and the Specialized Criminal Court is currently trying him on charges that include "sowing discord," "inciting public opinion against the state," and "communicating with foreign news agencies to exaggerate news and harm the reputation of the kingdom."

The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) faced severe repression in 2013. A Riyadh court in March convicted Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammed al-Qahtani, ACPRA members and human rights veterans, on charges such as "harming public order" and "setting up an unlicensed organization." The court sentenced them to long prison terms – 11 and 10 years respectively – and long bans on foreign travel after their release. A court in the central town of Buriada convicted and imprisoned ACPRA members Omar al-Saeed and Abd al-Kareem al-Khodr on similar charges.

A US Embassy official attended the trial session of, Fowzan al-Harbi, and another member of the group, who is on trial in Riyadh for charges including, among others, “participating in calling for and inciting breaking allegiance with the ruler,” “explicit libel of the integrity and religiosity of the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars,” “participating in setting up an unlicensed organization” – namely, ACPRA -- “publishing details of his investigation,” and “describing the ruling Saudi regime – unjustly – as a police state”. US attendance of the trial was widely welcomed by Saudi human rights activists and independent observers as a positive step forward.

Other ACPRA activists remain behind bars based on earlier convictions, including Suleiman al-Rashoodi, serving a 15-year sentence for “breaking allegiance with the ruler,” and Mohammed al-Bajadi, serving a four-year sentence for “participating in setting up an unlicensed association,” “distorting the reputation of the state through the media,” “insulting the independence of the judiciary,” and “calling for protests and sit-ins.”

Saudi authorities promulgated a new terrorism law on January 31 that has serious flaws including vague and overly broad provisions that allow authorities to criminalize free expression and the creation of excessive police powers without judicial oversight. Other countries restrict the definition of terrorism to violence intended to force a state to take or refrain from a particular action, but the Saudi law only refers to violence as an element of the crime with regard to attacks carried out against Saudis outside the kingdom or onboard Saudi transportation carriers. Inside the kingdom, “terrorism” can be nonviolent – it comprises “any act” intended to, among other things, “insult the reputation of the state,” “harm public order,” or “shake the stability of society,” which the law fails to clearly define. There is every reason to believe that Saudi authorities will exploit broad provisions of the new law to arrest and prosecute peaceful dissidents along with people suspected of terrorism-related crimes.

Saudi officials continue to refuse to register independent political or human rights groups, leaving members subject to prosecution for “setting up an unregistered organization.” In August, an appeals court upheld the Social Affairs Ministry’s denial of registration to the Eastern Province-based Adala Center for Human Rights. The ministry said it can only license charitable organizations, and that Adala’s activities are not covered under the ministry’s definition of a charity.

Outside of your senior level interventions, the United States can take the following meaningful steps to help end Saudi Arabia’s ongoing repression of peaceful dissidents:

Urge Saudi authorities to halt arrests and prosecutions of peaceful activists and dissidents in private meetings and in public statements.

Regularly request to attend the trials of peaceful dissidents, including trials in the Specialized Criminal Court. Press for the immediate release of activists imprisoned on vague, catch-all charges solely for their peaceful activities, including Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammed al-Qahtani, Abd al-Kareem Khodr, Omar al-Saeed, Fadhel al-Manasif, Sulaiman al-Rashoodi, Mohammed al-Bajadi, and Fowzan al-Harbi.

Urge Saudi authorities to rescind the new terrorism law or amend its provisions so that it cannot be used to criminalize peaceful practice of basic rights.

Urge Saudi authorities to promulgate a written penal code that does not criminalize peaceful practice of basic rights and an associations law that allows independent groups to operate without undue government interference. End Abuses against Migrant Workers

Despite years of criticism, Saudi authorities have not undertaken important reforms to ensure adequate protection of the rights of migrant workers. Over 9 million migrant workers fill manual, clerical, and service jobs in the kingdom, constituting more than half the workforce. Many suffer abuses and exploitation, sometimes amounting to conditions of forced labor or servitude.

The kafala (sponsorship) system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to “sponsoring” employers, whose written consent is required for workers to change employers or exit the country. Some employers illegally confiscate passports, withhold wages, and force migrants to work against their will.

In 2011, Saudi labor authorities passed new regulations aiming to boost private sector employment for Saudi citizens and reduce reliance on foreign labor. The new Nitaqat, or Saudization, regulations set specific quotas for employment of Saudi citizens in private sectors firms based on the firm’s business sector and size.

In addition to Saudization, police and labor authorities in early 2013 launched a vigorous campaign to arrest and deport foreign workers found in violation of existing labor laws, targeting workers who did not have valid residency or work permits, or those found working for an employer other than his or her legal sponsor. Authorities halted the campaign in April following King Abdullah’s declaration of a limited “grace period” for workers to correct their status, but resumed it in November. The Saudi Interior Ministry announced in January that over 250,000 migrants had been deported since November.

Saudi officials say that the ongoing labor crackdown against foreign workers, which includes road checkpoints and raids on businesses, is part of Saudi Arabia’s effort to combat high levels of unemployment among Saudi citizens by opening jobs previously filled by undocumented workers.

We believe that the US is in a unique position to make recommendations to Saudi authorities based on its own experience coping with large communities of undocumented migrant workers. We hope you will convey to Saudi labor officials that arrests and deportations are ineffective policies to address an abusive, restrictive labor system that drives migrants to work under the table in violation of labor laws. Rather, Saudi officials should make specific reforms to the labor system that would force Saudi employers to respect the rights of workers – steps that would likely serve to improve conditions and wages.

Specifically, we urge the US to make the following labor recommendations to Saudi officials:

Amend the labor law to allow workers to change jobs without the approval of their legal “sponsor.” Abolish the requirement for foreign workers to obtain their “sponsor’s” permission to obtain an exit visa to leave the country. Improve labor complaints mechanisms so that judgments are handed down quickly and fairly, and allow workers to work temporarily while resolving a legal claim against an employer. Support Women’s Rights

Saudi officials in 2013 made important symbolic women’s rights reforms but did not abolish the discriminatory male guardianship system, under which all girls and women are forbidden from traveling, conducting official business, or undergoing certain medical procedures without permission from their male guardians. Likewise, under un-codified rules on personal status, women are not allowed to marry without the permission of their guardian; unlike men, they do not have unilateral right to divorce and often face discrimination in relation to custody of children.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving. On October 26, 2013, at least 50 Saudi women got behind the wheel throughout the kingdom in defiance of the ban and government intimidation. Police officials said that officers had pulled over at least 18 women driving in various areas of the country, though it is unclear whether any faced fines or other penalties.

In January 2013, King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the Shura Council and amended the council statute to guarantee representation of women. The Ministry of Justice granted the first lawyer-trainee license to a woman in April.

Punishment for domestic violence in Saudi Arabia remained lax, but in August the Council of Ministers issued a new law criminalizing domestic abuse for the first time. Unfortunately, the law does not detail enforcement mechanisms to ensure prompt investigations of abuse allegations or prosecution of those who commit abuses and does not explicitly criminalize marital rape.

We urge you to use the positive momentum for women’s rights reform in the kingdom by pressing Saudi authorities to make systemic changes that end legal discrimination against women, including:

Issue clear and specific enforcement mechanisms for the Law on Protection of Abuse and ensure prompt investigations of abuse allegations or prosecution of those who commit abuses;

Abolish the male guardianship system and all laws and regulations stemming from it;

Allow women the right to drive.

The US can play a crucial role in convincing Saudi Arabia to reform laws and practices to stop these ongoing abuses, and we urge you to do so during your visit. Saudi Arabia has been an important partner to the US in global affairs for many years, but it is also incumbent that you take a critical look at the country’s human rights record and recommend fundamental reforms that would end longstanding violations against Saudi citizens and migrant workers and generate adherence to basic rights.

Sincerely,

Sarah Leah Whitson

Sarah Margon Executive Director Washington Director Middle East and North Africa Division Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch